AGRICULTURE: Recent Episodes
ROBIN HOOD RADIO
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin September 28, 2024 A view clear to Canada? photo by Mark Scherzer The Logic of the SituationHi all, Mark here.I don’t know if it’s the warped workings of my brain or a reflection... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin September 12, 2024 Turkeys returning home from a visit to the fence photo by Mark Scherzer HomeHi all, Mark here.Home is a powerful magnet. When Dorothy tapped her shoes and intoned “There’s no... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin August 29, 2024Orhan and Lale, hanging in the barn photo by Mark ScherzerGetting the MessageHi all, Mark here.From time to time during my office day, I stick my head out of the bathroom window upstairs,... Read More ›
Turkana Farms, LLC farm@turkanafarms.com Mon, Aug 12, 9:32 AM (1 day ago) to me TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin August 12, 2024Folies Campagnardes, Bouquet and photo by Michel BergerinThe Bounty Around UsHi all, Mark here.It’s an odd time to be away from the... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin July 30, 2024 The first brave turkeys venture outdoors, Photo by Mark Scherzer Summer’s Turning PointHi all, Mark here.I’m certainly not the only person who’s been dwelling on life transitions lately. During several... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin July 10, 2024 The apricots’ one day season, Photo by Mark Scherzer To Everything There is a SeasonHi all, Mark here.Sorry for the late bulletin. Blame it on the after-effects, which always hit... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin June 25, 2024The sky at dinner at dusk from the porch, Photo by Mark ScherzerStopping at the Porch on a Sultry EveningHi all, Mark here.We need the long tail of the evening these days. The... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin June 10, 2024Sophie, font of wisdom, Photo by Mark ScherzerNo Kumbaya for SophieHi all, Mark here.Thanks to farming, I’ve largely abandoned the illusion that human society is somehow separate from the natural world. I’m comfortable... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin May 27, 2024 Tomatoes replace mugwort, Photo by Mark Scherzer Be PreparedHi all, Mark here.As my last bulletin may have suggested to you, I was not a successful Boy Scout. As reflected in... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin May 13, 2024 Newly arrived turkey poults eat egg yolks for fortification, Photo by Mark Scherzer One of Those MorningsHi all, Mark here.I am a creature of habit and an inveterate procrastinator. Both... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin April 29, 2024 Doodle recently the center of Macho Matt’s affection, Photo by Brian Galletly Getting Our Act Two TogetherHi all, Mark here.I have been holding back from telling the sheep, so as... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin April 14, 2024 Preparing to observe Photo by Steve Gutierrez In the Path of PartialityHi all, Mark here.It’s nearly a full week since the solar eclipse that had North America in a tizzy,... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin April 1, 2024 At long last, the piano readied to move Photo by Mark Scherzer A Dead GiveawayHi all, Mark here.If you read the popular press at all, you by now have heard... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin March 17, 2024The well fed hawk Photo by Mark ScherzerIt’s a Bird Eat Bird WorldHi all, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Mark here.Just after lunch on a perfect spring-like afternoon this past week, Eric and... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin March 3, 2024Eric soaks up apricity Photo by Mark ScherzerApricityHi all, Mark here.Feeling the warm winter sun on my face, working my muscles in a steady rhythm, I was able to fully internalize the new... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin February 19, 2024 Pullet eggs and other signs of spring Photo by Mark Scherzer Spring to LifeHi all, Mark here. Happy President’s Day.I don’t know how it happened, but over the last week... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin February 4, 2024Nilufer waits for a lift Photo by Mark ScherzerFor Those Who Need a Little Extra HelpHi all, Mark here.I have a bothersome earworm. In my case, it’s not a song, but a radio... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCWinter Stasis, Photo by Mark ScherzerSheep Overboard!Hi all, Mark here.The farm seems frozen in place just now. We are in winter stasis. The young pullets that arrived in late August have not yet begun laying eggs. It is... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin January 5, 2024Not quite at home in the country, circa 1954, Photo unattributedFrom the Start, at Two with NatureAn Introductory NoteThe morning of the third day of this new year found me packing up belongings... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin December 21, 2023 December Day Dusk Photo by Mark Scherzer Gathering Darkness, Glimmers of LightHi All, Mark here.”Gathering darkness” is one of my favorite ways to describe the coming of dusk. In winter,... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin December 3, 2023 Entourage of Affection: Doodle, Sophie and Pepsche up front, Orhan and Skunkie behind Photo by Mark Scherzer Getting RealHi All, Mark here.”They’re so calm and so healthy looking!” Steve’s reaction... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin November 13, 2023Matt begins the turkey sendoff Photo by Mark ScherzerNovember Days 2023Hi All, Mark here.Before dawn this very chilly morning, with just a subtle glow visible on the horizon and a heavy frost lining... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin October 29, 2023Turkeys stroll in a copse of trees Photo by Mark ScherzerWar and Thanksgiving PeaceHi All, Mark here.Ever since 1969, Thanksgiving has meant to me the coziness of home, a celebration of enveloping security.... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin October 15, 2023Two in One by Antoinette Schultze. Israel and Palestine? Photo by Eric RouleauBlind Rage: A Tale of Two StatesHi All, Mark here.This bulletin is generally intended to be a chronicle of my life... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin September 30, 2023Looking at the Sunny Side: Jerusalem Artichokes in Bloom Photo by Mark ScherzerThe Sunny Side of TownHi All, Mark here.With Yom Kippur over and Eric returned to the City, I started this week... Read More ›
TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin September 17, 2023 Leader of the Flock: Back from the Far Pasture Photo by Mark Scherzer A Partial ReflectionHi All, Mark here.Saturday morning didn’t start so well. The expensive self-propelled lawnmower I bought last... Read More ›
Hi All, Mark here. I loved the look of agriculture long before I ever had a farm. Yesterday I was struck by the geometric artistry of long rows of corn, lined up like so many soldiers in formation, undulating over... Read More ›
Hi All, Mark here. I loved the look of agriculture long before I ever had a farm. Yesterday I was struck by the geometric artistry of long rows of corn, lined up like so many soldiers in formation, undulating over a hill nearby. It recalled to my mind other images filed away in my album of landscape "greatest hits": potato fields I would bike past some thirty five years ago, all in white or purple bloom, gently sloping toward the ocean on the East End of Long Island; endless rows of perfect sunflowers along the roads of Thrace, injecting a bright vital energy into an otherwise dull flat landscape. These scenes are painted on a wide canvas, planted by machine, and using plants that have been developed to replicate each other as exactly as possible. I don't know whether pesticides, herbicides or insecticides are used to keep the spaces between the planted rows weed-free and bare. Nonetheless, the plants that compose the tableau are magnificent living things and the visual effect of their uniform arrangement appeals to me in much the same way that a Busby Berkeley production number does. From the chaos of living organisms, a sense of order and harmony achieved. The closest my farm comes to the tableaux I find so appealing is the pasture. The pasture is not comprised of just one type of plant. A variety of grasses, grains, clovers, and legumes all mix chaotically. They are, however, chewed down to the visual uniformity of a carpet by the sheep and cows that graze there. It's the same sort of order we achieve in the yard by mowing the grass. The view of pasture with the woods behind looks planned, ordered, and beautiful. This is so even though the margin between pasture and woodland is shifting, contested territory and the woodland itself is also a chaotic mix of whatever can opportunistically seed itself and enter into a sort of jostling coexistence, or even symbiosis, with the trees, bushes and undergrowth already there. From a distance, even the chaos of the woodland fades into a pleasing uniformity. It's a kind of visual order I would love to see everywhere, but which I've only partially achieved in the areas like the vegetable garden where the results are reliant on my personal efforts. You may remember that one of my major goals for this season was to reconfigure the vegetable garden according to a more Cartesian, rational plan that Eric and I developed together. The plan involved new boundaries, new fencing to keep out groundhogs and rabbits, and replacing most of the existing circular planting beds with new rectangular beds. It required digging up a whole lot of sod and removing enormous stands of mugwort and other weeds I had allowed to invade in fallow areas in the past couple of years. It was a far more ambitious undertaking than I had anticipated. By some measures, we've made great strides. The fencing has been almost entirely finished and for the past several weeks has succeeded in keeping out groundhogs and all but one pesky rabbit. Plants like Swiss chard, broccoli and parsley that didn't survive the critters' gnawing last year have been doing well this year. Of the 24 planting beds we planned for the main garden, 18 have been created and planted. Where about 20 tomato plants struggled last year in the tomato patch, this year there are over 75, and half a dozen tomatillos as well. The little orange sungold tomatoes are already coming in regularly, and I harvested the first ripe Black Krim last week. My summer counteroffensive against the mugwort, however, bears some resemblance to the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Donbas. I am making some discernible progress and will ultimately emerge victorious, but the weed is entrenched. Mugwort has been eliminated from more than 75% of the tomato patch and the north end of the vegetable garden proper, but in the main garden the southwest corner, and the east side between the pumpkins and the zucchini are all still in enemy hands. Even from a distance, aggressive patches of mugwort stand as a rebuke to the landscaped look I so desperately wanted to achieve this year.Eric thinks my commitment to doing it all by hand is what stands between me and achieving my garden goals. He is right. I have no good response for this. I apparently crave the Sisyphian challenge, and must grasp at a small measure of vindication by appreciating each tiny patch of order I create. And eating the results. Last Sunday, along with the first Black Krim tomato, I brought in the first impossibly shiny yellow Golden Rod zucchinis, and the first cucumbers (both standard Marketmore slicing cucumber and suhyo long, a Chinese variety with a bumpy skin and a curvy growth habit). We are harvesting blackberries in great profusion. In gratitude to macho Matt, who installed a new mailbox and fixed a gate affected by the recent storms during a recent visit, I was able to make the kind of vegetarian meal he prefers largely from the garden: Swiss chard leaves stuffed with a rice mixture that included our own turnips and herbs, braised chard stems, a Turkish salad of chopped tomato, suhyo cucumber and onion, and cacik, the cucumber, yoghurt and mint dish. It's not yet the summer harvest of my dreams, but it's by a large margin better than last year. I've been plagued by dreams this week of actions uncompleted -- last night it was trying unsuccessfully to reach a hardware store before it closed, the night before it was having my plate cleared before I could finish eating a poppy seed muffin. I can't help but think these are in part displaced fears about whether I will ever close the gap between my ambitions and actualization in the garden. But, I tell myself, the season is not over. There are six more beds I can dig, fall vegetables like collard greens, daikon radish and spinach to plant. And by next year, I tell myself, we will surely have the vegetable garden we've been dreaming of.
A deadly chewed rhubarb leaf Photo by Mark Scherzer
"It's just like Checkov's gun!" Steve practically hooted into the telephone. As if my call was all about the plot of some comedic play, and not serious business. It was not exactly the reaction I expected after I called him to say I was afraid I might have killed Doodle, the sweet lamb who was rejected by his mother at birth while Steve was minding the farm last July, and has bonded with us human caregivers, Steve in particular, ever since.
To be fair, Steve didn't hoot derisively until he had figured out, through an extended discussion of the circumstances, that Doodle's demise was highly unlikely. I had told him that I had been doing chores Tuesday evening and was transferring a cartload of compost to the vegetable garden with Doodle in my company, as is typically the case when I'm near the barn. I wanted to dump some nourishment on a planting bed I was preparing near the rhubarb patch. And before I knew it, I saw out of the corner of my eye Doodle munching on a rhubarb leaf. Knowing that rhubarb leaves are poisonous to humans, I yelled out and ran over, trying unsuccessfully to get whatever he was munching out of his mouth, and rushed him out of the garden.
Extremely concerned, I immediately texted Gillian, the wonderful vet, who is particularly expert in sheep matters. She texted me back right away, confirming that rhubarb leaves are poisonous to sheep too. They can cause sudden kidney failure and death soon after ingestion, or kidney problems in the following days. She advised that I should give Doodle 60 ml of mineral oil by mouth to prevent absorption and that in the following days I should monitor his urination to be sure he was not developing kidney stones. (To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how I would do this. I am rarely around to see Doodle urinate, and I'm not sure if I followed him for a couple of hours I would see him pee, or would know if the quantity or quality of urine was different from normal.)
Fortuitously, I knew I had some mineral oil, because I had come across a container the day before in the garage. I'm not sure why I had it originally or why it was in the garage, but I was able to get it right away and measure out 60 ml into one of the baby bottles that I had previously used to feed Doodle his milk replacer. I used a nipple with an exceptionally large opening, in the expectation that I might have to pour it down his throat. I didn't have to, because at 9 months old he still remembered exactly how to drink from a baby bottle once I got it in his mouth. But because of the large opening, during the process of getting it into his mouth a fair proportion of it had dripped out on my hand.
Determined that I had to give him more quickly, I headed back to the house. It helped expedite matters that Doodle was all too happy to tag along with me. We walked right into the kitchen, and he took the bottle with the additional 20 ml of mineral oil without complaint.
"People kill the things they love," was the refrain that went continuously through my mind. I was extremely concerned, so I googled as much as I could quickly find about sheep and rhubarb leaves. I was pleased to find several accounts of people whose sheep had ingested rhubarb leaves without apparent consequences, and to find that in order for the oxalic acid in rhubarb leaves to have significant effect on a human being, one would have to eat about 2 lbs of leaves. Even extrapolating down to Doodle's size of about 35 lbs, it began to seem highly unlikely that the small portion of one rhubarb leaf he had been able to eat in the less than a minute we were there could do him significant damage.
Though my fears were somewhat quelled, I felt compelled to let Steve know about the situation. While I play the parental role on a daily basis, it was Steve who cared for him right after birth, got Gillian involved to save him from certain death back then, and who comes closest to being Doodle's birth mother. A couple of weeks ago, while Steve was again visiting, it was remarkable to see how they communed, with Doodle nuzzling him and seeming to try to nurse on Steve's shirt. If I were to cause Doodle's death, I don't think Steve would forgive me.
I was relieved that once he heard the whole story and determined that Doodle was in no real danger, Steve saw the comedy in the situation. And he really let me have it. "You know how Chekhov displays that gun innocently at the beginning of Uncle Vanya, and you just know that the gun is going to go off later on? Well," he said, "this is the same thing. Every goddamned time we go to the vegetable garden, you point out to me that the leaves on the rhubarb are poisonous. Every time. As if you think I'd eat them! You were basically setting it up that something had to happen with those leaves, and that something finally happened. Thank God, just like in Uncle Vanya, nobody really got hurt."
Not that Steve hasn't asked for daily reports on Doodle's condition ever since. But as I've told him, Doodle four days later continues to be perfectly fine. He is now forever banished from the vegetable garden, however. One shot of Chekhov's gun is enough.
Doodle Nuzzles Steve, selfie by Steve Gutierrez
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Horseradish root: $2/lb. Sorrel: $3/bag Rhubarb: $5/lb
EGGS ARE BACK! Nature destroys but it also regenerates. Egg production is back in full swing. $6/dozen
Lambs went to market. If you ordered, stay tuned for pickup. + Coming soon: Mint
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464
Broccoli heading for a new garden bed Photo by Eric Rouleau
Tuning in this morning to Ici Musique, the Montréal radio station, we were immediately reminded that it's Earth Day. The theme of Eric's favorite program was songs involving gardens. Appropriately, I had scheduled this weekend to be a full weekend of working in the vegetable garden. Rather than plain old Earth Day, though, I'd call it Earth Moving Day. The garden this year is, at least at the initial stages, something of a back breaker.
Spring garden preparation is always strenuous. It inevitably requires digging to prepare planting beds and hauling compost. This year, I've made the compost distribution an add-on to daily chores. After I unload the muck from the barn floor on the still decomposing part of the my compost mountain, I wheel the cart down the other side and fill it with already cured compost. I then wheel that to the vegetable garden (Doodle of course tagging along), dump the compost on a planting bed, and bring the cart back to the barn to fill it with the next load of muck, starting the cycle again.
In addition to the usual garden prep, there are other elements that render "making the garden" particularly strenuous this year. First, we are installing what I hope will be rabbit and groundhog proof fencing around a new perimeter line. Macho Matt started us on that process by putting in gate posts and gates, and installing the first two sections of fence along the lines we all laid out. We've continued the work, pounding in metal fence posts, then using twisted wire to affix three foot high rigid metal hog panels to the posts. This in and of itself is a relatively quick and efficient process, but it's really only the beginning.
Once the hog panels are up, we dig a trench a bit more than a foot wide around the outside of the fence, and then attach four foot high chicken wire to the metal hog panels. The upper three feet of chicken wire is vertical against the hog panels. The last foot is flush to the ground, and then covered back over with the layer of soil we dug out. I thank my sister for this suggestion. She says the groundhogs start digging to get under the fence, but when they hit the chicken wire they get frustrated and go elsewhere. Determined as I am that this year the garden will feed us humans, not rabbits and groundhogs, we are going that extra mile toward impregnability.
In addition to new fencing, we are reconfiguring the garden beds. Last year, as Eric and I were feeling our way toward living as a couple, he had occasion to remark that I was a bohemian, while he was a cartesian. He was referring to much thornier issues than the garden, but it turns out he was correct up and down the line. You can see it in our respective approaches to garden beds.
Many of you have, when visiting in the past, remarked on my unusual use of round planting beds. Well, they are being phased out, at Eric's suggestion. He acknowledges that there is a place for charm in the garden, but feels that vegetables are pretty charming all by themselves and that the quest for visual interest must be reconciled with efficiency. Rectangular beds will make mowing and other maintenance considerably less strenuous, and Eric convinced me that I should try to keep the work to the essential -- and to what I can really accomplish.
Eric went on line and got a garden planning program, and we together this winter created a plan for everything other than the tomato patch. We've been assiduously following it. Unfortunately, this too involves a great deal of earth moving. To put the beds where we want them in the shape we want them to have, we are digging up large clumps of lawn in some places, and moving them, as turf, to other places that may have been planting beds before. At times it seems all the soil in the garden is moving from one place to another. It's fun to see the transformation, but exhausting.
Do I mind? Not at all. A vegetable garden is not just a utilitarian tool. It's a creation, an expression of value, and in some very real senses an act of love. One of the most beautiful songs in the repertoire of québecois music to which Eric has introduced me is by poet and songwriter Clémence DesRochers, the first verse of which is:
Cet été je ferai un jardin Si tu veux rester avec moi Encore quelques mois Il sera petit, c'est certain J'en prendrai bien soin J'en prendrai bien soin Pour qu'il soit aussi beau que toi.
(This summer I will make a garden, If you want to stay with me A few months longer It will be small, surely, I will take good care of it I will take good care of it So that it will be as beautiful as you)
While I would certainly have made a garden if Eric had not decided to stay, it would not have been this garden. This garden embodies what we've decided to try to achieve together, and to me it's worth taking all the good care required.
The Garden Plan We Created Photo by Eric Rouleau
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Horseradish root: $2/lb. Sorrel: $3/bag Rhubarb: They're still mostly short and stumpy, but ready to eat $5/lb
EGGS ARE BACK! Nature destroys but it also regenerates. Egg production is back in full swing. Choice of rich concentrated young pullet eggs or regular size eggs, either way $6/dozen
Lambs went to market. If you ordered, stay tuned for pickup. + Coming soon: Mint
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
When it became apparent that my sister and brother-in-law would be traveling through the Hudson Valley at the end of this week, I decided that it would make sense to move the ritual Passover seder meal to Good Friday, midway between the first night of Passover and Easter Sunday. Because of the co-occurrence of the holidays, Eric and I discussed possibly having a fusion seder/Easter feast, in which coquilles Saint-Jacques would take the place of gefilte fish and a roast ham would substitute for the brisket. But the challenge of melding a holiday meal built around bread that didn't have time to rise with one symbolized by bread that has risen is confounding. Two different stories, matzoh and hot cross buns. Sometimes you simply have to recognize real differences.
Matt takes a lamb appreciation break Photo by Mark Scherzer
So we proceeded with a traditional seder on Friday (albeit with the Christians outnumbering the Jews), and will proceed with a traditional Easter dinner today (with the Jews, conversely, in the majority). This approach allows us not only to recognize the differences, but appreciate them.
The same process of recognition and appreciation might be carried over to the farm, where the effort to understand the livestock I raise involves a constant struggle to figure out how they are like us, and how they are different. You may recall that a few weeks ago I was contemplating the best way to raise Doodle, the lamb rejected by his mother. Let him accompany me, as his substitute mother, and get first chance at the food I distribute (my approach)? Or keep him with the flock to let him learn to be a regular sheep (Eric's)? Or take a middle course of excluding him while distributing the feed, but giving him extra treats on the sly (Steve's)?
Many of you sent in thoughts. While most voted in favor of my indulgent approach, Eric's sister, Kathleen, offered what turned out to be the most sage advice. She said, "do a little of each," more or less predicting how it has all played out. No sooner had I put the options on the table than Doodle himself started showing conflicting desires, sometimes hanging back with the herd, sometimes insisting on coming in with me, sometimes looking for special treats and attention after the fact.
As Doodle separated himself a bit from me, I began more keenly observing the other sheep during feeding. I noticed, for one thing, that Doodle was not the only one in need of special help. He is somewhat vulnerable for being younger and smaller, but equally vulnerable are the oldest ewes, like Nilufer, now 15 years old, and Lale, now 14. Nilufer, particularly, is subject to being bonked out of the way by younger, stronger ewes at the feed bowls. I've taken to letting them both stay in the main part of the barn while I distribute food, to give them a head start, and often end up hand feeding Nilufer on the side.
The herd is in fact incredibly rough on any more vulnerable sheep. While they are very respectful of ewes giving birth, taking pains to avoid walking anywhere near mothers with newborn lambs, it only takes days before they treat those lambs as entirely "on their own". Last week I observed a lamb mistaking a ewe for his mother and approaching her as she was eating her grain treat. She bonked him out of the way so hard with her head that he ended up splayed out on all four legs a couple of feet away. While I am convinced that ewes and their own lambs feel love for each other, it seems that caring between sheep unrelated by mother/lamb ties is in very short supply.
In that respect, I am quite sure that humans are different. We may not always offer generosity, but we are surely capable of it. I need look no further for evidence than the sojourn of my friend Matt this last week on the farm. Matt, a civil engineer by training, has all sorts of skills that are invaluable on the farm but which I sorely lack, including understanding how things work mechanically. He also likes the hard physical labor of farm work. Not for nothing do we refer to him as Macho Matt.
In the space of the week, even while doing his office work several days, Matt fixed two major gates. He mined the former pig pasture for metal fencing and posts that could be repurposed to define the new parameters of the vegetable garden. He installed three recycled gates at the garden entry points, and began installing the fencing there. He fixed a wheelbarrow and reconfigured a pen in the barn that the sheep had managed to destroy. Most important, he dismantled the jerry-built front of the chicken coop, installed new gate posts, lintel, threshold and cross bars, and re-installed the door so it works properly. Once we rewired the front of the coop, it was entirely renewed as a safe space for the chickens. Even after returning to the City, Matt has been in touch, mulling designs for new roosting bars for the turkeys that will arrive in late May.
Though Matt claims he does this for the pleasure of it, it represents a generosity of spirit that I am pretty sure the sheep do not possess. We should recognize how human generosity so exceeds that of the animals, and celebrate the difference.
Matt reconstructs the chicken coop Photo by Mark Scherzer
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Horseradish root: $2/lb.
EGGS ARE BACK! Nature destroys but it also regenerates. Egg production is back in full swing. Choice of rich concentrated young pullet eggs or regular size eggs, either way $6/dozen
TIME TO ORDER LAMB Order a whole or half lamb, cut to your specifications, $7/lb hanging weight. The lamb market date has, for logistical reasons involving the truck, been changed to April 18, so there is still time to order.
Coming soon: Sorrel is up. Another week or two to harvest
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
Spring, the season of rebirth and regrowth, is almost upon us. Winter's last full official day is Sunday, March 19. But Spring is an insistent force, and will be restrained neither by the calendar nor by cold wintry weather. If I needed any proof of this proposition, I found it yesterday evening. As Eric and I drove east east from Germantown, where the little snow we had this week has largely melted away, to the higher elevations of Northwestern Connecticut, where my friend George spent part of the week snowed in without power, we saw in the middle of a lawn in Lakeville, surrounded by deep snow, what appeared to be a large forsythia bush in bloom.
Here in Germantown, it's easier for the season to show itself in full force. The little white snowdrop flowers that have been blooming for the last couple of weeks have been joined by six inch tall daffodil leaves, with buds that seem on the verge of opening. I even saw a couple of phlox leaves emerging near the house this afternoon. And fuki buds are popping out of the ground, it seems everywhere I look.
Fuki, also known as Japanese butterbur, is a plant with flat round leaves which can be massive, a foot or more in diameter -- heart shaped, large, and coarse. The leaves appear at the end of stalks that begin at ground level and stick up about six or eight inches. People often mistake fuki for rhubarb. The stalks resemble a thin reddish celery stalk. The buds, which look like tiny greenish cauliflowers, appear right at ground level in early spring.
The fuki here was planted in a fit of landscaping enthusiasm some twenty two years ago. It was located in a shady damp spot east of the driveway in order to quickly cover a lot ground with something decorative. I've come to view the plant as a horrible invasive scourge because, through sending out underground runners, it has been appearing opportunistically everyplace it can reach, sometimes areas not so shady and mucky. Unfortunately, in the height of summer, whenever the weather turns hot and dry, in all but the shadiest, wettest spots the plants wilt, and so does their beauty. The leaves dry up quickly; the stems turn a brittle brown. Because they have shaded out all competing growth, the fuki patch looks like the remnants of a forest fire. Spring landscape beauty becomes summer's desert. I would like to do everything I can to limit the area covered by fuki.
Fortuitously, it turns out that fuki is regarded as something of a delicacy by the Japanese, a "mountain vegetable." The buds, known as " fuki noto", are harvested by hand in early spring and used in a variety of preparations. I'm thinking about doing a fuki noto tempura tomorrow. From my research today, it seems the stalks are also quite edible when they're young and tender. Parboiled in salt water, followed by an ice water bath to take out some of their signature bitterness, they may then be added to soup or transformed into a vegetable dish served with miso paste. My hope is that if I harvest enough buds and early stalks, and even convince others to eat them, that I will keep this rampant scourge under control.
I assure you , this is not a general instinct of mine. Confronted by the first growth of spring, I do not generally try to beat it back. Indeed, I encourage the life force in all its manifestations, be they vegetable, animal, or human.
Take Spring Fever. I have the impression, from my social world, that there is a pandemic of this condition already well under way. Various of my friends are falling into various stages of infatuation and outright love right about now. I've always been a love junkie. There's rarely been a period in my life when I wasn't in love with a mate or potential mate, regardless of season. But to see friends who previously proclaimed no interest in becoming part of a couple suddenly changing course and considering mating makes me suspect there's something in the atmosphere that has freed up that particular human need and desire to express itself fully.
Is it disconcerting to have friends disappear from your radar as they focus on bonding with the objects of their awakening affection? Sure, but I remind myself that I've similarly disappeared from their radars at similar points in my life, sometimes repeatedly. And there is a countervailing joy in knowing that they are being animated by what seems to me an expression of the life force that matters most.
There is a culture war being waged right now against being "woke". I will refrain from expressing my feelings about a state of being I can't define. But I do, in these balmy days of life and love erupting, most emphatically cast my vote in favor of "awakening".
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK: FUKI NOTO, LAMB AND EGGS
FUKI BUDS: $8/LB
EGGS ARE BACK! Nature destroys but it also regenerates. Egg production is back in full swing. Choice of rich concentrated young pullet eggs or regular size eggs, either way $6/dozen
TIME TO ORDER LAMB Order a whole or half lamb, cut to your specifications, $7/lb hanging weight. Lambs go to market Mar. 20, so you need to get your cutting instructions in now.
Another small March snowfall this morning frustrated my outdoor work but served to remind me of how much I need to do for spring. Each time it snows, the branches and berry canes etched in white loom all the larger, shouting "we need pruning." I felt a bit overwhelmed walking by the blackberry patch. The feeling intensified as I pitchforked a wheelbarrow full of muck from the barn floor and saw again how much remains to do. It feels like I might just as well have thrown the hay bales directly on the floor, and skipped the intermediate stage where the sheep tear it out of the manger to eat.
And the hay supply is running low. In the fall of 2021 I over-bought, and ended up with hay left in the barn when spring arrived. As a result, in the fall of 2022, with a fairly constant number of sheep, I adjusted my buying down, and now it seems I have only about two weeks supply left. With at least six weeks before the pasture can serve as the main food source for the sheep, I'm going to have to bring in more hay in the next week or so to bridge that gap.
I'm not sure this really represents a misjudgment on my part. In 2021 the hay I bought was "second cut" (the late summer cutting), fresh and tender, and the sheep tended to consume it thoroughly. This last fall, there was no second cut hay available to buy, as a result of our midsummer drought. The first cut hay I was able to find was stalky, dryer and coarse, not nearly as attractive to the sheep. The result has been much more wasted hay left on the barn floor, much more mucking of the floor for me, and much quicker depletion of my supply of hay bales because they are really only being partially consumed.
I made the best choice I could in buying that hay, and, thankfully, the sheep don't complain. But I do perceive a slightly higher degree of frenzy when they get their daily grain treats: a little more aggression about knocking each other out of the way to get at this scarce resource. The herd dynamics have led to a certain degree of debate around here about how best to handle feeding time. On that subject, I am far less certain about which way to go.
Many of you will recall the birth of Doodle, the little lamb rejected by his mother last July. Doodle is doing fine. Most of the day he hangs with the herd. He plays and hops around like a standard healthy little lamb. He is, unsurprisingly, affectionate toward humans. But, probably as the result of his near death experience just after birth, he is still quite small, even when compared with his twin sister, who his mother did not reject. It seems that his fate, as a smaller creature, is to be emphatically knocked out of the way when the sheep compete for their daily grain treat.
My solution has been to keep Doodle with me in the barn when I exclude all the others in order to set up feeding. He accompanies me outside as I trundle the wheelbarrow up to the compost heap. He follows me back in to the hay storage room, he follows me when I put out the herd's mineral supplement, and, most of all he follows me when I put the grain their feed bowls. In essence, he gets a huge head start on the other sheep in consuming the grain. I justify it by recognizing that once everyone else comes in, he is going to get knocked out of the way.
But my approach turns out to be controversial. Eric, being a consummate human resources professional, urges me to abandon this most favored treatment of Doodle so that he will develop sheep life skills. "Doodle has to learn to compete," says Eric. "He'll never be able to do it if you give him a free pass."
My possibly soon-to-be housemate, Steve, also criticizes my approach. Steve is something of a shrink manqué, and much as he analyzes the dynamics of the human denizens of Turkana Farms he ventures deep into the realm of sheep psychology. "If the others keep seeing Doodle through the fence getting special access," insists Steve, "they are going to resent him. He'll be an outcast." But in contrast to Eric, Steve's solution when he does chores is to take Doodle aside while the others are busy scrambling for the grain bowls and to let him eat out of his hand.
I've expressed my doubts that sheep have complicated enough minds to experience jealousy or resentment. Those, I feel, are uniquely human emotions. Steve disagrees. "They're simple emotions, just as basic as feeling love or the need to be loved," he tells me. "They're part of the territory."
To be sure, sheep are by nature desperate to belong to the herd. They need each other's company and are miserable in isolation. They have enduring feelings of attachment; ewes who lose lambs are despondent and cry for days. If that's love, they have it. But even if I concede to Steve that sheep have jealousy and resentment too, I don't get how feeding Doodle by hand would avoid those feelings. Won't the herd resent that privilege? Or is Steve right to think they're too busy eating to notice?
There you have it, three approaches (my give him the food, Eric's give him the skills, and Steve's sneak him the love) that probably say something about our respective characters and life experience. But as to which one serves Doodle best, I could use some guidance.
"Prune me, please" say the blackberry canes Photo by Mark Scherzer
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK: LAMB AND EGGS
EGGS ARE BACK! Nature destroys but it also regenerates. Egg production is back in full swing. Choice of rich concentrated young pullet eggs or regular size eggs, either way $6/dozen
TIME TO ORDER LAMB Order a whole or half lamb, cut to your specifications, $7/lb hanging weight. Lambs go to market Mar. 20, so you need to get your cutting instructions in now.
By Mark ScherzerI know you are all accustomed to my ruminations on the state of the world taking primary place in this bulletin, and the sales pitch for the farm being distinctly secondary. I'm turning that approach on its head this week, because I want to make sure I'm clearly conveying a message. This farm is getting back in business.
After the death of my partner, Peter, I figured I had to pare things back to what I could manage entirely on my own, all while spending time to reconstitute a personal life and run my law business in the City. The farm's production contracted considerably as a result.
I think the reconstitution process has reached a point of maturity and stability. I've built a life centered here rather than the City and moved the law practice here in that effort. I'm finding how to integrate the farm work into the work day so that it gives me needed breaks from my desk work rather than interfering with it. I have a group of friends and regular visitors who bring me great joy; several of them come in part because they find helping with farm projects to be therapeutic and fun. Most important, I am happily partnered again. Eric, my partner, has a keen eye for what I like and what I can manage. He is encouraging me to reorganize my operations, to stop doing what I can't do myself economically and to do more of what brings me both pleasure and reasonable revenue (like raising turkeys!).
All of which means the period of contraction is drawing to a close. It's time to take more seriously the tasks of producing agricultural goods and selling them. To that end, let me say far more prominently than I have been saying in the past few months, I've got farm produce I would love to sell to you.
Winter snow, Spring eggs Photo by Eric Rouleau
Let's start with eggs. A couple of weeks ago, I announced that eggs were back. I excitedly described pullet eggs, the first laid eggs of the newest hens, of which we are entering the last week of production. I expected something akin to the Oklahoma land rush, when they opened the territory's borders to American settlers in 1889. Fifty thousand people lined up and rushed into the territory in a frenzy to claim some of the 12,000 160 acre tracts that you could own at no cost if you lived on and worked the land.
(There is always a hidden cost to anything free, of course. In the case of Oklahoma, that cost was paid by the Native Americans displaced to Oklahoma from the Southeast a half century earlier through one sided treaties that the United States then decided to one-sidedly abrogate. Individual Native American families could claim their own 160 acre plots, but those lots unclaimed were forfeited from collective tribal ownership.)
Similar land rushes were repeated several times in later years, and you can be sure pretty much all of the land was grabbed up. Not true, however, of my eggs. I'm bringing in a lot every day. The new pullets have now been joined by the older hens, who are starting their annual crescendo of egg-laying that tells us it's now biological, if not meteorological spring. Cartons of eggs are stacking up in the fridge. So in case my previous invitations were too tentative, let me send out the message loud and clear: Eggs are back, and I'd be delighted if all our regular egg customers were to return as well. The eggs are fresh, they're delicious, and it's more ethical than the Oklahoma land rush -- you pay for them.
Now let's turn to lamb: We had to push back the lamb market date from last week because the ground was a little too soft for our trucker to feel comfortable backing up to the barn. They're now scheduled to leave March 20. This means there is still the opportunity for those of you who would like to order a whole or half lamb, custom butchered to your specifications. You receive it all neatly packed and frozen, giving you a stockpile of lovely lamb for several months use. Rack and leg of lamb for feasts, lamb shanks and stew for homey family meals on chilly days, lamb chops and steaks for the grill, and ground lamb to be made into dozens of enticing treats such as spicy Adana kebab, which Eric and I will enjoy tonight.
Finally, coming later this year, as noted above, our heritage breed turkeys will return. I know I don't have to extol their virtues; many of you came to know the farm through our turkeys. I am anticipating raising fifty this year, about half the usual number from past years, to ease back into production and anticipate a shrunken customer base after a five year hiatus.
For several weeks now, virtually every night I've had vivid dreams on the same theme: I am trying to get somewhere, I can't do it unless I pass a hurdle (a degree, a test), and I awake at a point of frustration. The settings vary wildly. I've gotten stuck at places as diverse as a seaside cafeteria/gymnasium in Turkey and a Long Island Railroad train in Patchogue. The dreams are populated by characters often from my distant past - college friends I haven't seen in years, men I dated a handful of times. But the theme is constant.
Maybe the dreams are about the state of my world writ large. But somehow I'm sure that a farm that has been a bit sleepy is in my mind one of those hurdles, and that reinvigorating it is one way to get where I need to go.
A correction: A Mechaya
Last week I wrote that my Uncle Max, upon entering the lake at our Catskill bungalow colony, would loudly proclaim "L'Chaim" (to life). I was immediately corrected, first by my dear cousin Al, a generation above me who also frequented that lake. He wrote: "What Uncle Max used to say was “a mechaya”. This means a pleasure and it would be used in the situations such as going into the lake or sitting down after a long run or after exhausting work. The guttural “ch” I have heard cutely described as a backwards snore."
Al pointed out that he had previously corrected the same vignette the last time I told it, and I had apparently forgotten.
Al's was quickly followed by an erudite note from my friend Bernard:
"I don’t know how much Yiddish you’ve been around; I seem to remember not all that much. I think what your uncle was exclaiming may not have been L’chaim but It’s a m’chayeh (variously spelled in English.
Yiddish מחיה mekháye 'delight, pleasure', from Heb mekhayé '(something that) vitalizes, rejuvenates'
Same root as L’chaim. It “gives life.”
Very very stereotypically, it’s what a Brooklyn Yiddish lady says when she gets to the shore and splashes water on her bosom: Oy, it’s a m’chayeh!!"
So there you have it. I stand duly and double corrected. The lesson to all, however, is to be wary of what you think you remember quite clearly. It may be just what it sounded like to you.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK: LAMB AND EGGS
EGGS ARE BACK! Nature destroys but it also regenerates. Egg production is back in full swing. Choice of rich concentrated young pullet eggs or regular size eggs, either way $6/dozen
TIME TO ORDER LAMB Order a whole or half lamb, cut to your specifications, $7/lb hanging weight. Lambs go to market Mar. 20, so you need to get your cutting instructions in now.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
Part of my chore-time ritual, twice a day, is to muck a wheelbarrow full of accumulated waste hay and sheep poop from the barn floor and trundle it out to the compost heap. Even with this effort, the stuff builds up. It's anywhere from 6 inches to a foot deep in the part of the barn closest to the hay manger.
This morning, as I was doing the mucking, I felt my fingers go a bit numb. I was wearing inner gloves and outer gloves, but it was pretty cold to be working in the barn. It was the sort of cold you feel when the air hits your face walking into a freezer storage room.
My reaction, to my surprise, was to echo my late great-uncle Max when he entered the lake at our Catskills bungalow colony on a hot summer day. In my memory, he bellowed out "L'Chaim" as he splashed himself with the cold water, which you all know from Fiddler on the Roof means "to life," a toast. As my cousin Al, who actually speaks Yiddish, has corrected me, he actually was calling out "mechaya," "a pleasure." This morning, I said to myself, what a pleasure, how refreshing to feel real winter cold.
There is something I have long loved about the extremes of winter, the stretches of bitter cold for days on end. Sure, everything is harder to do. Gates ice shut, doors won't slide open. Even though I keep an electric de-icer in the sheep's water tank, ice can freeze over the top, requiring that I break it up with a prising bar. The painful numbness of my hands, my toes, my nose and my cheeks that takes over after an hour of chores in the cold, the feeling of being chilled to the bone, remains with me even after I come inside.
But that pain, the struggle with the elements, also makes me feel, well... Butch. Strong. Healthy. Getting up to the barn with frigid north winds whipping the snow off the pastures into my eyes feels like I've gone on an Arctic expedition. Just finishing chores always seems like a small victory. My romantic macho farmer fantasy of myself finds momentary validation.
The sensation of braving the cold is one I have almost missed entirely this year. Even when Eric and I traveled to northern Vermont two weeks ago in search of winter we found mild temperatures. The ski conditions were surprisingly good, but it was good spring skiing, including some bare spots and slush, in mid February. Here on the farm there has hardly been a challenging chore time.
I will freely admit that my taste for braving the cold is not the best reason to complain about the mild weather. Don't worry, I have other reasons, too. I worry that it will have bad effects on the farm.
For example, I am concerned that the weather will interfere with my lambs going to market as scheduled this Monday. Usually I can count on the ground being frozen hard at this time of year, and a truck therefore being able to back up to the barn for them to be loaded in. It seems touch and go for this Monday whether the ground instead will be muddy, and the truck unable to approach it.
I am concerned too that the lack of prolonged deep cold will mean winter doesn't take any toll at all on pests and pestilence. Will ticks, voles, and spores of plant diseases all come through winter in full flourish, and reproduce in overwhelming numbers a couple of months from now? Will this summer be a nightmare of insect bites and plant diseases?
And what does the apparent acceleration of spring mean for my fruit trees? I've always understood that it's best to trim fruit trees when they are dormant. If it is warm on a sustained basis, are there dangers in continuing to trim? Also, with a season that doesn't know whether it's winter or spring, will the trees be prompted to flower earlier than they should? If they flower just as a cold snap happens, the entire season could be wiped out. Earlier flowering increases that risk.
At least the mild weather has meant that I've made great progress in trimming the trees. It's been delightful most days to work outside. Spending all that time with the fruit trees has given me lots of time to think about the wonders of their growth process. I'm constantly enthralled by their now fat and very visible buds.The buds are so tender that the sheep run over to devour them as soon as I throw the trimmed branches over the fence. Yet they are so tough that they form and thrive in mid-winter in even the coldest years, and manage to survive the vicissitudes of the weather to become delicate flowers and luscious fruit.
Which leaves me in a state of some internal contradiction. For all that I may miss having had a real winter, I am still excited, as I always am, for the signs of incipient spring all around. Things won't remain dormant for long. The rapidly greening branches of the forsythia bushes and willow trees, the fiery red bark of the coral bark maple, the sorrel leaves and daffodil leaves poking out of the ground in the vegetable garden and perennial garden all remind me that life resurges. About that I have no regrets at all.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK: LAMB AND EGGS
EGGS ARE BACK! Nature destroys but it also regenerates. Egg production is back in full swing. Choice of rich concentrated young pullet eggs or regular size eggs, either way $6/dozen
TIME TO ORDER LAMB Order a whole or half lamb, cut to your specifications, $7/lb hanging weight. Lambs go to market Feb. 28, so you need to get your cutting instructions in now.
Hi All, Mark here.
It’s a balmy winter Saturday. The sun is ever higher in the sky. The breeze is mild. About half the pastures and lawns are bare; only a thin layer of slushy, melted, refrozen, and remelted snow covers the rest. The ground is soft. It’s the sort of day that says “Look for the crocuses to pop.” Yesterday was almost as nice. These are the kinds of days that generally send my spirits soaring.
So why did I wake at 5 this morning with a feverish anxiety dream about the farm? Why were my sheep giving birth to rabbits? Why was a new dance venue opening across the street with, I was assured, highly amplified music all night, which would not only make my home unlivable but also deprive the farm, my biggest asset, of any value? Why was the order of everything unraveling, leaving me no safety net?
Maybe because these balmy days are occurring in late January, not early March. Had this weather come after a deep polar vortex, or weeks of consistent cold, it would be a welcome reminder that winter is not eternal. But it’s more like a reminder that winter has barely ever started.
As of tomorrow, January 29, New York City will have gone longer without accumulating snow than in any previously recorded winter. It may be a completely snowless season there. In Germantown, where we average 46 inches of snow annually, we’ve had no more than about 6 inches so far. Our small snowfalls were followed so quickly by rain or warm weather that I have only had to shovel the driveway once. Sure, February is usually the snowiest month, but I doubt we’ll come close to our annual average.
Even the mountains up north have been unusually warm. Only yesterday, after a few significant snow dumps, did Eric and I work up the confidence to commit to a few days of mid-February Vermont skiing. Otherwise, plunking down a room deposit seemed a bit like buying cryptocurrency - highly speculative.
No wonder I’m anxious. In the last few years, the social order and work routine as it existed most of my life was upended by COVID. The geopolitical order was shattered by Trumpism and Ruscism. And now it turns out that the foundation of all life, the earth and its atmosphere, is changing, perhaps sooner than we wanted to believe it would. If none of the order of your world is steady, how do you make life choices? Unfortunately, you have to assume that things will fall apart, and choose with all your worst anxieties always in mind.
I’m convinced that this is not only a human reaction, but is deeply ingrained in the entire animal world. I’ve concluded this because I’m not the only uneasy one on the farm these days. My chickens, too, have had their world rocked by change and uncertainty, and I observe them reacting by assuming, similarly, that there is no safety net.
You may recall that last fall a weasel was decimating my young chickens at night. While that problem was resolved, in the last couple of weeks a daytime threat has loomed over all of them: a very large and very present hawk, which I’ve seen eating prey on the ground near the pond, perching in a tree outside the parlor window, and swooping down onto the front lawn. While I didn’t see it in the act, I am quite sure it also killed two of my chickens and totally eviscerated one of them, eating all the meat off the bones.
I was pretty sure the hawk was the culprit not only because it has been so present (the rabbits and chipmunks that seemed to multiply in the yard have been scarcely observable lately), but also because of the way the chickens react whenever the hawk can be seen or heard above – by running into the coop and hiding in the corner, preferably under a solid surface. I realized, also, that the chickens had become far more vulnerable to hawks than they’d been in several years. On his Thanksgiving visit, Perry, the son of my later partner, Peter, enjoyed a chainsaw saturnalia, which included radically pruning back the vines and branches that had covered most of the chicken coop’s front yard. It left an open space for swooping of which the hawk could now take advantage.
I had hoped a scarecrow might help, but one on-line post said it would only provide a better perch for the hawk to use to survey its prey. Instead, I decided to restore the netting that once covered the chickens’ front yard at the level of the eight-foot fence. Last weekend I pressed our visiting friend Paul, always an eager hand, into service. We not only shielded the open section of yard, but at Paul’s suggestion added periodic yellow caution ribbon to alert the hawk to the netting.
While I think the chickens are once again secure from aerial attack, they have not yet figured that out. If they are aware that the hawk is observing them from the fence post tops or nearby tree branches, they continue to hide in the coop. I expect, after the trauma of the hawk attacks they witnessed, they will continue to do so until the hawk stops coming around. I get it. They have no reason to have confidence in their safety net. It’s so hard to know in this world when you are secure.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Not much. I am getting impatient for eggs but am pretty sure the new layers will be producing imminently. Meanwhile, please consider ordering a whole or half lamb cut to your specifications at $7/lb hanging weight.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
The "Waste Not Want Not" bulletin of last week, which included news of the death of my elderly sow, Possum, elicited a range of responses, including valuable kitchen composting tips to help me replace my living, breathing consumer of food scraps. But virtually everyone added condolences. By far the most touching and beautiful tribute came from my next door neighbor Emily, a gifted designer, who delivered a card of her own creation. On the front was an illustration of my great big pig gazing through the chain link fence from her mugwort filled pasture. On the back, she wrote, "I will miss visiting Possum through the fence."
And then there was the message from my frequent farm sitter, soon-to-be (I hope) housemate, and always attentive reader Steve: "You had to dig a grave for a 400-pound pig and didn't think that was interesting enough to be your main topic?!"
Truth be told, Steve was not the only one curious about Possum's burial. Others asked. And the issue rather preoccupied me too, from the moment I found her lifeless in her hut. To begin with, of course, there was her size. Six feet long from snout to tail, 3 feet tall, and 21 inches from side to side at her widest exactly. (I measured her before digging.) A solid, wide creature who always amazed visitors.
She was also awkwardly located. Her pasture was fenced off and deliberately set in a soggy low lying area, a pig paradise where they could create mud wallows in the summer and the sheep would not want to graze. It is fenced off from the rest of the property with no wide gates or any easy route for mechanized vehicles to enter. Then there was the matter of time and temperature. Our unusually warm winter saved me from a painful battle with frozen soil, but it would only hasten the decomposition of her body. I felt an urgent need to get her in the ground.
To top it all off, I was alone. It was one of my rare (and unwanted) weekends without Eric. He and Steve and Matt and Tom and Paul all offered to help, but dispersed as they were from the Berkshires to New York City and Eastern Long Island with commitments they couldn't instantly drop, I didn't feel I could wait. Against all their warnings (Eric insisted: "Don't do this yourself!"), I stubbornly decided I just had to get to it.
Shovel in hand, I went down to survey the possible burial sites.In a perfect world, I would bury her next to her former companion, Vernon the boar, in the middle of the pasture. But the prospect of maneuvering this massive corpse down and up a rise and across a stream was a quest I could not undertake. Besides, any action emphasizing their coupled status would be terribly guilt inducing for me.
Possum and I had a complicated relationship. She came to us as an adult, a gift from a farm where she constantly fought with a rival sow. In most circumstances she was sweet and liked to be approached and petted, but she, like any sow, could be ferocious if ever her piglets were threatened. And I, unfortunately, on one muddy spring day, found myself trying to grab her male piglets for the vet to castrate. I grabbed a hoe to keep her at bay as she charged me. With her full weight, she jammed it back into me, cracking one of my ribs. From then on, I kept a wary distance.
That was just one reason I spent several months soon thereafter convincing my late partner, Peter, to sell off our 30 plus pigs. After they were almost all gone, I reversed course. I couldn't bear to part with Vernon the boar, having raised him from when he was just a couple of months old. Fearing he would be lonely, we kept his companion, who was, ironically, Possum. (Possum and I both loved his sweet nature.) And as fate would have it, she was left alone when Vernon died. Her farm of origin did not want her back. I felt guilt at her life isolated from pig society and with only a couple of daily visits from me. Emily's note was especially comforting by letting me know she and Possum communed through the fence.
Logistics and emotions thus led me to conclude Possum would be buried right next to the hut in which she died. But after 45 minutes of painful digging, and as darkness fell I despaired: I hit a shale ledge at one end of the grave and a layer of clay about 20 inches down everywhere else.
I sent out an SOS to James, the neighbor whose cattle graze my back acres. He had used a wonderful small tractor to trench an electric line from the barn to the middle of the field the week before, and I hoped it might also dig a giant pig grave.
"Too wet and inaccessible," James said. But instead he brought over two strapping helpers with shovels and strong backs the following morning. In a matter of a single hour the four of us lay Possum to rest.
My responsibilities to the old gal complete, I have to acknowledge my affections for her were not quite the stuff of children's books. As any farmer will admit, not all our animals engender the same level of love, and Possum the rib breaker was no Doodle the orphan lamb. But from this not so sweet departure I've come away with a different sweetness: a renewed and deeper appreciation for the kindness of my neighbors.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Just a few things. Eggs are in hiatus until these new girls get a bit bigger. The old girls are producing just a couple a day, though today we got 4, so ask if you want eggs.
Lamb is sold out but I'm preparing to send 5 or 6 more off to market. If you want to order a whole or half lamb cut to your specifications at $7/lb hanging weight, please let me know.
Last produce:
Salad turnips, $2/bunch
In the flurry of big news stories at new year -- Ukraine, of course, the deaths of Pope Benedict and Barbara Walters, and more -- this was an easy story to miss in the New York Times on New Year's Day: How Central Ohio Got People to Eat Their Leftovers. It was an important piece of reporting, though, once again reminding us that each of our individual actions contribute to carbon emissions and global warming.
The story focused on how the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) was trying to change behaviors in its region to reduce food waste coming to its landfills. Why? It turns out that one third of the food Americans buy is thrown away. Households throw more food away than restaurants, grocery stores or farms. All of the rotting food in landfills emits about double the carbon that commercial aviation emits. Cutting this waste stream could not only save precious space in landfills but also contribute significantly to minimizing climate change.
SWACO is effectively swaying behavior through various means of public education, including teaching people how to shop more efficiently and to use leftovers deliciously. It has been particularly successful in using an army of influencers to change household behavior. Who are they? Kids, who learn in school about both the pernicious effects of food waste and how yummy leftovers can be, and who then wage highly insistent food conservation campaigns at home.
The story made me smile. I have long been a devoted antagonist of food waste. In early adulthood, I fought food waste chiefly through voracious eating. If I couldn't finish a particularly delicious dish, I would put it in the fridge and begin grazing on it a few hours later, and periodically every couple of hours, until it was consumed.
Alas, you can't eat that way forever. I was fortunate, therefore, to meet my late partner, Peter, who liked to put leftovers away and transform them the next day. When Peter's kids would visit him for the summer they went into revolt when the rice left over from dinner became the basis of rice salad for the next lunch, and the leftovers of that went into something else the following day. But for him it was a matter of both principle and economic necessity. And I loved the rice salads, which I continue to make, middle Eastern style, to this day.
I love that in this respect Eric bears a strong resemblance to Peter. It pains him not to use leftovers, and I am at times astonished at his skill in doing so. Last week he somehow cleaned out 5 or 6 different tupperware containers of leftovers in the fridge, combined them into a lunch melange that he heated in the microwave, and produced a lunch that I would gladly eat again, if only that combination of ingredients could ever be reproduced.
There are, of course, inevitably going to be food scraps that we find unpalatable or leftovers that, through negligence or bad placement in the fridge, get left behind. For some of these I have specific uses, such as coffee grinds that I spread around the rose bushes. For other items I had planned, when contemplating this bulletin, to recommend employing pigs.
Pigs are omnivores. They like virtually everything we like, and then some. They will eat, with gusto, apple cores, meat bones, wilted lettuce, corn cobs and the glop at the center of a pumpkin. In my years of raising pigs I learned what they won't eat (e.g. citrus, leeks), or what makes them sick (avocado pits and peels, uncooked potatoes) but it's a pretty short list.
Some of you may recall that in 2009, the Egyptian government culled all Egypt's pig herds, ostensibly to forestall an outbreak of swine flu but, some suspected, motivated in part by a desire to rid the country of pork, which to Muslims, like Jews, is a forbidden food. The cull affected not only the Christian minority who ate pork, but also a caste of people, the Zebbaleen, that collected trash in order to extract the food waste and feed it to pigs they kept. Trash began to pile up in the streets; the government could not afford to take up the trash collection. Belatedly, Egypt Spots Flaws in Wiping Out Pigs (New York Times, Sept. 9, 2009). Soon enough, even if not officially approved, the pigs were back.
I have relied to a huge extent on Possum, my old remaining sow, to take care of my food scraps. And knowing how she appreciated variety in her diet, I expanded by reaching beyond my own household. I took piggy bags home from restaurants or from dinner at friends'. My friend, Tom, brought bags of frozen Possum goodies he saved in the freezer. Though it's undoubtedly no solution for you urbanites or suburbanites, for country-dwellers a domestic pig could serve as another means of making food waste disappear.
I had planned to make this recommendation, but events got in the way. Possum died two days ago, quite suddenly. We buried her this morning. And I'm pretty sure I'm not going to replace her. When your consumer of food waste is also a sentient being and the relationship has other dimensions, you can't consider her food consumption role in isolation. I may myself now turn to composting my food waste.
But I still believe wholeheartedly in not letting edibles go uneaten. In that spirit, I make my annual plea to those of you who have unsprayed Christmas trees you are about to dispose of. Consider bringing them over to the farm, where my sheep will find the tree needles to be a delightful plate of leftovers.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Just a few things. Eggs are in hiatus until these new girls get a bit bigger. The old girls are producing just a couple a day.
Lamb is sold out but I'm preparing to send 5 or 6 more off to market. If you want to order a whole or half lamb cut to your specifications at $7/lb hanging weight, please let me know.
Last produce:
Salad turnips, $2/bunch
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
Virtually every morning, when I open the gate to descend to the path around the pond, on my way to feed Possum the sow, I cause a stir of sorts. Possum hears the sound of the latch opening and the gate squeaking and stirs herself to come out for breakfast. The other domestic livestock react similarly. The chickens run toward me for the cracked corn I spread in their yard as soon as they hear the door slide open. The sheep, if they perceive my movement toward the barn, return from grazing in the pasture to gather at the barn door and ready themselves for the “charge of the light brigade” – the race to their morning grain treat.
The wild cohabitants of my space are similarly attentive to my movements, but respond differently. When I open that same gate to head toward Possum, rabbits and squirrels dash for cover. Frogs on the margin of the pond jump in the water. And most mornings for months, I’ve gotten to witness the elegant take off of a great blue heron that seems to spend every morning hunting for the fish that multiplied in the pond.
The heron is an odd creature, It appears fragile and delicate, its body resting on long spindly legs, and its wings, while large, not appearing substantial enough to propel its body. Even though it instantly reacts to the sound of my arrival by leaving, it seems to move with a slow deliberation, its huge wings flapping languorously. It is sort of the diametrical opposite of a hummingbird.
But I don’t think it’s really delicate. Its long skinny beak must be a powerful weapon against its chosen prey; I wouldn’t want to tangle with it. Observing its departure one morning this week, my visiting friend Steve speculated on how “it must be nearly impossible for such a delicate bird to get through the winter”. I told him I didn’t have that impression.They seem quite cold hardy, and I think when the pond freezes such birds hang out at marshy margins, like those along the Hudson, that don’t fully freeze and where they can pick off fish in the shallow waters.
I’m not sure if I’d call the heron a visitor anymore. It is in the same place so regularly every morning that I’d have to say the pond has become part of its territory. The boundary lines on my property deed are not necessarily the ones observed by the animals I share the neighborhood with. The difference between visitor and resident can be a kind of blurry one, and the ambiguity extends well beyond the great blue heron.
A few weeks ago, when Eric’s dog, Lillie, was here for the week, she as usual accompanied me out to morning chores. She immediately started barking and running at the screened porch. I at first assumed she was protecting us from a delivery person. When I saw no truck in the driveway I then assumed she was responding to a skunk, since skunks at times have created burrows under the porch. But when she kept running at the screen itself and barking, I investigated further. There, inside the porch, I found perched on rattan side table a barred owl.
I knew there was such a creature in the neighborhood. This summer, I asked my visiting brother in law Doug, an avid birder, what the weird shriek, which I found so unsettling just after nightfall, was. When he said it was a barred owl call, it made sense to me, as I had at times in the past seen that remarkable looking bird on telephone lines along the side of the road. When I showed the picture of it to a neighbor, he said “I know that owl, it is always hanging out in a tree by my pond, where it hunts.” He thought of it as a resident of his property.
From what I’ve been reading, the barred owl claims rather large territory. It may well principally nest next to my neighbor’s pond, but probably regards my property as its own territory as well. They seem to claim territories as large as 800 acres, which would easily encompass my house, the house of this neighbor down the street, and the telephone lines over on Church Avenue where I’ve seen it roosting before.How it decided to fly through the screen of my screened porch is a bit of a mystery. I assume it saw a rodent or some other prey on the north side of the porch while it was roosted just to the south, and that something about the light at that moment made the screen invisible to it. It swooped in through a spot where the screen was already torn. Once inside, it couldn’t figure out how to get back out.
So the farm is part of this barred owl’s territory. It’s part of the great blue heron’s territory. And it’s clearly part of Lillie’s territory, as she views it as her duty to guard it against any intruders.To say any of these creatures are simply visitors would not, to my mind, really be accurate.
In some sense the blurring of the line between resident and visitor is perfectly appropriate, as the farm’s human denizens are of equally mixed status. Or course, it’s been clear for months that Eric resides here. Not only does he have his own desk, dresser drawers and closet space, but has marked the space as his (to my delight and that of my friends and family who felt the house needed a fresh new look) by reorganizing and redecorating. He’s not here every day, but it is nonetheless his home.
Steve has been contemplating moving in as a roommate, and he, too, has an ongoing presence in the form of toothbrush, pillows, and clothing. If you asked him “resident or visitor?” I think his response would be “undecided.” But I know the ongoing presence of "stuff" means he at least feels at home here, and it makes me happy. And looking around at various kitchen items, booze, shoes and outerwear, headphones and other electronics, he is not alone. It warms my heart to have friends like Paul, Tom, Perry and Matt who feel “at home” here as well.
First real snow of the season 12-11-22 Photo by Mark Scherzer
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Just a few things. Eggs are in hiatus until these new girls get a bit bigger. The old girls are producing just a couple a day.
Lamb is sold out but I'm preparing to send 5 or 6 more off to market. If you want to order a whole or half lamb cut to your specifications at $7/lb hanging weight, please let me know.
Last produce:
Daikon radish, $2/bunch Salad turnips, $2/bunch Garlic: $2/head Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
Perry, the son of my late partner Peter, arrived to our delight Thanksgiving morning. We hadn't much warning that he'd be in New York; he flew in to do a job installing whatever it is he installs in buildings. But once we learned he'd be in the vicinity we made sure he would get to the farm for the ritual turkey meal, because after all he's an important part of my family.
After about an hour here, Perry remarked at the pop music with French lyrics playing in the kitchen, which he found refreshing. "This is great. The only things you ever played before were NPR and all Dad's Turkish folk music." Slightly exaggerated, but fundamentally true. Life with Eric very much comes with its own sound track, one I have come to love. It very much has been a changing of the channel.
Changing of the channel is not just a figure of speech in this case. Among the dominant sounds in the house these days is the programming of Ici Musique, the Montréal based public radio station. Streaming the station is one of the ways that Eric stays tied to his home culture.
Although it plays plenty of popular music, the station treats all of its content as art worthy of respect. Some programs are curated by guest artists, or are organized to commemorate artists, eras or themes; they incorporate background commentary about the artists' life events or earlier artists that influenced the work. It gives me insight into the seriousness with which the québécois treat their culture, and at the same time improves my French vocabulary and listening skills. It is particularly easy for me to listen to since I can turn to Eric, as I probably do a dozen times a day, and get the low-down on a word I don't really understand.
Last Saturday night we saw the Montréal singer / songwriter Coeur de Pirate in New York City. On the drive back up Sunday morning, we heard an interview on Ici Musique in which someone kept using the word I heard as "plat", which turns out is spelled "plate" but pronounced "platte". "Do they mean just 'flat'"? I asked Eric, "like 'calm' or 'flat seas'"?
He said the sense would be more like "boring" or "uninteresting". "C'est plate" might be a bad review for a play or a party. He said the French would almost never use such an expression, that it was a very québécois usage.
As with all additions to one's vocabulary, it is best absorbed if it can be applied immediately to life repeatedly. As it turned out, "plate" was definitely my vocabulary word of the week . That evening, we both came down with chills. And while we both seemed to recover somewhat by the following morning, late Monday I was seized with more intense chills alternating with sweats, low grade fevers and debilitating headaches and joint pain that confined me to bed for most of the rest of the week. A negative COVID test brought me no comfort. I was reminded for the first time in a long time of what it is to feel really sick. To lack desire or appetite, and not be able to imagine having it ever again. To have one's greatest desire be comfort, and yet to derive little from being comforted. To feel that everything you say is off base or unable to connect with reality. To only want to crawl under a rock.
I was relatively immobile and inactive, with Eric blessedly taking on himself the entire burden of buying feed, doing chores, and cooking. But there was nothing Zen or calm about my flatness. The boredom, feeling tired of the absence of interest, was almost excruciating. If someone were to ask how I feel, I thought "plate" would be an appropriate term.
This morning I awoke feeling largely recovered. It was the first time this week I had sense of energy. It was the first time I was able to do the chores as they should be done, not to get by with just the minimum tasks necessary to avert disasters. I was able to feel the sun's rays as a source of energy, and to see the calm joy of the animals as they, too absorbed those rays. Theirs was a quiet pleasure, in which I felt I was sharing. It was calm, but not "plate". Vocabulary lesson learned.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Just a few things. Eggs are in hiatus until these new girls get a bit bigger. The old girls are producing just a couple a day.
Lamb is sold out but I'm preparing to send 5 or 6 more off to market. If you want to order a whole or half lamb cut to your specifications at $7/lb hanging weight, please let me know.
