Hi Everyone,
In this update:
"It couldn't go on forever . . ."
This week James Vanask, former Chief Risk Officer for WaMu, said clearly what we've all heard, said or felt (though more often felt than said): "Our practices were fundamentally unsound, and it couldn't go on forever . . . you knew that ultimately there was a limit to this."
I mention this quotation not to add to the self-righteous condemnation now being heaped on the executives of WaMu, but rather to ask if it isn't time for all of us to ask of ourselves whether the same thing is true of a lot of the things we do in our daily lives, both individually and corporately. Are the practices of our lives sound? Are they practices that can go on for generations? Or do we know that ultimately there is a limit to the time we can continue our current lifestyle.
My sense is that a lot of us recognize that we, along with the communities we live in, cannot continue as we are forever, and probably not even much longer. My point isn't to convince anyone that this claim is true, but to address those of you who, like me, believe there is abundant evidence that there is a limit to the trajectory of the lifestyles most of us live.
What do we do to begin to change? Everything seems to have gotten so complicated, so technical, so abstract and so distant. But there is one simple activity we engage in daily in which we can ground our lives and many of our activities. I'm speaking of the food we eat.
I recognize, of course, that I'm writing to the choir! But we need to be aware that the choice each of you has made—to eat food that is grown completely outside of the industrial/chemical agricultural loop, to eat food that is unprocessed, and to eat food that is grown locally—really is a revolutionary act. It is a way to say "no" to the business-as-usual marketing that tries to convince us that the "American way" is to eat food grown with an arsenal of poisonous chemicals and using methods that can't go on forever (or much longer), food that is then processed until it is unrecognizable both in appearance and nutrition, and food that is then transported half way around the world before the contents of its plastic container get to our supermarket. Maybe that has become the American way, but it can't be sustained. And like our unsustainable economic practices, this too will fall.
But we don't have to wait for the collapse of our unsustainable food system to get out of the checkout line. We can checkout now and begin to reclaim a personal prerogative from the purveyors of international food (or, as Michael Pollen puts it, "food-like substance) corporations. At the same time you can support the growing local economy, and choose to support with your buying power the kinds of agricultural stewardship you wish to support. It's amazing that something as simple as buying local produce has become something of a revolutionary act.
2. May Day Celebration at the farm
We always celebrate May Day on the first Saturday in May. This year the first Saturday in May just happens to be May 1st, May Day! How appropriate! As usual, the weather folks have granted us a one-day dispensation whereby we can call the shots for one day. So, once again this year, the 1st Saturday in May is forecast (and has been for weeks now) to be a beautiful, sunny, warm day: come join us!
The day will start at 12:30 with a farm walk and hayride tour of the farm with Farmer Erick and Farmer Wendy. The May Pole is at 1:00, and will again this year be led by Mary Alice Colvin and family. Following the May Pole we will have a couple of children's activities—seed planting and mason bee nest making. We'll also be teaching the children about mason bees and how important they (and other native pollinators) are to the farm.
It would be helpful if you could bring one or more ½ gallon sized clean and dry milk or juice cartons that we can use for the mason bee project. We will have everything else. The children (and adults if they'd like!) will take home their bee boxes. This is a really fun activity that is educational and helps build our populations of native bees.
While the kids are planting and making bee boxes, we will have one more hayride/tour of the farm. We will then go as a group to exhume the cow horns we planted last fall. These horns contain the "horn manure" to be used as our field inoculant for this year. That will be followed by stirring and spreading the inoculant--for those who want to stay. Immediately following our return from digging the cow horns and while the inoculant is being stirred, we will hold a meeting for new Work Share members (which should start about 2:45).
So, here's the schedule:
12:30: Farm walk and hayride with Farmers Erick and Wendy
1:00: May Pole
1:30: Seed planting and making mason bee boxes
1:30: Farm tour with Farmer Erick or Farmer Wendy
2:00: Dig up and examine cow horns (that were buried last fall)
2:30: Begin stirring Biodynamic preparation 500 (this takes many hands and one hour)
2:45: Meeting for new Work Share members
3:30: Spreading field inoculant BD 500
3. Meeting for new Work Share members on May Day
This meeting is especially for new work share members. But we certainly would be happy to have returning work share folks join us, and anyone who is just interested in learning more about the work share program.
We are planning on meeting at 2:45 (ish) on the steps of the barn. Feel free to join us.
4. Late Spring and Summer Session sign-ups
Our Late Spring Session starts on Wednesday, April 28th. There is still time to sign up for our last, short (six-week) "off-season" Session (www.jubileefarm.org).
Our first week of Summer Session will be the week of June 15th. This Session lasts until the end of October. You can sign up and make payment online. If you have questions about the Summer Session, drop us a note at jubileefarm@hotmail.com.
5. The tomatoes are in the ground!
We have many "mileposts" along the way of a new growing season. One of those significant occasions is the planting of our first tomatoes. The seeding actually takes place about the 1st of March. That's significant too, but it's just the first step toward what we did this past week. The seeds have to germinate, grow and add at least two true leaves (capable of photosynthesis) before they are plucked out one-by-one and transplanted into 4 inch pots. A couple of weeks later they are strong enough to be taken out to the greenhouse, where they are put on tables but covered by plastic for protection. We have hot water heaters that we use at night to make sure the fragile tomatoes don't freeze.
