Just when I was hoping for a mild fall and an easy, down-on-the-farm winter, the hot off the press 2010 Farmers’ Almanac shows up on my desk, heralding frigid winter weather for my part of the world. In  2010 Farmers’ Almanac Managing Editor Sandi Duncan’s words, we should expect an “ice cold sandwich” when winter finally settles in. I wonder just when it will settle in, down here in Kansas. Judging by this week’s highs, I think it might be sooner, rather than later.

 “With the economy still shaky, and people keeping an eye on their spending,” reports Peter Geiger, Philom., 2010 Farmers’ Almanac Editor, “the winter weather outlook is more important than ever. Many folks are looking to the most respected sources for long-range weather outlook–the Farmers’ Almanac–so they can prepare for whatever Mother Nature may send their way.”

Last year, the 2009 Farmers’ Almanac predicted an exceptionally long, cold winter for most regions. As promised, bitter cold and heavy snow punished much of the nation, coming on early in the season and lingering through the start of spring. When spring finally did arrive, it came bearing heavy rains, with twice the annual average falling in many regions.

The 2010 edition of the Farmers’ Almanac warns that this winter’s frigid forecast offers no respite, especially for states in the center of the country. “Very cold and bitterly cold” is how the 2010 Farmers’ Almanac describes the winter in the Great Lakes, Plains, and South Central states, while temperatures on the East and West Coasts will be more in line with average to normal winter conditions. For residents of the East Coast, who bore most of the brunt of last winter’s fury, this may be good news.

While nearly three-quarters of the country is expected to experience near or below average precipitation this winter, significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone. Residents of Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states can expect some a major snowfall in mid-February, with possible blizzard conditions in New England.

“People on the coasts shouldn’t think they’re off the hook just because we’re predicting milder winter weather for them. Shovelry is most certainly not dead,” Geiger says.   

The 2010 edition of the Farmers’ Almanac offers more than just the publication’s famous long-range weather forecasts, though. It also contains invaluable tips on how to save money and energy, plus practical ways to live a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle. The 2010 Farmers’ Almanac is filled with more thrifty and smart living advice than ever before, with articles on the economics of going green, the dirt on fighting germs naturally, tips on reusing household items, and reducing our dependency on convenience items.

There are also dozens of pages of practical home and garden advice, including proven tips on stretching your meal budget, easy instructions for canning fresh fruits and vegetables for the winter, a list of the top five easiest vegetables to grow, a list of steps to take now for a better garden next spring, as well as the Farmers’ Almanac’s beloved calendar of Best Days to quit smoking, find a new job and more, the exclusive Gardening by the Moon Calendar, and valuable outdoor advice, including average frost and peak foliage dates, and tips for safe hunting and fishing.

Weather is the most talked about subject on earth, which makes the 2010 Farmers’ Almanac weather predictions a hot topic. Fans of the Almanac say its famous long-range forecast is accurate between 80 and 85 percent of the time. The predictions are based on mathematical and astronomical formula that dates back to 1818, and each new edition contains 16 months of weather forecasts for the contiguous United States.

The 2010 Farmers’ Almanac retails for $5.99 in stores everywhere and online. I keep copies of the Farmers’ Almanac handy … both at work and on the farm. I consult its pages for everything from when to plant my potatoes to the best days to go fishing. If you don’t yet have your copy of the 2010 Farmers’ Almanac, you quite simply aren’t prepared.

I’ve been a fan of propane-powered internal combustion engines ever since I saw how clean the inside of an old propane International Harvester tractor’s engine was when a friend had one apart in his shop. So imagine my delight when I learned that one of my least favorite (due to noise and exhaust) tools to use, the 2-cycle string trimmer, was finally available with a quiet propane-fueled 4-stroke engine on it. Imagine also my surprise when I learned that this new machine was built by a company I had never heard of before – LEHR Incorporated.

 LEHR is the brainchild of Captain Bernardo J. Herzer who spent many a long night converting gasoline engines to run on propane, while cruising the North Sea aboard the vessel Sea Surveyor. Captain Herzer is committed to the application of environmentally friendly technology and finding green energy solutions for retail and commercial products. LEHR products are affordable but definitely not throw away junk.

Over the past couple of months I have been able to spend some quality time with both the curved- and straight-shaft versions of the LEHR Eco Trimmer – thanks to LEHR the string trimmer is no longer my least favorite tool to operate. The LEHR Eco Trimmer is quieter than the 2-cycle versions of the string trimmer that I have experience with and it vibrates less, so my hands don’t buzz for an hour after trimming the road ditch. But the most noticeable and delightful aspect to the LEHR Eco Trimmer is that it emits no smoke and since propane readily combusts to carbon dioxide and water, there isn’t any hydrocarbon smell spewing at you either. And come to think of it, fueling the LEHR is as easy as strapping in a propane canister and attaching the fuel line. Only a very small amount of propane escaped during the process that I never even smelled it – try that while mixing and pouring 2-cycle engine fuel.

Make no mistake the LEHR Eco Trimmer is a heavy duty unit that’s capable of motoring its way through heavy grass and the 40 or 50 species of coarse-stemmed weeds that grow along the corral fence at my farm.  The trimming will be easier for me next time because with the LEHR Eco Trimmer I am much more likely to actually stay on top of the job rather than avoiding it, which I did with the 2-cycle trimmer that’s hanging in my barn. I prefer the LEHR Eco Trimmer because of the lower impact it makes on my immediate environment while operating it. The machine is quiet and not smelly. But as it turns out, the LEHR Eco Trimmer is easier on the broader environment too. And I don’t care what you think about climate change, where’s the harm in helping keep hydrocarbon vapors and other nasty stuff out of the air and soil?

If you are tired of smelling like an oily smoke bomb and tired of having your hands vibrate and tired of mixing gas, then you most definitely want to check out the LEHR Eco Trimmer. You can find them online and at some lawn and garden centers. You can also get a Craftsman-Branded LEHR Eco Trimmer at your local Sears outlet. Go for it and we’ll all get to breathe a little easier.

Sometimes in life you react to a situation in a certain way because you instinctively know what you need to do, even if you don’t like it. I had one of those experiences at the farm last night. I was enjoying the lingering light of late dusk, sitting in my favorite lawn chair and having a phone conversation with a friend. Gus and Clover, my trusty Border Collies, were unusually attentive and quiet. In fact, they were asleep, more or less at my feet.

I noticed a bit of commotion coming from the sheep paddock but didn’t think too much about it until the female coyote came into view, pacing along the outside of my “new” sheep fence. And then I saw another and then one more, and sure enough there was a fourth inside the fence. Gus and Clover have been great at running off the wild canines – at least when they are so close to the barn, but for some reason they weren’t on task last night. The donkeys are also heck on wild dogs – they were bedded down in the corral on the other side of the barn.

iStockPhoto.com Tony Campbell

I take my role as animal husband quite seriously; part of that responsibility includes protecting the flocks from predators. I appreciate predators, especially opportunists like coyotes. I am particularly fond of coyotes because of their song, the social structure they adhere to, and because they have been so willing and able to adapt to virtually every move humans make to destroy their habitat or to eradicate them. I find no joy in killing coyotes.

Without so much as a second thought, I excused myself from the telephone and grabbed the .270 and a handful of rounds. Four shots and, just a few minutes later, it was over. Gus and Clover were hiding in the barn, the sheep, hogs and chickens were safe, and I was swept with the remorse that you can only feel when you waste a life. I wondered whether I mightn’t have somehow deterred that coyote mom and her three pups. Intellectually, I know the answer to that question is a resounding no. She was teaching her babies to live out their genetic destiny, and they all got caught in the crossfire of my animal husbandry.

Had I not been enjoying the evening outside, the scene would have played out much differently. And come morning, I would have felt the terrible remorse of having failed in my animal husbandly duties.

I was thrilled to take a look at Gene Logsdon’s updated 2009 edition of an old favorite of mine, Small Scale Grain Raising. Now in its second edition, the book is even more apropos today than the first edition was in 1977, when I was a budding young agriculturist. I devoured the first edition in the lab between analytical chemistry procedures and dreamed of growing all kinds of grains on a small-scale level. When I obtained a copy of the second edition, which was released last April, I devoured it in five evenings, between chores and bedtime. Actually it kept me up late one night – apologies to the GRIT staff for my fatigue the other day.

Small Scale Grain Raising is a stellar work that will inspire gardeners, farmers, dreamers and just about anyone else who cares about good food, good flavors and asking questions. Most small-scale agriculturists and gardeners never even consider adding grains other than corn (maize) to their crop rotation. This is in part because producing small grains like wheat and barley, or even pseudo-grains like buckwheat, is considered to be an arduous task at best that requires seed drills and combines to accomplish. Heck, the capital outlay for equipment is enough to turn off even medium-sized farmers who are tapped into the corn-soybean rotation. But it doesn’t have to be so. And Logsdon shows you how to make it happen on a backyard scale. Did you know that you can grow sufficient grains to feed your family and many of your animals all year on less than an acre of land with just a few hand tools?

Logsdon’s out of the box approach to farming is as fresh and informed today as ever before. He has bothered to ask, and answer, many of the questions that paralyze gardeners and farmers when faced with the expense of some conventionally recommended production practice. And he does all of this, while respecting and understanding how those recommended practices came into being.  The book is filled with anecdotes, advice, stories of success and failure – all steeped in the author’s delightfully wry sense of humor.

Worried about what to do with all that backyard grain when harvest season rolls around? All you need to know about cutting, curing, threshing, cleaning, hulling and eating grains is laid out on the pages of Small Scale Grain Raising. I recommend that you pick up a copy today. Who knows, you may start a small-scale grain project of your own, or perhaps you can convince your favorite market farmer to put out a spelt crop for you next year. In any case, you will be a lot smarter about all things agriculture if you spend any time with the wisdom-filled pages of Gene Logsdon’s Small Scale Grain Raising.

The folks at the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame plan a grand opening for the National Poultry Museum tomorrow at 10 AM.  The National Poultry Museum is located  in Bonner Springs, Kansas on the grounds of the Agricultural Hall of Fame near Kansas City. If you are in the area, you won’t want to miss the grand opening.

The National Poultry Museum is an endeavor more than 15 years in the making.  The initial exhibits of the National Poultry Museum were unveiled in 1994 upon completion of a Hatchery Building within FarmTown USA  -- an early 1900's farm town constructed on the grounds of the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame.  Since 1994, the focus has been on raising the funds necessary for additional exhibits, gathering artifacts and determining how to tell the rich and intriguing story of poultry -- come explore the "Evolution of an Industry."

If you aren’t able to make the National Poultry Museum’s grand opening, plan to stop by for a visit the next time you are passing through Kansas City. And while you are there, you can check out all kinds of antique farm machinery, homestead tools and learn about the many individuals who helped shape and continue to shape agriculture in the United States.

For directions to the National Agricultural Hall of Fame, click here.

Avian coccidiosis plagues poultry producers large and small costing an estimated $1.2 billion in losses every year. The pesky disease is caused by infection with the avian parasite Eimeria maxima. And since this parasite rapidly evolves to stay at least a half a step ahead of vaccines, scientists at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have embarked on a quest to fight the disease through boosting chicken immune systems. This is a refreshing development in our “throw the next drug at it” culture where we expect to substitute chemistry for the much harder work of promoting animal health more holistically.

According to a recent ARS report, scientists discovered that chickens reared in confinement shed many fewer oocytes (eggs) of Eimeria maxima when they were fed ground green tea for two weeks before they were challenged with the parasite in question. Similar results were discovered when Pediococcus-based probiotics and yeast-based probiotics were in the feed. What’s significant about these findings is that they suggest that probiotics can significantly reduce the spread of coccidiosis through the flock. Incidentally, these tea and other probiotic eating chickens gained more weight and had increased levels of immune-boosting cytokines in their systems than the control group too.

Hops, plum powder, safflower and a few other phytonutrients have also been shown to boost chicken immune systems and are linked to reduced levels of Salmonella infection and even reduced incidence of some kinds of chicken tumor growth. It feels like we’re reinventing the wheel by looking beyond the “magic bullet” approach to animal health and now admitting that dietary diversity is important after all. Who would have thought that trying to create an artificial chicken ration to feed chickens in crowded conditions might not be the best way to prevent disease?

Perhaps all those free-range chicken folks are on to something, but even if you can’t raise your birds on grass, you can at the very least bring a variety of plant material to them … and you can add a little green tea or plum powder to their ration to boot.

Read more about probiotics and chickens here.

Massey Ferguson just announced a plan to promote its new MF 1600 Series lineup by giving away a brand new Model 1635 compact tractor to a lucky sweepstakes entrant. This program, which the company calls the “cloud 10” sweepstakes is easy to enter by mail or online. The giveaway was launched yesterday and will run through June 30, 2009.

“We are excited to offer our customers the chance to win one of the new Massey Ferguson 1600 Series compact tractors,” says Steve Barcuch, Massey Ferguson product marketing manager. “This new series of compact tractors was designed to raise the bar across the entire product class. The tractor is the ultimate combination of function and fun – a tractor that enhances the joy in the work.”

Power under the hood of the MF1635 is delivered by an efficient Iseki 3-cylinder liquid-cooled diesel engine with clean-air technology that meets Tier IV interim emission standards. Two easy-as-driving-your-car transmission choices include the 12 x 12 PowerShuttle and a three-range hydrostatic transmission to match the customer’s needs for economy, durability, power and agility. Heavy-duty cast-iron housings and oil-encased bevel gears mean smoother operation and longer life.

Making the tractor the most comfortable in its class are a noticeably larger operator’s area; form-hugging, standard deluxe spring-suspension seat; standard large armrests; and a platform which rests on rubber isolation mounts to minimize vibration at the operator’s level.

Redesigned, right-hand fender-mounted implement controls reduce operator back and arm fatigue by having the controls right where operators need them. Owners will enjoy the uncluttered layout, color-coded controls and easy-to-read gauges. And the wide-open platform makes getting on and off the tractor a breeze.