Last produce:
Daikon radish, $2/bunch Salad turnips, $2/bunch Garlic: $2/head Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Sorrel $3/bag
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
With temperatures forecast to plunge well below freezing imminently, I realize the days of covering my fall plantings at night to extend my growing season are over. In preparation for the inevitable, I harvested all the daikon radishes of harvestable size I could find earlier this week. Yesterday, I brought in a large bunch of sorrel that I transformed into sorrel soup; I will bring in the rest, wilt it and freeze it, by tomorrow. This morning, I pulled virtually all the oasis turnips. During this little frenzy of activity, I have occasionally recalled Martin Luther King, Jr.’s expression, “the fierce urgency of now”.
But to be honest, that expression has been lurking in my consciousness for reasons that far transcend the garden. It has far more to do with world events of this week, both historical and current.
This week marks the anniversary of Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass), the organized violence against Jews, Jewish communal institutions and businesses in Germany and Austria that occurred on November 9-10, 1938. Marking the day always causes me to look back at the drawing (above) my Viennese father made as a young adolescent a year or so after the event. My father was not artistic by nature. He was encouraged to draw his memories of the trashing of a Jewish stationery store (If I recall correctly, belonging to his uncle) as a sort of therapy while he was at La Guette, the Rothschild chateau where he and about 60 other German and Austrian children his age were lucky enough to be given refuge and educated up until the German invasion of northern France in 1940.
As we now know, the world felt no great urgency about Kristallnacht or what it might portend at the time. Had there been greater efforts to understand what was happening and what subsequently developed, and to throw sand in the machinery of death once the Holocaust got going in earnest, hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved. But, as illustrated by the story of Rudolf Vrba, who escaped Auschwitz and tried to alert the world to the mass murder under way, larger geopolitical calculations can frustrate such efforts. I commend to you David Remnick’s interview (“The Man Who Escaped from Auschwitz to Warn the World”) with Vrba’s biographer in this week’s New Yorker Radio Hour for insight into both the power and limitations of such individual action. The story resonates today as we see western governments calculate how directly to confront Russian actions in Ukraine that, if not more vigorously opposed, will also cause mass suffering and death.
If you asked me almost any day, I would say our world is only marginally less unsettled, and unsettling, than the world of 80 years ago. You might say I have traveled through life on a “Tsuris Visa”. I was raised by my parents to always expect cataclysmic “tsuris” (Yiddish for “troubles” or “woes”) lurking around every corner. I started this week fearing tsuris from the elections, either because my preferred candidates would all lose or because, if they won, the other side would violently reject the results. Yet only some of my candidates lost, and in many parts of the country the radical election deniers and authoritarian nationalists I most worry about lost too. Most of the losers seem to have acknowledged the legitimacy of the process. Whether you characterize it as Liz Cheney did (a “clear victory for team Normal”) or as President Biden did (“a good day for democracy”), to me it definitely seemed that “Things are not as bad as I thought.”
As if following the theme of “things are not so bad,” on Thursday we learned that inflation has eased a bit, meaning we may be able to preserve economic stability without inducing a severe recession. The same day I heard an interview on Fresh Air with David Wallace-Wells, a New York Times reporter who once predicted that the earth would become uninhabitable because of climate change. There is now, he says, an emerging consensus among climate scientists that the world will not experience the worst-case scenario. Renewable energy has become the most economical alternative; a low carbon and therefore less overheated future is far more assured. The week was capped off by the most welcome news that the Russians have abandoned Kherson, the sole Ukrainian regional capital seized in their invasion.
Does all this pretty good news mean I no longer have to feel guilty about my relative lack of political engagement? Things may not be great, but are they in a tolerable balance?
I’m afraid the answer is probably no. There is still an activist authoritarian (and often racist and antisemitic) philosophy that holds sway and will likely resurge in large parts of our country. It is gaining power too in Sweden, Italy and maybe Spain. Inflation has not eased enough to make housing, food, or fuel affordable for large numbers of people. Even if we don’t experience the worst possible global warming, we are still going to face more intense heat waves, natural disasters, and disruption to our food production. And the Russians’ retreat from Kherson is not defeat of the invader. It is a strategy to create a more defensible border for seized land. The war is going to grind on.
Situations that seem just tolerably bad today, if left to fester, are going to lead to far deeper tsuris later. I think Dr. King’s words are probably true for every time in every era:
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Just a few things. Eggs are in hiatus until these new girls get a bit bigger. The old girls are producing just a couple a day.
Lamb is sold out but I'm preparing to send 5 or 6 more off to market. If you want to order a whole or half lamb cut to your specifications at $7/lb hanging weight, please let me know.
Last produce:
Daikon radish, $2/bunch Salad turnips, $2/bunch Garlic: $2/head Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Sorrel $3/bag
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
A week ago I was down about the state of the world. One and a half million Ukrainians were facing electricity interruptions as Russia's brutal imperialist war took an ugly turn in tactics. Yet Kevin McCarthy, the prospective Speaker of the House should the congressional balance of power shift, was complaining about our giving a "blank check" to Ukraine.
This week I feel so much better. Vladimir Putin has assured us that Russia does not intend to turn its war nuclear and has called for unity with those in the west who embrace what he calls his Christian values. Even nicer, Kevin McCarthy solicitously called Nancy Pelosi to inquire after her family's welfare after a right wing extremist attacked her husband with a hammer, clearly heralding a new era in bipartisan warm feelings and cooperation.
OK, I'm being sarcastic. The same Vladimir Putin has continued Russia's barbaric attacks on infrastructure, now depriving four million Ukrainians of life sustaining utilities. The same Kevin McCarthy is still intent on restoring or even enhancing committee assignments for Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a frank antisemite who helped set the stage for the hammer attack by calling for Nancy Pelosi's execution for treason, even endorsing a statement that the most expeditious way to deal with Speaker Pelosi would be a bullet to her head.
And yet, I do feel better. Because while the world around me may be disintegrating, I am resolutely "cultivating my own garden," stabilizing and getting things operating better here on the farm. I haven't lost any more of the young chickens. I've also found the groundhog's route into the coop, which will allow me to close him out.
Things in sheep world, too, are decidedly looking up. A couple of weeks ago, I was terribly concerned about getting hay in for the winter. I wanted to stock up so I could keep the sheep fed even if snow covered the route up to the barn. The mid-summer drought in this region meant that virtually no second cut hay, the later cutting that is usually preferred as fresher, was locally available. I was resigned to buying first cut, but when I called the fellow who supplied me in the past few years he told me he hadn't made any first cut this year either because he was dealing with his house burning down. I called someone he referred me to, who after a week of back and forth said he could not deliver wagons full of hay because he had no help to load them. He referred me on to a third person, who was unable to deliver on our first planned date for the same reason, "no help," and who didn't respond to my further messages. By last weekend, I found myself awakened by hay concerns at 3:30 a.m., googling hay suppliers.
By a stroke of good fortune, this third supplier suddenly called me Sunday morning, ready to come deliver, while I was enjoying the company not only of my chum, Eric, but also of occasional visitor Macho Matt. Matt is both a fan of farm work and a dynamo at accomplishing things. He earlier led the effort to paint the barn.This Sunday he, Eric and I worked with the farmer who delivered the hay to get two full ricks unloaded and stacked in the barn.
Even better, while we were awaiting the deliveries, mechanically adept Matt was able to reconfigure an interior gate that the sheep had been continually knocking off its pindles, and to restore to smooth operation an interior sliding door that, by sticking, had made moving between the two halves of the barn a challenge for months. The latter he accomplished with two twists of a wrench. Said Matt: "I feel like that was my #1 achievement of the weekend if not the month."
With the sheep having gotten their fall shearing at the end of this week, I feel we are now fully prepared for the winter. And I've even now gotten a glimmer of how to deal with the ever challenging question of what to do with all the sheared wool accumulating in the storage loft, to which I've just added 26 more bags. At the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival recently we came across a vendor from our region, Dashing Star Farm in Millerton, selling beautiful and well crafted bed pillows composed of mattress ticking stuffed with wool from the farm's flocks. It dawned on me that producing similar pillows might be a perfect solution for me.
Why? Well, the last four months of constant house guests has convinced me that I have something of a pillow problem. After his first overnight visit here, my friend Tom never arrived without bringing four of his own pillows, carried in a satchel he stitched himself from mattress ticking. He assured me that it was his custom to carry his pillows wherever he traveled, and was no reflection on mine, but was he was just being diplomatic? Then Steve brought a pillow of his own, which was so nice that it somehow migrated under my head, and last month bought me two new pillows as a gift. Why was it that Steve kept gently suggesting that "You could get a dozen perfectly comfortable new pillows delivered from Amazon in just a week, cheap"?
I'd much prefer my own wool stuffed pillows to Amazon pillows stuffed with petrochemical fibers. This winter project will require me to learn to wash the sheared wool and transform it into batting. And also then to get it sown into pillows. While I might be able to learn to sew for this purpose, a good project for long winter nights alone, I'm not really very handy. Seeing Matt so successfully address mechanical issues that have vexed me leads me to think that I should enlist someone who really knows what he's doing for the sewing.Tom, are you reading this?
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Just a few things. Eggs are in hiatus until these new girls get a bit bigger. The old girls are producing just a couple a day.
Daikon radish, $2/bunch Salad turnips, $2/bunch Lamb chops $14/lb, riblets $10/lb., shanks $12/lb Garlic: $2/head Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Sorrel $3/bag
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
I am savoring this Columbus Day weekend as a time of reprieve. Nuclear war has not yet begun. We can continue to live in the hope that perhaps it will not. Maybe the Russians who are threatening it will realize that the consequences for them would be even worse than defeat in their war to annex some mineral-rich and agriculturally productive provinces in Ukraine. "I hope the Russians like their children too," said Eric, recalling one of Sting's songs ("Russians") that was quite popular in the 80's; it resonates today and echoes that dreary time.
The feeling of reprieve derives also from less cataclysmic matters. After predictions of November-like cold earlier in the week, Columbus Day weekend in this part of the Hudson Valley has passed without frost. Cool and crisp, but lovely. This reprieve, however, we are sure is just temporary. Frost is an axe that we know is going to fall some day.
Regardless of its inevitably, the delay in frost has been a great source of joy to me. It increases the likelihood that there will be some local second cut hay on the market this fall, after a summer of drought cut production drastically. It gives my escarole, spinach, beets and daikon radish in the garden a fighting chance of getting to decent size this month. It postpones my turning off the outdoor water, allowing me to continue showering in the open air as I have exclusively done since May.
Nevertheless, knowing that the reprieve is not forever, I am taking the opportunity to anticipate the end of growing season, and enlisting whatever help I can in that process. Old friends Craig and Rosemary from Washington, D.C., on their way to a brief New England vacation, came prepared for the weekend with farm duds. This morning, they picked almost all the remaining quinces, roughly 30 pounds of them. We enjoyed a Turkish lamb and quince stew for dinner last night. Now I will process the newly picked quince into quince paste, quince jam, and some poached quince in syrup as a dessert.
This afternoon, I enlisted Craig in a long postponed barn project: removing a metal wire mesh we had installed in the manger in a futile attempt to prevent the sheep from pulling large quantities of hay from the manger onto the barn floor and wasting it. They demolished that flimsy wire, but twisted remnants were still attached. We installed in its place hard metal feeder panels which the sheep will be unable to take apart so readily, which gives me less trepidation about keeping the herd fed this winter.
While we were doing all this, Eric was engaged in another key end of growing season task: taking care of the bonanza of green tomatoes which will no longer ripen well on the vine, but which should not go to waste. We put aside those of a certain size for fried green tomatoes, but for the rest Eric had a clear plan, a traditional québécois green tomato ketchup.
It's no surprise that the québécois should have a great solution for green tomatoes. They have a season that closes down early, likely to leave them with a lot of unripe tomatoes. And it's also not such a big surprise that the solution might involve something called ketchup. Canada is the only place I've ever been where you can buy ketchup flavored potato chips.
Ketchup has a venerable history. Many sources agree that the name derives from East or South Asia, either a Chinese or Malay word or the name of a specific concoction called keh chap from the island of Amoy, combining soy sauce and fish essence. English sailors brought Asian ketchup home with them in the 17th century, and the English in the next hundred years changed the recipe to include such ingredients as anchovies, lemon, shallots and mushrooms. It is thought that tomatoes first entered the ketchup picture in Nova Scotia in the 18th century.
In 1837, a New England farmer, Jonas Yerkes, started bottling tomato ketchup commercially. The Heinz company followed later, and fixed on its contemporary ketchup recipe in 1872. The rest, they say, is history. Ketchup became America's favorite condiment until replaced by salsa in the last couple of decades. In 1981, the Reagan Administration's Agriculture Department even proposed counting ketchup as a vegetable in determining whether school lunch programs were meeting their nutritional requirements. And in one of those ironic circularities of history, tomato ketchup similar to standard North American fare is now sometimes used in Chinese recipes.
There are, of course, non-tomato ketchups. I myself have experimented, in years of particular plenty, with cucumber and plum ketchups. The essential feature of ketchup in North American usage is now that it contains vinegar. And so does Eric's green tomato ketchup.
The recipe is one which he tells me is very close to his Mom's. He has already salted a large quantity of finely chopped green tomato and onion to extract moisture and add iodine. When he then removes the salt he'll cook the combination with vinegar, sugar, a combination of whole spices (allspice, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves and mustard seed all wrapped in cheesecloth) and cook it. He'll then remove the spice packets and can the ketchup. Voilà, the productivity of the garden saved from the ravages of the coming frost. I can't wait to taste it.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Coming soon: fall crops, beets and daikon radish
On hand now: Quince: $4/lb Zucchini: pale green or dark green, small 3 for $2, medium $2 each,
EGGS: $5/doz Less plentiful (flock has been decimated by predators) but still available Lamb chops $14/lb, riblets $10/lb., shanks $12/lb Garlic: $2/head Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Shiso leaves, $1 for 10
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
Serenity descended on the farm this weekend. Partly from the stillness of the air after high winds brought in a cool front. Possibly because Saturday’s very dry air subdued the cacophonous insect chorus of high summer into just a single, high-pitched tone from just one species — the last to complete its mating process, I imagine. The concluding note of summer's symphony.
Or perhaps it was just the aftermath of a lively night with good friends — lubricated by what some might view as an excessive four bottles of wine — that kicked the weekend off.
Eric decided to mark the change in season by making a “bouilli,” a traditional Québecois pot au feu of beef and salt pork slow cooked with savory spices for four hours, with end-of-summer vegetables — rutabaga, green and yellow string beans, cabbages, potato — added about halfway through the process. I fetched a large chuck roast, the traditional cut used for bouilli, from Hover Farm, whose herds graze our land, as the central ingredient. Because it was far too much meat for just me, Eric and our visiting friend Paul, we decided to make a party of it. From the north came Tom, from the east, George, and from the big city to the south, Steve.
Aside from Eric, none of us had ever tasted a bouilli. As was true with Eric’s other Québecois dishes, the end flavor was far more sophisticated and delicious than I might have expected from reading the unprepossessing ingredient list. The magical blending of flavors comes from the care taken in preparation.
Preceded by an extended cocktail hour, accompanied by generous pourings of hearty red wine, which continued to flow as we devoured the apple cake Paul had whipped up that afternoon, dinner was a smashing success. One to be remembered, not just for the beautifully prepared food, but also for the unquestionable sense of well-being and boisterous camaraderie excited by our being together.
Joyous — but exhausting. The two often overlap. I won’t go so far as to say I was hung over on Saturday, but let’s just say that at my age after such a roaring start to a weekend, nothing seemed more welcome than a contemplative tail.
Luckily, Saturday itself came through with its still quiet. And what better way to appreciate it than a walk with man’s best friend? Lillie, Eric’s aged Carolina dog, proceeds at what can only be described as a slow and deliberate pace, which makes her the ideal guide for a meditative, restorative stroll, and Tom and I decided to accompany her.
It was a short walk, limited by Lillie’s lack of enthusiasm for long treks. We made our way just along the farm’s eastern border on Old Saw Mill Road and past the two farms to our north. By the time we turned around and started back, we felt fully enveloped in the quiet: the constant hum of that one last vibrating insect species in the afterglow of its own mating season, nary a car passing. Just the barely discernible patter of Lillie slowly trotting her old arthritic bones behind us.
The sense of stasis came from what we saw as much as what we heard. The spectacular view of the Catskills looming in the distance, as they have over the Hudson Valley unchanged for centuries. The well-kept farmhouses we passed that should have been full of life but are now only sporadically used, lamentably deprived of their active farmers by illness and death in recent years. The pastures, though green from our recent rains, were also static in their way, no longer burgeoning with the rapid growth of spring and summer.
It all might have seemed melancholic, but such quietude this time of year evokes for me happy memories of how, in my childhood, the world seemed to enter a state of suspension as the Jewish High Holidays approached. For us, all normal activity was suspended — schools closed and work was forbidden. Of course, there was a large festive meal for Rosh Hashanah, and if the salt pork were removed, Eric’s bouilli might serve beautifully. But the overall tone of the Jewish New Year was always one of quiet contemplation, exemplified by the ritual of Tashlich when we cast our sins away by throwing bread on the water.
How appropriate to have been enveloped in this atmosphere on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. To all of you observing the holiday, may I wish a sweet New Year. L’shana Tova.
Lillie in the great quiet, Photo by Mark Scherzer
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Coming soon: fall crops, beets and daikon radish
On hand now: Quince: $4/lb Zucchini: pale green or dark green, small 3 for $2, medium $2 each,
EGGS: $5/doz Less plentiful (flock has been decimated by predators) but still available Lamb chops $14/lb, ground lamb $7/lb, riblets $10/lb., butterflied leg of lamb $14/lb, shanks $12/lb Garlic: $2/head Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Shiso leaves, $1 for 10
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
How quickly they grow up. Those of you who followed the early tribulations of Doodle, the rejected lamb, will undoubtedly be pleased to learn that he has, at nearly two months old, grown into a feisty, vigorous little fellow. No longer does he need gentle encouragement to drink his bottle. The minute he sees me he pulls at my pants leg, insistently seeking the sources of milk he knows I bring him. He can drain three bottles in just a few minutes.
Only now, he’s been cut back to two bottles. The weaning process, transitioning him from milk replacer to a normal sheep diet of hay and grain, has begun. Weaning generally happens earlier in bottle fed lambs than in those raised by their mothers. It can proceed because the rumen, the adjunct chamber to the stomach where grass or hay ferment and become digestible, has developed. Accordingly, Doodle has joined the herd in grazing the pasture, which they do for ever more extended periods now that the punishing sun of the summer has abated. When the sheep get their grain treat, Doodle is right in the mix, gobbling up that candy as well.
Like any proud parent, my feeling of joy at his meeting milestones mixes with regret at his increasing independence and, I must fear, decreasing devotion to me. Will his affection live on when I am no longer his sole source of sustenance?
Twice in the last week I’ve had a taste of the psychological balancing act in Doodle’s mind and the corresponding conflict in my own. As I was doing chores I gave over the Doodle feeding to Arthur, visiting from Washington, and then a few days later to more frequent visitor Tom, while I undertook the less entertaining sheep-tending tasks in the barn. Both times, I could see Doodle’s hesitancy, as he interrupted gulping from the bottles they held with starts in the direction of following me around the barn. In the battle between his devotion to me and his desire for milk, the bottle always won. It was as it should be, but I can’t say I wasn’t feeling a little rejected.
The theory of weaning is that you gradually reduce and reduce the amount of milk until the addiction to it just fades out. Hopefully they barely notice. Over the last week I reduced Doodle’s meals by a quarter of a bottle every few feedings, until we got from three bottles to two. Doodle noticed the absence, and was not happy with it. He kept seeking more, sucking on my fingers. This is not a stress-free process, and it’s hard not to feel that I’m depriving him of something he needs.
This weekend, I am at Eric’s in Queens, awaiting the arrival from California of Perry, the son of my late partner, Peter. On this anniversary of Peter’s death, Perry and I will, as has become our tradition, take a boat ride around Manhattan, recalling the significant events in Peter’s life as we pass the places they occurred.
Being away from the farm means someone else must be there. This time, as so often, the task falls to Steve, who, the last time I departed the farm on vacation to Quebec, shepherded Doodle through his first tenuous days of life. In the weeks since then, I have received an untold number of impatient texts from Steve wondering why I have not yet sent the daily picture of Doodle he requested. As I reviewed the various changes in routine that Steve would face, and the details of the weaning process, Steve said he might feel compelled, given their strong and significant bond, to increase Doodle back up to three bottles during his visit, “like an indulgent uncle.”
“Absolutely do not!” I practically yelled. “This process can only go in one direction. If I have made any progress in pushing Doodle to independence, you will undo that.” I relented just a little bit – Steve could maintain Doodle at two full bottles each feeding, instead of imposing the next scheduled reduction. But, I tried to tell him, this reduction was ultimately for Doodle’s own good.
Try telling someone that it’s for their own good. Steve, as Doodle’s advocate, wasn’t really ready to buy that. But then, he relented a bit too. I reminded him that years after their weaning from the bottle, far older sheep like Nilufer and Sophie still continue to approach to be petted, acknowledging their special relationship and evidencing enduring bonds of affection. The balance of dependency may change, but even after weaning the bonds will remain.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Coming soon: fall crops, beets and daikon radish Zucchini: pale green or dark green, small 3 for $2, medium $2 each,
EGGS: $5/doz Less plentiful (flock has been decimated by predators) but still available Lamb chops $14/lb, ground lamb $7/lb, riblets $10/lb., butterflied leg of lamb $14/lb, shanks $12/lb Garlic: $2/head Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Shiso leaves, $1 for 10
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
The forces, including my friends, encouraging me to scale things back as I age are strong. My friend Steve, hearing of my fall garden planting plans, told me not to be too ambitious. "Put 'manageable' as the adjective in front of every farm activity before doing it. Let it be your touchstone adjective." Think "manageable" spinach; "manageable" collard greens. Keep just a "manageable" herd of sheep. You get the picture.
He has a compelling logic on his side. Older guys like me simply can't do as much as we could when we were younger. We can't move as fast, can't lift as much, are less sure of our footing, and have less stamina. I have a full time law business to run and it seems endless house-guests to entertain. Can I really maintain a full farm operation on my own too?
Indeed, Steve helpfully sends suggestions for how to achieve manageability. Recently, he suggested that I tear down the old, dilapidated, 100 foot long chicken coop, which one might justifiably find an eyesore, and buy a small portable chicken coop. He sent me pictures of some attractive ones on the market, sufficient to nest 7 birds, enough to supply my own needs. I could get rid of the old, unproductive birds I have, and, he suggested, reduce my work. He definitely has my welfare at heart.
Compelling as his arguments are, my impulses to stay the course are strong as well. I resist shrinking the operation. And I have support in my resistance, in part from my boyfriend, Eric, who thinks the answer is less in retraction (though he'd recommend some here and there) and more in better planning and logistics (his forte). It doesn't hurt that he's willing to bring some of his own youthful energy and sweat to add into the mix.
Chick Meets Grain Photo by Mark Scherzer
And so it was that this Thursday, returning from an overnight jaunt to the City for dinner with Eric, I walked into the house to a ringing phone. "It's Dave at the Germantown Post Office, and you have a box of chicks here. It looks like one died when the box somehow got whacked on the top, but the rest look fine."
I dashed right over, and brought home not 7 but 24 lively Rhode Island Red chicks, hatched and shipped from Iowa the day before. I carefully counted each one out of the box, and dipped its beak first in water, to acquaint it with the concept of drinking, then in grain, to do the same for eating. I then placed them in a brooder box, where a wonderful Dutch invention, which the manufacturer calls the "Comfort warmteplaat" and I call the Motherboard -- an energy-efficient heating plate the chicks go can under to simulate being under mother hen -- awaited them. So began their life at the farm.
I don't really view this as an expansion of farm activity. This spring I had thirty some odd chickens here, but after a hard season of predation (thankfully now resolved) I am down to thirteen. And those thirteen are for the most part two or more years old. As older hens tend to lay only in the Spring, and sporadically, the 24 new arrivals will simply get the farm back to baseline.
Nor do I see the addition of 24 chickens as creating any greater burden than a flock of 7. Of course the quantity of food and water you have to supply increases, but in neither case does feeding, watering and collecting eggs take more than 20 minutes a day. With 7 hens, especially in winter, you'll have a bit more than you need for your own use but not enough dependably to advertise the excess for sale. With 24 young hens, producing 14 dozen eggs a week, there is not only plenty for home use but also an ample supply to sell, enough to cover the costs of feeding them. The chicken coop, while dilapidated, has much more room than a small portable coop for the chickens to live their rather chaotic social lives. I can resolve its eyesore aspect through painting. (Note to file: get Macho Matt back here to manage that process.)
I'm also hoping that the successful addition of new chickens this year will give me the emotional motivation to resume a farm activity I really loved in the past but which I last successfully did the year my partner Peter died -- raise turkeys. Eric (to whom I gave a turkey just two weeks after I met him) is encouraging me.
Oddly, President Biden's Philadelphia speech this week warning of the dangers of antidemocratic MAGA-Republicanism resonated with my thoughts about the farm as much as they did politically. I have to admit, I don't find him an inspiring speaker. While I endorse his prescriptions, I'm not sure I agree with all his premises. There are a lot more autocratic, theocratic, Putin-admiring Republicans than he says.
But, like Biden, I'm an old guy who believes in what he's been doing (in his case, trying to realize a "government by the people"; in my case, trying to operate this farm). He's not afraid of reiterating what may seem like tired and trite ideals and he perseveres in trying to live by them. He's not retracting. By preserving the old structures you make it easier for the next generation to reinvigorate them and achieve something. There is value in staying the course.
In Their New Home Photo by Mark Scherzer
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Zucchini: pale green, small 3 for $2, medium $2 each,
black zucchini are coming EGGS: $5/doz Less plentiful (flock has been decimated by predators) but still available Lamb chops $14/lb, ground lamb $7/lb, riblets $10/lb., butterflied leg of lamb $14/lb, shanks $12/lb Garlic: $2/head Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Shiso leaves, $1 for 10
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
It was Mae West who famously said "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." Her aphorism came to mind this last week as I was confronted by an abundance of good things.
It has become a cherished annual tradition that my best friend George and I spend several days at the end of August in reunion with our California based college roommate, Susie. She and her husband, John, install themselves at George's house in nearby Connecticut and we see each other repeatedly. This year, I decided that it would make great sense to lure my sister and her husband from Pittsburgh to join this event, as they befriended Susie and John when they all lived in Houston in the 1980s and the four had not seen each other in 23 years. An additional benefit would be to introduce Eric to my family, as he had introduced me to his the month before in Quebec. Coupledom, after all, requires that we know each other's families.
A group of seven congregating day after day over five days is a bit overwhelming and easily risks being "too much of a good thing." Keeping it fresh, and not unduly burdensome, requires some thought. We addressed that risk in part with changes of context (dinner revolving from George's to my house to a restaurant) and attempting activities beyond just conversation (afternoon at a pond, a walk through a sculpture show, etc). Whatever we did, it worked. We all, I think, felt a warm glow afterward, and no hint that the good time together was "too much".
It was perhaps not surprising, though, that "too much of a good thing" became itself a topic of our conversation. It is late summer, and anyone with a garden knows that this is precisely the time that too much of a good thing is being produced. The avalanche of tomatoes that I most associate with summer is just beginning to roll here, but an avalanche of zucchini is already well under way. A repeated focus of our discussion was what to do with all this zucchini.
I've never been a huge zucchini fan. To me, it always seemed to be all volume, and no flavor. But then, my views had been shaped by the poor soggy steam table preparation I encountered in restaurants and catered events when younger, and my own generally neglectful approach to the vegetable garden. I see a nice little zucchini on the vine, and I think, "oh, I'll pick it tomorrow, when it's just slightly larger, the perfect light green color, crisp and subtly flavored." When I next decide to check the vines, three days later, there lies a pale yellowish 2 pound baseball bat, full of a large seedy center, with a somewhat non-determinant flavor. Sure, I can hollow it out into a boat that is stuffed and baked with a filling, or can shred the flesh and even freeze it for winter use, but often confronted with five or six large vessels like that and unable to face processing, I feed them to my old sow, Possum, who devours them avidly.
This year, however, in part because the zucchini were one of the few crops not being eaten up by the rabbits plaguing my garden, I decided to be more attentive to harvesting at the peak moment, and to try different ways of incorporating the abundance into my diet. I started with what I consider a fail-safe: Turkish zucchini fritters (mujver), in which you shred the zucchini, salt it to extract as much liquid as possible, sautee the shredded zucchini with onion and garlic, then add to that mixture egg, flour, beyaz penir (or a similar feta-style cheese), chopped dill and parsley and some hot red pepper. You make that mixture into patties and fry in sunflower oil. Serve with yoghurt. I made this for Eric and my friend Tom one night, and even though I didn't quite get the fritters to hold together all that well they pronounced it a resounding success.
From there, I started exploring alternatives. When on my own I made pasta sauce in which sauteed zucchini simmered in a tomato sauce. Yum. Another night, curried zucchini, loaded with cumin, coriander seed and hot pepper over rice. Also quite tasty, as zucchini absorbs the flavor of what it cooks with, and easy for a quick one person meal. I tried air frying little zucchini sticks cut on the fine setting of the mandolin, expecting something like those Belgian frites you get with mussels, but unfortunately producing a soggy mess.This led to a search for recipes for air fried zucchini. Turns out that if you cut the strips like thick french fries, roll them in flour then beaten egg then bread crumbs, they emerge from the air fryer crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. A triumph we repeated and will again.
I had vaguely remembered a dish Eric prepared last summer, which called for long strips of zucchini marinated in olive oil and lemon juice, then rolled into an almost floral presentation, drizzled with honey and dill. Hunting for it, I found this variation, using small rounds of young zucchini, with garlic added to the marinade, and in which a mix of dill, parsley, mint and chives is sprinkled on top. We've probably done these two recipes, in the aggregate, 8 times this month. Encountering this dish in a subsequent meal and recognizing the quest I was on, professed zucchini fan Tom suggested a bulletin entitled "Fifty Shades of Z".
So now I like zucchini, and continue to seek out new ways to take advantage of this summer abundance. Susie has suggested stir fries, and a chickpea and zucchini stew. I welcome, in fact avidly request, your favorite suggestions as I try to vindicate Mae West's words of wisdom.Too much of a good thing can indeed be wonderful.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Zucchini: pale green, small 3 for $2, medium $2 each,
black zucchini are coming EGGS: $5/doz Less plentiful (flock has been decimated by predators) but still available Lamb chops $14/lb, ground lamb $7/lb, riblets $10/lb., butterflied leg of lamb $14/lb, shanks $12/lb Garlic: $2/head Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Shiso leaves, $1 for 10
A neighbor was late for his tour of the farm. And he seemed like such a responsible fellow! We had arranged the meeting a month earlier. Doodle’s formula was in bottles and all my various equipment for a demonstration of chores was prepared. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang and he apologetically explained. The reason? He had snagged a last-minute appointment in Brooklyn to get the monkeypox vaccine.
He assumed I would be understanding, and I most certainly was. Most of the gay men I know are desperate for these shots. Friends are refreshing their phone screens dozens of times on end trying to score a scarce vaccination slot. People who wouldn't be caught dead in Staten Island consider crossing the Narrows for an appointment. One friend told me he had had just two sexual encounters in the entire past year — both with the same ex-boyfriend (“And he’s crazy safe!” he assured me). Yet this friend was still considering attesting to multiple or anonymous sexual partners in the past two weeks to get the jab. “We’ve reached a point in history where I have to lie to the government about having tons more gay sex just to be medically safe! What a bizarre future we’ve ended up in!” he ranted. “What if it got me on some list of names President Ron DeSantis eventually uses to round up gays? I’d be so pissed.”
The basis for this vigorous vaccine enthusiasm is not hard to understand. Most of these friends came of age during the AIDS epidemic, which, like monkeypox, disproportionately affected gay men. While monkeypox is not usually fatal, its symptoms are gross, painful and unpleasant, and you don't even have to have sex to get it. People are determined not to let yet another novel disease up-end their lives and send them back into social isolation. Plus, we all share the recent COVID experience in which vaccines proved their worth.
While my circumstances living on the farm don't give me the same sense of urgency about monkeypox, I fully intend to get vaccinated at the earliest opportunity. Every time I look at my forearm, and try to refrain from scratching the bleeding scabs and oozing pustules of the attack of poison ivy that's currently plaguing me, I think, Get that shot! Yes, I have what I'd call “country monkeypox.”
I'm usually pretty good at avoiding poison ivy, which is a recurrent invader on my property. I can spot it readily. If I should brush against a leaf or accidentally pull out a vine by hand, I immediately wash up with my tube of Tecnu.
But last week, while working with Eric to replace a frayed clothes line that had finally broken, my vigilance lapsed. I had to loop the line through a pulley, attached about 12 feet up to a post on the deer fencing. I climbed the ladder, and then I noticed some huge green leaves overhanging the pulley.
Poison ivy? I asked myself. Well, it looks kind of like it, but the usual notch in the leaf is barely there, and these leaves are huge -- at least twice as big as poison ivy leaves should be. And they’re the same color as the leaves of the weedy cherry tree just on the other side of the fence that I've been meaning to chop down. I took the chance, and have been itchy ever since.
As with monkeypox, all you need is that glancing contact. In the case of poison ivy, you just need to have your skin (or clothing that your skin then touches) brush against an oily resin called urushiol that's on the leaves and vines of the poison ivy. And I clearly brushed, as two days later I exploded in itching on the back of my hand, on my wrist, and up the forearm. Even a bit on the bicep. Behind the itch came the oozing pustules. On those spots, I had to rely exclusively on calamine lotion and caldesene powder (like Tecnu, great products) to dry the pustules and ease the itch.
I went into the public health mode we've all learned during COVID -- avoid infecting others. I powdered the arm heavily whenever I'd be near people. I even wore a bandage around it if I thought there might be skin-to-skin contact. I had always assumed the oozing pustules would move the poison oil around and transmit it to others. Having read up on things at the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins websites, I now realize that it’s not contagious that way. The pus is your own body's product, the result of the allergic reaction 85% of the population has to urushiol. Gross, but not the poison.
Also, I realize that I'd better get used to those huge poison ivy leaves. According to at least some studies, poison ivy has become both much larger and more virulent in recent years, another by-product of climate change. Additional atmospheric carbon invigorates vine growth.
With vaccines coming for everything, why couldn't they just develop one against poison ivy? And why not add it to a semi-annual cocktail vaccine with Lyme Disease and Shingles? I’d be for all of them! A triumphant Poison Ivy/ Monkey Pox/ Lyme/Shingles/ COVID combo (PI-MP-LY-iSH COVID). I’d happily refresh on my phone for an hour for an appointment in Staten Island.
(Please take this lighthearted missive as a reminder to get vaccinated, friends! )
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Zucchini: pale green, small 3 for $2, larger $2 each EGGS: $5/doz Less plentiful (flock has been decimated by predators) but still available Lamb chops $14/lb, ground lamb $7/lb, riblets $10/lb., butterflied leg of lamb $14/lb, shanks $12/lb Garlic: $2/head Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Shiso leaves, $1 for 10
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
Eric visits his old (very old) high school Photo by Mark Scherzer
A summer vacation right in the middle of growing season. The very thought seemed to me the height of irresponsibility, particularly when I have been running eternally behind on everything needing to get done on the farm. A weekend to weekend break, twice as long as I’ve taken in the last five years, seemed risky. The prospect made me anxious.
The vacation was timed for now because I wanted to accompany Eric to his beloved native city of Quebec and be introduced as his boyfriend to family and friends about whom I’ve heard so much. But that too, was anxiety producing, leading to a cascade of concerns, both rational and irrational. Would my French be up to the task? (rational) Would the Canadians let me cross the border? (irrational) Would family and friends approve of me? (rational) Would the farm fall apart in my absence, even with trusty Steve farm-sitting? (The question may be whether it was together to begin with.)
As it turns out, I got through the border without issues, and I write this from Fossambault-sur-le-lac, at the lovely country cottage of Eric's friend, Michel. I’ve been able to hold conversations in effortful and fractured French, and to my great relief, have experienced nothing but welcome from Eric’s family and friends. Indeed, Eric’s brother in law, Julien, an agronomist, upon hearing that Eric referred to me as “Mark le fermier” (Mark the farmer) stepped in to defend my honor by telling Eric that the farmers he worked with considered “fermier” to be a pejorative term, and that they preferred to be called “producteurs agricoles.” Eric, though, having consulted with other urbanite friends who still view “fermier” as a somewhat romantic term, has decided to stick with “Mark le fermier.”
The farm did end up having its challenges, in the form of a ewe presenting Steve with surprise twin lambs on Wednesday (three months after I thought lambing season was done) and promptly rejecting one of them. Steve had to struggle with colostrum replacement, bottle feeding, trying to get the mother to accept the lamb, and ultimately a visit to the vet. I expect or at least hope that upon my return I will be entering a bottle feeding regimen in which the lamb will determine that I, the new source of its milk, am its step-mother.
One is naturally led to speculate about why the ewe has rejected the lamb. Is there something abnormal or unhealthy about him? Other than weakness, that doesn’t seem true in this case. Does the mother lack sufficient milk for two? It’s hard to tell. Is she just a bad mother with evil intent? Somehow I doubt it. As he struggled to bring the lamb along, Steve has repeatedly observed that “This little creature has a fierce will to live.” As to the mother and the morality of her choice to favor one lamb over the other, he says the issue “could occupy a rabbi in debate for hours.”
Whatever the lamb’s fate, its ordeal, its fierce will to live and its struggle to be accepted by its mother, has provided a prism through which I’ve processed my time here in Quebec. In part, it has made the incredibly close bonds between Eric and his mother and sisters, and his decades long friendships, all the more affecting. But in greater measure, it is the lamb’s “fierce will to live” that has shaped my perception of Eric’s world and the that of his Quebecois compatriots.
Quebec City is a remarkably preserved walled city, formed in the 17th and 18th centuries. Newer structures that have been introduced are mostly in good taste and well-integrated. As Eric has shown me the places here that shaped his life, including the Seminaire (his high school, in continuous operation since the 1600s), the Conservatoire (his drama school), churches, restaurants (his parents’ included) and bars, in large part in buildings hundreds of years old, his pride has been evident. It requires an exceptional dedication to maintain this level of preservation in a modern evolving economy. One realizes very quickly that the dedication reflects not an abstract interest in historic preservation but a national pride. It is not structures that are preserved, it is a heritage.
The dedication to heritage is equally apparent in preservation of the Quebecois language. The Quebecois live in a vast sea of English speakers, and many are quite comfortable in English, yet they prefer to function in all aspects of life in their mother tongue. They will be gracious and speak to you in English if necessary, but the language and their heritage and identity are inextricably linked and they are not about to give it up.
At a moment in world history when Ukrainians are being killed and their historic structures destroyed in a Russian effort to eliminate their national identity and heritage, one cannot resist the urge to cheer on the people of Quebec in their fierce will to nurture and maintain their distinct language and culture.
Throw in a dedication to eating well, drinking generously, and living a vivacious social life and I can’t imagine a more agreeable world to get to know than Eric’s Quebec. A wonderful way to learn that I could leave the farm in mid-summer.
The rejected lamb, now named Doodles, visits the vet Photo by Gillian Ferguson
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Sales will resume Monday, July 19, upon my return.
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful Many cuts of lamb, just ask Black currants: $8/pint Gooseberries: $6/pint Garlic: $2/head Spearmint, $1/bunch Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Oasis Turnips (small white salad turnips) $3/bunch Shiso leaves, $1 for 10
My contribution to world order Photo by Matt Best
Last week I announced that the long overdue painting of the barn was about to take place. I am pleased to announce this week that it actually did take place, a group effort captained by "Macho Matt," who told the painting crew (me, Eric and Paul) when and what to paint. Eric and I finished the last of the unpainted surfaces at 7 p.m. Friday, stretching out the last ounces of paint, as Tom arrived for dinner. Et voila.
The project took major parts of six days, as we all juggled painting with our office work responsibilities, painting largely before (at least in Matt's case) and after (for the rest of us) normal office hours. Thank God for the long daylight of early June and the moderate temperatures we enjoyed.
Matt was a very particular taskmaster, wanting to make sure we were always painting on the shady side of the building and reserving to himself the high wire tasks requiring going to the top of the extended extension ladder. My younger compatriots have decided that at my age I should either be monitored or preferably entirely forbidden from high ladder work. While I'm relatively comfortable at the height of the second story windows on the house, anything higher than that makes me quite insecure, and the eaves of the barn peaks on the east and west facade are considerably higher. Matt, a former volunteer firefighter, seemed unphased by the height. Retirement from high ladder work is one prerogative of age I am not shy about taking advantage of.
The process was not without mishaps. Sliding some doors that had not been moved in months dislodged sparrows' nests, making casualties of the fledglings inside. Less regretful was the dislodging of several mouse nests (who knew they'd nest up there?). On Thursday evening the sheep, who were intermittently curious about what was being done to their house, pushed their way through a slightly opened door to the hay storage room, from where we had been staging the painting, and knocked over a full open can of paint.
But the job got done and I'm quite pleased with the results. Not that I disliked the way the barn looked before the painting. The weathered gray aspect of the bare boards had a distinct, natural charm. To look at the barn from the sweep of the pasture evoked in my mind landscape paintings of desolate, near abandoned islands off the coast of Maine. But I'm not sure "run down" is a look I should aspire to, especially as grooming and maintenance of the grounds are not my strong suits. Also, I realized that people paint barns more to protect the wood than as an aesthetic imperative, and that I've increased the useful life of the barn considerably by providing it with that measure of protection.
But why did I paint the barn red? Why, among all the colors I could choose, did I pick the most mundane and predictable palette? If the social structure of the farm is so innovative, shouldn't I have picked a more daring and stimulating hue? Why not the stripes of the rainbow flag to rub my MAGA neighbors' noses in my presence among them? Or at least deep blue and gold, in solidarity with Ukraine? When I polled all of you last year, there was a fairly even divide between traditional red and a host of other suggestions. Yet I landed on a "Sweet Rosy Brown" stain with a light green trim to echo the trim on my house.
There are numerous articles on line discussing the historic reasons for painting barns red. Very few cite actual historical sources, so I have a fair degree of suspicion about the accuracy of the theories. Some of the propositions seemed incredibly unlikely. Did we really adopt this practice from the Swedes, who had some sort of fetish about making their wooden buildings look like more expensive brick structures? If we were really intent on that end, wouldn't we have painted our houses red too? Did the practice really stem from a rich farmer who was looking for a use for the blood of his many slaughtered cattle? These stories don't ring true to me.
More credible to me were the suggestions that the rust (iron oxide) used to create the reddish brown pigment in paint is incredibly plentiful in the environment, which makes red paint comparatively cheap, and that the chemical composition of iron oxide has anti-fungal properties which help protect the wood of the barn from rotting.
Neither of these considerations, however, were factors in my paint choice. I think I was instead motivated by my increasing tendency, as I age in a volatile world, to value tradition for its own sake. With stability comes security. I want borders respected, elections honored, social interactions conducted according to a predictable code, preferably one I was taught in childhood. I want principles we can all agree on, such as that picket fences are white and barns are red. Think of this paint job as my contribution to world order.
Before ... Photo by Matt Best
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful
Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Fava beans are flowering, should be ready in about 2 weeks
LAMB COMING: Lamb is ready. If those of you who ordered want to pick up this week, let me know what dates.
Last week I announced that the long overdue painting of the barn was about to take place. I am pleased to announce this week that it actually did take place, a group effort captained by "Macho Matt," who told the painting crew (me, Eric and Paul) when and what to paint. Eric and I finished the last of the unpainted surfaces at 7 p.m. Friday, stretching out the last ounces of paint, as Tom arrived for dinner. Et voila.
The project took major parts of six days, as we all juggled painting with our office work responsibilities, painting largely before (at least in Matt's case) and after (for the rest of us) normal office hours. Thank God for the long daylight of early June and the moderate temperatures we enjoyed.
Matt was a very particular taskmaster, wanting to make sure we were always painting on the shady side of the building and reserving to himself the high wire tasks requiring going to the top of the extended extension ladder. My younger compatriots have decided that at my age I should either be monitored or preferably entirely forbidden from high ladder work. While I'm relatively comfortable at the height of the second story windows on the house, anything higher than that makes me quite insecure, and the eaves of the barn peaks on the east and west facade are considerably higher. Matt, a former volunteer firefighter, seemed unphased by the height. Retirement from high ladder work is one prerogative of age I am not shy about taking advantage of.
The process was not without mishaps. Sliding some doors that had not been moved in months dislodged sparrows' nests, making casualties of the fledglings inside. Less regretful was the dislodging of several mouse nests (who knew they'd nest up there?). On Thursday evening the sheep, who were intermittently curious about what was being done to their house, pushed their way through a slightly opened door to the hay storage room, from where we had been staging the painting, and knocked over a full open can of paint.
But the job got done and I'm quite pleased with the results. Not that I disliked the way the barn looked before the painting. The weathered gray aspect of the bare boards had a distinct, natural charm. To look at the barn from the sweep of the pasture evoked in my mind landscape paintings of desolate, near abandoned islands off the coast of Maine. But I'm not sure "run down" is a look I should aspire to, especially as grooming and maintenance of the grounds are not my strong suits. Also, I realized that people paint barns more to protect the wood than as an aesthetic imperative, and that I've increased the useful life of the barn considerably by providing it with that measure of protection.
But why did I paint the barn red? Why, among all the colors I could choose, did I pick the most mundane and predictable palette? If the social structure of the farm is so innovative, shouldn't I have picked a more daring and stimulating hue? Why not the stripes of the rainbow flag to rub my MAGA neighbors' noses in my presence among them? Or at least deep blue and gold, in solidarity with Ukraine? When I polled all of you last year, there was a fairly even divide between traditional red and a host of other suggestions. Yet I landed on a "Sweet Rosy Brown" stain with a light green trim to echo the trim on my house.
There are numerous articles on line discussing the historic reasons for painting barns red. Very few cite actual historical sources, so I have a fair degree of suspicion about the accuracy of the theories. Some of the propositions seemed incredibly unlikely. Did we really adopt this practice from the Swedes, who had some sort of fetish about making their wooden buildings look like more expensive brick structures? If we were really intent on that end, wouldn't we have painted our houses red too? Did the practice really stem from a rich farmer who was looking for a use for the blood of his many slaughtered cattle? These stories don't ring true to me.
More credible to me were the suggestions that the rust (iron oxide) used to create the reddish brown pigment in paint is incredibly plentiful in the environment, which makes red paint comparatively cheap, and that the chemical composition of iron oxide has anti-fungal properties which help protect the wood of the barn from rotting.
Neither of these considerations, however, were factors in my paint choice. I think I was instead motivated by my increasing tendency, as I age in a volatile world, to value tradition for its own sake. With stability comes security. I want borders respected, elections honored, social interactions conducted according to a predictable code, preferably one I was taught in childhood. I want principles we can all agree on, such as that picket fences are white and barns are red. Think of this paint job as my contribution to world order.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful
Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Fava beans are flowering, should be ready in about 2 weeks
LAMB COMING: Lamb is ready. If those of you who ordered want to pick up this week, let me know what dates.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
As a cool, dampish week transitioned to a hotter, sunny weekend, we passed through what seemed to me on Friday evening a moment of perfect balance. Comfortable, perfect for a dinner on the screened porch. Looking out, as our little retreat became enveloped in velvety twilight highlighted by pinpoints of hundreds of firefly lights, evoked in my mind the words "luxe, calme et volupté." It's a phrase I first encountered over 50 years ago in a college course on Baudelaire and his fellow 19th century romantic poets.
Perhaps the phrase (there are several viable translations, but for these purposes I would say "luxuriance, calm, and voluptuousness or desire") was so appealing to focus on because it so contrasted with how I felt. With a throat ravaged by a mild case of COVID, I could be more aptly described as "red, raspy and raw". There's nothing either luxuriant or calm about such a state; I was too listless to feel desire.
Yes, after dodging the virus for over two years, Éric woke up with symptoms one morning suggesting that a test was in order. Soon after he tested positive my own symptoms and a positive test ensued. Like so many of us, we now see the infection as inevitable and as unlikely to be avoided as the common cold. If Dr. Fauci could test positive, surely it did not reflect badly on us to have been infected as well.
Éric and I isolated together to support each other as our symptoms permitted. As Éric put it, "Little did we know that, like fireflies, we were flashing "on and off" our mild symptoms; promenading our spirits, accordingly, on highs and lows and trying to make the best of it. The words of comfort and practical advice from our loved ones and the undeniable realness of farm work made this week more like the prosaic Zola than the poetic Beaudelaire."
It is never convenient to get sick and especially not to isolate. My friend Paul had returned for a visit, intent on helping me make up for the time lost on barn painting to get the garden fully planted. I had to evict him just after he finished planting the first flat of peppers, and I was not in shape to continue the campaign on my own. We had planned a special dinner this week to introduce Tom, my newest friend of one year vintage, to George, my best friend of 53 years. Canceled, to great disappointment all around.
But in the big picture, these are minor inconveniences. I count my blessings. I was privileged enough to avoid exposure by working remotely when the virus was at its most lethal. "Front line workers" who from economic necessity had to keep serving the public in person had no such option. I benefited from the development of vaccines that blunted the virus's effects. Vaccines have, at far less cost than natural infection and the million American deaths it caused, transformed the disease from a frequently lethal one for people of my age to something that often seems to most resemble a bad cold or mild flu. I was lucky to have had my last booster at the end of May, meaning I was infected at the peak of my resistance.
My friend and frequent farm-sitter Steve, who suffered with long COVID for many months after becoming infected in the first vicious New York City wave of March, 2020, responded to the reports of our illness by saying ""When I hear of these mild cases, it just blows my mind. Sick for a week? Maybe I'll work in the garden? Vaccines are miracles. I'm glad for your mild cases, but it's like hearing that the guy who date raped you and put you in the hospital with broken ribs brought flowers and chocolates and took his next five dates to the opera."
Maybe only in the week when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade could I find good news in catching a pandemic disease. After all, the most permanently entrenched and least politically responsive branch of government has just in an ominous way rejected any Constitutional protection for a person's right to control what happens to her own body. Many other of our hard won freedoms are now also in jeopardy. On top of that there was other bad news in spades involving natural disasters, climate change, international and national politics. But the much less lethal effect of COVID, as is being demonstrated in our case and those of millions of others, is good news that I'm choosing to celebrate.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful
Spearmint, $1/bunch Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Oasis (small white salad) Turnips $3/bunch Shiso leaves, $1 for 10 Fava beans are flowering, should be ready in about 2 weeks
LAMB COMING: Lamb is ready. Because of the COVID isolation, pick up will have to wait til next week.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
One of the joys of being a master procrastinator is that it provides so many occasions to rejoice when you finally do something that's been put off for too long. This weekend, when perfect late spring weather is forecast, I hope to rejoice in finally tackling, nearly three years after it should have been done, the painting of the barn.
I cannot really take credit for finally moving on the project. It is a return visit from my friend Matt, and his decision that the time has come to finally get the painting done, which is the impetus. Not for nothing has he earned the moniker Macho Matt, for seeking out projects that take major effort and give maximal effect.
Matt is not alone in this regard. I relied on my friend Paul (who I've decided is the maven of all things electrical and mechanical) to help dig the trench that brought electricity to the barn. I've repeatedly schlepped Steve up from the City to care for the animals when I must depart the farm, because I know I can trust his caring intuition to spot and respond to health problems in the animals as much as he advises me on my own health. My friend Tom, who I know to be a maven of crafts, was the natural candidate to help at shearing time, judging what wool to bag and what to throw away. And what can I say of my boyfriend Eric, who, recognizing this as his long term home, has taken up with gusto the entire gamut of tasks required for life on the farm: integrating the art works from my office into the decor of the house, running the yard sale, mowing the lawn, helping trim sheep hooves, and planting the tomato patch, among other things. As slightly out of control as the place may feel, it would be far more chaotic, indeed beyond redemption, without the efforts of this "family of choice" on my behalf.
I hope, indeed, that not just Eric but all these friends perceive their efforts as on their own behalves as well, recognizing this as a home they are always welcome to be in. No, this is not a plot on my part to assemble a free farm workforce, though I fully understand why traditional small family farms required such big families to operate them. It's much more about the joys of spending time with them in a kind of domestic life. Shared cooking and meals, relaxed vegging out, accomplishing projects and facing frustrations together, come with a tremendous feeling of reward, and I've been pleased to hear Steve talk about maybe moving in full time come September.
The facing of shared frustrations was on full display today. After assembling the materials for painting, Matt and I decided to start the postpone actual painting to tomorrow and dedicate today to preparing the remaining unplanted part of the behind-schedule vegetable garden. Matt weed whacked while I mowed. All went swimmingly until about 3:00 p.m., when the weed whacker flew apart and one small but essential piece was lost. Matt wanted to rake the ground to find the piece, so I proudly marched him into the half planted tomato patch to show him the work Eric and I had done last week and to retrieve a rake for him. At which moment it became clear that the half planted tomato patch was also half eaten. From what we could determine, a deer had probably gotten in through a gate inadvertently left open. Of the 22 plants we had been able to get into the ground, 11 were partially or totally consumed.
I was quite discouraged and dejected, but I quickly reconstituted thanks to Matt's spirit of "let's do whatever we can to move forward in the most significant way." I spent the next hour erecting chicken wire cages around the surviving plants, while Matt, turned to actually start painting the barn. I am confident that with the surviving plants sprouting new leaves and with all the late germinating tomato plants in my planting trays, as I described last week, we'll still have a satisfactory tomato season. But more important, I recognize and appreciate how much the support, encouragement and efforts of my friends enable me to persevere in this farm project.
A salute of appreciation and deep affection to my modern farm family.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful
Mint, $1/bunch Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag Fava beans are flowering, should be ready in about 3 weeks
LAMB COMING: Lamb should be back from the slaughterhouse in a any day now. Stay tuned.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
Having gotten inquiring messages from my cousin Albie and my friend Steve, I think I need to report that if I skip writing the weekly bulletin, as I did last week, it does not mean I am hospitalized with COVID. I am simply overwhelmed with other tasks. As I explained to Steve, "I have to finish 24 hours of continuing legal education by May 24 in order to renew my law license, of which I've done 3.5 hours. Of the 140 boxes of stuff I moved into the house, I've unpacked only about 25. I have planting and weeding and sowing and mowing (it's spring!), sheep hooves to clip, storm windows to take down and screens to put up, and tons of office work I'm catching up on. To top it all off, I have a garage full of office related furnishings and equipment (from chairs to bookshelves, desks to printers/scanners and monitors) I must prepare for sale at next Saturday's (May 21) town wide Germantown yard sale."
While I realize that our major western religions all have decreed days of rest to allow for contemplation and regeneration, a function the bulletin has served in my life, I therefore have had to defer for yet another week. In place of current reflections, I thought I'd repeat an homage I've done in years past, to the merits of rhubarb, which I hope will inspire you to buy some.
Enjoying spring rhubarb is a taste of bygone days. As I recall, older people like our former nonogenarian neighbor in Sag Harbor, Mrs. Thayer, always greeted our gifts of rhubarb with enthusiasm, seeing it as a spring tonic. Unfortunately, for present generations used to that illusory land-of-plenty that knows no season, the supermarket, rhubarb may seem too old-fashioned. Rhubarb faces an additional hurdle: Unlike almost everything else we pick in the vegetable garden, it really does need to be processed in order to be enjoyed. Biting into the tart stalks in their raw state involves a little more sourness than most folks can take.
Wikipedia tells us that rhubarb is indigenous to Asia (it takes its name from Rha, the former name of the Volga River, on whose shores it appears to have originated), and that traditional Chinese medicine uses the rhubarb roots for its strong laxative qualities. It is known that the English began eating the stalks in the 17th-century when, significantly, large quantities of sugar became commercially available. Rhubarb was brought to America in the 1820’s through Maine and Massachusetts. Rhubarb enjoys our climate, requiring at least two months of cold, and another season of cool wet weather. Spring is considered its prime season. It has never been at home in the Deep South or Southwest.
As we have discovered, come summer, rhubarb should be left with its remaining stalks (no more than half should be harvested) to regenerate for the next spring. Once established, the roots seem to regenerate indefinitely. Meanwhile, I'm selling between 15 and 25 pounds a week.
Why should we eat rhubarb? Possibly Mrs. Thayer was right, and it does serve as a tonic. What is more certain is that the fresh intensity of the flavor screams spring. Rhubarb goes well with creamy and sweet things, like strawberries, cream, and custard (a fabulous rhubarb custard pie recipe is easily found on line). It freezes beautifully. It is high in dietary fiber, antioxidants, and Vitamin C. It can serve as a digestive. And, according to Dr. Wikipedia, regular consumption of fresh rhubarb helps lower blood pressure.
My principle bed of rhubarb takes a decorative place of honor at the center of the vegetable garden. I use it for compote that can be added to my morning yoghurt, as well as pies and crisps and chutney. I have made rhubarb simple syrup, using 1½ cups rhubarb, roughly chopped, combined with 1 cup of sugar and 1½ cups water. Bring them to a boil in a saucepan, then simmer for 15 minutes, until the rhubarb is bright pink. Then remove from the heat, strain the liquid into a large jar, and use for such purposes as a rhubarbarita, a margarita in which the alcohol is citron vodka rather than tequila and the rhubarb simple syrup replaces the triple sec.
It's also worth considering rhubarb as an ingredient in more savory dishes. Last week I experimented with spectacular success on my no-nonsense friend Tom, who claims to be a meat and potatoes guy with not much taste for such exotica as rhubarb. Yet he enthusiastically devoured lamb shanks braised with middle eastern spices and rhubarb, an easy (though long simmering) recipe I found on line. It was such a hit that tonight I plan to repeat the act with Eric, who I'm sure will similarly love what Tom went for so avidly. If you want to join the fun, come and get you some of these tangy stalks and follow the recipe below:
BRAISED LAMB SHANKS WITH RHUBARB • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 (1.25kg total) French-trimmed lamb shanks
1 brown onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 tsp saffron threads
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp ground coriander
2 cups Massel salt reduced chicken style liquid stock
1 wide strip orange rind
2 tbsp tomato paste
4 rhubarb stalks, trimmed, cut into 5cm lengths
2 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
Step 1 Heat 1/2 the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook lamb, in batches, for 5 minutes or until browned all over. Transfer to a large plate. • Step 2 Heat remaining oil to pan. Add onion and garlic. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until softened. Add saffron, cinnamon, turmeric and coriander. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until fragrant. • Step 3 Add stock, rind, tomato paste and 1 cup water. Bring to the boil. Return lamb to pan. Reduce heat to low. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour 40 minutes or until lamb is tender. • Step 4 Uncover dish. Cook for a further 20 minutes or until lamb is very tender and starting to fall off the bone. Add rhubarb. Cook, uncovered, for a further 10 minutes or until rhubarb has softened. Discard rind. Season with salt and pepper. Top with parsley. Serve with pearl couscous and salad leaves.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful For your rhubarb custard pie
Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch Rhubarb $4/lb Sorrel $3/bag
LAMB COMING: Lamb should be back from the slaughterhouse in a any day now. Stay tuned.
I like to think of myself as an individual, but then I must acknowledge that like all individuals I am a product of a particular culture, place and time. The life choices I make now would, I suspect, seem inconceivable to someone of a different time and place, yet would be seen as entirely predictable by an astute sociologist familiar with the circumstances I confront.
Seen from that perspective, the new business soon starting at the farm would surprise nobody. I understand some of you, long-term readers or listeners, upon hearing about a new venture being undertaken here, already have little cogwheels of suspicion spinning doubts in your mind. In past years, we’ve announced such ventures as experimental pineapple cultivation supervised by a Bard student from Hawaii, a new line of chocolate flavored eggs achieved by feeding the chickens waste almond dust from the Hershey Bar factory, and the transformation of the farm into a foundation to improve animal etiquette (in order to achieve a total tax exemption), only to get resentful blowback when tickets to the celebratory harvest luau and cartons of chocolate flavored eggs proved to be chimerical.
But each of those new farm ventures was announced on April 1. The change I’m announcing today will happen on May 1, and I assure you it is very real. The Mark Scherzer Law Office is coming to the farm. I’ve been preoccupied with moving it here from New York City for the last several weeks.
Such a move would have been inconceivable for me even five years ago. My image of a law office included a formal reception area with a receptionist, an impressive array of law books lining the shelves of a library/conference room, and an imposing desk. My place was behind the desk in a big office chair, my clients across from me in less imposing chairs, confirming that they were supplicants for my superior knowledge and counsel. And that office had to be in Manhattan, because in my view you couldn’t be a person of stature unless you were based in a major metropolitan center, preeminently Manhattan.
The result of my devotion to that ideal was that for nearly forty years I led a dual existence, my real spiritual home and the center of my social life taking place weekends in the country, and weekdays spent devoted to work in Manhattan.
The underpinnings of my divided life have been subtly eroding over the years, largely through the internet and other technology. I found myself meeting fewer and fewer clients in person, as emailed pdfs replaced physical examination of carefully preserved original paper documents. Libraries became obsolete as legal research transformed to searches of electronic databases. To prospective clients, my stature was better demonstrated by an informative website than a well furnished office in Manhattan. And because clients themselves were able to better educate themselves online, the dynamic of omniscient lawyer / dependent client transformed to a more egalitarian relationship.
I might never have responded to those changes, being a creature of habit, if not for the COVID pandemic. As I, like so many white-collar workers, started working remotely from home, it became clear that for my type of work a physical office was only marginally useful. We turned out to be even more productive, in my view, working from networked computers in our homes.
For me, the realization of that productivity dovetailed with my own life changes – my partner, Peter’s, death and the consequent lack of a resident manager of the farm; my unsuccessful attempts to have others take over the farm operation; and my attaining an age when, if not retiring, I needed to find a less exhausting way of continuing to both practice law and run the farm myself.
Thus, after much internal debate, I decided not to renew the office lease that expires this month, to move the main office computer and other technology to my home office, and to go forward as a largely virtual office.
The transition is leading to all sorts of changes here. This week, I finally disposed of my inoperable and no longer essential farm pick-up truck, needing to make room for the moving van that will bring the contents of the office, including dozens of boxes of files and much excess office furniture, art and equipment here (watch for the yard sale). I’m busy shredding old papers to make room for what’s coming.
I am, of course, not alone in making this type of move. As more and more long term leases expire, landlords in Manhattan, which has for more than 100 years had an economy centered on providing offices for people to work in, will find themselves with lots of empty space. The City will have to reinvent itself.
Make no mistake, I still love the beauty and energy of the City, the dynamism of the close collisions of diverse cultures that produces new ideas and fosters open-minded tolerance. With my beau Éric and many other friends still working and living there, and with plenty of culture I still want to experience, I know I’ll be bouncing back and forth quite a bit.
But I am excited to be centered in just one place I love, to no longer be maintaining three venues (home, apartment, office), and to be able to do physical farm work along with desk work every day. If clients call and find me in the chicken coop with the rooster crowing, they’ll just have to understand that they’re getting a more refreshed, fulfilled lawyer than the one who spent all those years trudging down to the office.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful, spring light has arrived, if not spring.
Fresh horseradish root: $4/lb. Garlic chives (flat leafed): $1/bunch
COMING IMMINENTLY: Rhubarb and sorrel.
LAMB COMING: Lamb should be back from the slaughterhouse in a any day now. Stay tuned.
