Rainbeau Ridge Weblog

The Shoulder Season

The trees are bare now and the light has begun to change as early as mid-afternoon these days. Because it hasn’t gotten really cold yet, this shoulder season is still a bracing time to walk and work outside.    We find ourselves at this time of year again when the garden hunkers down to rest, beds are turned over and cover crops paint neat green stripes against the mulched paths. Bees take refuge in their hives and cheese production comes to a close as the does are bred and settled into a healthy rest for the term of their pregnancies. Part of the team heads off in new directions; those remaining find the pace has slowed.

My own time for reflection and assessment is at hand.   The Thanksgiving feast, with its cranberries, pies, turkey and family gatherings, always seems to bracket the farm season’s close—and weary as we may be, grateful for a break, I know my team is already thinking about what’s over the horizon, the rebirth of spring and all that it holds in store for us.

Amidst the flurry of holiday activity, I pause to thank everyone for contributions to the farm that make Rainbeau Ridge such a special place.

-Lisa

While we're on the subject of seasonal . . .

We spend so much of our lives living in the future; how about savoring the present? How can we expect people to eat seasonally when we are being bamboozled and confused about just what season we're in?

I had a rare occasion to go off farm and into the Big City a couple of times over the last few weeks. I was amazed to walk famed the Fifth Avenue in late October before Halloween, only to be confronted by store windows teeming with Christmas décor.

For years, we've counted on merchandising to chase us out of one season into the next but not by months!  Yes, candy was barely consumed on Halloween and you could expect to see pilgrim hats and turkeys in the store windows the next morning.  Friday post-turkey day, you could be sure to see the twinkling lights in department stores, helping to set the tone for the ensuing shopping frenzy.  When the winter solstice was barely behind us and days started getting longer again, we'd still be in the throes of winter but  the pink hearts for Valentine's Day would greet us.  Now-a-days, seasonal markers have sped up exponentially.

As we enjoy the bounty of this holiday's feasts, let's slow down and notice the beauty of this shoulder season: family at the table, soft grey woods, Brussels sprouts on the stalk and the smell of wood smoke.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

-Lisa

Doughnut Disconnect

Seasonality is the mantra for many of us who care deeply about both the health benefits and enjoyment of our food.  Eating close to home ensures us that we’ll most likely be eating in season, enjoying the delights of the moment and getting the most nutrient dense versions of those foods.

Then along comes Corporate America—jumping on the literal and figurative band wagon.  The scene opens with a farmer and his guests loading up on a hay wagon about to enjoy the sights, smells and tastes of autumn, then the scene cuts to the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts, where they disembark to enjoy pumpkin lattes and orange frosted donuts.  Those guys certainly know a buzz word when they see one. 

Argghhhh. I understand their need to sell doughnuts, but are we really buying?  Yes, I’ve blogged jokingly about Mallomars as a seasonal product, but autumn is almost the best time of year to slow down, connect with the sources and pleasures of food and enjoy the moment. We get a sensational burst of produce from the garden and orchard, which fills our soup pots and pie plates with amazing delights and reminds us that winter is close at hand. We are reminded to preserve what we can for later, as well as savor what we can now. 

If you want to celebrate the season with doughnuts, go to the few remaining local orchards for the cinnamon ones they make on the premises and buy some tart apples too. Then make a place also for dishes you associate with the season, truly seasonal food. How about deep orange squash, mellow onions, earthy mushrooms and sweet pears?

-Lisa

They're Baaaack . . .

I saw that display of big yellow boxes in the supermarket the other day. It’s Mallomar season. Can I count them as “local and seasonal”? After all, they were for sale in my local market.  They only appear this time of year when the dark chocolate shell won’t melt off the marshmallow and cookie base. Of course I never have that problem anyway because I’ve emptied the package before I even get the groceries out of my car.  Giving in to that puffy, chocolate-covered temptation is one of my periodic “secret” indulgences.

