The four musketeers

For those of you who were disturbed by my last post, don't worry, this one should not make you cry.  The pig story has made a turn toward happy, and here's to hoping that it stays that way. 

Last Friday, we began bottlefeeding the piglets with a cow's-milk-based formula.  Handfeeding the little guys was rather time-consuming, so our farm manager rigged up a feeding station to hold the bottles up for the piglets to suckle on.  Ingenious!  The piglets are crazy about their feedings, crawling over each other to find the "best" bottle of milk.  They guzzle down their bottles and then fall asleep, curled up together in their pen.

 Last weekend, the piglets graduated to supervised daytime parental visits.  Millet and Barley were happy to be reunited with their babies, grunting with excitement.  Millet even showed some signs of mothering instincts, rolling over onto her side (finally!) to let the piglets nurse.  The pig family spends most of the day laying near an olive tree, the adults in the shade and the piglets sunning themselves. 

Millet isn't producing very much milk, so in the evenings, we bottlefeed the piglets, then tuck them into their own pen with a heating lamp and heating pad for warmth.  After their cow's milk breakfast, we carry them out to the orchard in a milk crate to join their parents for the day.  Of all the animal chores, this task is my favorite.

The piglets are growing quickly and becoming more active and adventurous.  They've taken to exploring their environment, so much so that we had to put up another fence to keep them confined, as the little piglets can walk right under the electric fence that holds their parents in.  On Friday, I spotted the piglets wrestling with each other--adorable!

In other animal news, I learned how to milk a cow this week and was able to herd our flock of sheep out to the pasture all by myself. 

Milking Phoebe, our dairy cow is quite a process, beginning with a thorough cleaning of the cow.  First, she gets brushed, then rinsed, then scrubbed with hot soapy water, then rinsed again.  Once Phoebe is clean, you pull up the milking stool and start squeezing, two teats at a time.  I'm still getting the hang of milking, but the basic idea is to let milk into the teat, pinch off the top of the teat to keep the milk from flowing backward into the udder, then squeeze the milk out the bottom of the teat into the bucket.  About 4 gallons of milk later, Phoebe is pretty empty and you can stop milking.  The milk is then filtered to remove any stray hairs or skin flakes, and refrigerated for later consumption.  Fresh milk is wonderful, and best of all, free!  I've taken to making yogurt from the milk, cooking about 3-4 quarts at a time.  Mmm, mmm.  The yogurt is as good, if not better, than the stuff I was paying $7 a quart for at Whole Foods, pleasing both my stomach and my wallet.

Sleep tight, little one

WARNING: This post does not have a happy ending. 

Friday was a hard day on the farm.  The darkness began during our morning meeting, when Jared, the farm manager, shared the bad news that we only had 5 piglets left.  Three piglets had died the night before, apparently from asphyxiation when their mother rolled on top of them.  Another piglet had already died the previous night from being smashed by Millie.  I was filled with disappointment and frustration.  I had been so excited when Millie gave birth to her piglets--it was truly a joyous day on the farm.  How had such joy turned so quickly into tragedy?

Millie's parenting instincts seem to be nonexistent.  She does not respond to the cries of her piglets.  She prefers to lay on her belly, denying her piglets access to her teats (and milk).  She shifts positions frequently without regard for the safety of her piglets, often rolling over right onto her babies.  She nests right up against the wall of the pen, leaving her piglets exposed to the wind.  Such behavior is completely inconsistent with her breed, American Guinea Hogs, who are regarded for their excellent mothering ability.  Apparently, Millie forgot to read the breed description, and certainly neglected to read "What to Expect When You're Expecting Piglets." 

Late Friday morning, I went to check on Millie and the piglets and found one piglet laying apart from Millie and the rest of the piglets, which is never a good sign.  In general, the piglets stay huddled together for warmth.  I looked closer at this isolated piglet and knew she was sick.  There was foam and blood around her mouth.  A quick physical examination showed no apparent injury--her limbs all felt solid.  Jared told me these were the same signs exhibited by the piglets Millie had rolled over the night before.  I wanted so desperately to help this piglet, but there was little we could do.  I held her close and encouraged her to fight, stroking her soft fur.  We put her under a heat lamp indoors to warm her up, but her breathing grew shallower and shallower until she wasn't breathing at all. 