The ‘Cloud 10’ sweepstakes is open to legal residents of the 48 contiguous United States and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 years of age or older. Canada residents must be over age of majority and skills test applies. For official contest rules, visit www.masseyferguson.com/cloudten.

How many times have you bitten into a succulent plum only to have the experience soured by having to grapple with a clingy little plum pit – or worse yet, chomped down on that pit. Evidently, a few Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have done just that, sufficiently often enough to want to figure out how to take the pit out of the plum.

In an article published in the April issue of Agricultural Research magazine, Sharon Durham reports that ARS scientists have made significant progress in identifying and understanding the genes that control pit formation in plums, which is the first step in a project to develop pitless varieties of the anti-oxidant-rich fruit.

Durham writes that ARS molecular biologists Chris Dardick and Ann Callahan and Prunus breeder Ralph Scorza at the ARS Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, W.Va., discovered a set of lignin-production controlling genes that is turned on specifically in pit tissue, but not the flesh or skin, just before hardening of the stone. The genes are then quieted shortly after the pit hardens.

The idea of pitless fruits is not new. In the early 1900s, Luther Burbank, a legendary horticulturalist, crossed a partially stoneless wild plum with California French prune varieties. These crosses led to commercial-quality fruit that almost completely lacked the stone, but still contained the seed. In the current study, scientists used samples of Burbank's crosses in their work.

If they are successful with creating a palatable stoneless plum, growers and consumers should see stoneless cherries, peaches and apricots in the future as well. And since the research project is shedding new light on lignin genetics and biosynthesis, the results will likely make significant contributions to biofuels and forestry sectors as well. This is exciting stuff.

Photo by Mark Demuth

They’ve been five years in the making and cost millions of dollars to develop. I am not talking about the latest in hybrid automobile technology I am talking about Massey Ferguson’s new 1600 series compact tractors.  Intended to replace Massey Ferguson’s venerable 1500 series machines, The 1600-series tractors aren’t just a cosmetic upgrade. “Every nut, every bolt, every nuance of this new generation compact is the result of one pivotal factor — our relentless dedication to understanding what our customers want,” says Steve Barcuch, Product Marketing Manager for compact tractors.

The new 1600 series includes six models from 35 to 60 gross engine horsepower, all feature steel and cast iron construction, 4-wheel drive, a choice of four transmissions, plus rear and mid PTOs. With sleek new styling and 22 different configurations, all with a factory-installed cab option, the 1600 Series meets the most discriminating personal taste and has the ability to handle any virtually job.

1600 series compact tractors are powered with efficient Iseki 3- or 4-cylinder liquid-cooled diesel engines that easily meet Tier IV interim emission standards. Four transmission choices include the 8 x 8 SynchroShuttle, the 12 x 12 SynchroShuttle, 12 x 12 DynaQPS™ and a three-range hydrostatic transmission to match the operator’s needs for economy, durability, power and agility. Heavy-duty cast-iron housings and oil-encased bevel gears mean smoother operation and longer life. These tractors are the real deal.

Operator amenities specific to the 1600 series tractors include form-hugging, standard deluxe spring-suspension seat; standard armrests; and a platform which rests on rubber isolation mounts to minimize vibration. A molded rubber floor mat covers the entire platform and provides additional cushioning. Redesigned, right-hand fender-mounted implement controls are located to reduce operator back and arm fatigue and the wide-open platform makes getting on and off the tractor a breeze.

To learn more about the specific 1600 series models, visit your local Massey Ferguson dealer or simply click here.

I haven’t yet operated one of the 1600 series tractors, but I plan to this summer.

Getting the tough work completed in backyards, barns and animal or hay lots just got easier with the new Bobcat T110 compact track loader. The T110 is the seventh compact track loader available from Bobcat and at only 47-inches wide the machine can squeeze through narrow gates and get into stalls with ease. But with its incredible flotation and traction this little loader is able to push, pull, dig and do just about every other task you would ask of a much larger loader, and it is comfortable powering all kinds of non-digging kinds of attachments.

Bobcat offers 26 attachments for the T110, including hydraulic breakers for demolishing concrete or asphalt; pallet forks for fertilizer and seed; soil conditioners and tillers for preparing garden beds; augers for planting trees and installing fence posts; snowblowers for clearing snow; and trenchers for installing utility or irrigation lines. And to top it off, the T110 comes standard with Bobcat’s Bob-Tach mounting system and 12.5 gallons-per-minute auxiliary hydraulic flow to make sure those attachments go on and off easy and have plenty of power to get the work done.

This 5200 pound, nearly 42 horsepower machine is no toy, but it is sized to be a perfect partner around the farm or acreage. Check the T110 out at a Bobcat dealer near you.

Andy G. Schneider, the national radio personality known as the Chicken Whisperer plans to give away 500 baby chicks on Saturday, April 11^th starting at 8:00 AM at the Greenwoods on Green Street restaurant in Roswell, Georgia, located at 1087 Green Street 30075. The Chicken Whisperer’s plan is to promote the keeping of backyard poultry and to get folks thinking about growing more of their own food with this “Chicken Stimulus Package.”

Schneider, host of the nationally broadcast radio show Backyard Poultry with the Chicken Whisperer, and his station manager at Radio Sandy Springs came up with the idea after the city of Roswell went after one of its citizens for keeping pet chickens in his backyard. According to Schneider, the big chicken give away has the support of citizens and former lawmakers alike.

All baby chicks have been donated by hatcheries across America.  Only two chicks will be given away to each family and they will come with a starter bag of feed, care instructions, and a map to North Fulton Feed and Seed in Alpharetta where they can pick up additional supplies. “This is our very own small economic stimulus package for the people of Atlanta,” the Chicken Whisperer says. “In the middle of layoffs, foreclosures, and a poor economy we want to teach people how to become a little more self-sufficient, and keeping backyard pet poultry is a good start.”

 As a huge fan of backyard poultry, I am pleased to see that the Chicken Whisperer has been able to put the chicken feed right where the municipal beak is … so-to-speak. With any luck at all, the Chicken Stimulus Package will stimulate local lawmakers to rethink the whole topic of backyard poultry in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Folks, it’s time to take back your right to produce clean safe food … and to keep chickens as pets, of course.

Award winning environmental author, Richard Manning says we can reduce water pollution, increase soil-water percolation, decrease flooding, decrease soil erosion and sequester millions of tons of carbon each year by switching from a corn-based animal protein finishing system to one that lets animals harvest their own food from a perennial pasture. And to top it off, we can do all of that and make more money to boot.

In a recent article published in Mother Earth News magazine, Manning makes the claim that farmers and ranchers can produce the same amounts of animal protein using perennial pasture as they currently do using the industrialized feedlot finishing model, if a proportion of corn acres are restored to some semblance of native grassland. We can save the environment and produce much healthier meat at the same time.

I have been a proponent of meat production models that take advantage of the animals’ natural abilities for decades, so grass finished meat is a no-brainer to me. Animals raised and finished on pasture live a much better and healthier life, aren’t prone to becoming obese, and are more able to fulfill their genetic destiny. Healthy and happy animals produce healthy meat. I don’t care what any industry pundit says … fresh grass-finished beef is better for you than box-store meat that’s been injected with “flavor enhancers.”

As a child and student of the prairie, I am also thrilled that Manning makes the point that perennial grasslands, in conjunction with large herds of grazing animals, are precisely what built the fertile, farmable soils that we grow most of our corn and soybeans on in the first place. Plowing a prairie or pasture releases incomprehensible amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere … and over time, the once fertile soil is depleted to the extent that it is little more than a medium for planting seed that will be nurtured with artificial fertilizers. It’s time to pay attention to how prairie soils were made and to use that knowledge to pull carbon back out of the atmosphere.

It’s not only about carbon and the air, however. It’s also about clean water and flooding Many folks don’t realize that water runoff percentages from tilled fields are surprisingly close to those from paved parking lots. If water was air, then perennial grasslands would be the lungs that pull that air back into the earth. Soils high in organic matter (exactly the kinds of soils that develop beneath perennial pastureland and prairie) have excellent water filtering abilities and sponge-like water storage capacities. You only have to look at a lush green stand of Kansas Big Bluestem in August to know that there is plenty of water down there … even though it hasn’t rained for a month.

I don’t suggest that all farmland should be converted back to perennial grasslands, but I am pleased that Manning challenges conventional agriculture and conventional environmentalism to rethink the role that animals might play in creating a healthier and safer food supply and a healthier and more sustainable environment. There is no magic bullet for these global problems. No single lifestyle change, no single food production model, no amount of legislation will fix the messes we have made. I believe that integrated solutions achieved with balanced thought will keep us keeping on ... not anti-intellectual zealotism, no matter how empassioned.

Manning’s analysis points to the importance of open-mindedness to the process. So let’s remove the single-issue blinders and face the true complexity of our environmental and food issues. I know we can do it.

With the hubbub surrounding the honey bee’s plight, folks are turning to promoting native, wild bees for crop pollination. I say it’s about time. I have nothing against honey bees, and I even like honey on steaming hot cornbread fresh from the cast-iron skillet, but with monoculture of any kind, disaster is always just around the corner. Colony Collapse Disorder, mites, you name it and the non-native honey bee is in a world of hurt. Since so many fruit and vegetable crops depend upon bees for success native bees are finally getting noticed, even though there’s no honey or wax byproduct involved.

One of the principal ways to promote a healthy population of native bees around your place is to offer them places to nest. Nesting spots can be as simple as a bundle of paper drinking straws placed in a strategic location. But it is important to protect those straws from the elements. The corrugated plastic totes used in mail handling are perfect for just that.

Agricultural Research Service scientist James H. Cane says that female wild bees will readily use a properly placed, nicely furnished tote as a shelter for their nests. Turned on their long side, the totes can be held firmly in place on a wooden or metal post by means of a lightweight steel chain and a metal support frame.

Folks who want wild bees to live near and work in their fields, gardens and orchards, can use the totes to house nesting materials. Wild female bees like the blue orchard bee, Osmia lignaria (see photo), can use the straws as homes for a new generation of pollinators. A single tote can accommodate as many as 3000 young, which would be sufficient to pollinate an orchard up to about an acre in size.

Read more about this discovery here.

Photo courtesy ARS: Jack Dykinga

Erin, my eldest daughter and I are more likely to pay one another visits on the comment pages of this blog, than in person. It isn’t ideal, but yet another way that we keep some connection going. Imagine my excitement when Erin, who is between quarters in the Social Service Administration Master’s program at the University of Chicago, called to say she would like to come to the farm to wind down for a few days.

To say that I was excited would be an understatement, but suffice it to say that Erin jumped in her VW early yesterday morning and arrived at the farm around 5 PM. We had a wonderful visit and supper that consisted of smoked beef brisket and banana cake. I had been working on wiring the new shop all day so I fell asleep early; her arrival was an awesome ending to a productive day.

I know the dogs and other animals are tickled to have Erin around too. Valentine and Jack, our donkeys are especially pleased with the peppermints she feeds them. I look forward to another couple of nights of visiting and at least one lunch date too. And hopefully, we will get her car into the barn before the hail hits (if it hits) later this afternoon. I’d hate to send her home with a dimpled reminder of her most recent visit.

This year’s vernal equinox came and went while I was driving to work this morning. In fact, I was just passing the Carbondale, Kansas exit on U.S. 75 when the clock hit 6:44 AM CT… the official Vernal Equinox time for the Northern Hemisphere. Although I didn’t witness it, what really happened is that the sun was, for a split second, shining directly over the equator somewhere. And for those many of us who care, it is now officially spring.

Most folks think that the vernal equinox is a time when day and night are of equal lengths. And they are mostly right, but actual day length depends on where on earth you are located and in actuality the true period of equal day and night length occurs before the vernal equinox … but hey, when it comes to seasonal changes, who really cares about that kind of precision.

I look forward to the vernal equinox each year because it tells me that winter is passing. I was raised, and lived most of my life in places far more northerly than Kansas, so getting on with spring was a relief I anticipated for months.

As I walked the farm last evening, thinking about the impending vernal equinox, I couldn’t help but marvel at the new life all around me. From the cool-season grasses to the meadow daisies to the clovers, I could see that the prairie was coming back to life. Songbirds, birds of prey, wild turkey and bobwhite seemed to be celebrating. Even some of the most cautious of trees couldn’t help but pump enough sap create a glorious bud swell; the more optimistic species have already popped tender young leaves.

I know spring will come again next year, and the year after that. But to me this season is still nothing short of a lovely miracle.

Some time ago, the good folks at FURminator Inc. sent me a little care package containing one of their deShedding Tools, a bottle of deShedding Shampoo and a package of deShedding Dog Treats. I was thrilled because we have six dogs at the farm and they are constantly in need of grooming. In fact, the need for routine grooming is so great that it sometimes just doesn’t happen … imagine a West Highland white terrier that is a greenish-brown that’s not just reminiscent of the color of a fresh steaming pile of ….

Anyway, we have put all three of the products through their paces this mud season and all of us are pleased with the results. First of all, the deShedding Tool is one of the few combs or brushes that our canine crew universally tolerates. And while most of our dogs don’t tend to shed out in clumps, the deShedding Tool has definitely decreased the amount of dog hair flying around the house. I particularly like the deShedding Tool because I can use it to remove some of the caked-on mud and tangled debris with no protest from the dogs.

Of course, good farm dogs know how to devour treats of all kinds. All six of ours love the deShedding Dog Treats, although I can’t say for sure that there is any difference in their coats so far. I know that the anticipation of receiving a deShedding Dog Treat is motivation to jump in my lap for a good working over with the deShedding Tool. Even Gus, our super-sensitive, lean, 50-pound border collie tolerates the tool when a treat is involved … my lap doesn’t totally love that.

Iris, our youngest Westie has been rolling in cow pies so regularly the past couple of weeks that we know she really loves the deShedding Shampoo. We used the entire bottle on her … she was white again last night, but I know she is already green today.

If you struggle with indoor dogs and/or cats that shed, I can’t recommend the deShedding Tool from FURminator highly enough. If you have farm dogs and like to keep them looking somewhat civilized, the deShedding Tool makes grooming easy and a lot more fun.

