“Gosh, would you look at that. It’s a bit of alright.”
My father came of age in the 1940s and never abandoned the vernacular of his youth. I agreed and sat quietly taking it in, but in the back of my mind was that lingering question: “Had we just made the biggest mistake of our lives?” We knew it was going to be hard but not this hard, not this relentless. And we didn’t seem to be very good at it, as attested by the continued free ranging of our woolly horde. And the expense! All these repairs had us hemorrhaging money. This was starting to create tension between Greg and myself. No, this was not what we signed up for, definitely not what I had signed up for, and now it was going to take us years to sell the place … and we’d go bankrupt … and divorce … and … we’d still own this damn farm! Like a lead weight dragging us to the bottom.
I was thinking this when my father asked a probing question: “Should we turn back?” He meant should we ride back to the barn. I heard, “Should you sell the farm and return home?” I erupted in a monsoon of anxiety and tears.
My father is a gentle soul and, of course, he was made uncomfortable witnessing my pain. Wanting to help, but not quite sure what I needed, he struggled, “I, umm, wasn’t that keen on your coming here, but now that I see it, well … I understand what drew you to this farm. It’s a very special place.”
“Un-huh.”
He could have been comparing Mickey Mouse to Mighty Mouse—at that moment, just hearing his voice helped calm my panic. But what he was saying seemed to be helping too.
“I think, maybe ask yourself what would you be doing if you didn’t have the farm? In Phoenix, it seemed like everybody was kind of going their separate ways. Maybe give yourself credit for at least trying something different.”
Okay, that was a good point.
“It’s a lot of work, though. I don’t know. Maybe give it a little more time. Transitions are always hardest at the beginning. Maybe take some classes in farming. Isn’t there an ag school at OSU? Read some books. Talk to some people. Get a little more education. Gosh, sweetie, I’m not sure what to say.”
He went on about how he and mom loved us and supported us and all that blah blah stuff. My father is a sensitive, gentle man and I’ve always known I was lucky to have him, even if he could go on a bit. He was right, though. Transitions are hardest at the beginning. And at least we were trying something different.
These thoughts relaxed me just a bit. I noticed the light coming through the trees, filtering down to the forest floor. The sharp, sweet scent of fir and cedar mingled with rich, earthy tones of molding leaves and bark. The sound of trees, whispering their secrets, was occasionally punctuated by the trill of a squirrel or the caw of a raven. Life and color were abundant around me, and I hadn’t quite noticed it until this moment. This place held such beauty, such perfect peacefulness, and I didn’t have to do a thing to it. Not a thing.
And, in that moment, I decided I could be incomplete. I could never do enough, my husband could never do enough, we could never do enough. Instead, I would just do what I could, and Greg would do what he could, and let the rest be incomplete.
If that wasn’t enough, I’d know soon. I didn’t have to anticipate it. I didn’t have to worry about it. Each day I’d do what I could, learn what I could, improve what I could, and let the rest be. If the coons ate the chickens then that’s what it would be until I could change it. And I’d change it when I could. In the end, it would be okay. It already was okay. It was okay before I got there. More than okay, it was perfectly incomplete.
I came off the hill with a blessing. More than one, if I’m counting. Lucky to have my father, lucky to have my family, lucky to have this farm. Then, as if to signify that very notion, we came upon an owl in the hollow of a tree. Big yellow eyes with tufted ears, just looking at us while we looked back. I had never had a personal encounter with an owl. It was a long moment before we nudged the horses down the trail.
“Gee, that was something! Did I ever tell you my nickname in school was ‘owl’ …”
About a hundred times, but I didn’t care. I was so happy to be riding with my father, on this trail, on this evening, on this farm. So much that is unfinished and yet so complete in this moment.
My parents left the next morning. My father, sounding more sincere in his encouragement. My mother, sounding less severe in her reservations. And that’s as good as it gets in my family—and probably as good as it should be, given the giant leap we had just taken with our lives. It was nice to have them feeling less anxious, but of course, it was never really about their anxiety, it was about mine. And I felt I had crossed a threshold. I was learning to live with incompletes. I still liked things wrapped up in a neat box, but I was getting better at accepting when they weren’t. Of course, Mr. Farm had more to say about that.
