Hay going and piglets coming

If you have driven by the place lately you may have witnessed a grass stuffed giant marshmallow Stonehenge like arrangement, like Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of our agricultural future. Don't' fret, that is just the ancient art of hay being done. There are some local fellas that have been haying this land for years, and the grass was growing faster than I could graze, so we worked it out. I don't know if I was more impressed by the art or industry of it, but the only ones who enjoyed seeing it more than I was the coyotes. In broad daylight they will follow the baler picking up the mice who just had their thatch roofs removed. I am sad to see the marshmallows loaded up and heading down the road, but excited to let the field turn green again, and spread the grazing pastures farther out. Currently the pigs are tilling the new hop field. It is getting late in the year for our hop trials, and I think we can kiss this fall's harvest goodbye, but we should have our foundation plants in the ground and ready to overwinter in time to make a strong showing next year. Ezra Meeker would till new ground twice and then stick new hops in, tilling occasionally between the rows to control weeds (all horse draft). We are just going to have the pigs till so most of the natural soil structure, and microbial life will stay intact. We haven't decided who will graze the rows between yet, so far it is a tossup between the smaller breed pigs, and sheep. We will have them do paper scissors rock and see who wins. Speaking of the smaller breed pigs, our prized mulefoot "Kid-Pig" just congratulated his third wife on his third litter (her first). In a week or so his fourth wife, a registered mulefoot from Minnesota will be arriving. I keep telling him to slow down, but he just tells me I am too old fashioned. Check out Facebook if you want to see pics of the new ones.

Sun and fertile ground

Hot sun, and extremely fertile ground has things growing like mad here. Grass depending on the species is anywhere between my waist and as high as I can lift my hat in the air. The pigs are grazing a dent in it, but most of the field has seeded out. This means it needs to be hayed off so it can go green again. Right now the neighbors are making round bales out on the field and it looks great (hence thier tractor in the pic) The first pasture that the pigs mowed down is almost fully grown back with a deep shade of green, with no irrigation and maybe one day of rain. The buckwheat is coming up too. I should be announcing the harvest schedule in a couple weeks or so. I have been planning the pasures to be about two weeks of grazing, and that has been working out pretty good. Ususally I will throw the pigs a snack every day, to remind them they are domesticated, and that they like me. Unfortunately it causes them to associate me with tasty snacks all the time, so when I go out to walk the fence line, the whole heard follows me along the fence line, honking in single file. I can't help but laugh.

Pasture sytems go!

My phone doesn't take the grandest photos, but what we have here is the last three pasture rotations. Foreground is about to be opened to new grazing, middle ground is current grazing, and the next field out is regrowth from the last grazing. I cannot believe how fast the pasture springs back with growth after the pigs have tilled her. At three weeks rest it is almost regrown. If you were to see closely you would notice that the pigs don't leave the ground level. They dig all kinds of peaks and valleys. For the first replanting (in addition to the pasture that regrows on it's own) We have broadcasted sugar beets in the peaks, and buckwheat in the low spots. The buckwheat will create allot of biomass, as well as rich forage, while helping to fill in. We hope the beets will lure the pigs to re level the high points next pass through. If the birds leave the seeds in the ground, and the pigs cooperate - it will be a pretty cool system without need of machinery. No machinery outside of the sickle bar mower I use to mow the fence line at least. Pasture samples were lab tested at 20% protein, try to buy commercial feed that dense. Now that the grass is in seed the protein is lower, but morning glory is running rampant, and making up for it, and the pigs go crazy for the morning glory. When I get a chance I try to cut a little and hand ensile pasture for leaner days. So far the silage is a delicacy to the pigs, so that may play into winter plans for these guys if I can figure out how manage the large quantities without braking my spine. In general I like the pigs to pick their own grass. We are getting ready to breed our first 100% mulefoot pair in a week or so, and rethinking the breeds for our production girls. The 50% mulefoot piglets are growing fast, and are lightening quick little guys. They are like watching furry little pin balls bounce around. Carrie next door at Little Eorthe farm is helping us plan out our seed saving field for our heirloom "Mammoth Red Mangle" beets. These monsters grow up to 20 pounds, and likely will be an important part of our winter forage systems in the future. We are growing seed, because it takes a mortgage to buy them, and also they are very rare and hard to get. We have had some challenges recently with organic wormers. We had been using diatomatious earth, which was not working internally. If anyone out there in interweb land has had success with natural remedies, I would love to talk shop. Other than that we are loving being on site. Carrie Little just tilled our family garden for us and Tahoma Farms gave us a bunch of starts to put in. With neighbors like these we may just have to stick around for a while.