Tears streaming down my face, I buried little Farina in the orchard, beneath a fruit tree.  I set her softly in her grave, wished her peace, and gently covered her little body with dirt.  Once she was buried, I walked across the farm to where I had placed my spirit stick a month before and moved the stick to mark Farina's grave. 

Still grieving over the loss of Farina, I quickly had to shift gears and work to save her siblings.  It was clear that Millie had no situational awareness, and would likely continue to suffocate her pigs, albeit inadvertently.  It was time to intervene.  We removed the four remaining piglets from Millie, placing them in a crate under a heat lamp indoors. 

We prepared a sow's milk substitute from our cow Phoebe's milk and bottle fed the piglets with human baby bottles.  It took them a while to catch on, but they eventually figured out that this was their new food.  The first feeding was quite a mess--little black piglets covered in drops of milk--but it worked.  The piglets will now get bottle feedings every 3-5 hours, around the clock. 

I left the farm that day emotionally drained, mourning for the senseless loss of so many piglets.  However, as I pulled out of the parking lot, I was greeted by a full rainbow, shining bright against the figurative darkness of the day, and felt uplifted.  We would not forget the pigs we had lost, but we would fight to save those who remained.  Rest in peace, Farina.  Rest in peace.

Piglets!

Congratulations are in order for Millet, our heritage breed American Guinea Hog, who delivered 9 piglets this afternoon!  There are 6 girls (gilts) and 3 boys (boars) and they are cute as can be!

We had practically given up on Millie ever having her babies.  Based on the last witnessed mating of Millet and Barley, Millie's due date was thought to be March 24.  On March 24, we all checked in on Millie, anxious for piglets, but nothing.  The "any day now" excitement lasted for about 3 days, until another farmer who raises the same breed of pigs determined Millie was about 2 weeks away from delivery.  Two weeks seemed like forever, and we settled back into our routines, abandoning "Operation Piglet Watch 2012." 


All the while, Millie kept getting fatter, and her teats more swollen every day.  The short walk from the pens to the pasture became a laborious journey for her, and she would arrive short of breath.  Finally, this afternoon, she decided that she had had about enough of being pregnant, and unbeknownst to any of us, went into labor under an olive tree in the pasture.  All of the piglets were scattered on the ground in the pasture when Jared, our farm manager arrived.  "Piglets!" he shouted, and I ran over from the greenhouse to find him rounding up the piglets and placing them next to their mom to suckle.

Millet with her nine piglets

Piglets attempting to find a teat and stay warm

This is Millie's first litter, and her motherly instincts seem to be lacking.  Apparently, most mother pigs clean off their young and chew off the umbilical cords, but Millie just lay there in the dirt looking exhausted and unconcerned.  Since each piglet was dragging a several inches long umbilical cord around in the dirt, we decided that human intervention was necessary.  Using some thread, I tied off each cord and another apprentice snipped the cord while Jared held the pig still.  Then we returned each pig to its mother to nurse.


Millie has ten teats, so each of the nine piglets has a place at the table, which is good news.  Three of the piglets are on the small side and appear weak.  I'm thinking happy thoughts for them and hoping they pull through.  Nursing on Millie is no simple task, considering that she seems prone to rolling over on top of her piglets, nearly smashing them.  Let's hope that once the fatigue of delivering nine babies wears off, Millie has more energy to tend to her piglets.

Cultivating a distaste for cultivation

Until now, I have always associated spring with cool mornings, warm days, rain, and the planting season.  After this past week on the farm, I can add weeds to that list of spring associations.  April showers may bring May flowers, but it is also true that March showers bring April weeds, although not nearly as poetic.  Several hours of each day of last week were spent "cultivating" in the main field.  Although cultivation technically refers to the entire body of practices used to manipulate soil, in this case it was being used as a euphemism for weeding. 

Honestly, I've never seen so many weeds.  Without knowing it, I have been really spoiled by gardening in raised beds filled with practically weed-free soil.  Or perhaps it is just that my garden is so small compared to the farm that it is really easy to keep up with the weeds.  All I know is that the weeds are so plentiful on the farm that finding the crops can be a real challenge.

The main weeding focus this last week was our leaf/root block that was partially direct seeded and partially transplanted a couple weeks ago.  The crops that went in as transplants were relatively easy to identify amongst the weeds, since they were several weeks old when they were put into the field, giving them a major headstart on the weeds sizewise.  The direct seeded crops, on the other hand, are pretty much in a neck-and-neck race with the weeds.  When the rains came, the crop seeds and the weed seeds both got watered and germinated, and both are growing side-by-side in the planting beds. 

