Bye Bye Thelma & Louise

It's been almost a year since we last posted.  As you might guess, much has happened at Anam Cara.

Shortly after they arrived in May

The pig condo, complete with door.

Thelma and Louise are the pigs we co-raised with our neighbors this year.  We got them mid-May as piglets.  It seems like only yesterday they ran around in that big pen, not knowing what to do with their new home.  By the time they were ready for their final trip, they weighed close to 300 lb. each.  Having never cared for pigs, this summer brought yet more adventure, albeit a good one.  Pigs love whey and goat cheese.  We were able to regularly get it for free from a local goat farm.  Our neighbor was also able to get 5 gallon buckets of cast-off restaurant food.  Having these two food sources helped reduce the amount of purchased feed needed.  Aside from processing, feed is the only cost when raising them.  Because of all the rain we got this year, their pen became a soupy mess.  They were wading in a 6 inch deep mess whenever they came out of their house.  We had to do something with this disaster.  We decided to buy 10 bales of mulch hay and spread it around.  The hay absorbed some of the water and made a semi-solid surface to walk on.  They LOVED that!  The hay was fun to play in (& munch on!) and they could lay down outside again. At one point we observed Louise (spotted one) carrying mouthfuls of hay into their house.
     

Early November at their favorite place!

Caring for the pigs and chickens quickly took on a daily rhythm.  I fed and watered them in the morning before going to work.  Cheryl started calling me "Farmer Kirk".  I guess that fits as I've found considerable satisfaction in this new role.  Not only does it get me outside doing physical labor but it also takes me away from being "stuck in my head".  Downright meditative I'd say.

The gals were with us 6 months and they were good folk to have on the farm. We enjoyed their antics and their sweet selves, and yes we fell in love with them but always kept in mind that they were our future food. We were concerned about getting them loaded for transport to the butcher, but a little coaching from a neighbor did the trick. The roughest aspect to the whole adventure was backing the gals up to the holding area and hearing the butcher say "We don't take colored pigs, they have to be white." I (Cheryl) stared at him, incredulous, at first wondering if he was joking. When he went on grumbling about how much more work (hair scraping) colored pigs are and wanted to know "where'd you find colored pigs?!" like we'd surely scoured the countryside to turn up a couple colored pigs to torment him with, comprehension dawned that this guy might actually refuse our gals and send us home with our curly tails between our legs to tend to 600+ lbs of pig all winter. I wasn't going down without a fight so I fixed him with my you're-not-dealing-with-a-pushover look and pointed out that when I made our reservation no one asked me if they were white nor told me of such a policy. Then I kept quiet and stood my ground. He "educated" us a bit and made his disgust apparent then relented and said he'd do them this ONE time!

Kirk laying block on a hot, humid July day - what fun!

Another major initiative this summer was construction of a root cellar.  We have no basement in our new house. Since we plan to store considerable food for the winter, building a root cellar was a necessity.  As is our custom, we didn't do the root cellar in a small way.  It is built into the side of a ridge and measures 8ft. x 18 ft. with 8 ft. high walls.  The walls are constructed from cement block, filled with concrete and reinforcing rod.  It should last for many years.  We also installed a good drainage system and a passive ventilation system to control humidity.  The roof is insulated similarly to our house with 4 inch foam.  We supplemented with additional insulation inside the roof.

The southern side.  We will be adding much more fill to keep things cool.

Since we needed retaining walls to complete the cellar we took our building partner, Eric's, suggestion and put in several planting beds associated with the walls. It's a dandy spot for growing, southern exposure, and our plan is to plant various edible perennials here such as lingonberry, strawberries, & goumi (sweet scarlet) which also produces fruit. The plantings will also help keep the root cellar cool.

Speaking of Eric, we'd like to tip our hat to him and note here what a fabulous mutually beneficial relationship we have with him. Eric is an experienced carpenter and multi-skilled lifelong Mainer. We hired him and his partner to build our barn in spring 2011. That partnership fell apart but Eric has stayed with us building or helping to build every structure on the place except the house. He partner's with us offering ideas and looking into things for us and works for a lower rate than we could otherwise find. In return he gets steady work with the flexible schedule he needs having a baby at home and a great working environment. We're all thrilled with each other!

Eric in early days grinding stumps

The other major project this year was a new chicken house.  It has lovingly come to be known as the "Chicken Palace".  Our original flock was housed in a small coop we purchased online.  Although it did the job, it offered no expansion for our soon-to-increase flock.  More importantly we learned chickens need light and constant fresh air to thrive.  Cheryl came across coop designs from the early 1900's that nicely satisfied these needs--a fresh-air poultry house.  The structure measures 10 ft. wide x 16ft. deep.  To many, this coop seems quite radical because the southern side is open to the outside all year round.  It is screened of course to protect the birds from predators but otherwise not covered.  We have deep roof overhang to keep the rain and snow out.
 

One sweet chicken hangout

 The open air design provides plenty of fresh air.  The chickens are protected from winter winds because the coop is 16ft. deep and the roosts are at the opposite end from the screened opening.  In addition, clerestory windows allow light to penetrate the back of the coop, giving the chickens the light they need winter and summer.  We worked hard to make both house and run predator-proof with hardware cloth including burying it 2ft. down all the way around the run.  The roof of the run is also covered to deter hawks from attacking the birds.