I’m not a purist who longs for a strictly local, unadulterated food past.  I’m not looking to live without citrus, olive oil or coffee and certainly not without chocolate. I just want to eat well by grounding my eating in the rhythm of the year and the bounty of the land around me.   On the farm, we try to remind people, especially children, where food comes from, how it grows and how it nourishes us. We are not all-or-nothing, even when it comes to enjoying Mallomars, imported anchovies or even a few berries out of season. That incremental approach and acceptance pervade all the farm’s programs and, I think, help the programs work.

-Lisa

Small Changes

Recently, at a luncheon benefiting Sloane Hospital for Women, Dr. Lori Mosca told us that a reduction of just 2% in risk factors for heart disease could save 350,000 lives every year worldwide. Her point was that incremental changes, small steps, start to add up. That’s been my mantra from the start about re-balancing our lives towards greater sustainability, including eating better food. 

Dr. Mosca reported also that small changes in your personal routine - 200 fewer calories a day or 30 minutes of exercise - can result in sure, steadily improved heart health.  

I see this theme everywhere. Changing light bulbs may not solve the energy problem but if we don’t change them, we aren’t taking that first step in the right direction.  

Local eating can begin this way too with just ten percent local sourcing in a school cafeteria or a chain restaurant. This can act as a sign of changing values to families, communities and even to industry. It may be challenging but a first step can lead to both a new personal habit and eventually to building a new food infrastructure.  

In similar ways, one vote alone may not seem to have much impact but many changed votes changed the direction of the nation. Tiny non-profits, born from one person’s frustration or experience, can touch many people and set the ball of change rolling. You have to start somewhere. The business world thinks in broad, global, scalable terms—but a one step, a starting point, has its merits and the potential for far-reaching impact too. Make small changes, as Dr. Mosca suggested. No matter how small, they are important for a better you and a better world.

Cuke & Zuke

No, not our barn cats!  It was a cucumber and a zucchini that Isaac presented me with today—the first of the garden (and one of the occasional privileges of being the boss).

We are hitting our stride—summer is here (notwithstanding that the sun and temperature belie this).  With a little steadier pace and a little less hectic daily activity, I’ve shunned my poor, ‘grab a carb on the go’ eating habit and returned to what I love—foraging the garden for my dinner. 

The cuke and dill salad and the sautéed zucchini with garlic scapes were the perfect accompaniments to my fresh fish dinner.  It wasn’t recipe directed or grocery list driven—it happened because that’s what was garden ready.  I love improvising each night.  Many times that will include a piece of cheese that I rescued from the cheese house refrigerator.

It is truly a privilege to eat the fruits of our collective labor.  Sometimes people take our ability to grow for granted—but most (CAP members) are as awed by it all as I am—the magnificent spirals of the Romanesco broccoli, iridescent red and green color of the radicchio, the sensational taste of the roasted turnips and the delicate flavor of the golden (not old!) snap peas jazz me like you can’t believe.

Eating ‘local’ these days is hardly a challenge as we head into the peak growing period—My advice is to slow down, savor the ingredients and be sure to squirrel some away for winter!

-Lisa

Letting Nature Take its Course?

Every year around February, I go into a pre-kidding prep mode—ordering supplies, cleaning the barn, managing the does’ feeding scheme, trimming feet, assembling clean towels, rounding up pop bottles, giving spring vaccines, and reviewing kidding literature.  It’s ‘last call’ visits with friends, wrapping up the only time I take care of myself, exercising, eating real food and doing other things I love (weaving for one) before I disappear off the radar screen and spend full time on the farm.

Preparing for spring kidding season always seems to prompt the same sets of questions from observers.  “When will [doe] have her kids?” and “Do you really need to be present at every birth? Won’t nature take care of things?”

I smile and answer, when the questioner is a human mother, “Was your child born on your due date?” or “Was there no one present at your child’s birth?”  The point is noted.  With a little more patience and explanation, others come to understand that there is a typical gestation period for the goats (150 days on average with a range of 149-155).  Given the possible range, we go on ‘goat watch’ a few days earlier than the due date and if the goat goes longer, we might be observing the doe for a week. And that week blends into the timing with another doe and so on and so forth.  Before we know it, we’ve been monitoring goats and birthing babies for two months straight sometimes.