I believe that spring has arrived at my Osage, County Kansas farm. I walked the perimeter and ponds last evening when I got home from work. It was breezy, but not uncomfortably so. It took me a few minutes to notice, but it became quite clear when I crossed the big grassy waterway, that my walk was accompanied by a chorus of frogs singing their little hearts out, seemingly in celebration of spring. To be quite honest, I don’t know whether it is the frogs or the toads … but I am writing about frogs today.

My farm is blessed with a large and healthy population of frogs. We have bullfrogs in the draw pond and plains leopard frogs practically everywhere. They say we have crawfish frogs too, but I haven’t seen any that I know of. And then there are the gray tree frogs that appear from time to time, most usually on the ribs of the umbrella that shades the picnic table on the patio.  

I can’t tell you which frogs accompanied me on my walk last evening, but I can tell you that there is no sound quite like the sound of courting frogs to let you know that spring has finally come.

Leopard Frog: iStockphoto: Creative Imagery

Bullfrog: iStockphoto: brm1949

Gray Tree Frog: iStockphoto: Cathy Keifer

I was disappointed to miss the event, but on January 26, 2009, more than 90 food professionals, chefs, food writers, and food connoisseurs converged at Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, VA, to participate in a blind-tasting which compared pork from eight rare heritage hog breeds and one commercially line.

This so-called Pig Pageant was sponsored by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Humane Farm Animal Care, Slow Food U.S.A. , and Ayrshire Farm, an eclectic group of organizations and individuals committed to saving heritage genetics, promoting a saner animal production paradigm and bringing flavor back to the table.

The pig breeds in question evolved to fit various regional and farming practices and some are known for producing plenty of lard, while others are naturally lean. For example, the Tamworth is a lean grazing pig shaped to produce plenty of bacon, while the Ossabaw Island is a feral breed that stores large amounts of fat for winter survival.

 Once the results were tallied, the Mulefoot was on top, but with the exception of the Large Black, all heritage hogs out tasted the commercial breed. The specific results were as follows:

1. Mulefoot

2. Gloucestershire Old Spot

3. Red Wattle

4. In a tie: Tamworth and Guinea

5. Hereford

6. In a tie: Ossabaw Island and commercial

7. Large Black

According to Ayrshire Farm’s Large Livestock Manager, Don Schrider, this event was the largest comparison of pork breeds in North America to date and it successfully demonstrated that each of the breeds is valuable for the unique culinary experience it offers.

Special thanks go out to the farms that supplied the meat. If you are in the market for some awesome pork, or foundation herd stock for a swine project of your own, be sure to check out what these folks have to offer.

Tamworth – Cove Branch Farm, Charles and Marilyn Barnes, New Castle, VA

Red Wattle – Sloans Creek Farm, Nathan and Ellen Melson, Dodd City, TX

Ossabaw Island – Marle Hill Farm, Byron and Ruth Childress, Manquin, VA

Mulefoot – Maveric Heritage Ranch Company, LLC, Arie McFarlen and Bret Kortie, Dell Rapids, SD

Large Black – Cabbage Hill Farm, Nancy and Jerry Kohlberg, Mount Kisco, NY

Hereford  – Whitmore Farm, Will Morrow, Emmitsburg, MD

Guinea Hog – Maveric Heritage Ranch Company, LLC, Arie McFarlen and Bret Kortie, Dell Rapids, SD

Gloucestershire Old Spots – Ayrshire Farm, Upperville, VA

This makes me ever more eager to get our Mulefoot pig production model up to speed.

Read more about our Mulefoot pigs here.

I am a big fan of Swisher’s QuickSwitch ATV attachment system and have used it on the Polaris Sportsman 500 ATV with everything from a front bucket to snow plow to rear grader blade. The QuickSwitch system makes it easy to change ATV implements and helps you get the most from your ATV. The newest of QuickSwitch-compatible attachments is the Grappler – a grapple fork that’s designed to take hold of awkward cargo such as fence posts, logs, rocks and various kinds of tangled debris.  

The Grappler lists for about $390 and features bolt-together construction to save on shipping costs. The attachment can be used on either the front or rear of the ATV and requires a winch and fairlead for operation.

I haven’t had a chance to mess with the Grappler yet, but considering the value we have received with other Swisher QuickSwitch attachments, I have no doubt that the Grappler is another winner. Look for the Grappler, QuickSwitch and other ATV attachments at a dealer near you.

I am heading up the road as you read this. With any luck, I will post my blog tomorrow from the surface of some frozen lake … if I get a decent wireless connection and don’t fall through the ice that is. If I don’t make it tomorrow, stay tuned for the full road-trip report on Monday.

I have been a fan of Duluth Trading Company’s products for many years and I’ve never felt I didn’t get more than my money’s worth with any Duluth products. However, the company has thrown down the gauntlet on their recently torture-tested Fire Hose® work pants. Put simply, they challenge us to put the pants through their paces – and if we rip, tear, or fray them, or are for any reason not satisfied with them, the folks at Duluth Trading will send us another pair, no questions asked. 

Put in specific corporate language: “If your Duluth Trading Fire Hose Work Pants ever let you down, fray, tear, rip or give out, send them back to us. No questions asked, we’ll send you a brand spankin’ new pair, and the shipping’s on us.”

Wow eh? Duluth is willing to publicize this offer because they sell one of the toughest, if not the toughest line of work clothes around. And just to be sure, the company had their Fire Hose® material tested. After extensive analysis, an independent lab discovered that Duluth’s Fire Hose® Work Pants in a 10.9 oz. fabric weight, deliver tearing strength and abrasion resistance that’s a cut above top workwear brands. Ounce for ounce, the Duluth Fire Hose® Work Pants lasted three times longer than any other work pant tested.

Get your own pair of Fire Hose® Work Pants today and see if you can work them hard enough to honestly deserve a replacement pair. I know I am going to give it a shot.

For the record, I am wearing a Duluth Trading Co. shirt, belt and boots here at the office today.

Just when you think the only biofuel source will come from conventional farming with conventional crops, the scientists at the USDA’s ARS discover something new and interesting. This time the plant in question is a shrub called Guayule (pronounced why-YOU-lee) and it is native to the American Southwest. This desert shrub produces high quality latex that lacks the proteins associated with most latex allergies and the material that remains after extracting latex contains about the same amount of energy as a similar quantity of charcoal.

The medical industry is excited about guayule’s latex because it is of sufficient quality to produce premium gloves, tubing, sheets and other products that when produced from the rubber tree can cause deadly allergic reactions in some patients. What’s even cooler about this latex source is that it is extracted with water, which puts less strain on the environment than organic-solvent-dependent processes.

Once the latex is gone, the remaining sawdust-like plant material (called bagasse) could be burned directly, but it also shows excellent potential as a source of ethanol, bio-oil and synthetic gas.

Guayule is a perennial, so it need be planted only once for many years of harvest. According to ARS scientists, the plant requires no herbicide once it is established and isn’t susceptible to any significant insect, fungal or bacterial pests. The branches can be harvested as soon as two years after planting under ideal conditions. And guayule can be re-harvested every year and a half thereafter. Now that’s exciting.

I don’t think that guayule is any panacea, but it is an interesting desert shrub that’s easy and ecologically inexpensive to grow. Guayule could be part of a global solution in the long term.

Read more about guayule here.  

Photos courtesy ARS: Top photo by Jack Dykinga; bottom photo by Peggy Greb.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have discovered that some of the most cherished saltwater fish species can be raised from eggs to market size hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the ocean, or any body of saltwater for that matter. The two saltwater fish species in question, pompano and cobia, are among the most aggressively sought culinary delights in the restaurant business and natural populations run the risk of damage due to over fishing.

Using an energy and environmentally sparing re-circulating aquaculture system (RAS) ARS scientists have shown that it is possible to rear market-quality fish in water that is less than 20 percent the salinity of seawater. Compared with other sea-side salt-water fish farming methods that pump millions of gallons of seawater through rearing pens each year, the RAS method reuses most of the water more or less indefinitely and produces minimal daily wastewater (about 3 percent of the total gallons circulated through the system.

Although the RAS method of farming saltwater fish is still experimental, the possibility of setting up such an operation on acreages around the country appeals to me. Perhaps I will be a Kansas cobia farmer someday. Read more about this interesting new development here.

Photos by Stephen Ausmus – courtesy ARS.

The folks at KIOTI Tractor, a division of Daedong Industrial Co., Ltd, now offer a pair of new cab tractors to the North American market. . The DK50SE HST  and the DK35SE HST Cab bring the number of tractors in KIOTI’s popular DKSE Series up to 6 models that range from 35 – 49 horsepower.  These new tractors bring comfort and performance to KIOTI's extensive tractor lineup.

The brand new KIOTI DK50SE HST 49 horsepower tractor boasts a Tier IV, 4-cylinder, water-cooled diesel engine. A Rear PTO with optional mid-PTO allows users of this mid-range tractor to power a multitude of implements and attachments, making it capable of handling a wide pretty much any chore around the farm or acreage.  The Category I, 3-point hitch further enhances the DK50’s versatility.  “Many users have come to love our DKSE HST tractors for their ease of use and versatility,” says Ron Parrish, Market Development Manager for KIOTI Tractor.  “Anyone who can drive a car can get into the operator’s seat of one of these machines and quickly become comfortable and productive operating it.”

KIOTI’s new DK50SE HST model is available with or without a cab, although the company expects most to be delivered with the cab, which gives buyer’s the luxury of heating or air conditioning and protection from the weather.

Standard features on these new models include: high visibility glass, power steering, front and rear working lights, wet-disc brakes, rear differential lock, joy stick loader control, electronically engaged four wheel drive, electronically engaged PTO with auto and manual positions, an oil cooler and KIOTI’s 4-Year, Full-Fleet Warranty.    

All of the features found in the DK50SE HST are also found on the slightly smaller KIOTI DK35SE HST, 38 horsepower model.  “The success of our DK line in large part is due to all the standard features built into the machines,” says Parrish.  “Many competitive tractor manufacturers offer these same features at an additional cost.  When you purchase a KIOTI, they are part of the package.”

Although I have yet to operate these machines, I did get a chance to look them over and I continue to be impressed with KIOTI’s approach to growing their compact and utility tractor lines. Test-drive these new cab tractors at your local KIOTI dealer this spring.

The March issue of Farm Collector Magazine just resurfaced on my desk; there is something about the Massey-Harris Pony on the cover that makes me smile. It’s true that I am especially partial to International Harvester tractors, but I really like the little Pony because it reminds me of the Farmall Cub. If ever there was a cute tractor, this is it.

Farm Collector is one of my favorite magazines because it honors the people, machinery and companies that coalesced to form the firm foundation of world-wide agriculture. The March issue has a great story on William Galloway and his implement company. Who among old-iron enthusiasts wouldn’t love to own a nicely preserved Galloway tractor or engine?

My favorite story in this issue has to be Loretta Sorensen’s tribute to the Farmall Promenade … a tractor square dancing troupe from Iowa that has entertained thousands of spectators around the country for a decade. The group’s final performance was last August, but you can see a video of their performance art here. I am trying to be partial here, but it is true that Farmall was an IH brand.

The March issue’s centerfold is a facsimile of a breathtaking 1928 Case Plow Co. ad. Wow, what is it about agricultural-ephemera that is so compelling. Although, I will admit that I cannot imagine operating a triple hitch, much less any horse-drawn turning plow, the image is of a place that I would like to see. And it is every bit as worthy of hanging on my wall at home as the few pieces of original art we own.

If you are at all interested in the way things were handled, down on the farm in days gone by, or in learning more about your rich agricultural heritage, check out Farm Collector Magazine. If you hunt around on the Farm Collector website, I suspect you will find a subscription offer that is hard to resist. I say don’t resist … give yourself a treat today.

Bobcat recently released its latest and greatest utility-vehicle/tractor/loader and it drew quite a crowd at the 2009 National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville last week. This diesel-powered machine features four-wheel steering, four-wheel independent suspension and a smart fulltime all wheel drive system that sends power to the wheel(s) with traction. The more I learn about utility vehicles and Toolcats in general, the more I have come to believe that they have a place on the farm.

This Toolcat comes with a front-end loader that’s capable of handling more than 40 Bobcat attachments and many more from other manufacturers. Optional equipment includes a high-flow auxiliary hydraulic system, rear 540-rpm PTO, rear category 1 three-point hitch and much more. With the rear PTO, three-point hitch and the front lift arm, you can use two different attachments on the Toolcat 5610 simultaneously as long as one of the attachments is non-hydraulic. For example, a hydraulic soil conditioner can be mounted on the front while a non-hydraulic hitch-mounted seeder is used on the rear of the machine.

Missing from this highly-capable utility vehicle is a rear cargo box. In its place, the Toolcat 5610 has a pair of  rear compartments capable of carrying up to 50 pounds of load each … located on either side of the engine compartments ventilation grate. Available operator amenities include cab with CD player, heat and air conditioning as well as keyless start and tilt steering wheel.

The Toolcat 5610 was designed for heavy-duty applications around the farm, acreage or jobsite. When equipped with the rear 3-point hitch and PTO, you can expect this workhorse to list at right around $50,000. Intimidating as that sounds, this machine will do most of the work you can accomplish with a small skid loader, compact tractor and utility vehicle.

Test drive the Toolcat 5610 at a Bobcat dealer near you.

Kubota is growing its mid-size tractor lineup with four new models that were released at the 2009 National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville last week. The new releases include the M100X, M110X, M126X and M135X with 97.7, 107.5, 125, and 135 net horsepower engines respectively.  The M135X is Kubota’s most powerful M-Series tractor to date, with a 374 cubic inch, turbocharged direct injection four-cylinder diesel engine that boasts 118 PTO horsepower.

“Increased horsepower and enhanced design elements on these M-Series deluxe mid-size tractors will allow operators to be more efficient during long days in the field,” says Paul Williams, Kubota product manager. “Leading the pack is the new M135X, a deluxe, high performance tractor with advance features at an affordable price.”

