Monmouth Grows meets on third Monday's of the month.  For more on our regular meetings, email us at info@monmouthgrows.com.

 

Thanks to all who participated in our events this year, or just stopped to see our displays! 

Our community events are over for the season, but check back for other dates and events we'll be posting over the winter.  And don't forget to check out the farm products you can get year-round from many of our Monmouth Grows farms!

 

Notes from the Farm

(An occasional posting - writings from Monmouth Grows farmers)

 

About a month's worth of progressing towards Thanksgiving.  Hope you all had a fine holiday.

Nancy Smith, Snafu Acres Dairy Farm

A Collection of Farmer Thoughts:

October 14^th, 39 days before Thanksgiving:

 

Scalp the hen is dead.  Found her dead this morning in the brood house, where I had set her and the wounded turkey together.  The day before, it rained for hours and hours…and somehow she was not separated from the rest of the hens, and they pecked her head again.  I wanted to think it was the two young hens, because I have a soft spot for Brown Hen.  Where she survived the Weasel slaughter last summer, because she had to be separated from the brood for her own safety, I really hoped she’d be a bit kinder.  But anytime I look for humanity in livestock it simply isn’t there.  I’d like to think we humans protect our weaker members, and most of the time we do.  That is why they call it humanity, I suppose, and not livestumanity.

 

Several turkeys died last night as well.  In the morning Ivan and I each found several piles of bright white feathers spotted with equally bright red blood.  I picked up what I could from the two places I found; long white feathers, short downy feathers, some bloodied some not, bits of bone and flesh as well.  Some creature ate a good meal, and it’s hard to tell if it was one bird hauled to different places as the critter ate.  Ivan said the turkeys had gotten loose from the shelter during the night; and it happened early enough in the night that there were flat spots where they had bedded down in the grass outside the shelter.  The poultry netting that surrounds their pen was knocked down as well, so we don’t know if it was an aerial predator or a four-legged one.

 

But that became more clear in the afternoon, when nephew Jason called to say he’d just driven by the house and had seen a fox lounging beside the road without a care in the world; about fifty feet from the house alongside a strip of roadside maples.  I hollered to Ivan and we both got our boots on and headed outside.  I chose not to bring my camera, and I’m really not sure why.  Sometimes I focus so much on getting a good shot that I don’t enjoy the scene til later when I look at the photos.  So I walked out by the brood houses and Ivan walked up the road; shotgun in hand.

 

I spotted the fox out between the two pens of turkeys; like Jason said, without a care in the world.  I hollered again to Ivan, and he had already spotted him.  With my shout, the fox trotted off towards the back fields, and Ivan shot the gun into the air as a warning to him, since the cows were behind the fox, making a direct shot unwise.  What happened next was wonderful to watch, and I do wish I had photos to share because I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again.  The fox headed up through the cows and then into the pasture where the llamas had been watching.  Now, the llamas are here officially as guardians to the poultry, and they took that job seriously today.  The sight of Hawk, and then Abra, approaching the fox and then chasing him the width of the field and off into the neighbor’s woods was impressive.  Their steady trot kept the young fox running at a steady pace til he was out of site.  He was beautiful; bright red and black around his feet.  I thought there would have been more white on him, but I didn’t see any.

 

I talked with Ivan as we walked back to the house and he too was impressed with The Boys doing their work.  “It’s just that they did it so well I couldn’t get a shot off on the fox!”  I hope that critter has learned there are easier meals elsewhere.  We battened down the shelters with extra weights on the netted lining tonight.  After doing that work, I walked back up by the road and found a whole turkey body, minus the head.  So whatever it was, fox or not, that came into the pastures last night ate his fill, and then some.  Five more weeks til the turkeys are tucked into refrigerators for Thanksgiving.  Til then, the llamas and the farmers will take turns minding them.

 

A few days later. 

Dana saw the fox chasing one of the hens in the barnyard, running up towards the house.  He called Ivan, got the go ahead; went in the house for a 12 gauge shotgun, and shot the fox.  One problem solved.