As I listened to Weekend Edition this Saturday, there seemed nothing on offer but bad, sad news. Most of it was fully anticipated: the war in Ukraine, the latest COVID surge, and the sorry state of American politics. But even the news of agriculture, which is the source of our sustenance and should be uplifting, was a downer: reports of an avian flu affecting domestic poultry, and an interview with Andrea Arnold, the director of a recently released documentary, Cow. The film, which chronicles the life of a cow in a commercial dairy farm over a four year period, has been described, in the New York Times review, as a "feel bad movie."
The focus of the interview about Cow, however, was less on the dismal circumstances of the dairy cow's life, and more about our reaction to it. Are we over-anthropomorphizing animals, the interviewer asked, when we assume their emotions are similar to our own? Exhibit A in this discussion was the moment when a calf is removed from its mother, in order to transition the cow to her role as provider of milk for human consumption. The anguished bellows of the cow when she cannot find her calf sound to us like grief and mourning. What Scott Simon wanted to know is: is that really what it is?
The question of anthropomorphizing is, of course, a theme I have returned to repeatedly over my years on the farm. It was not until I started to live with the animals that I recognized just how human animals are and how animal humans are. I've come to some definitive conclusions on this topic. Based on what happens when ewes lose lambs and cry for days searching for them, I'm absolutely convinced that their anguished cries are expressing an emotion quite analogous to human grief. And while their thoughts may stay in their minds for shorter periods than ours, the animals have longer memories than one might think. My chickens were recently traumatized by the attacks of a large hawk or eagle in the chicken yard, which killed four of them in the space of three days. To my surprise, they refused to come out of the chicken coop for days, spending all day hiding under the table. It was not as if the memory of the awful events faded after just an hour, or even a couple of days.
But while I'm sure that there are deep mother child bonds among the mammals, that they grieve loss of one another, and that all these animals can have lasting effects from trauma, I'm still uncertain about a lot of other nuances of their thoughts. The extent of my uncertainty has been reflected recently in dialogue with the friends who surround me.
When my urbanite friend and frequent farm sitter, Steve, was doing chores with me a few weeks ago, he pointed out a difference in our respective sheep feeding routines. I lock the sheep out of the main section of the barn to distribute their treat in bowls. Then I open the east door of the barn, letting in the small group that tend to congregate there, before I open the gate from the south vestibule into the dining area for the majority of the herd to charge through. Steve told me likes to mix it up, by opening the vestibule door first every other time. His reasoning? "I don't want the crowd in the vestibule feeling resentment at 45 and the others who are getting first crack at the grain by congregating outside the east door. " I scoffed: "Sheep don't feel resentment toward, or envy of, other sheep," I said with great assurance. But, as I think about it, how do I know that sheep don't share in those very human sentiments?
In contrast, when I recently visited my friend Tom for a night in the Berkshires, I told him I'd better get on the road home very early in the morning as I didn't want the animals angry at me for being late to morning chores. It was his turn to scoff: "Animals do not get angry, do they?" he said. Based on his experience with his cats, he said, he couldn't imagine that the critters here felt one moment of anger, or that they were aware of me violating a particular schedule. Sure, if they did not have adequate food to tide them over they might realize they were hungry, Tom said, but whether they would fault me for that or even recognize an association between my abandonment and their hunger seemed to him highly unlikely.
I'm not so sure what the truth is here. I know the sheep associate me with food, such that if they are out grazing in the pasture and see me approaching the barn they are there in a flash, baa-ing for their treat. But are they standing out there before my arrival, stamping their feet impatiently and thinking "where the hell is Mark?"
I suspect that Eric, with his romantic French world view, would answer that question yes. Yesterday I texted him a picture of sheep waiting outside the barn for their treat, explaining that I was at chores and that they were of course impatient. He responded: "Tell the girls I miss them," assuming that, as I have no doubt, they would be missing him too.
The whole conundrum of how human we view the animals to be is perhaps impossible ever to untangle from how we view our own nature as humans and our relationship to them. The extent to which I impute human nature to my critters may have everything to do with how connected I feel to them, and only tangentially to some "objective" understanding of what constitutes their character.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful, spring light has arrived, if not spring.
LAMB COMING: Lamb should be back from the slaughterhouse in a week or two. Stay tuned.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
If I tell you you're going to hear the real dirt on me, you may expect something salacious. Sorry to disappoint. The real dirt on me is really just dirt.
I've been somewhat fixated on this topic since the day last week when spring seemed to hit the farm in a torrent of simultaneous events, as if mandated by the calendar. It may have been the day of the equinox or the day before, I don't fully remember, but I emerged in the morning to such a balmy moistness in the air that I left hat and gloves behind when I did chores, for the first time in months. Rounding the corner heading toward Possum's pen, I was honked at by a pair of Canada geese, my annual guests, freshly arrived that morning to set up their nest on the island in the middle of the pond. They will stay only until their goslings are hatched and fledged, about ten weeks from now. Coming back from the barn, I checked the progress of my garlic in the vegetable garden, and found sorrel leaves peaking up above the ground. By then, I was for the first time this year hearing a high pitched chorus of peepers from the nearby woods, sounding like a living breeze echoing in my head.
Eric, who had been visiting for the week, seemed to be having a touch of spring fever. In a way only those steeped in the romantic notions of French culture could, he attributed it to "la lune". But I'm convinced that it wasn't last week's full moon, but rather the rush of sights, sounds and smells of spring that brought my mind to dirty matters.
It hit me as I entered the gate to the chicken yard. All winter, even as I chopped at it with a shovel, there had been a hard little ridge of mud there which obstructed the gate from closing tightly. It meant there was always a small gap at that door, requiring insertion of a wood plank to keep the chickens from wandering out and marauders from wandering in. But this first spring morning the ridge was soft and yielding; I pushed at it with the toe of my boot, and the gate closed fast.
But instead of thinking "Thank God that little issue has been resolved" I instead thought, "I know this dirt. It's specific to this place, and this is where I am home." I realized that I belong to this particular farm in a way that I could never belong to an apartment 13 stories in the air or even to another patch of earth a mile away.
It's probably easy to understand why I would feel more rooted in this place than in an apartment, where infinite layers of human-made barriers cut you off from the ground. The soil is simply the highest stratum of the earth beneath it. It is I think a universal human instinct to develop mystical connections to and take energy from the patches of earth we inhabit.
Sure, one can love the City, too, but that love is different. In the City I take joy in the energy of the people, the way they carry each other off in spirit collectively. Spring fever there is felt in the parks and restaurants, bars and concert halls, where people gather to connect (finally once again) with each other. My apartment, even though I may have inhabited it for 40 years, is my respite from the city's energy rather than my connection to it.
In contrast, my connection with the earth on which the farm sits, while enhanced by human companions, is not dependent upon them. I can feel a unity with a universal spirit here all by myself.
But why my feeling that it just wouldn't feel the same connecting with the earth a mile up the road? Like all geological regions, our soil types and landscape formations transcend individual property boundaries. The government has carefully documented the different characteristics of agricultural soils since 1929, with the last U.S. Department of Agriculture survey updated in 1984. The maps, if I am reading them correctly, identify strands they've named Collamer, Livingston & Madalin, Kingsbury & Rhinebeck, and Nassau, running through this property, but those strands are clearly continuous with the same types on other nearby properties. Why should i feel that I nevertheless can tell my own dirt, that I know it in a special way that would not transfer?
I mentioned my puzzlement about this to another friend, Matt, a very practical civil engineering sort who also visited last weekend and was helping me to trim back rampant blackberry canes Sunday morning. He told me he didn't think my feeling was puzzling at all. He observed, astutely, that the soil on this farm surely is different. It's the result of the cumulative activity that has taken place here, a unique and highly variable combination of activities that would not be replicated anywhere else.
And he's right. It's not just the centralized mountain of compost, deteriorated vegetable matter and animal poop I am constantly adding to and then, once decomposed, redistributing around the property. It's also the informal, highly organic process by which the particular plants we grow die and decompose in place, or are fed to the pig or chickens who in turn process them and deposit the residue as waste on the ground where they wander. I suspect there are unique proportions of nutrients and qualities of soil consistency resulting from this process, which would differentiate this place from other farms with different "recipes" resulting from their activity and product mix. And I'm sure there's a unique spiritual mix making up the life force on the farm.
I know this dirt because I'm a creator of it, because I constantly have my hands in it and my jeans covered in it. Even though I can't describe any smells and touch I would say are unique to this dirt, I think I still can recognize it as of this place. Maybe that's what the French mean when they talk about culinary "terroire". It's what I mean by the real dirt on me.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful, spring light has arrived, if not spring.
LAMB COMING: Lamb should be back from the slaughterhouse in a week or two. Stay tuned.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
There's something comforting about howling winds and driven snow, if you're inside a cozy warm house looking out at the weather. There's something pleasing about the abrupt suspension of normal activity by forces beyond your control, if you know it's just a punctuation mark in a life that will resume its flow.
If I had any doubt that I should simply savor this slightly inconvenient March snowstorm, I have the example of the people of Mariupol and other besieged Ukrainian cities to dispel that doubt. They cannot revel in the last of winter's cold, if they have no heat in which to take refuge from it. They cannot relax into the sudden and unanticipated break from their normal life, if they have no assurance of ever returning to it. I know, in a matter of days and with certainty, that spring will resume its inexorable march forward on the farm. They, in contrast, can rely on no certain delivery from the dangers and discomforts besetting them.
By preventing me from carrying out the tree trimming and blackberry thinning I had planned for the day, the storm has served as an opportunity for me to take stock, and especially to appreciate my great good fortune.
It has been a somewhat tough week on the farm. I was happy at first that warm weather last weekend had melted away the snow on the pasture. I was afraid the snow would keep a truck from getting to the barn to take lambs to market. What I had not reckoned with was the mud that replaced the snow, which nearly swallowed the truck's wheels as it tried to cross the pasture. Luckily, I had the help of two friends (thanks again, Steve and Tom!) to help corral, push and pull the lambs out to the street where the truck ended up having to park. I may think of myself as farming on my own, but without the good fortune of friends willing to step up and assist, I'd be at a loss.
The day after market day one of our older ewes suddenly sat down, and would not get up. At first I thought it was a prelude to labor, but twelve hours later she was still in the same place. I sent a picture of her to the vet, Gillian Ferguson, who could immediately tell from the picture that the ewe did not look well. At her direction, I checked the ewe's eyes for anemia (ok), took her temperature (normal), looked at her hooves for foot rot (not). It would require a visit to ascertain what was wrong.
I have always been impressed by the particular skills of veterinarians, wondering at their ability to diagnose patients that cannot articulate what's wrong with them. It takes a special kind of empathy and an acute observation of clues to which most of us would be oblivious. In Gillian's case, I've been aware for some time of her superior level of attentiveness, especially when it comes to sheep welfare. Several months ago I wrote about my inability to find Ivermectin to de-worm my sheep, thanks to all the nudniks who wanted to use it to prevent or treat human COVID-19, and of my use of another de-worming agent, Albendazole, instead. In the same bulletin, I mentioned that a little ramling, one I had failed to castrate, was beginning to mount all the ewes.
Within hours of sending out the bulletin, I heard from Gillian, who had read it and put two and two together. She warned me that Albendazole was dangerous to sheep early in pregnancy, because it was associated with birth defects in lambs. She offered me a another substitute de-worming agent, one without such drawbacks. Ewe 45 (Lale), one of the three or four I had been trying to deworm, recently gave birth to a very health little ewe (name of Iki), cute as a button and certainly not deformed. I credit Gillian's attention for that.
This week, I accompanied Gillian to the barn and watched her examine the sick ewe. There was something reassuring as she listened to her heart beat through a stethoscope, carefully palpated over her body, and determined that the ewe was carrying at least two, and possibly three fetuses, though likely a few weeks away from giving birth. The diagnosis was pregnancy toxemia, for which we had not very good choices. The fetuses, if alive, were almost certainly not viable yet, and the risk of limping the mother along until they were viable, given the strain on her right now from the pregnancy, was huge. We opted instead to try to abort the fetuses to save the mother (thank God the farm is not in Texas).
Gillian gave her a steroid injection that would likely cause her to go into labor in 36 to 48 hours, as well as administering vitamin B12 and drenching her with calcium salts to counteract the effects on her body of the toxemia. I had to administer the supplements by injection and oral drenching every 12 hours thereafter. These all had their desired effects -- the ewe was up and about by the next day, and on the second day you could see her beginning to expel the placenta. Sadly, though, the effort to give birth seemed to rupture her uterus, a risk Gillian had warned of for a ewe in her condition, and the ewe died.
Sad as the outcome was, I was still, as I dug the grave yesterday, grateful. Grateful to Gillian for helping me to navigate the situation, and for giving the ewe a couple of good last days and a chance at survival. Grateful that I live somewhere that a medical professional could do her work without a hostile army impeding her access. And grateful even that I could dig a grave without fear of incoming fire, to lay her to rest in peace. In our world, not everyone enjoys such good fortune.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful, spring light has arrived, if not spring.
LAMB COMING: Finally a date at the slaughterhouse. They go to market March 8. If you've expressed an interest in lamb, it will be ready frozen the second to third week in March, and I'll be sending you a cut sheet. For you others, there will be cuts of lamb available then.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
If you’re like me, you’ve been glued to the news of Ukraine for the last 10 days. We all know wars are great for news station ratings. And undoubtedly each of us reads or listens to that news through the prism of our own fixed ideas of how the world is ordered.
Of course I’m inspired by stories of valiant resistance by the Ukrainians, horrified by the disingenuous and reckless cruelty of Vladimir Putin, and betting on the results -- that yet another dictator with too much power and insulated from perspective has set into motion his own destruction. These are tried and true themes when we tell the story of our society. But the stories I give priority to, the ones I find most intensely engaging, are the ones that recount the beginnings of yet another saga of human migration, of refugees seeking refuge. The idea that it’s intrinsic to the human condition to have one’s life upended, and to have to seek safe places to go in an intrinsically unstable and unsafe world, is a bedrock theme in my life.
That I’d have such a preoccupation is hardly surprising. Whether it’s an artifact of intergenerational trauma (in which the experiences of one generation are postulated to affect their DNA and become embedded in the mindset of later generations), or the result of childhood lessons pounded into me by my mother, I have always taken for granted that we’re all always at risk and likely to have our lives upended. My mother’s parents (my grandmother from Dnipro in Eastern Ukraine, my grandfather from a Polish shtetl, Izbica, near Lviv, Western Ukraine) came to the U.S. in the aftermath of World War I, to escape from a dangerously antisemitic society that threatened their well-being and limited their economic possibilities. My father, born in Vienna (to parents born in western Ukraine near Lviv as well) took refuge in France in 1938 along with 60 other Jewish kids sent by their families to the supposed safety of a Rothschild chateau. Then, when the Germans invaded, he crossed Vichy France largely on foot before being transported across Spain and Portugal by train and to New York by boat, thanks to a child rescue organization. I grew up with the idea carved into the Statue of Liberty that America's purpose was to serve as the refuge for the world.
If that history were not enough, I myself underwent a version of the refugee experience. On the morning of September 11, 2001, my late partner, Peter, and I found ourselves suddenly cast out from our New York City home, a few hundred feet from the World Trade Center’s South Tower, unable to return for more than a year. Thankfully, we had the farm as a refuge. It was indeed that event, and Peter’s inability to pursue his old business (his rug inventory, in the apartment, being covered in ash) that led to the development of the farm as a going concern, a focus of Peter’s otherwise unchanneled energy.
Perhaps it was that history that protected me from being traumatized two years ago this week, when I, like several hundred thousand other more fortunate New Yorkers, made the overnight decision to take refuge from the COVID-19 pandemic in our weekend homes. I already understood the farm to be my safe haven, one I was by now well established in, and had already once before been through an overnight dislocation from “home”.
But events always unfold in ways that challenge our expectations. Reading with the mindset that “farm equals refuge,” I was brought up short when I read, in a Washington Post story about Ukrainian refugees transiting through Lviv last week, an interview with an exiting Ukrainian farmer:
“Nobody wants to leave their home,” said 55-year-old Anatoly, who wept as he told the story of their escape, leaving behind what he described as an idyllic, self-sufficient life on their farm with 150 cherry trees, two cows, two bulls and 100 chickens. But getting his family to safety was more important.
I started filling in the missing elements of the story in my mind. What about the welfare of the animals? Surely he cares about his cows, I thought. I imagine, or at least hope, he left them in the care of a neighbor. I move heaven and earth to make sure I have someone feeding the animals on something approximating their regular schedule whenever I need to go the City to avoid them going hungry for a few hours (thank you, friend Steve, my stalwart volunteer). I view myself as part of their ecology. I couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to contemplate just leaving them to their own fates.
I wondered what made this Ukrainian farmer feel he had to leave. Doesn’t agriculture always have to go on? Don’t armies, which realize that they too have to eat, generally try to leave farmers alone? I recall television footage of our Special Military Peacekeeping Mission in Vietnam (I call it that, rather than War, so this bulletin can be read in Russia). It seemed to me that Vietnamese peasants continued to cultivate rice while armies fought around them. Doesn't that apply here?
But most of all, I mourned the undermining of my deeply held conviction that “farm,” being so much more part of the landscape than any human-built structure, is the equivalent of “refuge”. Might I ever have to leave my farm for yet a different refuge? Is the very idea of refuge an illusion? Are we humans, who seem to have an instinct to war, far more intrinsically at risk than even I have assumed?
These terrorized Ukrainian civilians join millions of Afghans, Syrians and others on the move, seeking safe haven. To help ensure that their refuge is a reality, not an illusion, consider supporting USA for UNHCR or other organizations sharing that mission.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful, spring light has arrived, if not spring.
LAMB COMING: Finally a date at the slaughterhouse. They go to market March 8. If you've expressed an interest in lamb, it will be ready frozen the second to third week in March, and I'll be sending you a cut sheet. For you others, there will be cuts of lamb available then.
The farm feels like the world in microcosm. The world has Vladimir Putin. The barn has a half-castrated ram (the result of poor testicle-banding on my part) who I've now named Vlad. In general it is inadvisable to name animals you're going to have slaughtered, lest you develop affection for them, but in this case I don't think I'll have any qualms when he goes to market.
Vladimir and Vlad share several characteristics. Both are instinctively aggressive. Both look for their chances and seize their opportunities.
Both of these namesakes also hog resources. For Vladimir, it's the commodity wealth produced by the Russian nation. He is thought to have amassed personal holdings, held through surrogates, in excess of $200 billion, while much of Russia's middle and lower classes struggle. For Vlad the ram, it's hay. Always first at the manger, and brooking no competition for it.
And like Vladimir, Vlad preens. He knows in his heart that he's beautiful. The only difference here is, in the ram's case it's no delusion.
But as revealed in Russia's invasion of Ukraine this week, what Vladimir is really most focused on is asserting dominance. And Vlad is no different. While all rams have such a trait to some degree, many manage to behave in a perfectly civilized way. It is hard to know what in nature or nurture makes the occasional creature distort a natural trait to a sociopathic extreme. Is it an effort to overcome feelings of inadequacy (Vlad's half-testicled state, Vladimir's short stature)? Or in Putin's case, is it having so isolated himself during the COVID pandemic that he had nothing to keep him from stewing in his own grievances?
However the pathology develops, it was clear to me three or four months ago that Vlad the ram was growing into something of a danger. Having been down this road before, I could tell from the way he eyed me, and looked ready to challenge me, that he was going to be trouble. And having learned lessons from past rams, I made a decided effort to counteract that development.
I've always been the sort to think that reasonable, friendly persuasion works best, and therefore when I started farming my instinct was to treat all the animals as pets. Be sweet, pet them, give them extra grain and they'll like you and defer to you. I soon learned that in the case of aggressive rams, such behavior on my part was read as submissiveness, and seemed to encourage them making moves to confirm my lower status. They would not be kept in line by positive rewards of the sort I offered, since the positive reward they were most after was being king of the heap. They assert dominance through charging, and I have no desire to test my mettle against an animal that weighs nearly as much as I do, with incredibly hard skull and horns.
I learned, therefore, to train such animals to fear me. This year, I started by clapping my hands loudly and yelling "out" upon entering the barn, to move them where I could fence them away from myself. I aimed the loud clapping particularly at Vlad. If he hesitated, I would charge him, grabbing him by the horns and turning him around to kick him out into the vestibule. For the most part, it has worked. He sometimes hesitates and I have to resort to charging him, but usually upon my entry he's out of the gate at the first clap. I ignore him if he begs for extra grain. By and large, we warily eye each other and pretend to ignore each other.
To be effective, such a strategy must start early and be unvarying. Maybe that is the problem with Putin. Perhaps yielding him minor victories in Georgia and Crimea, treating him as a rational, calculating actor who would take small advantage but never upend the world order, encouraged him. This could be the lesson the world should have learned indelibly from appeasing Hitler in Czechoslovakia. Or maybe the trigger was Donald Trump playing Putin's lapdog in Helsinki. If you play the "sub" it just excites the "dom".
Though considering how we could have prevented Putin's empowerment is an important question for the future, surely that can wait until we've resolved what to do with the untethered monster we've got on our hands right now. I'm thankful that so many of the world's governments have taken steps to isolate Russia and to support the resolute resistance of the Ukrainian people.
But I think it's also important for all of us, as individuals, to do something meaningful in solidarity. As I thought this week about what I personally could do, I took into account another lesson I've learned from the farm: that small steps can matter. For every horse nettle plant I pull out of the pasture in the fall, I prevent hundreds more from being seeded the following year and poisoning the sheep. Little things can add up.
So Thursday, I turned down the thermostat in the house by one degree - from 64 to 63. I figured that no matter what anyone's ideal temperature is they can adjust to a one degree shift from their regular comfort zone and hardly even notice it. It's a tiny sacrifice that, if performed on a mass scale, could help counteract the energy price inflation that will result from the war, and that might erode public willingness to stick with the Ukrainian resistance to Putin. I rely on my tiny readership and listenership to be the "influencers" here, and to spread this suggestion to others if you're so inclined.
Of course, if events continue to spiral out of control into some kind of Third World War, this step is nothing in relation to the sacrifices that will lie ahead. But maybe getting used to the idea of shared sacrifice, an idea which struggled to maintain hold during two years of pandemic, would also be a good, small step. Just one degree, why the hell not?
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Plentiful, spring light has arrived, if not spring.
LAMB COMING: Finally a date at the slaughterhouse. They go to market March 8. If you've expressed an interest in lamb, it will be ready frozen the second to third week in March, and I'll be sending you a cut sheet. For you others, there will be cuts of lamb available then.
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you'd like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I'm now here full time, we're abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we'll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don't hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
I hear the sound: Puh-puh-puh-BAM! Then, silence. Still, like a child that’s been caught in the act, before it starts again. Puh-puh-puh-rustle-rustle.
“Helllloooo,” I yell down to the kitchen from my upstairs office, secretly hoping someone is just visiting. Bringing me a little surprise perhaps? Delivering a gift?
Receiving no response, I go downstairs to investigate. Nothing.
Puh-puh-puh! Rustle, rustle, CLANK! I race down again. Still nothing! A ghost? (At this point, I know I’m caught up in wishful thinking, but I’m holding out for alternatives to the plain reality.)
In the shower, I pray nothing attacks while I’m naked and defenseless. And there it is, again, right outside the bathroom door!
PUH-Puh-puh! It’s venturing up the stairs, outside the bathroom door, stops, and doubles back: puh-Puh-PUH! It’s heading into the kitchen!
The footfalls are far too loud for a rat. I’m concerned it could be something considerably larger, even a raccoon–and they bite!
I cautiously step into the library, where the sound seems to have traveled. No signs of life, but out on the floor, a clue. Six feet from the nearest shelf, a single book is out on the floor. Then to the back parlor, a painted glass, part of a fine Turkish tea set, lays on its side, thankfully intact. Suddenly, I see my visitor in the archway into the front parlor: a small gray squirrel. We lock eyes and both freeze. We’re equally confused.
I don’t see any reasonable way to catch it. Thankfully, it’s a spring-like day and I can throw the front door open to let the fresh breeze waft in and, hopefully, entice the squirrel back out. And the strategy seems to work. After I close the door a half hour later, I hear no further footfalls.
This is a confusing time, to be sure, for us both. Spring-like weather melts the ice only to create more ice every evening as the water refreezes. A plunging COVID caseload promises imminent freedom from the pandemic, but then word of a new, more virulent variant ready to surge. Everyone (even mild mannered Canadians) at the end of their patience, and me out of patience with everyone’s impatience. Everything is moving in circles, it seems. I place the painted glass in its rightful place and slide the book back on the right shelf. Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance. Possibly a message from my little friend?
The squirrel, I am sure, felt trapped without being able to figure a way out–and I know exactly how it feels. I’m waiting for someone to open the door for me too.
WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Limited supplies, which will increase as the hours of daylight do
LAMB COMING: Finally a date at the slaughterhouse. They go to market March 8. If you’ve expressed an interest in lamb, it will be ready frozen the second to third week in March, and I’ll be sending you a cut sheet. For you others, there will be cuts of lamb available then.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you’d like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I’m now here full time, we’re abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we’ll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
If you live near here, you’ve been encased in ice for the last day or so. A quarter inch of it wrapped around every surface, everything glimmering.
There is a brittle beauty to the ice-encrusted landscape. The pasture is paved with Baccarat. The blackberry patch lit with neon as the sun glints off the glassed-in canes. The branches of the wild plum trees are transformed into crackling wind chimes that break off if you brush too close beneath them. It will remain this way until the thermometer rises above freezing early next week.
Enchanting? Sure, but also a royal pain in the ass. The ice is even more paralyzing than a deep winter snow. I generally start clearing driveways and walkways with my trusty snow shovel as soon as the storm stops. But this arctic crust that formed is impervious! My shovel just glides along the top, ineffectually, as do I.
Luckily, my friend Steve is here for a refresher course in farming before he takes charge and I decamp for a ski trip. “And don’t tell them I farm ‘like a gay boy from the city’ this time!” he warns me. “It’s homophobic!” And though I sometimes worry about his skills, it’s a relief not to be contending with this mess on my own.
In a farm landscape organized so carefully with a system of fences and gates, the ice wreaks havoc. The metal latches have all frozen shut. Door frames are locked into solid ground. The chicken yard gate is off its pintles. Chaos all around.
When even your simplest, most dependable stuff doesn’t work, a chain of dark, entropic thoughts brew. What if the power goes out? Suppose I can’t get the car started? How will I ever get the driveway operable? How do I manage all this and still get my office work done? And, as things escalate: Should an old man really choose the farm over city life? How long can I make enough money for this? Oh god, what about my taxes?? Before you know it, I’m lost in visions of life in a refrigerator carton under a highway overpass. Hopefully, somewhere less icy.
Steve, 20 years younger, struggles with a different set of demons. Is my grandmother safe in DeSantis’s Florida or will she catch COVID again? Is society falling apart? Are we descending into fascism? Do I have a future in this country?
For both of us, deep down, the question is actually the same: Can I stay here? And if not here, where? Maybe we are just as entrapped as all these branches in their tight sheaths of ice. And in this equally brittle state, prone to just breaking off at the slightest touch.
Consumed by our respective angsts, we proceed to the last remaining chore: the sheep. Armed with boiling water, we defrost the metal gate latch and reach the barn.
By then, we we’re both ready for disaster. But the very first sheep we spot is Sophie. Possibly the loveliest girl in the flock and usually the first to say hello most days–but we find her occupied with licking birth fluids off her newborn, probably around two hours old when we find them. She’s a petite eweling with a larger version of Sophie’s white cap and white stripes on her nose and ear as well. “Adorable,” we agree. Faced with this sweet girl, our troubles just melt away, though the snow still refuses.
Éric, informed by phone, names her Clara. Since this technology doesn’t host videos, you’ll have to content yourself with the image in your mind of Sophie methodically licking every inch of her newborn as she gently nudges her to nurse. Little Clara sucks and wags its tail, the mom licks and utters little muttering noises. And thus, they bond. We, their human observers, realize that there will always be anxieties and things will always go wrong, yet there is a force of life that counteracts the spiral of disaster we imagine and fear.
And yet, agita dies hard. The following morning, we find Clara has diarrhea. In an attempt to take her temperature, we puzzle at which orifice under her tail is actually her rectum. “Well, this is officially a gay farce,” says Steve.
Thankfully, my wonderful vet informs me, based on her normal temperature and behavior, the problem should resolve within 48 hours. Indeed, by late afternoon Clara seems fine. The farm is still encased in ice, but in good operating order nonetheless and all anxieties are resolved. Until, that is, I read the front page of the New York Times: “GOP Declares January 6th Legitimate Political Discourse.”
And with that, we’re back!
(For those who desire a moment of Zen, let me know and I’ll email you a 30-second video of Sophie and Clara together.)
WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Limited supplies, which will increase as the hours of daylight do
LAMB COMING: Finally a date at the slaughterhouse. They go to market March 8. If you’ve expressed an interest in lamb, it will be ready frozen the second to third week in March, and I’ll be sending you a cut sheet. For you others, there will be cuts of lamb available then.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you’d like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I’m now here full time, we’re abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we’ll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
All this week I’ve been appreciating my farm chores as welcome breaks from the stresses of my day job. As a lawyer, I often represent people with serious illness whose insurers are denying them access to treatments. This week I was juggling three cases (an older woman with breast cancer, a young woman with an immune deficiency, and a middle-aged man for whom standard hormone replacement medications would not work) in which delays in getting the treatments prescribed by their doctors would mean prolonged symptoms, risk of disability or death, or all of the above. Such clients quite naturally react to their predicaments with emotions that range from anxiety to desperation to rage. When things don’t appear to be moving fast enough or in their favor, some react by doubting my competence or lashing out at me.
After forty plus years of such work, you’d think I would have developed coping mechanisms to both manage their expectations and prevent their anxieties from becoming mine. Those mechanisms don’t always succeed, and sometimes I feel my patience is diminishing, my skin getting thinner.
That’s one reason I like chores. When the chickens see me coming they run in my direction, knowing that I will soon be spreading cracked corn on the ground for them to peck at. When Possum the sow hears me open the gate, she gets out of her hut and is generally waiting for me at the front of her pen to receive her breakfast or dinner. When I enter the barn and start clapping my hands, the sheep for the most part quite compliantly head for the south vestibule, where I confine them so I can fill their water trough and arrange their feed unimpeded. They associate this ritual with the coming reward of fresh hay and grain treat.
It’s refreshing to escape a legal clientele who are often naïve to the process, whose reactions are informed principally by their fears and prejudices, and to spend time with a generally compliant swarm of critters whose behavior is shaped by their comfort in routine and their expectation of happy rewards. Weeks like this, I sometimes fantasize retiring to a life free of client-related angst and devoted instead to managing this happy little farm domain, with a low stress administrative job to supplement my meager retirement savings.
Then come mornings like today. I woke up to the sound of wind rattling the bedroom windows. I had to force myself to get out of bed to feed my menagerie. Sure, I was relieved that the blizzard battering eastern Long Island and New England passed us by, leaving just a few fringe inches of snow. It was no challenge at all to get to the chicken coop and pig pen. But still the walk up to the barn meant facing a biting north wind sweeping off the pastures, the snowflakes feeling like little burning ice pellets as they hit my face. Arriving at the barn, I found that the plug of the heating element that keeps the sheep’s water trough from freezing had jiggled loose. Their water had turned to a block of ice. What a pain!
On such mornings, I sometimes contemplate retiring from active farming altogether, allowing me to enjoy the beauty of winter from the comfort of inside. Why keep losing money farming when I could set myself up for a much more comfortable old age by ratcheting up my legal income now?
Maybe all these thoughts of retirement were prompted by the announcement this week of Justice Steven Breyer’s intended retirement from the Supreme Court. He made the difficult decision to give up a guaranteed lifetime job, full of prestige and fulfillment. He apparently did not feel unable to do the job well. Rather, it seems he wanted to permit confirmation of a young left leaning replacement who would be there to resist the rightward drift of the Court for decades to come.
I debated the move with my friend Éric, who was back for another farm sojourn this week. Éric’s age cohort had a harder time entering the labor force than we baby boomers did, and his country, Canada, has a better social safety net for the elderly. He is a fan of retirement, both in general and Breyer’s particularly. He argues that older people have a social responsibility to retire to make room for the young. New blood reinvigorates and reshapes the world.
I have far more mixed emotions. I like the political consequences of Breyer stepping down, but otherwise I tend to channel the views of an old friend, Ruth, who has studied and advocated for the interests of the aging. She ran a program to award “Age Smart” employers who, rather than forcing older workers into retirement, find ways to keep them or bring them back. The older workers gain in self-worth and financial security. The employers gain the well-honed skills, historical perspective, and greater dependability of seniors. With departures like Breyer’s, the Court loses skills I wish it didn’t have to lose.
Éric admits to modifying his views of retirement in light of the experience of our mutual friend, Paul, a beloved and dedicated teacher. Paul says he has failed at retiring for over 10 years. Retiring from one school at age 65, he was lured back to another for the next 10 years. Now that he has retired again he is getting calls to fill in, help out, or even take new jobs. It’s hard, he says, to not be something you’ve been for over 50 years.
I fully identify with Paul. Despite the occasionally frustrating client or case, I derive tremendous satisfaction when I succeed at my legal work. And while I need the money, I’m not depriving younger lawyers of opportunity by continuing to work myself. There is plenty of unmet demand for help fighting insurance companies.
Nor could I readily give up the farming. How could I if it is so part of my identity that Éric refers to me as “Mark le fermier”? As my friend Tom recently put it: “You are the farm and the farm is you.” Pretty as the view from the window is, just appreciating the farm from behind glass would not be the same.
WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
EGGS: $5/doz Limited supplies, which will increase as the hours of daylight do
LAMB COMING: Finally a date at the slaughterhouse. They go to market March 8. If you’ve expressed an interest in lamb, it will be ready frozen the second to third week in March, and I’ll be sending you a cut sheet. For you others, there will be cuts of lamb available then.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you’d like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I’m now here full time, we’re abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we’ll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
Do you “spoon” when you sleep with a spouse or bed partner?
Outside, the shutters may be banging against the house in the stiff western wind; the windows encased in white frost; the wind chill at minus 20. But inside, with another body close against yours under the covers, a warmth builds quickly. It’s as if the heat of the body is amplified by being bounced back and forth, the way mirrors can refract light and back and forth to intensify heat and light fires. And the benefits of spooning go beyond heat, to feelings of intimacy and protection. You might even feel secure enough to surrender that axe you keep next to your bed to dispatch intruders.
Spooning involves adjustments and compromises. If you’re the big spoon, does your bottom arm comfortably fit under your partner’s head or torso? If you’re the little spoon, is the hand of the top arm resting where you like having it? If one of you tosses, does the other turn, and how do you negotiate the frequency? You are surrendering considerable individual autonomy to sleep as a unit with another, so much so that I wonder whether the inclination to spoon correlates with political orientation. How much freedom are you willing to give up to gain those feelings of warmth and protection?
As many of you know from your pets, who will sleep with you given half the chance, animals too seek the warmth of other bodies at night. The last cat I shared a bed with remained draped over my feet, but when Lillie the dog is in my bed she seems to work her way up through the night until her head is resting on the pillow and she can herself be properly spooned.
Nor is the practice of group sleeping confined to animals that, sharing our homes, have human behavior as an example. I don’t know if evolutionary biologists have studied group sleeping as a cross-species phenomenon, but it’s pretty clear to me that the instinct to sleep à deux or en masse is shared across innumerable species and may be deeply engrained in our animal DNA.
Most of my chickens line up on their roosting bars right next to one another, though there’s ample room to spread out. Lambs will sleep with their mothers for months after they’re born and even weaned. If I were to arrive early enough in the morning, before the sheep rouse themselves, I’d see Sophie’s lamb, Chloe, nestled in alongside her mother, between the front and back legs, not far from Lale’s ram lamb with his mother, and so on, each little family unit in their own cluster.
Pigs go the sheep one better. Back when we had 30 or 35 pigs, we’d find groups of a dozen or more young ones sleeping piled up against one another, and not necessarily from the same mother or litter. On the coldest days, like the ones we’re experiencing right now, you could literally see steam arising from the heap. I’m sure there’s a social structure of sorts to these pile ups, such that one’s position in the heap correlates to some sort of dominance in the group. But it was always hard for me to tell whether it would be preferable to be under three other pigs or the one on the top. The top one might be exposed to cold air, but the steam from everyone below might provide sufficient warmth and it might be far easier to breathe up top.
Of course, not everyone has another creature to rub up against. Luckily, we humans have central heat, space heaters, hot water bottles, blankets, duvets, down comforters, and flannel pajamas, all doing their part to keep us cozy.
The animals, too, take an “all of the above” approach, enabling them to thrive in unheated shelters. They shield themselves from the wind by sleeping on the leeside of whatever structure they can take advantage of. The sheep will sometimes even sleep outside the barn, so long as the barn wall is protecting them from the wind, in order to catch the heat of the earliest sunrays in the morning from the southeast.
And animals build nests. Nests, made of leaves and/or twigs and/ or reeds, supply a sort of windbreak to nestle in. They create pockets where warm air can be trapped. The organic matter that constitutes the nest generates heat as it decomposes.
If you’ve been following these bulletins for a while, you know that our old boar, Vernon, died last summer, leaving our sow, Possum, with no companion to cuddle with. This fall, I noticed that Possum had built herself a nest about 200 to 300 feet back behind her pen in the pig pasture, and was spending any non-rainy nights back there rather than in her little south-facing hut. I felt concerned about her choice of sleeping place and wanted to lure her back to the hut. The only way I knew how to do that was to help her make a more attractive nest there.
On the lawns to the east of the house there are at least a dozen 8 to 10 feet tall stands of ornamental grasses, such as zebra grass and pampas grass, dotting the landscape. They give what the garden catalogues call “winter interest” until I generally cut them down in the spring. But trying to be economical and not buy straw, I decided that winter interest could give way this year to winter comfort. I began bringing down big sheaves of the grasses to Possum at feeding time.
Possum immediately knew what to do. She took the sheaves in her mouth and carried them back to the hut, carefully arranging them to create an attractive bed. I have continuously brought down additional piles of grasses for her to build up the nest, and she’s been sleeping there since. This morning, with the temperature barely above zero, she seemed perfectly comfortable there in the bright sunshine. Home heating, it seems, is a cross-species skill.
I’ve learned from the animals. If I were somehow stranded in the woods on a night like tonight, I would first off find a spot that is sheltered from the wind by structure or geology. Then I’d gather a mass of leaves and other organic matter to create a nest in the shelter. And finally, being a believer in “all of the above,” I’d search for a fellow traveler to keep me warm.
WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
WANT TO DISPOSE OF YOUR UNTREATED CHRISTMAS TREE? THE SHEEP WOULD LOVE TO MUNCH ON IT. BRING IT BY.
EGGS: $5/doz Limited supplies, which will increase as the hours of daylight do
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT LAMB: There’s a backup of bookings at the slaughterhouse, almost impossible to get a slot, so it’s not imminent. I’ll let you know.
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you’d like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I’m now here full time, we’re abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we’ll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.
There is nothing linear about life, history or society. Nope, it’s all push and pull, fits and starts, up and down, step forward and step back. Former President Obama used to quote Martin Luther King Jr. to the effect that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But to me, there’s less of an arc to life than a series of very wavy lines, and those lines are likely to be trending, if they have any discernible trend, in different directions.
Nowhere is this reality more apparent than on the farm. It was refreshing this week to finally arrive at true meteorological winter. A few inches of light fluffy snow ended Friday morning, easily shoveled off the driveway, followed Saturday by bright blue sunshine and a zero wind chill this morning. It seemed like this kind of crisp, unmistakable winter would never get here. That it was so pretty and was so easy to manage made it delightful, after what seemed like weeks of warmish gray days punctuated by dismal drizzle.
But it always struck me as odd that as the arc of temperature bends toward winter in January, statistically our coldest month, it is precisely then that the arc of daylight begins to bend towards spring. Since the winter solstice we’ve been adding close to a minute of daylight each day, so that now the days (9 hours, 14 minutes) are about eleven minutes longer, and the nights (11 hours, 24 minutes) are about eleven minutes shorter than they were just before Christmas. The remaining two and a half hours are accounted for by varying degrees of twilight.
This may seem like a small change, but it makes a discernible difference. Around Christmas my daily egg collections averaged three to four eggs. This week the average has doubled, to seven to eight eggs a day, and one day I collected eleven. We’re back to where we were, in both daylight and egg production, on December 3. Egg producers are generally advised that chickens need fourteen hours of light a day to produce eggs, and that they produce best when the daylight lasts 16 hours, which can be simulated with artificial lighting that I eschew. But it seems to me that twilight counts for this purpose, and that even at 12 1/2 hours of combined daylight and twilight there is enough to stimulate a significant minority of the chickens. In my mind, the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6) has always announced the coming spring egg avalanche.
Of course January 6 has taken on other significance as well.
As on the farm, the greater world is moving into cold and darkness, by fits and starts, even as it moves into the light. The dark trend was all too apparent this week as we marked the anniversary of the attempted coup against the duly elected American government by a sitting president a year ago, and found that even the Republican party leaders who condemned the coup attempt a year ago were through silence or acquiescence endorsing it now. The Center for Systemic Peace, which monitors the risk of political instability in every country in the world with more than 500,000 people, had already, based on executive actions by the Trump Administration such as purges of perceived disloyal government employees and undermining trust in the electoral process, moved the United States from the category of democracies to anocracies (a mix of authoritarian rule and democracy) in 2020. According to the Center’s ranking, Switzerland is now the longest continuously practiced democracy in the world. Although Biden’s executive actions reversing some Trump era practices moved us back into the category of democracies in 2021, the January 6 coup attempt, together with other disturbing trends, put us in a category of high risk for political instability.
One expert on civil wars, quoted in this week’s New Yorker, Barbara Walter of the University of California, San Diego, finds us to be at high risk of such a war here. She bases her opinion in part on how far we’ve moved do
On the rare occasion that I ever leave the farm for more than a day, my recurring fear is that something will happen that can’t be handled by whomever I’ve entrusted with its care, requiring me to abort my trip and rush back. Rarely have such events happened. But last week, when I went to the City for four days, I had a momentary scare.
The purpose of my trip was to retrieve some essentials from my office (I’ve been reunited with my notary stamp); to catch up on some deferred medical checkups (I’ll live); and to incidentally socialize and grab some culture (If Omicron doesn’t close down the theaters, do see Caroline, or Change at the Roundabout; it’s terrific). But I must admit that even such a short and mundane visit can seem like a vacation.
I was still abed on my first morning in the City when I got a panicked message from Steve. You know Steve, the friend who thought I should figure how to manage my sheep herd through “trolley problem” analysis. Steve had kindly volunteered to come up and mind the farm in my absence. By now, he’s actually an old hand. But nervous about it, like you’d expect of a gay boy from the City thrown onto a farm.
Steve had found a dead chicken when he opened the coop up in the morning, with its head eaten off but otherwise intact. He was shaken by the sight (he shared a picture), and said he found the rest of the flock cowering in a corner, clearly shell shocked by an attack.
Based on what he reported, I assumed the culprit was a weasel. I assured Steve that he need not feel guilty; I hadn’t been securing the front door of the coop that carefully of late either. It was just happenstance that something weaseled through a small opening on his watch.
Later that day, at twilight, I, in sophisticated City mode, was having a Campari and soda with Éric. Steve called. He had been closing in the chickens for the night when he saw the predator, which he described as being the size of a cat with a long tail. It stared him down and then just slipped into the coop. What, Steve asked, should he do? I got immensely concerned, as it sounded that it might be a fisher cat, the largest variety of weasel, which could easily decimate the entire flock.
I suggested that he take out a lantern and a long handled shovel and scare the invader out. I assured him it was unlikely to attack him.Ten minutes later, he called me back. The plan had succeeded. The creature left and he had closed the chickens in tightly. We could both relax for the night.
After the fact, when Steve googled “fisher,” he learned that they are vicious and had been known (rarely, I must add) to attack humans. Sending him in with “your broken flickering lantern and an old shovel, with no warning” confirmed his oft-stated view that I am a MONSTER. But I felt I could rest easy because after this encounter Steve gave a fuller description of the creature and said it had a long rat like tail. That meant it was not a bushy-tailed fisher at all but a possum, which can certainly kill a chicken but isn’t likely to rip apart a whole flock, let alone attack a human. We’ve coexisted with possums on the farm forever.
Steve disputed the name I gave to the animal. He asserted that it was in fact a more dangerous “O-possum,” with a heavy emphasis on the O, and said I was wrong to say that possums and opossums were the same thing. It was my turn to google, and I claim vindication. There is just one species of American marsupial, which for the last four hundred years has been known alternatively as opposum or possum. Although there is another marsupial which is only called a possum, it also only lives in Australia.
My next text from Steve was the following afternoon, when he sent me a picture of the sheep herd following him, as he decided to take a little hike across the pasture. He was concerned this meant any stranger could lead them away. I told him he should be not concerned b
Last week after I pondered culling my two oldest ewes for the benefit of the rest of the flock, my friend Steve excitedly texted: “I love the sheep trolley problem…. But it doesn’t mean as much if you don’t really pull in each character. Really calculate the consequences. .. Describe the young healthy sheep. What do you owe them? Describe the older sheep. How much do you love them? Weigh their lives in front of us. Let us see it… I say trolley problem the shit out of it all next week.”
Steve is passionate about the written word, and has spent most of his working life writing and editing. But he dictates, rather than types, his texts, which sometimes mangles words. The first time I read the term “sheep trolley problem” I figured the software had transformed some complicated word into a nonsensical expression, and that the meaning would eventually become clear. The second time, several texts later, I was still mystified, so I asked “what is being transcribed as trolley problem?”
Steve became equally mystified. “What do you mean?” To which I replied: “You keep talking about trolley problem. I assume it’s a voice translation issue.” He was incredulous. “What???? What kind of education are they giving people at Yale?” He then said “trolley problem” was a very basic philosophical game. “Look it up.”
And yes, “trolley problem” turned out to be a thing, according to Wikipedia, an exercise in which one imagines situational dilemmas and considers the morality of their possible resolutions. The term came into popular use after philosopher Judith Thompson published an article entitled “Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem.” She posited this scenario: George is on a footbridge over a track. Below he sees an out of control trolley heading for a group of five people. He knows he can stop the trolley by putting a heavy weight in front of it, but the only thing heavy enough nearby is a fat man. Would it be moral to throw the man onto the track to save the five others?
My first thought on reading this was relief that my ignorance of the term “trolley problem” did not mean my parents had paid good money for inferior educations at any of the fine institutions I had attended. The “trolley problem” article was published in 1976, well past the days of my college philosophy classes, when I already held my masters degree in anthropology, and after I studied Torts in my first year of law school, actually debating what are now called trolley problems. Steve is just a whole lot younger than I am.
My second thought was not to take Steve’s advice, though I regularly heed his thoughts on what (and how) I should write. Surely, it would be a timely discussion, since the Supreme Court, without explicitly acknowledging it, was involved in a major trolley problem argument this week over abortion. Whatever theoretical framework the judges put on the question, we know in real life that when states ban abortion in an effort to save the potential lives of children, thousands of women will die in illicit procedures, and many more will suffer in countless other aspects of their lives from carrying pregnancies to term against their will. But I didn’t think my decisions about sacrificing older ewes for the health of the younger sheep would easily fit into the trolley problem framework.
Why? Because real life messes with principles. From both a moral and practical standpoint, both of my old ewes, Nilufer and Number 45, stand in the same position. They are roughly the same age. Both are still integrated members of the herd, both still fully functional, capable of lambing, and seeming to enjoy their lives. But we sold number 45 to another farm as a lamb, which is why we didn’t bother naming her. Seven or eight years later, when they gave up sheep rearing, we took her back. She’s personable enough, but I never developed a relationship with her. Nilufer, in contrast, was delivered with veterinary help
On a cool but sunny late November day, I enjoy observing my flock of sheep dotting the pasture. On the whole, they look sleek, fat and healthy. But the two senior ewes, Nilufer (13 years old) and the unnamed number 45 (12 years old, rear left, behind her chubbier flock-mates, in the picture above) present a somewhat sad contrast. Both have been scrawny for years, so scrawny that for the last couple of years I’ve only had them sheared in the Spring, not both Spring and Fall like the rest of the flock. We decided that with little body fat they would need their full pelt to keep warm; their wool would not grow back fast and thick enough to insulate against winter weather.
I had always assumed that the old ewes’ scrawniness was just a function of their age, much as many humans diminish as they get older. Both ewes have hearty appetites; both can keep up with the flock as it moves about; and both lambed successfully last year. These are all indicators of decent health. They are both very people friendly. But several weeks ago, Nilufer and 45 were among the half dozen or so flock members who suffered with diarrhea and/or had indications of anemia, signs of potential infection with parasitic worms.
I administered medication to all half dozen, and was immediately successful with the younger flock members. But Nilufer and 45 both required a second treatment. And even after the second treatment, 45 continued to have the runs. I consulted the vet, who recommended yet a third treatment and, if the diarrhea did not resolve in a week, that I bring in a stool sample to try to diagnose her.
The lab analysis told us that 45′s problem was not parasitic worms. While the absence of resistant parasites was the good news, the bad news from the vet was that it could mean other causes like Johne’s Disease (a microbacterial infection of the gut that results in poor food absorption) or another wasting disease. I asked what she would recommend, and she responded that I could test for Johne’s Disease, which could be done with the stool sample already submitted but could take 12 weeks, or I could wait and see if she was suffering from cold in the winter and euthanize her if she was, or I could cull her now to avoid spreading of whatever she has.
Naturally I hate the idea of culling an animal that seems otherwise quite happy, with a hearty appetite, and is in no distress. But I hate equally the idea of exposing the rest of the flock to a disease for which there is no effective treatment, though apparently there is a vaccine.
Is this dilemma beginning to sound familiar? It reminds me of some of the difficult decisions our governmental authorities, listening to the advice of their public health experts, must make to deal with COVID-19 and other diseases. We don’t cull humans, but we do isolate or quarantine them, or forbid them from engaging in economic activity, in order to prevent spreading infection broadly. Getting the balance right is not easy.
For now, I’ve opted just to get the test done for Johne’s disease. My decision not to cull was informed by the resolution of 45′s diarrhea and by my learning that Johne’s disease develops slowly over time. If this is the cause of 45′s and Nilufer’s several years of scrawniness, others in the flock are likely already infected and waiting another 12 weeks won’t matter very much. If the test comes back positive, I will consider culling the two oldest ewes. And in either event, I will try to obtain vaccine for the rest, though vaccine is thought to be most effective in young lambs.
I am relieved that if I decide to cull these ewes it will affect nobody outside this farm. That makes it unlikely that I will be vilified, harassed or threatened by political activists who object to disease control measures that impinge on any activity, even when that activity spreads deadly infection.
This weekend we’ve learned that there is an Omicron v
When friends tell me I’m too old to be going up on ladders, I resist.
When the storm windows have swelled over the summer with basement moisture, barely fitting in the window frames, I persist.
Yet finally, when I reach the last two upstairs windows, and the 20 lb. storms get stuck sliding into place, and I begin feeling insecure jiggling them free and adjusting them atop the extension ladder, I desist.
Resist, persist, desist. The progression of age. I must concede the limitations of my 70 years. If I were still in need of confirmation, it came when I realized that neither of the handymen I would immediately consider calling, both younger than me, were men I would feel comfortable asking to go up on an extension ladder to complete the task. I must now search out a younger, stronger, more agile person, the right man to take on the short but precarious project.
I do not yet shy away from physical labor. I was pleased to keep up with the pace of two considerably younger men as two hay ricks worth of hay (over 300 bales in total) arrived to be stacked in the barn for winter. And of course the security of knowing that a sufficient supply is on hand to get through the next few snowy months is a great comfort.
Yet with age comes more typical old man preoccupations, indoors. What has engaged me intensely the last couple of weeks, when being outside has not felt so enticing, has not been the farm, but a project of reconstructing the past.
It started when I was reorganizing my library a couple of weeks ago, having worked through most of the books in the house. I pulled out a text in Hebrew, a Talmudic commentary it turns out, which I inherited from my paternal grandmother, Eva Scherzer. Out of the book fluttered two letters, both dated in 1942, both sent from Los Angeles. One, in English, authorized my grandmother to retrieve eight boxes of books from storage, and was signed by Heinrich and Nelly Mann. The other, in German, kindly translated by Éric’s friend Francis, was dated several months later. It was also from Heinrich Mann, and it spoke of his frustration at the difficulties of trying to save the fragments of a lost library.
Growing up, we had been told by our parents that our grandmother had been somehow instrumental in saving the papers of Thomas Mann. We never knew what that meant. As my sister, Jolie, said, she couldn’t imagine that Grandma Eva, traveling as a refugee from Vienna across Russia with her baby daughter after the German Anschluss took over Austria, was somehow carrying Thomas Mann’s letters under her coat. But what did it mean? Here, for the first time, was a clue.
Heinrich Mann was Thomas Mann’s older brother, not nearly as famous as his Nobel Prize winning junior but also a novelist and accomplished in his own right. He was also far more radical than Thomas, and it would make sense that my grandmother, herself a communist, would have some association with him. His letter informed her that he had no resources to help, and he appreciated her willingness to contribute $20 to obtaining the books. He suggested she talk to the “committee” about obtaining the remainder of the $70 required.
But what committee? And what was this lost library? I’ve been on a quest the last couple of weeks to find out.
I wrote to the Thomas Mann archive at Yale’s Beineke Library, and called the Heinrich Mann archive at the University of Southern California to inquire about whether either had received books in 1942 or 1943 or could tell me anything about this. Yale has yet to reply, but the archivist at USC immediately located a file on my grandmother, containing three letters from her to Heinrich Mann, translations of which I await. The librarian there has promised me further correspondence from Heinrich regarding retrieving his books.
From browsing the letters myself, I found reference to a meeting between my grandmother an
In the fog of a frosty fall morning, I trudge across white crusted grass, brushing past ice-laden mugwort leaning into the path, on my way to the barn. The milkiness of the air seems replicated somehow inside my brain, as I try to break through the hangover of my COVID booster vaccination. For some reason I have reacted strongly to these shots, which makes me both lousy with malaise but happy at the silver lining that my immune system has been so effectively stimulated.
As I trudge, it occurs to me that malaise with a silver lining was a familiar theme this week. Election Day I was dismayed to see a Republican electorate so energized, and swing voters so swingable in their direction, while my beloved but politics-wearied Democrats stayed home. How could we have lost Virginia, let alone even more resoundingly the town council races here in Germantown? Could it have been massive voter fraud? The evidence of fraud was just as compelling as in Republican complaints about last year’s Presidential race (the evidence being “my side lost”). Why was nobody raising an outcry?
Bummed as I was, the results contained some silver linings for me. Yes, the election revealed that we’re still a closely divided country in which the main motivator to vote seems to be antipathy to the “other side” of the cultural divide, hardly the sign of a healthy political system. But there was no movement to, as my Washingtonian friend Arthur calls it, “Shtup the Seal.” This says to me that the public recognizes the basic integrity of our electoral process, revealing the Trumpian Big Lie for what it is. Also, that Republicans have seen themselves doing so much better with Trump off the ballot than on suggests that he is less likely to be their 2024 nominee. In the interim, the 2022 midterm elections are more likely to be defined by a booming Biden post-COVID economy than by current voter malaise. All silver linings, in my view.
These political musings that occupy my trip to the barn are displaced by an entirely different train of thought when I arrive. Though it, too, arrives at a silver lining.
The barn seems a cold and uninviting place on this miserable morning. Why? In part, because it is larger and more cavernous than its cozy predecessor, a repurposed fruit packing barn that burned in 2019. It was designed to accommodate a growing herd. I didn’t realize I would soon decide to shrink the herd down into the teens. (It’s now at 24, but three young ewes are being sold to a cheese-producing farm next week and the three young rams are going to slaughter weeks later.)
In larger part, though, the barn feels cold because of its concrete floor which I have been diligently working to uncover. All through last winter, when the sheep were being fed on hay, the barn floor became covered, perhaps 5 to 6 inches deep, with a muck consisting of bedding straw, waste hay, and sheep poop.
As the detritus congeals and decomposes, it releases heat. Indeed, sometimes when I am forking out a deep layer of muck I will find that it is smoking underneath. One has to prevent too much build up or the floor can become a fire hazard. On the other hand, a couple of inches of such matter on the floor acts as insulation from the cold concrete, soft bedding for the sheep to lie on at night, and almost as a heating system. Especially with the barn doors open to catch the south and east light, on a cold winter day the barn, filled with warm bodies of the sheep ruminating, can feel quite cozy.
Because it is hard for me to put a full or even half day aside to muck the barn, I decided this year to incorporate daily muck removal as a 10 minute add on to chores. Almost every day, I fill a wheelbarrow with muck and trundle it out to the now mountainous compost pile north of the barn. It has taken from Spring until now to finish the job.
The downside of completion of the mucking is that it has coincided with seve
Last night was one of those nights when I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. On such occasions, which thankfully only occur every few weeks, my mind hums with the recollection of tasks undone. Counting sheep? A calming route back to sleep. Counting undone items on your “to do” list? Quite the opposite. With each additional undone task I imagine more and more dire consequences, until I am certain that I face catastrophic failure, homelessness and freezing to death on the street.
Typically daylight casts all these concerns in a new, far less dire light. Usually, by the time I’ve finished my first cup of coffee I realize that I can get back to procrastinating. Those tasks I agonized about just a few hours earlier? Maybe I’ll get to them next month.
Not this morning. As my guests for the past week, friends Eric and Paul and Eric’s dog Lillie, packed up to leave, I checked the forecast and saw predicted temperatures for the coming week dipping down as low as 31 at night. October may have been frost free, but November will not be. Some tasks I can put off no longer.
Paul helped me yesterday by steadying the extension ladder as I installed those upstairs storm windows in the most precarious and highest locations, but I still have 8 upstairs windows and the entire downstairs to get done. In the garden, the pepper plants are still loaded with peppers that will shrivel to worthlessness with a frost. I must also harvest all the beans, the daikon radishes, zucchinis and tromboncino squashes, and must dry bunches of mint, before the frost similarly destroys those. Soon the sheep will have little grass to graze on, and I have to make sure the several hundred bales of hay I ordered to sustain them through the winter get here this week. I must get to work.
Or should I chill out and find a better cure for my anxieties? After seeing the documentary this week, Fantastic Fungi, about the world of mushrooms and those who study and grow them, I wondered.
According to this 2019 film, mushrooms are part of a family of beings which are neither plant nor animal, but which are essential connectors between the two. Fungal networks of very fine mycelium (threads of natural polymers, including proteins) are ubiquitous in the ground beneath us, and serve as not only the “root system” of mushrooms but also as communications networks for trees, and conduits through which trees and other plants may share nutrients. The mushrooms we pick and eat, or see growing above ground, are only the fruits of these networks. They produce spores, akin to seeds, which are carried in the air and establish new fungi.
The fungi grow by transforming decaying plant matter, such as dead trees, into energy. As mushrooms feed on decaying matter, they in turn feed both animals (which eat them) and plants (which take advantage of the underground mycelium network for nutrient transfers). They are presented in this film as an essential linchpin of life, enabling a global system of energy exchange in which each living being serves as food for another. From that perspective, I should be perfectly content with leaving frost shriveled vegetables out in the garden, recognizing that they will not be wasted but will serve as food for something or will return nutrients to the ground. I should be comfortable with my own mortality, too, knowing that I am just a temporary assemblage of bits of the universe’s energy and that when I die those bits of energy will be reabsorbed and reassembled into other life forms.
I was already very comfortable with that view of the cosmos before watching this film, even if I did not understand mushrooms to be such an important part of the system. I appreciate the new perspective the film gave me on that energy system, and it certainly made me wonder about the particular qualities of the odd mushroom I came upon back near the shagbark hickory this week (pictured above).
I felt a sense of satisfaction yesterday as I got in the car to head to the Berkshires to my friend, Tom. Things were going well. Though it was still light out, I had easily lured the chickens into their coop with cracked corn, enabling me to close them in without worrying about predators entering in the darkness. More important, I was bearing with me my contribution to the evening: long, fat, meaty Turkish pole beans that I had volunteered as the green vegetable for dinner.
You may recall my difficulties growing Turkish pole beans this summer. My first planting seemed to be doing fine when suddenly, over the course of a couple of days, all the vines shriveled up. The next planting, in a bed enclosed by a fence to prevent rabbits munching on the vines, failed to make it because something larger, I assume a ground hog or raccoon, knocked down the fence and ate the vines. This bunch of beans represented my third try, planted in the beginning of August, in a gamble that we would not have an early frost.
Normally a failure to successfully grow a vegetable would simply send me to the farmer’s market to buy it instead, but in this case it seemed urgent to me to succeed. It’s not that you can’t get these at the market (though you can’t) or that they’re sweet and flavorful (which they are, similar to very long romano beans). It’s that these beans are descended from seeds my late partner Peter smuggled in from Turkey many years ago. Although a reader did, upon reading my lamentations earlier in the summer, generously offer to provide seed for me next year from her own carefully shepherded stash, I felt that taking advantage of the offer would constitute failure to preserve one element of this farm’s unique features, as Peter and I nurtured them.
Thankfully, the gamble paid off, though it seemed strange to be enjoying for the first time on October 15 what is in most years a summer-long vegetable favorite of mine. Now, I have not only beans to eat but also some large pods I’m leaving out there to dry on the vine to be the source of next year’s Turkish pole bean crop: a special product of the farm preserved.
When I came back from some errands this morning I sat quietly for a few moments at the kitchen table. I heard a verbal “knock knock knock” at the back screen door, and there found Valerie Schaff, a well known portrait photographer who has a particular focus on animal portraiture, bearing a gorgeous set of prints she had made of yet another special feature of this farm back in 2016 or 2017 — the heritage breed turkeys we raised every year, but which I have not raised since the barn burned in 2019 with all of that year’s turkeys in it.
Valerie had spent a lovely afternoon back then with me, Peter, and the turkeys, and had taken numerous portraits. She had told us she would bring us copies, and we were always curious why she never had. Valerie explained to me today that the day she came was the day before the turkeys were to be picked up to be “processed”, meaning it was the Sunday before Thanksgiving. She was touched by the turkeys’ harmonic call and response when Peter and I assured them that they were BEAUUUUUUTIFUL , which they seemed to echo in reply. She had every intention of sharing the images with us but delayed out of sadness about their fate.Then Peter’s death made her feel like such vital pictures would be ill timed.
I am grateful to Val for bringing them today. The photos, two of which I’ve reproduced here with her permission, show both the beauty and the sociability of the birds. They capture the pride the tom turkeys take in their appearance, strutting for the enticement of the hens. They show the contrast between the turkeys milling and strutting and the quiet presence of the grazing cows and ruminating sheep behind them. Had she come at a different time, Val might have captured how the turkeys interacted with the others, even pecking at bugs on the sheep’s
My sheep are not stupid, you know. In fact, they seem to me to be getting smarter all the time.
For example, when it’s time for their grain treat, I herd the flock out of the main part of the barn’s big room, either out the east door into the pasture or, particularly in bad weather when they are reluctant to venture outside, into the south vestibule. This allows me to distribute the grain into the bowls without being knocked over in their mad competition for what is essentially sheep candy. When I finish distributing the grain, I generally then first open the east door and then the gate between the vestibule and the rest of the barn, at which time something like the Oklahoma land rush begins.