Weeding out the unwanted plants is no simple task.  Hoes are useful for tackling the weeds that aren't right next to a wanted plant (aka, crop), but when it comes to getting the weeds that are crowded next to the crop, only hand weeding will do.  Hand weeding is just what it sounds like--getting down on your hands and knees and pulling out the weeds with your hands.  It's the same way I pull weeds in my garden, and most of us pull weeds in our yards.  The difference is the scale in which hand weeding happens on the farm.  At Soil Born, we plant in 200 foot beds.  The area of our leaf/root block that we weeded this last week was around 10 beds worth, each with 3 rows of seedlings.  In all, that comprises about 6000 feet of crop to weed, over a mile!  That's a lot of crawling on your hands and knees, and trust me, my body felt it.

The curious aspect of weeding is the fleeting nature of your effectiveness.  One of my favorite aspects of farming is having tangible results at the end of each day, and weeding is no exception.  You start the day with a jungle, and finish with an orderly bed of three rows of plants standing tall.  The problem is that there are always more weed seeds in the seed bank, and the orderly bed doesn't last long.  Last Saturday, we weeded a bed of kale.  By Thursday of the next week, it had to be weeded again.  Weeding is truly a constant battle. 

Already tiring of weeding after just one week, I clearly need to find a way to reconsider my definition of successful weeding.  Rather than considering weeding a one-and-done task, perhaps I should think of it as more of a marathon tennis match--a five setter between Nadal and Federer--that will test both my mental and physical stamina.  Let's just hope that in this battle, the plants win--I need to eat, and I don't really like weed salads!

Big Red

I eat meat. But until last week, I had never witnessed the harvest, or slaughter, of an animal for food. The process wasn't easy to watch, but it felt like something I needed to see.  If I wasn't willing to watch an animal killed for food, then I shouldn't be eating meat.  Nowadays, it's so easy to go to the grocery store and buy meat, hermetically sealed and highly processed, such that it hardly resembles its animal of origin.  With the grocery store, meat becomes a commodity, not a precious sacrifice. You don't even think twice about throwing out leftovers--you can just get more meat at the store. To be honest, for most of my life, that is how I've approached eating meat.

However, of late, I'm been trying to eat more mindfully and pay attention to where my food comes from.  We've been buying grass-fed beef at the farmers' market from a local ranch where the cows live a good life.  The natural next step seemed to be to witness the slaughter of the meat I eat.

At Soil Born, we raise chickens for eggs, not meat, but roosters who don't play well with others are not tolerated.  Big Red, the rooster we killed, was on the losing end of a battle with another rooster, getting pretty beat up in the process.  After the fight, it was decided: Big Red had to go.

At the appointed time, Big Red was carried from his isolation pen to the area we had set up for the slaughter.   He didn't seem to know that death was imminent.   Held upside down by his feet, he was practically asleep as the knife that would slit his carotid artery approached.   I really didn't want to watch the cut being made, but felt like I needed to watch everything, every second of the slaughter.  So watch I did, until Big Red's eyes stopped blinking.  Once the rooster was dead, I was amazed at how quickly he was transformed from a fluffy, feathery creature to a skinny carcass as we quickly pulled the feathers off after dunking the carcass in near-boiling water.  Once the rooster was dead, the emotional attachment that I had felt before the slaughter was gone.  It felt odd that now that he was dead, I could handle his body just like any other chicken. 

That night, back at home, I cried for Big Red.  The experience had been harder on me emotionally than I had initially thought, but I was glad I participated.  I hope that I will get to the point that I'm ready to slaughter a chicken myself, rather than just watch, but I'm not looking forward to that day, either.  Life, even a chicken's life, is precious.

Tunnels

This week, I began my integrated pest management rotation in earnest.  Right now, the focus is on gopher trapping.  The ambivalence I felt toward killing furry creatures before I began the rotation remains, but is now manifested in mixed emotions as I walk the fields setting and checking my traps. 

Gophers are a major predator on the farm, destroying plants primarily by eating their root systems from underground.  The basic approach to gopher trapping is to find areas of recent activity, set traps in the area, and return in 1-2 days to check the traps. 