 

Friday before Thanksgiving:

We have ten thousand dollars wandering around the back pasture, pecking the ground, scratching for grass and entertainment, preening, and sunning.  Our job at this point is to ensure that foxes and owls don’t eat it, and it doesn’t destroy itself by pecking the weakest to death.  Turkey season is almost over.  There will be three days of deliberate death, rather than the accidental and predatory death we fend off most days on the farm.  As soon as this season is over, and all the turkeys are delivered to their final destinations, to be the centerpiece in family celebrations, we can relax.  In the meantime, I haven’t been able to fall asleep before midnight, and Ivan has been up and out of the house by 4:30 in the morning.  There is just too much at stake, too many things that can go wrong, so much to lose.

 

November 18^th, four days before Thanksgiving

…death of a much different sort today- the planned kind..  Day Two of processing turkeys for Thanksgiving.  The crew worked through about 90 of our birds in the course of about ten hours.  The day ended at ten that night, as Ivan and I checked on the chilled birds to ensure all was well before calling it a day.  Today we processed about 110.  I know you don’t want details, so I won’t go there.  But it is a good process.  Jon worked with us, working with another guy to collect the birds from the holding pen.  Ivan killed, and another guy worked with him on that end of the line…four of us then worked to convert the bird to what you would recognize as ready for your oven, and two more workers got them chilled down, labeled, and packaged.  Add to that the two state inspectors who oversaw the whole process…it was a full day.  My job was to do a final inspection of the freshly cleaned bird, picking off stray pin feathers and such, ensuring it is thoroughly cleaned, rinsing it a last time and then a spritz of vinegar water before plunging it is ice water where it will set til it drops to forty degrees.

 

We have a rooster again.  He is a survivor.  We hadn’t decided to get a rooster, but he earned the right to stay.  He came from another farm with a couple dozen of his fellow roosters, ready to be processed here in the processing unit.  It is the first time we’ve had a bird escape, and stay loose, during processing.  He joined our turkeys out in the back pasture, and occasionally hangs out with the three hens.  Ivan and I have been jockeying back and forth on this, where I want to keep him, and Ivan wants him processed with the turkeys.  This morning, as we walked our last batch of turkeys to the holding pen, Rooster was in the thick of it, amongst all the turkeys bound for the end.  As we approached the pen, it’s like he thought “hey, I’ve been here before.  No way!”  He turned around at the last moment and headed back to the pasture.  He’s there with the hens now.  A bit of unexpected life as we transition to the winter; a season of quiet, steady, hopefully uneventful farmwork. 

 

The Night Before Thanksgiving:

I am trying to describe this feeling; two days after the turkey processing is complete.  All the turkeys are delivered; all money is collected, waiting to be counted, recorded, and deposited in the farm bank account.  It looks like we’ll be able to pay spring and fall property taxes; fix Ivan’s truck so we are no longer a one-vehicle family, and pay one or two more bills.  The closest I’ve come is to compare it to the way the world feels the day after a storm.  The air is clear; calm.  There is a quiet that is not pregnant with any pending disasters.  It is just right.  Everything is alright.  The lost sleep as we built up to processing, thinking, imagining all that could go wrong.  The sore muscles, tired back, drained brain as we progressed through the three days, tempers wearing thin, logic and clear thinking long gone by the end.  That has all passed, although I can effortlessly conjure back those feelings and fears.  But for now, right now, I can sit quietly, mind in low gear, and rest.  Tomorrow I’ll roast a turkey and carry it down to Ivan’s brother’s house.  This year, we will be three of eight for Thanksgiving, not just three at home.  A turkey that we didn’t raise, since we sold all of ours, but one raised by Ivan’s nephew a mile away; a centerpiece in our family celebration.  Then it will be time to gear back up again, with the cleaning, sorting, thinking and preparing necessary for the next phase of life, the next season ahead.  Take down the poultry netting in the field, remove the canvas covers from the poultry shelters, clean out the brood houses for the hens and rooster, stabilize the llama shelter and return it to something near upright before the winter winds slap it to the ground, winterize the processing unit.  Then prepare for a legislative trip to Washington DC with Ivan, Christmas, and the new legislative session to begin in January.  Oh, and my fourth election cycle begins then as well.  But for tonight, right now, I can wander the house in my mismatched thermal pajamas, silly-bright socks in black wool clogs, and just Be.  God, it feels good.