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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Real Life

Done with farming, on to the next thing. Back to real life.
A WWOOFer (short-lived and almost entirely forgettable) took great exception to my characterization of the world outside the farm sphere as ‘real life.’ He took it to imply that I thought a farming lifestyle to be less valid or worthwhile.
To the contrary, I meant that farmlife, in its isolation from the tangled mess that characterizes the majority of urban lives, exhibits a superiority that feels unfair. Like cheating? But perfect.
I know I could extol the virtues of farms, farmers, farming at length, but I think for the most part I already have. It took me months to hand over this blog link to the farmers I work with for that very reason- poorly disguised beneath my pretentious prose were the glowing praises of everything around me. Embarrassed by my inner sentimentalist, I wanted to maintain my outwardly cynical persona (‘skeptical’ was the favored euphemism this season).
However, I hope I did not succeed. Farming this season was perfect not only for me, but in and of itself.
In part I am resigned to the real world, out of instinctive duty or otherwise. In a couple weeks, I will begin an internship with New Hampshire’s NPR member station. And while NPR represents in some ways the pinnacle of gritty reality, it also maintains a heightened level of idealism. Maybe then this is the best compromise: being where I can engage with a mediated reality, at least until the rusticity wears off.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Directional Tree Felling

      I was working at the cash register at the farm market one Saturday in high school when a woman walked in. Allison, my goofy older coworker, notices the woman’s shirt and croons, “Ohh! The Common Ground Country Fair!” And the woman, pleased that someone had noticed her new-not-washed-yet shirt, readily enthuses. The only piece of their description of the fair that I remember is that ‘nearly all the women were braless!”, to which the woman and Allison laughed mightily as though this outcome was the result of their personal conspiracy. Their explanation must have hit on several key buzzwords that appealed immensely to me at the time – ‘rural living’ ‘organic food’ “Mainers’ ‘camping hippies’- because the notion of this fair stuck, and has since crossed my mind variously as a thing I should do some day when I get a chance.

               90˚ notch on the left; flap extending most the way

         to the right; barely visible one-inch hinge

      Jump ahead a couple years, and I am working on a farm in Maine. The organization through which I found my apprenticeship is the same one that puts on the Common Ground Country Fair every year as their major fundraiser. All food organic, all crafts Maine-sourced, and all demonstrations promoting alternative lifestyles and a common ground for a variety of organizations and ethnic traditions, et cetera. A ‘celebration of rural living,’ the fair lives up to its stereotypes, while throwing in a bit of substance as well. There were the requisite dreadlocks and bare feet (last weekend of September), as well as Amish folk, farmers, and scores and scores of Mainers in their Maine finest: Bean boots, Carhartt pants, and flannel. All-organic/Maine-sourced food vendors, contra dances, and weed dating ('brush hands in the flower bed! make new friends!').
      The talks and demonstrations run the gamut from titillating to ridiculous: Mowing Techniques for European Scythes, Learn to Play the Spoons, Advanced Seed Saving, The Culture and Horticulture of Elderberries, How to do a Home Funeral. The first demonstration I attended was Directional Tree Felling Techniques w/ Chainsaw. Chosen from relatively few options in that early time slot, I picked this one for its location in the (intriguingly named) ‘low impact forestry area’ and the promise of chainsaw action. I arrive 30 seconds after 9, grab a hard hat from the pile, and hurry down the path into the woods.
notch; sawing the flap; studious would-be lumberjacks
      The enthusiastic, one-time primary school teacher running the demonstration wore a neon vest, a hard hat with ear protection, a whistle, and heavy pants and boots. He was still lecturing on safety: “chainsaw-resistant pants are not chainsaw-proof! They will only prevent a glancing touch by tangling in the saw. But get some! Ask for them for Christmas, Father’s Day, Arbor Day, whatever! They might save your life!” A bearded guy in a woolly poncho and an upright young man with his shirt tucked in nodded knowingly and jotted down notes.
successfully falling tree
Next, the tree felling. First cut a notch that spans almost the diameter of the tree. This tree is 15 inches, so we estimate that the notch should be a foot wide. The notch will be 90˚; the inner angle will form the ‘hinge.’ The hinge is of utmost importance in directional tree felling – like a door hinge, it will allow the tree to fall only one of two directions. The idea is the tree will fall toward the hinge, and neatly fall 90˚ to hit the ground before splitting on itself.
imperious teamster and horses
      Next, cut a ‘flap’ from the other side of the one-inch hinge toward the opposite side. The tree is now prepared, but stable. Adding plastic wedges to the opposite side encourages the tree to fall in the desired direction- toward the hinge. Then cut through the hinge! A balanced tree in breezeless woods may hold steadily. Tap the wedges lightly. Exhilaratingly, it rustles, and surprisingly gracefully, it falls. Right where you intended! Good job. The teamster and his horses ride in to take the tree away.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Sex and Politics in the Barnyard