I’ve noticed in the past couple of months that even if they’re all initially bunched up in the south vestibule, some of the sheep will wander outside and around to the east door, in the correct expectation that they’ll get in ahead of the pack. It started with old number 45, who has always been rather independent, joined after a short while by Skunky, and then by little Pepsche. In recent weeks a large black lamb and another ewe have joined this group, so now generally 4 or 5 members of the flock are getting this head start. They’re learning.
Another example of their intelligence is that they generally will ingest only what they know to be good for them and will not willingly swallow foreign substances. This becomes a problem when it’s time for me to administer de-worming medication. I can’t just come up and pet the one who needs to be medicated, tell it to “say aaah,” and squirt the medication down its throat. I basically have to straddle the sheep, forced its mouth open, get the little plunger mechanism into the side of its mouth and plunge, forcing it to swallow.
I had to do this for several sheep this week. You can generally tell if a sheep has parasitic anemia by checking the color of its eyes under the lid against something called a FAMACHA scorecard. The pinker the better. If the color is white it can mean they are dangerously anemic. At the vet’s last visit this summer to give the entire flock booster vaccinations, she checked and found one who needed treatment, but since then a few more have as well. If they’re having diarrhea and not maintaining their weight I suspect parasites, and that has been a recurrent issue with a couple of older ewes.
Those of you who follow the news are probably scratching your heads wondering how I was able to medicate my sheep when there is a critical national shortage of veterinary de-worming medicine. You’ve read articles like the one in the September 28 New York Times, entitled “How COVID Misinformation Created a Run on Animal Medicine.” Some nudniks have decided that an important animal de-wormer, Ivermectin, is their treatment of choice to either prevent catching COVID or to minimize its effects.
The theory of these folks is pretty straightforward. Vaccinations have not been properly tested and may have some long term undesirable side effects, in their view. So instead they will take a drug that has not been tested in any meaningful way for this purpose at all and the ingestion of which has sent some people to the hospital, based on a theoretical possibility that it may have a benefit. Of course, their doubts about the testing are based on nothing but suspicion about anything the government endorses; their judgments about the vaccine’s effectiveness ignore the demonstrably lower case counts, hospitalizations and deaths in highly vaccinated communities; and many of the adverse consequences they fear from the vaccine are based on wild conspiracy theories. But they think they know better.
Oddly, many of the people adopting this approach are people in rural agricultural communities, which have always prospered in the past by following the science. Farmers depend on science for developing the seeds they plant, the animal breed
I really didn’t mean it the way it sounded.
My near daily call with my friend, George, does not have a set time, though it usually takes place in the 5 to 9 p.m. window . Such was the case last Sunday when George called while I was busy making turnip and sorrel soup in the kitchen. I put the phone on speaker for our conversation and set it out on the counter, allowing me two free hands to work.
About the turnip based soup: It was occasioned by my having accidentally pulled up several turnips while weeding to plant the last rows of the year. I noticed that the sorrel, two beds away, was in need of cutting back. It was the garden itself that dictated the ingredients, while the advent of cooler weather suggested that a hearty soup was just the way to take advantage of them.
This, for me, has indeed been the summer of the turnip. It’s really the first time I’ve enjoyed this vegetable. I started growing the sweeter smaller Japanese white turnip varieties four or five years ago, but generally focused on selling rather than eating them. Having been introduced to turnips through the strong, bitter taste of the traditional purple topped variety, I mistrusted any vegetable named turnip. But this spring my friend Steve chastised me for failing to take advantage of growing a vegetable he swore was both nutritious and delicious, and I vowed to make an effort to appreciate it.
Thanks to other friends, the effort worked. Tom explained to me that these turnips were called salad turnips, and when picked at radish size were excellent sliced raw as a sweeter, slightly less sharp version of the radish. I developed a strong taste for those eruptions of flavor. Éric made turnip and sorrel soup, a recipe he adapted from a parsnip and sorrel soup he had long been fond of. It turned out that the simple combination of sauteed onions and turnips and wilted sorrel leaves, blended with broth (see recipe below), is both filling and sprightly, waking up all those little taste buds on your tongue.
Inspired by the pleasures my friends introduced me to, I started experimenting on my own. While I really liked Madhur Jaffrey’s turnip and tomato dish, the turnip use I liked best turned out to be one I figured out myself. Cutting fairly large turnips into julienne strips on the mandolin, I used them for quick stir fries. They blended well with Chinese spices, and the firmness and slight crunchiness they retained in stir frying made them a great substitute for water chestnuts. I combined them with shrimp and other vegetables (see sample recipe below) for a great 25 minute meal. The turnip has now been fully integrated into my diet.
So there I was last Sunday chatting with George, who asked what noise he was hearing in the background. “Peeling turnips,” I said. And we chatted on for a while, with him occasionally making snarky little comments like “You do sound busy” and, when I switched to slicing the turnips and my work noises changed, “What are you doing now?” As I was winding up this stage of the prep, thinking he was impatient about my multitasking, I said “I’m on my last turnip, George.” There was something so world weary in my voice that he thought I meant I was at the end of my rope, and said “Poor you, how come?” And then he asked me if that was really an expression.
“No,” I said, “it’s not an expression, it’s a fact. I have no more turnips to slice.” We burst into laughter, as it seemed in fact a kind of perfect expression for exasperation and exhaustion. We agreed we should use it henceforth in that sense.
For now, though, I can’t yet let myself be exhausted. Fall is just beginning. As I was reminded in the turnip patch, this is an active time of preparation for the seasons to come. While weeding I observed two grasshoppers mating on a turnip leaf, the small bright green male atop the large khaki colored female. She will now deposit her fertilized eggs in the soil to be
This morning’s breakfast fruit, mixed with yoghurt and granola, included raspberries, Asian pear, Bosc pear, a tasty heirloom apple planted three years ago whose variety I cannot remember, and a very yellow peach, all picked here. There is something lovely about foraging your breakfast fresh every morning.
You may recall that I announced the end of peach season several weeks ago. So I believed. But growing things always has a way of bringing surprises. The peach we ate this morning was harvested from what I believed to be a Shiro plum tree.
For years, we had two lovely shiro plum trees. We planted them just east of the driveway soon after buying the place. They were abundant producers. These small shiny yellow plums were delicious. When ripe, extremely juicy, but still a little tarty and quite plummy. (Just the way I would hope to be described myself!)
Four or five years ago, the plum trees began to develop galls on many of the branches, sort of canker sores. My reading suggested that many tree galls are pretty harmless, but because the branches with the galls were dying off these did not seem so. We made assiduous efforts to cut off the branches with the galls and burn them, but over time more and more of the trees’ branches were affected. Two years ago a visiting arborist suggested the trees were irredeemable and should come down. I can’t now remember the source of infection she gave as causing the galls, but she said it was airborne and endemic .
After the trees came down, one of the two stumps remained alive and continued to send up shoots. I saw no reason not to let that process unfold. What happened is a now head-high bushy tangle of branches (pictured above) that this year produced fruit. It was a yellow fruit that I naturally assumed would start getting shiny as it ripened and become a shiro plum. At some point in the last few weeks I realized the fruit would never get shiny, and was way too large to be shiro plums. Instead, this week, we’ve enjoyed some large yellow peaches.
And what an appropriate week to be enjoying this fruit. Serendipitously, this morning I heard the title song of the 1974 album, Front de Libération des Arbres Fruitiers (the Fruit Tree Liberation Front), by the Belgian poet and singer Julos Beaucarne (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julos_Beaucarne). This gifted artist died earlier this week and the Montreal radio station Ici Musique was commemorating his life. My visiting friend Éric assured me that Beaucarne’s song was no joke, but was rather a protest song, honoring the efforts of those who resisted a government effort to have farmers cut down their fruit trees and convert to other types of agricultural production. I imagine my saving this tree stump to allow creation of a new fruit tree would earn me honorary membership in the Liberation Front.
But how did the plum tree become a peach tree? It didn’t take long learn that plum trees are often grown on root stock of other stone fruits, including peaches. This is usually accomplished through “budding”, a process akin to grafting, in which buds of plum branches are inserted in to the root stock. This is how the novelty products you see in nursery catalogues, such as trees which produce four different varieties of plum on one tree, are created.
Pretty clearly, my plum trees were grown on the root stock of a very late season peach. By chopping the tree back to the stump, I allowed it to revert to type and express its innate peachiness. (A quality I, too, try to personally cultivate). I plan to let this new growth develop, trimming it into a tree shape, and extend in future years the peach season I’ve enjoyed so much this year.
Much good apparently can come of cutting things back to their essence. Last night, capping off a lovely week-long visit, Éric treated me to dinner at a lovely small country restaurant in Pine Plains, Champêtre. The proprietors, Michel and Patri
For those of you not close by enough to know how it came down, please rest assured that tropical cyclone Ida did not flood or damage the farm. Our rainfall total over the course of the storm was, I would estimate, in the high two to low three inch range, less than Central Park got in a single hour, and a fraction of the total rainfall in the most devastated communities in New York City and New Jersey. The Albany Times Union posted a rainfall map that showed the increasing totals going south along the Hudson Valley until reaching Manhattan, which resumed its place, almost exactly twenty years after 9/11, as Ground Zero.
There were few discernible water effects here. The pond, which for some unfathomable reason after our rainy summer was about a foot below its intended depth, filled back up. Our sow Possum, months after I prepared it for her and her late companion, Vernon the boar, finally moved to a dryer hut in a better drained pen next to the one they were in. That’s about it. Winds weren’t bad here either. There were fewer branches to clean up than after a standard nor’easter.
It is not surprising that people at a distance make assumptions that it must have been bad up here on the farm. After all, Ida was a natural disaster, and we are here up in “nature”. I, too, grew up with the sense that the City is the safest place one can be. To me, it always seemed impervious to nature. No matter how deep the snow, the subways seemed to be able to keep running. The City is so solid. You can’t imagine a tornado taking down a brick high rise in the way it shatters mobile homes in the country. For an extra feeling of security, the services provided in the City seemed so essential to society at large that one assumed all resources would logically be diverted to keeping them running.
Those innocent assumptions about Fortress City have dissolved in recent years. The subways have stopped running. People drowned in their apartments. We’ve even learned that some of the features of the City that made it seem impervious to nature, such as its entirely paved and hence literally impervious environment, contribute to the dangers. The paving prevents rain from being absorbed into soil, and channels it to run along the surface. The result in extreme rainfall events: raging torrents.
The most recent assumption to be lost was that of the essential nature of central business districts. COVID shattered that illusion. Areas like midtown Manhattan, which exist almost solely for the purpose of office work, are feeling less and less essential, indeed potentially irrelevant, as remote work takes such a larger role in our economy.
I harbor no illusions that suddenly it has become safer to live here on the farm than in the City. I have not somehow escaped the dangers from climate change by being here. Nature is not so selective. While some storms naturally hug the coast, others take unexpected turns or travel other routes. I know our turn will come to be ground zero.
Nor do I think the City is intrinsically unsafe. There are many features of cities, including social density which breeds sophistication, invention, and coexistence with differences, that still make it safer than life in the boonies. Although New York City, as a dense port of entry with no appreciation of the dangers it faced, took the first and hardest hit in the U.S. from the COVID pandemic, today it feels far safer to be there, where a more enlightened government and populace have embraced vaccination and masking, than in sparsely populated rural Missouri.
Moreover, we have to recognize that sometimes the dangers we confront are so pervasive that there will be no good escape. Global climate change is an example of such a danger. If you want to know what that feels like, it occurs to me you can just ask an Afghan. A close friend, who shall remain nameless for now, has spent the last several months admirably and tirelessly
Last week I told of my observing my elderly neighbor in Sag Harbor, Mrs. Thayer, waving a white flag for help during Hurricane Gloria, only to find, when I ran across the street, that it was in fact a dust rag I had seen, which she was using to clean her living room. Within hours after sending out the bulletin I got a message from my sister, Jolie, in Pittsburgh. She herself remembered the event vividly, she told me. There was just one detail I got wrong. It was not my partner, Peter, I had consulted before running out. He was not even there. It was Jolie and I who debated whether I should brave the storm to come to Mrs. Thayer’s rescue.
As Jolie reminded me, she and her husband (this was before the arrival of any niece or nephew) were vacationing at the house while Peter and I had gone back to the City. Hearing the hurricane predictions, I had decided to go back out to Sag Harbor to help Jolie and Doug batten down the house, while Peter stayed behind in the City.
I was embarrassed by my slip, though relieved that I had at least gotten the main points of the story right. I was also kind of intrigued by the workings of my memory which that slip, and other recent events, revealed.
Much of the two previous weeks had been spent in almost daily “hanging out” — meals, drinks, walks and drives — with four different college friends. One of them, my friend George, I see virtually weekly, and our lives and activities intertwine in a way that we don’t review our history all that much. Visits with the others, Doug Susie, and Bruce, tend to happen months, and more recently, thanks to COVID, years apart. At such reunions, one is more likely to reminisce about times long past.
As we reconstructed our distant pasts, I don’t always remember things the way my friends do. We, for example, debated the layout of a house we had rented in the 1972-73 school year. We all agreed that there was a balcony overhanging the living room. But virtually everyone else thought the living room was to the right when you entered the front door. I remembered it to the left. Of greater moment, I thought that Bruce had lived in that house during the summer of 1973. Bruce assured me he had not, it’s just that he came over to hang out for long stretches frequently enough that it seemed like he lived there.
Over dinner on our last night together, I determined that neither Susie, her husband or George had ever seen The Great Beauty, which I consider one of the more profound movies of the last decade. I convinced them that we should watch it. As we did, I became convinced that three or four scenes had been shortened from the version I had initially seen in the theater. There were details I thought were missing, and I described those details. The following day, George and Susie did some sleuthing and found that the length of the film we had seen, two hours and twenty minutes, was exactly the same length as the original theatrical release.
One can say that my recollection is a testament to the skill of the director. He suggested by foreshadowing what would happen off screen, and I interpolated in my memory that it actually did happen on screen. But you can also say that it is an illustration of the tricks not that my memory plays on me, but that I play on my memory. I retain the main points of the story, but it seems I supply some supporting details that logically to my mind would be there, whether they actually happened or not.
The coincidence of all these episodes of “creative memory” have given me great pause. In numerous discussions with George, in which I have to admit to not remembering things he recalls, I have contended that “I may not remember everything, but what I do remember I definitely remember.” I am not so sure that’s true right now. And I wonder whether at some point I will transition from supplying extraneous supporting facts around a kernel of truth to creating the kernel itself.
You are going to think I am overly preoccupied with grandmothers, but since yesterday I’ve been thinking a lot about my third grandmother, Winifred Thayer. This grandmother was acquired through adoption, not blood, and unlike in most adoptions, I was an adult and it was not a one way process. My late partner Peter and I adopted her as much as the other way around.
My recollections of Mrs.Thayer were prompted first by attending to a long postponed task: packing a motley collection of stuff yesterday to ship to an appraiser, in order to donate it to a museum. All of it was associated with the family of Ephraim Niles Byram, a noted clockmaker, self-trained scientist, technician of navigational instruments for Sag Harbor whaling fleet, and the builder in 1852 of the eccentric Oakland Cottage, in Sag Harbor, New York, which Peter and I once owned. It is all destined for the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum, which already has an entire wall devoted to Byram. It includes a daguerrotype of Byram; original deeds going back to 1808; a wood plane belonging to master cabinet maker Eliab Byram, Ephraim’s father; one of Byram’s working tools; an 1822 sampler embroidered by Byram’s sister; an 1886 high school diploma of Byram’s daughter; a Byram family christening dress; and bolts of fabric (linen or flax), homespun by the Byram women.
What united these items was not just their association with the Byrams but also that they were all carefully preserved by Mrs. Thayer and entrusted by her to us. It all started when we had just taken possession of our newly acquired wreck (delapidated would have been too kind a word) in April, 1984. Mrs. Thayer, then 88, toddled across the street from her very neatly kept house and crackled “Did you buy this house?” When we said yes, she said she could tell us a great deal about it. An understatement.
Mrs. Thayer and her husband had moved into the Byram House as newlyweds in 1913, as boarders of Byram’s daughter, Loretta. Loretta, a (you should pardon the expression) spinster, became “Aunt ‘Retta” to Mrs. Thayer’s children. When the Thayers moved in 1929, it was to a house they built across the street. And when Aunt Retta died she left her house and all its contents to Mrs. Thayer’s son, Forrest (“Sonny”).
Mrs. Thayer became Loretta’s de facto guardian and guardian of the Byram family legacy. In her later years, Loretta, fearful that outsiders would learn family secrets, spent hours in front of the fireplace burning letters and papers. The deeds which Mrs. Thayer gave us were among the items she secreted away to preserve. Mrs. Thayer was a lifelong Methodist who barely ever took a drink. One of the “sins” that made her guiltiest, about which she repeatedly sought reassurance from us, was that, fearful for the soul of Loretta (who lived firmly in the Byrams’ anti-organized-religion tradition), she secretly and without consent baptized Loretta on her deathbed.
In their mutual zeal for preserving the house, its history and the history of Sag Harbor, Peter and Mrs. Thayer found themselves soul-mates. Mrs. Thayer had lost her hearing in her 30s, a time before Sag Harbor and eastern Long Island generally became swamped by New York City’s social dominance. As a result, she preserved in a pretty pure state the Bonacker accent that had more in common with Nantucket and coastal New England than it did with New York. And, because she couldn’t hear much at all, she was more comfortable telling stories than listening. The result was hours of audio tapes Peter took of Mrs. Thayer relating stories of old Sag Harbor and the Byram family lore. Her memory was sharp. As we restored the house, stripping off 1950s wallpaper, the colors Mrs. Thayer had vividly described for the walls reappeared, allowing us to be confident that our choices were true to the Byram scheme.
Through the process of bringing the house back, Mrs. Thayer and we developed an incredibly strong affecti
Mail from National Grid, my electric utility provider, is never the first letter I open. I don’t look forward to reading it. This week’s communication, however, made me smile. It was an “energy report” which advised me that, as compared with the same period last year, my energy consumption had gone down 34%. Instead of wildly outstripping my neighbors in energy usage, I am now using 1% less energy than comparably sized houses in the vicinity. I loved this energy report.
I realize I shouldn’t go too wild patting myself on the back. Paring back to just average in our energy guzzling country is surely nothing to brag about. Also, in the comparable period last year, when we were still in COVID induced semi-lockdown, there were four full time residents of this house. This year there was just me. It would have been outrageous had I not saved energy.
But then, I’ve had a constant stream of house guests this summer, so maybe the head count has not been so different. And I’d like to think that my own efforts contributed something to the energy saving trend. For example, following the example of my friend Eric, I now do laundry on sunny breezy days when I can hang the wash out on the line, rather than just reflexively using the clothes dryer. I’m using less freezer space. I’m conscious about lights.
This small bit of progress in reducing my carbon footprint does suggest just how much savings might be had with fairly minimal efforts and shifts in our consciousness. If I got really ambitious, I have no doubt I could reduce my usage another third still without affecting my quality of life. The question is how I convince myself that this is worth the effort. How do I answer the two ever-lurking questions, “Why bother?” and “What’s in it for me?”
I call these ever-lurking questions because they seem to be the confounding ones in our current political struggles over the major questions of the day, the twin crises of COVID and climate change.
“Why bother?” This presents the question of whether my efforts will be effective. Aren’t the forces of climate change so global in magnitude that my small gestures mean nothing? The same with COVID. With so many people engaging in high exposure, high risk social encounters in bars, will my wearing a mask as I pass someone casually in the supermarket really reduce transmission?
On COVID, leaders like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have obstructed mask requirements, cheap and minimally intrusive measures to protect the public health. DeSantis, a supposed fiscal conservative , has proposed instead distributing the extraordinarily expensive medicine remdesevir to those with early illness as the principle way to fight the COVID epidemic. His answer to “why bother?” is that there is no reason to take collective measures to stop the spread of the illness. Regarding climate change, the Washington Post reported this week that many Republican leaders now acknowledge the role of human fossil fuel use in climate change, yet they still argue that we should not reduce our usage. Instead, they advocate developing as yet undiscovered technologies to deal with the effects of their use. Again they see no reason to bother fighting the change itself.
It seems to me these folks are missing that the small actions of individuals collectively can effect change on a massive scale. Viral transmission grows exponentially in an epidemic because if one person transmits a virus to two, those two will in turn transmit it to four, and so on. Each interruption in the chain of transmission can have a significant downstream effect. It’s like weeding the garden. It may seem overwhelming in that weeds always grow back, but if you pull them by the roots or interrupt their chain of reproduction, the plants you want to encourage are given a chance, and can do some of the work of shading out the next generation of weeds. Cumulative, downstream effect. That’s “why bother.”<!--
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Those of you who have come to pick up orders on the screened porch know the drill. You put your money in the plastic pineapple, make change as required, and leave on the table any items like empty egg cartons that may be re-used. Occasionally I find a surprise out there. This week, it was a plastic bag filled with a fine white substance. No, nobody was trading cocaine for veggies. It was a bag of Marhaba brand Citric Acid (also know as sour salt or lemon salt), with this note on the back: “To keep the memories of our grandmothers alive, Carole.”
I knew exactly what this note referred to. The writer had ordered two bags of sorrel, telling me that she was hoping to re-create her grandmother’s recipe for “schav” a sorrel based sour soup. When I was growing up, my family served schav as a chilled iced drink in a tall glass on hot summer days. I associate it with the long summers I spent at our family’s bungalow colony in the heart of the Catskills borscht belt.
To be honest, it took me some time to develop the taste for schav in part because of its appearance. In the version made with egg, it somewhat resembles a murky swamp – a yellowish liquid with ribbons of what appears to be dark green seaweed swirling through it. However, as I grew older I gained a far greater appreciation for the refreshing jolt a glass of schav provided on a hot afternoon, and saw the beauty in the mix of colors.
I told Carole that back in graduate school I had asked my grandmother to let me watch her make schav and carefully recorded the process, but after a few years I lost the recipe. I tried many different recipes I found on line until I ultimately landed on one which to my mind came closest to the taste of Grandma Sonia’s (below), which I provided to Carole. But I recalled that in place of the lemon juice in that recipe my grandmother used sour salt (citric acid), an item I have had increasing trouble finding in supermarkets as the years have worn on. Hence, Carole’s gift of a bag of sour salt from Kalustian’s, a market in New York City.
With that bag of sour salt and the memory of her schav lives a wealth of other memories of my Grandma Sonia. Last August, I wrote a recollection (“Am I my Grandmother”) of my father’s mother, Grandma Eva — the intellectual, lousy cook and housekeeper, who spent endless hours puttering alone in her garden. My mother’s mother, Grandma Sonia, was her polar opposite, the embodiment of home-making and an excellent cook. As much as I dreaded visiting Grandma Eva, I relished time with Grandma Sonia. (In the pic above, I am flanked at age 13 by Grandma Sonia on the left, Grandma Eva on the right). Grandma Eva thought one should live the life of the mind, expressing her disgust when I quite graduate school to go to law school (dirty commerce). Grandma Sonia, ever the practical one, was in contrast relieved that I might actually make some money. At one point, when I was studying anthropology and my brother Howard was studying geology, she described our endeavors to friends with puzzled disdain in this little rhyme (pardon my mangled Yiddish transliteration, but this is the way I heard it): “Eine ist in steine, die andere ist in beine.” (One is in stones, the other one is in bones).
Virtually all my recollections of Grandma Sonia are food related. One of the earliest, brought to mind whenever I hear the insect choruses of August, was of accompanying her to field near the lake at the bungalow colony, where wild blueberries (she called them “huckyaberries”) grew. She and I went alone, carrying large white enamel cooking pots. It seemed to me we were out there for a couple of hours. I must have been six years old. It was the first time I can remember be conscious of excessive heat. We filled the pots to brimming with the blueberries and dinner that night, as it often did on really hot summer nights, consisted solely of a bowl of blueberries and sour cream.
Born in 18
Since last week, I’ve been seeing bad omens. First, my Turkish pole beans, which seemed to thrive for the last three weeks, all wilted and died. Then, over the space of two days, all the leaves on one of my tulip poplars turned brown. Finally, on Wednesday, I had to put down my nearly 16 year old boar, Vernon.
Most of you already know Vernon’s story: how he was bred by the Mt. Vernon Lady’s Association to perpetuate the Ossabaw breed that George Washington kept on his estate; how I drove him up from Virginia when he was but puppy-sized; how he grew into a boar with dozens of progeny, one of whom attacked him in a vicious battle; and how I had to spend a weekend in his pen picking the maggots out of his festering wounds, a truly bonding experience. Yet he rebounded to live a full and long life by pig standards.
I have been anticipating Vernon’s death for over a year. Rather than grieving, I am grateful he has been relieved of his pain. But Possum, the sow I kept to be his companion, does not seem so accepting. She ministered to him loyally as he ailed. Tuesday morning, when I found Vernon lying on his side behind his hut, Possum was lying nose to nose with him. After I buried him, she retired to her hut and did not come out for an entire day, even to eat. I assume she, a social creature, is lonely and depressed. If you have room in your pig drove for a large, personable sow who is probably still able to farrow, please let me know. She goes free to a good home.
Why do I describe Vernon and the beans and the tree as omens, you ask? Aren’t these just natural processes at work? Didn’t I expect Vernon to die? Don’t beans succumb to fungus associated with the cool wet weather, and don’t tulip trees drop their leaves in mid-summer if stressed? Yes, but oddly, they all have something else in common. Each had been a subject about which Peter, my late partner, thought I acted unreasonably.
The tulip tree, now between 30 and 40 feet tall, was one of a pair Peter and I planted at least 15 years ago. I dropped this tree as I was moving it to the planting hole, and the root ball somewhat disintegrated. Peter more adeptly kept the root ball on the other tree intact. From that moment on, he was convinced I had through carelessness doomed this tree. Sitting looking out from the screened porch, Peter would comment on how much better “his” tree was growing than “mine.” And now mine is brown, while his looks fine.
The beans are with us thanks to seed smuggling on Peter’s part. I remember standing in the pet and garden market outside the Egyptian Spice Bazaar in Istanbul some ten years ago, arguing vehemently that he should not buy that seed packet. I even threatened not to visit him if he were jailed for smuggling. He ignored my objections, hid the seeds in his packed shirts, and planted them the next spring. From that first crop he carefully saved seeds to plant the next year, an annual practice which I’ve continued since his death.
And finally the pigs. When our pig population reached 35, I declared the process too overwhelming and insisted we leave pig husbandry behind us. “Either the pigs go or I do,” said I. Peter said “let me think about that,” leading to a nearly year long tug of war. When I finally prevailed and we set to selling off or slaughtering all our pigs, it was I who decided at the last minute that we had to keep Vernon, to whom I had become so attached, and Possum to keep him company. Peter never let me forget my turnabout.
I don’t believe in an after life or in ghosts, but nevertheless I’ve had the nagging feeling through these coinciding events that Peter’s spirit is signaling something about my bad decisions leading to the whole farm falling apart. Even before these events happened, at my friend George’s suggestion I spent most of a session with my therapist figuring out why I choose to do so much on the farm by hand, the hard way, without assistance.
Prompted by reading my extended kvetch last week about rabbits eating my pea vines, lettuce, cabbages, brussels sprouts, and broccoli, my old friend Tom sent me the following message:
“Colin Thubron, in his little book on Cyprus (pre-invasion), writes about walking into a village that was said to be where broccoli came from. But he saw none growing. So he approached a little old [Greek Cypriot] lady and asked her where the broccoli was. She replied that the Turks had killed them all. He then explained that it was a vegetable he was inquiring about, and not a family. She nodded knowingly and told him that the Turks had eaten it all.”
Tom’s anecdote cracked me up, and not just because, like much of the best humor, it touches sensitive nerves about human prejudices and the ways we cover them up, or double down on them. I took it also as a gentle jab at my ascribing blame so universally for all my garden’s woes to one malevolent force, the rabbits.
The Greeks and Turks in Cyprus had ready villains to blame for everything that went wrong — each other. Why were things going haywire in Weimar Germany? Most Germans blamed the Jews. It is a natural human inclination to avoid blame for one’s own failings and to shift responsibility elsewhere. As my friend George often reminds me, if I break a glass I invariably report the event as “The glass broke.” I never say I dropped it. By using that passive voice I leave open the possibility in the listener’s minds that it wasn’t my fault, it just kind of jumped off the counter.
So much as I’d like to blame the rabbits, I think it’s probably time for me to take some responsibility. When growing things, you have to be prepared, you have to protect what you grow, you have to constantly monitor conditions and respond to situations as they arise. And I have to acknowledge that I haven’t always kept up in that regard.
Take my peach trees. The oldest and largest of them was so laden with fruit that about three weeks ago one of the biggest branches cracked right off, taking about a quarter of the tree (and the fruit) with it. I knew I should be thinning the fruit, but in my mind that failure to do so would simply result in smaller fruit, not to a disastrous branch crash. I would like to think I would have done better as a director of the condominium building that collapsed in Surfside, Florida, than those who occupied those offices, but I’m not so sure. You almost never envision the worst consequences of ignoring a problem.
Indeed, even after being alerted to the overladen peach issue, I would not give my response particularly high marks. I took to fairly aggressive thinning of the fruit on the remainder of the tree whenever I walked past it. I would select and pull off 10 or 12 peaches that were rubbing against other peaches, or had imperfections, or were placed where they wouldn’t ripen as well, and carried them to my bucket of pig slop, and fed them to the pigs.
But the emphasis is on “whenever I walked past it”. I did not put aside a couple of hours to focus on thinning the fruit. My efforts worked well on the branches closest to my daily chore route, but other branches around the back did not get that attention, and lo and behold, at the end of our several inches of rain this week yet another branch, with another quarter of the tree, cracked and crashed down.
“Blame thyself” may be a dangerous road to travel but perhaps the world would be a better place if we all took a detour down it now and again. This has occurred to me lately as I have found myself increasingly angered by our sliding back into an apparent fourth wave of the COVID pandemic — one that we, through vaccination, could avoid in a way that most of the world cannot.
It angers me when I read, as I have in the last week, that there has been a 54% uptick in COVID cases in the U.S. in the past two weeks. It angers me that Columbia County, more th
For the last several days it’s been my delight to have my friend Paul as a guest. I find myself inviting a small coterie of friends repeatedly for extended stays not just because I enjoy their company, but also because each one of them contributes to running the household in ways that make my life easier. For those who see life in terms of cost-benefit analysis, the cost in additional effort from having such guests is far more than compensated by the benefit of their efforts and companionship while here.
The last couple of days, while I was chained to my computer doing legal work in the office upstairs, Paul not only cleaned the kitchen, but also devoted himself to the gardens near the house. He mowed the nearby lawn, cleared walkways, chopped back overgrown vines and ferns to uncover imminently blooming hostas, and cut down small mulberries and other invasive trees that have been proliferating in the perennial beds.
I’m particularly grateful for these efforts because these areas are the ones I most neglect, their function being ornamental rather than agricultural in nature. Yesterday, as we had lunch on the screened porch, one of my loyal customers arrived to pick up her order of eggs and turnips. I introduced her to Paul and credited him with the cleared walkway that was so much easier for her to navigate than in previous weeks. She replied by complimenting his work, and bluntly reminded me that it was clearly my late partner who had concerned himself with such matters. “I know, your other half was the gardener, not you,” she said with a smile, recalling the days when things looked rather more Home and Garden around here.
I try to overcome my embarrassment at the state of things by telling myself that the vegetable garden and the berries are as important as the perennial beds. I find them just as beautiful, at least potentially, and equally important they feed me and produce income. They are part of the point of this project. In the vegetable garden, I weed daily, I plant, I trim, I water, though thankfully spared of the latter task this last rainy week.
But even there, keeping up is something of a Sisyphean task. The weeds are no less prolific in the vegetable garden. Weeding is only the half of it. Battling munching invaders, this year chiefly rabbits, is another. I have carefully observed the dietary preferences of the rabbits, and have a clear sense of their taste hierarchy. Despairing of patching every hole in the garden perimeter fence through which they’ve been entering, I’ve taken to circling each planting bed they eat from. And as I fence off a preferred vegetable food, they turn to the next most flavorful item in their palate.
I haven’t planted carrots this year, though I can tell you from past experience that it’s pretty high on the list. As a result, this year the first items to disappear were sugar snap pea vines and my entire bed of lettuce, from which I got not one salad. After demolishing those, the rabbits turned to the brassica family, going first for cabbages and Brussels sprout plants.
For a while to my surprise they left the broccoli alone, turning instead to beet tops. I put chicken wire fencing around the cabbages, brussels sprouts and beets and left my interior fencing project relax for a while, turning my efforts to continuing to plant or, as necessary, replant. It turned out my broccoli complacency was misplaced. Though the rabbits did turn sporadic attention to my bed of swiss chard, the broccoli plants they had let grow for weeks suddenly started getting eaten back or disappearing entirely. I despairingly let the broccoli bed return to weeds, and when today I started weeding it to be fenced and replanted I found just two tiny plants still struggling to make a comeback (see one struggling example above).
At least I now know what the rabbits don’t particularly have a taste for: fava beans, spinach, chervil, coriander, dill,
I used to be a regular reader of the CDC’S Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, back in the early AIDS epidemic years. Every seven days, a cold, clinical gut punch which at that time almost always confirmed your worst fears of death and despair. That report came to mind as I contemplated writing this week’s bulletin, fearful that if I told you yet another tale of the sad death of a beloved creature I might have to rename this “the Turkana Farms Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Blog.” What a cheery gift at the end of your work week!
It would be dishonest, however, to ignore how euthanizing my ewe Ayse did set the tone here over the last few days. Even though her quality of life was undeniably awful and she was approaching the generally accepted upper limit of a sheep’s life span (she would have turned 13 next week), deciding to terminate brought back painful memories of the death of my late partner, Peter, after he suffered a grievous fall.
Peter had made his wishes known: He did not want to be kept alive if he couldn’t be restored to full function. He did not want to be intubated. But, urged by doctors, I talked him into a one-day intubation. Then, when he could no longer speak for himself, again the doctors convinced me to extend it for several days until his son could arrive and the inevitability of his recovery or failure became clear. I believed Peter died furious at me for betraying his wishes, but with the doctors promising a chance of full recovery I couldn’t help but hope. When it’s life and death, and you don’t know whether it’s more merciful to end or continue, the power to choose is agony.
But Ayse’s death triggered more joyful memories than regretful ones. As I walked back from the barn with the vet, I passed a young sour cherry tree that I see at least a half dozen times a day. I noticed that it was suddenly laden with fruit — ripened to a bright shiny red seemingly overnight. Peter had given me several of these fruit trees for my birthday the spring just before he died. This year, for the first time they have finally all borne fruit.
It was Peter’s vision to plant these fruit trees along the path from the chicken coop back to the barn, and I followed his instruction rather than go with my initial instinct to place them along the driveway. It got me to thinking about all the ways in which he formed this place.
Most obviously, the landscape. It was Peter who moved the driveway from its practical straight line alongside the house and created a circular drive, wrapping around an oval lawn and perennial border, creating a private oasis that suited the relationship he wanted with the world — no easy path to the front door. It was Peter who had the pond dug on the west side of the house and used the dirt to create that lawn and border on the east side. Peter decided to enclose the front yard with a picket fence. He created the rock garden of succulents out of a shelf of shale in the shady portion of the back yard west of the fruit trees. And he placed the vegetable garden in the sunny section to their east.
Peter always knew how the farm would best operate as well. About a year or so after we bought the place, Peter helped create a de facto neighborhood association (dubbed Farm Neighbors) of about half a dozen mostly contiguous properties, totaling about 200 acres, along two parallel roads. Peter proposed we jointly hire a farm manager and have the properties managed as a single unit. Nothing came of his suggestion then, and we went about just selling our excess produce for the next twenty years, but remarkably, this year, by dint of circumstances, we find my property, and the next two adjacent farms, hosting a herd of cattle, owned and managed by another farmer, rotationally grazing over our collective approximately 120 acres. Peter’s vision, in essence, realized, and his prescience vindicated.
The interior of the house reflects Peter’s vision, wedding practicality with aesthetic beauty, all the more. I’m afr
Writers tend to return to a few themes repeatedly . Maybe it’s because preoccupation with an idea is what drives someone to write, or maybe each person just has room for a few big concepts, the prism through which they see the world, in their soul. Just as sheep can only remember 15 human faces, maybe we are wired to only be able to think about a few issues in depth.
Or in my case, maybe there’s a third explanation, which is that I have to return to the same questions over and over again because I am unable ever to resolve them. I compulsively examine the pluses and minuses on every issue. I think I’ve resolved a question (like will I be a city mouse, a country mouse, or a straddler?) only to find some new event or thought or angle that throws everything into doubt. So I procrastinate about making the final decision, and therefore have to re-debate repeatedly as I inch toward resolution.
So here I am again contemplating the fate of my aged frail blind ewe, Ayse. Decisions about the end of her life have recurred every month or two, with each successive setback to her health. And each time I’ve concluded that she can no longer enjoy the essence of a sheep’s life in its fullness and that it’s probably time to bring things to a merciful end, I have also found a new reason not to carry through.
I fear this presages how I will adjust to my own future decrepitude. If anyone asks, I say I would find dependency humiliating and have no desire to live if I cannot lustily enjoy the pleasures I’ve always pursued. A few years ago, I told my friend George, one of my medical proxies, that if anyone offered me a seat on the subway it was time to withdraw all medical care from me. But then someone offered me a seat, and I moved the goalpost.
It’s been many months since Ayse, who last fall would wander frantically in circles bleating and desperate to graze with the herd from which she had become separated, has participated in the herd’s daily wanderings. These days, while everyone else is off in the far pasture Ayse can generally be found grazing alone within 50 feet of the barn. She seems contented, but I wonder if that’s not just wishful thinking on my part. Sheep are the quintessential herd animals, to the degree that it would be inhumane to keep just a single sheep as a pet. They live to be part of the herd.
It’s been a couple of months since Ayse got tangled in an old fence, where she was stranded for several hours and could not, when untangled, stand up. I had to put her in a wheelbarrow and wheel her to the barn, where she thankfully recovered function before I could have her put down.
It’s been several weeks since Ayse has been able to effectively navigate the twice daily grain treat stampede in the barn. Sheep eating habits can be rather rough. Although there is more than one grain bowl per sheep, spread out all over the barn, typically a sheep will take a bite or two out of one bowl and quickly move to the next, often bonking out whoever is at the next bowl, until the sheep change bowls several times in a kind of chain reaction. Recently Ayse’s been knocked over several times in the stampede to the feed, and I’ve noticed that even though she tries to start in the most remote bowls, the location of which she has a mental memory for, she gets bonked out of the way more quickly and violently than any of the others. They know they can push her around, and the only remedy is to give her a several minute head start at feeding time.
The last few days Ayse has seemed even more unsteady on her feet, falling as she tries to come to the barn and on a couple of occasions requiring that I carry her in. Yesterday, when I got to the barn in the morning, I found her lying on her side and unable to get up. I put her in a pen, and after a couple of hours of rest I was finally able to position her to sit “sternally”, that is up on her chest with her head up with two legs under he
This will be a brief bulletin, as befits the life of its subject , the young doe who died next to the driveway yesterday.
Death happens on the farm with some regularity, whether planned or not, and I am therefore somewhat inured to it. It is useful to be reminded, through the presence of others, that shrugging and going on is not the universal reaction.
To be sure, this doe’s death was unusual enough in its circumstances — one might call it a pedestrian accident — that I was likely to take special note. My friend Eric, who has been visiting for the last week, took a break from his remote work just before lunch Friday to commune with his dog, Lillie, and take a little stroll. He went along the driveway to see the spectacular display of Sir Thomas Lipton white roses that haven’t bloomed this profusely since we moved them from our Sag Harbor garden twenty one years ago (pictured above).
Just as Eric rounded the curve where the roses are showing themselves off, he saw in the middle of the oval lawn that is framed by the driveway a young doe, grazing. And she saw him. What had been a peaceful moment in a previously ungrazed virgin perennial border apparently turned to terror for her. She began to run in the direction from which she had entered. Upon realizing that she was running directly toward Eric, she did an about face and ran in the other direction, toward the field on the other side of the deer fence.
Unfortunately, the fence, at an 8 foot height designed to keep deer out, is also effective at keeping them in. She ran into the fence, and it deflected her. She made a second, more forceful attempt, bounced back, and collapsed on the ground.
Eric came in to get me, and together we tried to determine whether she was alive (our conclusion: barely breathing). We thought she was perhaps in shock, and that if we gave her space and time she might recover and walk out of the nearby driveway gate, which I opened for that purpose. We tried to give her some water, to which she did not respond. We brought Lillie inside the house, to ensure that her canine hunting instincts were not practiced on the doe. And we did a little research.
An on line list of large animal wildlife rehabilitators turned up nobody nearby. I called the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation region 4 wildlife phone line. The person answering the phone said she had heard many deer injury stories in the year plus she had been working that job, but this one was a new one. She connected me to the State Biologist for this region.
The biologist told me that while the circumstances of the accident were indeed unusual, deer deaths, like those of turkeys and, in her opinion, sheep, could be triggered by events that to humans seem quite minor. (I told her I knew what she meant about turkeys, who when we raised them seemed to come up with innumerable creative ways to die, but that my Karakul sheep were incredibly hardy and I would not put them in the same category.) In any event, she suggested that the doe could either have broken her neck hitting the fence or suffered from heart failure brought on by the stress of the situation. Either way, the prognosis did not seem good.
I asked her what to do with the carcass if the doe died. Should I bury it? She said I could, but strongly suggested that if I had woods nearby I should take the carcass out there, far from the house, and leave it as source of food for eagles and other wildlife desperately searching for food for their young this season. She clearly sees the role of wildlife as part of an ecosystem, rather than by their place in human sensibilities.
A couple of hours later it was clear that the doe had in fact died, and Eric and I lifted her into a wheelbarrow and trundled her out to the edge of the woods along the back pasture about half way between my house and the nearest neighbor. I think it is fair to say that E
It didn’t take long yesterday, after I closed the north door and locked the sheep in, for the barn to get a cozy, comfortable feeling. This is not, generally, the feeling you strive for in a barn on the eve of Memorial Day weekend. But with temperatures in the 40s and a cold, steady pelting rain it was most welcome, I think for the sheep as well as for me.
Lately I’ve added to my evening chore routine trimming the hooves of one or two sheep per day. It has to happen every few months, and I could see recently, as some of their hooves began to resemble those Ottoman slippers with the upturned toes (the design of which I am certain was inspired by overgrown sheep hooves) that the time had come.
Sometimes it can be exhausting to do just one ewe. I have to catch her, and move her against her will toward the chair contraption with a seat made of a net sling (pictured above) that I use to immobilize them. I’d estimate the typical adult ewe is 80 or 90 pounds live weight, strong and resistant. I have to turn her around and get her to back into the chair and tip her up so that she ends up in the net sling on her back with feet in the air. On a hot day, with sweat running down into my eyes and unable to let go of my chosen victim for a moment, that part is work enough.
Once in the chair, most sheep are sufficiently impatient with being in such an unaccustomed position that they writhe and try to escape. In doing so, they risk injury by getting their legs caught in the wrong way in the netting or behind the bars of the chair. Unhappy at the unusual sensation of a device working at their feet, they may kick at me or otherwise injure me or themselves by making the sharp trimming sheers slip.
To keep them still I need to keep the full weight of my body against them as I work, because if the pressure lets up for an instant they sense opportunity to escape. As I move in response to their writhings, we may end up with limbs intertwined in contorted postures, all akimbo. To keep them calm as I work I whisper soothing nothings to them: “Good girl.” “You’re doing great.” “Almost there.” When I succeed at asserting my authority, they let me know by nibbling at my ears or clothing. At the end, we’re both exhausted.
To the extent these images evoke sexual themes in your mind, calm those kinky thoughts! If you want a clear vision of how this process goes, go in a more comedic direction. The mechanical challenges of hoof trimming I’ve just described obviously preclude my taking any selfies during the procedure to illustrate my description. But if you want to visualize this process check out the classic 1932 W.C. Fields short movie, The Dentist, in which one of Field’s patients, played by Elise Cavanna, writhes in and out of the dental chair as he extracts a tooth. That episode dominates the third quarter of film, but I suggest you treat yourself to the entire masterpiece, available on You Tube. It’s only 22 minutes long.
Cocooned in the barn during the early evening yesterday, warmed by the heat given off by the gathered herd, working on the second ewe, I achieved a kind of nirvana. She stopped writhing. as she nibbled on my sleeve. Her hooves trimmed easily. It was satisfying to extract trapped clods of dirt from under her overgrown hooves and from the space between her two toes. I found myself wondering why I found such peace in a moment of intimate domination of a creature of another species. Why, I wondered, should this activity seem to me something worthwhile to do?
My shrink has discouraged this kind of questioning, which he sees as undermining my life choices. Why ask what makes it valid to want to do something, he asks? Why not just admit to myself this is something I enjoy doing and want to find a way to make part of my life going forward? Why does it have to mean anything at all?
Sorry doctor, I can’t help it. As I worked, it occurred to me that at least pa
For the last 15 months we’ve all learned much more science than most of us ever wanted to know – from microbiology (messenger RNA) to epidemiology (herd immunity) to aerodynamics (how far does your spit fly when you chat at a cocktail party?). I am grateful for the way scientists brought their knowledge to bear to meet the challenge of COVID-19. But I am also intimidated by them. How did people get so smart? How did they figure out what experiments to run, with what variables, involving what substances, to achieve what they did?
The May 10 New Yorker has an astonishing article, “Growing it Back,” about developmental biologist Michael Levin, who has been investigating how cells grow into living beings. Levin does not see us as products of a DNA blueprint akin to what a carpenter follows in building a house, but more as the end result of a process in which cells react to their environment and to each other in deciding what to become, as if by intent. By manipulating electrical fields, the environment in which the cells operate, Levin has induced them to redirect the process of growth. He has “coaxed frogs to regenerate severed legs, and tadpoles to grow new eyeballs on their stomach.” His work may lead to therapies for amputees to grow severed limbs back. It may also lead to cancer treatments in which the cells are restored to communication with other cells rather than reproducing uncontrollably.
Levin’s work is all the more impressive to me because it seems to rely principally on close observation and manipulation of small elements of the physical environment. The physical world has seemed alien territory to me. I remember when my former graduate school girlfriend (it was just a phase!) met my late partner, Peter a few months after I started dating him. Sabra warned: “I hope you’re not expecting Mark to help with anything practical. Don’t let him do anything involving a hammer.”
Now, late in life, I’ve become immersed in my physical environment and consumed with trying to manipulate it. On this farm there is no on-premises “super” (as we denizens of New York apartments call our building superintendents) to call when things go wrong. Economic necessity and practical reality dictate that when problems arise I at least have to try to understand what’s going on and address them myself.
Given the low competence level from which I start I am often dependent, the way all physical scientists are, on the knowledge developed by those who have come before me. Thank God for the internet. This winter, trying to battle an incursion of now thankfully banished rats in the chicken coop, I learned online how to fix an empty can on a stick and suspend it over a deep bucket, place a ramp to the top of the bucket, and bait the top of the can with peanut butter. When the rat jumped over to the can, the can would spin, the rat would drop into the water at the bottom of the bucket, and drown. I remember my elation the first morning when I found half a dozen drowned rats, and my disappointment days later when I realized mine was not the only intelligence at work. The rats learned to steer clear.
I don’t rely entirely on the internet. Sometimes I run unwitting experiments. Take my tomato starts. This year I decided to see what would happen if I did not buy new seeds , but used the large supply I had left over from prior years. I planted all my usual varieties. The black krims, rose de berne, Amish paste, and sungold went into three trays in which the planting compartments were about two inches deep. Because I didn’t have a similar fourth one handy, the Brandywines went into a tray with smaller compartments about half that depth. I put them all on the same grow light shelf.
All except the Brandywines sprouted within about a week. I decided the Brandywine seeds were probably too old. I discarded that hypothesis when they eventually sprouted. But still, the Brandywines seemed stunted. The ot
It’s the little things that get you. The pebble in your shoe. The thorn under your fingernail. The sentence in that document you missed on first reading that changes the meaning of everything.
On those nights when I awake and sleeplessly review in my mind the long list of things I should have but have not done, it’s often the smallest, least consequential ones that loom largest. I know they are inconsequential because in the morning, when I think back, my reaction is usually “why bother?” But when the spirits of the night take charge, those little unfulfilled responsibilities represent just how overwhelming things seem. If I can’t even get those little things done, is not the boat of my life in danger of sinking?
It seems fitting, then, that as I have increasingly been concerned about incursions of wildlife on the farm, it is the smallest of creatures that have preoccupied me the most: the now pervasive, uninvited tick.
Farms are fundamentally about humans cultivating and promoting some forms of life (livestock, crops, beneficial insects) and trying to exclude others (wildlife, invasive weeds, harmful insects). We try to erect barriers between the good and the bad with fences, nets, ground cloths and sometimes with other forms of life (guard dogs, plants that repel insects). The Canada geese who were nesting on the island in my pond, who persistently chased off a fox hunting for food for her young, were a repeller species. Since the geese successfully hatched six goslings (see photo) and moved on, I have seen the fox kits playing on the wood chip pile just outside my back fence, while the vixen herself has been wandering inside that fence line. I fear for my chickens.
To be sure, I also fear potential incursions of other large animals. A few weeks ago, Eric, while walking Lillie in the cemetery, encountered what he believes was a wolf. Later that same day, driving about 15 miles east of here, a young black bear crossed the road in front of us. If such wildlife are increasingly prevalent in the region and decreasingly afraid of interactions with humans, surely it will not be long before such invaders seeking food on the farm.
But the ticks are here already. For my first 19 years here I had little interaction with them. While my late partner, Peter, endured several tick bites and at least two bouts with Lyme disease, I never to my knowledge suffered a bite. The last two years has been a different story entirely. I repeatedly find ticks on my body, often well entrenched in the process of biting me and sucking my blood, painful to pull off. How could I have gone so long without a bite and then suddenly seem to get one every few weeks?
My friend Steve is convinced that a regional tick population explosion explains my newly bite prone existence. I have tended instead to attribute it to age-related changes in my body chemistry that must be attracting the ticks more strongly now. I have no evidence for this theory (says Steve: “Is there anything you’re not desperate to blame yourself for?”) but maybe it’s part of the spirit of our time that I still find it a plausible explanation.
We’ve discussed this a lot of late because Steve is convinced that tick borne disease is about to explode as our next public health crisis. Steve was bitten on one of his recent visits here, which led him to start the usual recommended short course of prophylactic doxycycline. He also sent his tick into a non-profit organization called TickReport (https://www.tickreport.com/), the motto of which is “A Piece of Data is Peace of Mind.” For $100 they sent him back overnight a beautiful picture of his tick (see above), and a combined DNA/RNA report for various pathogens. For $50, you can get a DNA report alone. Steve’s tick, like about half of all ticks captured in New York State, was positive for Lyme
The prematurely warm, dry spring we’ve enjoyed, worrisome to farmers and gardeners as much of New York state has teetered on the edge of draught, has had one spectacular positive effect. The slow succession of bloom we see in most years seems to have yielded to a simultaneous floral explosion. I don’t recall many years when the peak bloom of daffodils, magnolias, tulips, forsythia, Scylla, vinca, pears, cherries, peaches, nectarine, apricot and wild plum have all overlapped so much, in fact seem to have coincided. The word that comes to mind for me is “acceleration.”
Acceleration seems a particularly apt theme for right now. It’s not just that spring is generally a season of accelerated growth (my unmowed lawn reminds me daily). This year, there is the sense of acceleration abroad in the land. Spring has coincided with widespread vaccination, a miracle of modern science that has allowed us to begin emerging from our pandemic cocoons. And with that re-emergence comes the acceleration of economic activity as large segments of our economy, including travel, restaurants and movie theatres, resume something akin to normal operations. With a new president committed to a major investment in public infrastructure I allow myself to harbor high hopes for a booming, roaring twenties.
My optimism is tempered, however, by realities like large numbers of people resistant to being vaccinated. The same folks who thought it was perfectly fine to endure hundreds of thousands of deaths and long-term disabilities, including their own, to achieve herd immunity are unwilling to risk some unlikely long term side effect decades from now to achieve that same end. They therefore guarantee that the novel coronavirus will remain with us, potentially in a more lethal, vaccine-evading form, to drag down our collective well-being. I try to be understanding about this resistance, but ultimately find such mass nihilism and selfishness infuriating.
My general anticipation of good times ahead is also modulated by a certain annoyance that the plunge back into life is so abruptly upon us. Decisions which could be frozen in amber while regular life was in suspended animation now must be made. I have been putting off deciding the form of my post-pandemic life. I don’t think I can put if off any longer.
An analysis in the New York Times this weekend spoke of the contraction of friend and family relations that took place during the pandemic. (“The Pandemic Shrank Our Social Circles. Let’s Keep It That Way”. It pointed not just to the loss of some relationships, but to the renewal and deepening of others, and suggested the potential benefits of maintaining a narrower social circle, but a more meaningful one, post-pandemic. It resonated with me, and not just with respect to my social life.
Like many people fortunate enough to have two homes, city and country, for the last year I narrowed my life to the country. I was certainly not alone in making this choice. According to another article in the Times this week (“How the Pandemic Did, and Didn’t, Change Where Americans Move”), there was only one respect in which the pandemic changed American migration patterns. That was that certain extremely expensive urban areas, most notably New York and San Francisco, showed dramatic out-migration from their most affluent neighborhoods. And areas at the periphery of their metropolitan areas, incompatible with daily commuting but close enough to allow a weekly foray to the City, gained dramatically. Based on analysis of postal address changes, the area in the entire nation with the most dramatic shift in migration (from small incremental losses to a nearly 10% gain) was the Hudson, New York “metropolitan area.” It was followed in second place by the Kingston, New York region. Also high on the list was the Torrington, Connecticut region. All places where second homes form a large part of the housing stock, and where those homes s
We all have habitual thought patterns that we use to make sense of the chaos of the life around us. One of mine, which started as soon as I started cohabiting with farm animals, is a tendency to perceive universal truths about human life embedded in everyday interactions among the creatures of the farm. The skeptic might suggest that I’m simply searching for vehicles to validate my own prejudices and assumptions, rather than finding universal truths based on objectively measured evidence. Maybe. But for me, wherever I look there are “life lessons learned.”
Late Thursday afternoon, after having delivered the evening meal to pigs Possum and Vernon, I was headed back to the house when I saw a raucous chase across the small field south of the pond. One of the pair of Canada geese who annually nest on the island in the middle of the pond chased a large bushy tailed fox across the field and through the fence to the yard of my next door neighbors, Emily and Paul. I called over to Emily, who had been working in the garden on the other side of the fence, to ask if she saw it, and she said she had been enjoying watching that gorgeous fox for some time now.
Beautiful as we agree the fox is, I suspect Emily and I see it quite differently. She, an artist, is focused most on the beauty of the creature itself, and is happy to have it hang around. I, in my farmer mode, am focused on this being the season when foxes are hunting for prey to bring home to feed their newly born young, and I am most anxious that none of my chickens become fox food. I hope Emily’s numerous sightings mean the goose has effectively kept the fox on her side of the fence.
I’ve seen this little goose-fox chase drama play out four times this week. The first time, it stunned me that a bird would take on an animal which seems roughly the same overall size and weight but has teeth and claws that could kill it. But then I remembered the aggressive Chinese geese we once raised, which could easily, with the typical bluster of a bully, chase and intimidate us with noise and the flapping of their powerful wings and the nips they gave when “goosing” us. One such attack led to an emergency room trip for Peter, who slipped in the mud.
It’s been years since either of the Canada geese has charged me, as I think they now know I pose no threat. But they are generally single-minded in protecting their nest and, once the goslings are hatched, their young. At this stage, one of them is perpetually on the nest on the island, while the other seems perpetually on patrol on shore, ready to ward off any predators. They are not being overprotective. Foxes can and do swim to get food.
The life lesson I’ve taken from observing the geese is just how deeply ingrained is the protective instinct in parenting, and how essential is the relentless vigilance of the parents. I don’t think I’d have the commitment to be such an uncompromising bulwark . Maybe something hormonal is triggered when you actually have (or are expecting) offspring which gives you that capacity, but I am relieved that I have not had to test my abilities.
If not a parent, how about unclehood? I look to Orhan, our wether (castrated ram), who serves the non-parental adult role in the herd. The lambs run to their mothers for security when they feel threatened or milk when they are hungry; they run to Orhan to play. I was taken with the vision last week of almost the entire lamb kindergarten scrambling on top of him as he sat sphinx-like in the pasture.
Adorable, but here too I found a life lesson: If the essence of parenthood is relentless protective vigilance, the essence of unclehood appears to be indulgence. Orhan must sit stoically as the nieces and nephews walk all over him. I may have found that fun once, but no thanks. I am relieved that both I and the relevant young ones are past that stage.
Where do I find the life lessons relevant for me in
I am pleased to announce that Turkana Farms has officially entered a new phase. Today we become the Turkana Farms Livestock Education and Protection Fund (TFLEPF). Now that the legalities have been finalized, I can explain how we evolved to our new structure and mission.
As I mentioned last week, our back pastures have since January become home to a herd of beautiful Red Devon cattle. They belong to Hover Farms, a nearby sixth generation family farm. Why would I invite another farm’s animals to graze here? Taxes. New York State assigns an Agricultural Assessment value to farmlands, which varies by soil type and is adjusted very year. If your land qualifies, it is taxed according to that value rather than its full market value. A so-called “ag assessment” makes farming more economically viable by saving a bundle on farm property tax bills.
To qualify, you have to generate at least $10,000 a year in revenue from agricultural products. But if your property doesn’t generate the full $10,000 on its own, it can qualify for the assessment if it is leased to another farmer whose home farm does generate enough. As I contemplated cutting back the scale of my operation to something I could manage myself, I was concerned that I might not continue to meet the revenue threshold, so I leased my unused pastures to Hover Farms.
But then, once the cattle arrived I thought, “Why stop there? Why should I pay any property taxes?” Thus was born TFLEPF, a nonprofit organization that, like churches and universities, would be totally exempt from property tax. This farm has never made a profit, I reminded myself. Why not recognize that fact and take full advantage of it?
Now a foundation needs a clear mission and charitable purpose, so I had to come up with one. Here, my year of solo pandemic farming came in handy, giving me a great deal to think about and many an hour to chat with the animals concerning my thoughts. For example, “Hello Sophie,” I would say. “Why do you squat and urinate whenever I enter the barn?” She has never directly responded to that question, but eventually I came to understand what Sophie was trying to tell me: that she was not in the least embarrassed by her public urination habit.
From this and many similar interactions, it suddenly struck me that what farm critters really need is higher behavioral standards, to more comfortably fit in an environment created by humans. Oddly, this is not a concern addressed by existing non-profits that work with animals, such as animal sanctuaries. Yet I don’t think that farm livestock will ever be fully respected if they do not develop a proper code of manners. It became clear to me that the mission of my non-profit should be to develop ways to promote in livestock a sense of decorum and dignity.
My first steps to carry out this mission were tentative. The rooster, I thought, should be more respectful of the hens. He should not just “jump them and hump them”. Instead, I wanted him to take a more seductive approach. Through judicious use of grain treats, I have tried to teach him to display his tail feathers like a tom turkey does, so that it becomes the hen’s choice and desire to copulate. We’re not there yet, but we’re working on it.
With the pigs, I focused first on culinary etiquette. You all know that expression, “eat like a pig” — to devour food voraciously rather than appreciate it with delicacy. To combat that, I stopped mixing up all sorts of food scraps in the pigs’ trough, and started serving their food in courses. First, the left-over salad greens, followed by a main course of grain, followed by a dessert of melon rinds, apple cores and the seedy glop from the center of the pumpkin. I encouraged Possum and Vernon to slow down and savor their food. They have slowed down, but I’m not sure if it is better manners or just because I am doling the food out more slowly.
As to the sheep, it seemed to me t
This weekend many people will, at various truncated Zoom seders and gatherings diminished to COVID safe numbers, tell the story of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. The emphasis of the Passover story as we tell it at the seder table is of the liberation of the Jews from slavery and their finding a land where they could determine their own future. The theme I always liked best is the idea that in each generation a new freedom is won, a new form of liberation is recognized.
While the story in the Haggadah, the book we read from at the seder, emphasizes the political/social dimensions, and the deal the Jews made with God for their deliverance, it is hard for me still in the thick of lambing season not to think of just how much of the Passover narrative involves sheep. It’s not just the Paschal lamb, which God decreed should come from killing a lamb without blemish, smearing its blood on the doorposts, and then cooking it for a feast in a very specific way: “Eat not of it raw, not sodden at all with water, but roasted with fire.” No, as befits what was a pastoral society, in many ways sheep drive the entire dynamic of the story.
Joseph led his clan to Egypt in the first place (at Pharaoh’s invitation) because there was not enough pasture for their flocks in their home territory. Once in Egypt, the Israelites’ flocks were fruitful and multiplied. Fear of the Israelites’ economic success (and presumably concern at how their flocks sucked up scarce resources) led the Egyptians to quash the economic threat by subjugating this pastoral people into slave labor, building cities.
When Moses, who had discovered his identity and begun to try to protect his people, had to flee Egypt, he met the seven daughters of the priest of Midian by chasing away the shepherds who were preventing them from watering their sheep. The grateful priest gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses as a mate. Moses became part of the household and the shepherd of the priest’s flock. Had he not been a shepherd, he would not have encountered the burning bush while wandering far afield pasturing those sheep.
When after the 10 plagues Pharaoh ultimately relented and let my people go, they left Egypt with a mixed multitude, including their “flocks and herds”. You can see Moses by then as the metaphorical shepherd of an unruly flock of Israelites as they wandered in the desert searching for forage (mannah was supplied) until they reached the land of milk and honey, a poetic way of saying a fertile place with pasture. Sheep, both actual and metaphorical, are simply everywhere in the Biblical narrative.
I can relate. With 24 births in the last month, the phrase “be fruitful and multiply” haunts my mind. There have been some still births and lambs that didn’t make it, but far outweighing those sad moments have been the moments of life affirmed. Thirteen year old Nilufer, the oldest sheep on the premises , had a huge healthy ram lamb. Scrawny Number 45 had lovely twins, whom Eric named Binette and Finette. Ewe number 300, known around here as Skunk Face, had still-born twins last week, but her hormonally driven desire for motherhood is still so strongly coursing through her that when another ewe lambed Thursday she showed up to help the mother lick the lamb clean. Best of all so far has been Sophie, who is only with us because Troy and Victoria and their visiting friends so assiduously nursed her back from the brink of death when she was born in the cold of early March, 2019. Sophie is affectionate to the humans she recognizes because she was bottle fed. She had a lamb last week, Chloe, with most unusual and adorable coloring (above), who I hope will be equally affectionate.
As it apparently was for the ancient Israelites, sheep multiplication is not an unmitigated blessing. In my case, the issue is not competition for resources with the Egyptians, but my desire, as an old geezer, to conserve my own resources, a
It has been a tough couple of weeks. Four days of post-vaccination malaise, followed by a routine maintenance visit for my car that became a $1600 bill, in turn followed by juggling writing of a trial brief in my law practice with the annual farm “Lambalanche”. That’s the term I coined to describe the avalanche of births that generally starts 152 days after I end the summertime separation of the rams and the ewes.
The legal brief which occupied almost all my waking hours involved the mind-numbing task of showing that an insurance company had illegitimately switched billing codes to reduce payment for a medical service. It required endless parsing of the history of arcane Medicare regulations, in a fight over a relatively modest amount of money. Knowing that even victory would be unlikely to be worth the time, the whole project depressed me. But there was an upside. The more I focused on it, the more it pushed aside a disturbing image from the Lambalanche.