Other standard features include a dual-range eight powershift speed transmission (16 total speeds forward and reverse) wide-front tread that provides an overall 70-74 inch tread spacing, making straddling wide windrows in baler applications easier.  Float links have been added to the three-point hitch, which provide lateral floatation for the use of wide implements. To provide for a smooth, comfortable ride on the M135X, especially when equipped with a loader, Kubota offers optional front axle hydraulic suspension with a toggle switch to turn the system on-and-off. These features, combined with the standard radial tires on each M-Series model, provide excellent traction and a quiet ride.

To further enhance the new M-Series designs, Kubota is also introducing two new loaders: the LA1953 and the LA2253.  Each loader is configured with Kubota’s current quick coupler system or, new to these models, is the ISO Euro-coupler system.  The LA1953 is performance matched to the M100X and the M110X and has a lifting capacity of 4299 pounds, while the LA2253 is matched to the M126X and the M135X and has a lifting capacity of 4934 pounds.

If you are in the market for a chore boy in the 100 plus horsepower range, check these new utility tractors out at a Kubota dealer near you.

I made a quick stop at the 2009 National Farm Machinery show on my way to the airport on Saturday. I had a chance to meet with Tammy Wecksler, Massey Ferguson’s marketing communications manager, before the day’s events really got under way. Tammy and I had a marvelous conversation about upcoming Massey compact tractors, the rural lifestyle market and life in general. Stay tuned for more on Massey’s new releases.

The mood at the 2009 National Farm Machinery Show was optimistic. Most folks whose product line serves the rural lifestyle reported no, or minimal, layoffs. Some companies were committed to making adjustments through attrition by not filling vacant positions. Most corporate folks I spoke with had at least one extra hat added to their portfolio of duties, but all were optimistic that the economic pain would ease in the next year or so.

The mood of show goers at the 2009 National Farm Machinery Show was equally optimistic. Hundreds of thousands of people streamed past booths large and small. Orders were up on larger pieces of equipment, and they were holding steady on the machines geared toward the rural lifestyle market. I see this as a sign that when it comes to getting the most out of your property, people are still willing to risk a large purchase in these less-certain economic times.

A few more cautious individuals suggested that the economic-slowdown bull ride was just beginning. Their approach was to hold on for dear life in anticipation of the ride of their lives. I suspect that the reality of our current situation is somewhere between the very optimistic and the pessimistic. Much of any economic crisis boils down to attitude and perception. If the American farmer is any indication, it looks like better times are right around the corner.

My flights took off and landed without a hitch on the way home to Kansas. I was communing with the pigs by 4:30 p.m., just in time for a nice Valentine's Day evening with Kate at the farm.

Wow, this show is huge and plenty of fun. There’s still time for you to come on over to the Louisville Exposition Center … the event runs through tomorrow and ends with the tractor pull of all tractor pulls. I will be heading back to Kansas in the morning though … as much fun as this is, I really like to spend time on the farm.

I was lucky enough to get some time with friend Rodney Miller late yesterday afternoon. Rodney is a rock star of the agricultural equipment world … his title is CEO of McCormick International USA, but he is still an Illinois (and now Georgia) farm boy at heart. Rodney and I share a passion for vintage International Harvester equipment. Check out Rodney’s blog about spending a precious few hours away from the office putting his International 1206 to work in a Georgia county where farm fields are few and far between.

Rodney and I also believe that developing strong relationships with customers is important in life and for the health of any enterprise. It was a joy to watch Rodney greet folks interested in the McCormick tractor line, enthusiastically autographing pieces of literature, T-shirts and other pieces of memorabilia. How often do you find an incredibly busy and successful corporate CEO in the show booth for eight hours a day several days in a row?

I also spent some time with Peggy Horkan and Paul Williams at the Kubota booth. They gave me a tour of some cool new machines … including a big new M-Series farm tractor, a new RTV with a couple of bench seats, hydraulic dump bed and a mess of other very nice features. I will devote future blogs to some of these products individually. As always, it was fun to visit with folks who are so passionate about their products … and their company. With that kind of enthusiasm, it is hard not to get excited about their brand.

The good folks at Kioti introduced me to their brand new DK50 Hydrostat. This dual-pedal-control hydro features a 49-horsepower Daedong diesel powerplant that meets or exceeds current and near-future emissions rules. This largest cab-equipped hydro in the Kioti lineup comes with tilt-wheel, cruise control, stereo, air conditioning, heat and deluxe suspension seat. It’s not a bad place to spend a few hours by any measure … imagine listening to your favorite Bach fugue while knocking down the weeds in the meadow.

Robert Mullett, president of TYM’s Overseas Business, kindly walked me through the TYM tractor lineup and company history. TYM is the second largest tractor maker in South Korea, and they had been supplying tractors OEM to Mahindra and several other makers. A relatively new brand in North America, I expect to see plenty of interest in this bright red lineup, particularly in the compact and subcompact tractor markets.

Well, it is time for me to head back out to the show floor … I need to catch up with the folks at John Deere and Bobcat and … so many machines, so little time.

See you Monday.

I made it to Louisville late yesterday afternoon … the plane literally blew in. Seriously, I haven’t experienced such turbulence on a commercial flight in my entire life. And to make matters even more interesting, the wind has wreaked havoc with the local power grid … electricity comes and goes here at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

In spite of the power issues, folks continue to stream through the doors and past acres of machinery and other must-haves for the farm. I haven’t come close to walking the entire floor yet, but I did stop to visit with the folks at Cub Cadet Yanmar, Land Pride, and New Holland to take a look at some new products suited for smaller operators and acreage owners.

Land Pride has its relatively new All-Purpose Seeder on hand with a brand new small-seed box on it. The small-seed box allows you to sow small seeded clovers along with grass seed … seed tubes from both boxes are metered separately so you can control the relative proportions of various seed types. I am a big fan of Land Pride because their seeders, box scrapers, mowers and rotary tillers have served us so well over the years.

Cub Cadet Yanmar has its new (and now shipping) EX450 tractor and is offering a free bale spear to folks willing to commit to making a deal here at the show. They also have a number of other attachments on hand including a 36-inch-wide-bucket-equipped backhoe, several mowers, tillers and a hydraulic angled front-mount grader blade. I can’t wait to see what Cub Cadet Yanmar introduces next.

The show stealer at New Holland is the Boomer 8N. This retro-classic tractor has generated plenty of interest since the company leaked its presence to the press late last year. According to the product manager, the Boomer 8N will go into production in April and should be in dealer showrooms in May. The tractor’s MSRP should come in with a base of about $29,000 – the tractor at the show lists for $30,500 because of a number of chrome doodads and other options.

Well, I better get this posted and head back out to the show floor. I hope to have more National Farm Machinery Show news for you tomorrow.
 

It's show time in Louisville, and I am minutes away from heading to the airport as I type this. The show in question is the 2009 National Farm Equipment Show (Feb. 11 - 14) which is in its 44th year. This show is the place to look over and learn about the latest and greatest in farm equipment and plenty of other farm related tools, software and other doodads.

I really enjoy attending the National Farm Equipment show because it gives me an opportunity to learn, climb over all kinds of machinery and catch up with old friends. It's also a great place for collecting literature, press kits and photos relating to the latest and greatest from your favorite brands.

I won't make it to the show arena today, but I will be there bright and early tomorrow with cameras and notebook in hand. I won't get my blog posted until later in the day tomorrow, but my goal is to give you a glimpse of what's happening at the National Farm Machinery Show as it is happening.

Stay tuned.

Photo courtesy National Farm Machinery Show (NFMS).

It’s here and more beautiful than ever. No, I am not talking about spring I am talking about Farm Collector Magazine’s 35th Annual Show Directory. Although it feels like spring might be just around the corner, today I am more excited about the beginning of the 2009 antique farm equipment show season.

I can’t say exactly why, but I am fascinated … some would say obsessed with antique and vintage farm equipment … especially tractors from the 1940s through the 1970s. I am also a huge fan of the International Harvester Company and their construction equipment, tractors and light trucks … I am so obsessed that I have written books about Harvester and some of its equipment lines.

Anyway, back to the 35^th Annual Show Directory. This book is your guide to hundreds and hundreds of antique equipment shows, threshing bees, horse pulls, you name it … in just about every state and province in North America. I keep one copy of the book in my truck and one at home. I like to stop at shows as I travel around, so keeping the Show Directory in my truck means that no matter where I am going, I can find some show to visit between here and there.  I expect to take in a few shows this summer … probably in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

If you have never been to a tractor show or plow day, now is your chance. Get your own copy of the 35^th Annual Show Directory and plan a fantastic family outing or 100 in 2009. For those grandparents among you, I know you have a grandson or granddaughter who would relish a chance to see how things were done in the “olden” days.

You can order your copy of Farm Collector Magazine’s 35th Annual Show Directory here.

The common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) has a knack for falling into and out of favor, depending on which way the wind blows its tufted seed.  Naturalists and butterfly gardeners sing the milky-sapped weed's praises because it's the food source for the monarch butterfly's larva. During the Second World War, Japan controlled the silk-cotton tree's (Ceiba pentandra) principal growing regions ... the fibers (kapok) obtained from this tree were used to stuff life preservers. Since milkweed also produces a hollow, wax-coated, flexible fiber it was considered to be an excellent substitute for kapok. A pound of milkweed floss could keep 100 pounds of sailor afloat for about 10 hours. So valuable was the milkweed floss that there was a national drive to collect milkweed pods at centralized processing centers ... by some estimates, more than 25 million pounds of pods were collected and processed in 1944 and 1945. Milkweed is still grown and its fiber is used to stuff pillows and for insulation in clothing.

Shortly after the war, the tap-rooted milkweed became the bane of many a farmer's existence. Although the weed doesn't generally appear on any noxious weed lists, it can be problematic with some kinds of row crop cultivation. It seems funny how a native plant species can become a weed ... it all depends on your point of view.

Today, common milkweed is about to be born again. It seems that this hardy plant's seeds are full of unsaturated oils that according to researchers at the ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research can be used as a base material for sunscreen, cosmetics and skin- and hair-care products, including moisturizers and conditioners.  Getting the oils to be effective UV absorbers requires zinc chloride catalysis of the milkweed oil's triglycerides into cinamic acid drivatives.

In tests at the center's New Crops and Processing Technology Research Unit, the cinamic acid derivatives absorbed UV light with skin-damaging wavelengths from 260 to 360 nanometers -- and they worked at concentrations far below those approved for chemical additives and fillers used in today's sun blockers.  

But that's not all. Common milkweed oil might be useful for other industrial applications such as paint and epoxy manufacturing.

I am excited to see common milkweed once again in the limelight as more than a butterfly food and lovely wild flower. I am not excited by the prospect of some large chemical company trying to genetically engineer this well adapted wild plant to produce more oil. However, the entire story begs the question of when a weed is really a weed.

Photo: iStock; Tim Messick

I admit to being more than a little disappointed that Siegers Seed Co. is already playing hardball over its claim to own exclusive rights to the wart trait in cucurbits. The company evidently sent a threatening letter to Rupp Seed Company on January 12^th warning that they would seek damages if Rupp didn’t cease any and all marketing, development and sales efforts at this time … once Siegers’ patent on warts was approved.

The problem with patent pending in this case is that Siegers seems to have figured out a way to own a common cucurbit gene for several years, at the very least, by tying it up in what appears to be a bogus patent application. So even if it turns out that the patent is not awarded, by the time all of the appeals and the like are completed, Siegers can threaten other companies with action, while selling wart-gene containing seeds exclusively until the case is finally settled.

Here are some facts about cucurbit warts:

1. The warted gourds were considered to be a "race" of Cucurbita pepo already in 1786.

2. Warted pumpkins 'Nantucket' and 'Brazilian Sugar' were described by numerous authors in the 19^th century. According to Harry Paris, cucurbit expert and author, Bailey’s (1902) Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, pp. 1711–1713, has an illustration of 'Nantucket'. And Zhiteneva (1930) The World's Assortment of Pumpkins. Trudy Prikl. Bot. Genet. Selek. 23: 157 – 207 has photographs of numerous warted pumpkins.

3. Warted gourds of Cucurbita pepo have a history dating to 1587.

4. The Essai sur l'histoire naturelle des courges is the definitive scientific paper on the three major species of Cucurbita. This book was published in 1786 in French. You'll find a translation of Duchesne's 1786 description of Cucurbita pepo in H. S. Paris’s book, The drawings of Antoine Nicolas Duchesne for his natural history of the gourds, published in 2007 by the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France.

Here is Paris’s translation of what Duchesne had to say about warts and Cucurbita pepo: Another state of alteration is what one names warts,& which would better be designated by the name of Bumps, since they are not purely exterior excrescences, but elevations of the shell, which form within as many corresponding pits, although less in proportion, considering that the shell there is of a much greater thickness. These bumps are of two kinds: sometimes wide near the base and little elevated, they mimic transitory pimples springing from the rind by accident; sometimes higher and constricted at the base, they assume the shape of knobs; sometimes they accumulate one on top of the other, as if they lack for space. And I had the opportunity to recognize that this deformity indicates a true state of disorder, since the fruits in which it is carried to such excess do not have a single good seed, but only some imperfect rudiments.

5. Warts are conferred by a single dominant gene designated Wt, non-warted plants are wt/wt. Reference: Paris, H.S. and R.N. Brown. (2005). The genes of pumpkin and squash. HortScience 40: 1620–1630.

Take a look at the Siegers webstite to discover what seeds they sell to your favorite growers … and if you care about this warty gene grab, ask your growers to avoid planting Siegers’ seeds.

Figure 1. 1770s vintage painting of a warted pumpkin.

In an interesting move in the wholesale garden seed supply industry, Siegers Seed Company in Holland, Michigan has been quietly pushing an all-encompassing patent application through the system that would essentially allow them to own a piece of genetic history in the pumpkin and squash families. Siegers’ move appears to be aimed at owning the rights to virtually all warts on pumpkins and their relatives. And they want to own the rights to all patches in which warted pumpkins appear. Huh? My ancestors grew warted gourds, pumpkins and squashes long before Siegers was even in business, and they received the seed from Native American gardeners who had warted cucurbits in their patches for who knows how long.

Figure 2. Warted pumpkin photo included in the Siegers patent application.