A MONTH AND MORE
By the end of the month, the fencing repairs were done. The sheep were in their pasture and the chickens were in their yard. All was right with the world. Except for the one renegade hen that suddenly emerged, waddling across our lawn and trailing sixteen chicks with heads bobbing and peeping in syncopation. Besides being cute, sixteen chicks equal sixteen chickens—pretty good return on no investment.
I decided to leave the renegade mom to her reckless ways. The next day she had a dozen chicks, and the third day she was down to four. Whoever said, “Don’t count your chickens until they hatch” missed the timeline. Chicks are the bon-bons of the predator world. I tried to intervene but caught only one of the fuzzy little speedballs. Next day there were none, so I was glad I saved one. My daughter took over the task of hand-raising it. As for the renegade, living beyond the fence meant she was subject to the laws of the wilderness.
When I found a pool of blood in the barn, I assumed she had met her end. But it was a lot of blood, and on closer examination it was trailing right to my mare, Mora. A gash in her pastern, just above the hoof, had flayed open her flesh and was spurting blood. Arterial bleeding is always my cue to call the vet.
The vet took one look at the wound and began lecturing me on what I needed to know to avoid wasting his time and my money. He directed me to watch as he tied-off the artery that was pulsing blood and then demonstrated the looping stitch he used to close the wound. There was a brief quiz on distinguishing white nerve from white tendon and then some more pointers on where to administer shots. I was admonished to practice by sticking a hypodermic needle into an orange until it was one fluid motion. Since he was there, the dogs got their shots. A final warning to practice what he preached and then he was gone. Someone really needs to write a tutorial on country etiquette. “When to call a vet” needs a whole chapter.
By mid-summer our skills had improved, and the pace of chores had slackened sufficiently to allow us to take stock of the farm as a totality. Initially we had bought a piece of real estate, but we now realized a farm is an organic entity—a living organism with its own unique characteristics determined by its geography. The farm, and by consequence the farmer, are rooted to a place. Farmer and farm, each shapes the other but always within the constraints imposed by that particular place.
Our farm consists of sixty acres, half in the pasture and half in the woods, set in a small valley with a stream running through it. Perched on a small rise at the center is the farmhouse, a rambling structure built by homesteaders over a hundred years ago and added on as more kids arrived. To one side of the house is a garage and workshop. To the other side, separated by a narrow creek with a footbridge, is a large barn and dilapidated tractor shed. Behind the house, an orchard of apples, cherries, pears, and plums runs down to the stream. Beyond the garage are a chicken yard, a greenhouse, and an acre of garden. There are three pastures on this side of the stream and a fourth on the other side. Beyond the pastures rise steep hills etched with the permanently green silhouettes of fir, cedar, and hemlock. In the valley, leafy alder and maple shroud the stream keeping the water crystal clear and cool. It is as beautiful as that. Which brings me to the
Sixth Law.
Sixth Law: The prettier the farm, the worse the farming.
Good farmland is found in river bottoms—flat, plain, and humid. Farms in the mountains may be pretty but the soil is poor—and so it is with our farm. It is only suitable for growing grass, but the grass grows all summer long. Cool breezes coming off the mountains keep our pastures temperate. Coastal mist collects on the leaves and waters the grass. Grass likes cool, moist weather. And sheep like grass.
For novice farmers like us, sheep are ideal. They have the lowest overhead and are the easiest “keepers” of any livestock in the US today. Since they are the only commercial meat source not raised by major agribusiness in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), the designation of “grass fed” and “organic” is essentially redundant. All sheep are grass fed. It also means they don’t require the graining that other livestock need for weight gain. Thus their production cost is not subject to rising corn and soybean prices. Since they are raised in pastures, not CAFOs, they are not subject to diseases of confinement and don’t require dosing with antibiotics. Best of all, they are among the most efficient of all grazing farm stock. They are ruminants, meaning they have four sections to their stomach, which allows them to get maximum efficiency out of the grass they eat. Further, they have a wider palate (less discerning) than cattle, allowing them to eat a broader range of pasture grasses and thrive. The same acre required to feed a single cow will support six sheep. There is a risk of over-grazing since sheep nip grass at the base, but that is handled by proper rotation of pastures.
