Sugar Creek Farm

This is one of our stocker calves, Jemima. She keeps breaking over to the mama cows’ side of the pasture. She’s such a pretty girl I had to take a picture of her when she was hanging around by the broilers’ pen the other morning. Even if she is naughty.

Been a few days since I posted. It’s that time of year when the girls’ end-of-the-school-year activies overlap with beginning-of-the-summer activities. Thankfully all is relatively quiet around the farm. We keep busy with our day-to-day chores, but it’s quiet.

“Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.”
~ Hans Margolius

Stop clicking on links, that is. The other day I read this piece over at 101 Cookbooks. That night I dreamed that this scientist summoned me to her office to inform me that all of my broiler chicks had been illegally genetically modified at the hatchery and must all be destroyed.

Matt said, “That’s what you dream about?”

Not that I didn’t know about GMO’s. I was just looking for the Herbed Buttermilk Popcorn recipe. But it does irritate me that foods made from genetically-modified ingredients aren’t required to be labeled as such. Consumers ought to be able to know what they’re eating and make choices about it.

Then again, there is a label for non-GMO foods. It’s called organic.

Then again again, I’m think I’m being hypocritical. We feed our cattle corn that we purchase from our local elevator, and we have no way of knowing whether it’s GMO corn or not. Same with our pig and chicken feed. But to buy certified organic feeds would be so cost prohibitive that it would put us out of business.

So it is one of our dreams to someday own enough acres to grow all the grains we need for our animals. Someday.

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. ~St Francis de Sales

This is a terrible picture, I know, but it was as close as I could get to our latest visitor in the pasture.

Matt says it’s a trumpeter swan. I say it’s a heron. Swans look more goose-like. They don’t stand this upright. And this one has not been seen swimming in the creek yet. He asked the guys at work, and they say there’s no such thing as a white heron. But what do a bunch of linemen know about herons? There is, in fact, a white Great Blue Heron. But it lives in Florida.

So I’m thinking it’s a Great Egret. Can anyone help me out? (Karen??)

He flew off right after I snapped this picture, but this morning he was back and brought a friend with him. The Canada Geese are still here, too. I guess Sugar Creek is a romantic hot-spot for birds.

If you were to eat supper at our home, the question you’re likely to hear the girls ask is “Is this ours?”. They are so excited to be eating food that we’ve grown or raised ourselves, whether it be the sweet corn and green beans we froze last summer or our beef or our chicken. The girls help us a lot with the day-to-day work of the farm. Even though they are sometimes willing helpers and sometimes not, they rightfully take great pride in the end results.

One night not long ago we were having beef. Out of the blue Olivia – our 7-year-old middle child – remarked, “So we feed them and then they feed us. That’s cool!”

Her remark made me smile. She gets it! She has grasped so much more than just the concept of the food chain. Her model of the food chain includes respect and gratefulness. For the animals that feed us. For the soil that feeds the vegetables that feed us. For the cycle of life and death and all that lies in between.

Chalk up another one in the Why We Do This category.

A movie from not so long ago, in a supermarket not so far away…

Join the adventures of Cuke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Cannoli, Chewbroccoli and the rest of the Organic Rebels fighting against Darth Tader and the Dark Side of the Farm.

Spread the seeds of the organic rebellion.

We created a space for the little pullets and roos in the coop by partitioning off one end of it with 3-foot chicken wire. Moved them out on Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning Madeline went out to check on them and came back to report that she saw one of the cats running off with one in its mouth. Little stinkers were flying up and over that chicken wire. We haven’t been able to get an accurate count to see if more than one is missing. They move too fast. We do know that it was either a Columbian Wyandotte or Lakenvelder that perished. So last night we put up another 2 feet of chicken wire above the other.

The broilers are doing great out in the pasture, but their fence is giving us problems. This afternoon a couple of the calves somehow got over the fence and into the broiler pen. When I went out a while later I noticed one chick that looked like death on 2 scrawny legs. Perhaps he got stepped on when the calves broke in. Not much we can do but wait and see. I propped him up to the feeder and he ate, but he kept falling asleep standing up.

The last piece of our business plan, the financial section, is due to our instructor in the coming week – ack! Newsletters, order forms, and the newly designed brochure are going out tomorrow. Scale inspector said he’d come this week. Need to send in our request for a Food Warehouse License this week, and get the freezer set up and labels made for that. Need to do more planting and transplanting, if the weather will let us. I think there’s rain in the forecast every day this week. And I need to get our website designed so that it’s more than just this blog. And somewhere in there I need to fold the 10 loads of laundry I did last week, do 10 more, pay bills, clean, cook – blech! I hate when real life gets in the way of my plans!