While it’s probably my favorite time of year, I admit to becoming so exhausted it takes its toll on my outlook and health by the end. So why is it that I feel we have to be present for these births?  Doesn’t nature take care of things?

Nature is a wonderfully, magnificent thing – but we’ve fundamentally and already intervened even before the kidding season—we’ve impacted the goats with how we breed, our choice of stock, our feeding protocol, containing them in paddocks, controlling their regimen to name a few dimensions.  So we’ve made it our responsibility to ‘interfere’ at kidding time to correct for these farmer-made influences.

In the field, weather can take its toll, claiming kids born on freezing days without shelter, difficult deliveries can end with dead kids and/or dead does.  Multiple kids create challenges for the does and can benefit from our intervention—producing enough milk; eating enough to support the extra kids; having udders that become unbalanced or worse, mastitic, as kids favor one side over another; getting chapped udders that require that we monitor feed and nutrient intake; helping kids nurse from both teats and hand milking when they don’t.

So the challenge is to find the balance—to help where necessary but back off, and not be a cowboy or try to be a hero.  Under most circumstances we know the doe’s expected kidding date.  Assuming the weather cooperates (does have been known to wait out a storm), there are several visible signals that kidding is imminent.  Generally, labor begins and we monitor the situation—color of discharge, softening ligaments, and contractions tell us what’s likely to happen.  Once these things get set in motion, we keep an eye on the situation relatively closely.

In the best case, the doe takes care of things and you have a kid on the ground, cleaned, standing and nursing in a relatively short period of time.  This season we’ve been blessed with many successful births, including our first sets of quadruplets (two sets on the same day near the start of our season)!  We’ve have yearlings and veterans drop their kids with relative ease, the kids standing and nursing with just their mom’s natural assistance.

But too many times, the doe may not dilate sufficiently, labor fails or there is an abnormal presentation and then you have to decide when and how to intervene.  That usually means scrubbing up, lubing up and going in to explore.

This season we’ve had to assist, primarily in small (or young) does because the kid is moving too slowly in the birth canal, leaving it too long in a risky situation.  But the presentations have been normal so we assist just enough to move things along, or help the mom clean up the kid as more are on the way.

When the kid does emerge, it is covered in the slippery, warm sack, slithering out to the ground.  We rush to clear the membrane from its face, stimulate the kid and listen for its first cry.  Only after that do we check to see what the gender is.

There’s more ‘goober’ involved than I ever would have expected I would be able to tolerate.  Surprisingly, I am not at all put off by the fluids or afterbirth.  The process is so amazing that the minute I clean up from a birth, I’m already thinking about the next one.  It is bittersweet when the last doe kids for the season.

But sometimes things go awry.  At 2am on a recent morning I went to the barn for a simple goat check only to find Missy, no longer sporting the normal type of discharge as she had at 10:30  that evening.  Instead the color and type of discharge told me something was wrong  Washing and lubing, I went in to find feet no longer in a sack—indicating that help was necessary quickly if the kids were to emerge alive.  Her cervix was very tight so I quickly realized getting anything through would be difficult.  The situation was made even more troubling because the head of the kid had slipped backward—no way for it to make it out.  I tried to realign the head, snout first but still no luck.  My arm was literally being strangled by the ever narrowing cervix.  With a vet’s help and meds, we might have been able to relax the cervix but by the time I knew how much trouble we were in, the damage had been done, and critical time had elapsed.  The outcome was such that I don’t even want to describe it in any further detail but suffice it to say that it wasn’t good.  I spent the next 24 hours nursing severe bruises on arms—but Missy suffered far worse.

And then there are times when the intervention works as we hope, helping to coax out a kid that might otherwise die in utero.  We’ve had several good saves this season—so perhaps we are finding the balance.

I have enormous respect for and awe of nature—and when its course runs well, even more so.  But I am glad that I’m getting better at recognizing when our intervention is appropriate and helpful.  Even if we play only an assisting role or in only a small percentage of the births, it will have been worth it to be on hand—and what’s a few months of sleep deprivation anyway?