The pumpkin patent application states: In a large commercial field of multiple unknown pumpkin varieties, a single fruit was discovered displaying a greater degree of warting than has ever been observed in prior experience by the inventor [the inventor is listed as the director of marketing for Siegers]. On rare occasions in years prior to this discovery, pumpkin fruits had been observed to possess rumpled or bumpy surfaces as described in FIG. 1. The discovered fruit had a high frequency of bumpy skin as described in FIG. 1, and a lower percentage of warting as described in FIG. 2. The fruit was collected and seed was saved. 

I am surprised that Siegers' inventor seems so unaware of the long warty history of pumpkins, squashes and gourds … at least as I read the patent application. I don’t have an issue with Siegers wanting to protect their investment in a particular pumpkin hybrid, but it bothers me to no end that they seem to be attempting to own the warty history of all members of the squash family.

Read more about this patent application here.

Read the Siegers press release on the new pumpkin family here. 

What do you think? Should Siegers own the warts on a random pumpkin line you develop in your backyard and prevent you from selling it at your farm stand?

The color plate is from: Botanical illustration, ca. 1770, reproduced from H. Paris, “Paintings (1769-1774) by A. N.Duchesne and the History of Cucurbita pepo,” Annals of Botany 85, 2000, p. 820.

The black and white is reproduced from U.S. patent application US20080301830A1.

Although a lot of folks don’t know it, Swisher helped pioneer the zero-turn concept more than 50 years ago, before many of today’s mower manufacturers were in business. And though the company is known for much more than mowers today, their commitment to the ZTR mower has never waned. Today, Swisher’s commitment continues with a full line of innovative, rugged, dependable and hard-working zero-turn mowers.

All of Swisher’s zero-turn mowers are built with a mid-deck design providing a true 360° turning radius and the low center of gravity and profile provide excellent maneuverability and stability. This easy handling makes mowing around trees, shrubs and other obstacles a breeze. Up to 8.5 MPH operating speed dramatically reduces mowing time … however, with our less-than-smooth lawn, mowing at that speed would be downright scary.

Swisher’s new 42-inch ZTR is called the ZT18542A and comes with the following features:

• Powerful 18.5 HP Briggs & Stratton engine
• 42-inch stamped cutting deck great for residential or commercial mowing
• Cutting height is adjustable 1" to 4" with manual lever, spring assisted deck lift
• 1.1 gallon fuel capacity keeps you mowing for longer periods of time
• Eaton commercial grade hydrostatic transmission
• Stationary front axle
• 8-8x6.5" rear tires and 4-41x3.5" front tires for greater traction and stability
• Two blades cut grass into fine clippings
• Comfortable 15-inch mid-back seat
• Electric PTO clutch
• Automatic parking brakes on ergonomic steering handles
• Sandpaper grit mats on deck for operator safety
• Convenient storage compartment

When you are in the market for an affordable, new mower, check this  model out at a dealer near you.

Just when you think you have squeezed all the utility from your ATV that’s possible, the folks at Moose Utilities come up with something new. The EZ-Load Drop Rack is among their latest innovations. The EZ-Load Drop Rack converts virtually any full-sized ATV into a very capable all-terrain micro-sized pickup truck, complete with tailgate to make loading and unloading easier.

The heavy-duty EZ-load drop rack mounts easily over the ATV’s existing OEM rack. The drop rack can hold up to three five gallon buckets and since it is constructed from ¾ inch square tubing and 16-gauge perforated steel mesh, it can withstand plenty of abuse around the farm or homestead. This new accessory measures 41 inches wide by 14 inches long by 11 ½ inches deep. It retails for $282.95 … look for it here.

To learn how to get even more out of your ATV, click here.

Read part 1 of this project here.

The second … and final day of building the new farm pond commenced without a hitch. Jay installed the stock watering pipe and valve through the dam and the grading was completed. This new pond is shaped a little like a kidney bean and should be full after the spring rains hit later this year. Although we don’t need it for stock water just yet, it makes our most isolated piece of pasture more useful because of water availability. As with our other ponds, we will fence the cattle out to protect the pond structure and water quality. And I suspect we will create a small picnic/reflection area inside the fence.

Kate got so excited about this project, and the fact that we hadn’t completely killed the pond-work budget, that she wanted to redo our most leaky pond before the machinery went away. This project has been two days in the works and looks like it has one more day to completion. In the process of digging out the third pond’s bowl, the bulldozer opened up a lovely free-flowing spring that immediately began to pool. I will report on this project sometime in the future.

Kate and I have raised our own poultry off and on for more years than I care to count. We have raised both meat birds (broiler chickens, geese and turkeys) and layers. In every case, raising our own poultry helped us save money, while providing endless hours of entertainment and providing higher quality meat and eggs than we could have ever even hoped to buy at the time. Now that we are once again living on the land, raising our own chickens has become a priority.

When it comes to raising chickens, I am a little more conservative than Kate is. She will often go overboard (in my mind anyway) when chick ordering time comes around. I always ask what we will do with all those chickens; she always answers we will enjoy every minute of them. And she is right.

All you need to raise chickens is a little space, a little know how (mostly know to leave them well enough alone) and some desire. If you order day old chicks through the mail, you will need to make a brooder for them. The brooder can be as simple as a heat lamp suspended over a cardboard box (it’s best to staple cardboard across the box’s corners to “round” them … this keeps the chicks from piling up in the corners and suffocating those on the bottom of the heap. You should definitely take a look at our books and articles on raising chicken if you have never done it, but suffice it to say this isn’t rocket science.

As you might imagine, raising your own chickens requires a commitment to care for and nurture the animals. For best success, you need to protect them from predators … including pets and children, and you need to provide food, water and access to shelter throughout their lifetime. During the growing season, much of that food can come in the form of grass, clover, alfalfa, bugs, worms, various garden trimmings and excess fruit and vegetables. The shelter can be a chicken house, barn, shed, old grain bin, you name it.

Some might argue that it isn’t possible to grow your own broiler chickens for less per pound than the limp, bleached out stuff they sell at the grocery store for below a dollar a pound. That might be true. But you can grow chickens yourself for less than the plump nicely colored organic free range chicken that sells for dollars a pound … likewise with homegrown eggs. But, I find that comparison to be lacking, and somewhat anti-intellectual. With chickens, saving money isn’t just about the obvious products they provide.

The fact is, you can raise your own chickens and eggs for less per pound than premium eggs and chicken cuts sell for at the grocery store. If you grow their feed, production costs go down even further. Chickens will also help you save money by keeping insect pests at bay in the garden and yard. Chickens will also help you save money by weeding and tilling your garden. Chickens will also help save you money because they are so entertaining. Once you discover the joys of sitting and watching the chickens peck, you will spend less money on trips to town for a movie … or movie rental. You will spend less money on exercise because your chickens will require daily care … morning and night. And since you and your family will be eating the best, most local food there is, chickens will save you money with physical and mental healthcare to boot.

Kate and I consider raising chickens to be part of our “golf game.” As such, those birds make a huge contribution to our savings account. And that’s a good thing, especially in 2009.

I received a very compelling letter and information kit from Purdue University Professor William E. Field yesterday. Professor Field is the project leader on the Breaking New Ground program … a forward thinking effort to keep physically disabled farmers farming and ranchers ranching. Professor Field writes that Breaking New Ground’s resource center has recently been selected as the site of the National AgrAbility project, which provides services to 22 state and regional ventures designed to work with physically disabled farmers and ranchers to assist them in returning to independence in agricultural production.

According to the Breaking New Ground website, since its inception in 1979, the Breaking New Ground Resource Center in Purdue's Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering has become internationally recognized as the primary source for information and resources on rehabilitation technology for disabled persons working in agriculture. Two of the center’s most successful products are The Toolbox and The Toolbox CD … print and electronic versions of a publication that helps disabled farmers and ranchers sort out the various tools and tool modifications that can be used to keep them in the saddle or on tractor seat.

Like Purdue University’s Breaking New Ground Resource Center, the USDA’s AgrAbility project was created to assist people with disabilities employed in agriculture. According to the USDA, this project links the Cooperative Extension Service at a land-grant university with a private nonprofit disability service organization to provide practical education and assistance that promotes independence in agricultural production and rural living. The AgrAbility Project assists people involved in production agriculture who work both on small and large operations.

It seems fitting that the two programs have merged, at least partially. I look forward to learning more about the accomplishments of Breaking New Ground and AgrAbility and will report what I learn here.

Graphics courtesy Pudrue University's Breaking New Ground Project and the USDA's AgrAbility Project.

Read part 2 here.

Since we had the heavy equipment on the farm to renovate our largest pond's dam, we decided to have the contractor stake out a new pond on some of our highest elevation land. It turned out the area just above the draw that feeds the large pond was shaped perfectly for an arc-shaped dam and the soil was of sufficient quantity and texture to make dozing it into place relatively easy.

After staking the ends of the dam the grading commenced. Since that part of our ground is terraced, the dam was positioned to receive the runoff from three terraces. Thus, the pond will be fed by about 20 acres of watershed, which will be more than enough to keep the water at a depth of about 9 feet. Rather than using an overflow pipe, we decided to control the pond level with grass spillways that open onto a very mildly sloped patch of prairie … just as the terraces did before.

Day one was spent stripping grass and topsoil, cutting a core trench in the clay subsoil and building up the dam … creating a bowl in the earth at the same time. Since I wanted a gravity-flow stock watering pipe, the contractor left the center portion of the dam sufficiently low to facilitate installing the pipe on the second day of pushing dirt.

We haven’t shot photos of the finished pond yet, so I can’t promise that installment tomorrow. Stay tuned though, I will report on the finishing touches soon.

Read Part two of this pond renovation series here. 

 Day three of this pond renovation project began with the installation of the new plastic overflow pipe. This 8-inch diameter pipe is smooth and will flow more water than the old and larger diameter corrugated pipe system. Installing the pipe was as easy as dozing out a groove in the top of the dam at the correct elevation and angle, setting the pipe, and carefully packing it into place. A water-stopping collar was also installed around the pipe on the pond side of the dam.

It didn’t take too long after installing the pipe to get the new spillway grading completed and to spread topsoil over the dam’s surface. The topsoil will give the grass seed (soon to be planted) a fighting chance to produce a soil-holding stand of turf. I don’t know when I will get to it, but I will report on the grass planting when it happens.

Now all we have to do is wait patiently for the renovated pond’s level to increase. It is moving up by inches per day at the moment, but it would come up rapidly with a single spring rainstorm.

I will report on constructing a new pond from scratch next week. Ironically, the new pond’s cost will be lower than the pond renovation, but it won’t be as tricky to accomplish.

Read part one of this pond renovation series here.

Read part three of this pond renovation series here. 

With the heavy machinery in place, it only took a few hours to pluck the 30-year-old hackberry, Osage orange and mulberry trees from the dam during the pond renovation. Jay, our excavator used his 3-in-1 bucket equipped track loader to grab the trees, wrench them from the ground and move them up the hill so I can saw fence posts and firewood from them. Meanwhile Jay’s partner, Ben, used the D-6 Caterpillar dozer to begin reshaping the dam and spillway, and to make a cut to help remove the corrugated drain pipe.

The first full day of pond renovation concluded with the vertical portion of the drain pipe still in place but all of the stumps and voids in the back side of the dam face removed, and the dam’s top re-contoured. Since removing the vertical portion of the drain was the riskiest part of this project, Jay and Ben felt it would be better to knock off early and start on it fresh the following day.

On the second working day of renovating our pond, Jay used the track loader to remove all the water-saturated soil behind and below the rusted out drain. Jay then pulled the drain from the dam, while Ben pushed dry clay into the void. They both admitted that the process made them nervous, but they were careful and quick, and it worked … very little water was lost from our pond. The rest of the day was spent repacking dry clay into the void left by the rusted out corrugated drain pipe.

All that’s left with this pond renovation now is to install the new overflow pipe and find enough clay to build up the dam’s height a few feet, reshape the overflow spillway to avoid soil erosion, and coat the entire earthworks with topsoil so that the grass seed I plant has a chance to take hold. Stay tuned, I will report on that tomorrow.

See the latest photos here.

I discovered some images of the Boomer 8N on the web at New Holland’s media site. No embargo date on them. Here you go.

The press releases and fact sheet haven’t changed from the information that was available before.

Enjoy.

Read part 2 of this pond renovation story here. 

Read part 3 of this pond renovation story here. 

We have several old human-made ponds on our Osage County farm. All hold water for part of the year, a couple of the ponds hold water year round; all leak considerably. Since water is a valuable resource in our part of Kansas, where the rural water supply is maxed out and a potable well needs to go down about 300 feet, we decided to invest in renovating at least two of our ponds. The first is our largest. It was formed by damming the deepest, steepest draw on the property around 40 years ago.

Since that pond has been surrounded by grassland for its entire life, it isn’t silted in too badly so our pond renovation won’t include dredging. This pond (Kate calls it draw pond) has maintained a level about 3 feet below the top of its drain pipe for the past couple of years. We determined that at least part of the problem relates to the corrugated drain pipe’s rotting away below ground … inside the dam. The other issue relates to the 30-year-old trees growing on the dam’s downstream face. Roots penetrate the dam and provide channels for seepage.

Since renovating this pond required moving a lot of dirt and trees, we hired a professional for the job. Pond renovation such as this requires heavy equipment in the form of bulldozers and track loaders … machines that weigh in the vicinity of 55,000 to 60,000 pounds each. They don’t come cheap, but they get the work done incredibly quickly, so the overall expense isn’t bad. And since it takes some effort to get the machines to your place, it doesn’t hurt to have several pond renovation projects on tap.   

If you have ponds that need renovating, be sure to shop around for a knowledgeable excavator. We learned that the reason our other ponds leak is because they weren’t built correctly. I will write more on that after we get this pond renovation completed.

When I got home from work on Friday, I saw the FedEx truck’s tracks in the snow. I was expecting a seed starting frame, but not copies of my new book: Garden Tractors. My Editor at Voyageur Press originally told that the book wouldn’t be available until February 15. It appears that Garden Tractors has made it to the warehouse … it should be on the GRIT bookshelf soon.

