On a drizzly midnight, the house was all quiet, not even a mouse was stirring. Joelle and I were winding down from the day’s onslaught of activity or maybe it was ramping up for the next day’s adventures. Okay, we were cleaning up from dishes and laundry, so we wouldn’t have to do it in the morning. Anyway, as we were playing some Chris Tomlin in the background we went about our chores. Our home is a constant buzz of activity, like many of yours, but on this night we were treated to a special announcement.
Many months ago, we got two new farm kittens—a male and female, of course. And the children all clamored for future kittens. Outwardly, I was reluctant to concede to those dear faces. I think they had been taking lessons from our labs, with those pleading eyes. But inwardly, I was on their side. So I let nature take its course and our dear sweet Bessie, who has the markings of a Holstein cow, was soon an expectant mother. The children were so excited.
Then one day she had the kittens, but could we find them? No. We told the children that sometimes first time momma cats don’t know how to take care of their litters, but we did hunt around like private detectives trying to find those kittens, but, alas, it was not to be. Yet for some reason, she was still overly protective and had the signs of a nursing momma. She had to be hiding them, but where?
So as Joelle and I were finishing up and getting ready to retire, with the June rains gently dancing upon our roof top, the clock struck midnight, and to my astonishment what did I see? My-liss and Bessie curled up on front porch chair with not one, not two, not three, but four little kittens fast asleep. A pleasant little surprise indeed for us all. Now the children want to keep all of them, of course.
Other Farm News
What is growing on the farm is really doing well and what isn’t growing is not so happy. It all depends upon when they were planted and whether it rained or got hot or cold. Which is why we just keep planting. Some plantings are better than others and some make it and others don’t.
We will have peas soon and lettuce and spinach. The potatoes are making me nervous because the plants are already huge. But the onions, cilantro, carrots and dill are in desperate need of some heat units, like every other living organism in Western Washington.
What an evening! Last week, Joelle and I were heading a thousand different directions between soccer and ballet when, but for a rare moment, our schedules crossed paths. It was 6:30 p.m. and Joelle and I arrived home earlier than expected, so I said, “Let’s go for our walk.” We are able to make a walk a reality a few times a week. As the day was fleeting, we got going and Stephen, our newly accomplished bike rider, accompanied us. About a quarter of the way down the road, towards where we keep the cows, Stephen crashed, “Ouch!” We got him back up, dusted him off, and were off again winding our way towards the cow pasture. Just as we made our way around a turn we noticed that something was amiss.
Initially, I thought out loud, “Hmmm…the neighbors have cows now?” As I gazed towards my side of the road, I realized that the neighbors had my cows now! I took a deep breath. We haven’t had to chase cows since 2005 and it is my least favorite sport. I got on the phone, called a few neighbors, and tried to get another neighbor to stop playing cowboy on his quad!
The cows had lifted a gate off its hinges. The gate was still padlocked to the post, much to the relief of my third son who was the last to use that gate. When we built that fence over a year ago we didn’t turn the hinge posts opposite directions. So, when one of the cows was using the gate as a scratching post it lifted it up and off they went—not a single cow stayed home, imagine that.
We got the cows moving forward again, strung a hot wire across the road, barricaded the road with a tractor and truck, and began moving the cows towards the gate. Ahhh, easy as pie. But then they up and bolted through the vestiges of our neighbor’s fence and were gone again. But they were also getting tired. While the teenagers chased cows, I had Nathan, one of my farm hands, reposition the tractor and truck since the cows were now going to be coming down a different direction. When they got to the end of our neighbor’s field and were resting, we repositioned our non-hot hotwire and started moving the cows towards the road. Thankfully, my neighbor had left all of his fence posts in the ground even though there isn’t a single wire attached to them—all that mattered was that the cows thought a fence was there.
Joelle parked her car at the other end of our road and we started moving the cows slowly towards the “hole” in the fence. They didn’t want to go, but one reluctantly stepped through and began to turn the wrong way. “If that cow bolts, we are done! They will be heading to Warm Beach!” I started praying, “NO LORD!” And then, all of a sudden, my petite wife began jumping up and down and waving her turquoise blue coat like she was a matador. Then that cow, not even thinking twice, headed the right direction. I started thanking the Lord because I am sure that cow saw the hosts of Heaven hanging like a halo above her head!
A few minutes later, the cows were back at home, the gate was fixed properly, and a good night’s sleep was had by all.
PS. Meet these adventurous cows in the video below.
The first year I ran cows, I spent a lot of time researching which grazing system I wanted to use. There was barb wire, New Zealand, or just one hot wire. The choices were straightforward. Every dairy cow in our valley is controlled by one hot wire right next to the road. Being overly cautious, I settled on two hot wires.