-Lisa

A Real Farmer

I often joke that I’m not a ‘real farmer’.  I think that I were a real farmer, then I’d make decisions differently than I do.  I’d make decisions more on the economics of the proposition than the emotions.  I’d not shed tears when animals die.

I have nothing in my background that would have exposed me to ‘real’ farmers but the traditional ones that I’ve met, especially ones on large scale farms, rule by numbers.  They have Farms, not farms.  They have herds, not 40 goats.  They euthanize lame animals.  They shed unproductive ones.  They don’t name their animals, especially not after singers. They mocked me (affectionately) when I told them I started with only two goats.  While I do not mean to paint ‘traditional’ farmers with a single brush—I think I make the point.

I tease myself as not being a ‘real farmer’ for many reasons.  If I were a ‘real farmer’, I would never have cried over the single dead chick in the box when I picked up the mail order package of 25 one-day-olds shipped from Iowa.  Perhaps I wouldn’t have taken in Kobi, the one-day-old, barely alive Southdown lamb, rejected by her mom because she was a runt, the ewe opting instead to mother the robust ram lamb sibling.  I certainly wouldn’t have hatched my own eggs and kept the roosters!  I wouldn’t have nursed Kiara (a doe) for seven weeks after she lost her triplets in utero, only to become septic and wither away. And most definitely, I wouldn’t continue to maintain four bucks just because they serviced the herd but were no longer necessary, and six wethers just because they are handsome!

In light of Jewel’s passing this past week and my ability to quickly rebound and talk about the incident without outwardly showing huge emotion, I remarked to a friend today that I’ve become a ‘real farmer’.  But he helped me recognize that I was mistaken.  ‘Real’ isn’t the right measure or the right adjective.  I’m a different type of farmer, coming recently and fresh to the profession, not hindered by traditional ethics or rubrics. I may no longer cry; but I still feel sad at the loss of life.  Intellectually, I know I need to focus more on the farm’s bottom line, but hope I never lose the soul of what moves me to farm each day.

-Lisa

Spring Cleaning

Just the other day, we had a particularly fine spring afternoon—blue sky, warm temps, and lots of mud.  It was the kind of day that I call a teaser.  After all, it was still February, but it felt more like April.  I prayed that surely winter had ended and spring had finally arrived. 

I looked into the cow paddock and there was DC leaning over, cleaning her mom, Destiny, with her tongue.  As if she were in a spa, Destiny was reposed and seemingly enjoying the licking she was getting—sort of facial-esque.  It gives a new meaning to spring cleaning!

The real deal of spring cleaning has been going on for a couple of weeks now.  It is truly necessary and at the same time very cathartic to clean out the farm.  Things have been shuttered up these last four plus months, seemingly longer with the early onset of freezing temps last fall.  Over the winter the cobwebs had gathered, the milking equipment had been ‘mothballed’.  Chores had focused mainly on keeping the ice out of buckets and keeping hay available.  Now we can remove the accumulated dust and wasted hay, refurbish the milk machines and parts, scrub the barn pre-kidding, haul out the incubators and sanitize the cheese house.

The sun is up longer, the chickens are laying heavily again.  The greenhouse is filling up with plants that had gone into suspended animation all winter.  The sugar maple trees are tapped, sap is flowing and we’ve boiled down and bottled up our first Grade A syrup.  Certainly that portends Spring, even if the calendar disagrees.

I’m ready to rid the barn of the stale frozen air.  I look forward to hooking up the watering hose to the outside tap and not worrying whether it will freeze.  The sight of swelling bellies of the does makes me tingle with nervousness and excitement as I think about the potential 40 upcoming kiddings.  There are gently used towels to stock and empty pop bottles to collect.  Feed rations get ratcheted up, as does access to minerals and supplements.