Garden Tractors is a historical look at the evolution of the American 4-wheeled garden tractor and the many companies that produced them. If you are interested in old garden tractors, this book will help you understand how the many different models from many different makers came to be. If you currently drive a Simplicity garden (sub compact) tractor, this book will show you the importance of that particular brand to the industry. Manufacturing company history buffs will get a glimpse of where many of the most important garden tractor companies came from and where they are today.

Garden Tractors is illustrated with my own photography, that of a couple of others and with vintage marketing images. The book has a hardcover and full-color production throughout its 126 pages.

Garden Tractors was a labor of love for me. I have a penchant for vintage Cub Cadet garden tractors, but the entire genre continues to fascinate me. To give you a glimpse of what I Cub Cadet nut I am, I wrote a book about the brand in 2005 or 2006 and have collected about 22 vintage machines. I currently mow our lawn with a 1984 Cub Cadet 882 diesel and have models dating from 1984 to 1961. Most of these machines run and several were refurbished some years ago when I had more energy than I knew what to do with.

If you order your copy of Garden Tractors from the GRIT website, I will do everything in my power to be sure you get a signed copy, if that’s what you want.

Brewmasters have known about the preservative qualities of hops flowers for centuries and beer drinkers have learned to love the sometimes less than subtle bitter flavors. Now, scientists report that the antimicrobial bitter acids contained in hop flowers might prevent pathogenic bacteria from taking hold in your chickens’ stomachs.

According to a recent ARS report, adding the bitter acid lupulone to the chickens’ drinking water appears to be a viable alternative to lo-level antibiotic doping of their feed. In one study, lupulone therapy was specifically associated with controlling Clostridium populations in the chickens’ intestinal tracts.

Why is this important? I turns out that chicken guts is one of the primary sources for meat contamination by pathogenic organisms … especially when mechanized evisceration methods are employed. Even if you raise chickens for eggs, or carefully dress your own, I suspect that you can keep your flock a bit healthier by adding some fresh or dried hops to their diet. Why not plant a vine or two this year and give it a try?

Check out the USDA’s ARS website for more information on the antimicrobial characteristics of hops.

Photo courtesy ARS.

Last Saturday night, the moon rose larger than usual over our Osage County farm. This so-called perigee moon is named for the point in its elliptical orbit where it is closest to the earth (the opposite end is the apogee). Since the moon is closer to the earth, it appears larger, and brighter than usual.

 We watched the moon rise through our pine grove as the sun was going down. It didn’t occur to me to run for the camera until the perigee moon was much higher in the sky. The light from that moon was sufficient to see the animals out on the pasture, but not sufficient for me to read the dials on my camera to shorten the exposure sufficiently to capture the crater shadows.

The perigee occurs monthly, but for the moon to be full at the same time makes it a special event. This special moon looks most spectacular as earth’s eccentric companion pulls from the horizon, but January 10th's perigee moon, the largest-looking full moon for 2009 was breathtaking all night.

Click here for more photos of the perigee full moon.

The Kansas Forest Service brochure for tree and shrub seedlings arrived in the mail yesterday.  The form notes that the special pricing on these trees is available to anyone willing to plant them for conservation purposes … not for landscaping or nursery purposes. That seems fair to me, especially since I believe in hedgerows and shelterbelts. Last year I planted some 200 Forest Service tree and shrub seedlings  … this year I am tempted to put in another shelterbelt … using this program, I can plant 100 trees for less than $70.

 

Shelterbelts became popular in the Great Plains and Midwest as a result of several land rushes. My great grandfather, Oscar H. Will, and his son George, capitalized on the need to shelter fields and pastures from the wind, and to populate tree claims with timber by supplying millions of Cottonwood, Ash, Boxelder and other seedlings to homesteaders, farmers, the railroad and various municipalities. Those early shelterbelts were created with seedlings that sprouted freely along the banks, and on the sandbars, of the Missouri River north of Bismarck, North Dakota (Dakota Territory initially). Oscar, and later, George put together crews of young men to pull dormant seedlings, bundle them and float them down the Missouri River to Bismarck in flatboats. Some collecting crews ranged as far as the upper reaches of the Missouri, deep into Montana.

 

Shelterbelts save money by reducing convective heat loss from buildings and providing shade. They also filter dust from the breeze, which substantially lowers summertime home maintenance expenses. Shelterbelts reduce livestock feed costs in all seasons because they protect animals from exposure to extreme weather, and they protect tender crops and gardens from the ravages of hot dry winds.

 

When Kate and I built our first farm in South Dakota, we planted more than 2000 feet of 5-row shelterbelt to protect the building and garden sites from cold north and west winds. More than 90 percent of the seedlings survived the first season. The Soil Conservation Service (as it was called in the early1990s) required that we cultivate the ground bare between the tree rows for at least three years after planting. That we did, and today those Ash, Locust, Blue Spruce, Russian Olive, Manchurian Apricot, Nanking Cherry and Lilacs have achieved a height and density that gives the homestead’s current owners plenty of privacy and wind protection. The fact that the tree planting created a few acres of wildlife habitat is an added bonus.

 

Unless you already live in the woods, you can save some money on your heating, cooling and snowplowing bill by planting a shelterbelt. Ideally, the shelterbelt should consist of a minimum of 5 rows of trees and shrubs situated around 150 feet from any buildings in the protected area. Check the USDA’s website for more information on designing a functional shelterbelt. And as Kate would say: “No time like today to get those trees in the ground.” Well, perhaps not today, but today is a good day to plan for your shelterbelt and to order the trees.
 

After having a couple of donkeys around for a few months, I have to admit that they are great companions. In fact, they are almost as fun to be around as the dogs … and it is because donkeys like people. 

 

I was cool with the whole donkey addition because we planned to bring sheep to the farm in 2008, and I wasn’t too keen on the idea of leaving them to fend off the coyotes on their own. Well, we got the donkeys, but not the sheep. Actually, we have a ram, but he still lives at my friend Bryan’s farm. I just didn’t get our fence upgrade completed in time … in fact it still isn’t completed. Oh, did I mention that it was Bryan that convinced me that donkeys would be fun? He was right.

Our male (jack) donkey, Jack is said to be at least 7 years old (the previous owners weren’t for sure). Our female, Valentine, is not quite a year. After keeping them separated for months, we finally turned them both in with the cattle and after a bit of chasing around, they have become fast companions. In fact they pretty much ignore the cattle and have formed their own little mini-herd.

Now, whenever we walk the pastures, Jack and Valentine come running. They heel better than any of our dogs and are tall enough that we don’t have to bend over to chuck them under the chin. Of course, the donkeys are really more interested in the all-natural, hormone-free range cubes or  in my coat pocket than they are in being  my companion, but I will take their affection, and gladly rub them here and there, either way.

Some folks won’t have an intact jack donkey around their place, but so far, Jack hasn’t been any hassle at all. We used to keep anywhere from 15 to 25 Angus bulls around (breeding stock was part of our business), so handling large rambunctious boys is nothing new. And Jack is far from rambunctious.

In time, we will rely on Jack and Valentine to keep the flock safe. In the meantime, they are great companions, and that is just fine with us.
 

Early last week, while walking with the dogs through our various patches of woods, Kate noticed a large number of tree saplings and seedlings in the under story. She also noticed a number of small Eastern Red Cedar trees and a few isolated Osage orange saplings growing out in the meadows. Her question to me on New Year’s Day was whether we oughtn’t just save on our landscaping budget this year by transplanting the free trees that were provided all over the farm by Mother Nature.

I was all for Kate’s idea, I mean who doesn’t want to save money in 2009.

Years ago, in South Dakota, when we were just starting out we had very little in the way of discretionary funds. We also had a bare piece of ground to build our homestead on … it was a lovely piece, with a creek running through it, but it was treeless, except for the massive Cottonwoods that populated the low end of the pasture and one lone Green Ash that grew up through the old windmill tower, its roots reaching clear down to the water level in the old dug well.

Closer inspection of that piece of ground revealed a Cottonwood tree seedling nursery at the confluence of one of our waterways and the creek. With a strong need to get some large trees going quickly and to stabilize the creek bank to the west of the house, Kate and I spent many early spring days over the course of a few years digging cottonwood seedlings and saplings from our natural nursery (some about 10 feet tall) and transplanting them about a half mile away by the house. Those free trees are more than 50 feet tall today … they help protect the house from wind and they stabilized the creek bank.

Last Saturday, Kate and I identified a few small oak and Osage orange saplings to transplant. These free trees all had substantial taproots (which got shortened considerably) so the digging wasn’t as easy as if they were year old seedlings. Transplanting the free trees was really easy once they were dug, however. And since they are perfectly dormant, and will remain so for the next few months, they should have plenty of time to establish sufficient root mass to support themselves (with some nurturing) in 2009.

The trick to transplanting free trees is to dig them while they are dormant. A little extra effort with the digging to get as much root as possible will pay a large dividend. Keep the roots moist until you get the trees planted in their new location. Water the trees as you backfill the planting hole and be prepared to give them plenty of water as they come back to life in the spring.

Transplanting free trees isn’t the only way to save money in 2009. We plan to make and root cuttings of the lone Cottonwood on our place … and our corkscrew Willow too. We also plan to collect a few bucketfuls of Osage orange fruit and plant the seeds.

I will report on these Save Money in 2009 topics and plenty of others right here. Stay tuned.

One day last week, Kate and I braved a bit of sleet to pay a visit to Bluestem Farm & Ranch Supply in Emporia, Kansas. Bluestem Farm and Ranch Supply is our favorite place to get the things we really need. That day, we needed some steel hog troughs for the Mulefoot pigs, electric fencing supplies (insulators and the like), a manure fork, and some gate latches. We also just needed to take an excursion with one another.

The drive to Bluestem Farm & Ranch Supply takes us through some of the loveliest east central Kansas landscape, and Emporia is a fun town to spend a bit of time in.

Bluestem Farm & Ranch Supply was founded by Lee and Marjorie Nelson in 1961.  The store was moved to its current location on Highway 50 in 1968. The move increased Bluestem Farm & Ranch Supply’s floor space by roughly 15 times; that space is now well stocked with just about everything you need. I say if you can’t find it at Bluestem Farm & Ranch Supply, you don’t need it.

While we were there, Kate and I visited with some folks about the merits of different types of gate latches and discovered some beautifully crafted cedar bluebird houses for the nearly impossible price of $9.95. We grabbed all they had on hand.

I know that many farm and ranch stores like Bluestem are still alive and well around the country. Why not tell us the name and location of your favorite farm store or feed and seed. If I get enough responses, we’ll compile a list of them and post it here.

Happy New Year!

Hard as it is for me to believe, the first day of 2009 is well underway. The winter solstice passed by, more than a week ago. This morning, I noticed that the sun peeked over the horizon just a hair north of where it rose the last time I watched it from my farm-henge vantage point. The season of life is coming, I just know it is. Longer days make me optimistic.

I was born in North Dakota, where winter was long and hard. We knew how to have fun in that dark season ... we spent half an hour bundling up to brave the sub-zero temperatures and double-digit wind speeds. Skating, sledding and fort-building were all on our wintertime agenda. More often than not, in spite of our physical exertion, we turned to little blocks of ice within 15 minutes of exposure. We were warm by the time the un-bundling was completed ... and more often than not, started the process all over again. As much fun as wintertime brought, longer days made me optimistic.

As a kid, I didn't understand the cause of  seasonal day length differences, but I was well aware of the expanded dark period in winter. I was also aware of where I saw the sun peek over the horizon, although it wasn't until 4th grade science class that I was able to put it all together ... with a little help from a very patient teacher. Ever since that revelation, no matter where we lived, I found myself a sacred place in the landscape where I could hide out, reflect on nature and mark the sun's progress from south to north and back south again. My sighting stone was often a grain bin or silo; trees also came in handy. When I went to college in Chicago, I found water towers atop buildings to help. Here in Kansas, our pine grove makes a pretty nice solar tracking device.

With the turning of the sun, and the subsequent longer days to look forward to, optimism fills my soul. I know that our country is facing some very exciting and difficult times in this new year.  I know that folks will want to hunker down, pull back, and wrap themselves in the shroud of survival. Money will be tighter than usual, but don't let that get you down. Our ancestors didn't have half the material goods to feel compelled to consume that we have. They got their satisfaction from hard work and took joy in the small things. They grew gardens out of necessity. They raised chickens and milked a family cow ... out of necessity. They cut wood or dug coal to fire their stoves. They played games, worked on puzzles sketched, painted and wrote. The work of living was hard, but it was oh-so satisfying.

I predict that 2009 will be a glorious year. Yes, the economy will be less than we would like it to be, but in my opinion, that is a small part of the equation. Gardens will once again flourish as nourishment for body and soul. Small chicken flocks will appear in the most unlikely of places. People will stay put long enough to marvel at the subtleties of nature ... and to interact with one another as our highly social species was meant to interact. I predict that there will be a surge in community action, and that people will reach out to help others in ways that haven't often been seen in the last decade or more. The ME generations have what it takes to become the US generations, I just know it is true. I am convinced that the work will be hard in 2009, but it is that special reward that will motivate us in ways our culture hasn't been motivated for some time.

Here's to a new year of opportunity. I am optimistic, and excited to see how it all plays out. 

GRIT Magazine bloggers Rebekah and Andrew Sell gave up the bright lights in Colorado Springs, packed their things and moved to rural Wisconsin to follow an agrarian mission. The Sells, with a new baby on the way, decided to take over the daily operation of a family farm and to make producing the highest quality food their life’s work. Their grit, determination, and profound faith have guided them every step of the way.

As if that accomplishment wasn’t enough, Becky and Andy documented their first year on Foxwood farm by writing a book about the experience … as it was happening. Lavishly (and authentically) illustrated with Becky’s photography, the couple’s book  is an inspiration. If you ever thought about doing what these folks did (after only a year of marriage), or if you did it, but didn’t document the experience, I know this book will inspire and evoke all manner of pent up emotion.