The best part of sheep is the poop. If you just nodded in agreement, you’re probably a farmer. If you’re not a farmer, let me explain. The most important resource on any farm is the top soil, and the best replenishment for the top soil is composted manure. Ruminants, by running grass clippings through four chemical vats, have done half the composting for you.
This living farm is a beautiful system of complex balances. On any summer day, there are all those blades of grass unfolding their photobiotic panels to the sun where they trap the solar energy in their leaves. Then comes our woolly meadow-munchers, nipping the grass and converting that complex cellulose into muscle and waste. By harvesting sheep, we capture all that energy of a summer meadow and convert it to savory nourishment for our bodies (especially when eaten with mint jelly). By collecting the waste and turning it to compost, we replenish the soil and grow more grass.
Farmers are connoisseurs of compost. Nothing brings pleasure to a farmer quite like the smell and feel of good compost. In compost, the farmer sees the connection between poop and prosperity—not bling prosperity but life-renewing prosperity. And sheep have really good poop. Even when it’s not composted, it mixes more easily into the soil than cow or horse poop. And good poop equals good soil, equals good farm, equals good earth. That’s a little simplified, but not much.
Seventh Law: Poop equals prosperity. Don’t hate the poop.
HARVEST
Mid-summer is the time for spreading the poop and putting up firewood. Both of these chores anticipate outcomes months away, so they don’t require urgent execution. Cutting windfall into firewood is arduous work but at least it’s one chore done on the farmer’s schedule. Come harvest time, the luxury of scheduling chores will seem positively indulgent.
By early September, the light broadcasts long, deep shadows in the northwest, signaling the early approach of fall. This is the time of harvest, and the pace quickens to frenetic. Most produce has a freshness window of a few weeks, and some as little as a few days. Squash, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and berries come in abundance and spoil just as quickly.
The Himalayan blackberry is among the most noxious weeds to invade the northwest. It is free-ranging barbed wire, with tentacles long enough and heavy enough to pull down a house. Where a thicket sets up, it effectively locks out all other plant growth and closes passages for animals. Harvesting the berries is the only payback available from this felon. Good thing the revenge is sweet. Blackberry pies, cobbler, and jam will consume the first week of the harvest season, followed by canning tomatoes and pickles, and freezing peas, beans, and corn. By mid-October harvest has moved on to apples, with pies, sauces, and cider, and then on to grapes. It’s a ten-week sprint to put up the produce before it goes bad.
The harvest itself is a spirited competition. Just as the farmer is awaiting the moment of perfection when the plant has bestowed the maximum sugar and flavor to its fruit, so too is a horde of insects, birds, and varmints. First come, first served. Berries and grapes in particular are harvested in direct contention with bees and wasps.
On one particular day of berry picking I got that tickling sensation of something crawling up my pant leg. I found a suspicious bump in my jeans and gave it a crushing squeeze. Instead of dying, it stung me. In retaliation, I really squeezed it, and it really stung me. I stripped off boots and pants in the middle of the garden. A yellow wasp was letting me have it a third time, then spraying me with pheromones so his buddies could help with the prosecution. I sprinted to the house, yelling all the way.
Greg found me propped on the couch, massaging three large welts with an ice cube. I’d been stung by bees, but this was an intense, hot nerve pain like no other. Greg applied a baking soda poultice. It didn’t work. He moved on to every granny and great-granny recipe we could think of: mustard packs, calamine, Benadryl, aspirin, even mud, but nothing worked. It was three days of intense pain followed by two weeks of annoying welts, and the only remedy seemed to be “suck it up.” Next year the pant legs were tied off. My doctor suggested I carry an EpiPen. She thought I might be developing an allergy to the venom.