       Of all the animals on the farm, cows most easily lend themselves to personification. They are large mammals with relatively complex needs and relationships, and their heads are approximately at human eye level.
       Recently, the intrigue surrounding the cows has been Bill’s ongoing attempts to breed one of them. His priority is to assure that at least one cow is milking next season. With the two currently milking cows running dry in the next few months, this means that one needs to become pregnant this summer.

First, the personalities:
DB doesn't take nonsense from anyone
Boston- the dignified matriarch of the herd. She is old, old (nine or more?), and a retired commercial milking cow. She has lived out her retirement thus far at Hatchet Cove Farm giving birth once and milking since.
            Fluffy – Boston’s son. Once he became too old to milk Boston directly, he was ostracized from the barn to hang out alone on pasture elsewhere on the farm. Somewhat lonely, and useless as a steer, he is set to be ‘beefed’ later this autumn. 

DB (a.k.a. PrettyShiny, or Big Lady. DB stands for Dutch Belted, her breed.) – DB is the current darling of the cows. She was bought in the past couple months, and is huge and beautiful, presumably with years of fertility ahead. Her teats are irregularly sized, and her udder is covered in long hairs. More challenging to milk than Boston, her milk is judged by some to be vastly superior.
Fluffy the loner enjoys pasture
            
           (Nameless) Calf – the adopted son of DB. When the farm purchased DB, the agreement included taking this male calf. Male calves are not really of use to anyone unless you need a bull (to impregnate cows), or want to train an ox (to haul your things around for work or sport). Because of this, calves are sometimes foisted on buyers of more valuable milking cows.

Cookie – the lapsed favorite. She was bought with eventual milking in mind. Bill raised her to be accustomed to people and easy to handle. This summer, she was sent to a neighboring farm where she lived for two months on pasture, with access to bulls who would breed her. In a dramatic fall from her previous stature, she returned not only not pregnant, but entirely unruly and resistant to people. She breaks out of the barnyard to eat tiny spinach, moans ferally, harasses the other cows, and resists approaches by humans. Not only is she not pulling her weight, she is generally a nuisance.

Elton – a bull visiting from another farm, for the goal of impregnating one of the cows. He is however submissive, unskilled, and timid. He has demonstrated his lack of skill in mating, and routinely lets Cookie browbeat him. He is also reportedly afraid of grass (preferring the safety of the concrete barnyard).