The last of my fresh frozen cheese curd has dwindled to nothing.  I long for the sweet smell that greets me daily in the cheese house and the rows of hand ladled product.  With milk volume potentially increasing this season, I scheme about new recipes that I might try.  In between the daydreaming, I get back to inventorying my supplies, ordering new labels and calling my inspector to give me the green light for the season’s production.   Calls come in from friendly voices anxiously inquiring about the start of the season.

A team refreshed with new faces, the comfort of the old, returning volunteers and a ground swell of new interest, record number of children in the Sprouts, Buds & Roots programs and a huge growth in CAP customers all have me totally jazzed to begin a new season.

And yet tonight, the forecast is for a block buster snowstorm!
 
With hope it’s not what they forecast,

My grandmother used to say . . .

My grandmother was famous for saying (or at least my mother was famous for saying that my grandmother was famous for saying!) “if everyone threw their troubles into a pile on the table and had to pick one, they’d take their own back.”

The older I get, the more I understand this.  And with all that’s going on in the world right now—economic hardship, disease, children losing their way—I consider myself a very lucky person.  So when things are troublesome on the farm, I feel pain but quickly try to put it in perspective and try to make the best of things and move on.

Relative to today’s burdens, farm issues seem trivial.  Losing a goat doesn’t seem like a big deal when you consider the hands others are dealt—but a loss is a loss and when it’s one of my original girls and having battled hard over the last several weeks to keep her alive and make her better, rushing Jewel in to the vet’s today for an emergency c-section which resulted in her demise and that of her three kids, was no picnic.

Hard to believe—almost seven years ago, Jewel, the goat I spent hours looking over for confirmation only to realize her name was the key factor in choosing her, joined our herd.  She taught me a lot.  She gave birth to triplets each year, including Fiona, a doe I’m very partial to.

But most importantly, she epitomized mothers—gave everything of herself to her kids—literally, as this season’s pregnancy sucked the lifeblood out of her.  She held on and worked with us as we tried one idea after another to build up her strength and get her closer to term.

But this morning it was obvious she was struggling so we rushed off to get the kids out—and failed.  Failure.  Second guessing.  A terrible trait.  Did we keep her alive for the wrong reasons? Should we have euthanized her weeks ago? If we had taken the kids early, knowing we’d lose them, would Jewel have lived? Was the $1,000 out of pocket and countless man hours justified?  What would another farmer have done?  The list of questions is endless and the self-doubt has stirred up bile.

I need to let go of this.  It comes at a terrible time.  The beginning of kidding season, which usually has me jazzed, invariably has me nervous as I question my skill set. I hope and pray that I’ve got what I need on hand and have the presence of mind to find the balance between intervention and restraint.  Just as I muster up the confidence and bring on interns to witness the glories of spring, I fail.

Attending to Jewel these last few weeks has required late night barn checks.  Under beautifully starry skies but frigid temps, I walked into the barn each night and absorbed the smell of urine and hay into my clothes and hair.  I ministered to her under the watchful eye of the barn cam and many followed Jewel’s odyssey on line with me.  We all prayed for her but it wasn’t enough.  She went from a weakened condition to going off feed to needing fluids to propping up her calcium and glucose levels before calling it quits.

So did I at least learn from this?  I mastered blood drawing on her dime; learned what I need to have on hand, maybe even to be more aggressive earlier when does go off feed; realized that I can’t crawl back into bed at night after coming from the barn unless I shower first…

Or maybe I learned what the Japanese knew all along when they say ‘shoganai’—it’s just the way—a common expression that is used when there is nothing that can be done about something and that one should just accept what is.

Quoting JunkoOgawa.com “Shoganai, yes, we Japanese say it a lot. It’s translated as 'no help' but also used as 'it's meant to be', because 'things happen where you have no control over them' is one of the Japanese ways of seeing life. It seems very subservient, however, this is also a concept that means that everything in this world has souls, consciousness and meanings of existence. Even if you are feeling helpless, you are still playing your role that is necessary in the world around you.  So I think 'shoganai' is a beautiful word to lead you to the next step.”

If not for shoganai, then my not being able to make sense from all this would lead me down a path really I don’t want to travel…

-Lisa