Last Sunday I arrived at the barn to find a two year old ewe with a lovely set of twin lambs, all cleaned off and up and nursing, just as I would have wanted to find them. But I also heard unusually ungodly moans from another ewe of the same age, in another corner of the barn, of a sort I had never heard before. She was lying on her side, one leg wide up in the air, clearly straining to push out a lamb. I had seen a number of lamb births before. A couple of them where I came in at literally the “tail end” seemed like effortless 15 minute affairs in which a ewe pushed from a standing position and made not a single noise as the lamb wriggled out. Labor does often involve periods of lying down and pushing, but in the ones I’ve seen they have been generally in a slightly angled “sternal” position, with front haunches upright. This ewe, in contrast, was almost on her back, and didn’t seem to alternate positions at all. Her cries seemed incredibly pained.
Karakuls are known to be self reliant and in the nearly 20 years we’ve had them only three or four times have they needed birth assistance. It felt like this one was going badly, however. I called and texted my usual local vet, Elaine Tucker, and a large animal vet from farther afield, Isaac Angell, but neither was immediately available. A bit more than a half hour later, the ewe had made virtually no progress, the birth sac had only slightly emerged, and her cries continued. I was reluctant to reach inside, but once I could see the lamb’s feet coming out, the normal position for birth, I figured I would not risk too much if I assisted by pulling the lamb out by its feet. I did so. It was a very large lamb (perhaps the reason the birth was so hard). The ewe proceeded to clean her off and I thought “problem resolved”.
The ewe was also carrying a twin, and the second birth was far quicker and easier, all accomplished by the ewe herself. The next lamb, considerably smaller, was wriggling vigorously in the birth sac and I liked the sign of vitality. The mom, however, was not doing such a thorough job of licking the birth fluids off the second one. I put the mom and twins in a pen, thinking maybe they just needed time alone without my presence upsetting things, and decided to check back in an hour or two. Often that’s enough to get the regular ewe-lamb bonding process solidly under way.
When I returned, the first lamb seemed to be nursing and doing fine, but the second was barely cleaned off at all. I got some iodine in which to dip the umbilical cords of all the day’s new lambs, and a towel to clean off the second lamb, turning it over as I do all of them to check on the sex. And then I saw it — not the testicles or nipples I was looking for, but the Spaldeen-sized mass of its bright red intestinal tract which had grown outside of its body rather than within. An image which still returns to me at various points throughout the day.
By then I had heard back from Elaine,
With my legs still sore from the slopes and my arm throbbing after my second COVID vaccination shot, my friend Steve looked me in the eye and demanded we commit a murder: “We have to kill Vernon!” I had just returned home from a ski trip to the Adirondacks with Eric, succeeded by a trek south to the City for my jab. I left the farm in Steve’s inexperienced-but-enthusiastic City-boy hands. I was tired, chilled, headachy, and really needed a hot cup of coffee. “Why not take pity and just kill us both?” I asked.
Death would really be an act of mercy for my aged Ossabaw Island boar, he argued. “I love Vernon,” Steve insisted, “But I worry that his arthritis makes it hard for him to even stand! What life is that?! The other morning, he slipped and fell on the ice. I was freaking out!” New to this, he doesn’t appreciate that the warmer weather makes a temporary stay of execution a smart move–for now. Vernon emerges whenever the sun shines, ready to enjoy his feed and to bask, joy in his steps and snorts. I expect he will thrive this spring and summer, and is maybe even anticipating it, just like the rest of us. Steve, however, still argued that forcing Vernon to endure another winter would be cruel. “He’s all patchy on one side and trembly and bony,” he said. “He looks like Iggy Pop after 40 years of heroin!”
It’s not as simple as he thinks. For one thing, Steve knows nothing of this pig’s august history. Vernon was born on the Mt. Vernon Estate in 2006, bred as part of a project of Mt. Vernon Ladies Association to perpetuate the breeds raised by George Washington himself. But really, it’s the fond memories I associate with Vernon that matter.
I recall driving to collect a puppy-sized Vernon in my battered little white pick-up truck with the jerry-rigged cage on the bed in 2007. I embarrassed my friends Craig and Rosemary (a judge and a government official) by parking this wreck in front of their well-manicured Washington, DC home en route to picking him up. On my way back, passers-by at rest stops were thrilled by this charming piglet’s antics in the truck bed. Always affectionate, he’d push his head against the fencing for scratches at feeding time. There was one entire weekend I spent with him in that pen, plucking festering maggots out of the deep wounds Vernon suffered after a vicious fight with another boar. We seriously bonded.
This isn’t the first time Vernon’s life has come up for consideration. At least five or six years ago, it was I who put it in question. Raising pigs was just proving too unmanageable for us, and I insisted to my late partner, Peter, that we get out of the pig business. Initially, he resisted. I threw down with “either the pigs go or I do!” He responded, “Let me think about it.” But then, when I prevailed and we sold off or slaughtered 28 of our 30 hogs, leaving just Vernon and our sow, Possum, I just couldn’t let Vernon go. That meant we had to keep Possum, of course, so Vernon would have company. (If she realizes she owes him her life, she has never expressed any gratitude.)
After Peter’s death my nephew, Troy, was trying to help me transition out of farming and made contact with a fellow who could come to the farm to shoot both Vernon and Possum. Again, I couldn’t bear to follow through.
Steve didn’t know the depth of the resistance he’d meet. It’s not just the length of my relationship with Vernon–four times as long as my friendship with Steve. Also, always be mindful when you tell one old codger that it’s time to euthanize another. After all, here I am, soon to be 70, freshly returned from a ski trip, my first time on the slopes in over 40 years, blood and endorphins still pumping–and wanting more.
I was once a proficient skier who skied in six different countries, but I was concerned about this trip: Could I simply resume where I had left off? To my surprise, however, I kept most of the muscle memory, if not all of the mus
Last Spring folks reacted very strongly to my description of the delivery of newly hatched chicks by the U.S. Postal Service. Many were surprised to hear that not only chicks but even considerably larger animals like horses were sent in the mail in the early days of parcel post. Most astonishing, of course, was the mailing of children to visit their grandparents, as some parents in those early days realized that parcel post rates were considerably cheaper than train fare. (“A Brief History of Children Sent Through the Mail,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 14, 2016). Who better than the employees of the U.S. Postal Service to entrust with timely delivery of this most precious cargo?
I thought back on that bulletin as I read this week in the Washington Post that U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy is proposing to restore financial health to the Postal Service by slowing down the delivery of local first class mail (from two days to three to five days) and raising prices. The previous week, on my last trip to the City a neighbor told me she had found a piece of mail, a government check addressed to my late partner, Peter, placed in the wrong mail box. Peter died in September, 2018, so it is not inconceivable that a refund for some recent tax year might still be in a pipeline somewhere. But it turned out the check was a Social Security monthly benefit with a scheduled delivery date of May 13, 2009. How much more slowly, I wondered, could Mr. DeJoy make delivery happen?
Just as I have had repeatedly in the last year had to ask clients to stop payments on checks they had mailed but which disappeared in the mail, and to replace them with credit card payments, it turned out that Peter had arranged for a replacement payment 12 years ago. My excitement at the thought that this one little paper parcel was preserved and ultimately delivered, even if a tad late, faded. The feeling was replaced by a sense of remorse that yet another venerable public institution, a once vital part of the infrastructure of national commerce, has been allowed to so deteriorate.
For this deterioration in service, I do not blame the devoted mail deliverers and sorters. Many of them are the same individuals who, in the months after 9/11, made sure the residents of my building in the City, displaced by the damage to our apartments from the collapse of the World Trade Center, got our mail. The old adage about delivery despite rain, snow or gloom of night rang true then.
And I recognize that in this last pandemic year, mail delivery, a task that inevitably involves face to face interaction with others, became a high risk job. Again, my last trip to the City illuminated that risk all too well for me. The purpose of my trip was to get my first COVID-19 vaccination. But since I would be stopping home that day, I arranged to resume egg delivery (which was weekly in pre-pandemic times) to my City neighbors.
Nearly a week after this excursion, I got a text from one neighbor advising me that she may have exposed me to COVID. Her husband had been taken to the hospital, and she had tested positive as well. That a trip to get vaccinated might result in COVID exposure was no small irony. I immediately arranged to get tested, as did my friend Eric, who was visiting me, and we were relieved to both test negative. Being masked, keeping distance, and keeping my visit to her apartment brief apparently paid off. But the episode drove home to me the dangers those engaged in home delivery inevitably face.
No, the problem with the postal service is not the dedication of its employees, though many may be demoralized now. The deterioration has more to do with other factors. As much business and personal correspondence has moved to email, powerful constituencies that demand reliable paper mail have diminished. At the same time, private competitors like FedEx have been permitted to cherry pick the lucrative urgent delivery business. On
The news is understandably still full of stories about the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Investigators want to know how much was planned ahead and orchestrated by leaders, and how much resulted from spontaneous combustion of the crowd. Historians have similarly parsed other episodes of communal violence, whether localized, like the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 and the Wilmington, North Carolina, massacre of 1898, or on a massive scale, like the genocidal ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, Bosnia and of course the Holocaust. The conclusions are always complex. There are always organizers, provocateurs and goaders, and there are those who never would have planned to do what they did, maybe even regretted their actions, but were carried away by being part of a group in the moment.
Recognizing the complexity of human motivation, and how fluid the boundaries are between our individual senses of purpose and our desires to be part of our group, our legal system will expend significant resources trying to figure out who was a leader and who was a follower or unwitting collaborator on January 6. The examination is critical in determining who to charge with a crime, and what crime is charged. It’s how we assess blame and signal how members of our society must behave.
Shouldn’t we assume that our animal cousins share a complex range of motivations as well? I keep coming across animal studies in the popular press, like the article in this week’s New York Times entitled “Goats Don’t Vote” which suggest otherwise: that each species has one predominant model of decision making. This week’s article was based on a study in Wales of a herd of goats on which GPS tracking devices had been placed. It suggested that the primary way goats make “herd” decisions, such as where to move, is to simply copy what other goats do. The scientists reached this conclusion because the tracking devices showed that the goats did not orient themselves to face in the same direction before moving, which they would have done if a “discussion” of some sort had preceded the decision. To me, this seems scant evidence on which to based such a conclusion, but when you observe such a thin slice of behavior, I guess you don’t have much else to go on.
The article linked to previous articles, such as “Sneezing Dogs, Dancing Bees: How Animals Vote.” which described species, including meerkats and honey bees, where sounds or dances preceded a group move. The meerkats would mew when they thought it time to go. When enough of their compatriots mewed back, the group would move. Essentially, the group reached consensus.
I suspect that the reality of group decision making for any species is far more complex than the terms “vote” or “copy” convey. Even with sheep, who are so herd-oriented that we describe people who just go along with group-think as behaving like sheep, I observe all sorts of aberration from the sheepish norm, every day at feeding time.
It is impossible, with a group of animals that crave grain the way I crave chocolate, to distribute handfuls of feed into individual feed bowls while they are with me. I need to clear the sheep from at least a portion of the barn in order to place the feed without pandemonium ensuing. I’ve tried to teach them to cooperate in that process with some predictable signals.
First, I turn on the overhead lights in the barn, which on these gray low light days creates an immediate change in their environment. Then, as I enter the barn, I start clapping my gloved hands. Usually, but not always, they understand this signal and start moving for the exits. On nice days, they go out either the open east or south barn doors. On days of inclement weather when they prefer not to go out, they at least move to the barn’s south vestibule, where I can close them out of the rest of the barn.
Usually the lights and clapping suffice to produce movement, but sometimes the group will look
The sun rose January 23, at 7:16 a.m., and set at 4:58 p.m., giving us 9 hours and 43 minutes of daylight. It’s not a dramatically different amount from the day before, or from last week, but this week I felt it had a discernibly different quality. Even on a day when the temperature will not get out of the 20s, the sun is high enough in the sky that when a sunbeam hits your face there’s a warmth to it.
I know I’m not the only one who experiences the sun this way. On most of the very gray mornings we’ve had recently, when I’ve arrived at the barn the sheep have been largely inside, eating hay at their manger. But on this bright sunny morning when I arrived the vast majority of the flock were outside the east door of the barn. Sheltered from the west wind by the barn wall, they were mostly placidly ruminating on the ground, faces craned to the sun, taking it in. Lillie, Eric’s dog, arrives back next week. After morning chores, if the weather cooperates, she will station herself on the driveway, where the gravel stones radiate back heat, and will spend much of the day basking. Humans are not the only sun worshipers.
Two months ago I wrote a bulletin about entering the darkest time of year, the month before and after winter solstice. I proposed that we could benefit spiritually if we viewed the darkness as a protective cocoon rather than a threat. Of course, I had no idea just how dark in every sense that period would turn out to be. The psychological challenge of low daylight paled in comparison to the stress of an intensifying pandemic and my fury at an insurrectionist fringe, egged on by a desperate wannabe despot, trying to destroy our democracy. We’ve undoubtedly all been shaken by having seen exposed in the full light of day what had been allowed to grow in dark corners. .
All those challenges have ebbed a bit this week. Watching Joe Biden and Kamala Harris being sworn in, I cried periodically, as much in relief as in joy. As I cried, I found myself wondering whether our founding fathers, whose largely agrarian orientation made them highly conscious of the cycles of light, had set January 20 as Inauguration Day precisely because it marked our emergence from the darkest segment of the year. On November 21, when I wrote about entering the period of darkness, we had 9 hours and 35 minutes of sunlight here in Germantown. The sunlight diminished from then until the winter solstice, and it did not exceed the November 21 sunlight total again until Inauguration Day, when we had 9 hours and 36 minutes.
My speculation was wrong. In fact, the founding fathers did not set January 20 as Inauguration Day at all. The Constitution originally made March 4 the beginning of the President’s term. It was not moved back to January 20 until adoption of the Twentieth Amendment in 1937. Our country was then no longer a mostly agrarian one, and the authors of the amendment were apparently motivated not by the symbolic power of returning sunlight but rather by a desire to shorten the lame duck period as much as possible, while allowing enough time for all the steps required for the appointment of electors, voting of the electoral college and other formalities required before swearing in.
My dashed fantasy about the significance of January 20 has not, however, diminished my sense that the change in sunlight signals easier times ahead. The reasonably balmy winter weather we’ve been having recently has made life on the farm much easier than it often is in January. The sheep have been choosing to spend their days on the pasture just north of the barn, munching on the remaining grass there. As a result, they haven’t been eating as much hay, for which I’m grateful; good quality hay has been in short supply after last summer’s near drought. On the back pasture, the cows that I expected would start grazing there in May have arrived already. My solution to the farm transition, to phase out the most deman
I’m not sure if it’s accurate to describe the beginning of 2021 as an unsettling time. We’ve had nearly a year to adjust to the myriad ways in which COVID-19 has upended the way we live and interact with one another. We’ve had four years to understand the combination of authoritarianism, mendacity and ineptitude that defined the Trump Administration.
That means we can’t say our settled expectations have been shaken up by the dismal events of recent weeks. I surely knew it was a lie when President Trump said last May regarding the release of the COVID vaccine: “Our military is now being mobilized so at the end of the year, we’re going to be able to give it to a lot of people very, very rapidly.” I also surely should have seen the events of January 6 coming. My sister warned in 2016 of the similarities between Trump’s movement and the road to Nazi control in Germany, and she’s been right every step of the way. Watching the Capitol last week, my friend Doug messaged me “Reichstag 1933″.
Yet even if I should not have been surprised by current events I still find my mental state to be deeply unsettled. Perhaps the greatest indication of that is my recent drive to get things settled.
I always assumed that if I have a downfall, it will be the result of one of my least admirable traits, procrastination. Faced with difficult choices or unpleasant tasks, I am generally a master of drift. As I see it, ignore a problem long enough and it just may go away.
But lately, I’ve been on something of a tear to address outstanding issues and to resolve persistent problems. Perhaps it is COVID. I fear that if I succumb to the illness I will leave an awful mess to be dealt with. But whatever the reason, I am working my way through issues I have avoided, and finding a certain satisfaction in getting things in order.
One such current issue, that I’ve left drift for many months now, is the fate of my two rams. One, a naturally polled (hornless) white ram is Rumi, named after the 13th century Sufi poet. I have him because Troy and Victoria (my nephew and his wife), when they had plans to live here and build the herd, wanted to breed in a direction that produced more white wool than most of our production had been up until then. Having visited Rumi’s tomb in Konya, Turkey, several times, I felt Troy and Victoria’s choice of name for this ram was fitting. Rumi the poet wrote beautifully on the nature of love. Rumi the ram is an avid lover of his ewes, but he has a gentle disposition. In my imagination, he has a certain Rumi-like sensuality.
The other ram, larger and black with curved horns, is not here by plan at all. I had been contacted by a farm in Massachusetts which was looking for a ram with a classic Karakul look: one born with entirely black wool that will, except for face and legs, turn with age to one or several shades of gray or brownish gray. I reserved one such ram lamb for them. They rejected him, however, when it turned out he had a small cap of white on his forehead that to them destroyed the pure Karakul look.
When the next batch of lambs came around, I chose the one I thought was the best candidate for this other farm: a large totally black ramling with large testicles (a sign he’ll be a good breeder), a classic Karakul Roman nose, and excellent posture. Troy named him Nâzim, after Nâzim Hikmet, a twentieth century Turkish poet, novelist and playwright. For symmetry, I guess.
Unfortunately, by the time Nâzim was ready to sell, the other farm had already purchased a ram. Troy lined up another sale, which ultimately fell through as well. I was stuck with two rams, something we’d always avoided having before to avoid fights for dominance.
The difference between Nâzim and Rumi is more than the difference between black and white. Nâzim has grown considerably larger, and his disposition is far more aggressive. He will dominate two or three food bowl
“You farm like a gay boy from the City.” These words once would have appeared in a nightmare in which I was exposed as an imitation farmer, a Marie Antoinette in a shepherd costume. But shockingly, it was me uttering them, this week, to my visiting friend, Steve. To his credit, Steve reacted not with shame but rather playfully screeched out a full-throated “HA” . As if to say, “How else would I farm?”
My comment was provoked when Steve, practicing at doing chores under my supervision so he might cover for me if I go away for a few days, trundled a wheelbarrow full of hay and poop from the barn floor out to the garden. Upon arrival, he very carefully inserted his pitchfork into the top of the pile of muck, and gently sprinkled a small quantity onto the leek trench. It was the precision, the delicacy, the gentleness of that act that made me blurt out my “gay boy” comment. A real farmer, I thought, would drive the pitchfork forcefully deep, and chuck a huge forkful of muck on the trench without regard for neatness.
Not that such delicacy is unique to Steve. Whenever Eric feeds the sheep in the afternoon, he meticulously goes around emptying each feed bowl before placing the grain treat in it. To be sure, it’s necessary to remove any bupkes (Yiddish for those little black pellets of sheep poop, or more colloquially, things that don’t amount to much), or the sheep won’t touch the food. But Eric doesn’t stop there. He also empties any little trace of hay sitting in the bowls as well.
When I first asked why he was taking such care when the sheep would happily eat the hay remnants, Eric harked back to his family’s very fine restaurant in Quebec’s old city, staffed by chefs imported from France. “Would you serve guests the main course on a plate full of crumbs from the appetizer?” When I reminded him that they are just sheep, he reminded me in turn that “They are beings too.” There’s something dually “gay” to my mind about a concern for universally elegant dining and a concern for the welfare of those who are often left out.
When Peter and I first bought the farm, I was extremely sensitive about not belonging in this milieu. Our very first weekend, a hostile neighbor across the street set up a chair in front of his barn and talked to friends, loud enough for us to hear, hooting “Farmers. Can you imagine?” to loud guffaws. He intended insult, but he had a point. I could barely imagine myself farming, coming as I do from two heritages, Jewish and gay, with overwhelmingly urban orientations. Jews in Europe were for generations forbidden to own land and developed no farming culture. Gays, even if they had farming origins, migrated to cities to escape rural fear of difference and to find the freedom that came with numbers and anonymity.
An urban life carries many potential consequences: ignorance about how food is produced, a certain squeamishness about natural processes that are not confronted on a daily basis, and an elevation of aesthetic concerns. Until I met Peter in my late 20s and started gardening, I could not distinguish a beet green from a bean plant. I never touched a farm animal until we bought the farm and at first I feared doing so.
But like some Jews who established chicken farms in New Jersey and kibbutzim in Israel, and like gay men who associated farming with hypermasculinity (those farmhand fantasies!), I romanticized agriculture. So in pursuit of a fantasy I forced myself to overcome my fears and sensibilities and do what I thought real farmers do.
The dirtier and more dangerous the activity, the closer I thought I was coming. I rejoiced in, and often wrote about: unloading hay from a pickup bed into a manger while a hostile bull rocked my truck; catching piglets to castrate while fending off their angry mother with a hoe; wrestling sheep for shearing or hoof trimming. I’ve gone from fear of rats to trying to stomp on them if I see them in the ch
During a recent drive to the supermarket , I was struck by an NPR story about a contact tracer: A young mother kept apologizing to the caller for her child’s insistent crying in the background. The baby, she said, was hungry, and she couldn’t quiet her down. Struggling with COVID, she had no food in her house. No money for food. And I’m driving off to the market, entirely childless, for extra blueberries and honey and that greek yogurt I know my arriving friends Éric, Paul and Steve would prefer. Luckily, there was a semi-happy ending of sorts to the story: the tracer connected her to a local food bank. And I, guiltily, bought raspberries and ripe melon.
Between the holidays and trying to salvage all that meat from my broken freezer, I’ve been eating and drinking like a fat king. Chanukah potato latkes, Christmas Eve caviar and vodka, homemade pasta, fancy meat pies! Hunger — real hunger — feels like a foreign concept now. I can’t remember the last time I skipped a meal that I wanted, or even fasted for Yom Kippur. My guests would mean even more indulgence — even fancier meals with elaborate desserts. As Éric later pointed out, as we hesitated preparing yet another meal, “l’appétit vient en mangeant” (the appetite comes with the eating). And it did.
But I’ve also been following the periodic Pulse surveys from the US Census Bureau, tracking the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on social well-being. Not everyone shares my privilege to find solace and joy in food. An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently summed it up: “Some 27 million adults — 13 percent of all adults in the country — reported that their household sometimes or often didn’t have enough to eat in the last seven days, according to Household Pulse Survey data collected November 25–December 7.” A dramatic increase in food insecurity from pre-pandemic levels. Families with children were even worse off; hunger affects somewhere between 7 and 13 million American children. The vast majority of those facing hunger (86%) just lack money to buy food. As simple as it seems unimaginable.
Some help may be on the way. The 2021 Appropriations Bill that President Trump at first refused, then obstructed, and finally reluctantly signed last week includes about $7 billion to increase SNAP (food stamp) benefits by 15% through June 30, 2021 and will broaden program eligibility. It also has money to support food banks (which also helps undocumented residents who cannot qualify for SNAP benefits). It includes small changes, such as adding direct sale producers and farmers markets to on-line SNAP, and a program to incentivize SNAP participants to purchase fruits and vegetables from farmers markets. It’s a full turnaround from Trump’s initial budget proposals, which included $60 billion in CUTS to SNAP over 10 years and withholding 40% of allocated SNAP benefits. Instead, they wanted to create bulk packages of surplus food, so the needy would get no choice in the food that they consumed. This was all after, of course, all the administrative changes the Trump Administration had already made to restrict access to food stamps. (“Is it like that eating and appetite thing?” Steve asks. “Does acting evil and cruel make you actually hungry to be even more vicious?” We consider asking Eric if there a French aphorism for that but it’s too depressing.)
Focusing on food insecurity leaves me wondering about the direction I’ve chosen for the farm. I think of it as my refuge, for the mental peace it brings me, and as a source of personal sustenance in possibly scarce times. But weren’t all these fields made for a greater reason? Doesn’t my privilege of ownership come with a corresponding social responsibility to use this asset for the function for which, if there’s a God, He intended it? Especially as a faltering economy, hurt in part by the botched federal response to the pandemic, drives more people into hunger?
Over the
Remember that episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy and Ethel take jobs at a chocolate factory, ultimately to be done in by their inability to keep up with wrapping the bon-bons rolling down the assembly line? Welcome to Turkana Farms.
A major task of the farmer, I like to point out, is fighting the forces of chaos. This place is small as farms go but it’s mighty big for a single being, me, to impose and maintain order on it. Sometimes it feels like a Vesuvius of chaos, and my efforts to manage it are something akin to trying to hold back the flow of lava.
One coping strategy is to maintain a fairly rigid schedule in which the sequence of events is more or less set in stone, making it far less likely that any essential task is overlooked. Chores are a perfect example. I do them at the same times every day (mornings starting by 7:30 or 8:00, evening just an hour prior to sundown) and in the same sequence: chickens, then pigs, then sheep. I’m so set in my routine that Eric’s dog Lillie, who visits about once a month, remembers the sequence and often leads the way from station to station. Keeping a predictable schedule also helps me balance the farm and my day job, such that this Friday I could do chores, then argue a motion by phone in Federal court, then take a trip to retrieve things from the commercial freezer and get back in time for a client conference call.
A second strategy is to try to make every task serve double duty. Let not one step go to waste. In the growing season I keep a wheelbarrow in the vegetable garden as I weed. I fill the weeds directly into the cart, and when it’s full I tote it to the chickens, who eagerly await the greenery and whose eggs develop that rich deep colored yoke as a result of ingesting all the greens. Weeding becomes feeding.
In the off season I employ a similar strategy. As the sheep eat hay in the barn, there is a huge amount of waste that builds up on the floor, where hay stalks and other detritus from the manger mix with sheep poop and urine. The flock’s hooves compress the material, and the organic matter starts composting and giving off heat. If you let the muck build up too long, the bottom layers start smoldering (stick a pitchfork in and smoke rises). To avoid both the fire hazard and the difficulty of lifting heavy masses of muck in major periodic barn cleanings, I this year resolved that every chore time when I fill hay into the manger I also would fill a wheelbarrow with muck from the floor. From there I wheel it directly out to the vegetable garden, where I’ve been using it to create a 6 inch deep layer of mulch for the fall planted garlic and leeks. Mucking becomes mulching.
These methodical approaches work very well as long as time is adequate and discipline maintained. But what happens when time is short? This was Lucy and Ethel’s dilemma, as the assembly line sped up and they had to frantically try to keep up. And in the last couple of weeks it’s been my dilemma as well.
Shorter daylight hours reduces the opportunity for farm tasks. The winter weather certainly doesn’t help. Anticipation of the big winter storm led me to get delivery of four 800 lb. square bales of hay Wednesday, which I then had to stack in the barn, slice by slice, occupying two hours of that day. The knee-deep snowstorm itself slowed everything down, as simply shoveling paths to the animals for Thursday morning chores took three hours. My path to the barn skirts the south end of our very open hilltop back pasture, where the snow tends to drift. Despite digging a trench traversing a waist deep stretch Thursday morning I had to shovel it a second time Thursday afternoon and third time Friday morning, demonstrating vividly the futility of human efforts to control nature.
But the storm paled by comparison to the disruptive effect of the mechanical failure of the standing freezer in the basement. Last Saturday I went down to retrieve
I return to this bulletin after a brief break. It is the season when I feel comfortable in communicating less than weekly because there is virtually nothing being harvested in need of immediate sale.
Not that that there’s nothing still growing. Up until last week I could still harvest high quality black radishes and escarole. Even with several nights when the temperature has hovered closed to 20 degrees, the kale and collards soldier on. The Thanksgiving feast included items that had been harvested well in advance; I brought in the pumpkin for the pie in late October, and used a small frozen turkey on hand from 2018. But it also included Brussels sprouts picked Thanksgiving morning. And last week I managed to extract two full bags of sorrel from the garden for sale. Some plants are amazingly resilient.
The cause of my break was a brief and not entirely anticipated stay-cation, with guests. I admit, somewhat guiltily, that I failed to adhere to the household-only guideline that public health authorities asked us to observe around the holiday. I am generally highly compliant. A diligent masker, I shop rarely, and will often go for a stretch of four or five days without seeing anyone or leaving the farm. But, like other folks I’ve spoken with who made calculated Thanksgiving choices, I did not restrict myself to a holiday with just my one-person household in attendance.
As a lawyer is wont to do, I have worked up my defense against the tsk-tsking of my friends, especially the epidemiologists and infectious disease doctors among them. For the Thanksgiving meal itself I hosted Eric. My “legal” defense (a far less outlandish argument than might be presented by Rudy Giuliani or Sydney Powell) is that Eric should be considered a member of the household, having lived here full time from March to August and returned with his dog, Lillie, for approximately every third week since. We were joined the following day by friends Paul and Steve, who along with another friend, George, and neighbor, Adam, have comprised almost all of my pandemic in-person social world, at least since it got too cold to socialize outdoors at a 6 foot distance.
I call this group my “pod”, though I recognize that ‘s probably a stretch since each member has a small group of people they see outside this “pod.” Recognizing that we are essentially socializing with each other’s contacts, making the risk higher than in a true pod, means that we also maintain a little more distance from each other than if we were living together full time. For example, Eric, Steve and I went to George’s for dinner on Thursday, but we ate outside on his screened porch, surrounded by propane heaters (and ultimately wrapped in blankets) in the 40 degree evening. Ultimately we must rely on each other’s judgment, reflected in our respective social practices, and on our perhaps incomplete scientific understanding in determining how much risk is reasonable to take. I, for example, have assumed that Steve presents no transmission risk, since he is approaching full recovery from a long course of COVID that started in March and still has strong antibody counts to show for it.
Epidemiologists are apparently divided over just how much of a factor “living room” spread of Covid is in fueling the pandemic. Clearly it must contribute at least a small amount. But I would argue that, if approached judiciously, there’s a countervailing public health benefit that makes it reasonable to allow for this degree of small scale social interaction. We are inherently social creatures; we are no more meant to live alone than are sheep or cows. Craving for social interaction may in fact promote reckless risk taking. We may need low risk ways to satisfy the craving, and in these glum times to be reminded of what makes life worth living.
Take, for example, how we eat. Cooking for a one person household can often be a rushed and rudimentary affair, reduci
For most of the last twenty years, what has struck me most about the change of seasons on the farm at this time of year has been the sudden transition from cacophony to quiet. The principle cause of the transition was the departure of our turkeys early on Monday morning of Thanksgiving week to be processed and distributed to you all, as the centerpiece of your annual feast.
From about mid-summer on, the turkeys always set the tone here. They were not as constantly noisy as, say, the guinea fowl, whose repetitive monotone rat-a-tat vocalizing went on so insistently it could be annoying. But because the turkeys are much bigger birds, and were far more numerous, their sound, a more joyous babble that rose and fell in something of a musical pattern, won out. They would assemble at intervals throughout the day, and particularly toward the end of the afternoon, in cocktail party like jamborees, where the males would strut their stuff, preening and fanning out their tail-feathers. Any sort of stimulus, like the start of a motor, might set off a chorus of gobbles. Our tried and true trigger for eliciting that chorus was to approach the flock and in a high register to trill the word BEEEAUTIFUL.
I miss having the turkeys here, even though not raising them this year may have turned out to be an overall economic benefit. With so many Thanksgiving feasts pared back to household members only, to avoid transmitting COVID-19, I suspect I would have been left with a substantial surplus of the biggest birds that were always in the most demand, and would have only sold out of the small 6 to 8 lb. hens that I usually have in surplus.
Without the sudden absence of turkey calls to signal the change in season, the sign I have been most conscious of this year has been the loss of daylight. On good weather days, there may be brilliant sunshine at 3:30 p.m., but by 4:00 the sun is barely peeking over the Catskills and if I look away from the golden glow on the western horizon, the sky turns from blue to a grayish hue. That’s my signal to start chores.
I start with the chickens, because I want there to be enough light coming through the windows into the hen house to see the eggs I gather from the laying boxes. I move on to the pigs, who have no artificial light at their pens. I finish up at the sheep, where if things are going slowly I have barn lights I can turn on to enable completion of the chores. With luck, though, I am done with chores with some natural light to spare and in time to pick some winter greens for dinner before heading back to the hen house to close the door. That’s when the light is so dim the chickens have gone inside to roost of their own volition, and I don’t have to work at chasing them in.
I proceed at a methodical, plodding pace. It’s a peaceful time of day. About 20 minutes before complete darkness, the sky takes on a color that I, with my idiosyncratic color sense, would call slate purple. The moon, if risen, becomes highly visible. Friday evening it was a crescent, suspended directly above like a teardrop pearl. Crépuscule, the French word that encompasses both twilight (when there’s still some sunlight visible) and dusk (when the sun is gone), seems to me a name with just the right sound for this time of day.
At dusk the chickens stop clucking, as they flutter up onto their roosts for the night. The sheep quietly munch their hay in the barn. The pigs burrow into the bed of straw in their hut. It feels like the world is being zipped into a secure dark envelope. The moment evokes in my mind the lyrics to the Jesse Colin Young song that was so popular my freshman year in college: "Darkness, Darkness, be my pillow, take my head, and let me sleep... " And to come from the cold dusky outdoors into a brightly lit warm
If you have any doubt about how much of our heritage derives from our pastoral, agrarian past you might think about how much of our vocabulary descends from it. This week, as we endured the agonizing wait to know who won the election, two words from that past kept coming to my mind: bellwether and tenterhooks
A bellwether is an indicator of what’s going to come in the future. We use the term a lot in election years. When I was a boy, the saying went “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.” Maine was considered a “bellwether state.” I knew it was a metaphor of sorts, but the picture in my mind when I heard it was spelled “bell-weather;” I saw a bell swinging in the wind, sort of like a weathervane, that would somehow tell us the direction things were going in.
Once we had the farm and a flock of sheep, my erudite late partner, Peter, explained to me that the term in fact described the wether, or castrated male sheep, who wore a bell and led the flock. Our wether Orhan essentially served in that capacity for over 12 years. Orhan was one of the first two ram lambs born on the farm. His mother, who produced insufficient milk for both her twins, favored Orhan’s brother, and we had to supplement Orhan’s milk with a bottle.
We eventually sold Orhan’s twin, sexually intact, as a breeder. But Orhan, who like the vast majority of ram lambs on the farm was neutered, became like a pet. His dual affections, for the flock and us, were useful to us. If we wanted the flock to come, we just had to attract Orhan, and the rest would follow. Explaining what a wether is, introducing Orhan, and then giving the derivation of the term bellwether became staples of my guided tours for guests of the farm.
While we owe the term bellwether to sheep, we owe the term tenterhooks to processing their wool. Traditionally, after woolen garments were made and washed, they were stretched tight on wooden frames, held in place by a series of hooked nails, to prevent the fabric from shrinking as it dried. The stretching frames are called tenters (from a Latin root meaning “stretch”) and the hooked nails are thus tenterhooks. The process itself goes back to the 14th century. The first use of the term “on tenterhooks,” meaning to be in a state of painful anxiety, is recorded in literature in 1748.
I think it would be fair to say that many of you, like me, have been on tenterhooks all week, as we have contemplated our latest bellwethers, especially Pennsylvania, for signs of which way the presidential election would go. So much so that the two words kept colliding in my mind, with the mash-up, the image of a bellwether on tenterhooks, bringing a particularly horrific and agonizing vision to mind. And maybe an appropriately horrific one, given the stresses we all felt in the long wait.
The image of a bellwether on tenterhooks got me thinking about the polar oppositions that we see ourselves as being stretched between. It has made me question even the nature of a bellwether. When I was younger, whether it was Maine, or later Missouri or Ohio, that were considered bellwethers, I had the vision that those places were, unlike liberal New York or conservative Alabama, populated by people with ambiguous ideology who, like a great sea of Orhans, could be swayed in one direction or another.
Now I am seeing that bellwether states are more likely those with a somewhat equal numbers of ardent liberals and conservatives, often reflected in the rural urban divide, and that the swing back and forth is largely the effect of which side provides greater motivation to its members to come out and vote in a given election. The middle of the roaders are there, but there are fewer of them and polarization is pulling them into different camps.
As numerous commentators have noted, that polarization is severe, and it is everywhere. The sides see each other in caricature only, defined by their most extreme elemen
For the last several days the weather forecasts have made apparent that the really significant freeze, the one where the air temperature goes way under the freezing mark and we were at risk for accumulating snow, was imminent. Just like polls as they get closer to election day , forecasts a day or two out are more and more reliable. The weather forecasts give you an opportunity to protect yourself from the likely results of the predicted event.
The predicted cold and snow cold coincided almost perfectly with the end of October, which is when we always in the past started the transition from pasture to hay for the sheep. Assuming things would proceed as they always had, I called the supplier who generally delivered hay to us through past seasons to arrange delivery of four big 800 lb bales. To my dismay, this year they could just give me a little, and the four bales is probably all I’ll get from them for the season. I called the next person in my mental inventory of hay suppliers, and found that he could only give me a little more.
Thankfully our layer of snow was less than an inch and was gone in a matter of hours, so the sheep can still graze and I have a little window of opportunity to locate and stockpile a bigger supply. But it was a valuable lesson in not assuming that things will always be as they have always been. Those who are analyzing all the early voting for signs of who is going to win this year’s presidential election, as if past patterns dictate present events, should take note.
My next concern was for everything growing in the garden that might suffer from a plunge in temperature. I knew that the winter brassicas, the kale, collard greens and brussels sprouts, could withstand a night in the 20s. But I was concerned about other cool weather plants, so over the last few days, I took extra time before and after chores and at lunch to haul in crates of other produce. Daikon radish, black radish, turnips, sorrel, swiss chard, and escarole.
I always prefer to harvest such items only when I have orders for them, but sometimes if you don’t take something when you have the opportunity it won’t be there when you need it. I liken this encouraging early voting, as a means to “bank” votes and protect against any events on election day itself (be it bad weather or the appearance of vote-suppressing militias) that might depress participation. Apparently tens of millions of Americans agree with this instinct.
But once you’ve got all the produce in, that’s when a whole new challenge begins. You may have enjoyed a lovely cocktail hour at the end of your day Friday, or perhaps had dinner with the co-inhabitants of your COVID 19 pod. Good for you. I, like so many of the anonymous public officials who will deal with the harvest of votes on Election Day, hunkered down for an evening of processing. For me, this meant cutting off the radish greens and some of the yellowed outer escarole leaves and leathery older chard leaves, most of which the chickens have already devoured. It meant washing everything and sorting each product by size and salability, with the hollowed out turnips, the misshapen, badly split or overgrown radishes, and the escarole roots destined for the pigs. It meant weighing, and posting the quantities for sale on the Farms2Tables app, which I guess is the farm equivalent of posting the vote totals on a big board on election night.
By shortly before midnight, my kitchen and mudroom were a chaotic mess of muddy counters, bags full of leaves, and crates of discarded turnips and radishes, while the farm refrigerators were fairly neatly organized with stacked and/or bagged produce, all accounted for. Feeling I could leave cleanup for the morning, I called it a night. I can only hope for a similar result on Election Night, which hopefully will give us a clear and final result by midnight or 1 a.m. Because if it all comes down to an uncertain result in Penn
As part of my fall leek seeding project, I have tried to clear some trenches that I left fallow all season. That effort has involved removing one of the most prolific and stubborn weedy invaders on the farm, mugwort. Mugwort seems to send out root runners to spread everywhere, and where I wasn’t assiduous about pulling it early in the season it is now often shoulder high. Depending on the characteristics of the soil it is sometimes easy to remove in a very satisfying way, as one good pull brings up a whole clump with interconnected roots in one try. But sometimes it’s quite tenacious. While I have it mostly under control in the vegetable garden, some areas, like the long enclosure where I had the portable pen for our freedom ranger chickens, are just too big and too thick with mugwort to make weeding practicable. I’ve taken to letting the sheep in there to graze on it, which they quite enjoy.
Last week, while struggling with a particularly resistant mugwort clump, I found myself wondering whether there might be a commercial use for the weed, a way to turn a curse into a benefit. I had heard speak of its use as a medicinal herb, but I wondered whether one could just harvest massive quantities and process it into something useful. Yesterday, I found out.
I was visiting my friend, Anita, in the Berkshires, for an early dinner. I arrived before dark and had time to take a brief tour of her meticulously groomed and lovingly laid out vegetable garden, which has always impressed me. Anita was a long time friend of my late partner, Peter, who met her in the 1970s when he opened his weaving gallery in South Egremont, Massachusetts, across the street from a health food store, the first of its kind in the area, which had been established by Anita. He became fast friends with her and her husband, Bob, an architect and rug enthusiast. Indeed, the portico, screened porch, mud room and kitchen of my farmhouse are all the products of a design collaboration between Peter and Bob, who received rugs in exchange for his architectural services. With Peter and Bob both gone, it pleases me to have kept the connection with Anita.
Anita has a prodigious knowledge of plants and their culinary uses. She is an inveterate forager who as a girl learned about the edible environment (in the same town she lives in today) from her grandmother. I’ve long wanted to do an interview with Anita for this bulletin. She has always demurred. But rare is the visit when I don’t come away with some novel taste combination or valuable new knowledge. Last night, the novel taste combination was poached quince from her spectacular crop of big yellow quinces (they put mine to shame), in yoghurt, accented by a heavenly lavender syrup she had made. The valuable new knowledge was learning of moxibustion.
As I viewed the garden Anita pointed out a section of stone wall that she was having rebuilt, and another section where she had weeded everything out to make space for an extension of that wall. She said what she pulled out there was mugwort she had planted years ago. “You planted mugwort?” I asked incredulously. Why would you plant such an invasive pest? Anita explained that there were various uses for it, and then she mentioned a term I had never heard before, “moxibustion”. As a little quick research revealed, moxibustion is a technique used in Traditional Chinese Medicine in which either cones of ground mugwort leaf (also called moxa leaf) are applied directly to particular points in the body, creating scarring, or the smoke from tightly tied sheaves of those dried leaves is brought close to those points, with a variety of insulators including air, garlic or ginger providing different degrees of heat transfer. The contact points follow, as I understand it, the acupuncture pressure points.
Mugwort, via moxibustion or otherwise, has apparently been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for 2500 years for hundreds of differe
It seems almost everyone I chat with of late is gripped by a high level of anxiety. Many friends report disrupted sleep. I have it too. I find myself wakened by dreams in which my world is disordered. People come and release the animals or carry them. My car is borrowed, but not returned. In my dream last night, a judge, with whom I and my adversary were in some trouble earlier this week for missing a deadline to submit a joint letter, made a sudden appearance here on the farm. (Thankfully, my anxious reaction was alleviated when I saw that she was visiting as a veterinarian making a house call, albeit treating a person — not an animal — outside the barn).
A neighbor told me that this high level of upset has to do with the moon being in retrograde. I am relatively certain that it has much more to do with two identifiable sources much closer at hand: One, uncertainty over the election, particularly whether even a clear and decisive result will resolve our state of political instability or will send us into a cycle of disintegration and violence. Two, the long predicted fall spike of the COVID-19 pandemic. My own concern is much less about becoming infected than it is about a months’ long return to stricter social isolation and the economic consequences of a new extended lockdown.
There are of course many ways to address anxiety. One friend has begun taking medication, with not entirely satisfactory results. I have turned to the garden. I have long recognized the zen like peace which gardening provides. I didn’t require Rebecca Mead’s August article in the New Yorker on "The Therapeutic Power of Gardening" to tell me that gardening, by connecting us with a cosmic order, soothes the soul.
The standard fall cleanup tasks (taking up stakes, bringing in hoses) give the illusion of restoring order. Harvesting the fall vegetables alleviates fears of want by provisioning to get through hard times. I’ve been experimenting with pickling thinly sliced black radishes and julienned daikon radishes to have as condiments through the winter. Turnip leaf kimchee, which I last made 10 years ago, is also on my agenda.
Perhaps most centering, though, is fall planting. This year, I’ve returned to planting garlic, which I skipped last year. But I also decided to do try directly sowing leeks. Frequently in past years we wintered over any large leeks still in the garden by heavily mulching them, and they always came back in the spring. This year, having missed my spring planting, I cleared trenches and planted leek seeds just a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to our ample recent rains I’m already seeing their tiny sprouts emerge (gorgeous mushrooms, too; see above). I will before the first really hard frost mulch these in, and fully expect they’ll give me a head start on the spring garden. What I’ve read suggests that it will work. And doing this reinforces the feeling that there’s a future with something to look forward to.
Which brings me to what we always look forward to this year, but may lose: the holidays. Dr. Fauci this week suggested that we write off Thanksgiving. It will come as a big disappointment to many who were counting on having the feast in some form or other. I know this because I’ve received four emails in the last week hoping to put in orders for a heritage breed turkey, to which I’ve had to respond, unfortunately, “no turkeys this year.”
It’s not because Dr. Fauci told me not to raise them. It’s because other setbacks intervened to erase our signature product. You may recall that when In September, 2018, my partner Peter died, it was our helper Peter Siegenthaler’s efforts that allowed us to bring the turkeys through that season. But that was our last b
Friday felt a bit like Bible Day at the farm. The day started with the news which many commentators have described as a story of biblical character, in which inordinately proud or entitled individuals are taught that they are not immune from the tribulations of regular folk, and those who ignore the rules (be they God’s or the local Health Department’s) pay a price for their willfulness. You all already know this story.
The day ended with a small but out of the ordinary event that, like many Bible stories invites any number of interpretations. Some will see a miracle where others find a perfectly explainable part of the natural order, but anyone who gives it a thought can find a parable. It was the day our blind ewe, Ayşe, led the flock back to the barn. It was one of those magnificent early October days when everything looked crisp – even the dark clouds that brought a short cloudburst, set as they were against a backdrop of clear blue. The oranges and yellows of fall, seemingly peaking about 10 days too early this year, were vivid in the tree line. In the late afternoon hours, when I do chores, the angle of the descending sun sometimes acts like a spotlight on the scene and casts sharp and rapidly shifting shadows. From the barn where I had deposited handfuls of grain treats in each feed bowl, I could see spot-lit on the horizon the sheep, looking like an assemblage of small boulders, grazing in the tall grass of the north pasture.
I could have gone back to the house and called it a day, knowing that the flock would find its way back to the barn in due course. But I always find it something of a comfort to watch them enjoy the treat and to know that all are well and together. Most days, If they are closer, I just have to shout “hey girls” and if I catch the attention of one of them, especially at feed time, she will begin moving back toward the barn (home base). The others, seeing any one of their number moving in a deliberate and directed way, will fall into line and follow, with the tentative moves eventually transforming into a group charge. The sound of their hooves is reminiscent of the sound we all grew up hearing on television westerns when the posse assembles and gallops off to chase the bad guys.
But the sheep this Friday afternoon were too far away for my voice to carry and it was a perfect moment to enjoy walking the fields. So with the nearly empty feed bucket in hand I went up there. As I approached, I realized that, as often happens, Ayşe was somewhat removed from the rest of the flock. She probably had not even realized yet that she had become separated as she and the others were so busy munching on grass.
This time, fortuitously, Ayşe was perhaps 100 feet closer to me than the others. I called to her and she started coming in my direction. The rest noticed the movement and began to follow along with us. I, and I am sure Ayşe could hear the sound of their collective hooves behind us, almost propelling us along the path they had worn in the pasture heading in the direction of the barn. They did not break into their characteristic run a few hundred feet north of the barn, I suspect because they could see the feed bucket in my hand and were anxious to stay close to the source of the treat.
And so it was that blind Ayşe, who usually trails well behind the rest of the flock in their migrations (see the pic above for Ayse’s usual vantage point), led them all the way back to the barn. She followed the sound of my voice but also the sound of the hoofbeats that stayed close behind her the whole way. I wondered if this is actually what effective leadership is really about, the leader being attentive to the sound of her follower’s footsteps. Or perhaps the lesson in this event is instead that “herd mentality” means the group will follow even a blind leader, one who may or may not in turn be guided by benevolent instincts. (And how nice for me to personify in this pa
Weather forecasts are a wondrous thing. On a cloudless day without a hint of a breeze they can tell you that in twelve or 24 hours a storm will arrive, with 60 mile an hour winds and hail. They do so with a remarkable degree of precision in the near term.
Forecasts are generally framed in terms of probability, because the likely event is not always the one that happens. Hurricanes veer off. Storms dissolve. Other forces like fires affect the atmosphere with unpredictable consequences. That is, “shit happens.” Yet we are so used to the accuracy of short range forecasts that we get angry with meteorologists whose predictions do not hit the mark.
My faith in the weatherman extends even into realms like longer term forecasts where it should be obvious that specific events are unpredictable. This year, when it was unclear to me in planting season where I would be (farm or city) and for how long, I was late getting many seedlings started and plants in the ground. I ultimately decided to go full steam ahead in the garden, relying in part on predictions that La Niña would cause above average temperatures through October. I knew my tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers would start very late, but I figured I’d be hauling them in until Halloween.
The prediction of warm weather on the whole has been accurate. Witness the balmy near 80 degree weather on the last weekend of September. But just as there is a different between overall climate and weather, even a warm spell of weather can have some cold days mixed in. And on two nights this week, we had an uncharacteristically early frost.
I had no warning of the first night of frost. Perhaps I should have seen the predicted nighttime low temperatures in the upper 30s and gone out and harvested and covered plants. But such is my faith in short term forecasts that, without seeing a frost warning, I didn’t think it would happen. Even when I first went out Tuesday morning I did not see that much actual white covering, but I’ve since been told that in drought-like times there may be insufficient moisture in the ground to create that white coating. The damage was still done. By Tuesday afternoon it was apparent that the leaves on all the frost sensitive vegetables had shriveled. Much of the fruit was intact and could be harvested, but the likelihood of new fruit formation this season is virtually nil.
Fall’s brief appearance made visible all the Long Island cheese pumpkins that had been growing partly hidden by the vines. It caused me to rush a load of fresh straw down to our pigs, so Possum could make a cozy nest for herself and Vernon inside their hut. Yet despite this illustration of the unpredictability of weather more than a few days into the future, my faith in the weatherman was apparently unshaken.
Later the day of the frost I found myself studying in detail a series of maps illustrating the likely effects on this region of climate change in the period 2040 to 2060. The maps were in a Pro Publica article, “New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States” , to which I was linked by an excellent article in the New York Times, “How Climate Change will Reshape America” My focus on these maps was in some sense absurd. I was hoping they would inform my immediate decisions about my future with the farm, even though they are predicting conditions in the years when I will be (should I live so long) 89 and 109 years old, respectively.
My friend George pointed out the other day that if it’s Monday I am probably intent on giving up my New York apartment and making the farm my full time permanent residence, but if it’s Tuesday I’ve decided I must take advantage of the strong real estate market and sell the farm to secure my financial future. By Wednesday I’ve decided to straddle the two worlds as I have been. Nonetheless, I keep looking for the kernel of information will show me what the right decision is.
In this case, th
Only once did I see my mother really cry, full out. It was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, 1960. I was nine years old. As was our custom we got dressed up, far more than on any other day of the year, and traveled from our New Jersey home to Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, then a kind of upper middle class Jewish ghetto, to celebrate the holiday. That meant going to services in the morning and after the shofar (ceremonial ram’s horn) was blown and services concluded back to my maternal grandparents’ apartment for a big festive meal.
Services were held at the shul my grandfather frequented down the block from their apartment. Last month, as I drove Eric back to the City, we took a little detour so I could show him some sites of my childhood, and I pointed to an alley on Wallace Avenue and said this was the synagogue where my grandfather went. “This?” he said, looking at the alley. His incredulity was understandable. This shul (literally, “school”) was not a grand building constructed for worship. It was a first floor room carved out of the back of a standard Bronx six story apartment building, with virtually nothing to signal from the street that it was there. You would go to the back of the alley, through a door to a tiny vestibule and enter a plain square windowless room, perhaps 70 by 70 feet, with the ark containing the torahs along one wall and the seats arranged around it. To the right side as you entered, behind a curtain, was the women’s area, where perhaps 20 women could squeeze in on folding chairs.
The rest of the room was the men’s domain. Just as the space itself bore little resemblance to what you’d think of as a synagogue, the service did not resemble what you might expect of an organized religion. Yes, the rabbi or cantor would go through the set text for the day in a prescribed sequence. But for most of the time, in between the leaders’ punctuations, there was a chaotic cacophony of men’s voices, each at their own pace and varying volumes, reading aloud the very long passages of text in between. This was what I understood “davening” (praying) to mean: Jewish shucking and jiving, rocking back and forth and occasionally bending at the knee, mumbling the text until bursting into the recognizable song-like cadence of a prayer. The men were packed shoulder to shoulder, in suits, and on a typical Rosh Hashanah day, with its delightfully warm weather, it would be hellishly hot in there. As a child among the men, I reveled in the overwhelming intensity of the experience.
Rosh Hashanah 1960 was warm and sunny, and when we arrived there was, uncharacteristically, a very large crowd outside on the sidewalk. Something was amiss. My mother, upon inquiring, was told that someone had had a heart attack in services. Call it intuition, but she got an ashen look on her face and sent my father back down the alley to check out who it was. Perhaps five minutes later, he reported back that it was her uncle, Max Warman, my grandfather’s brother, and that an ambulance had been called. And while we awaited the ambulance, she sat down on a milk crate on the sidewalk, dressed to the nines, and sobbed uncontrollably.
Max (pictured above with me when I was about 5) was a gregarious bear of a man loved by all, a cheerleader of conviviality whose most characteristic act, arriving at the lake at our family bungalow colony in the Catskills, was to wade in and splash himself with cold water, loudly proclaiming “L’Chaim L’Chaim” (literally “to life,” but really “what a pleasure”) to everyone around him to urge them into the water. While it was not surprising that my mother would be upset, I was astonished to see an adult, particularly a pillar of strength like her, cry like a baby.
I was of course reminded of Max’s Rosh Hashanah death, which so shook my mother, by the news as Rosh Hashanah began this year of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which shook so many of us.
Numerous fri
Today's Darkness by Mark Scherzer
September 11, 2020, dawned refreshingly cool on the farm, but with a dark and foreboding sky. Very different from the crystal clear crispness of September 11, 2001, which we have now come to expect on this day of remembrance. As my friend Steve commented, “That’s an unspoken promise between God and all New Yorkers. Like, ‘yeah, it’s a sad anniversary, but you know it’ll be much cooler and less muggy from this day forward!” Just like he put a rainbow in the sky after the flood.”
The darkness, however, was appropriate to the mood of morose contemplativeness that often overcomes me at this time of year. That mood is built on a solid foundation. I have a lifelong history of post Labor Day dread at returning to school, where as a child I was reminded of just what an outsider, a faggy nerdy Jewish kid in a jocky Catholic town, I was. Add to that 9/11 itself: getting caught in the black cloud of the South Tower collapse trying to get back to my apartment fearful for the fate of my partner, Peter, and then observing from the windows of that apartment during periodic visits over the ensuing months the somber removal of remains from the World Trade Center site. The trauma of September 11 for me is followed by the trauma of September 12: the date of Peter’s death in 2018. Have I mentioned Yom Kippur? Or the current sorry state of the world?
No wonder when my friend Susie sent around an email the other day labeled “Today’s Darkness,” transmitting a picture of the smoky brown pall from nearby wildfires engulfing a hiking area near her California home, I replied: “And there are so many other potential referents of that subject line.”
The stage was well set, then, for me to ponder the current sad question I face on the farm, what to do about Ayşe? Ayşe, you may recall, is the elderly (12 years old) ewe who is now blind. She is the daughter of the late beloved Sultana, who herself was bottle fed and therefore close to us, and who acculturated Ayşe to be similarly human-friendly. There is still great mutual affection between us. But unfortunately, her blindness is having a major negative impact on the quality of her life.
This September 11 morning, when I got to the barn I was pleased to observe that the flock had already moved itself out to the far northern pasture, about two thirds of the way to the Rider Farm we abut, to graze. Far enough that if I called “hey girls” to let them know their morning grain treat was awaiting them in their feed bowls, they would not hear me. I was fine with that. I figured I would just leave the barn doors open and they would enjoy the grain when they decided to mosey back.
As I was heading back to the house, however, I heard the unmistakable baaahs Ayşe bellows out, audible all over the neighborhood, when she is lost. Looking out, I saw Ayşe, all alone, at the crest of the hill. The rest of the flock, I figured, must have wandered elsewhere. When I reached her location, I realized the flock was no more than about 100 feet away, just slightly down the other side of the hill. But Ayşe was walking in circles, frantically, unable to find them. (see photos above)
I walked her over to rejoin the herd and as soon as she was close enough to smell them and hear them, knowing she was among them, she stopped baahing. Mission accomplished, I strolled back toward the barn. When I got about half way there, the flock in its collective wisdom figured out that a grain treat was imminent, and started following me. Eighty per cent of the time, Ayşe manages to stay with them, but this time, for the second time of the morning, she did not. Again I heard the baahing, and again she remained out in that pasture, circling. A second trek out there was required, and this time, because the rest of the flock had already thundered into the barn, I had to guide her the whole way back, keeping her on track, averting collisions with fences
In a time of uncertainty, one certainty is that one's feelings are going to ricochet all over the place. Mine certainly have been.
We all wonder what the world will look like in six months or a year, even though it's nearly impossible to know. Will we be in a post COVID world or something more like John Ehrlichman's "modified, limited hangout, er.., pandemic"? The future of New York City, the economic engine of this entire region, is in doubt. It is a metropolis built around office space, in a world in which the diminished relevance of office space has been revealed by the ability of so many to work at home. Other pillars of its economy are tourism, culture, and restaurants, all reliant most of the year on bringing masses of people together indoors, when both public health and the personal preferences of the millions at risk dictate avoiding just that.
Back in May, I wrote: "Whether what I'd call the pandexodus is temporary, and simply an expression of the privileged classes' ability to seek safety and comfort in hard times, or permanent, in a way that will reshape the relationship between City and country in unforeseen ways, is the great question." But I, whose self-image is closely tied to being a Gothamite, had no such uncertainty about my own future. I said "I will at the right time eagerly go back to the place I always thought of as the center of the universe."
Now, approaching six months of full time residence on the farm in which I'm feeling very much at home, I'm not so sure. I'm wondering, seeing how effective we've all been working from home, whether my law practice needs a full New York office, or whether we could get by with just some allocated space in my apartment.
Further, given how much I've reveled in the enjoyable daily component of outdoor physical labor the farm provides, I'm wondering whether I would be as happy, even post-COVID, returning to City life four days a week. I know I would miss the ability to be on top of weeding the vegetables and fighting back the descent of the perennial gardens into chaos. I would worry about Ayşe, our 12 year old blind ewe, who repeatedly loses track of the rest of the flock and requires rescue to rejoin them. The farm has dozens of these constant attention needs, and suffers from absentee supervision.
If I could somehow avoid carrying the cost of both office and apartment, would I thereby put my financial life on a far more solid footing as we face uncertain times? If both the practical benefits of a physical base and the psychological benefits of City life are seeming so much less important, should I fundamentally re-order my life?
My uncertainty has been compounded by the state of my transition plans for the farm. The week before last, I got an email from the lovely young couple with the vegetable CSA who I had lined up to move their operation here and assume stewardship of the land at the end of this year. They backed out. The uncertainties of the COVID world had made them put a priority on certainty, which to them meant staying where they are a bit longer in the interest of buying their own land rather than committing to mine.
I was discouraged, but then I recalled an email inquiry I had received just three days before through the Columbia Land Conservancy's farmer-landowner match program from another couple. They are moving here from Illinois so one of them can assume a job in an agricultural support and education agency. They want the other to operate a farm of about this size to feed themselves, generate additional income, and raise their daughters with the benefits of a farm and 4H upbringing. We met via Zoom. I liked them very much. Discussions have proceeded apace. Our views of what a farm should be are in sync.
A major sticking point, however, is housing. Everyone now knows that houses in the region are a hot commodity these days, thanks to the many folks who found COVID lockdowns in
During the last couple of weeks I’ve had a taste of what so many of you have endured for the last five months — being entirely on my own. Troy and Victoria were away becoming newly wed, while my “pand-ami” Eric, after 10 days of hiking in the Adirondacks and a brief few days back here, returned to New York City.
In some ways, the solitude supercharged my productivity. Without accommodating myself to anyone else’s schedule, I could do what I wanted whenever and for however long I was driven to do it. It gave me a certain sense of satisfaction. I planted most of what I still wanted to get in the garden: the last succession plantings of cilantro, dill, broccoli, beets, turnips, carrots and radishes, but also those vegetables that are uniquely suited to August planting for a fall crop: a second wave of sugar snap peas, and collard greens, escarole and spinach. I still plan on putting in a next wave of lettuce and a bed of tatsoi. If I get that done tomorrow I feel like I will be much prouder of my fall garden than my summer one, where the tomatoes are just getting around to fruiting and the pepper plants are only now of a size where they can support peppers. My late plantings and insufficient time spent on fencing have made me feel like I’ve done a better job of feeding the critters than I have myself.
But with solitude comes being lost in one’s thoughts. During those initial days of solitude, one dismaying thought that crossed my mind and got stuck there was that I might be turning into my paternal grandmother, Eva Scherzer. What brought her so strongly to mind was that she spent her later years largely in solitude, particularly in the summer months at her big old Victorian house at the top of Main Street in East Branch, New York, a tiny hamlet near a source of the Delaware River.
As far as I could determine, Grandma Eva spent her time there almost entirely gardening and reading. She did not drive, and depended on kind hearted neighbors to get her groceries and supply her with fresh produce. Save for very occasional visits from my family that would last an hour or two before we returned to the borscht belt bungalow colony an hour east of there where we spent our summers, she seldom had visitors. I hated those visits, particularly when I was very young. In stark contrast to my maternal grandmother, Sonia, Eva was a terrible cook whose only decent company dish was sweet cucumber salad. Her kitchen was a chaotic, dirty, mess, and the house was falling down around her.
Challenges notwithstanding, Grandma Eva kept returning to that house alone for months on end for years after she could reasonably look after herself. Could this, I wondered, be my future?
At some level, I’ve always feared turning into Grandma Eva. For one thing, I believe I bear a strong physical resemblance to her (as did my father). For another, she was incredibly self-absorbed and given to self pity. She would immediately tell strangers the tragic story of her life, how she lost everything in World War II: from the fashion atelier she and my grandfather owned in Vienna to her eldest son, the light of her life, who died in battle in the Phillipines. She was no Joe Biden, turning her loss into empathy for others. Forty years later she would burst into tears publicly over her son’s tragic death. Peter always made fun of my similar proclivity to bemoan my fate (“Why me?”). Eva was far more justified than me in feeling that her life resembled the tribulations of Job. But as repelled as I was by her public dwelling on her life’s challenges, I was drawn inexorably to share that trait.
Of course, Grandma Eva was a complex woman who had many admirable traits as well, though it was not until I was at least of college age that I began to appreciate them. She was an intellectual who respected the life of the mind. Family lore was that she was instrumental, in ways never explained to us, in helping to save Thomas
Hi everyone, Eric here.
It has been 151 days since I relocated to Turkana Farms and 126 days since my last (and only) bulletin “Your Guest is as Good as Mine”. Time certainly flies but, paradoxically, seems to pass over a lifetime in our pandemic sad realities. I am still a lucky man. Mark has been a lifesaver for having let me stay with him; his generosity provided me security and a somewhat normal life that would have been difficult to find in the city during spring and summer-times. But it is time to go back to my things and reclaim my urban space. I have a “bon-enfant” way of thinking: believing that one’s action, in a collectivity, has the power to restore communities’ stability and wellbeing. It takes certainly a village to do so, but a village of valiant souls ready to partake in what needs to be done.