First Year On Foxwood Farm: A photographic Journal from January to December 2008 is currently available in soft cover, hard cover with art on the jacket and hardcover with the art right on the cover. If you are looking for help with any of your New Year’s resolutions, or inspiration in general, order your copy here.

Years ago, instead of making hay to carry our Angus herd through the winter, we stockpiled pasture and fed the standing hay through the dark months. This year, we decided to try the same experiment with the Highland cattle here in Kansas. The winters are milder here in Kansas than in Ohio, where we winter grazed the Angus cattle. And since the farm has way more grass than animals to eat it, I figured winter grazing the Highland cattle would work. In fact, it appears to be working quite well, so far, in spite of the snow and ice that has accumulated off and on in the last several weeks.

This morning it is already in the 50s, so it hardly feels like winter, but suffice it to say, there is plenty of good standing cool season forage (with about 25 percent green) in the lows, and more shaded areas. The warm season patches are completely dormant, and not good for much more than roughage, but the combination has been more than sufficient to keep the Highland's condition scores up and the young heifers and bull gaining and growing.

Winter grazing isn't for everyone, but I believe in letting cattle and other highly adapted domestic animals have a chance at fulfilling their genetic potentials ... I don't mind subdividing and carefully managing pastures year-round either. People are most skeptical about winter grazing because of the chance for snow cover. I have discovered that seeding some of the stockpiled pastures with small square or little Allis-Chalmers-made round bales is all you need to train the herd to look under the snow for sustenance. Alternatively, you can sprinkle some of their favorite range cubes (in front of them) in the snow on some of the tallest stockpile. In both cases, the cattle will inadvertently discover the good grass while rooting out their "treats." Once trained, the herd doesn't bat an eyelash when you ask them to get after the good grass under the snow.

Days like today make winter grazing a complete no brainer. Why on earth would I carry hay to them, when they can harvest the hay themselves? Winter grazing of some sort has the added benefit of spreading excess nutrients around. Instead of finding tons of manure around hay feeders, the Highland cattle deposit it wherever they happen to be ... the way nature intended it. When I have fed hay, I fed it to the cattle on the meadows it came from, in windrows and not in bale feeders. But that's a story for another day.

We have had a Kubota tractor on our various farms for the past 16 or 17 years. Our 36 horsepower Grand L model (based on a larger chassis than the B-Series) got hauled from the New Hampshire farm to Kansas (along with an antique road grader, some Cub Cadet garden tractors and a bunch of implements) shortly after we moved. The Kubotas have served us well as general utility tractors … and in a pinch they even managed to move 1800-pound round bales (not a recommended practice) in the winter when the big old IH 656 or 574 wouldn’t start. Kubota offers an incredible array of compact, sub-compact and full-sized tractors … some of their newest offerings are in the smaller chassis B-Series compact line.

Late this year, Kubota introduced four new models to its popular B Series compact utility tractor line. The new Kubota B2320, B2620, B2920 and B3200 tractors are versatile, powerful and productive, featuring more horsepower and triple-range hydrostatic transmission (HST), which offers the operator enhanced power and control.  The B3200 leads the pack with a 4-cylinder, 23 PTO horsepower, high performance E-TVCS (three-vortex combustion system) Kubota diesel engine, power steering and standard mid-PTO.

“The B-Series tractors have always been one of our most popular lines because they are small enough to be extremely versatile, yet powerful enough to conquer larger landscaping and even light construction jobs,” says Jeremy Coltin, Kubota product manager.  “This year we have really taken the legacy of our B-Series tractors to a new height, giving customers even more value, with increased power, control and comfort.”

The B2320, B2620 and B2920 come equipped with three-cylinder Kubota liquid-cooled diesel engines and the entire series offers the E-TVCS combustion system for increased power, excellent torque characteristics, cleaner emissions and low noise and vibration. The three-range shift (high/medium/low) featured on the new B Series HST models lets operators find the right speed to suit their task. The HST provides smooth shifting and powerful performance for heavy-duty loader applications. Maximum traveling speed ranges from 11.2 to 12.3 mph, depending on model; the B3200 boasts an 8.1-gallon fuel tank.

I haven’t had a chance to put these new B-Series machines through their paces, but I don’t expect any major surprises when I do. I can’t wait to see just how that new engine performs in the 3200 while digging with the backhoe attachment. Look for these, and a whole lot of other tractors at a Kubota dealer near you.

It is a bare 3 degrees this morning in Osage County, the morning after the Winter Solstice.  Yesterday Hank and I put up (well, HE put up and I watched) a bird feeder right outside our kitchen window. A 12” x12” pavilion-like affair with a slate roof. On the platform we offer up our very best bird food—peanuts and black sunflower seeds.
 
In the true spirit of the solstice, the bird feeder was resurrected from last year when it met an untimely “end” –blown down in the Osage County winter wind time and time again until finally the slate popped off one side of the roof.  Hank then buried it in the garage until we could repair it and bring it back this winter to feed the birds.
 
It’s fitting that we resuscitated and repaired it on the winter solstice. It was 12 degrees yesterday, not balmy, but Hank’s favorite weather for the vigorous work of cutting trees and digging postholes.
 
So we replaced the original square wooden post and stand with an Osage Orange post we found in the hedgerow.  Was it straight? No.  It is gently curved with a “Y” at the top. Hank sunk it in the ground more than 2 feet so it would NOT blow down again. We screwed the house platform firmly to the two prongs of the “y” and immediately stocked it with piles of peanuts and sunflower seeds.  

We headed straight in to the house to the kitchen window and almost immediately had our first visitor--a chickadee headed down to the platform from the hackberry branch nearby, snatched a seed, and headed back to the branch to work it over.  Quickly the house had visits from the big colorful birds who remind us so much of Christmas ornaments—blue jays, cardinals and finally the king of our bird-feeding buffet (three feeders, a suet cage…and growing), the red-bellied woodpecker.  Heaven!  There they were just 3 feet away from us, gobbling peanuts and sunflower seeds in the frigid winter weather. We get such pleasure watching these visitors and thinking of the sustenance they get from the seeds and peanuts.

 
Reviving our birdfeeder recalls elements of the many traditions and stories surrounding the winter solstice.  Rebirth, renewal, food and light to celebrate the great turning point when the nights cease to get longer and the days begin to lengthen. Most cultures have some form of winter solstice commemorations, legends and rituals. Practically speaking, folks really needed to keep track of how to meter out their winter stores to be sure they would make it through the winter (the famine months) until a new crop could be planted in the spring. Psychologically and spiritually speaking, we want and need to know that the longest night has passed and that spring and light and life truly will come again.

 
Arthurian legend tells of a fisher king—a wounded or maimed (and thus made impotent) king who is healed by the holy grail.  The fisher king’s body is injured or even lost, but his head still lives and speaks (spooky, eh?).  The fisher king is sometimes conceived of as a mandrake root, a root that has limbs or branches that resemble a human shape. The root goes dormant in the winter, but comes to life again in the spring.  In some cultures, it is known as the a plant that represents love and fertility:
 
Mandrake in Hebrew is ?????? (dûdã'im), meaning “love plant”. Among certain Asian cultures, it is believed to ensure conception…… Most interpreters hold Mandragora officinarum to be the plant intended in Genesis 30:14 ("love plant") and Song of Songs 7:13 ("the mandrakes send out their fragrance.   --Wikipedia
 
Our mandrake root of an Osage orange tree now supports our bird feeder. Head and body reunited, our feeder firmly planted in the frozen ground now sustains the birds in the famine days of winter, until the spring comes again.

Earlier this year, Kubota released the RTV500 utility vehicle as the company’s first gasoline-engine powered UTV. Kubota is known in North America for its fine line of diesel power plants, but the company has built similarly rugged liquid-cooled gasoline engines for many years.

The RTV500 is designed around a compact chassis that makes the nimble new machine able to fit into a full-sized pickup truck’s 8-foot long bed. It weighs in at nearly 1,300 pounds and can tow 1,100 pounds safely and with ease, thanks to its new variable speed hydrostatic transmission (VHT). This new UTV offers no big surprises when it comes to the innovation and quality we have come to expect from Kubota, but the engine opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

The Kubota RTV500 is powered with the company’s GZ460FE3UV two-cylinder liquid-cooled, electronically fuel-injected engine, which makes cold weather starting a no-brainer, creates enhanced power and eliminates the need for a carburetor … and all the associated maintenance issues. The VHT drive eliminates any need to adjust belts and offers engine braking sufficient to make any descent smooth and safe.

I haven’t had a chance to test drive the RTV500, and I look forward to spending some quality time with the machine soon.

Last weekend, the weather in Osage county was balmy enough that I decided to go ahead and stain the Mulefoot pig shelter and the chicken house we built from scraps. Kate had kindly made the trip to town to pick up a gallon each of red Rustoleum, green stain and white stain. The stains are actually heavy latex Behr stains that will cover paint and other stains. Kate had the paint store match the green with the color on a scrap of plywood left over when I made the Mulefoot pig house.

Since it was still cool, and the wind was blowing about 20 miles per hour, I did a quick and dirty job. I would say it is definitely a 20-foot paint job … because it looks pretty good from a distance of 20 feet or more. There’s not much to report on the process. What can you really say about brushes, rollers and roller pans blowing over and dumping their contents in the wind? It was a small enough coloring job that it was fun. And it was all over before the arctic blast hit Sunday afternoon.

I will also admit, now, that I am very fond of Kate’s color scheme. Red roof, green walls and white trim … white trim on the chicken house anyway. The colors work very nicely together. I can’t tell whether the animals enjoy their digs any better than before, but we sure do.

Although there is still plenty of pasture left for our Mulefoot pigs to root around in, we have been supplementing their earthy excavations with a grain and mineral ration that’s certified organic. The coarsely ground Mulefoot pig feed includes such goodies as roasted soybeans, corn, wheat and a host of minerals suited specifically to porcine preferences. The pigs also enjoy trimmings from the various organic greens that Kate brings home from the market … often the Mercantile in Lawrence … but sometimes Dillons in Topeka.

Now that the weather has turned cold … at least for a few days … we have been giving the pigs some of our leftovers. For example, after everyone had eaten their fill of turkey soup, we poured the remaining fat and broth over some leftover rice and about a dry quart of whole oats. After soaking for about 8 hours in our stainless-steel slop bucket, I poured the turkey-flavored stuff into the trough. The Mulefoot pigs squealed with such delight … snorting, rooting and smacking … there was no doubt they were enjoying themselves. Last night, there was a similar scene, when I gave them the smoked chicken remains … sans bones.

One thing is for sure about Mulefoot pigs. They aren’t afraid to let you know how they feel. And when they are happy, it is sheer delight.

A couple of weeks ago I inadvertently misplaced one of my Yellowstone elk hide gloves … it was the right-hand glove in the last pair I had. It was dark by the time I figured out that it was AWOL and no amount of searching turned it up the next morning. I discovered the remains of that Yellowstone elk hide glove on Sunday. The dogs discovered it somewhere and converted it into a chew/pull toy. My hand still fit into the glove, but it was fairly gnarly.

I discovered Yellowstone gloves around 12 years ago after shredding a pair of top-grain cowhide gloves after a couple of hours of fixing a stretch of barbed wire fence. My hands are still well scarred from that, and many earlier fencing experiences. Yellowstone is a well known brand among cowboys and ranchers in the West. They quite simply make the best elk, deer and goat hide work gloves that I am aware of … and they do it in a small family-owned factory in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Cool eh?

Yellowstone has dealers in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. The company is really set up as a wholesale manufacturer and supplier, but for those many of us who are unlucky enough to live outside their distribution territory, the good folks at Yellowstone are willing to take our orders over the telephone … and to sell individual pairs at a very fair retail price.

When I called Yellowstone last week to restock, I was disappointed to learn that they were short on elk hides, so there were no elk hide gloves available. After a bit of conversation, I learned that the real problem was with the elk hides themselves. Yellowstone was having a difficult time getting unblemished elk hides from which to make their gloves … come on all you elk hunters, can’t you select your trophy based on hide quality instead of rack size? I also learned that they had a limited number of blemished elk hide gloves … made with the less-than-perfect elk skins. We chuckled over the phone, since the gloves are blemished after the first fencing project. I ordered several pair … in size 9½. While I was at it, I ordered a couple pairs of full-grain goat hide gloves, too … they are lighter, cooler and really nice all-around gloves. You can fence with them in a pinch, too.

Why elk? I have found that full-grain elk hide gloves are the only gloves that will allow me to grab barbed wire virtually anywhere and pull. The fiber structure in the Yellowstone elk hide gloves is such that they simply do not tear … they don’t cut the way cowhide does either. Instead, the barbs penetrate partially into the hide and then the hide just kind of stretches. It’s difficult to explain, but once you have experienced Yellowstone full-grain elk hide gloves, you will never go back.

Yellowstone gloves are sized to your hand … the old-fashioned way. You will need to take some measurements to get a good fit, but like the legendary handmade White’s Boots, you take the measurements once and wind up with a leather product that fits like a glove … quite literally.

My Yellowstone glove order arrived last Saturday, just in time to do a little fencing and to protect my hands from the cold and snow that arrived yesterday. That little package is like the blue blanket I carried around as a toddler … a good supply of Yellowstone gloves is the ultimate security blanket for me.

Somewhere around six weeks ago, Kate called me at work to let me know she had purchased five large Black Hills Spruce trees at a local nursery. She noted that they were too big to fit into her Subaru Outback. I was assigned the duty of picking them up on my way home from work … oh joy, I thought.

Since we had already planted a couple hundred trees and shrubs early in the spring, I wasn’t thrilled to have a bunch of big container trees to plant, but I dutifully picked them up … each weighed about 250 pounds. It wasn’t that easy to get them into the bed of the old IH pickup, but I managed. The thought of digging those five big holes made me weary.

I dropped the spruce trees next to the corral by the stock tank so I wouldn’t forget to keep them watered. I finally found the motivation to put them in the ground yesterday.