Several weeks later, when they have grown to at least a foot high and usually about April 15th, we begin to transplant the tomatoes out of the four inch pots and into the soil in our greenhouse. The soil had a heavy dose of compost added last November, and has been planted into a two-foot high stand of vetch. We work the vetch into the soil, and plant as soon as we can thereafter.
This year we've added a new twist to the procedure by experimenting with grafting tomatoes. We have grafted some of our heirloom varieties onto tomato rootstalks that have been selected for disease resistance and for strong fruiting qualities. So far we've grafted about 130 plants like this as an experiment (out of the 3,000 plants we start); we'll probably do a hundred or so more. One of the things we're trying is to graft tomatoes we know to be susceptible to late blight (almost all are) to the only variety we've found to be resistant to late blight. Hopefully we'll end up with tomatoes that we can plant outside our greenhouses that are are resistant to late blight.
If you know how fragile a baby tomato plant is, you'll appreciate how careful one must be when doing the grafting. It's a little harder with big, gnarly, Norwegian hands (i.e. Erick's) than it is for small, agile, Finnish hands (i.e. Wendy's), so you can guess who is overseeing and doing most of the grafting! It also helps if your good field of vision is close to face (i.e. Wendy's) as opposed to three-quarters of a mile away (i.e. Erick's). Life's just like that sometimes!
6. Farm chatter
I remember thinking something like this when my fourth child was young: "and I thought it was hard when we just had one?" I probably shouldn't compare our cows to children, but it's hard not to (and I'm quite sure my kids won't read this anyway). We used to think we had our hands full with 5 cows. Now we have 72 and we're finding out just how much work is involved in having a herd that is getting close to the size we need: A LOT!
The grass is now finally starting to grow, and it's just in the nick of time as Wendy and I are getting weary, and having many projects to do other than just work on cows! Certainly getting the tomatoes grafted and the first ones in the ground was a good feeling this week. We also have now pruned almost all of the apple trees, the grape arbor and plums have been pruned, and many, many veggies planted: beets, carrots, onions, shallots, potatoes, poc choi, lettuce, chard, kale, collards, peas, raspberries, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, cilantro, artichokes, many kinds of flowers, and a lot of herbs; and other things that aren't coming immediately to mind.
In addition to the grafting of tomatoes, we've had some other fun new projects this season. Our first "vintage" of wine grapes was planted in the winter, as I mentioned in the last update. Our second vintage is now sitting behind the barn in the form of cuttings, waiting to be planted in a nursery and transplanted out next winter. We're still a ways away from having wine grapes, but we're one year closer now than we were before. And we've changed our method of handling the cuttings this year, so we're hoping for a better success rate with our cuttings. We have a lot of work ahead—donning "grow tubes" on our vines in the field and building trellises. But we're confident we will be pleased with the fruit of our labors.
Another project that has taken a fair amount of time and energy is the new barn that I mentioned at one time as a "possibility." It still isn't a sure thing for this year, but our grant request was both accepted, which wasn't a surprise, but also funded, which in this economy was a surprise. We also floated a pre-application proposal through DDES and have been granted a pre-application approval. That's not a permit, but it is an affirmation that after considerable investigation it "appears" that the project can be granted a permit. That's a pretty good start!
The funding for this project comes from the NRCS. I feel a little strange about accepting grant money—we never have before—but the cost of the barn is high and we just couldn't do it otherwise. At this point we are working with County engineers about some possible variations on how to construct the barn. If all goes well, we could start late this summer or in the fall; otherwise it will be next year.
Another new farm development is that we have finally gotten our "farm worker housing" unit almost complete and just about ready for final inspection. We also have interns in this house (mobile home, actually), and it's the first time we've had interns in ten years. We're very pleased with the three individuals who are with us as interns this year. We're hopeful that each of them will end up farming in one way or another.
Another project we've been working on is a mentoring program for our local group of farmers—Sno-Valley Tilth. This spring we put out the word that we (SVT) would be willing to help new want-to-be farmers both find land to lease and mentor them in their new endeavors. The immediate response wasn't enormous, but we have placed several farmers on land with "mentor farmers" who will be farming this year for the first time. One of them is a member of our own CSA! Another is farming here on our farm. It's really exciting to see the enthusiasm of these young people, most of whom haven't yet quit their day job, as they take to the fields. Hopefully this year we will get not only a crop of produce, but a crop of new farmers as well.
We're all excited about the digging of the manure horns on May Day. We planted them last October, and Barry Lia, the state director of Biodynamic farming, put together some experimental horns that we're looking forward to observing. As with most of his "indications," Rudolf Steiner didn't say "this is exactly the way to do it," but suggested that experiments should be done and techniques developed that either improve established methods or are more suitable to local situations. It's in that spirit, and armed with advancements in technology that were unavailable to Steiner (i.e. the electron microscope) that Barry has devised a number of alternative versions of the ancient method of making these preparations. We'll keep you posted about what we learn!
Our best to you all,
Erick and Wendy