FYI new contact info. cryingrockfarms@gmail.com

I check it once or twice a week.

The season we have all been waiting for!

This is what the first day of summer looked like here at the rock. A couple of our blackberries basking in the mysterious light above. Allot of folks think Himalayans are an invasive species. But how could something be imposing when it just wants to crawl into a bottle of wine? The pigs have tilled around four acres so far, and counting. The ground behind them is holes and mounds differentiating between 6 inches to one and half feet in varience. For our first replanting we will be broadcasting root seeds in the hills, and buckwheat in the holes. Over time the bio mass should even out the level again. If not, then next time through the pigs will dig down the hills for the roots, and get er releveled. I am trying to avoid tilling since the pigs are leaving the soil structure pretty much in tact, but we shall see. So far Summer has been pretty true to form, the kids are out riding bikes and finding bugs and snakes. We are doing alot of hand haying long into the evening. Life is hard, and life is good.

The Blais family has landed...

After living in the same city for 31 years or so, they have finally put me out to pasture. We have been living on site for two days now. It has been a little too busy to really appreciate it. It is a little surreal, Teresa and I feel like we are staying at a cabin, and we are waiting for Monday when they make us go home. But today is Monday and this is now home. Moving day overall went spectacular, except that the pigs knew we were busy and decided to move too, outside of their fence. Thanks to cousin Donny for chasing them back in while we were in a truck full of our worldly possessions movin on down the road. Also, while the house here was empty, an extended family of little grey mice decided it was cozier in the house than in the field. We closed up all the holes and vacuumed up all the little black presents they dotted in all the corners, set some traps, and now assume we will not be carried off by them in the night. But we will see. One of the first things you notice out here is the stars. Big and bright. Nighttime goes down a little differently now, the old sirens are traded now for frogs croaking and wily coyotes howling. And the smell of burgers, fries, and paper mills are traded for the sweet smell that blows across the grass. I don’t know how the smell changes when it turns dark, but it is awesome – and addicting. Since on site we have also found out Teresa is quite the pig whisperer, as you can see in the picture she has this little piggy hypnotized with a belly rub.

Life and Death

There was an article earlier this month about 1500 pigs dying because of a power outage.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20100512/NEWS07/100519874
Gosh, I feel for the farmers and the animals. A loss like that is terrible in so many ways. How could a power outage lead to this? It could be said there is a flaw in the model when there so many animals crammed into a box so small that air ceasing to be pumped in for a few moments leads to monumental death. I am not going to kick this guy while he is down. I blame him no more than I blame traffic congestion and smog on the guy on the assembly line putting mirrors on Fords. We drove the car, and we ate the pork chop. God knows my model is far from perfect, and I have a disheartening number of failures for every success. I am convinced however that sustainability is 90% not being ridiculous, and 10% mystery. Pigs want to be outside. Pigs want to gather their own food. Pigs do not bite each other’s tail off because you failed to cut it off first. Pigs don’t want to impersonate pickled sardines. That is what I mean by the 90%. The 10% is going to take some trial and error and a huge amount of humility. Whenever we assume we fully understand something, we often miss out on the needful details. Like boiling life down to NPK and waking up a century later one step away from desert. I have been doing OK so far following these “not being ridiculous” assumptions, and down the road I am sure there will be some hard lessons. There is not a lot of guidance on full pasture systems with swine. Actually I haven’t found any. But in the wild, pigs are quite prolific and we can look to those systems at least. In the mean time I will measure quality by how many wild birds are perched on the backs of my sows. It still falls into the 10% realm however, how I will keep said birds out of the field peas I am broadcasting behind the grazing pigs. Here’s to the mystery.