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Taking the Tractor to the Auction
This week I hauled my tractor to a local consignment auction. The machine was eight years old, and still running well. But issues were starting to surface at an increasing rate, so I made the decision to bring in a …
Calf Week, Partnerships, and Rethinking Small Farming
This was calf week on the farm. On Saturday our neighbor Mike brought twenty-four newly weaned calves across to our side of the fenceline. And then on Friday, Josh, another cattle farmer in the area, brought six more calves and …
Looking for Silver Linings to Drought
This year’s drought has laid additional stresses on the farm. Everything is harder without water. The well for our house has been completely dry for two months. The pasture plants didn’t produce anywhere close to normal growth, so our grazing …
What is Healthy Anyway?
I enjoy leafing through discolored and spotted old magazines, studying the advertisements. There’s something special about old ads, because ads are only effective during a narrow temporal context. They don’t age well. Cultural signifiers change. Time tempers the urgency of …
Potions for Pastures
Foliar sprays. Biochar. Compost tea. Kelp. Apple cider vinegar. Good luck amulets. Chances are, if you’ve spent any time at any organic farming event, you’ve been hounded by hucksters, all eager to impress upon you the transformative power of the …
How We Use Chickens as No-Till Seed Planters
This year we’ve been running an on-farm research project, and I’m excited to share results. Just to set expectations: no, this isn’t the kind of research with clipboards, double blind controls, and all the rigor necessary for peer review. This …
Kimchi Brined Turkey Breast with Kimchi and Herb Sauce
Turkey, particularly the white meat, seems always to do well when brined in the juice from naturally fermented vegetables. I stumbled into this idea with my Fried Turkey Wings recipe. At first, I thought I had discovered something new. But …
Turning the Farming Clock
Six months ago I was enthusiastically reporting the beginning of our poultry season. And now we’re at the end of the poultry season. Turn, turn, turn. This Thursday, well before daylight, Rachel and I loaded the year’s final batch of …
How We Set Up an ATV for Rotational Grazing
This spring we bought a secondhand ATV to replace our old, beat-to-death machine. We’ve found that a four wheeler, properly set up, makes a tremendous difference in our efficiency for all sorts of daily tasks related to rotational grazing for …
Building a Fenceline Feeder for Mud Season
It’s a pleasure to check another job off the list, particularly one that’s been in the works for a few years. This week I finished construction on a mud-season feeding area for our cattle. From late April through November our …