Sometime between mid July and today, August 29th, Wisconsin hit its stride and became the place that Chief Blackhawk spoke of in Fort Madison, Iowa the year he died. “Rock River was a beautiful country. I liked my towns, my cornfields and the home of my people. I fought for it. It is now yours. Keep it as we did— it will produce you good crops.”
The gift of abundance of this sandy loam soil on the edge of the Wisconsin glaciation comes forth in August, and surprises you, and challenges you to make constructive use of the abundance. A proper farmer would work themselves to exhaustion day after day preserving this abundance. A proper farmer would find ways to gift the abundance to those in need. No one in Wisconsin should be hungry in August, no child should lack for an understanding of the delight of garden fresh salads, tomatoes, cucumbers, a fresh potato. I fall far short of this idea and try to gift my farming friends, and my barber and those in needs, but as a new family on this landscape we lack the social network to really deploy this bounty. Unlike my 70 something aunt still farming the same 72 acres in south central Pennsylvania that she purchased in 1967, I lack the decades of life history, and extended PA family that she has sustained and rewarded for all of those decades. But I embrace the challenge of finding new networks and places to support and sustain. The garden is always ambitious but short of a serious market garden or CSA and I have the self knowledge to realize that’s not my gift and it’s yet another step change in commitment to produce and market at that scale.
My Duroc Hogs are picking up some slack, and seem to have developed quite a taste for zucchini. My good neighbor Jimmy continues his obviously well entrenched habit of baking exhausting amounts of zucchini bread, and distributing the tasty, spicy cakes to friends and neighbors. Alas Jimmy has his own garden and abundance challenges this time of year, so the “girls” or ‘Gilts” more correctly, have to do the heavy lifting on picking up the slack, with some help from our laying chickens. They’ll both concentrate the abundance for butcher in another couple of months. Unfortunately my lack of experience with the hogs, has led me to fail at the crucial unknown step in hog production. Booking the butcher the day they are born… so I may be stuck commoditizing 2 of my three carefully raised girls at Equity and have to embrace the challenge of butchering one myself.
As the month wanes the cool nights of September are provoking thoughts of winter, and my empty woodshed, so that’s the focus for September (a year or two later than desired but better late than never).
A check in on the larder:
Fuel:
Firewood- 2 cords of blow down cherry and ½ cord of elm.
Diesel- ~100 gallons of Ag diesel, waiting to refill till October when they start selling winter blend
Electricity- 15.5 kW solar array, still outproducing the farm as a whole. Estimates obtained for a second system to support the dairy and cheese plant.
Propane (heats the home when the wood runs out, as in today, and provides hot water for the dairy barn). House tank 800 gallons, barn tank 400 gallons.
Food (mostly tracking the stuff we aspire to be self sufficient on):
Veg and future veg-
- Green beans- canned: 3 case of 12 quarts
- Salsa- one case of pints
- Potatoes-~ 100 lbs out of the ground and significantly more to harvest… now storage…hmm…
- Dry Beans- About 1 pint of lovely native american heritage beans from Seed Savers that we’ve been growing for 3 years now-
- About 100 row feet of the same beans still setting up in the garden
- Abundant show pumpkins and more exciting, what looks like a nice harvest of Pennsylvania Long Necks for pies.
- Lots of seed remnants and saved seed. An especially pleasing amount of Russian red kale seed from the overwintered plants.
- Two quarts of dried hops and two (of three) surviving hop rhizomes seemingly well established.
- Some well established wild Asparagus and some poorly established new aspargus beds
- About a bushel of Hopi pink dried (drying actually) corn from a food corn experiment
- Probably more of Texas Gourdseed coming
Animal protein and sources-
In the freezer-
- About few cuts of last years hog
- A few cuts of last years lamb
- 4 chicken roasters purchased from a work colleague.
- Lots of fishes from Sitka Salmon Shares (https://sitkasalmonshares.com/)
- Our first batches of sheep cheese. Feta and Tome
Sources-
- 6 chickens of three laying breeds, now 4 ish years old and still seasonally knocking out an impressive 1 egg/ bird/ day,
- 4 more laying hens of 2 new breeds now about 4 months old.
- A growing flock of East Friesian/ Lacaunne composite dairy sheep, now in the 5th year
- 9 Ram lambs to market in about December
- 9 Replacement Ewe lambs who probably are all staying on the farm
- The 4 berkshire gilts became 3 duroc gilts, they are estimating about 150 lbs now and I”m hoping they’ll go to market in NOvember.
- Abundant deer and turkey on the back forty.
Fodder-
- Several nice cuttings of grass and alfalfa hay have topped up the barns with the potential for one more cut on alfalfa and grass if it looks like some drying weather will happen
- Two acres of nice looking grain corn to hand pick in October
- Pastures are still mostly rich and growing and looking like they’ll enjoy some rain and warm weather.
Farm Income-
Monetary-
- Perhaps 100 dollars on egg sales
- About 250 on some cull sheep sales at Equity
Non-monetary
- Haven’t bought a vegetable at the store since July 1st
- Other intangibles
Jon’s Land Ethic Journey 