September saw the kids off to college, leaving a space in the house that only became more empty when Greg left for work. With mounting expenses, Greg had picked up a teaching contract at the local community college. I persevered with farm chores. Clouds moved in, hugging the mountains in shrouds of mist. At night, agitated spiders hung fanciful webs from fence posts and trees that, in the morning, became glistening dream catchers rimmed with dew. In the woods, the leaves were beginning to catch the bright golds and muted rusts of autumn.
On one such morning I found the remains of the renegade hen in the chicken yard. I disposed of the carcass in the trash. Greg passed by it that evening on his way in from the garage and it flipped a switch for him. He wasn’t losing any more chickens. That night he patrolled the trees in the chicken yard hourly until his flashlight found the intruder. With a single shot, the coon dropped from the tree, hitting the ground with a heavy, wet thud. Still, it struggled to its feet, hissing and snarling. A second shot ended all that.
The taking of life is attended by sadness. The coon was just doing what coons do. His only crime was that he had grown too dependent on our chickens. This friction between the wild and the rural is always there—a delicate commerce where each gives a little to the other. When the wild takes too much, the rural reacts. So we asserted our desire to raise chickens without coon interference, but it was not a victory, just a momentary resetting of balances in the eternal competition for food and resources.
SIX MONTHS INTO IT
Brick had taken to stopping by every few days to check on our welfare. Often he brought the newspaper and stayed for coffee. When he saw the dead coon, he became animated. There was the customary hunting inquiry about caliber of gun, difficulty of the shot, etc. And there were stories of coon carnage to justify the killing. But something else was transpiring. Until this moment, Brick had considered us visitors. At the Merc, there was even a small wager on how long we’d last. With the spilling of blood, we had passed an unspoken initiation. It signaled an end to our romantic vision of country life and recognition of the harsh realities of the country. Death is part of farming, and there is no supermarket cellophane between you and your meat.
As if to make the very point, the butcher called saying he would be in our area that week. We were to cull the lambs and leave them penned in the barn the nig
ht before his arrival. On the appointed day, I went to the barn for the morning feeding with a heavy heart. I had invested an enormous amount of time and energy to ensure the well-being of my little flock, and all of it culminated in this day of harvest. I was filled with internal conflict. As I reached the barn, I found a pile of bloody hides. The lambs were already dressed out and hanging as slabs of meat in the van. The butcher, wearing a blood-spattered apron, was cleaning up. I wasn’t prepared for this spectacle but there it was—farming. And with it came the challenge to my commitment. I drew a heavy breath, pushed down my qualms, and proceeded to feed the ewes.
As I flung a flake of hay, a hidden lamb appeared from the midst of the flock. Suddenly my conflict came back in full force. My first thought was to grant the lamb a reprieve. But there are no reprieves on the farm. Either the lamb is destined to be a breeding ewe or slated for the table. If I was to be a farmer, then this was farming. I called to the butcher outside fearing he might leave. I rushed to catch him. Just as I got to the door, he opened it and with rifle cocked shot the lamb. The lamb crumpled and a part of me sank with it. The butcher turned back to his knives. He had more stops to make and time was wasting. I went for coffee and didn’t return until I heard the van leave the driveway. I wasn’t that “country” yet.
With the lambs culled, it all begins again. We made an appointment for a conjugal visit from a ram, but first we had to get the girls presentable with a pedicure. Hoof rot is a common problem for sheep in the Northwest. Mud and manure get impacted, setting up bacteria that, literally, rot off the hoof. To prevent it, hooves have to be trimmed, and to trim a hoof, you have to throw a ewe to the ground. This is done by moving the sheep’s jaw forward, drawing if off balance, and then whipping its head around. The sheep’s body will follow its head. It’s a form of sheep judo that must be done quickly and forcefully. The slightest hesitation will cause the sheep to resist, and then it’s a fight. Sheep have bony heads and, when agitated, they can bust through thick wooden stalls as easily as shot fired from a cannon. They have the same effect on knee caps.
Country Grit: A Farmoir of Finding Purpose and Love Page 4