Well, those first cows arrived, wandered out of the trailer, impolitely walked through the hot wire, and left. OH NO! Thankfully it was Sunday and all of our neighbors were home. It took all day long to round them up. Fortunately, one our dairy farm neighbors corralled them for us. Our family went to work building a 4-strand barb wire fence with one hot wire in the middle. That was an education. Now when our cows break a hot wire fence, it is an interior fence and they are still contained by the perimeter barb wire fence. We even have combination locks on our exterior gates so that they can’t be accidently opened. Nothing like chasing cows, and cows by nature are pretty docile, but when they know you are trying to catch them or move them all bets are off.
The other challenge with having fences is controlling the grass on the fence line. It takes us 40 man-hours to trim the grass in order to make sure that the blackberries don’t grow and the grass won’t short out the electric fence.
Last week, when we were trimming the grass, a hot wire at a post was cut and no one noticed for a day or two. Eventually the cows let us know, at least the few that are always testing the fence and our patience☺. (Hmmm, sounds like a good segue into parenting, but we will save that for another week.)
We are now on the hunt to find the short in the fence that the cows have discovered. I am not concerned, however, because now the cows can only wander around inside the perimeter fence and not the neighbor’s yard. But we still need to find it. We start turning off sections of fence to locate the short. Sometimes the short is a wire that is touching another wire or overgrown grass touching the wire or, in this case, a cut wire.
We finally ended up finding the break. It was on a buried section of wire where it came out of the ground. I grabbed the end of the wire to fix it, but I grabbed the hot one that wasn’t shorted out. Man that wire was hot—sent a jolt right up my arm. Yep, the electric fence charger still works.
Moral of the story: good fences make good neighbors and let your kids fix the fence when it is shorted out!
PS.Take a look at our video below to meet the cows!
How would you finish that sentence? I will never forget the first time I met my spouse? I will never forget the day my child was born, went to college or got married. I will never forget the stranger (or at least someone I didn’t know) who pushed our car out of the snow.
Some “I will never forget moments” are sad, heart-breaking, and filled with grief. It might be the news of cancer or a heart attack. Every family has buried someone dear: a friend, a spouse, a family member, a child.
For some, their “I will never forget” memory is when a soldier, an officer, or pastor/priest knocks on their door to say what they already knew in their heart. It is that “I will never forget” memory that we are remembering this week. America is memorializing that ultimate sacrifice for freedom that has left an unfilled void in our families, communities, and country. I have never experienced that “knock” on the door, but for those of you who have, my heart goes out to you.
The Bible reminds us that there is no greater love than to lay your life down for another. Those who have died serving others have demonstrated this love. May we never forget and may we honor those who have never come home to their loved ones and may we show compassion to those who have had to stand in the whirlwind of that loss.
America has been, is being, and will be shaped by our collective “I will never forget” memories.
I have been getting used to using our new greenhouses. (In actuality, they are giant cold frames.) I have noticed that the crops closest to the door are smaller and, well, not quite as happy as the other ones in the back. I keep the door open all the time, so I am pretty sure the initial breeze is making the difference. I will try and keep the door partially open and see if the tomatoes like it better. The plants are setting fruit and I just finished suckering (pruning) them.
Suckers are the branches that sprout in the crotch of the main stem and a branch, if you don’t take those suckers off they will cause the plant to produce a lot of little tomatoes. Remember that a plant’s sole purpose is to reproduce or make seed, it is not concerned with the size of the fruit, but just making seed. So as a farmer, I try to manage the plants’ desire to produce seed by controlling how much fruit it produces, which forces the plant to put more energy into fewer fruits. Suckering makes the tomatoes larger since they are getting more attention from the plant. And just when the plant thinks they have produced enough seed, I pick the fruit and put in your box of good☺. By pruning to limit tomato production and timely harvesting, I am able to work with the tomatoes’ desire to make more seed and keep producing more fruit over a longer harvest.
In the other greenhouse, I am growing sugar snap peas, but don’t ask me why I am doing that though. On a whim, I planted some extra seed from my field plantings. Now I need to get busy trellising them before Jack, in Jack and the Bean Stalk, switches to climbing pea vines.
We still have a long ways to go before any tomatoes or peas will be ready, but when they are, they will be coming your way!
We are especially busy this spring. Normally we have our usual spring farm work, getting the ground ready for vegetables, and that usually takes most of our time. This year, however, we have added replanting one of our pastures to the list of spring work, which essentially doubles the amount of land we have to work. We are getting it done, but we only have so much equipment and it has to be spread around and used in different areas.
I decided to replant the pasture and rejuvenate it about four weeks ago. I was hoping to get a jump on replanting in early April and have the grass available in mid-June for the beef cows to graze. With all the rain, that plan hasn’t worked out very well. Now I am hoping to plant this week for grass to graze in late July. Farming is like that—you make your best choice and move on.
And we are moving on. The season doesn’t wait and there is lots of work to do every day, week, month and season. All I know for sure is that now is the time to plant and planting we are.
