Rats!

Sometimes on the farm, we lose.  I could present an upbeat, wholly untruthful narrative about the way things turned out on the farm this year. And, if I did so, I would be lying.  We had our share of losses.  No corn, and as it turns out, a pitiful vegetable garden plagued in a Biblical fashion.  Yes, I would have to call it a plague; RATS.

I have always been aware of their existence on this farm but this past winter was especially easy and I noticed them jumping out of the way in front of my tractor when I mowed in early spring.

They haunted all of my dreams of abundance. I planted 50 of the most lovely, lush paste tomato plants one could ever hope for.  I tended them, put manure around their roots, limed the soil to a perfect pH and watched them grow, expand, set flower and fruit.  I staked them with a Florida weave, and the green tomatoes abounded.

Then, in the heat of summer, just when the fruit was taking on a nice blush of red, the plague attacked.  I entered the garden daily to find each fruit still green at the top and eaten on the red-tinted blossom end.  Grrr.  Ok, I thought, just a rat or two (there is never just two where they live in cities). Indeed they are a force of destruction, taking a few nibbles out of each-and-every-somewhat-ripe---tomato.  While they plundered the tomatoes, my beans grew nearby, untouched and unravaged.  Lucky for me my taste runs toward the “haricot vert” side and I picked probably 10 lbs of beans for the freezer.  I felt like I was winning. Why is it that I had to erase this last sentence and rewrite it because of Charlie Sheen? He does not belong in my paragraphs.

All went well until the bean shells swelled with fat seeds inside. Now there was a higher nutrient value within the seeds, and the instinct of these remarkable yet disgusting creatures lead them to the bean patch. 

Half eaten beans, just barely chewed beans, completely eaten beans and very, very few pristine beans left for me.

The beet seedlings; sheared off at the sprouted tops.

Carrot seedlings; gone.

Sweet corn seeds were snatched out of their rows in the ground. No sign of disturbance at the soil surface, just unrealized corn.  Again, corn is an abstract this year on the farm.

I checked the sweet potatoes, previously pushing their tough shoulders against the soil, and rupturing it in great cracks above as they muscled through the dirt.  All dug out of the soil, and eaten.

My heirloom squash seemed to be defiant.  Tough shelled and smooth with a reasonably large diameter, they resisted assault.  Fine pairs of flat chisel marks from rodent incisors began to appear on some of the fruit.  HA HA!  The vermin cannot bite the squash.  I quickly harvested all the ripe and near ripe fruits.  This may be a sign, and adaptive gardening measure.  One should only plant hard shelled veggies. Sigh…not the diverse and tasty garden of my dreams.

What is going on here?

The organic, environmental reason for this plague is an imbalance in the ecosystem.  Perhaps it is the warm winter we had last year? Perhaps it is the presence of Livestock Guardian Dogs keeping rat predators at bay while ignoring the rats themselves?  Perhaps it was the lack of a human presence pushing them back for the past 20 years? Who knows, but this year I am hoping for a mighty winter to descend upon these fields, and for balance to return to the farmstead.

Livestock Guardian Dogs

We have two full time working dogs on our farm.  One is a Great Pyrenees mix (with Collie I understand), and the other is part Anatolian and part Pyr, which part is which I have no idea. That's her in the back wearing the mask..

These are beautiful, true working dogs.  They won't win any pageants covered in burrs as they usually are. But they are on the job all day and all night.  Not much escapes their notice and they hear, see and smell all of the threats to their flock.  We were told by the breeders of our raccoon masked dog, Daisy, that she would grow up not really caring about people.  She was to care for the animals and not much else.  We have found this to be very untrue.  She loves people, and considers them to be equally as important to protect, especially kids.  When working on different areas of the farm, it is very common to have the dogs follow us, and just sit there watching as we mow, make fence, dig or plant.  We are part of the flock they are guarding.  When the kids go walking, almost always one or the other dog follows with them.

It is truly a safe feeling to be awakened in the night by their barks, and to hear them race off across the farm to protect against some other critter.  When you are tent camping, is is reassuring to hear them just outside your canvas wall.  They are awake while we sleep.  They do an excellent job, and we have lost very few chickens as a result.  One can lie in the dark, and listen to their two barking voices, each very unique.  Lexie's bark is higher, a bit raspy and squeaky. Daisy has the deepest most improbable voice for a lady, a rumbling low register, big dog bark. 

