Time away from the farm is a blessing and a curse. I boarded my flight from Madison to Newark after the first light dusting of snow of the year, and overnight lows in the low 30’s and the promise of continued rain. But any period of more than a couple of days away from my agrarian dream comes with regrets. By the time I arrived in Zurich to visit my daughter, bleary eyed and re-connected to our shared deity, the internet, the weather expectations for Maggie’s farm had deteriorated exponentially. Persistent sub 30 temperatures in the 20’s made my focus on winterizing mechanical systems (milkhouse heat and animal waterers) look positively astute, but also made the things I’d neglected to get that done (digging 50 row feet of potatoes and 10 row feet of carrots) look like nightmarishly bad decisions. Had I not scheduled this indulgent week away I would have been outside madly plowing and shovelling all day on Halloween. My first love letter home to Amanda has the subject line: “ Save my taters.”
The blessings are enforced time for reflection, time for writing, reading, and even watching. I’ve about 2/3rd finished “The Driftless Reader” (https://www.amazon.com/Driftless-Reader-Curt-D-Meine/dp/0299314804), a collection of writings on the Driftless region of Wisconsin, that’s quite engaging and provides a great sense of place from many perspectives. Eight hours locked in an airplane included time to take in the film “Biggest Little Farm” (https://www.biggestlittlefarmmovie.com/), a fun ‘documentary’ film, that get’s air-quotes from me for documentary, because I think filmmaker and subject are a little too close to each other (being, it seems, the same) to create the sort of journalistic distance that my personal sense of documentary film requires. Nonetheless, it’s a fun film which I would recommend. The film will strike actual farmers as Disneyland-esque, and non farmers as a serious and challenging reality check to their imaginings of going back to the land.
Disneyland because these 250 acres <1 hour from LA are enabled by un-named “investors” who, after bankrolling the capital and operating expense of this operation for EIGHT YEARS, seem to be grossing what some twitter feed reading suggests is <250,000 USD per year. I’m sure they’ve got a business plan on file that will assuage the IRS. And hey, if the Donald can milk his losses-carried forward for a decade of tax free living, I’m on-board with these “investors” doing the same… But this modest income, in a fully irrigated, arguabley climatic Utopia for veg growing (compared to my 70 days above 60F in Wisconsin this year… you can bet their taters aren’t frozen this week), all with an army of woofers working seasonally for minimum wage (and admittedly delicious looking free food…) This is not a recipe for keeping the land in the family if that’s your goal. But, I give them an A for effort, and an A for intention, and an A for persistence verging on insanity, which may be the secret ingredient of all farmers.
Reality check, because for the non-farmers, the amount of waste and slaughter associated with figuring out (a bit unclear how fully figured out it really is at magical year 7) how to rear fruit, veg, and free range livestock from scratch, orgainically, is deeply depressing and trying. The scenes of Coyote (and wayward Livestock Guardian Dog) slaughtered laying hens, will be sadly familiar to those who have forgotten to shut the coop at night, and those who have not built the coop of grade-A materials. These are as real as real gets. The bushels upon bushels of bird and snail damaged fruit sure emphasize the utility of some farm pigs, who I’m sure enjoyed them greatly. The candid shots of the nearly emptly farmers market stands from the first few years look all too much like what I see from the starting farmers at the smaller farm markets in my part of Wisconsin.
The decision to leave the orphaned lamb to ‘figure it out’, is either heart wrenching, or anger making, depending on your perspective. If you’ve had a farming friend whose been chewed up by the animal rights machine, it sort of pisses you off to see how this is portrayed as a necessary step in the process to self fulfillment… [Conveniently, little Lambo survives by being a successful bummer. This is not an outcome you get with dairy sheep in March in Wisconsin, but maybe it does happen in California…]
If my professional farming neighbors and (previous) customers let animals die like this they’d be flayed by the media. If their employees let animals die like this, they’d be fired, but since these people have Right Intention, it’s just a painful lesson it making a go of Biodynamic farming.
All that said, it’s a good enough farming movie that I took away several ideas and insights…
Good ideas around barn owl houses… barn owls are beautiful and my barns are not decrepit enough for them to have roosted, but I would love to have some more of these predators on the landscape, keeping after gophers and federal squirrels who are the plague of both poorly mowed, or highly intercropped orchards. Winter to do list, plans for barn owl houses !!!