I just couldn’t resist. The weather was gorgeous, the day lazy and it was begging to happen. I try to keep Sundays as a day of rest, and for the most part I have been successful. Even with this nice weather, I still try to make Sundays a family day. Really, every day is a family day, but the other six are a mix of ballet, soccer, track, school and work. Yet somehow and some way we get through every day, so Sundays we rest and play to get ready for the upcoming week.
Naturally, I went into the barn and found the hammock and practiced resting in it J. I wasn’t overly successful, because my kiddos (and they know who they are) kept asking for a turn every 5 minutes and when you have as many kiddos as I do, every 5 minutes takes a half an hour to cycle through the requests. I was determined, but they were more determined and outnumbered me. Eventually, I found myself sharing the hammock or being swung in it and, to their glee, almost out of it! Of course, it was a lot of fun and served as a distraction so Joelle could enjoy her time in the sun (a “bonus” mother’s day gift). That hammock is a magnet for laughter, memories and fun, which are the best gifts a parent can ask for, save the “sea” sickness, of course.
Farming and family life are uniquely intertwined. Of course we all have to eat ☺, but the imagery, the metaphors the seasons of life are likened to farming. How precious is the seed of life that only a mom gets the privilege to understand? Seeds travel a similar journey from planting, to growing beneath the soil, to emergence. As a farmer, I am always waiting for the day the seeds appear, yes there are tell-tale signs, but oh the excitement when the seeds emerge.
As a father, I have been through that same season with my wife many times and every time it is exciting—the anticipation of waiting for your new precious little one to come. And they do come and they do grow up.
We guide these little plants through thorns and thistles, stress and droughts, warm weather and gentle showers, always believing, hoping and eager for their future to unfold like May blooms on the lilac tree. All the while knowing that there will bumps in the road, but we continue to believe and hope and pray often with unbending devotion and unfailing love.
For all you mothers, thank you for your sacrifice, your service and your love. Our community, our nation and our world is a better place because you have chosen motherhood.
Hang on to your hat, because these next few weeks are going to be a class 5 kayak ride! We were behind a few weeks ago, but now we are getting nervous. If the weather doesn’t break soon so that the rain lets up, I won’t be harvesting anything until August. At least we have snuck in (mudded in) a few plants in between rain storms. Our first plantings of peas are up and our second plantings are just emerging. The strawberries and raspberries are sending out new leaves every day and those two nice weekends we had gave the bees enough warmth to get out and work in the orchard. Now,it is a waiting game to see if (and how much of) the fruit will set.
After last year’s horrible spring, I decided to diversify and plant some more perrienels , like raspberries, strawberries, apples, pears, plums as well as herbs. Even the beef help to mitigate springs like these. Every season has its ups and downs, challenges and triumphs. By diversifying we are able to cover expenses and even out the waves of life or seasons. Looking forward to calm waters ahead.
Arugula and I first met in a dimly lit restaurant on the edge of an Umbrian town that sat on an ancient stone as if organically formed. The pizza that was served was a welcome reprieve from the usual pasta dinners we enjoyed while in Italy.
I was nearly twenty, and yet somehow I had managed to live that long without enjoying the peppery bite of arugula. My memory is unclear as to how or why I ordered the pizza I did, but it turned out to be one of the highlights on my culinary timeline. What arrived to my table was a pizza whose blackened crust extended beyond the plate. The tomato sauce was perfectly simple and floated amid islands of mozzarella. Piled high on top was bright and dramatically pointed leaves of arugula, or rocket as it was referred to there.
Since that fateful night, there is hardly a week that goes by that I don’t enjoy a healthy portion of this fragrant and delightfully spicy green. As with all greens, arugula is very low in calories and packed with plenty of vitamin A and C. So I generously add a handful to salads, top on sandwiches, toss into a simple warm pasta dinner, and process into a powerful pesto.
It’s a member of the mustard family and with one bite you’ll recognize that warming, nearly nasal cleansing heat. Spring arugula offers a softer bite than the sun soaked late summer variety. I like them both. Loosely wrapped in a damp paper towel and wrapped in plastic, arugula can last 3 days in the fridge, but mine rarely does as I use it almost immediately.
This arugula-rich dish I have for you today uses the zesty green in two places. Half is blended to make a flavorful pesto made bright with a bit of lemon and the rest is tossed with just warm lentils and sweet, grilled asparagus. The whole dish is brought together with an aged and salty pecorino. It’s healthy, flavorful, and destined to be a favorite spring dish.
Many months ago, we got two new farm kittens—a male and female, of course. And the children all clamored for future kittens. Outwardly, I was reluctant to concede to those dear faces. I think they had been taking lessons from our labs, with those pleading eyes. But inwardly, I was on their side. So I let nature take its course and our dear sweet Bessie, who has the markings of a Holstein cow, was soon an expectant mother. The children were so excited.