I am amazed by their camaraderie.  Lexie the Pyr mix, was brought in as an adoption. Her former farm could not handle her anymore as she was rumored to be chasing their goats. When she arrived, she walked out amidst our chickens, took up a commanding strategic location in the chicken yard, and went to guarding immediately. She has been a steady part of the team ever since.  Daisy arrived from her litter in Georgia as a 10 week old pup.  She did not guard right away, and took several months to mature.  At approximately 8 months old, the guard dog powers were activated. With the teaching example of the older dog, Lexie, she has become the finest of guard dogs.  It is impossible to teach these dogs to do what they do.  It is pure instinct.  It is unique experience to watch a creature fulfill what they are meant to be, and without any human interference.  When one dog darts away chasing something, the other is quickly up and away after her.

These dogs are not without their shortcomings however, and we have been working to teach them the boundaries of the farm.  It is in the dogs nature to maintain a secure territory.  Sometimes this means going on "walkabout" and taking the fight to the coyotes.  They dogs will wander, seeking to push the predators further and further away from the home territory. Often this causes them to "go missing" for hours.  For a caring dog owner, this is torture.  Every Pyr owner I have talked too can tell me a similar story.  It is a priority for the dog's boundaries to be clearly established.

These dogs are a great asset on the farm.  So much would be lost to predators without them.  They completely earn their keep.

Corn Crop Failure

My To-Do list got the best of me this year.  Or perhaps it was luck?  Just as the Midwest is reeling and crops are dying, we in East TN are having climate issues as well.  The month of June, I recorded only .65" of rain for the entire calendar month.  That is terrible I must tell you, plus for a good part of the month, the daytime high temperatures were over 100 F.  Almost unbearable to work in.  For sure impossible to grow corn in without irrigation.

In 2011 I planted about 1/4 acre in Oxacan Green Dent Corn.  I got it from heirloom seed sellers.  My hope was that I would be soon filling my corn crib, and building a seed bank to plant with continuously.  I saved two bursting 1 gallon zip lock bags with the seed product of that 2011 crop, fully intending to replant and expand in 2012.

It didn't happen.

I never got it planted.

Too much infrastructure building going on.  Too much bush hogging to do.  Too much of too much.  Not one kernel of green corn got planted in the ground.

I never thought I could ever be so lucky. 

Yes, lucky. 

The farm has no formal irrigation system.  The system is me with buckets.  There is no way I could have kept that crop alive through June, July and August without mechanical/petroleum powered irrigation.  I would have lost every last kernel in the weeks of 100 F and higher heat.

Now my two bursting gallons of corn seed are safe and tucked away in cool dark storage, waiting for next year. [Yes, with proper storage corn can be kept for decades, perhaps centuries as was discovered in the desert southwest]

So, a failure turns out not be a failure after all, but merely another chance to gamble with nature next year.

LJF 1,  Nature 0--- But Nature bats last.

Untold Riches

Fall is nearly here, the sun is slanted low in the sky.  The evenings have cooled from their uncomfortable highs of summer.  And, I have hay in the barn.  Hay from my own property. This hay also brought some beautiful friends into our lives. The man we hired to mow it, brought his wife to help us load it into the barn the next day. A blessing, a gift of labor, and we are pleased to now have them as friends.

It is wealth from the bottom of the food chain, the most basic of blessings, the kind of bank that can keep a farm and feed all the animals and people on it.  I am a wealthy woman indeed.

To Do List:

Not necessarily in order.
-  build a Salatin drop cage for the meat birds before they get much bigger
-  plant the rest of the late season garden
-  prepare for the arrival of the new Rhode Island Red chicks
-  put up the invisible dog fence
-  install the charge controller, batteries and inverter for the PV system
-  build a stand for the 275 gallon water tote
-  pipe together the 55 gallon rain barrels
-  build a perimeter fence on the back property line
-  disc wheat field (more than once)
-  trim pony's hooves
-  get the kids some mud boots
-  get me some mud boots
-  start shopping for a new straw hat before this one rots off my head
-  buy spelt seed
-  plant spelt
-  plant Kamut
-  stop adding too many items to the to-do list
-  clean out the freezers
-  make a space for the mason jar shelf
-  plant some more veg winter garden
-  plant veg yet again (succession plant winter garden)
-  plant the garlic

I will only have 10% of my running to-do list ever completed.

The Oxacan Green corn above was on the to-do list, but was and epic to-do list failure, or was that a triumph of luck?

Seeds for Tomorrow

I was very pleased when Bear came up to me this weekend, his little hands outstretched, face beaming.  In his palms he held some small squash seeds.  He was so proud.  I asked him where he got those.  He told me that the dried gourd on our mantle had fallen down and broken, and that he was saving the seed from inside, because it grew more food, and that it was important to save seeds.

I am proud of my Bear, very proud.

We are born not knowing anything.

Isn't it great?