Tiny Farm Blog Organic micro-farming with two acres and some tools ~ a daily photo journal...

Checked out the chickenhouse today to make up a materials list for the renovation. Here’s a view of the south-facing side (the usual daily view is from the barnyard to the east; the barn and silo are to the north, and hidden behind them is the market garden). From this side, it has that ramshackle cabin-in-the-woods look. I quite like it: 200 sq. ft. of open-plan living, big windows for lots of natural light, electricity, running water…instant home! Like most things on the farm, it has its history. The structure is 80-90 years old, purchased 50 years ago from the farm that used to be across the road (now a village subdivision with a bunch of houses, and untended fields), dragged over by tractor, and set on a concrete pad. It was used as a pony barn for a while; harnesses are still hanging on the wall. For the last 15-20 years, it’s housed a few chickens and turkeys, or been unused. Now, it’s back! There’s not much to do, besides a good cleaning: banging in a defensive baseboard (in the pic below, that’s a GNAWED not-so-little hole under the window), a window to fix, nests to build for the layers, and a coat of lime to disinfect and whitewash (that’ll be interesting). Outside, T-bars and chicken wire to fence in yards, and that should be it. Most of the materials we can salvage on-farm: the fencing stuff, lime, and plywood should be all that requires cash! There are even a bunch of feeders lying around. All these bits from the past, unused and still in place after years and decades, would be a little creepy, if we weren’t coming across them on the way to getting new things started!

After being there for their birth nine days ago, I couldn’t not keep track of these guys. For about a week now, during the days, they’ve been in one of the yards just outside the barn, eating, resting and ambling around, exploring. They do grow up fast. It was sunny, but icy cold today, with a bitter wind, but the cows seem unconcerned.

There was action in the barn in the wee hours today. A couple of the cows gave birth. Here’s the first new one, around five minutes after his 4 am delivery into the cold barn. This is the second time I’ve watched the whole thing unfold. The first was maybe a year ago. In both cases, human intervention was required, which consisted of Bob with a length of chain wrapped around a pair of calf’s feet, pulling. Last time, he explained it was a dry birth, where the embryonic sac breaks too soon, the head dries out, and, less lubricated, it sticks on the way out. A little feet-planted-firmly tug-o-war type pulling and…a new cow! This time was a little more complicated, a breech birth, with the calf turned right around so its back end was aiming out instead of the head. Particularly with first-time births, the mothers aren’t relaxed enough to let the bigger back end out first. So, the chain was wrapped around the hind legs and attached to a cable with a ratchet, in turn attached to a steel fence post set in concrete. The long-handled ratchet allows the cable to be pulled with more force than a person alone could manage, as long as the cow stays put and sets herself against the pull (which it seems to do, since I guess it too wants the baby out!). Anyhow, some minutes of pulling and then out popped the calf! There’s lots of bloody fluid and trailing bits, and the calf lies there at first like a limp, wet, bloody corpse. But the mother is right on it, licking away, and within minutes its head is up and peering around, and if all’s well, it’ll awkwardly stagger to its feet in under half an hour. Pretty cool! The second mother gave birth around four hours later. The first time watching all this was interesting, a little sensational with all the bloody fluid, the second time it’s simply…satisfying, another really basic part of life that most of us in the modern world just plain miss (we eat meat and drink milk, don’t we…well, a lot us do). I’m not sure about the breeding timing or anything like that, like, Why calves now? With Bob’s cows, I’m an observer, sometime consumer, occasional chaser.

Here’s the second calf, three hours after an 8am arrival, up and tottering around! Sturdy!! It’s fascinating to watch them rapidly get used to their legs, steadier by the hour.

We haven’t had much sun lately, but it came out for the top half of the day today. What a difference sunshine makes, if you have any choice at all, you certainly can’t stay indoors (especially in front of a computer!). In my slow and steady exploration of all the many parts of the barn not used in tiny farming, I snapped a shot of the silo at the south end, looking quite imposing in the bright light, kinda industrial, and still in good shape. This is an old concrete silo, about 40′ (12m) high, used mainly for silage (partially fermented crops used for livestock feed). It was last filled around 15 years ago, when this was a full-fledged dairy operation. Field corn was chopped up and blown up the tube on the left. Packed in, the corn would start to ferment, which helps preserve it for winter feed. Cows apparently love silage! At times, the silo was also used to store dried corn (the kernels) for feed. Hmmm, wonder how to reuse a silo…

Not a big concern, but part of my rounds is keeping an eye on the snow load on the Milkhouse roof. It’s that shallow angle. This pic makes the potential problem clear: big, steep upper roof, unloading onto not-so-sloped lower roof. Luckily, with the wind and angle, there is seldom upper roof build-up. Although the weather’s been relatively warm recently (it did drop drastically last night), and there’s melt-off, it’s also been snowing in regular spurts, dumping an inch or so at a time. So, I keep an eye out… (If not for apparent global warming—shorter, less snowy winters in general, for whatever reason—we might have gone steeper when building last year. It seems we’re already casually adapting to visions of a freakish weather future, which IS human nature but still…weird!)

New Year’s Day in the field. I wasn’t up to catch the sunrise, so I snapped a pic of the barn…instead. Happy New Year!!

Here’s what I see coming out from the Milkhouse at night, as I head to the house. Facing is the goat barn, with the big old barn out of frame to the right, the farmhouse off to the left behind the rail fence, and the curve turning into the on-farm lane that meets the road. (I borrowed a tripod to check out photos by available light. It’s cool, way more picture possibilities. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks, avoiding the annoying flash.) The light from the street light-type lamp pools brightly right below and fades across the yard. (Without that lamp, it would be pretty near pitch black around here unless the moon was out.) The scene seems sometimes picturesque, sometimes a little ominous, that desolate, deserted parking lot look…but it’s only the Farm. As far as anyone remembers, the lamp fixture was rented 20 years ago from the provincial hydro company, they still come around every few years in a huge truck with a cherry picker to change the bulb, or tube or whatever it is up there. I could call and find out the details, but at the moment, they’re not important…

A view from the north end of the market garden field, the reverse angle of a couple of days ago and a relatively rare perspective for me. Although the crops are on a 7-year rotation that marches them from here towards the barn, I still tend to spend more time down around the greenhouse-Milkhouse end, no matter what’s growing where. Today, I’m once again checking things out as fall clean-up proceeds in pieces. The nearest section is the new addition, recently cleared of squash, pumpkins, cucumbers and melons, and the raccoon-fated corn just out of sight on the left. After one season, it’s a little overgrown with grass, but not bad. Next year, this will be beans!

The main barn is huge. I’ve gotten used to it, because it’s always around, but it’s on a whole other scale from my tiny farming, and I don’t know it that well. Upstairs, in the cavernous main space, mysterious rigging and wooden contraptions that probably have something to do with hay float in the shadows 30-40 feet up. There are hidden stairways, built-in ladders, chutes and trapdoors in the floor. In a little corner in the back where it stays cool, I store garlic and onions during the summer and fall. I also take a long view of the garden field from the top of the gangway leading in. The barn was built in 1949, after its predecessor was accidentally burnt down by the idly discarded cigarette of a wandering stranger (”hobo”? “itinerant rural homeless person”?) who’d spent the night. The main structure is all wood—mortise and tenon—with no nails or other metal fasteners involved. I’ve picked up lots of details and stories centered around this barn. It symbolizes farming, it makes this place look like a farm, but to me it’s mainly just…space. That’s a little weird. As I took stock of the last of the onions and the seed garlic today, I decided to spend some time on really looking around. Explore now!