I’m the lucky caretaker of a pack of letters, most of them written by my great-great-great-grandfather William Sylvanus Bishop. The letters were written to his family back east in Bunker Hill, New York after William had come west in search of land and an independent life. The letters are infused with his sense of hope and optimism, and tell matter-of-factly of his hard work and dedication to his dream of being a successful farmer. This is one part of my agricultural heritage.

One interesting piece of trivia about William is that he was named after his grandfather, Sylvanus Bishop, a Revolutionary War veteran. Sylvanus received a war pension, and on the days his pension arrived he gave each grandchild a set amount of allowance money, which they called their pensions. William, because he was named William Sylvanus, received double the amount of “pension” the other grandchildren received.

William struck out in April 1863 for Iowa at the age of 24, leaving behind his wife, Minerva, and 4-month-old son, Sylvanus Parker. He traveled by boat from Oswego, New York to Cleveland, Ohio across the Great Lakes. From Cleveland he came – presumably by stagecoach, wagon, or on foot – to Ulster Township, Floyd County, Iowa (near Rudd) where he engaged in farming. We don’t know what made him select this particular part of the country. But the reasons why he came west are clear in a letter he wrote to his mother in July 1863:

Mother I am glad I came west. I never could have accumulated much if I had staid East, but now I think that in a few years I can be independent. It is going to be hard…at first for the want of a few hundred dollars to start with but after I am once started and free from debt it is all…worth it.”

Minerva and baby Sylvanus made the trip that August to join William. What a harrowing trip that must have been, traveling by herself half-way across the country, by boat and wagon with an 8-month-old baby. We know from the letters that for many years after settling here Minerva was terribly homesick.

Their first home was of logs as William described it in a letter to his brother, Nelson:

I have got the best log stable in town, 14 x 20, the cracks chinked and mudded, covered with hay. It makes a warm stable. The way I came to have so good, one I got my timber very cheap, I bought a grove of timber…good for nothing but rails and firewood. Besides 41 logs for house, sills and stable logs…are 8 inches at the top. Pd $32.50, since then I have been offered $35 for my grove and $15 for my logs. I hewed the logs on two sides making quite a quantity of firewood.

In December 1863 there is talk of a Civil War draft in Ulster township:

The draft will come off next summer, so said. The town of Ulster is required to furnish two. There are eighteen first class liable to the draft and so my chance is one in nine. Min worries some about this but I think time enough to fret when it comes, for I shall adhere to my old motto, ‘don’t borrow trouble’.

Later in the month he writes again:

We expected a draft here next month but last night we had a war meeting and two army men stepped up and said they would go. So I expect we shall have no draft unless another is made.

In 1864, after only one year in Iowa, William buys another farm. It is assumed that he sells his first claim.

I have bought 40 acres 1-1/2 miles from here with neighbors all around so I think Min will bid goodbye to homesickness. I paid $400 for said place. There is 28 acres broke and fenced with a log house upon it. It is not so much land as I want but I thought it would make me a home for a while and when you all come out here I would sell and we would setle near each other.

William was always trying to convince his family to move to Iowa. In a letter to his sister Jennie dated March 1868 he extols the virtues of the state:

We have had just enough snow to make good sleighing most of the time but I think it is the coldest winter I have seen in Iowa. We are all enjoying good health with a fare degree of prosperity. Parker has attended school this winter. He has been through his first reader. At a spelling the other night he spoke his first piece. We are to have a new schoolhouse this summer in the place of an old log one. There is much excitement in Iowa at present in regard to projected railroads. One thing is certain, the iron horse will soon be heard snorting in most all parts of Iowa. In your parts I suppose a citizen of Iowa is looked upon as something wild, as an Indian or a grizley bear would be. But here to be called a Hawkeye is as great an honor as it was to be called a Roman in ancient times, and well they may be for Iowa is bound to be the greatest state in the Union. She is already out of debt with $100,000 in the treasury, and there is no other state in the Union clear of debt. And nature has done as much to make her great as could well be done. Illinois is the only state that pretends to compete with her in agriculture. I shall sow about 30 acres of wheat, 8 of oats and plant about 8 to corn. I shall break some more this summer. Labor is high here. I have hired a man for the season at 20-1/2 dollars per month.

