Northern Farmer

The wind is howling outside as I write. The temperatures are plummeting and it looks like it might be a tad bit nippy tomorrow morning. The cows got two extra large bales of wheat straw to fill there bellies and keep them warm over night. But there’s something in the air even when we’re getting hit with this latest arctic blast. Its sunny out and even though they say the wind chills are anywhere from 30 to 45 below zero the cattle are sunning themselves in front of the loafing sheds, just chewing their cuds, not a problem in the world. So if they’re happy, I’m happy. I just gotta go out yet at sundown and pick any eggs laid between a few minutes ago and then. That old 1920s hen house rarely freezes inside but with the help of all this wind blasting it will freeze tonight, but unthaw by tomorrow if there’s any sun at all. Plus I have to fire up the main outdoor wood boiler yet on the farm. It’d make it till six in the morning if I fired up now, but I feel allot better knowing I fired up a little later in this weather. We’re burning mostly hard maple this winter and that wood is really good! The trick I have found out is don’t split it, because we cut it at least two feet long and sometimes a little longer than that, those round pieces of firewood outlast split wood by quite a margin. Amazing wood! I learned that anything that I had split I only burn during the daytime because then I’m outside and can keep a better eye on the whole thing. I don’t go outside in the evening and check the two boilers we have, no need to when a person has it down pat. They do last.

This arctic blast should only last a couple of days and then its back to business as usual around here. There’ll be a huge amount of manure to clean out of the pole sheds this year and that makes me a happy fella. That manure is very important in keeping costs down and also building up the land for the future. I’ve written a few times how I can visibly see the land coming back to life around here because of changed farming practices. Even the small of the soil is sweeter when a person is working it compared to years ago when it was just corn, corn and corn, with a very long stretch till it finally had oats on it. Didn’t have much in hay land back then, compared to now when its anywhere from half to two thirds of the field land. This year it’ll be about half of the farm in hay. I decided to plow up a good percentage because of so much winter kill last year, put in some OP corn and next year oats with hay planted with the oats. Even the grasses suffered winter kill because of the double whammy of open winters and drought summers. So no sense crying over spilled milk, just get on it and get them fields going again. Besides, if there’s any rain this next summer maybe we could get back into the thousand ton range of silage from the OP corn and the cattle thrive on that. A whole different ball game than from the modern hybrid corns.

I’m wondering if we should get any broilers this year for the chicken tractors, haven’t decided yet. First of all I don’t eat them, but that’s just me, I don’t care if most folks love them. I love the old fashioned chickens, thus I’ve started our Partridge Rock flock which is thriving. I call them full sized bantams, they have spunk and can fly like a Pheasant. They’re laying really well and their eggs are just a hair smaller than egg production chickens lay. Not much smaller, but you can notice it. Their temperament is wonderful! I haven’t gotten pecked hard gathering eggs like some of the production breeds do. Sometimes I could of sworn them old hens we had took a chuck out of the backside of my hands. I know they’ve drawn blood many, many times. Something about the Partridge Rock breed, I kinda like them. The roosters don’t think they can take on a human either unlike other roosters we’ve had in the past that want to fight you. Plus they look good! We’ll see how it goes. I will be making the boxes for them to set in these next couple of weeks along with taking photos when I do to show how to make them. The goal is to hatch out a couple hundred chicks using hen power instead of buying chicks or using artificial incubation. And to hatch them out in an orderly manner, not helter skelter. I know I’ve wrote about this before but I always wanted to take photos with it too so folks would know what I’m writing about here. Stay tuned, it will come.

Also I will be writing about how to have several OP varieties of corn planted side by side without cross pollinating them It takes a little management but can be done. This way farmers or homesteaders can plant small plots in there gardens or where ever and multiply their seed without having to have tremendous distances between the varieties. I could write it now but want to either include drawings or photos with this project to help folks understand the methods used for doing things like this. I was thinking about some of these things the other day and it dawned on me that what I take for granted many folks reading here have no idea about many of these things. So I’ll be putting them on this blog from time to time. Quite simply I fell lead to do it. Because as almost anyone that has ever read anything here know, the system is out to destroy these thing, plus destroy families, faith and anything good that could be imagined. Its almost like I’m getting a fresh direction on what to do here with the same reasons.

I firmly believe things are going to get worse. I’m not in the nutcase department, but if a person even looks around a little bit there’s no denying it, all around is an attempt to stomp out Christianity and the family. Even in the countryside the family farm is the enemy of this culture. They want industrialization of everything including life. But there’s some folks that don’t bow down to this culture, that still believes there is a God that saves when a person repents and walks away from the ways of the world. And all around its been going on, folks that are doing things the way the Bible says to do them. And the more the culture goes down the tubes the more people will wake up and realize the truth. Even when the ag media says that industrialization is the only way to go, even when the government, the government of the multi national corporations try to muscle in laws hiding the fact that the food they produce kills, even when these same huge multi national corporations promote perverted lifestyles and the destruction of the Christian family, even then there will be folks in the countryside raising families, raising critters, raising crops and gardens, and spreading the Good News that Christ died and rose for us. We might not be the glittery huge urban churches, might only be some small churches or some home church farmers and country folk, but what looks impossible for man is not impossible for God. His church will spread throughout the countryside, might not be in the same form as the big churches, but I believe as these things keep happening in society that Christianity might get a bit more purified. That’s the way it works when almost all looks lost.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.