Step 1: Find areas of recent activity.  Gophers live underground in an interconnected series of tunnels.  When digging their underground tunnels, the dirt they are pushing out of the way has to go somewhere, so they push it to the surface, creating a mound of fresh soil.  I think the freshly turned soil looks like coffee grounds.  Damp soil, which is darker in color than the surrounding ground, indicates a fresh mound.  Older mounds have dry soil.  Of course, gophers aren't the only burrowing creatures on our farm, so I also have to distinguish between mole and ground squirrel activity.  Ground squirrels don't create mounds--they just leave big holes in the ground marking the entrance to their burrows.  Moles do create mounds, but they tend to be volcano-shaped, unlike gopher tunnels, which are horseshoe-shaped.  So I walk the fields somewhat randomly, looking for horseshoe-shaped mounds of damp coffee grounds.

Horseshoe-shaped gopher mound

Step 2: Set traps.  Once I find a fresh gopher mound, the first step is to find the tunnel/s associated with the mound.  This requires probing the ground around the mound with a plastic stake, feeling for an area of intial resistance as the probe penetrates soil, then no resistance as the probe enters a tunnel.  Once I think I've found the tunnel, I slip a hori hori knife along the probe and create a pocket for my hand to enter the tunnel, pulling the knife out as I slide my hand in. 

Hori hori knife

Once my hand is in, I feel around to determine which direction the tunnel is heading in.  Often, there are 2-3 tunnels that converge into the pocket I'm in, and I can set a trap in each one.  The next step is excavation, the most time-consuming part of the process.  The traps we use are larger than the tunnel entrances for the most part, which means I have to widen and deepen the tunnel entrance to fit a trap inside.  Once I have a big enough hole, I set the trap's trigger mechanism above the ground.  We use Victor gopher traps. 

Victor gopher trap



Trap set in underground tunnel

Once the trap is set, I carefully place it at the entrance to the tunnel, then backfill the area I excavated with dirt.  To make sure I can find the trap the next day, I place a stake with a bright orange flag right next to the area.  The stakes are tied to the underground trap, making it easy to pull the trap out of the ground to see if you've caught a gopher.



Flag marking a set trap

I find steps 1 and 2 to be rather enjoyable.  I get to work on my own, exploring the farm, keeping my eyes open for signs of gopher acitivty.  I feel connected to what's happening in the fields.  It's satisfying to identify a mound, successfully probe for a tunnel, and excavate an area to set a trap.  If I don't think about what the traps are for (killing gophers), setting traps is a pleasant way to spend a day.  It's step 3 where the mixed emotions come in.

Step 3: Check the traps.  On Friday, I set 8 or so traps, in several areas of our main field.  On Saturday, I looked for my orange flags and checked each for a gopher.  As I grabbed the string and began pulling my first trap to the surface, half of me hoped the trap would be empty, while the other half wanted to be successful with this new task.  Much to my relief, the first trap was empty.  So was the second.  And the third.  And the fourth.  At this point, while relieved to have not killed anything, I was getting worried that I was doing something wrong.  As I pulled my fifth trap out of the ground, I fully expected it to be empty, too.  So as the trap reached the surface, I was startled to find a gopher on the end of the line.  My heart sunk as I jumped back at the sight of the lifeless gopher.  I never thought success could be so disappointing. 

My first day of trapping yielded two gophers, each of which was buried in its own tunnel.  When I reported my results to my supervisor, I was congratulated.  My heart soared momentarily--I had done my job well and been successful.  Yet that success meant the loss of a life, and I didn't feel comfortable celebrating that. 

Doggie field trip

Author's note:  Today's blog will be guest written by Dakota.

I'm so excited that my mom is letting me take a stab at this blogging thing--I've been getting really bored with laying on the couch while she types every night.  I may not have opposable thumbs, but I can hunt and peck with the best of the canines!

Today started out like any other day--jump off the bed, stretch my back, get dressed in my favorite collar (the one with the blue bone-shaped tag on it), and head out for some exercise.  But today my mom cut our morning exercise short, which made me pretty mad at first, but then she invited me to hop in the car instead of her usual routine of telling me that I'm the best (Boy, do I like hearing that!) and to be good, and then leaving me to guard the house from intruders.  Field trip?!  Awesome!  I hopped up on the passenger seat, settling into my usual shotgun position.  I didn't know where we were going, but I hoped it was the place that the dirt on mom's clothes comes from--that tantalizing scent of fresh vegetables, wood chips, and pigs. 