By April 1866 William’s brother Nelson has moved to Iowa and married the local school marm. In 1870 his brother Sereno joins them. The rest of their family remains in New York.

One interesting letter describes their adopted way of life called “the hygiene method of living”. This is essentially a vegetarian diet stressing raw foods. Very unusual, one would think, for an Iowa farm family, although William indicates that they are not strict about it.

You mention in your letter that you understood we had adopted the hygiene method of living. We have partially done so. Like some others we are ‘joined to our idols’ and for the sake of not being different from our neighbors still continue in many of our old ways of living. But we do not doctor with drugs, we do not use tobacco. Our drink is water. Our bread principally unleavened graham. Meat and grease used sparingly. Fruit as common as potato. This with not being afraid of water, sunlight, and fresh air is about the extent of our changes. In case we are sick, if our own comon sense does not tell us how to proceed, we consult Dr. Jacksen’s work ‘How to Treat the Sick Without Medicine’.

Minerva passed away June 2, 1912 in South Dakota while visiting her son William Theodore and his family. Her body was brought back to Iowa for burial. She was 70 years old.

William Sylvanus died November 15, 1923 in Nora Springs, Floyd County, Iowa just short of his 85th birthday.

Below-freezing temps have finally disappeared from the forecast, so I uncovered the strawberries from their blanket of hay yesterday afternoon. The strawberry bed borders the bull pen, and Mr. Bull thought that hay I was pulling off looked tasty. He followed me up the row as I worked, attempting to stick his tongue through the fence for any morsel he could manage. What he managed was to get himself zapped by the electric fence a couple of times.

My plan to take the broilers out at dusk in order for them to learn more quickly how to put themselves in at night appears to have worked! Matt got the duty last night to tuck them into bed. He reports that only about 8 were still outside and needed to be placed inside the shed. Such an improvement over last year’s second batch, in which only about 20 would be inside the shed at dark.

When Matt was home for lunch today he noted how pissed off his cows look. He shut them out of the pasture a couple days ago because the grass wasn’t growing during the cold spell we had and the cows had it pretty well ate down already. After lunch I went to town on an errand. When I came back just 1/2 hour later, the cows had somehow broken out and were running for the spot back on top of the hill. They can’t be seen from the house up there. Maybe they think we won’t notice they’re missing.

We decided to go ahead and move the broiler chicks out to pasture last night. The low temp was supposed to be a little warmer, at 30 degrees, and today is supposed to be sunny and 65. It would be a shame if they weren’t out there today.

So about 8:00 last night we started. My theory is that if we take them out at dusk and shut them in for the night, they’ll learn more quickly to put themselves back in at night. We’ll see how that plays out.

Matt and the girls caught them out of the brooder, handed each one to me, and I set them in the trailer. Rafe’s job was keeping the cats away while we were working. We’ve lost only 3 broilers so far – one to injury, one was a “flip”, and one unknown cause – and took 99 out to pasture. And no leg problems so far! It’s been our best batch yet.

Then out to the pasture and repeat in reverse. The girls caught the birds in the trailer, handed them to Matt and me, and we carried them over and set them in the shed. Shut them in for the night and we were done.

This morning I went out shortly after 6:00 to let them out and feed them. As fast as these birds grow it’s hard to remember that they’re just babies yet – 4 weeks old today. They have to be taught to go outside for their food, and come back inside at night. So I had to toss every single one of these 99 birds out of the shed this morning – some of them more than once! They huddled against the side of the shed in the sun and wouldn’t eat until I stuck the feeders right in amongst them.

Once the warmth from their feet had melted the frost off the grass they got interested in that. My first favorite thing about raising broilers is bringing them home from the hatchery. But my next favorite thing is the first day they’re on pasture. It makes me smile to watch them run about, scratch for bugs, eat grass, breathe fresh air, and sun themselves. Their instincts kick in. They become themselves. They do what chickens were born to do. If only it were that easy for us humans.

It’s been awhile since I gave a pig update. The little buggers are doing great! We don’t have an ideal setup for raising pigs. They have this area outside plus 2 stalls inside to run in and out of. Their water is located in one stall which happens to also have a drainage problem. It’s a muddy mess in there but somehow these guys stay unbelievably clean.

Today I took them a treat of eggs and fresh asparagus trimmings. I only have room for about 2 weeks worth of eggs in my refrigerator. After that any that aren’t sold go to the pigs. They’re so funny eating eggs – they will crack one open and then slurp out the insides.

I grew up on a hog farm, but had forgotten how much fun pigs can be until we got these!