The year of the varmint

The most significant event that has happened since the last time I blogged was that it rained.  That event was most significant indeed.  Just like a good chunk of the Midwest, we have been lacking moisture in the form of either rain or snow since the beginning of the year.  We had some planting delays this year but most of it was more of a personal matter than a weather related matter.  With the warm dry spring, most farmers around us were well ahead of their normal planting schedule.  But a couple weeks ago, Mike and the crew were going full tilt getting the flats of vegetables planted.  And then things started looking desperate back in the fields.  The unplanted flats of vegetables by the barn were getting watered daily.  The newly planted vegetable plants in the field were withering from the heat and lack of rain.  The soil was getting drier and drier and we have no water source for irrigation.  The house water well was on the verge of giving out as well.  We were in severe water conservation mode.  The animals got first priority and the unplanted flats of vegetables got second.  I even took a trip to the laundromat instead of doing laundry at home and I was showering at work.  And then one week and a day ago it rained.  Blessed rain.  It rained slow and it rained all day.  At the end of 24 hours, we had 1.6 inches of rain.  Without it, those newly transplanted plants would have surely died.  In the nick of time is an understatement.


With disaster at least temporarily averted, the last week has been spent tending to other threats to the crops namely varmints.  My evolution into a varmint hunter has been an interesting journey but the scale of the damage these critters have caused this year is reaching epic proportions.  Sometimes necessity takes over.


There are all sorts of reasons why I should not be out in the fields with a gun chasing after small furry critters.  I grew up in a middle class suburb and was schooled in the ways of Bambi and Lassie.  I developed a strong love of animals and loved every encounter with every raccoon and squirrel and snake or whatever I would come across in my romps in the woods behind the house.  Then I harnessed that love of animals and became a veterinarian with years of training to keep animals alive and healthy.  But life is full of twists and turns and the desire for a rural lifestyle and marrying a farm boy brought me to living on this farm.   Along the way I came to embrace the thought that man is just as much as part of the natural world as any other living thing.  We must be careful to not take too much, but taking some from nature is, well, natural.


That brings us to varmints.  When I first started to hunt, I said I would never kill an animal that I didn't intend to eat.  However, all it took was a raccoon trying to break in and kill my chickens to change my views.  Mike grew up on a farm so shooting varmints that damaged crops is second nature to him.  It's not that he likes doing it, but it is necessary if to protect crops and make a living.  And now I have been absorbed into the farm lifestyle.  We enjoy wildlife watching immensely, but the line is drawn when they start causing damage.  Raccoons in the woods are fun to watch.  Raccoons in the chicken barn are unacceptable.  And as Mike and I learned late last week, raccoons in the blueberry patch are unacceptable too.  


The only critters that we have had to keep out of the blueberries are the birds and that has been easily accomplished with bird netting over the bushes.  That is until last week.  On July 4th I took a stroll past our early variety of blueberries to check progress.  Most of the berries were ripening and all was looking good for our first picking to go to Saturday's farmer's market.  On Friday evening, I was unloading bags of chicken feed and Mike walked back to the blueberries.  As I finished my job and pulled my car around into the driveway, I heard Mike screaming.  I looked back to see him standing by the berries.  I heard "bring a gun" and "raccoon".   I ran and got a gun and some ammo and hopped into my car and drove back to the blueberries.  Mike said when he got back there, a young raccoon had run out from under the bird netting but another young one was sitting still in the middle of one of the blueberry bushes.  Mike shot that one and then we set a trap for the other one which we ultimately caught and killed the following day.  The damage?  In the three days since I had last checked the blueberries, those raccoons had stripped all the early bushes of every bit of ripe fruit.  It was a total loss.  We have later varieties of blueberries that will mature in a few more weeks and we did what needed to be done to protect them.


That brings me to the garden.  Mike and the crew have planted broccoli in the rows that run along the fenceline with the neighbor's.  The neighbor's field on the opposite side of the fence from us is a hayfield.  We know there have always been some groundhogs living along the fenceline and for the most part, since they have not caused too much damage, we have left them alone.  However, with the super dry conditions, the hayfield has turned brown after it was cut for hay.  The groundhogs have been looking for better food and have found the broccoli.  The rabbits may be helping a little bit, but I have seen a groundhog carrying nearly an entire broccoli plant in its mouth and seeing is believing.  The groundhogs must go.


This is a picture of a row of cauliflower about 4 or 5 rows from the fenceline.

And here is a row of broccoli 2 rows closer to the fenceline.

And because of this I hunt the broccoli eating varmints.