Roger Cohen, in his ode to the city “A bit of relief: I forgive you, New York” (NY Times, April 24, 2020), wrote it well: “Being a New Yorker, I was in a hurry. I was forgetful. You get that. Please forgive me. Please forgive us all. I’ll throw in the pigeons. Forgive you for every one of those awful birds. Just come back, just return, please. I know we can make a deal”.
The folks in Germantown have probably felt a soupçon of my presence over the past 5 months with my “shopping sprees” on Main Street or my talking to the dead at the Viewmont Cemetery when walking my dog Lillie. I have also biked around in my Canadian Roots red t-shirt and was fortunate enough to have been stopped once, because of it, by a lovely expatriated Canuck who was particularly touched, confinement introspection obliges, by her unexpected compatriot-encounter. It is obviously on Lasher Avenue that my footprints will be leaving most of my “enprints” with alongside visions of me mowing the farm’s front lawn or running after the sheep. The people of this town, I have not met many, but certainly sensed most of them through our proximity. Haven’t we had shared the same blue sky? The refreshing but rare raindrops? The strong winds? We are all one tough NY force. I will miss “us” with all the strange familiar anonymity it carries.
And yes, it is nerve wracking to leave behind the soothing, therapeutic and down-to-earthiness of farm life. I cherish this place and its offerings, as they have been instrumental to keeping my sanity that I took for granted before COVID-19. My love affair with the animals cannot be described in words but perhaps compared to the transfixed gaze of a child on a Edwin Landseer painting. I have learned humility from the Turkana flocks, broods, clucks and passels; that my impromptu presence had everything and nothing to do with their survival. I have not been of much help with the vegetable garden and will suffer from it in the months to come when faced with city concrete, steel and asphalt. In repentance, blackberries, currants and gooseberries were picked as if we were paid by the “casseau”; well…
Beside my moving back to the city for which I place great hope of regaining normalcy, I am also consoled (as Lillie) by the fact that I will be coming back to Turkana Farms for shorter visits. I wish them to be numerous, as the life here with Mark has also established a solid sense of normal.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Large black Spanish Radishes, $2 each Fennel, small bulbs, $1 each Blackberries plentiful, $6/pint
Green shiso leaves $1, pack of 10 Kale, (curly leaf or lacinato) $2/bunch Swiss Chard, $3/bag Fresh dug horseradish root, $3/lb. Sorrel, one gallon bag, $3/bag Mint, $1/ bunch Garlic chives (the flat kind), $1/bunch Lambsquarters $2/bag
EGGS: $5/doz
Dill and lettuce back soon
MEATS: Have been largely cleaned out during the supermarket shortages of this spring. What is still in stock:
LAMB: a few remaining , leg of lamb $14/lb, lamb shoulder roast $7/lb.
PORK: fresh ham roasts
I skipped doing a bulletin last week. I didn't have the mental energy. If you had asked me how I was doing, my answer would have been "eh". I was feeling somewhat down, lost in a sea of uncertainty.
I don't think I have been alone in this feeling. When I ask friends how they are, their answers are at best equivocal. They see a government that abdicated to a pandemic and they fear the consequences. Yesterday I got strikingly similar messages from two friends, who generally see the world very differently from one another (one conservative to his core, the other a committed progressive). The first said "I feel that something has been happening generally in the past month that people are only dimly aware of. The world is much more horrifyingly damaged - maybe fatally so -- than people had thought possible. We've been 'transported to another dimension,' as Rod Serling used to say." The second said "I just can't recognize anything anymore. I feel like the walls around me could just shatter at any second. Like some kind of post Soviet state surrealism. Vaclav Havel on acid couldn't have imagined this shit."
Maybe in other countries, where they've done a better job of controlling Covid-19, there is greater sense of assurance. But here in America where the pandemic rages there seems a head on collision of fear and ennui. Our economy contracted more in the last quarter than in any comparable quarter in the last 70 years of record keeping. The Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, taken July 2 through 7, found that: • 49.9% of American adults live in households which have experienced a loss in employment income • 34.9% of American adults expect to experience a loss in employment income • 25.3% of adults either missed last month’s rent or mortgage payment, or had slight or no confidence that their household could make the next payment on time • 10.8% of Americans lived in households where there was either sometimes or often not enough to eat in the previous 7 days
And all this is when there has been an infusion of cash through expanded unemployment benefits and other government programs which are uncertain to continue. The emotional toll is severe:
• 24.5% of respondents reported having little interest or pleasure in doing things more than half the days/nearly every day last week • 22.7% reported feeling down more than half the days/nearly every day last week • 32.3% reported feeling anxious or nervous more than half the days/nearly every day last week
Even those of us who have been getting by reasonably well, continuing to earn incomes, have to live in fear of a general collapse that may be imminent. Newspapers have begun carrying articles about how the Black Plague spurred Europe out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, as if looking for a silver lining in the anticipated collapse. I find small comfort in thinking that things may be better in the 23rd century.
I've moved on somewhat in the last week from that passive listlessness to a somewhat more assertive state. That is to say, I've gone from "eh" to "feh".
"Feh", as I recall it, was one of the most prominent words in the vocabulary of my most beloved great aunt, Tante Jennie Warman. I remember Jennie, who lived six floors up in the same Bronx apartment building as my family did in my pre-K days, as a person of immense cheer and boundless love. She bounced me on her knee, played games in which she sang to me and bumped her forehead against mine ("budgie budgie keppeleh"), made wonderful treats like sweet cabbage borscht with raisins.
Given Jennie's generosity of spirit, it is odd that "feh" is the word I most vividly recall her saying. I guess that loving demeanor coexisted with a strong judgmental streak. Perhaps because she was widowed young, and struggled to raise two sons on her own. She had to run a tight ship and she was not shy about sharing her opinions. Whatever situation met with her
Thursday, July 16, 2020: the last in a string of delightfully cool days punctuated by not quite enough rain showers. Eric and I, both fighting cabin fever, decided to try an outing. A talented young clarinetist, Viktor Toth of The Orchestra Now, offered a “Sunset Serenade” from a boat moored in the Rondout Creek at Kingston to an audience seated on a modest little lawn on shore. The unassuming venue was lent a certain monumental air by an impressive train trestle traversing the stream, towering perhaps 100 feet above us.
Attendance was sparse, maybe 40 people. They carefully socially distanced and were so assiduously masked that we felt self-conscious un-masking to eat our picnic dinner. Nevertheless, to enjoy live music outdoors in the mid summer breeze as the sun went down felt an awful lot like one of the outdoor concerts that once made “normal” summer evenings so delightful. After a dispiriting week of plummeting expectations, in which everyone seemed bummed by a pandemic spiraling out of control, perhaps I could be forgiven for imagining that we were moving back toward a pre-COVID normality.
That soupçon of more hopeful times was, it turned out, all the gods would allow me. Overnight, the humidity rose and caused disquieting dreams (No, thank you, I do not want dental work performed on the E train platform at Chambers Street!). And from the moment I awoke Friday, any sense that I was scourge-free vanished.
Shortly before 7 on Friday I toddled out to the vegetable garden to start the sprinkler and pick an order of lacinato kale. I had not paid a whole lot of attention to the kale of late. After I put a small chicken wire fence around it and weeded and mulched the patch a couple of weeks ago, I could see as I passed nearby that it was finally growing and not being chewed down almost nightly anymore. I turned my attention other more pressing garden matters. But upon close inspection Friday morning, it was quickly apparent that the straight leafed lacinato kale, while free of nibbles by hopping herbivores, had been enjoyed by an entirely different pest, in this case sand fleas which ate so many little pin holes in the leaves that they had an airy look, like a Spanish lace fan. I felt it wasn’t saleable and offered the less affected curly leaf kale instead, but it was declined. I felt frustrated by the predations of nature.
From the garden I moved on to the portable chicken pen. The chicks that arrived in the mail about two and a half weeks ago had feathered out and grown enough to be moved outdoors this Monday, and they were happily foraging. I had already moved the pen twice to fresh new grass. This morning, though, I could see right away that something was wrong. As I approached the entire group ran toward the back of the pen, as is their wont, but four up front did not move. They could not, having been reduced to four headless carcasses. Clearly the work of a weasel.
Examining the front of the pen, I realized that when I had last moved it to fresh grass it came to rest on a very slight swale, with the ground dipping an inch or two below the wooden frame. Apparently that small space was enough to allow a weasel access — at least enough to grasp chickens close to the edge, kill them, and take the head. A distressing turn of events. But with a busy work day ahead, it was all I could do to dispose of the carcasses, get a couple of boards to close the gap, and put fortification on my to-do-later-today list. After all, weasel attacks are generally nocturnal .
After a day in the office upstairs, I returned to the portable pen to find another two carcasses, and one chicken with apparently superficial wounds on the side. I was stunned by this daytime “second wave” of the attacking marauder, which (like the second wave of COVID in the summer) wasn’t supposed to happen. In place of the clearly inadequate boards I had put around the base of the pen, I scavenged from aro
“Peter must be spinning in his grave.” That was my first response when, working at my desk Friday morning, I saw that a Turkish court had cleared the way for Hagia Sophia, the great Byzantine cathedral in Istanbul, to be returned to use as a mosque. Peter, my late partner, had spent part of every year in Turkey, a country he loved, from his early twenties to his death at nearly 81. Most years, the base for our Istanbul sojourn was one of two charming small hotels (Yesil Ev and the Ayasofya Pansiyonlari) virtually in the shadow of Hagia Sophia, where the staff greeted him by name. Among other merits of their locations, being there enabled us to see as we strolled by when there were no lines waiting to see this wondrous building. As a result, we often were able to enjoy visits without competing with hordes of Hagia Sophia’s 3.7 million annual visitors.
Hagia Sophia is a big deal because it is one of the oldest and largest cathedrals in the world. Commissioned by the Emperor Justinian and finished in 537, after two prior churches on the site burned, it has a spectacular dome, about 15 stories high, which has survived earthquakes and partial collapses and is supported by a great system of buttresses. It served as the great cathedral of the Byzantine Empire for almost 1000 years, until the Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, when it was converted to a grand mosque, and most of the Christian iconography was covered over or removed. In the 1920s, when Turkey was established as a secular state under Kemal Ataturk, the building was converted to a museum. In recent years much careful work has gone into restoring some of the spectacular Byzantine mosaics and frescoes that had been covered over.
Peter certainly did not object to mosques or Islamic religious practice. He was passionate about visiting the dignified and spectacular urban mosque complexes of Sinan, the great 16th century Ottoman architect, and equally enthused by simple early wooden mosques in the country, when we could find them. As a man immersed in history, Peter would, however, be going ballistic over the thought that what has been restored at Hagia Sophia may now be destroyed with encouragement from Prime Minister Erdogan, who seems as passionate about undoing Ataturk’s secular state as President Trump is to undo the accomplishments of Barack Obama.
Trump and Erdogan share a great deal. They both disdain historic preservation. Trump’s vandalism of the Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue in the 1980s reminds one of Erdogan’s proposal, when he was Mayor of Istanbul, to tear down the City’s Byzantine walls. And like other autocrats, they relentlessly take advantage of any opportunity to accomplish their goals. While the world is preoccupied with the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic, Xi Jinping is deftly erasing Hong Kong ‘s special status, while Erdogan is realizing his dreams of an Islamic state. At the same time, Trump and henchmen are busy dismantling environmental rules, the Justice Department, reproductive rights and refugee protections. Let others focus on addressing the pandemic.
This Hagia Sophia story has gotten me thinking a great deal in the past day about what Peter’s response would be to the present day state of affairs had he survived. I’m pretty sure he would have taken the pandemic in stride. After all, he lived through history’s other recent cataclysmic events up close. When he had to crawl out of our apartment on 9/11, after the second plane hit the nearby World Trade Center south tower and our windows blew in, it simply recalled for him his previous experience as a child in Cardiff, Wales, during the bombings of the Nazi blitz. He would just have seen this a one more in the world’s eternal series of cataclysms that upend and reconfigure the way we live.
Further, I am convinced Peter would have successfully navigated the pandemic lockdown better than most of us. He largely lived alone five
Among those essential workers who have achieved considerably increased appreciation during the Covid -19 pandemic have been postal workers, who have kept delivering mail pretty well throughout. The United States Postal Service has for decades seemed threatened by obsolescence, only to find new services (Netflix, for example, and then fulfillment of orders placed by internet shopping, especially in the pandemic) that have helped keep it going. Postal delivery is a lifeline in many rural areas. If the Postal Service gets a needed financial rescue (despite the President’s resistance to helping an agency that does not act like a commercial carrier) it will likely be because rural Republicans in Congress know how much their constituents rely on the economical and essential services the USPS provides. (“A Fight Over the Future of the Mail Breaks Down Along Familiar Lines,” New York Times, May 10, 2020)
Not that the postal service hasn’t had its challenges recently. Despite operating very dependably here in Columbia County, its performance in New York City has been spotty through the pandemic. At my law office, we’ve gotten emails from the post office with pictures of letters supposedly out for delivery to us, only to have the letters arrive five or six weeks later, and sometimes not at all. Paychecks mailed from Manhattan to my office manager, who has been working from her home in Brooklyn, are so often delayed or disappeared that we’ve taken to sending her three weeks pay in advance to make sure she is not left pay-less. We have no idea how much important mail we may be missing.
It was with no small trepidation, then, that I initiated my usual order this year for young chicks from the Freedom Ranger hatchery in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The chicks come, after all, by the U.S. Mail. If the delays affecting our City mail were to carry over to the poultry shipments, that could dramatically endanger the birds’ welfare. Chicks can be shipped by mail without food and water because, after feeding on egg yolk throughout their incubation, they ingest extra yolk at the time they hatch, enough to sustain them for about 72 hours. Provided they are put in proper boxes, with air holes sufficient for breathing and enough insulation to keep them warm, they can weather a shipment by mail very well. But they must arrive within 72 hours at most. The longer the trip the greater the stress and the lower the likelihood of survival.
This may seem like one of those cutting edge new services the Post Office has had to undertake in recent times to develop new revenue streams. In fact, it’s a long standing practice which dates back almost to the creation of Parcel Post itself.
Parcel Post service was created in 1913. At first, the only animals explicitly permitted to be shipped by postal regulations were bees and bugs. (The current bee-shipping regulations instruct that a Queen Bee can only be shipped by Air Freight if she is accompanied by at least eight attendant honeybees, and she is dropped off and met by ” alert personnel”). But creative shippers immediately saw a wide range of potential uses of the service. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, within the first year of Parcel Post there were several people who shipped children via parcel post, for example to see their grandparents (“A Brief History of Children Sent Through the Mail,” June 14, 2016). It turned out that parcel post, which charged by weight, could be far cheaper than buying a train ticket for a relatively light child. You need only put sufficient stamps on your child’s shoulder, along with a written delivery address, and the USPS would dutifully fulfill its mission.
Mailing of children was formally banned in 1920 (who knew this was the centenary of such an important event?). But by then, in fact in 1918, the service of shipping newly hatched chickens had been instituted. With that 102 year old service comes a whole series of r
There are four individuals in our household with very different dietary preferences and food aversions, but it appears we are all united in our love of brassicas — cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts, broccoli, etc. It is a love I now know we share with the ground hogs who live among us, and who keep marauding our garden.
I have been assiduously cultivating a patch of kale in various varieties, from the familiar curly-leafed light green to the straight leafed dark blue-green lacinato to mixed Siberian and Russian greens and reds, since the earliest days of the garden this season. It’s started with a mix of left-over seedlings Victoria kindly brought from the farm where she’s working and a packet of mixed exotic seeds I got from the Hudson Valley Seed Company. They were doing pretty well up to about two weeks ago, when I noticed that the big leaves of those furthest along were disappearing. Every day I would come out and find more of the plants decimated. Thankfully, the grazing just took the bigger leaves — the stems and smallest new leaves were generally left behind, so the plant would regenerate. Still, it was frustrating that whatever began to look like it would soon be harvestable was disappearing, when we should have already been eating home grown kale.
I realized we were dealing with a decided taste for brassica when one morning I found the kale without new damage, only to see that a similar munching pattern had been replicated in the nearby bed of brussels sprouts. Two days later, it was the bed of broccoli (see picture). Unlike the kale patch, which I’d assiduously weeded and mulched so the kale plants were the only thing to eat, the brussels sprouts and broccoli patches were pretty weedy, with the young brassicas I had seeded not that easy to discern. Nonetheless, whatever was eating them was doing so selectively. The amaranth, gallant soldier, lambsquarter, purslane and chickweed among which my seedlings were growing remained untouched, but the brassicas were continuously reduced to one or two leaves.
The thought of adding further interior garden fences to a fenced garden, or of hiring a trapper as I had in the past, or reverting to what had always to me seemed a futile effort to poison the groundhogs through putting smoke bombs in their tunnels, was highly discouraging. I felt I was looking forward to an endless war.
And my discouragement turned to near rage the other morning when I came out to water a row of sugar snap peas (not even brassicas!) I had planted along the garden fence, and which were in flower and staring to produce pods. I found virtually the entire 50 foot stretch of pea vines gone. In some cases, the tops of the vines were still twined in the fence, shriveling, allowing me to see that the eating was done from ground level. And I kicked myself for having just weeded around those peas, as I saw that the few vines that were spared were those made invisible behind blackberry canes.
Such was my anger that the same afternoon, when we found Eric’s dog, Lillie, in confrontation with a large groundhog, I relished the battle that ensued. The groundhog was snarling, Lillie was barking loudly and incessantly, and while she was frequently picking up the creature and swinging it around, it was biting back. Even as Troy objected that allowing Lillie to fight with a wild animal was no way to address our ground hog problem, my blood lust was such that I asked Eric to let it continue. And he did for a little while, until it was clear that the stand-off was exhausting her and she was not going to win the fight easily.
I wonder if my perhaps irrational response simply reflects the larger environment in which we are living. We escaped to the farm as Covid-19 ravaged the City for what we thought would be a couple of weeks. That turned into a three month continuous stay which, if I am determined to keep staying safe while not feeling imprisoned, looks like it
It was Thursday evening, and I assumed Eric and I would be on our own for dinner. Troy had gone to (where else?) Troy, where he has been volunteering to help build backyard vegetable gardens with Soul Fire Farm (soulfire.org), a “BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color)-centered community farm committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system. ” Judging from his last foray to Soul Fire, I assumed he’d be home quite late. Victoria, on the other hand, has been leaving not long after dawn for her job at Ironwood Farm (ironwood.farm) in Ghent , a certified organic, woman operated farm — check out their beautiful produce at the Rhinebeck Farmers Market. By the time she returns in late afternoon, she is often famished, eats a late afternoon dinner, and retires.
Since it wouldn’t be a whole household meal, and I didn’t have to worry about appealing to everyone’s dietary tastes, I figured I could satisfy one of my own spring passions: a meal based on a tender young weed that appears invasively every year at this time — lambsquarters (chenopodium album), also sometimes called wild spinach. It is in fact part of the amaranth family, related to spinach and quinoa. You undoubtedly have lambsquarters growing in your yard. Virtually everyone does, it’s a pervasive weed.
Lambsquarters is easy to spot. It grows on erect branching stems, currently ankle height but eventually three to five feet high, with leaves that the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine website describes as “triangle- to diamond-shaped … coarsely toothed or shallowly lobed.” The underside of the leaves are a gray to silver color, covered in a powdery substance which is apparently a sort of crystallized wax.
According to that website, “The nutritious seeds have been eaten for thousands of years in Eurasia, as evidenced by archaeological digs. A native species of lamb’s quarters (Chenopodium berlandieri) was one of the earliest agricultural crops grown in North America—archaeologists have discovered seeds dating back 3,500 years. This cultivated strain of lamb’s quarters predated the cultivation of corn (Zea mays) by 1,500 years in eastern North America.”
In a “weed of the month” feature in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden website, we learn that lambsquarters is actually cultivated as a crop in the Punjab. The author of the feature, Saara Nafici, reports that her Red Hook (Brooklyn) Community Farm sometimes includes it in their CSA shares. I don’t think it’s often cultivated deliberately in modern North America, but Ms. Nafici advises us why it’s a good weed to encourage in your gardens. Its long tap root , which allows it to grow in poor soil, brings moisture and minerals to the surface and makes them available for other more shallow rooted plants, and it can serve as a “trap crop”, diverting leaf miners away from beets and chard.
Among its other virtues, lambs quarters is high in Vitamins A and C, in calcium, iron and protein.
When I mentioned the idea of pasta and lambsquarters to Eric, telling him it was a garden weed I like to eat, I sensed a slight reserve in his response. More like a hesitant “okay….”. In order to increase his enthusiasm, I suggested adding in an ingredient I knew would appeal to him — some sea scallops we had in the freezer. Even so, it was not without trepidation that I went ahead. The powdery substance that coats the leaves can leave a slightly sandy feel in the mouth, a texture to which some people object. But what the hell, life is about risk.
So I proceeded. Gathering the lambsquarters is one of those tasks that gives me great pleasure because it’s one of those dual purpose tasks that makes me feel highly efficient. I try to harvest where the weed is overwhelming other plants, in this case the forellenschluss lettuce, and by harvesting I am simultaneously weeding. I pulled the young lambsquarters up by the roots, then cut the roots off and wash the still tender
Operating in Germantown, NY for over ten years
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Coriander and dill, $1/bunchOur lambs are fully reserved for July. We expect to do another batch in September. Reservations for whole or half lambs, cut to your specifications, at $7 per lb hanging weight, being accepted..
A Shared Resource Photo by Paul Raso
Hi all, Mark here.I'm sure I'm like many of you who, starved for the usual range of stimulus in our lives, have turned to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime to unwind from our stress-filled days. Here at the farm, we have tried to approach that endeavor in a programmatic kind of way, picking successive themes that might help transport us away from our daily diet of anxiety-inducing Covid-19 news: from every episode of "Sex and the City" to "Unorthodox" to the films of Xavier Dolan. Our most recent project, recommended highly by my friend Susie, has been the three available seasons of the German noir production, " Babylon Berlin ".I've found the series, as advertised, gritty and riveting. But though set in the Weimar Republic, ninety years and 3700 miles away from here, I have not found that it has taken me very far away from our present. One of the themes of Babylon Berlin is the steady breakdown of order. Warring political factions and criminal gangs directing violence against each other, often manipulated by government officials whose ostensible duty is to promote public order and communal well-being. In the background, we see corporate interests navigating for advantage, a speculative stock boom that has little relation to the real economy, and an underclass whose suffering contrasts starkly with the good times enjoyed by the elite. In the complex plot line even transitory successes of the good guys take place in a world we know is falling apart economically and politically.This week, when I read that a church, whose pastor and congregation had defied bans on assembly for worship, had been burned to the ground in an apparent arson attack, I thought right away of Babylon Berlin. It was a very uncomfortable feeling indeed -- a concern that our current culture war around response to Covid 19 could become a hot war. Will government lose its authority, leading to years of dog eat dog struggle? And will the hunger of the citizenry for order or salvation from suffering take us from chaos to a vicious authoritarianism like that seen in the Germany of the 1930s and 40s?With my entertainment not serving as an antidote to reality, I have found myself in need of an antidote to my antidote. I found it, oddly enough, in a dose of our current reality as I ventured forth from the farm. On a rainy Friday evening, I returned to New York City for the first time since my hasty departure on March 17, and from there went on a one day round trip to Eastern Long Island. The purpose was practical errands. I retrieved stuff from my apartment, and Eric from his. We delivered his dog, Lillie, to his custody-sharing ex, and we picked up a riding lawnmower to replace the very broken down old model in my garage which had become too expensive to keep fixing.I found a City still far more shut-down feeling than the Hudson Valley. My downtown neighborhood reminded me of Sundays in the late1970s when the Wall Street workers were gone for the weekend and nobody but us few residential pioneers lived there. But I also saw signs of a communal affirmation of mutual responsibility. Picking up my friend George's mail from his doorman in Greenwich Village, we encountered on Seventh Avenue one of those magnificent floral displays installed as a Flower Flash by Lewis Miller Design(https://lewismillerdesign.com/flower-flash/). Flower Flash is a long term public floral display project
We’re falling into a comfortable rhythm, Lillie and I. Lillie is Eric’s dog, here for a several week stay as her custody is shared with her other daddy, and she is a sweet, smart creature. She knows from past visits that when I get out of bed in the morning it is time for her to hop out too, and to stay still for me to put her collar on. She knows to wait on the back stoop as I put my boots on, and then leads me to the first stop on the morning chore route, the chicken coop. She knows that from there we go to the pigs, and runs around ahead of me to the gate going down to their pens. Something about our sow Possum, similar in coloration to Lillie but roughly six times her size, mesmerizes her. She knows that when we get up to the sheep at the barn, she must stay behind the fence while I shepherd the flock past her out to the pasture.
Routine structures our days and our lives. I share Lillie’s love of routine. I sorely miss some of mine. The biweekly dinners in the City with my friend George, at which matters existential, political and deeply personal are plumbed; my egg deliveries to my neighbors downtown, the occasion for more casual banter; warm evenings entertaining friends on my terrace; my weekly pilates class next to Union Square Farmers Market, the perfect observation point for the wonderful carnival of humanity that is New York City.
It’s not surprising that so much attention of late has been paid to the fate of cities in general, and of New York City in particular. There is apparently a great pandemic exodus in process. The Times, using analysis of cell phone location data, has reported that about 5% of the City’s population, 420,000 people, left between March 1 and May 1. In several rich, densely populated neighborhoods, including the Upper East Side, the West Village, SoHo and Brooklyn Heights, more than 40% of the residents decamped, most often to the suburban and exurban rings around the City, but also to such far flung places as West Palm Beach.”The Richest Neighborhoods Emptied Out Most as Coronavirus Hit New York City” (May 15, 2020) Apparently, properties in places like the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires are selling like hotcakes, despite the obstacles to sale caused by lockdown orders.
Whether what I’d call the pandexodus is temporary, and simply an expression of the privileged classes’ ability to seek safety and comfort in hard times, or permanent , in a way that will reshape the relationship between City and country in unforeseen ways, is the great question. The same day the Times published its findings on the exodus, it ran a very intelligent op ed by Mary Bassett, a former New York City Health Commissioner, entitled “Just Because You Can Afford to Leave the City Doesn’t Mean You Should”. Dr. Bassett argues convincingly that cities are overall healthier places to live than nonurban areas, with longer life expectancy, and that we should not abandon New York City.
Some of Dr. Bassett’s supporting evidence is not entirely convincing as an argument for staying in the City right now. She points out that the areas with highest population density in Manhattan are not the areas with the highest per capita Covid rates. Rather, she argues, the incidence of disease is much likely the result of living in overcrowded households, going to work on overcrowded transit, and working in crowded workspaces than with living in a dense high rise neighborhood. With income and white collar work comes the ability to better protect oneself, she says.
But thanks to the pandexodus those rich areas she found to be relatively safe are not nearly as densely populated as she asserts, which weakens Dr. Bassett’s argument that density is irrelevant to disease transmission. Nor did she compare the incidence of disease and death in Manhattan to other parts of the country. Manhattan’s incidence may be lower than the Bronx, but it’s still very high compared to other places. Even in fanc
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:
We are now sold out of chickens. We are arranging for the next lambs to go to market. We are hopeful the weekend storm does not set the garden back too far or kill berries and fruits in blossom. We wish George Cronin a happy 69th birthday.
Let me start by apologizing for skipping last week's bulletin. Truth be told, I was stuck in the mud.
I've heard similar expressions from many of my friends. They are fully occupied by being confined. Some are working hard, but not getting enough done. All seem to be losing touch with others in their lives, and feeling dulled by the circumstances of their isolation. The stimulus package they need is more than just a financial one.
In my case, though, being stuck in the mud was literally the problem. Doing my law work remotely takes so much time and energy on the weekdays that I have tended to push bulletin writing off to the weekend. I had allocated last Saturday afternoon to writing the bulletin, but my plan was interrupted when Troy raised concerns about the welfare of Vernon, our frail and aged boar.
Vernon and Possum's corrugated steel quonset hut deteriorated substantially over the winter. During the heavy rains of recent weeks it took in a great deal of water, creating mud in which Vernon, who has difficulty walking, was becoming stuck. You've all heard the expression "happy as a pig in mud." Pigs are indeed happy in mud on hot days, because they can't sweat and the mud cools them. But it was reasonable to assume that with nights as cool as they are now the pigs would not be so comfortable in the mud, and Troy's question "Can you really justify leaving Vernon in there one more night?" embarrassed me into action.
We had a pretty intact hut that had not been much used down at the other end of the pig pasture, and I rolled it up through that long stretch of marshy land up to the particularly muddy area just behind the pig pens. At that point I made the mistake of stopping to discuss with Troy, who was trying to rearrange things inside the pens, where we should place the new hut. My leg sank nearly knee deep in the mud. As I tried to raise it out, the mud sucked my work boot right off my foot. Leaning over to retrieve the boot, standing now quite unevenly with one raised foot in a mud-encased sock and my other foot still somewhat deep in the mud, I found myself suddenly on my side, stretched out much like Vernon has been, but luckily more capable of getting back up.
We eventually got the hut into a dry corner of the center pen and filled it with nice comfy straw for the pigs to nest in. Troy cajoled Vernon in that direction, which took some time, but the old boar eventually got into the pen we wanted him to be in. He was not as thrilled with the hut as we expected him to be. He dug a hole in the new pen where he and Possum have slept most nights. He went back one night to his old muddy pen, and spent one night in the farrowing hut in a next door third pen. So far, he has not spent one night in his luxurious new hut, maybe because we don't fully understand exactly the world we need to create when we try to extricate ourselves from a miserable situation. Like this damned pandemic.
Several weeks ago, someone who was waiting for me to make an important business decision (for which our current pandemic has major implications) wrote me to say "This will all be over in two or three weeks." I told her she was more optimistic than even President Trump. Apparently, so are people who invest in the stock market and drive up stock values every time another three million people lose their jobs.
While I understand the desire to "do business" that induces us to close our eyes to the reality around us, I'm afraid I cannot share their sense of optimism. I suspect we're in for a long slog. I hope it's over by the end of this year, but to achieve that we may have to endure severe restrictions
There are six adorable greenish yellow puffballs paddling out on and marching around our pond. Since they hatched Wednesday, these goslings have been carefully shepherded at all times by their extremely protective parents, a couple of Canadian geese.
It seems remarkable to me that these goslings can swim so soon after hatching, given their lack of mature feathers and the extreme cold of the water. When we used to raise domesticated Toulouse geese, it seemed water was the enemy of the day-old hatchlings we got in the mail. If they got too wet, and did not dry quickly under the heat lamps, they often didn’t make it. But then, they didn’t have an extremely large and protective feathered mother to get under.
Our pond’s role as a hatching ward for Canadian geese started nineteen years ago, the very first year after it was dug and filled up with water. It seems the tiny island in the middle of the pond is an ideal spot for brooding, as it is not readily accessible to large land based predators, and is an easy location to monitor. When the eggs are first laid the geese can go to the nearby pasture to graze without losing sight of the island. Once the eggs need incubating, one of the pair can sit on them while the other patrols the perimeter, the pond’s shoreline. When potential threats, like humans, come near, the safety patrol can see us coming and try to deter our approach.
I’m pretty sure it’s the same pair of geese who come each year. When they first started this annual ritual, we thought we needed to do something to discourage it, as we had images of the pasture and nearby lawns slick with goose poop, as happens in suburban parks where large flocks of geese perpetually congregate. The way they tried to attack us, when we were simply going down to slop the pigs housed nearby, was bothersome. But it did not take long for us to realize that their sojourn was temporary. Once the goslings could fly, the whole goose family moved on.
As we viewed the geese as less of a threat, so, I believe, did they view us. In the last few years, after a few introductory hisses each spring to remind us to keep our distance, they haven’t much chased us. They know where we’re going when we come down with the slop bucket and they are confident we’re not coming to get their eggs. The suspension of mutual hostility in favor of an unstated social distancing pact is partly what convinces me it’s the same pair of geese visiting us year after year. They will leave, they will return.
There was a time when I could say the same about myself. Regular as clockwork, every Monday I would leave. Regular as clockwork, on Friday I’d be back. Now, however, I’ve been here for an unprecedented, nearly unbroken stretch of nearly six straight weeks. I’ve been living comfortably without the City I thought I could never live without. I’ve discovered that it’s possible to work effectively, remotely.
I’ve realized how much I’ve missed here in past years while away mid-week. There are a surprising number of trees and flowers whose peak bloom lasts only a few days. The ornamental apple along our driveway, the nectarine out back, some of the blue and yellow patches of bloom in the rock garden Peter planted whose names I don’t even know. Sometimes these periods of peak bloom in past years coincided with my weekend presence, but often I only saw the remnant of them or heard about them from Peter. This year I’m getting to see the whole magnificent progression.
I’ve also realized how much I miss about my life in the City. Walking lively streets. Eating the world’s cuisines in lively restaurants with friends. Theatre. Jostling for produce at Union Square. How easy it was to meet someone at the drop of a text and a hop on the subway. But on the whole I’ve been content here; the craving for those activities has not yet gotten intense. And I’ve considered whether I ought to just stay here full time a good bit long
At the Passover Seder we learned again that each generation achieves a new advance in freedom. But somehow I’m not sure that the COVID “resisters” in Michigan are quite what the Haggadah had in mind. Nope, no dictatorial government is going to limit their right to peaceably assemble, and thus interfere with their constitutionally conferred right to infect each other with a potentially deadly virus. Like the pastors who insist on their congregants’ God-given right to share the virus by worshiping together at church, they believe no secular public health official had better interfere.
These resisters believe any limitation on personal autonomy, even to protect defenseless others, is an overreach. Government is an evil institution bent on control for its own sake; individuals and businesses should be left alone to do what’s best for them. Remarkably, our President has egged the Freedom to Infect crowd on. Presidential advisor Steven Miller has likened them to Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of a Birmingham bus.
Sure, after a month of confinement all of us are more than a little unhappy. Even here in the relatively less restricted environment of the farm, my narrowed existence makes me occasionally short-fused. That’s why I’ve been tempted to mutter toward these resisters my mother’s worst curse from an earlier epidemic: “Ein Khaleria (or Kholere) af deer.” (Khaleria is Yiddish for shrew or bitch; Kholere is Cholera. My mother pronounced it Khaleria, but she told me it meant “A Cholera on You.”) The sense is: “Go ahead and ‘resist’; you should only get the plague you deserve.” A bout of COVID-19, starting a week after the protest, might teach the resisters a lesson about social responsibility.
But then I think of the innocents who might become sick from interacting with these “resisters” and I think no, don’t go ahead. The government should be able to step in to protect us from a virus just as it should from a shoe bomb. To my mind, America has become the world’s COVID epicenter not because of a government that did too much, but rather a government that did too little. And if the government effectively took over more of what we’ve entrusted to the private sector and the marketplace, we might be in better shape.
Everyone is now aware of the shortage of beds and ventilators that resulted from leaving decisions to individual bottom-line driven hospitals. But other examples abound. Take my experience with the financial stimulus package. The bipartisan CARES Act included a Paycheck Protection Program that funds banks to lend money to small businesses so they keep people on payroll when there is no work. Like my law firm office manager, whom I pay to stay home while my colleague Chris and I work remotely. I turned to my bank, Capital One, which emblazons on its website the slogan “We are here to help our customers impacted by the COVID-19 virus situation” for such a loan.
For about a week into the program, the website advised me to be patient, the bank was running a pilot with some selected customers and would soon be able to take digital applications. “Soon” never came for me. Eventually that notice was replaced by another advising what kind of information would be needed to make the application, but saying they were still not ready to take them. I was instructed to click on a “contact me” link so they would get back to me when ready to process applications. When I first tried the link did not exist. When I tried to phone in for help, the extension to which I was directed was dead. The website instructed not to come into any branch for information. The last phone number I had for my account “relationship manager” was constantly busy. Ultimately, a day or so later the “contact me” link appeared. I signed up. I still have not been contacted.
While Capital One dithered, I called other banks. The first two told me they had been overwhelmed and could serve only their e
As I ponder on my good fortune in time of great hardship, having become a somewhat permanent guest at Turkana Farms, I sense how little my own will controls my reality. Yes, I am a lucky man. Far away from the feared city, cozily sheltered in the Hudson Valley, I share space and spend time with warm, caring and generous people. I feel that the animals have also welcomed me. They have gotten used to my presence and, with bleats, clucks or grunts, tolerated my clumsy handling of the chores, done to attend to their daily needs. I don’t understand them as well as they understand me, it seems, but it doesn’t matter; our interactions nonetheless give a heartfelt purpose to my life. And we, together, contribute to put in order the beauty of this planet. That is simple and that is love.
Last week, I was invited to share my New York “pandemic” experience with the readers of “La Presse”, a Montreal newspaper. I was one of the five Quebecers to do so, having had been a resident of New York since the early 90’s. Apparently, the story struck a chord with the readers, especially the part in which I described my exodus from New York City. They had heard about this phenomenon and the collateral effects that city people like me were creating in rural communities. I assume that, in assessing their own fears, they may have read my escape as selfish, petty or reckless. I hope they were also able to read my concerns, my “tiraillement” and my overall gratitude. The article reached many members of my extended family and friends across Canada, giving them good news on my health and security, relieved that I was with friends and away from the “hot spot” that became New York City. They couldn’t wish me a better place to be than the farm of my friend, Mark.
Only few of the folks in Germantown know that I am here. They have been angels without knowing. The town workers, the grocers at local stores, the farmers, all providing services relentlessly, diligently and without much hesitation. Our long walks beyond Lasher Avenue have offered us great solace but it is the waving from the very rare passing cars that energized us the most. Often anonymous, sometimes without a clear picture of the people, the gentle waving of hands through the car windows presents a community in solidarity; neighbors who look after one-another, in its simplest but most effective expression. With its people, the draw of this town is its bucolic setting: a precious nook of Columbia County with boundless farmlands and spectacular views. It is like looking at masterpieces from landscape painters and that helps me keep my cool and peace. It gives me also great existential comfort, realizing that I may just be one of the small points in one of those landscapes.
I cherish my time at Turkana Farms. I love the smells, the sounds and the rhythm. The days follow a unique cadence dictated by the animals; I go from stillness to action in a heartbeat. I have nominated myself as the “Poulailler” master, feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs. I wash the eggs like they were Fabergé and place them in containers as gems in Cartier “écrin”. My conversations with the chickens, I admit, have condescending undertones but they don’t seem to care; they just want to perform their sassy dance around me. Troy and Mark are the bosses when it comes to the lambs and I am the helper. I nonetheless relish giving them (the lambs of course) the special “collation” they are so craving. Their excitement over that feed gives me a strange sense of belonging; a shepherd in training so-to-speak. And then, there are the pigs, masters on their own with their overbearing presence, making us servants, for the most part, and making me, particularly, careful to preserve table scraps as perfect triage translates to their most pleasant delight.
This is my reality for the time being. Living in a farm and contributing to its operations a little bit. Sharing sweet moments with Mar
If you, like me, are “sheltering in place,” perhaps you are experiencing a similar sense of dislocation. What was once familiar now seems tinged with strangeness. What was once comforting and safe now seems fraught with risk.
Take the passage of time. When your time is not punctuated by activities such as going to work or periodic community activities or social gatherings, the days become harder to keep track of. For a time I was acutely aware of how many days had passed since activities that we now know, in retrospect , presented higher risk for exposure to Coronavirus — that Jane Birkin concert, the afternoon spent with a friend, the restaurant dinners and rides on crowded rush hour subway trains. But now that I’m well past the usual 12 day period from exposure to symptoms, I seem to have entered a time warp in which what day it is hardly matters. Every day follows more or less the same pattern, engaged in the same activities, with, if you’re lucky, the same companions.
April Fool’s Day came and went without our customary Turkana Farm April Fools Bulletin. In part, it’s that I couldn’t think of how to alter our current reality in a joking way. One of our April Fool’s Day staples in past years was describing new Turkana Farms products or services that were close enough to reality that the reader might be taken in, to the point that we received requests from the gullible for purchase of our freshly laid chocolate flavored eggs or for tickets to the luau to celebrate our pineapple harvest. But what new products might I offer now? Personal protective masks made of our felted Karakul wool, or farm-crafted ventilators constructed of fireplace bellows and garden hoses? Would anyone find that funny? If you’re sick, or worried about a friend or family member who’s sick, focusing each day on the state of their symptoms or calculating how their needs will mesh with the availability of ventilators, surely not.
But I also skipped April Fool’s Day because in a crisis of momentous proportion, the significance of any particular day diminishes. We will even lose the traditional ways to mark far more significant holidays like Easter and Passover this year, deepening our sense of time-warp.
When a lost sense of time overlaps with a lost sense of place, the effect is even more dislocating. For those of us fortunate enough still to have work, doing that work at home changes our sense of what home is. It is no longer demarcated as a place for only certain activities, and when it becomes everyplace it becomes no place. For those stuck inside with no productive activity required, it becomes more of a prison. And when guidance tells us that there is danger of making those you live with sick, emphasizing such advice as the need to clean shared surfaces frequently, home loses part of its sense of a refuge from the dangers of the world.
One wonders, indeed, whether there is any longer such a thing as a safe place. Hospitals, once perceived as havens of safe care, are increasingly viewed as reservoirs of infection and zones of high danger. Or consider food markets. I went yesterday to a delightful, well stocked food market, which I once would have viewed as a most mundane pleasure, and found it transformed into a minefield of insecurity. A majority of my fellow shoppers were masked and highly conscious of maintaining distance, but a significant minority did neither, sometimes, it seemed, assertively. The need to be constantly on guard against others innocently engaged, to maneuver around them and suspect whether they were carrying a lethal threat in their breath or on their hands, transformed the sense of grocery store from a routine activity where one could luxuriate in one’s choices to a danger zone where the emphasis was on getting out quickly.
Facing such dislocations, I am more grateful than ever for the refuge of the outdoors. It’s a gratitude similar to that expressed by a number o
When a New Yorker is dying every 10 minutes as a result of the Coronavirus epidemic, does the state of life on our farm matter? In a moment of crisis that has upended the lives and routines of hundreds of millions in this country alone, of what relevance is a place in which the rhythm of life insistently plods on uninterrupted, from chore time to planting time to pruning time to chore time, as it has for decades? “What can I possibly say?” has been my dilemma this week, as I struggle to write my self-assigned bulletin and to remain in dialogue with our customers, colleagues and friends
I could point out that even the farm is not safe from the pandemic, that our feeling of being on the periphery is really an illusion. We interact with the world outside and Infections in rural America have begun to take off. But to accentuate our risk would be to fail to acknowledge the particular pain of cities, particularly New York City, which because of its close interface with the rest of the world and the density of living circumstances offers particularly fertile ground for a highly contagious virus to get introduced and be transmitted. Even at the peak of the epidemic weeks down the road, we in Germantown are unlikely to hear the round the clock ring of sirens already being heard right now in our beloved major metropolis. It may be bad here. We are all likely to know someone who is lost as a result of this pandemic. But it won’t be as catastrophic as in New York City. To my friends and neighbors there, particularly those who are fighting the illness, I send a message of love and support.
I could try to address the moral ambiguities and guilt of those of us who live both in the City and the country and have taken refuge in the country. As was true of those who escaped the annual yellow fever epidemics in New Orleans in the 19th century, it is largely people of privilege who can reduce the risk of an epidemic by moving away from it. And with the Coronavirus, there is the very real danger that those who move will bring the virus with them and overload rural health systems unequipped to deal with the volume of cases brought by seasonal visitors.
But I would, in discussing this migration, have to point out that the virus would have arrived through commerce even without that migration, as it has throughout the country. By coming here, these refugees help reduce density and avoid even more intense transmission in the City. As part time residents they are already integral parts of the local community, and they infuse needed dollars into a local economy about to be hit by a pandemic-induced recession. So to those who would attack the pandemic refugees, I send a message to “cool it.”
I could try to use the farm to illustrate the far-reaching economic consequences of this pandemic. Because even for a place with as microscopic a production as ours, we’ve seen a considerable shift in our business. On the one hand, sale of our frozen meats has taken off as supplies in supermarkets have been exhausted. In the past two weeks, we’ve sold close to 60 of the Freedom Ranger chickens we raised and froze last summer, way more than we sold in the previous three months. We’ve sold so much so that we’ve stopped offering them on the Farm2Tables wholesale app and are holding the remaining stash for our regular individual customers.
On the other hand, our egg sales have gone down. With me sheltering in place here, we are no longer delivering to our weekly egg customers in and around my New York home. Even more significantly, the restaurants which were taking the overwhelming portion of our production through the Farm2Tables app have now closed. There has been some uptick in individuals’ purchase of eggs from the farm, something my sister advised is part of a national trend for “stress baking” that has egg consumption up about 44% from a year ago (
What does one say about life on the farm when the world surrounding it seems so fragile and threatened and out of control? The farm has always been my psychological refuge, and by retreating here this week I have enjoyed a sense of relatively greater physical safety than I had in the City in these pandemic times. Though being here offers great comfort, the realities are such that it does not erase the sense of foreboding.
Being just at the beginning of a cataclysmic process that will affect everyone, and is so full of uncertainties, one searches for signs of hope. We’ve had some such signs today. One friend who has been fighting the cough and other symptoms associated with COVID-19 at home on his own, reported feeling considerably better. My friend, Eric, just learned that a friend of his, who has been in the ICU in a hospital in Perth, Australia, since his return there from New York last week, has stabilized. His numbers are improving and he is communicating with his worried friends here. And in the life of the farm there is hope as well. This morning, Beignet, one of the twin lambs that Theodora gave birth to yesterday, was standing pertly next to his sister, Sucette, small and skinny compared to her but holding his own and reaching for Theodora’s udder. He was delicate and weak at birth, and Theodora had mastitis, reducing her to one functional teat for the two lambs. Sucette was dominating that teat. Beignet seemed at high risk, but now seems also to have turned the corner.
Beignet was lucky to have the expert ministrations of Troy, who treated his mother’s mastitis and kept him warm and fed until he was strong enough to make it on his own. And Eric’s friend similarly benefited from expert professional care in Australia, where there is universal health coverage system and a sound strategy in place to respond to such emerging threats. I have fear that our weak and overstretched medical infrastructure, in which planning for such pandemics was not given high priority despite knowledge of the risks, is not going to be able to provide hope for such outcomes in all cases. Will everyone who contracts COVID-19 get as much personal attention and appropriate treatment as little Beignet did?
Obviously intense mobilization and effort will be required to promote positive outcomes. The signs of hope we had today,are not much more reassuring than the promises President Trump made two weeks ago. All are as evanescent as the rainbow that appeared over our field this afternoon. Much more is going to be required of us: educating ourselves to what is known about COVID-19; maintaining social distance and good hygiene to avoid transmission; reaching out creatively so the required isolation is less overwhelming; helping our small businesses survive; and pressing our political leaders to act boldly to protect the most vulnerable. All of which I ponder, as Eric recites to me in his native French the lyrics of “un parfum de fin du monde. ” To snuff out that scent of the end of the world, we will have to participate and act in ways we are not accustomed to acting.
We are not living here like it’s the end of the world. We are enjoying the evening meal together. We are delighting in watching Eric’s dog, Lillie, get to know all the animals on the farm (see pic of Lillie encountering pig Possum from a safe social distance). We are taking long walks with little fear of exposure.
I recognize that it is a privilege to go through a semi-isolation with family, Troy and Victoria, and with my friend, Eric, in a bucolic setting where social distancing is not really a challenge. But I recognize too that we have a corresponding obligation, to produce food at a time when it may become scarce, to do it safely, and to make it available, especially to those who find themselves in need. We each need to consider how we can play a productive role: along with self protection, should come self-reflection.
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I hope you are all well and staying vigilant in this crisis. I wish I had some original insight to provide regarding the COVID-19 disease, but many others have already said it better than I: Practice good hygiene, avoid unnecessary interpersonal contact, prioritize care and resources for people with compromised immune systems, and don’t let fear guide you. As the quarantines begin to put a halt to many of our jobs and daily activities, many people are making the difficult choice to do their part in containing the virus – by staying home.
It feels wrong in a way, as a crisis usually calls for action, rather than the opposite. However, as far as communicable diseases are concerned, preventing yourself from getting infected and transmitting it to others goes a long way toward saving lives. I, for one, have been doing a stellar job of quarantining myself on the farm for the past two weeks – something for which I’ve been practicing the whole year. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the farm for days on end, not seeing another soul besides my housemates, Victoria, Mark, Esperanza (the dog) and Mapquest (the rabbit). Under usual circumstances, it can be isolating, but at the moment, it is quite the privilege. Very few people have access to wide open, outdoor spaces with no humans and plenty of interesting animals to keep them company. I do not take it for granted. Even so, under any circumstances, privilege or no, the act of social distance requires effort, and my hope for resuming regular social interaction requires patience.
Farming is often an exercise in patience. Three weeks ago, it became clear that one of our ewes, Theodora, was pregnant. Her udder characteristically dropped and swelled, and her belly grew along with it. We did not intend any pregnancies this year, keeping our rams and ewes totally isolated from each other. So, either this was an immaculate conception, or we left a gate open at one point along the way. We can’t know for sure. Either way, we began anticipating with joy the birth of at least one little jumping lamb this spring.
And three weeks later still we anticipate. Theodora seemed quite far along when we found out she was pregnant, and ever since then we’ve been saying, “Any day now. Be on the lookout.” But she just grows bigger, and continues to plod along and eat her cud. I envy her patience. Or perhaps it is the lamb who is patient. Maybe it was ready long ago, but it is waiting for the world to calm down before it breathes the air outside and joins the rest of the herd.
I would call it a smart lamb, to stay cocooned like that for now. Much as we may look forward to rejoining our human herd, for right now we’d better just learn the joys of anticipation, and the virtues of patience.
WHAT’S NEW THIS WEEK
For any of you who thought you might just do a normal shopping this week, only to find that people assume they will be cut off from food and have cleaned our region’s supermarkets out of chicken, meats, canned tuna, vegetables, and bottled water, among other things, it’s time to get resourceful. As predicted last week, small family farms may now be able to fill the food gap caused by supply dislocations in the pandemic. You can at least fill your protein needs with our frozen chicken, lamb and pork. We welcome your orders for these items, and for fresh dug horseradish, and for eggs, which continue to abound.
WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK Tiny hot matchbox peppers, $5.00 a string, dried and quite decorative. Fresh dug horseradish root, $3/lb.
EGGS: $5/doz, $3/doz (fun size)
MEATS: We keep some on hand, but it helps to order ahead in case we need to retrieve from our stash in the big commercial freezer. See below.
GEESE: One remaining, about 8.5 lbs. $10/lb.
ROASTING CHICKENS – Nice fat Freedom Rangers, frozen, largish (4 to 7 lbs, a few smaller), $6/lb.
LAMB: Riblets $8/lb, small a
Last week I spoke of my focus on the farm while the rest of the world seemed focused on the novel coronavirus pandemic. This week, I must admit that the pandemic has gotten my attention too.
Two friends told me about the contingency plans where they work (in one case, a school, in another a major international agency) to close and require them to telecommute. Another friend touched me by giving me a box of alcohol-soaked wipes to clean my hands after I’ve been doing possibly risky things like hanging onto subway poles. It was ironic that my friend delivered this gift in a crowded Village bistro in which nobody was the recommended six feet away from anyone else, but there we were nevertheless talking about all the ways we should minimize risk by distancing ourselves from other people.
The pervasive anxiety we feel when confronted with a risk we don’t understand is something I’ve been through before. I am reminded of the early 1980’s and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, when I required to wear protective masks, gloves and gowns when visiting clients in the hospital to supervise a will signing or prepare for an insurance dispute. In those first months nobody knew exactly how the disease was transmitted. We eventually learned that those precautions were not really necessary; the virus could not be spread by casual contact. Nonetheless, people with AIDS were stigmatized, excluded from school and work, and were sometimes quarantined. When they were sickest they were unnecessarily deprived of meaningful touch and human contact, making their deaths all the more horrific.
The death rate from AIDS in the earliest days was at least ten times higher than that of the estimates for coronavirus. But the virulence of the coronavirus makes for high anxiety despite the relatively lower death rate. It is hard not to worry when in the space of three months the virus has spread from a market in Wuhan, China, to numerous fellow passengers on cruise ships on the Pacific to family members, friends and fellow congregants of a member of a synagogue, Young Israel of New Rochelle, New York. “Community transmission” through simply being together seems the only good way to explain large clusters of infection on almost every continent in such a short time.
For those at particularly high risk, such as people my age and those with serious underlying health conditions, it is small comfort that over time the epidemic is likely to get less threatening. Sure, as in many viral epidemics, human immunity may develop in response to the novel challenge, and the virus itself may mutate to a less harmful form. Given adequate resources, epidemiologists will come to understand the mechanisms of spread and how to combat it and doctors will learn more effective treatments. Drug companies will develop effective vaccines. Yet too many people will suffer severe illness and die while that knowledge is being developed. We will all suffer the consequences of a disrupted economy. And for a time we simply will not know how much precaution is too much.
As was evident early in the AIDS epidemic, the line between rational measures to protect people and excessive measures unduly informed by prejudice and fear is an easy one to cross. Because food is already such a focus of people’s concerns regarding health, it is bound to be focus of transmission fears. We’ll see adoption of both well founded protective measures and others that are based on irrational prejudice.
Among the well-founded measures, there may be changes to the Chinese food distribution system that as currently structured contributes to starting these epidemics. Often, viral epidemics are triggered when a virus jumps from one species, where it lives without devastating the host, to another. Flu viruses are thought to start in birds (often chickens), which then jump to pigs and then to humans. Coronaviruses are thought to start mostly in bats, but then jump
In a week when the world has been preoccupied with worries about the potentially catastrophic health and financial consequences of the coronavirus infections rapidly spreading around the globe, I’ve been focused relentlessly on a small patch of 38.5 acres in Germantown, New York otherwise known as Turkana Farms. It’s not that I’m trying to escape the ugly larger reality surrounding that patch of land. Rather, it’s that this is the part of the world where I actually exercise a small degree of control and am called upon to make decisions of consequence.
Further, in contrast to decisions involving the larger world, this is an arena where I harbor a modicum of hope that I can make the future something of an improvement on the past.
Just a couple of months ago, when Troy and Victoria told me they had decided against forming their own farm operation here, my first impulse was to declare defeat. If the plan I thought was the farm’s salvation had failed, perhaps it was time to sell and move on to the next phase of my life. I contacted a realtor, who outlined various options and suggested what she thought was a realistic price for a quick sale of the place.
I thought about what it would mean leave to leave, but the period of contemplation was brief and not very hard. The realistic price she suggested was insufficient, in my opinion, to provide me with the economic security I would have expected from selling my single most valuable asset. After brief reflection, I told her I was disinclined to go forward. If a huge pile of money (i.e. a fair price in my estimation) should materialize out of the sky in search of this property, I can at that time truly struggle with whether I could bear to part from the repository of so much sweat equity and memory and what seems to so embody the joint project that was Peter’s and my life together.
Instead, as I previously reported, I began the search for someone else to run the farm. I posted the property on a farmer-landowner match site, the agricultural equivalent of OK Cupid or Scruff. In a brief period, and before I even posted the pictures of the farm that were encouraged, I garnered several responses.
What follows will be familiar to those of you who have dated via the internet. There are a lot more misses than hits. I got a couple of inquiries from people who wanted to place “tiny house” farm vacation rental units on the property, up to 20 of them. These units are mini-cabins in which people get a farm experience by living out in the field and hanging out with the animals grazing around them. I was told that such operations, which seem to me nothing more than camping sites with sheep manure, are under New York law considered ancillary to agriculture and can be put up without zoning variances or much in the way of permitting.
Without thinking, I invited the first such inquirer to come see the place. Then I read a bit more about these operations, and I thought about what it would mean to have my field dotted with little cabins, and a parking lot for their cars, and all the ancillary services they would require, and it suddenly became apparent to me just how antithetical it all would be to my sense of what the farm should be. To my relief, the fellow, who had found another site he liked, called to cancel as I was about to cancel with him. When the next tiny house operator contacted me, I was able to decline this less than ideal type of date immediately.
While some prospects on dating sights reveal themselves immediately to be searching for something wildly different from you, others will initially seem very promising. Promising, that is, until they turn out to be there solely to revel in their fantasies. They will spin out the sexual or romantic fantasies inspired by your profile through text or phone communications, but never really intend to meet or consummate the relationship. On the farm match program they are people with
Hi All, Mark here,
It feels as if we’ve barely had a winter this year. Rain and mud have been more concerning than deep snow as potential obstacles to trucks getting to our barn. I think I’ve shoveled the driveway on just two days. The change in the angle of the sun has, on some of the balmier days, given me a distinct frisson of impending spring, and perhaps a touch of spring fever. Last week on 13th Street in Greenwich Village I saw snowdrops in bloom.
I know the easy winter should make me depressed about global warming, but my depression quotient seems to have been completely filled by parochial national rather than global concerns as we slide ever closer to authoritarian rule. The apparent imminence of spring has instead caused me to feel a certain urgency about getting winter tasks done. For the past couple of weekends that impulse has gotten me pruning our blackberry canes. I expect to continue this weekend.
Our two patches of Illini blackberries were planted over 15 years ago, just west of the vegetable garden. We chose this particular berry hybrid because of its ability to withstand extremely cold temperatures, down to 23 degrees F below zero. One patch was planted near a huge mulberry tree that threatened to shade out both the berries and nearby fruit trees. We had the mulberry tree removed and in most recent years the blackberry canes have given us a bounteous crop, while the canes have spread even into the vegetable garden. The other patch is in the partial shade of a shagbark hickory. It has been less successful. Troy and Victoria have told me that those berry canes really should be moved to a sunnier spot, and this may just be the year I get to moving them. But first comes pruning.
Pruning is a process it took me a long time to accept. In my naïve beginning days, I was of the Cultural Revolution school of agriculture – Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom. Instinctively I felt that the more flower buds there were the more fruits or berries would be produced, and hence the better our production. Pruning back branches meant fewer buds and flowers, hence fewer fruits and a “worse” crop. Even harder than pruning for me was thinning of fruit that formed. Here was a perfectly good peach in formation. How could I possibly take it off a tree simply because it was rubbing up against another fruit?
I failed to consider, of course, that fruit or berry production must be concerned with more than simply the number of fruits. The success of a crop is a function of the size and quality of the fruit, its freedom from fungus and mold, how it ripens, and how it survives harvest.
Pruning is directly related to all of these concerns. Fewer fruits on a tree or bush means that the plant will nourish each individual fruit more generously, making it larger. Giving each fruit or berry space to grow, without rubbing up against a nearby sibling, means that the risks of abrasions and misshapenness are reduced. Giving space for air to circulate around the berries and fruit reduces the likelihood of fungus and mold becoming pervasive. Pruning back branches reduces the shade cast by leaves. The consequent dryness further inhibits mold and fungus, while promoting the sun-ripening of fruit to maximize flavor. Finally, by pruning branches to go where we want them to, we allow for ready access for harvest and reduce the risks of fruit damage from that process.
Having learned to value the results of pruning, I have learned to prune, and to love the process too. I follow the directions in my berry bible, Stella Otto’s the Backyard Berry Book (Ottographics, 1995). I strive to impose order on the thorny chaos that results from the massive jumble of long trailers (some up to 8 feet long) and branches constantly pushed out by, and ultimately forming a canopy over, our rampant blackberry canes. I prune back the bright red, erect primocanes to about 4 feet in height, and snip the lateral f
Turkana Farms is transitioning, as Mark revealed in last week’s bulletin. By this time next year, the land will be under someone else’s watch, and likely under a different name as well. With that knowledge, we’ve had to adjust our plans for this year quite a bit, and reimagine our visions for the following years quite a bit more. What will Victoria and I do after this year? Where will we live? I don’t have answers for these questions, but I can say that I’ve been in this position before. Being accustomed to seasonal work, I know that it’s too early to worry about these things. The opportunities that will be available at that point do not yet exist. And there are more pressing issues to worry about right here, right now.
For instance, the chickens need a clean coop. The pigs need a warmer, drier shelter. And the sheep… well, the sheep need lots of love and affection – as always. No matter how far into the clouds we are as we speculate about the future, the farm has a way of bringing us back to the ground, literally.
Our pair of retired pigs has been of particular concern lately, considering the cold and rainy weather we’ve had. The sheep have nothing to complain about, as their fancy new barn keeps them perfectly happy. But Possum and Vernon, on the other hand, are stuck with their beat-up old metal structures. They’ve grown accustomed to one farrowing hut that Peter S. patched up a while back. It’s where they slept all summer long, not far from where we deliver their food. Unfortunately, it has become a bit of a problem this winter.
Vernon, in his old age (he’s turning 14 this year!), has developed some mobility issues. That, combined with cold and generally gross weather, has discouraged him from leaving his hutch very often. He’s been hiding in there way more than he ought to be, which means I have had to get in there, muck out his bed and give him fresh hay a lot more than I ought to be. We turned to our farmer friend and local pig expert, Grace, for advice. After giving the pigs and their home a thorough inspection, Grace told us we need to move them to a new shelter ASAP. It needed to be bigger with a larger entrance, so that Vernon can have an easier time getting in and out, and I can have an easier time mucking it when I need to.
So I spent an afternoon patching up a different, larger shelter and delivering wheelbarrows full of fresh bedding (aka hay rejected by the sheep) to their new home. I made their bed, but could I get them to lie in it?
It was a pretty easy sell for Possum. She loves fresh hay and came over to observe as I brought all the hay from the barn. When I showed her the finished product, she made some adjustments to give it her own flair, but then she contentedly plopped herself down inside.
Vernon, however, was much more resistant to the change. After I managed to coax him out of his old corner, I had to walk him two doors down to his new and improved hutch. He did not do so gladly. He refused to follow me, so I had to direct him by gently patting him with an old shovel handle. Loudly expressing his annoyance, he reluctantly followed my directives, and several times turned back to try and go home. I explained to him that a better, more comfortable home lies ahead, but he would not listen to logic. He was set in his ways.
Eventually he inched his way to the newly-positioned food trough and ate his lunch. Then he turned and saw Possum, comfy in the shelter, so he trundled over and snuggled up next to her, grunting at me ungratefully as he passed by. Success. The next morning, he was up by the food trough waiting for me before I even got there! Now that he doesn’t have to wait for Possum to get up, he’s turning into a more confident and independent boar. This must be how the Fab 5 feels after each episode of Queer Eye.
We like to joke that Possum and Vernon are an old married couple. They grunt and gripe at each other fro
Hi all, Mark here.
Victoria’s bulletin last week reported that, having taken on a full-time gig at Ironwood Farm, she would not be managing the Turkana Farms vegetable garden this summer. That one sentence has prompted a lot of speculation (not always voiced), so I thought I’d shed some daylight on the questions it raised.
First, what does this mean for you all? Will we be producing vegetables this summer? Those of you who were so pleased with the new garden offerings accompanying Victoria’s arrival last season may be understandably concerned that what hath been given in 2019 may be taken away in 2020. There is no question that Victoria’s rather herculean efforts last season, undertaken in the hours around her full-time day job and on weekends, resulted in a major upgrade in the scope of our garden offerings, and that they were of uniformly high quality. She works to a high standard, and this is an undeniable loss.
Nonetheless, we will do our best to offer produce this summer. Seeds are being ordered, and we have every intention of supplying you with some of your favorite garden produce this summer and fall.
Second, what does it mean for Turkana Farms? What of the plan for Troy and Victoria to take over the farm operation as their own? Did something go wrong?