The scenes of poultry and lamb slaughter are so similar to my distant memories of farming in south central Pennsylvania, that I’m rethinking my rather casual attitude towards livestock protection. In 5 years on the Wisconsin farm our only predation has been by automobile, and I continue to be stunned by this, given the sound effects in the woods at night, by a population of coyotes with enough time on their hands to make stereophonic music most nights….
A reconsideration of whether we should get some ducks…
The temptation of keeping a sow, instead of just some feeder pigs, was raised by the lovely Emma, in the film. My conviction not to go organic was raised by watching Emma suffer through a near fatal case of mastitis, with apparently only treatment with an analgesic for fever reduction (the little details like whether Emma was seeing a real licensed vet, and what she was given, are glossed over, earning more ‘air quotes’ from me on the documentary side). Again, she seems to have lived, so… it’s all good right ???
But really, who doesn’t want 10 or so squirmy piglets every spring, instead of just two or three… to feed all that rotting veg to ???
Any farm movie that brings some good ideas is worth a watch.
Reflection also this week in my facilitated whirlwind mass transit based tour of Switzerland. Such a scenic country and so interesting to consider what kind of society makes the choices the Swiss do about place, technology or lack thereof.
It’s amazing to spend time in a place where it would arguably be insane to own an automobile. If we farmed here I think I could get by with a tractor, which I saw driving the streets of Zurich yesterday morning. I’ve travelled probably 750 miles in the country, almost entirely on electric driven mass transit, principally streetcars and trains, this travel itinerary augmented with a mountain hike about every other day of mountains in excess of 5000 feet. I keep wanting to say the wilderness access is amazing, but you can’t really call it wilderness if there’s a train to the top, and two hotels there. It’s cool nonetheless.
Also delightful to see agriculture tucked in so closely next to these high places, on extreme slopes (45+%) without evidence of extreme negative impact. This is entirely because these grades are worked by the animals themselves, or by walk behind, 2 wheel tractors, like the one I garden with. Lots and lots of grass based production, and wrapped round bailage seems to be the preservation method of choice for livestock producers. Which makes me feel good about my big stack of hay.
The few flat places in this country seem to be used in equal thirds for heavy industry, residential, and intensive Ag. Lots of greenhouses and hoop-houses right along what looks a lot like the GM plant in Janesville (but it probably makes a way cooler car, or a train more likely). Farm ideas and motivations from Switzerland include talking some more to my sheep friends using grass bailage, though I know my cheesemaker will object, and renewed energy to get the woods fenced and get some grazing and browsing going on in there. No livestock grazing the mountain hikes in the late fall here in Switzerland, but the pellets and pies say they were there a few weeks ago. Also, the great inspiration of a TRAILSIDE FARMSTEAD CHEESE “stand”… basically a refrigerator next to the trailside farmstead marked “AlpinKase” with a box for the money, much like we sell pumpkins… I wish I’d thought to take a picture from the funicular…
Reflection is good, but a week of forced reflection without physical labor, and without measurable productivity, in making or storing food, definitely make me want to get back to Maggie’s farm and hopefully get those potatoes dug…
Jon’s Land Ethic Journey 
Hi Jon, your trip to Switzerland reminded me of a family camping holiday there a few years back. One thing that impressed me was that in the summer – you would have missed it at the time you went – every house seemed to have veg growing in the front gardens, with the vines of squash plants climbing up trellis, often with a huge squash sitting atop a large stool or some other wooden platform. Also impressive were dahlias in full flower in late July which begs the question (at least from a UK perspective), how do they survive a harsh alpine winter, and how do they get them to flower so early in the year. We are also keen on barn owl boxes here here and have put two on some parkland near the allotments where we grow our fruit and veg. We have had real success, with three broods, comprising eight young birds fledged in total, which we have ringed with a licensed ringer, and know that one of the birds we ‘raised’ has since bred at another site. What I would say is that you may need to put up three boxes to get one which will have barn owls in i.e. one for the grey squirrels, one for the stock doves and one finally for the barn owls. Not being too cynical, but apparently it is good to have at least two boxes, not too close together, as sometimes one adult will roost in a separate box while the other sits on the eggs, or the adults just need a separate space while the rapidly growing young are filling the nest box. On a different matter, one thing that I have not forgotten about our trip to Switzerland as we walked out of Interlaken towards the train station, was a sign which read “Last sex shop before the Eiger” – and no, we didn’t go in…
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