I have not quite come to full terms with eating a groundhog however.  Oh, I have heard it tell they are quite tasty and they probably are.  But on the farm, there are others that need to feed their children and so I am more than happy to help them with a few handouts.  Nothing in nature ever goes to waste.

Small town moment #393

There are certainly smaller towns out there and it's not like Ohio is in the middle of nowhere, but I live in a small town.  Last census, I think our township finally went over 1000 people by a little bit.  There are no stop lights.  The center of town is a crossroads of two state routes with the tiniest of convenience stores on one corner, the township hall on another and two farms on the other two corners.  We don't have our own post office but instead our township is divvied up among the neighboring postal routes.  It is 15 miles one way to the nearest WalMart.  The closest grocery store is a little over 6 miles away.  Not too bad actually, but much different than the large suburban community I grew up in.  I love living in a small town.  It's very rare indeed that I miss the lights and noise of the city.


Since we moved out here, Mike and I have had lots of small town moments and today was a perfect example.  Mike and some of our Amish employees had been working on transplanting plants all morning.  Around noon they happened to be back near the barns loading up more plants when our mailman Kenny pulled into the driveway.  Usually the only time he does that is when we have a package that we have to sign for.  When Mike walked up to the vehicle, Kenny handed Mike three six packs of started tomato plants.  Seems as though Kenny was delivering the mail on the next road over.  On that road about 4 miles from our farm is where our neighbor with the greenhouse lives and she is the one that starts the majority of our vegetable plants.  (Is it still considered a "neighbor" when they live 4 miles away?  Yes, out here it is.)  Well, Kenny saw these tomato plants sitting on the side of the road.  He got out to take a look and there was a tag on them that said "Mike".  He said he couldn't think of anyone else whose plants they could be and so he picked them up and brought them over to our farm which happened to be on the continuation of his route.  Yep they were our plants that had fallen off the wagon yesterday when Mike had been hauling some more of our plants from the neighbor's greenhouses to our farm.  And so we now have had tomato plants delivered to us via the postal carrier.  They looked just a little bit haggard from their rough trip to the farm, but not too bad considering.


Mike and his 2 person crew planted just under 5000 plants this morning.  I'll try to get some pictures of the progress put up in the next 2 or 3 days.

The babies (chickens and plants) are growing up

Once again the farm is off to a slow start.  Last year it was the never ending rain.  This year it is the lack of rain.  And to think we were so hopeful that things would be ahead of schedule with the early warm up this spring.  We did have some fits and spurts of activity until the soil dried out and became like concrete.  Yep, had some early radishes and oh gosh I forgot what else, that was planted and it all died in concreted earth.   That's farming.  Easy come, easy go.  Truth be told we have had some family health issues too that caused some delays here and there, but family is way more important than trying to get things planted on a schedule.  Things will get planted when they get planted and not before.


So now for the updates that should have happened long long ago.......


The first batch of meat chicks arrived safe and sound in May.  Once again I forgot that I really need to be placing my order with the hatchery in February to get the shipping date I want and so by waiting until late March, I ended up getting the chicks in late May instead of early May.


The pen was prepared for arrival:

The chicks arrived safe and sound via the US Postal Service.

And were placed into their new home and proceeded to look entirely too cute.

And then three weeks later grew up and became miniature chickens.

They will be 4 weeks old tomorrow and I will be moving them to their next home out on pasture.


On the vegetable side of things, Mike has been his usual busy beaver self.  This year he did some experimenting with planting early sweet corn under plastic.  The way it works is that seeds are planted and then a thin sheet of clear plastic is laid over the seeds.  The plastic keeps the soil underneath much warmer than the surrounding soil.  That means in the cool spring temps, the seeds germinate better and grow better.  When the little corn plants reach the plastic, the plastic layer is split open and the corn is allowed to grow normally.  Mike said there was quite the learning curve during the planting process as the clear plastic he was using was about as thin as saran wrap and kept tearing or bunching up.  And I have to double check with Mike, but most of the plastic mulch he is using this year is made out of that corn starch material and is biodegradable.  I'm pretty sure this stuff used on the corn is the same.  In the end though, the whole process seemed to work good and we have a nice stand of sweet corn coming along way earlier than we have ever had sweet corn this tall before.


Here are the plants right after the plastic was split on May 22nd.

Then a little over 2 weeks later on June 7th.

Then today, 10 days later.  (Someone {me} needed to being paying better attention while they were taking the picture and should have went and stomped that weed in the road between the rows of corn)

And so we have sweet corn that is looking quite good in spite of the lack of rainfall and is well over knee high.