       Cookie was the first best candidate for pregnancy. Young and moderately docile, she would release Boston from calf-bearing burdens. With her failure to breed and fiendish conversion, however, no bets remain dependent on her. DB was purchased in order to take the pregnancy mantle. The first time DB went into heat though, was comic and unsuccessful. We would watch the barnyard as the Elton uncertainly circled DB, who would occasionally mount him as if in demonstration. Ultimately, though, Cookie bust in and threw everyone for a loop by taking an interest in DB and repeatedly mounting her, apparently to their mutual delight.
cows enjoy turnip leftovers- DB, Boston, Elton, Cookie
       DB went into heat again this week (unsurprisingly- between Elton and Cookie there was never a substantial chance for pregnancy), and Bill immediately borrowed a ‘proven’ bull (“Grata”) to visit for a couple days. As Bill arranged the trailer containing the bull and the cows within and without the barnyard, excitement among cattle and apprentices was palpable. DB mooed her emotions to him, and he stomped and snorted intimidatingly through the grating. Bill released the bull into the pen we closed the double-gate behind him. While Boston stood aside (and Cookie howled her protests from the pasture), DB and the Grata began to circle one another. Grata’s intermittent efforts at mounting are often undercut by DB’s ceaseless circling, as well as his significantly inferior size. Human observers are lined up along the gate, watching as if at a sporting event. We chatter and spectate, simultaneously cheering on the underdog Grata, and sympathizing with Cookie’s cast-aside sorrows.
       Possibly almost entirely constructed by the observers, this drama nonetheless defines human-cow interactions on the farm. One hand, they are almost entirely our pawns, with their shelter, food, lactation, and reproduction entirely under our control. However, there remains some room for them to exert their own will. We can put a bull and cow in heat into a pen, but if she resists then there won’t be a pregnancy. If it turns out she would rather spend her time in heat mounting other female cows, then no one will get pregnant either. While it’s likelier that we exist on the outermost periphery of their awareness, it’s nice to take credit for and joke about the spread of our permissive and gender-role-undermining culture.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Farm Life: Part II

Sunday pickling project
     Farm life, phase two! : gone is my incessant reading, 8 PM bedtimes, cooking experiments, carefree attitude toward the future, free time. Also, the majority of aches and pains, lack of social life, boredom in the fields. Marked by a trip home and subsequent sororal visit to the farm, a shift has occurred for me in most aspects of the pace and tone of my life here.
     Mostly, the change is caused by concrete differences. First of all, the workload on the farm has increased with the volume of the harvest needing to be done. Squash and cucumbers, tomatoes, and basil really started to thrive, green beans are ready, carrots and potatoes need to be dug. Combined with the departure of two apprentices, the increased workload has taken its toll.
     Additionally, a summer romance has taken up not only a good amount of my free time, but the majority of my spare thought-space as well.
     This decreased extra time, as well as the general sense of busy-ness, has changed my once-productive farm lifestyle. Most alarmingly, I’m scarcely reading a thing anymore. I finished my first books (Omnivore’s Dilemma, Love in the Time of Cholera), and have casually started and quickly discarded another set of books (Gone with the Wind, A Book of Salt, Seven Pillars of Wisdom) purposelessly. If I read, it’s in the form of low attention-span magazine or newspaper articles that either appear in the el (apprentice common space), or on my internet radar.      Correspondingly, I’ve also stopped writing. (Devoted followers of this blog have probably noticed a precipitous drop-off in posted entries.)
     Relatedly, I’ve given up on a lot of cooking endeavors. Initially, I made bread, butter, fritters, pickles, and horchata. Each week’s new harvest meant new things to cook. With my loss of enthusiasm for reading and writing, though, disappeared my will to spend Sundays cooking. Instead, I spend a lot of time daydreaming and eating eggs or raw vegetables.
     Not everything is lethargic waste, though. When the shinyness wore off weeding and harvesting, I slowly started bringing my ipod to listen to during more solitary activities. With this came a flood of excitement for all the podcasts I’ve never before had time to listen to. I’ve also, by necessity, once again taken a serious interest in my future and have begun applying to various internships and jobs.
     Overall I spend less time doing productive things, but I use the time well. As my new pace settles (and my fleeting romance flets) I hope to re-incorporate at least a bit of the farm-life things I did in the beginning of the season. In the meantime, however, the new pace is dizzying, but good.