Cheryl, always looking out for opportunity, brought 4 keets (baby guineas) into our lives this summer. Guineas love ticks and help protect chickens with their hyper-alert way of being. Everyone told us we'd hate them because they're so noisy, but we find them to be ok. The expansion of our chicken flock entailed raising 9 chicks from day-old. One of those little puffballs turned out to be Bob Marley, one gorgeous rooster. Once we realized he was a he we worked on socializing him to see if we could end up with a rooster friendly enough to keep around. So far so good.

Bob Marley, the proud

We have a wonderful chicken story for you: one of the young ones, Buttercup, is down in the pecking order and gets picked on a lot. So she likes to refuse to come into the run when the others come in for end of day treat--our intent is to bring everyone into the run area and close them in for safety, then later they go into the house & roost for sleeping and we come out and close the door to the house. So Buttercup's strategy is to wait outside the run avoiding being picked on by the other birds until the others have gone on into the house where they roost (we pop back out and let her in to the run just before dusk where she quickly eats from what has been left before she heads into the house ). One recent evening Cheryl got busy cooking and forgot that Buttercup was still out, it got quite dark and Cheryl heard something hit one of the window screens on the front of the house. She wondered why someone would be knocking on the window and then suddenly remembered Buttercup. She ran to the door and out into the dooryard and there was Buttercup under the window--she had realized her danger and come a fair distance to the house to signal that she needed help getting inside! Ever heard people say chickens are stupid? Don't know about that...

Come on in, where life thrives

This past spring also saw the transformation of our dome greenhouse from a shell to a growing space with nice growing beds 2' wide and 2' high, the water tank filled & stocked with aquatic plants, snails & 7 goldfish. We hope to eventually establish a self-caring ecosystem in the tank such that we no longer need to provide fish food. With summer's lushness Kirk declared the dome "magical". The peering in photo shows the bed construction we chose (walls of galvanized roofing material framed with 2x4s and topped with stained 2x4 ledge) and you can see some nice flowering cuke vines with daikon radishes, tatsoi & green beans in the foreground.  We're now heading into the dome's first winter as a functional growing space so down the line we'll let you know how it does.Cheryl just ordered a couple thermometers that record the min & max temps for the day--one for the greenhouse, one for the root cellar. Next steps here in the dome will be to improve the soil, put in drip irrigation and make use of vertical space for growing.

   

8ft. Plow mounted on the bucket - a great snow handler

 This photo is actually from last winter but it's never too early to think about the coming season.  The first winter we were here, I used the tractor with the bucket to plow the driveway.  Although it worked, it was slow and a pain in the neck.  Then my neighbor told me about a guy selling an old plow, minus the hydraulics.  I got the plow and with the help of the neighbor, installed mounting brackets in the plow bucket.

With two pins, the plow can readily be put on and off the tractor.  What a difference the plow makes!  A nice feature of having the plow mounted on the bucket loader is I can lift the plow straight up.  This allows me to keep the plow a few inches above the gravel when plowing the first few snows.  I don't want to put that expensive driveway stone into the ditch and this arrangement does the job well.

We are continuing on our quest to learn new skills toward becoming more resilient. In a couple weeks Cheryl will be taking a workshop on hog butchery and dry curing. Thanksgiving weekend Cheryl and Kirk took part in a workshop for learning to process ducks from live birds to ready for the freezer. In the photo Cheryl is eviscerating a duck. She found the day full of useful learning and the experience of sitting with dying ducks to be profound.

In March we'll be welcoming a breeding trio of Muscovy ducks to our farm. Muscovies are the only duck that is not a descendent of the Mallard. Interestingly they do not quack and in good permaculture fashion they will be multi-functional as part of our farm. They are extremely hardy, love to eat slugs (yay! garden saviors), are fantastic moms, make some extra eggs in the spring & summer, of course gift us with lots of great poop, and will provide us a good ongoing meat source. As bird lovers this is going to be hard for us, but we feel that since we eat meat we ought to step up to the responsibility of taking the life of the animal being eaten and we feel good about having ensured the animal lived a happy life according to its nature before becoming our food.

We continue to strengthen our connections with neighbors in the hope of creating several collaborative relationships like the pig raising we just completed. Some new neighbors have a strong interest in having goats so we're talking with them about doing them together. They'd have them on their land to put some of their lawn area to better use & reduce their mowing and the two families would share the costs of raising the goats, the milking & other chores and their useful products: milk and poop.Another neighbor we're getting to know has some foraging skills which he's offered to teach us and we've started discussing jointly hiring an experienced forager to instruct both families at once. Informal talk has also begun between Cheryl and others about the possibility of getting a shared family cow. Cheryl & Jayne dream of a Jersey or Guernsey with their sweet personalities and all that wonderful rich yellow milk (Mmmmmmm, stupendous butter!)

Now to the philosopher's corner--we're entering a special and needed time of year, the time of darkness. In the coming months remember to go within, restore, reflect and be with the darkness. This time is an opportunity for discernment and inspiration if we find our still point and listen. Two pertinent quotes:

“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. ”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver

Remember self-care during the holiday season :-)