And last but not least, we have the flats of plants.  As usual Mike's mom who lives in southern Ohio started some plants very early in her green house - mostly tomatoes and broccoli I think.   Those plants came to live on one of hay wagons in late May.  And then they sat there waiting for some rain to fall and the concreted soil to soften.

We had a few nights in late May when we were holding our breath due to forecasted morning frost, but they plants managed to pull through unscathed.  And so the combination of dry soil and family issues made planting take a back seat.  Before we knew it, the flats of plants that get started by our neighbor the next road over had to come and live at our place instead of hers.  Lots more flats joined the southern Ohio started plants on the hay wagon and on the ground by the hay wagon.

And on the ground out behind the garage.

And on the ground by the old milk house.

There has been progress though this past week.  We have hired some of the Amish kids that live a mile down the road from us and between them and Mike, they have made a huge dent on the piles of flats sitting around.  All the melons are planted.  All the tomatoes are planted. And quite a few others as well.  If we are not halfway planted yet, we are getting close.  Now there are quite a few baby plants hanging out in the field waiting eagerly for some rain.

As I am typing, some rain is spitting from the sky.  Enough to moisten, but we could use a little more to soak in.  Darn farmers anyway.  Never satisfied.  Too little rain.  Too much rain.  Ha!  I keep putting my order in for 1 inch of rain per week falling on early Monday morning from midnight to 5am, but my order must keep getting lost.  The growing season will go on though.

A spring morning in the woods

There are two things that can make me stray from the topic of farming quicker than an Ashtabula County Cherry Blossom is killed by a spring frost (can you guess we haven't had any cherries in several years).  First are food related topics such as recipes and how to prepare food for the table.  This one makes perfect sense though because when you live on a farm that grows food for people, it stands to reason that you develop a love for preparing fresh from scratch food for the table.  The second is anything to do with nature.  And I guess this one isn't such a stretch either because when you live on a farm, you live outdoors with nature every single day.

Yesterday was my first walk down the path that leads to the back of our fields in several weeks.  I came across a few areas sprawling with May Apples.  Just another sign that spring is way ahead of schedule.  There is a reason these things are called "May" Apples and not "April" apples.  Unbelievable how far along these wild flowers are at this time of year.

I also saw quite a number of a single species of butterfly.  I am not much into the names of butterflies.  More like I am into just enjoying their beauty.  Still I could not resist some time spent with an online butterfly guide to identify this Red Admiral butterfly.

And while this blog may spawn from a couple hours I spent out in the woods yesterday morning, my love of being outdoors started long, long ago.  From my earliest childhood memories, I loved being outdoors.  I remember finding snakes out in the woods and bringing them home, although there was that incident with the garter snake that bit my little kid finger and drew blood.  That incident must not have scarred me too badly because I still enjoy a good snake encounter when one occurs.  (I can't say the same about critters with 8 legs, but then phobias have only a minimal relationship with reality.) Snakes are not one of those creatures that I purposely seek out so I don't see them all that often, but yesterday I came across one slithering through the grass ahead of my footsteps.  Especially these days, snakes remind me of my childhood and the time spent in the woods behind my house when I was a kid.  Nowadays I leave the snakes alone to do their thing, but those childhood memories are there for me to enjoy.  And if anyone can I.D. the snake from yesterday's encounter, I would love to know what kind it is.

Back in my early adult years, my main enjoyment in nature was in the form of hiking.  I did a lot of hiking in groups and loved the social aspect.  Later I took up backpacking and while my early trips were with others, they evolved into trips with just me and one of the dogs.  Backpacking was still more about hiking and putting on miles than anything else until hunting entered my life.  I could probably write pages on my evolution into the sport of hunting, but I won't bore with all of that today.  The point is that hunting brought a whole new way of enjoying nature into my life.  It brought me sitting still and blending with nature and I often go to the woods to do just that and nothing else. While I still like to hike, I love finding a quite spot in the woods and just sitting still.  For hours.  Perhaps I am just getting lazy.  But the act of sitting still out in the woods makes the woods come alive in a way that is very different than what happens during a walk in the woods.  No longer am I walking down a path and seeing a hawk taking off out of a tree.  I am sitting still and seeing a hawk landing in the tree in front of me.  There is a huge emotional difference in those two encounters and I crave more of the latter.

Yesterday morning I parked my butt in my cushy Crazy Creek Chair / foam pad combo and sat up against a big maple tree standing alongside one of our fields.  Within an hour, a large tom turkey came out in the field.  He was in full strut and the sun was shining off his iridescent feathers creating a spectacular scene.  I watched him parade back and forth across the field for the next 45 minutes until two hens walked by him and he followed them into the woods and parts unknown.  This is what I live for.  I will gobble up these moments in life as long as I am able.