When mom stopped the car, the tantalizing scent was everywhere around me.  I could hardly contain my excitement.  Okay, I didn't contain my excitement.  My tail started doing its thumping thing, I starting whining, and climbed all over mom in the driver's seat.  She put my harness on (too bad!), but I got over it pretty quickly, probably because of that amazing farm smell.  We went for a little walk, then met up with a group of people standing in a circle talking.  Mom let me run free while she joined the circle.  I greeted all the people with sniffs and a few leaps (mom keeps getting mad at me for those leaps--I don't think she understands that I just want to give people a proper face-lick greeting.)  While they talked about something called harvesting, I tried to track down the source of that amazing smell.  As luck would have it, I didn't have to go far.  Just a few feet from the circle, I found it--a set of three round, brown piles.  Even though I had already eaten breakfast, I just couldn't help myself--I ate one.  Mom made a funny face and told me no, and I heard someone else say, "Pig poop! Eww!"  Pig poop?!  My lucky day!  I went back for seconds, and when no one was looking, thirds. 

We headed into the fields after that, and I ran around, soaking up the fresh air laden with so many new smells while mom worked, filling boxes with vegetables.  What a life!  I even met another dog named Porter, but he wasn't too interested in running around with me--he just laid there in the grass and dirt, watching all the people.  How boring.

Mom and the circle people all gathered at one field and did some more talking while I ran around.  The field was really open, with nothing sticking up out of the ground, so it was a great place to stretch my legs out and race.  I heard mom yelling "No!" but it just didn't make sense--I wasn't doing anything wrong--I was just running.  I came back to mom to figure out what I had done wrong, and she put me on my leash.  Bummer.  After that, she kept saying, "Path! Path!" over and over again, and pulling me into a narrow trough.  "Path?"  What's that?  I know sit, and shake, and down, but path?  What was mom asking me to do?  I was so confused, but I wanted to make mom happy, so I kept trying to figure out this new word.  After a lot of short tugs on my leash, I finally realized mom wanted me to walk in the trough, apparently called a path.  I liked the wide, flat areas better, but mom wouldn't let me walk there, muttering something about a bed of seeds and the german nation (or was it germination?). 

All my running was catching up with me, and I decided to lie down and rest for a bit in the tall grass while mom played in the dirt. But then I smelled it--that tantalizing scent again.  I stood up, and turned to find the source, my sniffer in overdrive, when my nose bumped a piece of string and suddenly felt like it was on fire.  An intense buzzing feeling shot from my nose to my paws.  More surprised than hurt, I jumped up and back, leaping in the air, trying to get away from that string as fast as I could.  I learned my lesson right then and there--stay away from the string!

A little while later, one of the ladies from the morning circle came over with a tray of really small plants.  "Morning snack?," I wondered.  No such luck.  These plants weren't for eating--they were for burying.  I was disappointed.  I settled for a drink of water instead.  After another circle with lots of talking, mom wrapped my leash around a pipe and headed into the field to dig holes.  Without me.  How could she leave me behind, especially to go digging?  She knows digging is one of my favorite things to do.  Maybe she just forgot to take me.  I barked, hoping to remind her I was there.  But she didn't come get me--she just kept digging little holes and putting the little plants in them.  I barked again, but she still didn't come.  I know she heard me, because she told me to be quiet, and that got me even more worked up.  I wanted to be next to her, not tied to some piece of metal.  I lunged toward her, and realized that the pipe I was tied to was pretty light and I could drag it behind me.  Excellent!  I started toward mom, pipe trailing behind me, but somebody grabbed me before I could get very far.  Thwarted, I barked some more.  At last, my barks succeeded, and mom came over and stood by me.  "I think it's time for you to go home," she said.  Home? Already?  Sure enough, a few minutes later, Grandma Janice and Grandpa Niel showed up and took me back to guard my house.  I don't remember what happened next, but they tell me I fell asleep in the car.  I guess all that running around caught up with me.

When mom came home tonight, I heard her say something about half-day doggie kindergarten at the farm on Saturdays, so I hope that means I get to go back there soon.  I'll try harder next time to stay on the path and not bark so much.  Anything to get close to that tantalizing smell again!

Dakota