To these questions I have a considerably more disappointing answer. Troy and Victoria will be moving on at the end of this season. They have not lost their passion for agriculture, but they’ve decided their future is not here.
We always viewed last year as an experiment in which Troy and Victoria would determine, after a year of unpaid internship, if they could make a go of it. If they decided they could, they would have take over the farm operation as their own this year. They ultimately determined that even if the land and housing were free, the economic reality was that they couldn’t. Their rationales are undoubtedly more complex and wide ranging than they’ve voiced to me, and I will leave it to them to share with you what they care to, but I can tell you what they’ve told me.
In part, having seen the farm’s operation, which has never been conducted on a particularly business-like model, they’ve determined that it would need a major investment in infrastructure, well beyond our new barn, to have a chance of generating sufficient income to sustain them. That investment would include such assets as a new truck, the tractor we’ve never had, and a cold room. The investment would require resources they don’t have, which I don’t feel I can diminish my modest nest egg to provide, and which they’re reluctant to borrow for when they don’t own or fully control the property they’re operating on.
Perhaps even more important, their farm dream entailed integrating our existing resources, particularly the house and its immediate environs, into the farm’s operations in ways I found unappealing. They suggested that renting out the now formal Victorian parlors as studio space, holding more public events, and potentially transforming parts of the house’s immediate surroundings into parking areas, would help make it economically viable. They are no doubt right, but such changes would reduce my ability to use it as the refined, quiet refuge from the world Peter and I envisioned. Their lack of autonomy to maximize the return on the property constrained them considerably.
Though the idealistic vision we started with will not be realized, I would not say that something “went wrong.” This experiment succeeded in several respects. Troy and Victoria clarified what kinds of agricultural endeavors they’d like to pursue and how they think they can succeed at them. I do not think they will wait thirty years to pursue them. They discovered an incredible and for them previously unexplored part of the world, the Hudson Valley, readily accessible to many of their old friends and home to many new ones. It’s an
Hello, it’s Victoria.
I’ve stepped back from writing newsletters for a while, mostly because my time and energy have been intensely focused in new places. After this time away, I’ve had some interesting developments and updates I want to share with you all. And after the first rush of New Year’s resolutions, of which I made zero, now seemed like the perfect time to share the personal changes that I’ve blundered into anyway.
We’ve started a new class for one- and two-year olds at Little Darlings Farm School, led by my co-teacher Alanna and me, so I’m now there four or five days a week, and have quite a few more hours to dedicate to my smallest friends. I’ve also started working as a teacher at Kite’s Nest center in Hudson, designing an after-school class for this Spring on Wilderness Skills. In April, I’m taking on an even more ambitious project, as I’ve accepted a full-time job with Ironwood Farm in Ghent. I’m thrilled about this opportunity to work with Ironwood, growing mounds of vegetables, learning from co-owners Lauren and Aliyah, and embracing the long-dormant desire of my heart: tractor cultivation.
In a strange and vaguely magical synchronicity, I only applied for the job at Ironwood after talking to some farmers I met at a community yoga class in Hudson. After arriving at a party for my friend Lucia’s house last week, I discovered that Lucia–whom I also know through community yoga–is going to be the other crew member at Ironwood this year. As we danced in her kitchen in our excitement, she turned to her housemates and said, “See? I told you everything was going to work out perfectly this year!”
While I don’t have quite her level of unshakable optimism, I am deeply excited about the upcoming season, and am enjoying the feeling of being on the right track, making connections in my community in the Hudson Valley, and finding a way to weave my disparate interests and passions into something coherent, and shareable with others. After the tracking class I took with Troy, which he described in a recent bulletin, I’ve been immersed in thinking about tracking as a vector for environmental education and as a way of moving through the world, and managed to work the lessons I learned from Raei and The Rusty Anvil into the curriculum for both Little Darlings and Kite’s Nest.
Of course, dramatic systems change always brings a shock, as with the return to colder temperatures after our weirdly warm weekend. With the panoply of jobs I’ve collected for this year, I won’t be able to grow a garden here at Turkana. I’ll also have to leave the preschool when my full-time work starts at Ironwood, and it’s already painful to think about waving goodbye to all those small hands. Just this week, we focused intensely–or as intensely as two-year-olds can focus–on tracking skills, reading books and field guides, finding paths in the snow, playing animal footprint matching games, and printing our own tracks.
Yesterday, for the first time in a year, I pulled out my old linoleum block printing supplies and cut some new stamps for our class project. I kept these skills, acquired from a workshop in Raleigh years ago, and they were there when I needed them. The class will keep the stamps, and can use them again and again, whenever they want. Walking over the pasture hills with Lilli last weekend, we could see the architecture of the terrain, naked under the snow. In the pause of winter, when the flush of annual growth has dropped, we’re able to see lines converging that weren’t evident before. Looking at the path I’ve laid out for the upcoming year, I can’t help but think about my lady Mary Oliver, telling me what I need now and always: “…spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.”
WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK Tiny hot matchbox peppers, $5.00 a string, dried and quite decorative. Acorn squ
You all undoubtedly remember the Bible story most often told to demonstrate the wisdom of King Solomon. Two women were fighting for custody of a child, each contender claiming to be the child’s mother. King Solomon had the unenviable task of deciding which woman should prevail. How did he go about doing it? He suggested dividing the child in two. One woman accepted his judgment. The other, clearly horrified at the thought, retracted her claim and asked that the child be entrusted to her rival. The woman willing to give the child up, King Solomon decided, must be the actual mother, as proven by her devotion to her child’s welfare. He awarded custody to her.
I, acknowledging there is much we can learn from the Bible, would like to follow King Solomon’s example. This is the week the first group of the lambs born last season goes to market. Many of you purport to love lamb, and indeed will go to great expense in restaurants to order such fashionable dishes as braised lamb shanks – perfect winter fare. To you professed lamb lovers, I am offering to divide a lamb in half. Only in a twist on the Biblical story, those who take up my offer will actually receive the half lamb, cut to your order by a butcher. Because I know your willingness to take half a lamb is not evidence of your disregard for the lamb’s welfare.
Indeed, I know that one of the reasons you prefer to order lamb from a farm like ours is precisely because you care for the lamb’s welfare. You recognize that our lambs freely roam in open pastures, and take shelter at their will in our enormously comfortable and brightly lit new barn on cold snowy winter days. You know their diet is principally grass and hay, the food their digestive system is designed to handle, with grain given only as a small daily treat. You are aware that they are processed humanely at a local facility that is certified as Animal Welfare approved. Finally, you understand that for heritage breeds like our American Karakuls, the only way to ensure that the breed is perpetuated is if there is a market for its meat.
So why have you hesitated to order one of these lambs, whose availability has been known for weeks? In my Solomonic wisdom, I recognize that the issue for many is a very mundane one: freezer space. You look at one of our sleek fat lambs out there on the pasture, and you think, “I could never fit the meat from one of those creatures in my freezer.”
Yet the fat woolly lamb that weighs in at perhaps 80 pounds when placed live on the scale goes through a number of steps on the way to being carved into freezer packages. It is first of all skinned of its heavy wool pelt. (Troy and Victoria, under the tutelage of our former farm hand, Peter Siegenthaler, are planning to process the pelts into tanned sheepskins this year). Its head and lower legs are then cut off, it is eviscerated of its guts, and the blood is drained out. What remains, the meat, bones, tail and some organs, comprises the animal’s “hanging weight”. It is called “hanging weight” because it is in that form that he meat is hung up in a cold room and aged for several days before being butchered
With pastured animals, the hanging weight will be about 50% of the live weight. That 80 lb. lamb will hang out at about 40 lbs. (We charge by hanging weight, at $7/lb. ) The amount that goes into your freezer, however, is further reduced by the butchering process which, depending on your instructions, removes a great deal of fat and bone, as well as tendons and glands. The 40 lb. hanging weight is likely to translate into 30 lbs of actual cuts of meat. And if you order half a lamb, the approximately 15 lbs of actual meat you get from half of a live 80 lb. lamb is something any normal freezer compartment, including normal New York City apartment freezers, can handle.
What do you get as part of that half lamb? Much depends on how you direct the butcher to cut your meat up. Rather than
Hey all, Troy here,
It’s that time again, the time where our culture forces us to remember the past and think about the future, even if we’d really rather not. That’s right, it’s a whole new year, and a whole new decade as well (which means ten times the reflection). New Year’s is of course a celebratory holiday, characterized by fireworks, champagne, and kissing. I enjoy these festivities and the whole spectacle as much as the next teetotaling cynic, but it’s hard to ignore the tinge of sadness that also coats this season.
We’re supposed to take stock of our year: the successes and the failures, the triumphs and the regrets, all of it. And a lot can happen in a year. Even if it doesn’t feel like a lot happened to you, we all at the very least recognize that the Roman calendar moves up one tick, the Earth revolves around the sun, and a year does in fact elapse (in other words, you weren’t born this morning with fake memories implanted into your brain). So if you were hoping to hide away and avoid the subject altogether, then I apologize. But yes, change did occur, things did happen, time marched forward, greenhouse gases entered the atmosphere, and wherever we’re all headed, we just took one step closer to it together.
I spent New Year’s Eve with some college buds – some of whom I had seen as recently as Thanksgiving, others I hadn’t seen since graduating in 2013, and a few I had never met before. We played games, did puzzles, sang karaoke, and ate a beautifully roasted freedom ranger from our freezer. We ended up missing the countdown and ball drop because we were busy sharing our reflections on 2019 and our intentions for 2020. I’m sure some of you are familiar with the game Rose, Thorn and Bud, in which you share your favorite moment, your worst moment, and something you look forward to. I was the first to share, and frankly, I didn’t have to think about it too long.
My Rose was finally getting engaged to my love and life partner, Victoria. My Thorn was the sinking, gutting feeling after the barn burned down – and subsequently telling the whole world that our barn burned down. And my Bud is the wedding that we plan to start planning any day now. These events certainly stood out as the most obvious and dramatic life changes, so I didn’t need to dig very deep into my memories. However, after a bit more reflecting, I realized there were a lot more contenders than I had initially thought.
As it turns out, we had a really packed year. Dozens of things happened this year that would have been obvious Roses or Thorns in any other year of my life. We bottle fed a baby lamb, we got a dog, we had many friends come and we fed them meals made entirely of food that we grew ourselves. We also lost a lot: a family member, a number of animals, crops, and jobs. We dug graves and we witnessed births. It’s hard to believe how much happened! Maybe all these memories were implanted after all… Or maybe this is just life on the farm.
Not all of the drama from last year was farm-related. But I have to say, farming is by far the most dramatic and emotional work I’ve ever done. Farming always exists on the knife’s edge between life and death. When we make mistakes, things die. When we succeed, it’s through the miraculous resilience of our plants and animals – which ultimately, in death, feed us.
This year has been a learning experience for us, which means we’ve cared for a lot of life and witnessed a lot of death. This will be true next year as well, and so on, as long as we remain farmers. If this sounds like a hard pill to swallow, it may be, but please note that death surrounds us always, whether we see it or not. Everything we eat was at one point harvested. As farmers, we are simply a lot closer to that moment of transition than most.
In return, we also get to feel closer to the land and the environment in which our food grows. Never have I felt so much a part
Intimacy is a powerful and, I am sure, genetically impelled need. The farm is, I am constantly reminded, a hotbed of intimacy. One of the chief pieces of evidence is in who is sleeping with whom.
I’m not just talking about the human inhabitants. All our farm’s mammalian creatures make choices about who sleeps with whom in a way that seems, as with humans, to relate to bonds of affection. I am prompted to this recognition by observing the somewhat aberrant behavior of one of the youngest of this spring’s ewes, Pepshe. And no, this is not going to be a racy description of Pepshe’s kinky sexual tastes.
When we humans talk about sleeping together we tend to use the term as a polite way of referring to sexual activity. That seems to me an odd choice for a euphemism, because instead of substituting a term of trivial significance for the activity that shouldn’t be mentioned, this substitutes a term that itself implies considerable intimacy, in some ways as intimate as the sexual act itself. Sleeping together extends over a far longer period of time than most sex does (ok, except maybe for the unusually gifted among you). It entrusts someone with access to you, and the ability to observe what you do, when you are at your most vulnerable and least guarded. And it involves a complex process of negotiation (such as when one person turns one way, how does the other respond?) that takes place in a state of semi-consciousness. In a world where sexual hookups arranged on line are shrugged off by many as not particularly earth shattering events, actually spending the night with someone is taken as an activity worthy of note as a sign of developing intimacy between the two individuals involved.
I cannot help but recall, in this regard, the farm Peter and I once visited for the purpose of purchasing some peacocks. The animal-loving proprietors told us of their adoption of a young deer, a buck, whose bond of affection with them grew so much that he, even as he grew and developed antlers, showed up nightly to be admitted to the house and to sleep with the couple in their bed. As he grew, he eventually pushed the husband out and onto the floor. The couple told us how he was tragically (even, they suspected, deliberately) shot by a neighbor during hunting season. They demonstrated their love for the creature by showing us pictures of him in their bed.
Which brings me to Pepshe. Our sheep generally sleep solo, except for one familial pattern I’ve long noted — mothers and daughters generally sleep in pairs. (I imagine the young males would sleep with their mothers too, if we did not keep our males and females in separate zones.) It seems an almost universal pattern, except for Pepshe.
Pepshe is what my grandparents would have called in Yiddish a real “vantz.” To my mind, the term translates as a lovable Dennis the Menace type, always getting into some kind of innocent trouble. My family always affectionately dubbed my brother, Howard, a vantz. When I look the term up in the urban dictionary, I learn that its origin is in the Yiddish term for bedbug or louse, and that its standard translation is “obnoxious punk.” But I use the term in its more affectionate, loving form to describe Pepshe.
Pepshe is the one lamb of her year who charted an independent course. She was the one who figured out how to sneak into the corral all summer to get first bites of the grain before we opened the gates for the rest of the sheep to enter. She has been excellent at getting into places she is not supposed to be.
Pepshe is the daughter of Ayse, one of the oldest ewes currently in the flock. Ayse is the daughter of the late Sultana, one of our earliest and most beloved bottle fed lambs, who seems to have taught Ayse to relate to and bond with humans in a way most sheep do not. Pepshe has, in turn, inherited that person-friendly demeanor from Ayse.
What Pepshe has not inherited, however, i
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Plenty of meat, with a few pumpkins ($2/lb) and acorn squash ($2/each) left over.The nadir of egg production: The shortest day of the year also means the lowest ebb of egg production. We have just one dozen to offer, first come first served. As the days begin to lengthen, supply will build back up.Time to order lamb: We are sending six to market in mid January. You can order a whole or half lamb, $7/lb hanging weight, cut by the butcher to your specifications. Please inquire if you have questions about this process or would like to order one.
Hi all, Mark hereIn the nick of time. At least I hope so. The ongoing saga of getting our new barn fully operational for winter, a goal dependent on electricity being brought from the house via a 500-foot long trench, is coming to a close on the very first weekend of winter. Many thanks are in order.In a previous bulletin, Troy lauded his and Victoria’s friends, Hanna and Lila, and my friends Eric and Paul. As guests for weekend get-aways, they spent their leisure time helping clear debris in the areas near the barn where the trench had to go. Paul even came back for a second weekend to spend hours digging with a shovel and pry bar, when he could have been hiking his beloved nearby mountain trails.An attentive bulletin reader, David, called me immediately after reading my bulletin about digging through shale, to generously offer the loan of the electric jackhammer he had used to dig through the rock ridge behind his house on the Roe Jan for similar purposes. I was over at his house within hours. We were lucky that the shale areas were all within range of a fifty-foot extension cord run from either the back of the garage or the house.When the insurance proceeds ran out and we still faced $30,000 of expenses to finish the barn, my sister and brother in law, Jolie and Doug, came forward with a loan for the balance required. It was critical help at a cash short moment.Our electricians, Chris and Dan, and carpenter, John, gave up weekends, fitting completion of the barn’s lighting and power and internal features like stalls and mangers into their otherwise pressing work schedules. Thanks to them, and to recent modifications Victoria and I helped Troy to complete, we will have fully operational mangers and near eternal light (the LED fixtures are rated to provide 50,000 hours per bulb) in time for Christmas and Chanukah. Mangers and lights, a nice ecumenical touch.The electricians had told us last weekend that they could install the conduit and wiring and hook up the barn’s electricity this weekend if all the trenching from the back of the house to the barn were ready. If not, they said, the next chance for installation would not be until mid-January. Of course, the farm in mid January is as likely as not to be frozen in a foot or more of snow that can last until March, so we felt a particular urgency.Troy rented a trenching machine for last weekend, which did a beautiful straight furrow through the soft earth south of the vegetable garden and in other areas we hadn’t hand dug near the barn in just a few hours. It was not clear it would have such success, because torrential recent rains that followed upon 18 inches of snow created prodigious amounts of mud that threatened to clog the works. He tried the trencher on the shale areas, but it struggled, sputtered and seemed it would be damaged if we pushed it too hard.I did some research on building codes to see just how deep we really had to go. From what I could tell, on top of solid rock (and I verified that the shale ridge would count as that) we really only had to go 2 inches down, with two inches of concrete over the conduit. But our electricians advised to dig as deep as possible even in those shale areas in order to make the task of pouring concrete much easier. (by code, when the conduit is encased in two inches of concrete in a 12 inch, rather than 18 inch trench, that is kosher virtually a
HOW MUCH MUCK
Hey all, it’s Troy again.
While Mark and Victoria have been focusing their energy off-farm lately – Mark on his law practice and Vic on becoming gainfully employed once again – I’ve continued to chug along, making sure that entropy does not overtake the farm in their absence. Last week, I wrote about the rather abrupt transition into full winter, which was a bit of a surprise for us. My natural response when I get caught off guard is to get myself organized. If I can clean up some of the mess around me, then maybe my brain will be clearer and I’ll be more ready for whatever comes next. So I did a farm sweep, gathering up scrap metal, old broken tools, and things that just don’t serve us anymore. With a satisfactory clang and bang, I tossed it all into the dumpster on Palatine Park Road. Returning to the farm, it wasn’t obvious that anything had changed, but the corner of my mind that stored all of that junk felt absolutely breezy.
If there’s a catharsis to getting your shit together figuratively, the same is true for getting your shit together literally – by which I mean mucking. This week, I enjoyed one of the first full barn muckings of the season. If you are raising your eyebrows at the thought of enjoying shoveling muck, then allow me to explain.
There is something undeniably satisfying about mucking a barn. When the shit and straw are nice and compact, they can be readily pulled away from the floor in nice big flakes. There’s nothing quite like the sensation of stabbing the ground with a big fork and peeling it away like a giant scab (are you sold yet?). Bit by bit, you uncover the flat, hard concrete underneath, while also piling the shit up elsewhere to become fertile organic matter. With some arm and leg work and a few hours, you can transform a problem that you have now into a resource for later. It’s amazing! And at the end of it all, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you don’t have to do it again for a good while. That is, unless the muck builds up nearly as fast as you can shovel it. Then you just have a problem that never goes away. If this is currently the case for you, don’t fret, I’ve been studying muck carefully, and I might be able to help.
You see, the rate of muck accumulation is dependent on several factors, all of which are somewhat controllable. The two primary components of muck are animal waste and the hay or straw used for bedding. The amount of animal waste produced is a combination of the number of animals you have and how much time they spend inside the barn. The amount of bedding is simply how much hay you throw on the floor, plus the hay that falls to the ground as the sheep eat clumsily from the manger. Usually, I only sprinkle a little hay on the floor after mucking the barn to prevent slipping, and I leave the rest up to the inefficiency of our sheep – or rather, the inefficiency of our mangers.
Right now, we have two long, V-shaped wooden mangers with open slats that let the sheep poke their heads in to get the hay. I think they look fantastic and are doing a fine job feeding our sheep; however, they have been very leaky lately. Some of our sheep like to dive in deep, trying to find the best bits of hay somewhere in the middle of the manger, while letting other perfectly edible bits fall to floor and mix in with the muck. Thus, the muck in our barn has been growing and the hay has been disappearing all too quickly.
To address this problem, we are testing out two strategies this week to control our overproduction of bedding. For the manger on the South side of the barn, we have constructed a foot-high wall at its base to catch fallen hay and prevent it from mixing with the rest of the muck. The goal is to keep the floor hay relatively fresh, giving the sheep an opportunity to have “seconds” once the good bits are gone from the manger. For the North manger, we lined the inside with chicken wire to p
Smothered And Covered
Hey everyone, Troy here.
In a previous bulletin, I threw in a slight dig about people who put up their Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t mean-spirited, but I did note that they were a distinct category of people, and that I was not among their ranks. Well, I’m eating those words now, as I’m sure they were much better prepared than we were for the two feet of snow that smothered us on the first day of December. Luckily Victoria and I caught an early train back to the farm on Sunday, so that we could scramble around for a few hours, dropping heaters into all of the water tanks and digging out the barn doors so they wouldn’t freeze shut overnight.
I thought that Fall would be able to hang on just a little while longer, at least in time for us to finish up the trench we need to dig to electrify our barn. But as our electrician said while deflecting my apologies, “Nothing happens gradually anymore.”
I don’t know about you all, but I’ve been feeling the same way lately. It feels like most things nowadays are characterized by rapid changes and dramatic extremes. One day Obama is president, and suddenly it’s somebody really different. Did they just ban plastic straws overnight? Since when have I been a farmer? Is fall no longer a season? Is this a pattern, or am I just an aging curmudgeon? Both can be true.
The thing about sudden, dramatic changes is that, in reality, they are not sudden at all. An earthquake is the sudden release of tension that builds over hundreds or thousands of years. The larger the magnitude of the earthquake, the longer the tension has been building under the surface. When a snowfall suddenly causes the fencing of your chicken yard to collapse, you might discover that the cause was actually the fence posts slowly rotting underground over many years. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria did not cause World War I, it was caused by a complex web of alliances combined with rising imperialism and nationalism throughout Europe. Two of these are metaphors, and one is not. Actually, they’re all metaphors. Wait, never mind… none of them are.
All this is to say, the fact that I had to drag hay to the barn in two feet of snow on two sleds is not the fault of my lack of preparation for a clearly forecasted snowstorm. Rather, it probably had something to do with many thousands of other things that have been building and changing gradually over a very long period of time. It wasn’t my fault! Geology and history absolve me.
WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK Tiny hot matchbox peppers, $5.00 a string, dried and quite decorative. Acorn squash, $2/each Decorative Tennessee Dancing Gourds, 4 for $1 Cheese Pumpkins, $2/lb, 5 to 8ish pounds
EGGS: $5/doz
MEATS: We keep some on hand, but it helps to order ahead in case we need to retrieve from our stash in the big commercial freezer
GEESE: One remaining, about 8.5 lbs. $10/lb.
ROASTING CHICKENS – Nice fat Freedom Rangers, frozen, largish (4 to 7 lbs, a few smaller), $6/lb.
LAMB: Riblets $8/lb, small and larger leg roasts $14/lb,
PORK: Loin pork chops, $12/lb (2 to a pack, btwn 1 and 1.5 lbs), Jowl (roughly 2 to 3 lbs each), $12/lb, Spare ribs and country ribs $7/lb baby back ribs $8/lb fresh ham roasts (2 to 3 lbs), $12/lb smoked bacon, $12/lb
FARM PICKUPS:
Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you’d like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Regular pickup times are Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., other days by arrangement. If you have questions, don’
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Happy Thanksgiving. It was new, very new, not to be seeing you all for turkey pickup. And a little sad. We look forward to seeing you back again next year.
Deeply Entrenched Hi all, Mark here. When I tell people I have a farm, and they ask where it is, I describe its location in the broadest geographic terms: the Hudson Valley. When I ultimately invite them to visit and direct them how to come to the farm, I of course have to get more specific. I direct them to drive up Hog Trough Road and take a left onto our road, where they enter Germantown. They are inevitably charmed by the both the road onto which I’ve directed them, with its bucolic view of a valley dotted with barns and cows which appears to sweep all the way over to the Catskills, and by its name. To them, the term “Hudson Valley” conjures farms like the ones they buy from at their local city greenmarket, and “hog trough road” confirms that this is, indeed, the deep country, someplace somebody is raising pigs.It goes without saying that “Hudson Valley,” despite its association with agriculture and weekend homes in the minds of New Yorkers, is really a geological term. It refers to the large depression formed between the hard-rocked Catskill Mountains and the next hard-rocked ridges to the east (the Taconics and Berkshires) as glaciers advanced and receded over the softer sedimentary rocks like shale in the area between them, in the last ice age. But it often surprises people that “hog trough” is a geological term as well. A ridge of rock which is steep at one end and tapers off at the other is often referred to as a hog back because of its resemblance to the back of a razor backed pig; the depression alongside it is called a hog trough.The Hudson Valley is full of such ridges and depressions; it is part of what geologist call the Ridge and Valley province. The resulting topography has determined a great deal. The Palatine family that built our house situated it on a ridge of shale, undoubtedly both for the stability it provides and because it was better to build there than to take up the precious areas of good agricultural soils for such purposes. According to Walter V. Miller’s “History of 18th Century Germantown,” second edition (Germantown 300th Anniversary Committee, 2010), when the land was purchased from the Livingstons in the early 18th century to establish this town, it was placed here quite deliberately despite having poorer agricultural soils than some other areas. Not to oppress the Palatines or impoverish them, but because it was on the river and near ample stands of pine trees, that grow in poorer soils, which it was expected the Palatines would use to manufacture pine tar.When we first moved in, we mined a large section of the shale ridge behind the house to obtain the shale for the driveways. When we hit a ridge of rock which looked like it would require blasting, Peter told the contractor to leave it where it was. He made it the base of a rock garden, where the succulents he planted could work their way into crevices. The collage of massed yellows, blues and pinks, against the gray of the stone outcropping, provides a spectacular shifting floral kaleidoscope through the spring.Sometimes, though, we cannot work with the topography, but rather must work against it. As we continue our project of bringing electricity to the barn, I have been spending a few hours each day digging the 18 inch-deep trench that needs to connect from the main box in the house to the barn. A good part of the distance is easy digging in deep topsoil. We have scheduled rental of a trenching machine to try to make short work of those segments. Portions, however, go under fences or our holly hedge or, most significantly near or through the shale ridge. We’ve been trying to do those portions by hand. In the shale areas, we are concerned about damaging the machine we rent.It is this process that has led me to contemplate the fundamentals of our local geology
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: A handful of Long Island Cheese Pumpkins left - They're not stringy, so they're perfect for pies!Lots of meat available, check out our list below.We wish you all luck in your search for Thanksgiving turkeys this year. We look forward to raising nice plump ones for you all next year.
Process and product (Photo courtesy of instagram.com/littledarlingsfarmschool/)
Try Babies
Hi friends, it’s Victoria.Since my engineering job evaporated, I’ve been looking for new ways to spend my time, and luckily stumbled into a truly excellent avocation: assisting at the farm preschool in Germantown, Little Darlings. I’ve taught preschool before, and it feels great to slip back into the world of bright colors and shapes, snacks and hand-holding. It’s only for a couple of hours a week, but the fundamentals of childcare have already worked their way back into every aspect of my day already -- down to the way I talk, even the greeting to this newsletter. At preschool, everyone and everything gets called “Friend”. Especially until I’ve learned everyone’s names.Since it’s a farm preschool, it’s also a great chance to share the things I’m passionate about with these tiny people. We spent a lot of time reading about farm life and pointing to pictures of our favorite tractors, talking about how bugs are great, and learning how to interact with animal friends -- that is, very gently, and they don’t go into our mouths. It’s also reawakened a passion that always lies dormant within me, waiting for the right time to emerge...my urge to craft. Of course, I’m always working on an assortment of semi-serious art projects and farm schemes, but when it comes time to glue pieces of paper to other pieces of paper, this force simply overtakes me. I am helpless in its wake.The preschool director, Dana (of Darlin’ Doe Farms) casually suggested we try papermaking as a class before the upcoming holidays, perhaps to make cards with. As her words landed on my ears, I felt this strange stirring rise within me. Yes. Paper. We could make that. A benign madness overtook me, and over the weekend Troy and I schlepped through a series of thrift stores spanning from here to Millerton with an off-the-wall shopping list in hand. Picture frames? Yes. Duct tape? Absolutely. Four yards of flannel? You know the answer is yes.The only thing that threatened to dim my fervor was sourcing perhaps the most critical ingredient of all. Recycled paper is made, of course, from other paper, and after all my time spent accumulating such frugal supplies, I could hardly justify buying paper to turn into slightly worse paper. I even trekked down to Bard campus to riffle through their library recycling--always a goldmine for projects when I was in college. But their paperless initiatives have been a resounding success, and I returned empty-handed.I stood in the garage after my failed quest, staple gun hanging limply in my hand, a bitter wind tossing my hair. Was this the end of my grand venture, the project that had given me such single-minded purpose all weekend? Would I have to return empty-handed to a classroom of babies that would absolutely not notice or care, even a little, as to what they were missing out on? I cast my gaze around and lo, my salvation was at hand, in the form of a nigh-renewable resource: feed sacks. That’s right, folks, our chicken, sheep, and pig food all comes in a triple-layer paper sack, colored a festive white and green. Eureka.Did you know a single feed sack, torn into tiny pieces by the hands of babes, can make over two gallons of paper pulp? Am I the only one who has made this discovery to date? When I finally executed my grand plan this morning, these were not the only revelations at hand. It turns out that our most active friends (pictured above) quaver at the sound of a blender in their otherwise peaceful domain, and that the same
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: After the recent winter storm and cold snap, the last of the garden greens got blasted. Just a handful of acorn squash and small pumpkins remain.The sheep gladly spent the week in their cozy new barn.The high bush cranberries are no more. I chopped them down.We wish you all luck in your search for Thanksgiving turkeys this year. We look forward to raising nice plump ones for you all next year.
The Friendship Economy
Hey All, Troy Here. If you read last week’s bulletin, you got a window into the farm’s less than ideal financial situation brought on by the large sums we recently paid to construct the new barn and provide it with adequate power. On top of these extraordinary expenses, we have all of the typical difficulties that small farms have trying to stay afloat in a competitive food economy, including the fact that most of our costs for the coming year are upfront and fixed. Before we get any payoff from the turkeys, for instance, we must first feed them for eight months.In times like this, doubt can begin to creep in about the sustainability of our experiment. Last weekend we resolved to take a hard look at our budget, tally up the expenses for next year’s projects, and figure out concretely what we can and can’t afford from here. This week, I started this process by estimating the upfront costs for each of our products and estimating values for our wish-list of future equipment and structures. However, this exercise was interrupted when our dear friends Sonya and Miles drove across the country to visit us. It was a timely reminder that there are values to this place that are much deeper than my tallying could possibly reveal.For starters, this farm has the incredible power to draw people to us. In our wayward years post-graduation, Victoria and I had a great track record of visiting our friends in distant places whenever we were in-between temporary, seasonal jobs. It looks like those investments we made are starting to pay off. Now that we are farming and living in a beautiful space that can fit more than four people comfortably, our friends keep coming -- and they don’t stop coming.Last weekend two of our friends from Raleigh, Colin and Alana, were in the Hudson Valley attending a memorial for a family member. They knew we were close by and asked if they could tour the farm with some of their family. We already had a rather full house, since our bud Lila (hailing from Salt Lake City) and their sister, Hanna, were in town, while Mark had also brought two guests, Paul and Eric, with him from the City. Even so, we enthusiastically agreed, and before we knew it, a convoy of vehicles circled into our driveway and unloaded a parade of cousins, sisters, uncles, parents, babies and more. Suddenly we were overrun with inquisitive, polite strangers of all ages. We acted quickly, and took up posts at the chicken coop, barn, and pig shelter in order to give little info-sessions for rotating groups of Colin’s family – just like we used to when we worked in environmental education. We did the same thing in the house to simultaneously show off our dwarf rabbit upstairs and the 19th century kitchen in the basement. It was a hectic couple of hours, but it felt right to fill the hallowed halls of this historic farm with youthful energy and unfamiliar faces.The value of these visits multiplies dramatically when our friends are eager to help us with farm tasks. When Lila, Hanna, Paul and Eric pitched in to help move a sizable pile of leftover construction debris, we managed to do in less than an hour something that was quite impossible for me to do on my own. Likewise, over the course of several visits, our trail-building friend Isaac sharpened our tools, re-handled a shovel, built a shelter for our freedom ranger chickens and helped us clean and inventory all of our wool – a service that allowed us to recover nearly $11,000 in property insurance after the fire. Meanwhile, Arielle, a vid
AgriCulture-TURKANA FARMS
November 9, 2019
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:
It seems that what's new is the cold. And colder it will get. This may be your last chance for swiss chard, in now limited quantities. Kale is still chugging along, however, in both curly and flat varieties. Egg production is diminishing fast as the light fades, but we still have enough for our individual customers.
The arc of electricity that crosses Lasher Ave. (Photo by Mark Scherzer)
Hi all, Mark here.
Getting ready to come up to the farm Thursday, gathering my things, I realized that up near the top of the hierarchy of items I remind myself I must bring, at least as prominently as my wallet and far ahead of my belt, is the charging cord for my phone. It turns out that the wonder of wireless connectivity, which I use so intensely that I lately seem to need to recharge the phone twice a day, is anything but wireless. My life, and our kitchen, our office and even our bedrooms at the farm, seem entangled in a snarl of wires for all the wonderful electronic devices we use.
Electricity is a blessing. The wires that carry it, somewhat less so. The recurrent deliberate blackouts California has endured recently were initiated in order to avoid wildfires being ignited by sparks from the high voltage wires that carry power from generating plants to transformers. I don’t understand the scientific process, but my friend Paul tells me that high voltage and an exposed wire in the proper conditions can cause the electricity to arc out of the wire and set off fires. We all know how critical electricity is to us: saving labor, transmitting information, saving lives. A recent feature on NPR reported how agriculture was particularly acutely affected by the outages. Cows can’t just suspend being milked, and electric milking machines, during the outages had to be run off gas generators. But the farmer interviewed for the story said the loss of power and additional expense was something he could live with in order to preserve the lives and property of his neighbors. It was a nice recognition of our interconnection in a larger community.
My mind has been heavily focused on wires lately, because we are ready to bring electricity out to the new barn.
As you all know, the barn structure got finished a couple of weeks ago. It was of course not as affordable as we had hoped. The cost of the structure itself, around $38,000, was only about $8,000 more than the insurance proceeds we received from the burning of the old one, and when we got the estimate the whole replacement process seemed manageable. The builder, Henry Kriz, did a great job. But it turned out there were lots of ancillary costs we didn’t mentally factor in when thinking we had the replacement licked. Emergency repairs to the water tank and pump were about $2,000. Debris removal was $4,000. We moved the location of the barn rather than pay to demolish the old concrete slab it sat on, but we decided we needed a new concrete floor, which added $9,400 to the cost. And then moving the water tank and pump to the barn’s new location added another nearly two thousand. Now we are working on getting the interior mangers built, interior gates, door handles, etc. It will all add up. But we managed, thanks to good timing on resolution of cases I was working on in my legal practice.
I was ready for another not insignificant expense for electrical work, and hoped to get the barn on a separate account (at agricultural rates) from our home account. But when we got the estimates, from someone whose work for us in the past seemed very fairly priced, it was rather stunning. Nearly $20,000, half the cost of the building itself, and that was without counting whatever National Grid, our electric utility, would charge us for running power across the street from where the lines currently run to our side of the street and instituting service.
“Didn’t
Victoria Cox / Turkana Farms
Welcome to November! Does it feel impossible that it’s here already? I’m starting to wonder if the reason I’m feeling so dislodged in time is that I no longer have daily tasks to do in the garden. For all of Spring and Summer, I could count on their steady, insistent pulse to pull me along from day to day… like a different sort of biological clock. Given our short growing window in agricultural zone 5a, I mapped out a stacked weekly schedule dictating when plants needed to be in the ground, and weather dictated the rest. Now that we’ve harvested everything except a few hardy winter greens and a scattering of pumpkins, now that the Fall garlic is in the ground and the perennial beds have been mulched, this pressure is suddenly off. The clock has wound down, and now what’s left are the amorphous jobs of planning and dreaming about what next season will look like. Of course, there is one project that bridges all of these: It’s seed saving season.
Oddly, I feel pretty ambivalent about saving seeds for my favorite crops. If I’m being honest, large-scale seed farms are much better equipped than I am for the tasks of harvesting, sorting, fermenting, sifting, and drying the seeds of our standby squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Their scale means they can achieve both greater seed diversity and consistency within a cultivar, and they have the specialized machinery that makes the job run smoothly. Plus, have you ever smelled a bucket of overripe cucumbers fermenting to free the seeds from their flesh? It’s not awesome!
Other crops, like many lettuce and herb varietals, have such tiny, delicate seeds that they’re incredibly difficult to capture before they drop. Sometimes this works in our favor, as with the bumper crop of volunteer dill that happily sprang up all over the west end of the garden this year. Other times, with crops like lavender or rosemary, the seeds have such particular needs that I’ve had better luck propagating from cuttings or buying whole plants.
I also can’t ignore the sheer pleasure of buying seed. In the dead of winter, pulling out a stack of seed catalogs makes me feel like a kid before Christmas. The possibilities seem endless! And our favorite distributors–The illustrious Fedco, local darlings at Hudson Valley Seed Co., my friends from Asheville at Sow True Seed–are always presenting new delights and possibilities. When I look at their cornucopia of offerings, the idea of doing all the work that they’re so adept at by myself seems nearly futile, almost like clipping coupons. It’s frugal, sure, but are the savings worth the time and effort they require?
But for some really special plants, the answer is still certainly “yes”. This year I got a handful of Tennessee Dancing Gourd seeds from the Morton Rhinecliff Library seed swap, planted three plants, and harvested nearly a hundred tiny, beautiful gourds, striated green and brown, that spin like a top and are the perfect size for a child’s pocket. I brought a basket of them to the preschool where I’m now a co-teacher, and they’re a hot commodity for filling the backs of toy dump trucks, a value I never would have anticipated when I first planted them. I’m keeping their seeds, and plan to sow them as a decorative climbing vine. If the plant is weird enough or remote enough, like the Turkish Pole Beans that have grown here for years, it’s far easier to just leave behind a few overgrown pods than to try and find a new seed source. At the moment I’ve got a messy row of trays and bowls spread out on the counter, meticulously labeled and filled with four varieties of drying beans and heaps of radish seeds. Once I’m not constantly racing the clock, there’s no reason not to.
I recently read Miraculous Abundance by Perrine and Charles Hervé-Gruyer, in which a farmer described himself as not a grower of plants, but “a servant of worms”. If our goal is to prioritize soil hea
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:
The barn is fully up. Next step, we have to build the interior and hook up the electricity.
All offerings remain as described below.
Not One Single Thing
Hey all! It’s Victoria.This week was my one-year anniversary of arriving at Turkana, and, as is almost always the case in adulthood, it feels like simultaneously more and less time has elapsed. Looking back over the last year, it feels nearly impossible to take a full account of it. When I’m standing on the front lawn, wrapped in a cozy sweater and smelling the warm, complex rot of fallen leaves, it seems like no time at all has passed. Conversely, when I’m upstairs sweeping the spiderwebs out of the corners, it feels like I’ve spent far more than a year on this particular activity already. When a friend asks how the year has gone, I’m left at a loss for words, as all these different measures of time collapse at once: it was very good in parts! Some parts were really brutal! It certainly all happened! But I don’t have a word that gets across just how much this year really was. Except maybe “Heterogeneous”.Chimamanda Adichie talks about this in her 2009 TED talk (still the standout of the medium) “The Danger of a Single Story.” I’ve been thinking about this piece almost constantly for a decade now (another measure of time that seems impossible), and it hit home for me again this week when my hometown, Sevier County, Tennessee, was in the national news for shameful reasons. At a meeting about protecting Second Amendment rights, County Commissioner Warren Hurst said, among other spurious things, that it was “ugly” to have “a queer” running for President. Of course, one commissioner's regressive homophobia is less of a totalizing force than the entirety of Western colonialism that Adichie examines. Still, these statements operate around similar fault lines--Flannery O’Connor knew this when she said “Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.” I feel a similar pressure in response to this event, a flattening of the reality of my home for people who would never have heard or thought about it otherwise. Sure, there were people who applauded Hurst’s statements. There were also people who walked out. He doesn’t represent me, or my family, or our thoughts about things, but in a very literal, political sense, he also does. We may or may not be related. I’ve heard a few calls from non-local citizens to boycott the local tourist industry as a result, including Dollywood, as if Dolly Parton isn’t an outspoken icon of queer acceptance and/or literal saint of whitetrash liberation. I’m frustrated by this seeming inability to separate a person from a place, the parts from the whole. My present from my past.This week, I was a bridesmaid for one of my dearest friends, celebrating a truly beautiful union in a gorgeous venue. It was also the week of my stepfather’s memorial service, which I couldn’t attend, and my last week of work for a job I wasn’t ready to leave. I went directly from a painful exit interview to the wedding rehearsal, which was a delight. I took six trains in an 80-hour window. I danced in gold cowboy boots. What was it, except for a lot of everything?The last thing Troy and I did before we left for the wedding was usher all the sheep into their brand-new, just-finished barn. We had hoped to have a sort of formal barn-warming, maybe a dance on the new concrete floors before the sheep had a chance to christen them with manure? But a rainstorm was coming, and timing was so tight, and we had to get everything el
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Strings of dried Matchbox Peppers, $5/string Tennessee Dancing Gourds, delightful decorative squashes, 4 for $1 Vegetables are starting to trail off for the season, get your Leeks and Broccoli while you can, $1.50/ea and $3.00/lb respectively.Tomatoes, Cukes, Scallions, Shiso and Mint are all done for the season.
Mapquest on his throne (Photo by Troy Spindler)
Living Without Hey all, Troy here. This Wednesday, while I was driving home from the big freezer, steam began to rise from the hood of our farm truck. The gauge indicated that the engine was extremely overheated, so I pulled over in a nearby parking lot. I don’t know much about engines, but I could see something had cracked and fluid was leaking everywhere, and I figured that was pretty important for the function of the vehicle. So I had it towed.I don’t know the prognosis yet, but I’m fairly sure this old ’98 Chevy is in its twilight days, especially since this is the third time this year it has broken down. The last time this happened, the mechanic called it a veritable “rust bucket” and said this sort of thing will just keep happening. As we depend on the truck for so much around here, it might be time to look for a more reliable replacement. But during this uncertain period of transition, my brain inevitably turned to the question, “What would we do if we had to live without it?”We were forced to face this question when we lost the barn early in the summer. We had to adjust immediately, adding temporary fencing and improvising pasture rotations. We converted the corral into a makeshift area where we could feed the sheep, observe them, and take care of their hooves. It was harder and messier, sure, but we went without a barn for months, and the sheep have thrived. Getting through the winter would be a lot harder, but I can imagine ways we could provide shelter from the snow and wind. It would be difficult, but not unimaginable.Likewise for the truck. Without a truck, we wouldn’t be able to transport our animals or deliver hay to them. But it’s not out of the question that we could learn to skillfully slaughter our own animals and hay our own fields if we had to. We would have to switch to selling only whole animals and fresh meats, and acquire equipment for haying (a scythe maybe? A dog-pulled cart?). It would mean more work overall, but it would lower our carbon footprint if we’re not driving long distances for so many things.Okay, so these imagined scenarios may be bit implausible in our current circumstances, but thinking them through is valuable for building sustainability. If we can come up with reasonable backup plans for when we lose critical pieces of equipment, we aren’t as vulnerable when accidents or disasters happen. And maybe we’ll also discover ways to make our operations less dependent on those things before catastrophe strikes. This feels like important work beyond the farm as well, since the looming climate crisis suggests that loss and scarcity may define the decades to come.Having said that, there are certain things I would rather not imagine living without. A few weeks ago, I floated my resume and a cover letter to the nearby bioscience company, Taconic Biosciences, looking for some part-time, weekend work. Taconic raises lab rodents and sells them to researchers and universities across the country. I thought it was fortuitous that such a close match to my academic and professional background existed only a few minutes down the road. Apparently they saw promise too, and invited me for an interview. But first they had to disclose a stipulating company policy: Employees cannot keep rodent pets, as they might accidentally bring contaminating bacteria into the lab and endanger the health of the lab animals. In other words, we would have to re-home our pet dwarf rabbit, Mapquest.Here I am, just looking to trade my time and energy for some extra income, and all I’d have to give up is the living, breat
TURKANA FARMS, LLC October 4, 2019 WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:A note on Thanksgiving turkeys: It has been both gratifying and a sad reminder of reality to have gotten so many recent inquiries about Thanksgiving turkeys. We have none this year. When the barn burned back in late Spring, the turkey poults burned with them. We had neither the time nor a place to start a new flock, so we are with great regret taking the year off. We will be back in the turkey business again next year when we start them in our new barn. We hope you find birds to your liking this year, but that you resume what for many is an annual custom of a fresh Turkana Farms turkey for Thanksgiving next year.What we do have right now, for the first time this year, is some broccoli ($3/lb), decorative (i.e. inedible) Tennessee dancing gourds, (4 for a $1), some delicatta squash ($2/lb). Turnips and a few Long Island cheese pumpkins are looking great.Sold out are acorn Squash, cucumbers, larger tomatoes and green beans are.
The shape of the future
(Photo by Troy Spindler)
Stay Small and Stay In?Hi all, Mark here.Hard as it is of late to keep one’s mind off the impeachment psychodrama playing out in Washington, there are other matters that necessarily require some mental focus here at the farm. The new barn is going up. Troy and Victoria are making decisions both about aesthetics (green roof or white?) and practicalities (where should the new power line go?). They are paring down the sheep herd to a manageable winter size, planting cover crops where they think the soil will most benefit, and are selecting seeds to save for next year. That is, they are generally taking the managerial lead. And it gets me thinking about the shape of the future.A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Sarah Smarsh about the rural “brain gain.” In it, she suggests that the flow of rural residents to cities is reversing. She cites, among other examples, a study of rural Minnesota which found that a majority of the state’s rural counties gained early-career to midcareer residents (that is younger folks) with ample socioeconomic assets in the decade from 2000 to 2010. A third of the inflow consisted of people returning to the places where they grew up, while the rest were new recruits.Ms. Smarsh tells us this is happening because while 80% of Americans live in urban areas, when asked in polls what life they would like to lead, rural life is the most wished for. She paints a picture in which the countryside is not only repopulating, but also becoming more diverse, tolerant and cosmopolitan as a result of this brain gain. It’s a picture of cultural vibrancy, not torpor. And I can easily see Troy and Victoria and their young farmer friends, like the ones who came to dinner last weekend (raised, respectively, in Brooklyn and in Philadelphia’s suburbs), fitting in this picture. All of them college educated, well-traveled, sophisticated in their tastes and embracing friends from a broad range of cultural, racial and sexual categories. And all of them farming . The mid-Hudson Valley, thanks to its proximity to New York City, may be an extreme example of the successful in-mixing of urban vibe with rural sensibilities. There are probably not many places in the prairie counties Ms. Smarsh writes about where the farmers can and do go from slopping pigs and harvesting beans by day to full throated response to a transgressive drag show at night. Here it happens.But while taking great pleasure that the rural and urban can so fully come together in such a beautiful setting as this, I wonder how these young farmers will sustain this life. Is it viable over the long term? I realize that these twenty-somethings are doing the sort of work Victoria so vividly described last week: physically punishing and hard to do as one ages. To boot, the wo
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
Green E-Market Bulletin September 13, 2019
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Freedom Ranger Chickens, freshly slaughtered Monday, great for a weekend meal, on the larger side this year, mostly 5, 6 and even 7 lbs., $6/lb Red tomatoes are dwindling down, still some Rose de Beirne coming in, but Sungolds remain plentiful Leeks, $1/each Honeynut Squash, limited numbers, $2 each
A Year in Review Hello, my hunk-a-munk, he says.I can hear him call me that, one of his multiple terms of endearment, very clearly this week. I haven’t for a full year, but the voice is still deeply imprinted on my brain despite the long absence. I believe, perhaps contradictorily, that we have souls which somehow exist apart from our corporeal bodies, but I do not believe that these essences survive beyond death. This has been a source of great confusion, especially this week, as I find my brain increasingly engaged in conversations with Peter on his first yahrzeit (Yiddish for anniversary of his passing).Past communiqués have usually been brief and focused on specific disappointments. Why did you let those bittersweet vines overrun the lobelias? How the hell could you let the barn burn down?! The tone always calibrated to his degree of frustration. But his “hunk-a-munk” greeting signals that we're doing something else now, something bigger, more like a classic end-of-term conference between professor and student. That was our dynamic, after all. He led, I followed. And now it’s time to let me know how in his view we have fared -- his son, me and the farm – without his minute by minute guidance.First topic: Peter's son, Perry, who inherited his huge collection of kilims, middle eastern flatweavings. Perry knew little about them at first, but he quickly figured out the markets. He shed the lower value pieces and maximized the value of the exceptional ones. I worried Perry would be flummoxed by this gift, Peter tells me, but I’m proud he has shown true discernment, decisiveness and dedication worthy of a son of mine. And I’m at peace knowing that the financial resources I left him will let him realize some long-deferred dreams. Perry would be pleased by the proud and satisfied tone of his father’s voice.But I had already anticipated that Peter would see Perry’s progress in an overwhelmingly positive light. I had a lot more trepidation about my own year-end review.Well, my huck-a-buck -- (This was another variation. I never quite got the logic behind when I deserved “hunk-a-munk” versus “huck-a-buck,” and I still don't.) -- it’s about time you started living like an adult, not a graduate student. You're finally putting your apartment in order, rather than just living out of paper bags. I can see you've re-decorated a bit, set up a music system, planted the terrace and started cooking civilized meals. See how nice it is? You could have been living this way all along!All right, I actually already knew, deep in my heart, I had aced Peter's “living alone like an adult” test. His pointed dig that I should have done it all years earlier is fair. He could never resist an “I told you so!” But what about the social part of my life? I once spent my time almost exclusively with him, yet now I’ve become an unabashed social butterfly. Peter is gracious: Your old school chums and our mutual friends really came through. Nobody is ever going to be as loyal and supportive to you as I was, and I never much liked it when you sought out the company of others when I was there, but I expected you'd turn to them when I was gone and they’d be there to support and be with you, and I was, of course, completely right.I clear my throat uncomfortably. “What about my, uh, new… men friends?” I ask. Uh-oh, here we go! I brace myself, but Peter surprises me. Look, you’ll always be my flub-a-dub, and you’ll never be anybody else’s flub-a-dub. You had the good sense to stay with me for 40 years. And I’ve been watch
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:lots of second waves Haricots verts and wax beans are back Parsley, limited quantities, $.75 a bunch cherry belle radishes are back, $2/bunch Oasis turnips are back, $2/bunch
"You're a sunflower" - Post Malone photo by Troy Spindler
Circadian Rhythms Hey all, Troy here.I wore a sweater today for the first time in months. That’s not actually the first sign that summer is ending, but it sends a pretty clear message. For many families, the clearest sign that summer is over is the arrival of the school bus – the ultimate symbol of order and routine and the most definitive end to the freedom and chaos of summer. Though we don’t have any children or teachers here, there is a similar, albeit more gradual, progression from chaos to order at Turkana Farms. Many of the crops we’ve been tending to all season are finally fruiting and are ready to harvest (if they haven’t already run their course). Tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peppers, and now apples, raspberries, and squash. Every day something is ripe for the picking, and the daily harvests have given me much more structure and routine than I’ve had all summer. In contrast, high summer was a hectic whack-a-mole game of dealing with weeds, diseases, critters, and many other unexpected problems. And that’s just in the garden. Trying to keep the sheep free of parasites without a barn was a whole other battle in itself. Let’s just say it was hard to find a regular cycle around here. But we did manage to find our rhythm in the end. We just had to look for it outside of ourselves...Dear readers, did you know that my uncle loves to dance? Because I didn’t before this summer. Nor did I expect to ever find myself by his side dancing to Beyoncé, Justin Bieber and certainly not Azealia Banks. I obviously wasn’t accounting for the influence of our neighbor Adam, who charmed all of us into dancing as a semi-regular activity to de-stress this summer. Thanks to him, we attended several of Bard’s summer “Spiegeltent” dance parties. The Spiegeltent is a temporary venue at Bard College that hosts a variety of performances throughout the summer. After each show, there is a dance party that starts at 10pm, and ends at the very reasonable hour of 12:30 – perfect for our farmer lifestyle. If you’re hoping I will describe Mark’s dancing to you, I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to join us next summer to see it for yourself. But I will say he can dance to anything (he’s more partial to Carly Rae Jepsen than Pitbull, but this shouldn’t surprise any of us).Our dance excursions were, I have to say, some of the highlights of this summer. Farm work is difficult in many ways, but maybe the hardest thing this year has been staying focused and motivated despite the inordinately demoralizing obstacles that we’ve faced. Finding a way to get off the farm and release the tensions of the week has been an invaluable resource. Beyond that, music has been vitally important to my daily motivation and has helped me feel less isolated out here. Whether I’m listening to a curated playlist while washing eggs or have one song looping in my head while I water the garden, I can still feel connected to the cultural milieu of the day, and thus the wider world. I thought it would be an appropriate way to celebrate summer’s end to share a playlist of songs that got me through this summer – plus some that just wouldn’t leave me alone while I toiled.I won’t pretend there’s a connecting theme to this playlist beyond the fact that all these songs were stuck in my head at some point this summer, so it’s probably not for everyone. But I figured, if the General Counsel to the US Department of Justice was patient enough to listen to me ramble about the rise of Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato while dicing cucumbers during his stay here (thank you Arthur!), then you all can find it in yourselves to dip into this playlist and connect to the rhythms that have been driving me this summer.“Dirt On My Boots
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin August 23, 2019
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Fish Peppers (hot) and Cubanelles (medium-sweet), 2 for $1.00 Lots of Basil ($3/huge bag) and Tomatoes ($3/lb) Lamb shanks available for your labor day cookout! $10/lb Sorry, haricots verts are sold out.
Hi Hopes
Hey all, it’s Victoria again.If you caught Mark’s most recent missive, you know we’ve been thinking a lot about fecundity on our farm, how to grow and develop our labor pool-- perhaps by growing our family. We’ve taken his encouragement seriously in spirit, if not in word, and went and got ourselves a dog. Her name is Esperanza, and if I’ve already gushed to you in person about her noble character and heroic origin story, I have no apologies. You’re going to hear it all again.If it were solely at my discretion, our farm would appear somewhere between Hotel for Dogs and the final shot of 101 Dalmatians. As it stands, neither Troy nor Mark are what one might call “dog people,” and I had settled for quietly stashing rabbits and low-profile barn cats in and around the property while biding my time. But if you’ve been here and seen it, you know the score. Our farm is the place that your parents told you about when your old dog went away, a big old farm in the country with lots of room to explore, with a pond and sunshine and lots of friends to play with. And ours exists!Almost as soon as I arrived, I reached out to some local rescues with casual inquiries, but I had a long list of requirements. Visitors are constantly dropping in and out at Turkana, and we’ve got tons of creatures around that aren’t prepared to be chased or eaten, so our dog would have to be polite to everyone. Troy has never had a dog before and spends all his waking time with herbivores, so we’d need a peaceful, thoughtful friend with good table manners to put him at ease. Plus, are there any dogs who know the value of kilims? There were plenty that I was ready to take home immediately, but knew I had to hold out for the perfect fit for our farm.Fortunately for us, our closest local rescue is used to going above and beyond. I found the Sato Project on Petfinder, put in an application, and talked to a few volunteers about our place and our dream dog. I got an email back right away: “I have the perfect dog for you!” The only catch? She’s in Puerto Rico. I hesitated. Then her photo came though, and it was all over. I would have walked to Puerto Rico on the strength of her headshot alone.After I got all the details, the pieces started falling into place. The Sato Project focuses their efforts on a spit of land called Dead Dog Beach in Yabucoa, where they rescue abandoned animals, give them vet care, and then charter rescue flights into New York to connect with local shelters and foster homes. We got her flight number, the date of her arrival, and the number of a volunteer in town who we could talk to with questions. When we showed up at the airport I felt a bit like I was going on a first date, or maybe attending a job interview. Would she look like her photo? Would I impress her? My concerns were quickly dispersed. I’m the sort of person who will sometimes pull up dog reunion videos on Youtube just to have a nice refreshing cry, and our time between pulling up to the hangar and driving home with Esper in tow was essentially a supercut from the best of those. I was carried on a wave of smiling families, wet faces, endlessly wagging tails, and deposited at home to start life with my new baby.There are a lot of different ways to be a farm dog. Plenty of people have working dogs for herding or as livestock guardians, but our Karakuls have been raised without dogs and would likely be offended if we tried to impose one on their self-directed lifestyle. Other people keep terriers to kill small cri
Order Amid Chaos Hi all, Mark here.When I reflect on why I find farming such a compelling activity, I always find myself returning to the insight I had after our very first season, two whole decades ago. The entire endeavor seems to me to center on trying to impose order on a chaotic world, on beating back the forces of nature that constantly threaten one’s schemes.Our carefully cultivated tomatoes grow where and how they want to grow, not necessarily in the regimented order we want them, such that I constantly see Victoria in the garden cutting back the rampantly growing side shoots. Sheep and turkeys have their own ideas about where to wander and graze no matter what pastures we designate for their use. Last year, when the turkeys were here, managing jail breaks was a daily routine. Ask Troy about the challenges of herding our Freedom Ranger chickens into safe pens at night.And even more challenging than managing our “cultivated” crops is battling the incursions of unintended guests. Weeds like amaranth spring up among the beans and within days of appearing seem to grow big enough to shade them out, while fast growing vines like bindweed and bittersweet twist around and choke whatever cultivar they can get their tendrils around. Invading pests, from groundhogs to rabbits, and predators from cabbage borers to hawks, kill and eat what we’ve carefully raised to kill and eat ourselves. Whatever romantic notions you may have that sustainable farms exist in harmony with the natural world around them, the truth is that the inhabitants of that natural world spend their lives scheming to take advantage of our labor and steal its fruits.In short, disorder threatens our productivity at every turn. On the small family farm, where there are so many simultaneous projects going on, the challenges of beating back these forces of chaos multiply. And in contrast to the 19th century farms on which our culture bases its small farm mythology, today’s small family farms come with small families too, never enough hands to do all the work that needs to get done. I find myself talking up the idea of marriage to Troy and Victoria. I’m not sure how much of my blunt nudging is because their relationship already seems so healthily married, and how much is because I think that commitment would enhance the likelihood of children, the helping hands they’ll need in the long term.You might think about children as agents of chaos but I can think of dozens of ways in which, properly trained, they could help bring order. One which has been occupying a lot of my attention of late is weeding.Nothing exemplifies the beating back of nature more vividly than the act of weeding. If I could choose a single task on the farm I’d be happy to do full time, every day, weeding would be it. In fact, weeding in my book beats most leisure time activities I can think of. Definitely ahead of word games on the phone. Unquestionably ahead of recreational shopping. Beats most movies. I’d say it’s nearly as much fun as cooking and eating with friends. Does it beat romance? Well, probably not, but let’s say weeding would be a great way to get down in the dirt together.And what do I like so much about weeding? It is doubly productive, because not only does it remove plants that threaten what we want to cultivate, but the weeds become feed for the chickens and enriches their eggs. Weeding is satisfying the way painting a room is satisfying, because I can so clearly see my progress and the contrast between before and after is so striking. And it is centering, because it requires enough attention to be mindful of what I’m pulling, but not so much as to interfere with thinking about things I really need to think about. Hence, a way to be alone in my head with my thoughts, a sort of meditative break from the rest of my life I don’t often get.But perhaps what is most satisfying about weeding is the way it undoes chaos and restores order. It puts things in their proper place. Sure, it is li
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Tomatoes: loads of our newest variety, Sungold -- sweet, gold large cherry size, $4/pint The larger heirlooms (black krim, brandywine, rose de berne, are perfect right now All varieties of basil - greek globe, classic neopolitan, thai, $2/bunch, Time for Pesto.
Support our troopers. Photo by Victoria Cox
Bloomsday: Hey everyone, Victoria here. If you’ve taken a drive down our road recently -- highly recommended now that the weather’s cooled -- a strange phenomenon may have caught your eye. Every pond, lake, and drainage puddle appears to be filled, not with water, but with a green nubbly carpet that would look more at home in the half-finished basement of your great-uncle’s 1970s time-capsule house. We’ve been visited by an algal bloom, and none have been spared.When I first noticed the algae inhabiting our own pond, it appeared like a B-level horror villain, an acolyte of the Swamp Thing, or perhaps the Blob, encircled our fountain in its threatening grasp. Our little bubbler, aside from being beautiful to behold and pleasant to listen to, also works tirelessly to circulate nutrients and oxygenate the water. Once the algae arrived, however, the bubbler looked strangely vulnerable in its little patch of clear water, surrounded on all sides by a menacing green film. I had to investigate further.I’d marked “remove algae” onto my endlessly running To-Do list as soon as I’d spotted it from my office window, and had a vague image in the back of my mind of scooping algae out by the handful, like leaves from a pool. Once I was up close, I realized this was an impossible dream. Rather than the giant colonies of string algae or muskgrass I’d encountered in the past, this was planktonic algae. Each drop of water in the pond contained an individual plant the size of a poppy seed, which amassed together to form the impression of a solid sheet. I rushed back inside to research removal, and pictured myself as a hard bitten noir detective scrolling through microfiche in a darkened room as I searched. Of course, I was scrolling through my phone while sitting on the porch and eating a popsicle, but the emotional frisson was the same: Page after page flashed before my eyes, each with the same chilling verdict: No mechanical solution exists.Drat. . Yet again, I ran up against the unwelcome answer that comes so frequently to farm questions: It’s a systemic problem, and needs a systemic solution. I can’t fix it with my fists and a rake. Microplankton are the base of the aquatic food chain, and are integral to the health of everything else in the pond, and any chemical treatment powerful enough to get rid of them would quickly get rid of everything else. They only way to manage their numbers is to try and introduce controls on multiple fronts: more shade will slow their growth, more pond animals will increase consumption and help keep their numbers in check, and aquatic plants can filter out the excess of nutrients that cause their numbers to explode.I was feeling pretty good about my research and the plan I’d come up with, until I glanced down and realized that the single line on my to-do list had not been checked off, and had instead multiplied unimpeded into a suffocating mat of tasks. For a moment I considered an altogether simpler solution… Maybe I could just turn my desk around and not look at the pond for the rest of the summer? But keeping our pond a clean, functional home for the heron and the tiny frogs is no more or less important than anything else we’re trying to accomplish out here. So, shoulder to the wheel once more. I need to dig out an abundance of cattails from the seep in the front yard anyway, so I can transplant them for extra shade, habitat and nutrient uptake. If they establish the way that I hope, they’ll form a protected shoal in which I can plant more delicate aquatic plants. If we stay alert, keep building, keep shading, maybe take some PH tests, build a soi
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Tomatoes of all varieties but in limited quantities. Sun Gold, Black Krim, Brandywine Greek globe basil, $3/bunch And of course, Wild Water Peppers
Water Peppers! What're Water Peppers? Hey all, Troy again. I always thought my background in ecology would be helpful for farm management. In fact, it’s the closest thing I have to a “qualification” for this job. I had never done any large mammal handling or intensive gardening before, and I certainly haven’t managed anything resembling a business. But I have devoted a lot of my time to thinking about biological systems. Nutrient cycles, succession, pests and parasites all come to mind when I think about the relationship between agriculture and ecology. While understanding these concepts helps us imagine how we want the farm to look and function in the future, we haven’t had too many chances to put this knowledge to the test yet. But that doesn’t mean our prior experience has been totally useless. In fact, we’re discovering some rather unexpected practical advantages to having backgrounds in ecological research. It’s even opening up new ways to earn money off the land with very little input – something we can all appreciate.Some of our best-selling items here at Turkana Farms have been low-maintenance, perennial “weeds” like mint, dill, lamb’s quarters, and shiso. Some of these grow so aggressively here, we have to beat them back to keep them shading and muscling out our other crops. I’m pleased to announce that thanks to Victoria’s plant-identifying genius, we’re adding a new one to the list for you all to try: Wild Water Pepper or Persicaria hydropiper. Wild Water Pepper is a water-loving plant with a pungent, spicy flavor. Victoria discovered it while she was weed-whacking around our pond. Apparently, as she got bombarded with tiny fragments of the plant, her skin started to burn and her eyes teared up (like when you put too much hot pepper in your chili… Looking at you, Morgan). She got a closer look and noticed a very close resemblance to the common plant smartweed (Persicaria hydropiperoides). She recalled from our ecology days a conversation with some co-workers about smartweed and its relatives, which they might have encountered in their plant diversity surveys. Someone must have mentioned water pepper and its unique flavor, because even though they never saw it in any of their study plots, somewhere deep in Victoria’s biblioteca of a mind, she filed away in a little filing cabinet a single manila folder with only one sheet of paper in it that had written on it, “spicy plant looks like smartweed.” A quick search online confirmed that the plant she was battling by the pond was indeed Persicaria hydropiper. And all of us, plus some friends who came by this week, can confirm that it is indeed a spicy plant!Eating the water pepper leaf on its own is an odd sensation, and it’s quite fun to observe a first-timer go through the experience. The flavor builds really slowly in your mouth, so a typical reaction starts out like this, “Hmm, I don’t taste anything.” Then, “Oh, yeah, it’s subtle, isn’t it?” Followed by, “Whoa! Not subtle!” Once it hits you, it surprises you, because it’s spicy like a pepper, but it doesn’t have the capsaicin molecule like most peppers do, so it hits a different part of the tongue than we’re accustomed to. And if you’re so tough that the leaf isn’t enough for you, you can try the flower buds, which are even sharper.Water pepper is not commonly used in many cuisines, but has been used as a garnish and in sauces in Japan for a long time. Nowadays, they typically use a cultivar with a milder flavor rather than the stronger wild version. There is even a Japanese proverb about the plant’s unique intensity. The proverb translates roughly to “Some insects gladly eat water pepper.” It means something akin to ‘to each their own.’ Because although nearly all creatures avoid the harshness of the water peppe
Helena and Sofie nuzzle each other affectionately. Photo by Troy Spindler
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin August 2, 2019 WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: Cucumbers continue to abound. Beets as well.