As with virtually any chore around the farm, the tree planting went much easier than I expected. Since the root balls were relatively large, I chose the shovel with the Dig Rig attachment on it to make the holes. The Dig Rig is an affordable attachment that increases the shovel’s capacity while providing a comfortable step … it reduces stress on your feet, knee, leg and back. I had used the Dig Rig equipped shovel to dig potatoes and plant a few perennials over the summer, but it really made a difference with digging the five large holes for the spruce trees. I didn’t make the holes as large as the arborists typically recommend, but our soil was mellow and moist, so I figured the trees would settle in with no problem.

After planting the end trees, which I am pretty sure are Norway spruces not Black Hills, I paced off the total distance, did some quick math and determined that the other trees (two Black Hills spruce and one Colorado blue spruce) needed to be planted at 6-pace intervals. One by one, the trees went into the ground (along with a 5-gallon bucket of water) like clockwork.

Years ago at our place in South Dakota, Kate and I planted about 50 Colorado blue spruce of similar size, along with about 1,000 seedlings. The seedlings are now about 8 feet tall … the 50 big ones are closer to 15 feet tall. We will be pushing 70 years of age by the time these trees get that large, but as Kate always says, “You plant trees for the next generation.” Hopefully the next generation will enjoy these spruces as much as we do.

Last week, after deciding that the Mulefoot pigs needed to expand their foraging horizons a bit, I set up a temporary 5-wire electric fence around part of the pine grove. There are plenty of hackberries and a few acorns on the ground in there, thanks to the deciduous trees that have colonized part of the understory … and the cattle left a bounty of good grass.

Since I have plenty step-in Poly Posts, t-posts, 17-gauge steel wire and assorted insulators on hand, that’s what I used for the fence. My design will make purists cringe, but years of management-intensive grazing experience taught me that a lot of approaches work … even if they are unorthodox.

The “new” fence was going to border the existing Mulefoot pig enclosure, so I opted to make use of the existing welded-wire/barbed wire permanent fence for one side of the new paddock – I chose two t-posts in that fence to define two corners. I drove new steel t-posts to define the other two corners of the enclosure. Since I don’t love wiring up doughnut insulators at corners, and I knew that this fence was only needed for a month or so, I decided to use step-in Poly Posts for the corner insulators. I simply stepped the poly posts into the ground with the clips facing the t-posts and wired them together. The t-posts anchor the Poly Posts.

Running the wire was relatively easy. I set the spool on a small jenny at one corner and walked lengths of wire around the new paddock. I routed the wire through the clips on the “corner” posts, so that the strain would be against the post and not the clips themselves. Once the wires were run, I installed the rest of the Poly Posts and cut an opening in the welded wire to give the pigs access.

This temporary electric enclosure took about 45 minutes to put together and it encloses about an acre of ground. The wires at 6 and 12 inches are sufficient to keep the pigs in and smaller critters out. The three higher wires keep the cattle and hopefully coyotes at bay. So far, we have not left the pigs in their wooded paddock at night though, so it may not be totally varmint proof. It is charged by a single lead wire to the existing permanent electric fence.

After assuring themselves that the opening in the welded wire fence was indeed real, the pigs explored their new wooded pasture and set to discovering tasty treasures that only they could appreciate. We feed the Mulefoot pigs a certified organic grain and mineral ration, but they now spend most of their day out in the pine grove rooting around.

We’ve been fortunate to have a 2009 Polaris Ranger XP at the farm for the past few months. The machine has come in handy pulling the DR Field and Brush Mower and Polar and Agri-Fab trailers on various pasture maintenance and wood harvesting adventures. As a motivator, the Polaris Ranger XP is powerful, comfortable and more than able. But it is so much more than that.

The Polaris Ranger XP has become my favorite tool for fencing. The ample cargo bed handles 6-foot T-posts and all manner of step-in poly posts with ease. There’s plenty of room for buckets of tools, spools of wire and post drivers, and the machine makes an excellent anchor platform for pulling wire tight. What strikes me most about the 2009 Polaris Ranger XP is that it starts right up, every time, and is ready to go more or less instantly. No more manual choking and coaxing a cool engine to life, only to move 100 yards down the line. I credit the machine’s fuel-injected 700 cc engine and electronic management system for that.

With its bench seat, the Polaris Ranger XP has plenty of room for a helper and a couple of dogs. We have successfully un-spooled miles of wire with me tending the jenny and Kate at the wheel. The Polaris Ranger is much easier to fence with than a pickup truck or tractor. It is more nimble than either, has sufficient cargo capacity and is easier to get into and out of. When I was a youngster, ease of ingress and egress wasn’t much on my mind, but today, several decades later, it is a serious concern. The Polaris also offers a comfortable ride, and plenty of get up and go when you need to run a couple of miles back to the barn for another box of staples.

I am sure we have only begun to tap into the utility and fun that the Polaris XP utility vehicle can provide. Stay tuned for updates.

Folks at the local garden center in Osage City know that garlic is typically planted in the fall, but they don’t stock garlic-for-growing in autumn because most people in Kansas plant it in the spring. Undeterred by that bit of news, Kate decided it was time to try a few different varieties of garlic next year, and so she spent way too much time on the Nichols Garden Nursery website and ordered too many different garlic varieties to count. The box of garlic has been around for a while … I finally got some of it planted on Thanksgiving Day.

My first task was to till up part of the garden for the garlic. I chose to turn the ground that had been lettuce, spinach and peas earlier this year. The soil was already pretty mellow, but I wanted to turn the chicken-scratched straw into the top few inches. Since I was working a relatively small part of the garden, I used our trusty old BCS tiller. This 8-horsepower Kohler-powered machine is as heavy-duty as they get. It has an all-gear transmission and automotive-type dry clutch. Kate thinks it is hard to start … I will tweak the carburetor some day.

After the tillage, I used a little four-tine hand cultivating tool to create shallow furrows … my lines are only relatively straight. I next placed individual garlic cloves pointy side up in the bottom of the furrows. After I had four rows of garlic cloves placed, I gently pulled and pushed soil into the furrows until the garlic was covered. By then, another daughter and her husband had arrived for the holiday, and it was time to take a tour of the farm and have some fun.

I hope that November 27 is the right time for garlic planting in Kansas. It was about 45 degrees and the soil was still warm. I guess we’ll know come spring whether this effort was worth it.

Lingering scent of skunk not withstanding, I was up bright and early last Sunday to see how far I could get with the chicken-house-built-from-scraps project I started Saturday.

The house’s base was constructed with 2X6 dimensional lumber and ¾-inch plywood. It was an entrance ramp in its former life, after all. We made the nest boxes with some ½-inch plywood (painted green on one side), some once-lovely spruce molding, and slats that once decked a pallet. I used exterior-grade “drywall” screws and roofing nails to do the nest-box fastening.

The first step on Sunday was to attach the nesting box structure to the floor with a couple of 2x4 cleats screwed to both the floor and the nest box. Next, I attached a 4x8 sheet of ¾-inch plywood (green paint side out) to the back of the house. I screwed it to the edge of the platform and the nest box, and I built a non-conventional 2x6 frame for the back wall and attached it to the floor and the back wall. You might be wondering why I am using 2x6 lumber for the framing … it is simply that we have about a ton of lovely used 2x6s, 2x8s and 2x12s stacked in the barn … and not a single full-length 2x4 in sight.

I found two matching storm windows stashed in the corner of the barn’s loft and framed them fairly conventionally into the front wall before screwing the works to the platform. With top plates and rafters in place, I installed more of the green-painted plywood on the end wall where the nest boxes are located. By the time evening set in, I had the front wall sided with green plywood, too.

All that’s left now is to side the end opposite the nest boxes, frame the human door and install it, install perches, build the chicken door and ramp, and roof it. With any luck I will accomplish that next weekend … and hopefully it will be warm enough to do a little painting, too.

Part 3 of this adventure will hopefully appear early next week.

Photos are once again courtesy of my sweet bride Kate Will.

Last Saturday, after moving the Mulefoot pig house to the pigs’ paddock, I noticed that we hadn’t put much of a dent in the pile of lumber and other miscellanea in the barn. I was considering spending the rest of the day sitting and watching the pigs, chickens and cattle, but Kate wondered whether I might spend the time more productively by building, or at least starting, a chicken house.

I had tripped over the remnants of a wooden ramp (that once connected the mudroom door with the garage) enough times that I decided to use it as the base upon which to build the structure. Of course, the bulky piece was wedged between the box blade on the Kubota’s 3-point hitch and the barn foundation. After a bit of jockeying and levering, I managed to free the platform and tipped the heavy wooden structure up on edge. This would have been uneventful if the terriers and I didn’t just happen to be staring face to face with a couple of startled skunks who had been huddled beneath it.

After a quick assessment of the situation, I decided to lower the platform to the ground before taking the skunks’ fury full-force in the face. I was so hurried that I trapped Woodrow, the Cairn terrier beneath the structure, right along with them. Knowing that Kate would get after me if I let Woodrow battle two skunks alone, I lifted the platform again, narrowly missing the aromatic spray as I propped it with a stick. Woodrow, in a rare moment of obedience, headed out of the barn on my heels.

The scent wasn’t altogether unpleasant at first. It had tinges of musk, onion and other sulfur-containing compounds. As its power dissipated somewhat, and my over stimulated olfactory nerves calmed down, the smell was, well, very skunky.

Since I really wanted to get the chicken house started, I went back into the barn with a 12-foot-long stick. I peeked over the box blade. No skunks. After a bit of investigating and poking, I discovered that the skunks had moved to the space behind the old Allis-Chalmers combine pickup, left leaning against the wall by the farm’s previous owner. In spite of the smell, I horsed that old piece of ramp outside and set to work.

The first task was to spray some of that de-skunking solution on the underside of the ramp to make the work bearable. And it did.

Kate and I managed to install four short legs beneath the platform and cobble a nest box together before it became too dark to see. By the time we packed up the tools, Lucy the Westie and Woodrow had visited the skunks’ new hideout often enough to wear the badge. Luckily, we had plenty of that magic de-skunk formula left and gave them a good going over. It worked again.

Part 2 coming tomorrow, hopefully .

Photos courtesy Kate Will.

Last Saturday was one of those days when I woke up knowing exactly what I was going to do. I had been mulling pig shelter designs for the past couple of weeks … this mulling usually takes place around 2:07 a.m. when the dogs join the local coyote chorus and wake me up. What I decided on was a low, floorless shed that would be relatively easy to move around and that could be stuffed with straw for our little Mulefoot pigs to make into whatever kind of bed they desired.

During one of those sleepless early morning sessions, I mentally inventoried all the used lumber accumulated and left behind by the farm’s former owner. My initial reaction to all the wood was negative … the stacks are messy, and I loathed the idea of removing them from the barn and burning them. But that particular sleepless morning, I realized that we had everything in the barn that I would need to build the pig palace … everything except the roofing, that is. But as luck would have it, the sagging metal-roofed shed that the insurance company made me push in (it was a liability hazard, don’t you know) was still in a heap inside its limestone wall foundation, and most of the 12-foot tin roofing panels were relatively intact.

In a nutshell, this pig house began with a topless shipping crate turned upside down. I cut away part of the front framing to make room for the opening and clad it with some exterior-grade plywood I found … it was painted green on one side, so I installed it green side out. I screwed three purlin-like affairs to the bottom of the crate (roof side) to support and provide purchase for the metal roof. After careful consideration, I decided that 6-foot-long pieces of roofing would be ideal. I used this as an excuse to purchase my first power sheet-metal snips. They only had an el-cheapo version at Tractor Supply, so try as I might to add another Milwaukee tool to my chest, I paid less than $50 for a more or less disposable version. It worked just fine though, and who knows how many times I will really need to cut a lot of sheet metal.

Kate gave me a hand with this project, and she was invaluable as an extra set of hands, photographer, general morale booster and moving contractor. Since I haven’t had the Kubota loader tractor out of the shed for a while, it is kind of buried … lazy old me didn’t want to un-bury it to move the completed pig house to the pig paddock. So with Kate’s help again, we tipped the entire house onto a little foldable garden cart called the Fold-A-Cart and even though the house’s weight caused the cart's tires to compress to almost flat, we rolled the shelter into place in no time.

After stuffing the house with straw and placing the pigs’ dog-crate inside, the growing Mulefoot hogs began to investigate. By the time the temperature had dipped below freezing, they were nestled, four-abreast, inside the dog crate, inside their new house, with the straw all neatly arranged.

Who ever heard of building a palace for $49.99 and a couple of boxes of fasteners? In time, we plan to freshen up the green paint and paint the roof with Rustoleum … Kate wants the roof to be red. What do you think?

Now that it is dark when I get home after work, I try to do all my animal bonding and light-requiring chores in the pre-dawn glow before heading off to town. The Highlands are on their third small pasture paddock, and they still have a couple of days of good grass left before I open up the next break. These animals are pretty serious foragers and have cleaned up the brush in the pine grove very nicely. They also have made efficient use of a small creek for drinking, even though I keep a stock tank filled with fresh clean water in the corral.

I really enjoy working with cattle on foot using a combination of the Bud Williams approach and a bit of common sense. In keeping with that low-stress approach, I like to be able to call the cattle into the corral … rather than whooping it up and driving them in. It worked with our Angus herd, so I figured it would work with the Highlands. In this case, I call once or twice (hey bos) and rattle some 100-percent-natural, 20-percent-protein cattle cake in a small plastic bucket. The stuff smells like molasses … I have been tempted to taste it myself.

This morning, even though I was out of town last weekend and part of last week, the cattle heard me feeding the Mulefoot pigs, headed to the corral and were waiting quietly for a couple of cake cubes apiece and a chuck on the chin. When the ritual was completed, they turned one by one and headed back out to the pasture. What fun. Jack the donkey, who lives with the cattle, lingered to get his treat. His rank is pretty well in the basement of that little herd. Valentine, who lives in the adjacent paddock, waited to get her cube until Jack was finished. She also got her ears rubbed.

I can’t really think of a better way to open up each day than with a glorious sunrise and some quality time with the animals whose lives so enrich ours. I cannot wait for the winter solstice to arrive … I am already anticipating longer days and more daylight on the beginning and end of the work day. I like the seasons well enough, but I thrive on daylight.

Highland cattle photo by Kate Will.