A Ewelogy
Hi All, Troy here,When I gave the sheep their grain snack Thursday morning, I couldn’t help but notice something was off. After they’d eaten all the grain, the sheep made their routine exit out of the corral and through the hoof bath. There were a few stragglers, but I easily ushered them out without needing to get insistent. It all went so smoothly, it was as if they’d done it a hundred times before. When I paused to reflect on how well-behaved everyone was, it dawned on me – one was missing. Where was the one that was always last out the door? Where was the one that would go back to double check the feed bowls, making absolutely sure there was no grain left? Where was the one whose name I would curse as I shoved her out to join the rest of the herd? Where was Helena?I followed the herd out, trying to catch a glimpse at each ear tag. When Helena had her fleece, she was easy to spot, but since everyone was shorn, she’s been harder to distinguish from the grey mass – save for the fact that she was always in the back of the group or off on her own. This helped me determine that she definitely wasn’t with us and didn’t come in for breakfast either. I set off on the search, calling out to her, hoping for the best. But something told me that she couldn’t hear me – that she was gone for good. She loved breakfast grain more than anyone.Sure enough, I found her lying just over a ridge, unmoving, in an oft-frequented shady spot. After a moment of silence, I found what I thought was a very apt final resting place for her. I buried her at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by multiflora rose bushes, a plant that I believe perfectly encapsulates her personality.Helena was without a doubt our most stubborn, thorny, and altogether obnoxious ewe. But if I had to settle on just one word to describe her, it would be “defiant.” She refused to leave the barn when we wanted her to. She always found ways to wriggle into forbidden areas. Pretty much anything we wanted her to do, she would do the opposite. This, of course, made her a true inspiration to all of us.On many other farms, Helena’s individualistic qualities might have targeted her for culling. Her recalcitrance has tended to slow down operations, and her behavior was overall quite unsheep-like. Here at Turkana, those same qualities made her a long-time favorite. Some, including Mark, would justify keeping her by saying, “Well, the farm was never meant to run like a business.” This may be part of it, but something besides largess kept Helena in the herd. Independence, strong will, willingness to head-butt those in power -- these are all deeply held values here at Turkana Farms. The farm has always been inseparable from Peter and Mark’s politics, and Helena was the perfect reflection of that. By refusing to conform to age-old sheep stereotypes, Helena was not just resisting us, she was resisting fascism. If we were doing things that she didn’t like, she wasn’t afraid to let us know. More often than was practical, we would end up caving to her will: letting her stay in the barn while we filled up the grain bowls, letting her stay behind for extra grain when the rest of the herd left for pasture, and so on. She was exerting her influence on us, and we couldn’t help but respect that. Perhaps against our better judgment, we can’t help but protect that legacy either.Helena gave birth to a pair of twins this January. Due to her age, her condition, and the cold, the newborns struggled to get their first meal. We rushed them inside to warm them, and enlisted the help of our friend Lexie, who was here working on their novel at the time. We named the twins Rowan and Sofie after characters from their book. After several hours of force-feeding colostrum supplement, an essen
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Cucumber avalanche. Perfect cooling on a summer day -- cucumber gazpacho, cucumber salad, cucumber sandwiches with your tea. Or put some away for winter, cucumber pickles or cucumber ketchup.. $2 a pound. Beets ($4/lb) are also abundant Wax beans and haricots verts, limited quantities $2.50/lb. Unbelievably, we are temporarily out of zucchini, and the season of elder flowers has now passed.
Anxious to replace this modest structure Photo by Mark Scherzer
Anxious for a Barn Hi all, Mark here.Perhaps it was the discomfort of the intense heat dome of last week, which had me looking forward to when the heat would break. Or maybe it was the imminent turning of the calendar page from July to August, which signals to me the beginning of the end of summer, before I've even tasted the first vine ripened Brandywine. For whatever reason, my thoughts have been on the coming of fall.In particular, because my thoughts tend to run in streams, nay, torrents, of anxiety, I have been thinking about whether we will be ready with a new barn constructed to replace our burnt one by the time grazing season is over and the cold weather sets in.Being without the barn this summer has been inconvenient, but not fatal, to our operations. As Victoria described last week, we were able to use makeshift substitutes for the barn's amenities to accomplish sheep shearing in a shaded corral outside. The sheep are thriving in their current totally outdoor life. But come November, makeshift substitutes just won't do. We need to store hay in a secure dry place to feed the sheep through winter. By that time the sheep too will need shelter from the elements. As I was once instructed, the sheep can be cold OR they can be wet and will get by just fine. But being simultaneously cold and wet is a recipe for disaster. Averting that requires a roofed, walled structure. A barn.We know what in an ideal world we want from a barn -- its size, the functions it will serve. Yet still there are decisions we haven't finalized. Do we want to replace the current unsalvageable concrete floor with a new one, or use a cheaper alternative like compacted crushed stone? Should the barn be made of wood, in aesthetic harmony with the traditional structures of the rest of the farm, or metal, which is far more fireproof and maintenance free? Wood is cheaper at the outset, but because it requires painting and is subject to rot, may turn out more expensive over time.In our decision making we must be money conscious. The old barn was underinsured -- just a $10,000 limit for the structure itself. We've already spent most of that amount for expenses like debris removal and water pump repair without the first nail in the new structure having been hammered. Our insurance company was quick, efficient and fair in valuing all the personal property, like equipment and tools, that burned. Although it did not cover the turkeys lost in the fire (coverage for animals requires a special rider that I, an insurance maven, didn't think to buy), it did cover our inanimate products. We were fortunate that one of Troy and Victoria's first projects on arrival was sorting through the accumulated bags of sheared wool stored in the hayloft and beginning to sell it through the website Etsy. Because we were able to show a continuous stream of sales at $12 per pound, the 900 pounds of wool stored up there brought our total insurance proceeds close to $30,000.00.If only that were enough. Troy has been busy getting estimates from barn builders. Of those that even deigned to respond with a number, the estimated costs range from just under $50,000 to a mind boggling, to me, $150,000. At the high end, the term "sticker shock" springs to mind.It might seem obvious that one would take the cheapest competent bid, but the eternal variables of time and money are in their usual tension. The highest estimator is a large full-service custom builder with multiple work cr
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin July 19, 2019 WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Cucumbers and zucchini! They’re out and proud, with a fresh harvest twice a day. $2 a pound. Wax beans, limited quantities $2.50/lb.
Sunny and Shear
Hey all, Victoria here.If you’d asked us last Saturday what could possibly go wrong on shearing day, we could have extemporized for as long as you were willing to listen. Even after we’d set up our station and Aaron, our expert shearer, arrived, the list of potential obstacles was deep and long. Let me tabulate our specific anxieties, so you can share in the fullness of this journey alongside us.Would it rain? We’d already rescheduled once due to weather. If it rains and the sheep’s fleeces get wet, they’ll mold and become unusable, as well as clogging the shearing equipment, sticking to every available surface, and ensuring a miserable afternoon. Conversely, would it be too hot? The temperature was threatening to reach the high nineties, somehow with both full sun and a marginal chance of rain in the afternoon. Would we be able to stay hydrated, and have enough shade for both us and the flock?Without a barn, we wouldn’t have shelter. This led to a branching series of possible catastrophes, both amplifying the effect of bad weather and introducing new challenges concerning sheep movement. We settled on setting up the sheep in the old cattle corral, an open pen with none of the gates and chutes that usually facilitate moving a herd.Once Aaron arrived, we had a new and unexpected hiccup: The new electrical plugin that had been hastily installed after we lost the barn wasn’t working. We reset it and waited with bated breath while Aaron pulled the cord of his clippers; still nothing. Troy had planned ahead and seen to it that our generator was brought back from the brink of obsolescence, so he quickly wheeled it over, and we held our breath again as we started it up. This time the clippers buzzed to life, we exhaled, and began to take our places for the arduous ballet that was to follow. But don’t worry! Or rather, do worry, as we weren’t done yet.Given that we would handle each sheep individually while it was being sheared, Troy thought this would be a great opportunity to make sure everyone’s hooves were trimmed and they were dusted with anti-lice medication. With all the potential chaos of wrangling in an open pen, there was some scepticism bandied around about the feasibility of getting all this accomplished while also moving fast enough to get everyone through the process (for the record, I was not the doubting Thomas in this situation. I was a trusting Thomas). Undaunted, Troy set up his own sheep spa and clinic in the far corner of the pen. We’d filled a cooler with ice water, rounded up the herd, and double-checked the forecast.Then it was time, and -- each of us wearing our own slightly eccentric sun hat -- we braced ourselves for the starting gun. Aaron was in his element, casually rolling up to the pen in a Subaru hatchback with a bumper sticker that read “BAA”, but this was the first shearing for Troy and me, and even after all our preparations we didn’t know quite what to expect.Weirdly, once the clippers were buzzing, the next four hours went by shockingly quickly. Mark and I traded off wrangling, delicately carrying or gently wrestling a sheep to Aaron’s plywood stage, then crouching to gather wool into individually labelled bags. As soon as Aaron was done with a lamb, he would release it into Troy’s hands, where they were spirited into a hammock to have their nails done with professional speed. Although the line of sheep seemed never-ending, we eventually scooped up the last one, bagged her beautiful fleece, and stood back to admire our work.Aaron shook hands all around, then hopped in his Subaru to head to the next farm. Our flock, newly light and free without their winter coats, were let out to pasture with more-than-usual frolicking. Mark, Troy and I hauled fifty-two
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WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Elder flowers, $2/bunch - great for infusions Purslane is plentiful, $2/bag Zucchini, $1.50 /lb Cherry belle radishes, $2/bunch Unfortunately we had a deer incursion, stripping us of all the gooseberries and beautiful lettuce in its prime, as well as pepper plants Fava bean season is behind us.
Oak Savannah habitat, sans vines, thanks to Troy and the other interns
Hey all, Troy here,They creep, they bind, they multiply. They can fell large trees and swallow entire buildings. They follow their own rules, and they climb anything that gets in their way. Now, they’re trying to take over our farm. But I won’t let them. I’m talking, of course, about vines.I’ve been battling these creeping terrors in one form or another for years now. In my previous job at the National Ecological Observatory Network, the vines (or as we called them in the industry, “lianas”) were a real menace. In some of our research plots in the Shenandoah Valley, the vines formed impassable thickets, making it difficult to collect the data we sought. In many cases, this was a mere hurdle. I could say, “I cannot go in there, the vines will take me. I will go around.” To which my supervisors would respond, “Good call, it is not worth the risk.” But sometimes we needed to measure the vines themselves to estimate their contribution to forest biomass, and my supervisors would say, “It’s fine, we’ll get more technicians to replace you next year.” So, in the interest of the greater scientific good, I would crawl into the vine pits with a measuring tape, a small pair of calipers, and a dictionary-sized copy of the “protocol” detailing the dozens of vine types I might encounter within.At first, the vines would let me in to get comfortable. I would measure the ones near me, and look for their rooting points – not so bad. Then, they would begin to tease me. “Wait, these two vines are actually the same one. Strange, this one has like fifty rooting points.” Sweating nervously, I would flip through the protocol for guidance – maybe this pattern is described in one of the appendices… Then it dawned on me: The whole mess was all one vine! I turned to escape, but the vine had wrapped itself around my ankle. I struggled to break loose, but like a fly in a web, I only got more tangled. Pretty soon, the vine was tearing out pages from my protocol and hitting me on the head with my own calipers. This was pretty common, and difficult to explain upon returning from the field. That is, until everyone else got a chance to try measuring lianas.Even before working for the Observatory, I had some prior experience dealing with aggressive vines, only this time I was meant to eliminate them rather than observe them. Through Americorps, I worked for the Indiana Dunes National Park clearing out invasive species and promoting native ones. The goal was to restore the landscape to its original “Oak Savannah” habitat as part of a larger effort to save the critically endangered Karner Blue Butterfly. This involved doing “sweeps” throughout the park with various tools for removing invasive plants, our most effective being glyphosate herbicide (aka Roundup). Our public enemy number one was a vine called Oriental bittersweet (aka Celastrus orbiculatus).Some of you may be familiar with bittersweet. It has a round, orb-like leaf that tapers to a small point. The stem is woody with characteristic white spots which apparently help with oxygen exchange. The root is tough, stubborn, and bright orange. Once it latches onto something tall, it grows vertically at an alarming rate, and if it doesn’t have a substrate to latch onto, it coils around another bittersweet vine forming a sturdy, braided trunk. It’s so successful that it can shade out oak trees, kill them, and tear them down under the weight of all the vines. Our crew quested for it so intensely that summer that I started to dream about it. It wasn’t just in my dreams, it
Alright, already, I admit it. I’m getting old.
Boy, was that hard.
At 68, I’m not exceptionally old to be either a lawyer or a farmer. Lawyer demographic statistics are hard to come by, but it’s not hard to find lots of articles in legal journals about the coming “silver tsunami” of lawyers practicing past age 65. And everyone seems aware that there are plenty of old farmers.
According to the last Census of American Agriculture, the average age of the American farmer is 57.5. Here in Columbia County, New York, people 55-64 years old constitute the biggest single bloc of farmers, followed by those 65 to 74 years old. In the aggregate, those between 45 and 74 constitute over two thirds of the farmers in the County. There were more farmers in that last census 75 and older than there were in Troy and Victoria’s age group, 25-34. It may be that statistics exaggerate the predominance of older farmers, in that lots of younger people probably have decision- making roles in agriculture without being formally in the owner / operator role that gets them counted as a “farmer” for census purposes. But the fundamental reality is that there are a lot of us older folks doing tasks that are popularly associated with young, vigorous people with glowing skin and sinewy muscle.
I have to admit that I’ve seen continuous engagement in hard physical labor as a pathway to fending off age. I looked at neighbors like Bob and Anne Rider, who until Bob’s death in his late 80s were actively working their orchard, and was convinced that it was precisely that work that kept them so wonderfully alive and engaged in the world around them for so many years.
As for myself, I always took great comfort in there being no tasks on the farm that my age restricted me from doing. That I could wrestle sheep, climb ladders, dig ditches, plant trees and haul feed gave me immense satisfaction. My partner Peter, who began to suffer a lot of impediments for which he required my assistance before he died in his eighty first year, kept telling me I should not revel so much in my physical capacities, lest I be devastated when those capacities declined. Such comments made me all the more resolved to just chug along.
The first jolt of reality came, I fear, last Saturday. I was digging a trench along a vegetable bed in order to plant leeks. I was using a shovel that was a little too short for the task. And in one moment, as I twisted slightly in the wrong direction, I felt a searing pain in my right butt. I worked on with a better shovel, but starting that night, compounding the effects of a bad cold and cough everyone in the house was enduring, I could barely sleep for lack of a comfortable leg position. Getting up and getting down were both moan- and groan- inducing events. Walking became hobbling. Stairs were always taken good leg first.
After three sleepless nights and incapacitated days I forced myself to the doctor, who blessedly prescribed anti-inflammatories, and sent me to an orthopedist for x-rays and evaluation. Catastrophizing, I dreamt at night of needing hip replacement surgery and how to decide between hospitals. I was much relieved when the doctor told me there was plenty of space still left in my hip joint, and that I had simply suffered an “over-use” injury.
I was considerably less happy, however, to hear the remedy. Not only will I need two to four months of physical therapy, but, he said, I will have to take things very easy. The minute I responded “this is a farm…” I could see the expression change on the doctor’s face. He’d clearly met my type before, and the lecture ensued. “You can ignore what I say and push yourself. You will have plenty of relief from the drugs and it may seem just fine for a while. But if you don’t do as I say, you may find yourself with a permanent limp and in chronic pain.”
I wanted to tell him how growing leeks means so much to me. Peter, bo
Hey all, it’s Victoria.If you’ve read a farming blog or ridden a subway in the last few years, you may have seen an ad for one of a variety of programs that rescues and/or resells “ugly” produce. These services usually promote themselves as fighting food waste, and also evoke a sense of pity for the pitiful, misshapen carrot or pepper that might not get eaten without your compassionate intervention.My initial impulse when scrolling or walking past these ads is skepticism about their utility. I apologize! We’re a bunch of skeptics out here. I know these ads are furthering an excellent goal, especially since the USDA estimates that 30-40% of food produced in the US ends up as waste (https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs). But having worked in agriculture and also lived with human beings, I’ve seen far more produce lost to pests, temperature and storage problems, supply chain interruptions, or from personally ignoring the salad we KNOW we should eat in the crisper until it turns to slime. If that salad is irregular in any way, that only makes each of these hurdles more, not less, daunting. This holds true even though my explicit job, for two summers, was to be the person who picks out the ugly cucumbers.When I worked in the Horticulture department at NC State, one of our biggest projects was a cucumber production study involving the best planting densities for making pickles. This involved filling buckets with each day’s harvest, meticulously labelling them with a complex index card system, loading them on a truck bed, then dumping the contents into a grading machine and measuring the results. The grader was a huge green contraption with rows of different-sized teeth that shuffled the harvest down a conveyor belt and shot each one out into its own chute by size. My crew and I would dump the buckets, then stand at our designated chutes with the power stance of a goalie, ready to snatch out any oversized, undersized, rotten or weirdly shaped fruits before they had a chance to jam up the grader and grind our well-oiled machine to a halt. After they were sorted, weighed, double-checked and recorded, we would dump the results in a heap. These were research cucumbers, and thus wouldn’t be available for sale at any point. If we wanted, we could set aside a bucket to take home, and I probably skewed the average number of cucumbers eaten in the state that summer, but I only picked the best of the best for myself: The #2s, perfectly slender and without blemish.I have to admit, this experience made me a bit of a snob about cucumbers. In the unique conditions of our study, I got used to harvesting at one speed (super-fast) and selecting for one value when picking (anything bigger than a man’s thumb). I would hurl twenty-pound buckets without looking where they were going, kick trailing vines back into place with my boots, and had my pick from a truly staggering number of perfect specimens.Since our project was designed to collect information about processing cucumbers, our scale and our priorities were set by this need for speed, consistency, and uniformity. The purpose of grading had little to do with aesthetics, only what would smoothly move through the machines that would handle our crop. Still, even in a field that’s been organized and quantified from the ground up to produce a single, dependable product, some surprises managed to slip through, and I tossed them out without a thought.In contrast, I’ve spent this summer gently nurturing a crop of cucumber plants that are only now just starting to bear flowers. Fruit are still a far-off glimmer in my eye, and when they arrive they’ll be individually celebrated, gently cradled by mulch, and hand-picked with utmost tenderness. I know, I can hardly recognize myself. Throughout our cultivated acre, I’ve had to shift my perspective. Rather than knowing exactly what I’m looking for and processing it as fas
Happy Solstice, everyone.
Today was the longest day of the year, but I have to say, every day without a barn has felt pretty long to me. Losing the barn three weeks ago has been inconvenient, to say the least. We just postponed our already late shearing date due to rain. With a barn, we could have easily done it under shelter with a readily available source of electricity. Now we have to wait until July, and we’ll have to bring out a generator to power the electric shears.
As you might expect, we depended on the barn a lot. The classically designed, red and white building was a focal point on the farm both aesthetically and operationally. We used it every day to corral, monitor and rotate the sheep. In it we stored food, water, tools, medical supplies, and a decade’s supply of raw wool – not to mention the turkeys.
While we felt reliant on the barn for so much, the sheep seem to be getting along fine without it. In fact, I’d even venture to say their health has been steadily improving lately. Over the past three weeks, they have proven their resilience and shown off the magical qualities of their wool coats. They’ve endured hot days, thunderstorms, and cold rainy nights (luckily none to extreme) without reliable shelter. My instinct is to protect them from these weather events, but theirs is to simply endure them.
It is a common conception that barns are where farm animals live. For concentrated farms that primarily feed their animals hay and grain, this is true – the animals spend their time in human-made shelters. But on our small-scale, grass-fed farm, the barn is a mere comfort station for the sheep. Their true home is the pasture. Our sheep spent most of their lives out in the forage, even while the barn still stood. Only in winter would they be in the barn for extended periods, because that is where the hay was. This hardiness has always been a blessing, especially now as we sort out our next steps.
Considering their incredible ability to withstand the elements, it’s tempting to just let them wander the fields totally free of supervision; but that’s not recommended. According to our extension agent, Jason, transmissible diseases are a much greater threat to sheep flocks than the weather, and they are best prevented with intensive flock management. The most common and concerning killer is actually picked up right on the pasture. It is a microscopic worm – a nematode – called Haemunchus contortus, or colloquially as the barber pole worm.
Sheep are most likely to pick up the barber pole worm from the soil when they eat very short grass. The worm attaches to the lining of the sheep’s gut and proceeds to suck its blood from the inside. The worm has a spiral digestive system, which when filled with blood resembles the poles commonly seen outside barber shops – hence the name. Each female can release over 1000 eggs in a day, which end up in the sheep’s feces and back in the soil. An overload of worms will cause anemia in sheep and can kill them in a matter of days.
Understandably, Jason got me psyched out about these tiny versions of a Syfy Channel B-movie villain. He said that if we have the worm, it’s not good to let the sheep linger too long in heavy use areas – aka where they poop a lot. But after the barn burned down, our options for viable pasture were limited. What was once a barrier separating four different pastures became a treacherous no-mans-land of debris that precluded access to three of them. The two pastures remaining (including our far North field) are quite large, but the sheep definitely have their favorite “heavy use” spots. We quickly got to work putting up temporary fence around the wreckage to reestablish better rotation. Then we had to isolate potential worm carriers.
The first thing to check is the mucous membrane under their eyelids. Normally, they are nice and pink with blood vessels. Any sheep with white eyelids is a
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WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Happy Flag Day. Green shiso leaves are now coming in. Use for tea, for exotic Japanese dishes, or just to garnish you sashimi plate with the real, not the plastic, leaf.
Inflection Point Hi all, Mark here.Like everyone else on earth, I am living at the inflection point between the past and the future. Perhaps unlike most others, I think quite a bit about being at that juncture.I suppose the reasons for my focus are obvious. I’m still adjusting to widowhood, which entails coming to terms with losing the most anchoring, stabilizing element in my life and figuring out if it is ok to be happy forging a new life and relationships. And I’m confronting the incineration of our barn, which I’ve always considered the fulcrum of life on the farm. Trying with Troy and Victoria to figure the path forward, a process made far easier by all of your expressions of sympathy, help, and advice, involves figuring out what to try to preserve from the past and what should change .I find that the time when my mind most fixes on the relationship between past and the future is when I’m out working in the perennial gardens. Tending a garden has a superficial resemblance to cleaning a house, because much of what one does is clean up and restore the order the place is designed to have -- or, in some aesthetics, maintain the charming disorderliness. But a garden is also an evolving entity. Unlike the table and chairs in your dining room, the different elements in your garden are constantly changing shape and size. A plant that coexisted perfectly comfortably with its neighbor last year may crowd the neighbor out this year. As trees grow up they may cast too much shade on sun loving plants that once thrived in their vicinity. You need to constantly decide whether things should be divided or moved. These are decisions that were always Peter’s domain, as he could masterfully visualize how contrasting shapes, colors and sizes could work together. I am intimidated by the choices I face.As I work in the garden, I am constantly wondering what Peter would have decided, and whether he’d approve of my decisions. I teeter between trying to follow what I think Peter would have done, and striking out on my own in ways I know he’d disapprove of. A most basic example: prolific shiso plants, in their both red and green varieties, are constantly popping up everywhere. Peter would always weed them out, restricting them to a few decorative locations. I, viewing the shiso leaves as a cash crop, and finding them particularly beautiful in large masses, am letting them run somewhat rampant.On the whole, however, the evolution that happens on its own in the garden’dictates at least as much of the change as my choices do. The chestnut tree we transplanted as a sapling opposite the chicken coop 15 years ago, and which produced a bumper crop of nuts last fall, inexplicably died this spring. Its removal will entirely change the look of that portion of the garden, bringing light where there was dense shade, and require shifts in what is planted there. I might want things to look exactly as Peter arranged them, but even herculean efforts on my part cannot really make that possible.The recognition that Peter may have bequeathed us an overall structure, but that the garden cannot remain frozen in his vision, has been invaluable in helping me accept a similar realization as to all the other elements of my life – the house, the apartment in New York, my social life, and of course most especially the farm. The latter task has been made infinitely easier by the active engagement of Victoria and Troy, who are not so mired as I am in what once was.I recently sent them a New York Times article about the movement among young educated millennials in Ghana, and apparently elsewhere in Africa, to take up agriculture. “
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WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Radishes are starting a second wave, just a few bunches, but spinach and dill are quite plentiful Oasis turnips and sorrel continue.The sad news is what we won't have this year. Turkeys. The fire that destroyed the barn and our turkey poults (see Victoria's bulletin, below) has rendered us unable to start again. They would not have time to grow, and we have no place to keep them. If anyone wants small frozen turkeys from last season, let us know. We have at least half a dozen. But for those of you seeking fresh heritage turkey, we regret very much that you'll have to find another source this year, and we hope you'll come back to our fold next year.On a far happier note, we were pleased to receive the news this morning that Peter Siegenthaler (former Turkana Farm man for all seasons) and his wife Cassie Carello have welcomed Julius Siegenthaler into the world, and we send our love and congratulations.
Where There's Smoke Hey, it's Victoria, As some of you may have heard, we endured a disaster this week. Our barn, home to our new turkeys, ten years of stored wool, and a green tape deck I’ve had since 2004, burned so entirely it appears to have vanished. Just after dawn on Saturday morning a fire marshall knocked on the door, and Troy and I ran outside. It seemed like every firefighter in the county was there, trucks pouring up the back field to get closer, but it was already gone. Our collective best guess is that one of the turkey’s heat lamps broke, catching the litter below on fire. Still, there’s no way to know for sure. It’s a shock, obviously, but it feels twice as hard because, in a sense, I’ve done this already.In November of 2016, a series of wildfires, accelerated by windstorms that downed power lines and carried burning embers, tore through east Tennessee and western North Carolina. My home town, Gatlinburg, was close to the origin point and took the brunt of the impact, losing more than 2,000 buildings--including my family home, and my grandma’s house and fiber studio. As a deadly natural disaster, it’s significant enough to have its own Wikipedia page. Being human, I still think of it as something that happened to me.Fortunately no one in my human family was lost. They’ve all rebuilt or relocated close by, have replanted flower gardens and established new routes to work. We’re thriving. I transplanted horsetails from the stream behind my grandma’s house, and wrote a newsletter about it. They’re thriving too. After recounting something terrible, the next thing I feel compelled to say is “Fortunately”. This time, we’re lucky that the response was quick and urgent, the spring was rainy, and nothing else on the farm was harmed. While we lost all the turkeys, at least none of the sheep were in the barn that night, and they’re all safe in the far pasture now, seemingly unperturbed. We’re working on plans for rebuilding, talking with the insurance adjuster, and figuring out our next steps. I know how this part of the process goes, too. The only thing to do next is just keep doing the work: make a meal, make a list, make the bed.It feels like I have practiced responding to this exact circumstance, gone through the process, done the stages of grief, and yet I wasn’t--and I’m not--ready. This has still taken me out at the knees. I’m so sad for our baby turkeys, and for the loss of what we thought this summer was going to look like. I’ve hesitated even to talk to my friends and neighbors about the fire, because I’m not ready to tell a story about it yet. I know all the beats, the arc and the denouement, and I know that the retelling, repetition in pursuit of meaning-making, is part of how we deal collectively with sudden catastrophe. I taught a storytelling class for four years in college, meeting each week on the third floor of the student
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:Radishes are on a break, but we now have spinach and dill. And the baby Oasis turnips have gotten bigger.
Woolology Hello all, Troy here.
This week, our longest stretch of sunny days so far came to an end. While we didn’t necessarily need more rain just yet, our newly planted beans and cucumbers delighted in the midweek showers. Their little stems and seed leaves have since emerged triumphantly from the soil. The peas, radishes and turnips we planted several weeks ago also seem rather thankful for the water. The sheep, on the other hand… Well, it’s never easy to tell what they’re thinking. But suffice to say, they got wet.As for me, I find it hard to motivate myself to do outdoor tasks in the rain, and I end up focusing on indoor things I’ve been putting off. So I finally pulled out my new spinning wheel this week and gave it a whirl.The process of spinning wool into yarn is surprisingly simple. So much so, it seems almost magical as it happens before your eyes. I gently pedal the treadle, the wheel spins, the bobbin spins, and voila! A clump of wool transforms into a strand of yarn. All I really do is pedal my feet, draft out the fibers (meaning separate them from the clump in small bits), and let the yarn spin onto the bobbin. If it sounds easy, it’s because it is. However, there is still a bit of a learning curve. The rate that I draft out the fibers must match my pedaling speed. If I pedal too quickly (or draft too slowly), then the yarn gets overspun and kinks up on itself. If I pedal too slowly, the fibers don’t twist together enough, making the yarn weak. It is all very rhythm-dependent. As long as I can maintain a steady tempo of pedaling and drafting, the machine does most of the work for me. I imagine that listening to music as I spin would help quite a bit. But then comes the delicate art of crafting a playlist of bangers that perfectly match the tempo of my spinning.Of course, I’ve skipped over a few critical steps. Before I can spin, I need to comb the raw fleece so that the fibers are aligned (this makes drafting much easier). Before that, there’s the optional washing the fleece, which removes a sticky oil called lanolin. But the most difficult and important step of all is producing the wool fiber itself – which we outsource to our trusty flock of Karakul sheep.If creating yarn seems magically simple, the fiber itself is on the other end of the spectrum – astonishingly complex. This was made clear to me by Kimber Baldwin’s eye-opening lecture on the science of wool at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. She delved deep into the unique properties of wool fibers, right down to their molecular structure. As it turns out, biochemistry explains a lot about why we like wool so much.To start, a single wool fiber is made of a long tube of bundled cells encased in a wall of protective scales. Each cell is jam packed with thousands of strands of the protein keratin. Put into water, the outer scales initially repel the water molecules, but eventually the molecules seep between the scales to the interior of the fiber, where they bind directly to the keratin protein. The formation of these bonds actually releases heat into the surrounding environment. At the same time, the water molecules get locked away within the fiber’s interior. This is why wool fabrics feel warm and dry even if they get wet! On the flip side, in hot and dry conditions, the water is slowly released from the inner nooks of the fibers and evaporates off. Breaking those bonds absorbs heat from the surroundings, having a cooling effect, just like sweat does for our bodies.Cotton is very different. It is made of plant material – cellulose – which is a long, stable chain of carbohydrates. It is not tightly coiled, and, compared to keratin, has scarcely any binding sites for water. Thus, when it gets wet, it gets saturated immediately, and has none of those beautiful temperature regulating propert
Farm Artistry Happy Memorial Day, All. Mark here. Last weekend, Troy, Victoria and I had a little holiday from farm drudgery. We had the good fortune to attend a baroque music concert at Holy Trinity Church in Hudson. Musicians of the Four Nations Ensemble (with guest artists from afar) played lute, continuo, viola di gamba, harpsichord and violins. The Amor Artis Chorus from New York City, joined them, with some amazing soloists. All gave what I’d have to say was a magnificent performance in an impressive space. I was transported.So were the other 41 or so audience members, who seemed similarly enthusiastic. In a space that could have accommodated hundreds, we barely outnumbered the performers.As we left, I commented that perhaps Troy and Victoria might feel some kinship with the musicians we had just seen, as they embark on a career involving producing and selling products, in their case, heritage meats and poultry and farm fresh vegetables, for an apparently limited customer base. Troy responded that he had long found it amazing how classical musicians such as those we had seen spend decades cultivating an awesome skill that is both so specific and so underappreciated.Of course, developing specific expertise is both something of a natural human inclination and a requirement of living in society. As bees develop into worker bees, drones, foragers, and the Queen bee, we humans, as a species, specialize too. We live in a social structure of interdependence. In our incredibly complex economy, there are thousands of skills necessary, and thousands of different job categories requiring those specific skills. Government supported compendia like the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and O*Net describe the particular aptitudes and styles that may make one successful in filling those jobs.But what is it about those who don’t seem to move themselves toward a specialization because they know that to live you need a job? How does one explain the self-motivators who develop particular passions for obscure and often profoundly unremunerative endeavors and follow a vision that seems to spring from within?How do I explain Peter, my late partner, whose legacy of studying and appreciating kilims, middle eastern flatweavings, led him to accumulate a substantial collection of artifacts that now have hardly any market at all? He did not assemble them in the expectation that they would be appreciated and he’d make a killing, but out of the belief that they should be appreciated, and it was his mission to educate people into appreciating them. Similarly, how do I explain the friend who has made a career of writing historical novels set in Republican presidencies? It does not seem to me that he does so in the expectation that somehow books in that niche will sell better (if any books at all still sell), but rather because of the genuine pleasure he takes in doing particular types of historical research and in bringing the ideas and ethea (that’s the plural of ethos, folks) associated with those presidencies to life. His and Peter’s are highly individual artistic visions, and like the classical musicians we saw last week their pursuit cannot possibly be explained by the expectation of financial reward.Certainly there are potential rewards associated with the pursuit of personal visions. Critical acclaim. Or the sense of achievement when one has been particularly successful in realizing one’s vision. Or at the very least acknowledgment that you’ve accomplished something. This week I learned that Peter’s distinctly unremunerative passion for breeding American Karakul sheep is being recognized. Troy’s hard work reconstructing the genealogical record of our sheep herd has led the realization that it now constitutes a distinct bloodline, which the Karakul Shepherds Alliance Advisors have determined to name “Peter Davies Karakuls” in recognition of his 17 years of devoted breeding. Lambs born since Peter’s death in this bloodline will be recognized as pa
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
Green E-Market Bulletin May 17, 2019
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK:French breakfast radishes, $3 a bunchGround lamb, lamb shanks, from our latest lambs to market. Ground lamb, $7/lb, shanks $10/lb.
That's me (Victoria) Just kidding Photo by Troy Spindler
Snakes on the Brain
Hi all, it’s Victoria this time.Our recent spell of cold, dreary, seemingly unending overcast weather had left me feeling leaden and slow-moving as the days trickled by. Tasks piled up on my to-do list, and I was thwarted from accomplishing them by both the literal presence of rain and by my gloomy, half-awake mood. The sudden emergence of the sun on Wednesday dried the ground, brought new sprouts breaking through the surface, and sent me sprinting outside with enough vim and fervor to prep and plant seven rows of beans. Triumph! Also a convenient confirmation of my impulse to do zero soul-searching and keep blithely blaming all my feelings on the weather.Of course, going suddenly from an indoor sweater-clad lifestyle directly to sunbathing brought with it an obvious consequence: a sunburn on my shoulders, transforming overnight from blossom-white to apple-pink despite my devoted veneration of sunscreen. And worse, despite optimistic applications of post-mortem aloe, I have recently begun to peel. Last night, as I rubbed my itchy shoulders against the door frame (pretending this doesn’t count as scratching), the pieces began to come together: A period of torpor bordering on dormancy, followed by an energetic reemergence after exposure to sun and warmth, and now an evident molt…….am I turning into a snake?I’ve always been a huge fan of snakes and their scaly compatriots, despite my family’s reservations, and hold strong opinions about everything from most frightening (constrictors are way scarier than vipers) to which would make the best pet for me personally (a Hognose snake, obviously). I’ve been delighted by the volume and diversity of snake neighbors we have on the farm, as they’re both a sign of a robust environmental habitat, and a useful form of pest control. There are varieties of snake that operate at every level of the food chain, from tiny grass snakes up to monster Black Rat snakes, which are keystone predators and can grow to be as long as 6 feet in the wild, or approximately four and a half feet in our basement. So if my transformation becomes complete, I'm confident that I can find my appropriate ecological niche.I'm also lucky enough to have plenty of snake-loving friends and family, who have managed to overcome a fundamental hard-wired fear to appreciate snakes for their skills and talents. My mom, famously, conquered her initial apprehension to welcome a huge rat snake who lived in the attic of her house. After witnessing his undulating movements throughout the rafters, she nicknamed him Elvis and grew to appreciate him as a cohabitant, even after he molted a massive skin right on the mantle of her fireplace. Troy and I have a past coworker from NEON, Rob, who loves snakes more than any human I've ever met, and has the talent of finding and then lovingly cradling any serpent in his vicinity. A field day with Rob--or an office day, or even a casual afternoon at the river--often became a visceral object lesson in how truly foundational snakes are in a given environment, as he would have a new one wrapped around his fingers with a speed and frequency that was, frankly, uncanny. As for my other friends who have not yet grown to love snakes, perhaps I can gradually work to change their minds (Erika, please let me know if I'm still welcome as a bridesmaid if I have to slither down the aisle).Still, I have to approach this new stage in my life with a degree of apprehension. I'll certainly miss my limbs, which have served me so well to date. I also clearly wouldn’t do so well as a cold-blooded creature, especially in a climate with less-than-dependable sunshine. I tend to think mice are gross, and don't relish the i
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: Nothing newly ready to sell, but lots of seedlings out there. The fava beans (the plants anyway) are growing nicely. It will be another month before they flower and produce beans. Spinach will come quicker.
Scheming and plotting from the start Photo by Victoria Cox
Turkey PoultentialHey all, Troy here.This past weekend was quite eventful for the Turkana crowd. Victoria flew back to North Carolina to celebrate our friend’s “single funeral” (aka bachelorette party). I drove to Maryland for the annual Sheep and Wool festival. Meanwhile, Mark stayed behind at the farm, where he discovered a new, unexpected lamb friend Saturday morning.Even while we were off on our Southern vacations, a tinge of jealousy crept in as Mark sent us pictures of the little one. She is undeniably cute, albeit a little goofy looking. She has a long, brown, puppy-like face with ears that pop out before flopping down. The rest of her is a silver grey with brown spots here and there. Now that I’ve met her, I can see she is quite vigorous – she is hard to approach because she is so good at keeping up with mom. I have a feeling she will be quite low maintenance.Save for any more surprises, I think we’ll have two or three more lambs joining us this spring. Compared to their older brothers and sisters, these late comers won’t be as threatened by hypothermia or malnourishment. However, they’ll be a lot smaller at the time they start feeding on grass. Thus, they’ll be much more susceptible to intestinal parasites, and less able to deal with the summer heat. There’s always a tradeoff.The challenges will be different, but I feel a lot more prepared now than I did when we started lambing the second week after I got here. In fact, upon returning from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, I felt ready to intensify my flock management efforts. At the festival, I attended seminars and lectures with sheep and wool experts. I learned which of my unrelenting sheep-related anxieties are valid, and which ones are actually non-issues. I got tips from other Karakul breeders on how they keep this desert breed happy and healthy in wet climates such as ours. As for the wool, I got incredible insight into what sets Karakul fiber apart from all others. I learned all about the thermodynamics and biochemistry of wool – why it feels warm and dry in wet environments, and then cools down in warmer, drier weather (don’t worry, there will be a whole bulletin about all this later). I was eager to get home and wipe off the dust that’s already started to accumulate on my brand new spinning wheel. That is, until yesterday, when 120 new mouths to feed arrived in the mail -- the turkeys are here.Right when I thought I was hitting my stride in animal husbandry, two boxes of hungry, cheeping turkey poults fell into my lap. As I’m quickly learning, baby turkeys are very different from lambs and have very different needs. First of all, turkeys don’t nurse! There’s not a mom in sight to feed them milk. Rather, they require I go out and buy them specialized feed (no less than 27% protein), and then bring them the food myself. I even had to show them how to eat and drink by dipping their tiny beaks in the food and water. Also, their hutch needs to be at a constant 95-100ºF. If the heat lamp is too hot or too close, they start to fall asleep (possibly forever). If the heat lamp is hung too high up, they start running around in a panic. I find it hard to believe these are indeed warm-blooded creatures as they say. Lambs do a fine job of regulating their own body temperature, as long as they are dry and have milk. Turkeys, on the other hand, are a bunch of needy divas who love to nap and cheep at me until I give them everything they want.Despite all of this, I’m hopeful for this young brood. It’s still early in their lives, and maybe as I learn everything about proper turkey care, I will also learn to love what’s unique about them at the same time. Everything on this farm has
Sheep Walking a Tightrope Hi all, Mark here.
Yesterday my sister texted a comment on a picture Troy and Victoria had posted. "Love this expression on Orhan," she said of a shot of our flock wether, Orhan the Second. Interpreting the expressions on animals' faces is always a tricky business. While I agreed that I loved the picture, and I perceived that anyone looking at him would find him entirely lovable, I also couldn't help but read into his facial expression something of a lost feeling, an uncertainty about the future that carried with it considerable trepidation.To understand the immediate circumstance giving rise to the image, you have to understand a bit who Orhan is. He is the designated successor to our only previous flock wether, Orhan the First. That Orhan was half of a set of twins, the first lambs born on the property. He was partially bottle fed because his mother had inadequate milk for two lambs and often kicked him away from her udder. Orhan the First became understandably attached to us as the source of his food, and we to him as the source of unmitigated devotion. Because he was castrated (therefore, a "wether"), we could keep him without fear of in-inbreeding and without concern about rivalry with whatever ram happened be rotating through our flock at any given time.The advantage of a wether like Orhan was that he was bonded to us in ways that enabled us to control his behavior somewhat better than other flock members. Because we could get him go where we wanted him to, he could start movements that led the rest of the flock to follow, so he served as something of a natural leader. It is a time honored tradition to use wethers in such flock leadership roles. Put a bell around his neck, and he becomes a "bellwether," an expression which entirely makes sense once you understand its origin.Orhan was with us for about 15 years until his death. When he died, Peter and I discussed replacing him with another similar flock leader. Serendipitously, along came Orhan II. Orhan II was not a bottle fed lamb, he was more than adequately nourished by his mother and grew large quickly. But he bore a physical resemblance to Orhan I, particularly in wool color, and he was also incredibly personable with us. He came over to be petted, and, though to a lesser extent than Orhan I, hung out with us sometimes in the barn. We elected him the new flock wether and honored him with Orhan's name.Last spring a new generation of lambs was born, and recently Orhan started to perform one of the wether leadership functions he was selected for. A couple of months ago, Troy and Victoria isolated all the younger male lambs destined for market in a pasture to the northeast of the barn, and they placed Orhan II with them to serve as leader and manager. This week, those eleven lambs did go off to market. Perhaps some of the expression on Orhan's face reflects his sudden dislocation as his companions of the last month or two suddenly disappeared. Now he must reintegrate into the rest of the flock. There is a hint of bewilderment.But there's a larger context as well. Perhaps Orhan could be concerned with the larger threat to the continued existence of sheep. This week the New York Times published a full section supplement on how to eat to combat climate change ("Your Questions about Food and Climate Change, Answered"). It follows on reports from such organizations as the UN Environmental Programme, whose 2018 Annual Report which points out that agriculture accounts for a huge proportion, perhaps a third, of human environmental impact, that a big part of the problem is overconsumption of meats by rich countries, and that of all the meats one might eat b
Hi friends, it’s Victoria. Last weekend we hosted the much-anticipated revival of the Scherzer/Spindler Passover tradition, and had the pleasure of a full house, a truly outstanding Seder meal, and a score of hands to help in the garden. Our beds, which have been slumbering gently under blankets of straw and sheep manure, are finally waking up and sending out sprouts, and we harvested our first rhubarb and asparagus of the year. Aside from these trusty perennials, everything else in the garden is still in its infancy, and we spent Sunday afternoon transplanting, mulching and weeding our delicate babies. If I’d been out there alone I’m sure the time would have passed slowly and felt like any other chore. But with the warm breeze, slow conversation with the whole family present, and the incredible smell of the mint beds we were working in, I can hardly imagine a better way to spend an afternoon. Truly, both weeding and weeds have an undeservedly bad reputation. Let me attempt to intervene on their behalf.
As soon as we expose the soil to prepare a new bed, dormant seeds that now have access to light begin to sprout. These plants are an incredibly useful first guard that appear to secure and protect soil that has been disturbed. The first and fastest in our beds, the clovers, work to fix nitrogen in the soil. They also send up a perfectly round first leaf, which is precious to behold and is a great source of abstract aesthetic pleasure -- the raison d’être of Turkana Farms. After the clovers comes an herbaceous blanket familiar to most gardeners: dandelions, garlic mustard, nettle, chickweed and wild onion and their ilk. Seen from one angle, these species form an army that threatens to overtake a plot at the first sign of weakness. Conversely, I like to see them as my first crop.
One of the things I look forward to in the spring, with this flush of early growth, is foraging for wild greens. Currently I get to feel very romantic as I stroll beside the pond with a handmade basket, gathering violet leaves, but I did this just as often in vacant lots in my neighborhood in Raleigh, stuffing flowers into a plastic bag and trying to look like I wasn’t trespassing. My favorites from home -- nettles, lamb’s quarters, and purslane -- aren’t having their moment quite yet, but when I ventured forth to seek ingredients for an afternoon snack I found more than enough to meet my needs. Tender baby dandelion and violet leaves are mild, almost like spinach, and garlic mustard and wild onion are pungent and savory. Purple dead nettle has a nutty, earthy aroma, although the fine hairs keep me from eating too much of them without a quick sauté. The same qualities that make these species such formidable foes as weeds -- early, fast, and constant growth -- ensure a bountiful harvest once you grow to appreciate them as table greens.
Of course, you shouldn’t eat any wild plant if you aren’t sure of its identification. However, I trust the judgement of our readership implicitly, and if you have had the experience of becoming deeply acquainted with these species as foes, then you likely know them well enough to seek them out instead as food. Dina Falconi’s book Foraging and Feasting is an excellent resource, as is the truly beautiful cookbook Forage, Harvest, Feast by Marie Valjoen, and Euell Gibbon’s classic Stalking the Wild Asparagus is a must-read. If you’ve checked all of those out and you still aren’t sure, I’d love to have you over and show you firsthand.
Transformational Pesto (alternately: Revenge Pesto. Spite Pesto?)
1 basket (about 4 cups) of foraged spring greens now available in your garden and yard, roughly torn or chopped
½ cup chopped walnuts or pine nuts
½ cup shredded parmesan cheese
2 cloves chopped garlic (optional, especially if you have plenty of wild onion)
2-4 tablespoons good olive oil
Zest and juice of half a lemon
Salt and pepper
Combine the greens, walnuts, che
Fungal Affection
Hi all, it's Troy.
The robins are gathering, the ephemeral blooms are popping, and the geese are heading northward. Spring has finally reached our farm. For over a month, Victoria and I have been jealously watching our friends in North Carolina post pictures of sunshine and seedlings flourishing in their gardens. At last, it is our turn to dig up some dirt, bury some seeds, and say a few prayers that nothing gets eaten – after all, the furry critters that live among us have also been eagerly anticipating the warmer clime.Beside all the great practical reasons to crawl, with squinting eyes, out of our dens each year, there is also a great relief in simply realizing that the rest of the world is still there too. As our eyes adjust to the light, we can see everyone else emerging from their winter hidey-holes as well. For Victoria and me, it has been a prime time for us to connect with some of our new Hudson Valley neighbors. Just the other night, our new friend and neighbor Marissa, who works at nearby Hearty Roots Farm, invited us to dinner with some other young farmers in the area. We had pizza and drinks with a freshly harvested garden salad and a garnish of local farmer gossip. Did you know that Neversink Farm didn’t design their patented Winstrip seedling trays, but rather bought the rights from a foreign company? Scandalous! And from what I hear, the operators of Chaseholm Farm are the coolest cats in the Valley, but they’re also real dark horses -- it’s not easy to get into their inner circle. It’s a pretty small world for young farmers up here.I suppose then I shouldn’t be so surprised when strangers are aware of my sudden appearance on the scene. Several times, I’ve been introduced to people who were eager to meet me, the new farmer at Turkana. I’m not used to this kind of celebrity status. Certainly, some of this fame comes from the vast readership of this newsletter (fun fact: In college, I never let anyone look at my papers except for the professors who graded them – so consider yourselves in the lucky few). However, I’m starting to notice some recognition from other farmers around as well. I stopped in at Sparrowbush Farm to say hi to one of the farmers from pizza night. I had only met him two nights earlier, but he had already spread the word about “the new Turkana guy” to his coworkers, who were ready with questions for me about what we were up to these days.This integration into a new social network reminds me, as many things do, of fungus. It may sound negative to you, because fungus has the unfortunate reputation of being associated with death and decay. But while it’s true that many fungi are great at breaking down dead material into tilth, they also have critical life-giving properties as well. As it turns out, the various mushrooms that we are familiar with – from the cute toadstools peeping out of the litter layer to the massive plates growing out of tree trunks – are all just the fruiting bodies of the fungus. Under the surface, there is an extensive mat of fungal tendrils called mycelia that compose the rest of the organism. These mycelia are excellent at absorbing moisture and making nutrients available for plants. Some fungi, called mycorrhizae, have evolved a very intimate relationship with plant roots. The mycorrhizae maximize the plant’s water and micronutrient absorption, while the plant gives the fungus sugar that it produces in its leaves. One mat of mycorrhizae might connect hundreds or thousands of plants together into a single network. Through the mat, plants can even send chemical signals to each other. Who knows what kind of gossip our garden plants are passing around!Considering it like I would a fungus, I can see that there was already an extensive mycelial network of farmers and food lovers in place when I got here. Turkana has been a part of that symbiosis all along; whereas, I have just been transplanted into it. But I can alre
Horseradish emerges in our spring garden Photo by Mark Scherzer
Symbolic Roots Hi all, Mark here.There is a certain anticipation in the air at Turkana Farms in the run up to next weekend, which conveniently consolidates those two major holidays of rebirth, Easter and Passover. This year, with the arrival of Victoria, we have on premises someone besides me who knows how to construct and execute a Passover Seder, and we will accordingly be reviving a family tradition that died with my mother in 2002 -- a full assemblage of the clan and some friends for the ritual meal. I have always particularly loved Passover for both the idea that a meal would tell a story, and for the message of the story: that in each generation a new freedom is born. It’s the perfect holiday for a family of progressives.The resurrection of Christ and the exodus from slavery of the Jews involve very different concepts of rebirth but both holidays liberally incorporate many of the same symbolic elements. Repeatedly over the years I've written about the symbolic prominence of the egg, pointing out how these carriers of seeds of new life are perfectly suited to their starring role in Spring holidays centered on rebirth. How convenient that a product of such symbolic potential is produced in such extraordinary abundance at this time of year, when the chickens hit ovulatory overdrive. Not for nothing do we have Easter egg hunts and a symbolic egg sitting on the Seder plate.The concept of rebirth is similarly well conveyed by the first fresh greens of the season. I think for this year’s Seder plate we will use sorrel for the bitter herb that we dip in salt water (in place of my family's traditional choices, parsley or romaine lettuce from the supermarket), as this marvelous green has been visible above ground for over a week now.Implicit in a focus on rebirth is why it happened – what is the death or deprivation that preceded it? So much of the Easter service, therefore, recounts the pain of the crucifixion. And the joy of deliverance from Egypt recounted at Passover makes no sense without telling of the bitter period of life in slavery that the Hebrews needed to be delivered from.The Seder uses food to symbolize not just rebirth but life in servitude as well. For the latter purpose, there’s charoses, the mix of chopped apples, nuts, honey or sugar and sweet wine that is supposed to evoke the mortar the slaves used in building the pyramids. I get the visual resemblance, but it’s hard to think of charoses as truly standing in for slavery because it’s so sweet. As kids, we would raid the charoses bowl before the Seder even began and gorge on it as a snack.There’s also the aforementioned bitter herbs like sorrel or parsley, but to my mind they are so fresh and bright that it’s hard to think of them as really symbolizing the concept of “bitter” slavery. And there’s the ubiquitous salt water, representing the tears shed by the slaves. In a traditional Ashkenazic Seder, one course of the meal is hard boiled eggs swimming in salt water, a perfect melding of the symbolic poles of the holiday but hard for most guests, who didn’t grow up with it, to eat.But what’s really sharp and truly evokes the idea of harsh bitterness is another element featured prominently in the Seder meal: horseradish root. The pre-dinner ceremony of holding up, explaining, and tasting symbolic foods involves tasting some horseradish on matzoh, first mixed with charoses, then alone. Taking a slice of fresh horseradish without any buffer seemed to me a test of virility, the fire racing through my nose almost a thrilling high. But I more preferred what is called in Yiddish “chrein”, in its white or red variations. The white is just grated horseradish in a slightly sweetened vinegar; the red is dyed with beet juice. Either one could be lavishly slathered on the gefilte fish. Adding chrein transformed the fish from an almost nauseatingly bland food into a delicacy.Apparently chrein has cognate homo
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: ABOUT A HALF DOZEN OR OUR SHEEP ARE GOING OFF TO BE NUCLEI OF A NEW FLOCK IN HOPEWELL, NEW JERSEY.EGGS CONTINUE TO ABOUND, PLEASE ORDER. AND IF YOU WILL BE WANTING SEVERAL DOZENS FOR PASSOVER OR TO DYE EGGS FOR EASTER, PLEASE GIVE US SOME ADVANCE NOTICE
Time Sensitive Hi friends, It's Victoria Despite what last week’s reports may have lead you to believe, we’re having a typical season here at Turkana, gradually thawing and enjoying the slow, subtle hints of an imminent Spring. We’ve got crocuses popping out along the drive, trays of seedlings in the basement, and peas, beans, and radish seeds in the garden waiting to sprout. I’ve heard from my friends and family in the south that their gardens are already green and growing, and the yard behind my dad’s house in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is carpeted in violets--the classic seasonal signal that my birthday has arrived. Every year when I was little, we’d bake a cake and cover it with variegated violet flowers (they’re mild in flavor and full of vitamin C; this isn’t an ad yet but may become one in the future). In our agricultural zone, however, we’re still quite a ways off from edible flower season, and I’m writing this as a less-than-charming sleet storm rattles our windows. So I’ve turned to a more unusual and elusive crop to promulgate as April begins: wild yeasts.I’ve long thought of fermented foods as largely the realm of grey-haired, tye-dye wearing, slightly unhinged hippies of my parent’s generation, like the lady on the bottle of Bragg’s Amino Acids, or the scribe who writes copy for the bottles of Dr. Bronner’s soap. This is due, not in small part, to a few adolescent years living in a small religious community that sprang out of the 1970s Jesus Movement. They first introduced me to kombucha in the dark, suffocating galley of a tall ship they docked off the coast of south Georgia, where a teenage friend in a long apron opened a cupboard door and revealed eight gallon jars of liquid gently sloshing with the current, each holding a viscous, alien-looking film. She took the lid off the closest jar, plunged her hand in and removed one of these eldritch creatures, which filled the small room with a pungent aroma. As she peeled it apart into two segments, she held one in her outstretched hand and asked “Do you want to hold the Mother?”I have yet to fully reckon with the Lovecraftian horror of that day, and in fact have no recollection of leaving the kitchen or exiting the ship, but I must have walked and kept walking, putting as much distance as I could between those jars and all other relics of my off-the-grid childhood.But then I went to Oberlin. To my consternation, the housing and dining co-ops at my shimmering new college were littered with all the sights and smells of my long-haired granola-eating past. You can take the child out of the Utopian commune, etc. On every table were the ubiquitous bottles of sriracha, the yogurt containers re-purposed as bowls for brown rice, even the Bragg’s lady! And here I encountered again the spectre of my youth, the mysterious, seething vats of unidentifiable ferments. Due to some kind of delightful cognitive dissonance practiced in the intervening years--or perhaps some unforeseen nostalgia?-- when my college roommate asked if I wanted to take a fermentation class with her, I said yes.It turns out that all it took to get me on board was to learn these secrets from a babe with a nose ring, or maybe it was the revelation that the last class would be on beer-making, but from then on I’ve kept a few jars of fermented pickles and kraut in whatever tiny apartment I’ve been living in. Now that I have access to nigh-infinite kitchen space and a world-class collection of antique crocks and jars, I’ve fully given myself over to the fermentation impulse. A few weeks after I got here I was gifted a “Mother” of my own from my friend Hannah, who calls them by their more standard name of “SCOBY”, which stands for ‘Symbiotic
Three Farmtrepreneurs
Hi all.
Mark here.
Sorry the bulletin is coming out late this week, but as I warned you last week I wanted to make this a follow up report on our very important business meeting about how to make the farm profitable. After all, farming is, in Troy and Victoria's life plan, a career, a livelihood. And we agreed that in today's agricultural economy, a small farm can only make it by seeking every revenue stream it can possibly find. So we sat down Sunday with a stated purpose of thinking outside the box, taking advantage of existing farm resources in new ways, or creating entirely different products or services. Someplace where we could lead the way.As I promised last week, here are the minutes of our deliberations.I called the meeting to order. "Ok guys, what are our suggestions?"Right off the bat Troy, ever the jokester, replied: "Well, I was thinking we have this incredible ridge of shale out in the pasture. What about artisanal fracking?"Victoria shot it down immediately: "C'mon Troy, please let's take this seriously. You want a successful farm, not a successful poisoned sinkhole. Fracking is environmentally irresponsible, even if you call it 'artisanal'. How about something a little less impactful? For example, maybe sell advertising space on the side of the barn?"It was my turn to object. "Hey, we're supposed to stand for not just small farming, but aesthetically pleasing farming as well. That doesn't seem to jibe with our image. It would probably hurt sales of our existing farm products if people associated us with a huge neon Coca Cola sign on the side of the barn."I continued: "But I agree that we need to look at 'monetizing' what we already have. Not creating new burdens on us, just new revenue sources. And as I was searching on the internet for ideas, one that came to me was putting a pay wall on our Farm Bulletin. You know, how these various websites say 'You have two free articles left this month. Press this button to subscribe and get free unlimited access to our bulletin and bulletin archive.' We're already writing the bulletin, why not get paid something by those who read it?"Well, this idea really appealed to both Troy and Victoria. Why not get paid for something you already do? We took a vote and unanimously adopted the pay wall, pricing subscriptions at what I'm sure you'll agree is a very modest $5 per year. That may seem like chicken feed to you, but with all our subscribers it adds up, so much so that for us it really does mean chicken feed -- if you all sign up we'll have enough to pay our feed bill for the chickens for an entire year. If you see a message asking you to pay for this bulletin after the next three issues come out, do not be surprised. It's technologically feasible and we figure if you really like it, you'll pay.At this, Victoria said, "Along those lines, I was reading in the New York Times Science section that people would be much healthier and have far fewer food allergies if their immune systems worked properly. And the reason that more people have those allergies nowadays is that they live in environments that are too sterile. Exposure to bacteria and pathogens, especially for young children, in the long term makes them healthier. As the article said, it may be good for you to pick your nose -- and eat it." ([New York Times, March 12, 2019, "Your Environment is Cleaner. Your Immune System Has Never Been so Unprepared])(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/health/immune-system-allergies.html)"So?" I said."Think about it," Victoria replied. "We have a perfect environment here to expose people to pathogens and immune stimulating substances. Ragweed pollen in the gardens. Chick poop in the chicken coop, sheep poop in the barn, etc. I've always hoped to do educational programs here for kids. Maybe what we can educate, unlike other farms, is chil
You think this is all I walk? Small Farm, Big Data Hi all. Mark here.
When in the first week of March my telephone (above) told me that I had walked just 20 miles in February, my first response was anger at the intrusion. How dare my telephone spy on me? In what deluded state did I mistakenly sign up for this so-called service, I wondered? My second impulse, however, was to argue with the app, and prove I was better than that. No, Google Maps Timeline, you recorded only 20 miles, but that doesn’t mean you measured all my movement. You are often sitting on my desk while I am moving about. You are not in my bathrobe pocket when I’m riding my stationary bike. You're sometimes plugged in while I’m out doing chores. I’m not as sedentary as you tell me I am.My desire for approval, yet resentment at being judged to begin with, may encapsulate my response to the world at large. But my relationship with modern technology is particularly conflicted. I can see in theory how it enables all sorts of connection and understanding we never had before, and at the same time how it invades, intrudes, and tyrannizes us.Take the Farms2Tables app through which our farm now sells so much of its produce. By aggregating data as to what’s fresh daily from lots of farms and making it immediately available to lots of restaurants and institutional buyers, it enables a meeting of buyers and seller in the virtual universe, without having to move the produce to some central market. The buyer can order a small quantity, the seller need only ship that small quantity instead of shipping it all and having it sit, wilting, in a marketplace stall waiting for potential buyers to come around. The efficiency of moving only what is ordered enables the collection of a small order one day and, after transfer to another truck overnight, delivery to a buyer 50 to 100 miles away the next day. Fabulous in concept and, thanks largely to the efforts of operator Patricia Wind, executed with exactitude, it truly delivers on its promise of using data to enable small farms to provide the freshest of produce to the big market.Yet it tyrannizes too. We must check the app for orders frequently. In order to respond effectively we need to keep our frozen meat inventory constantly updated, and must constantly inspect the vegetable garden in season to list what we have as it becomes ready to pick. And we can't always just assume by a superficial glance that we know what we can supply. If we get an order in the morning for beets, we have to go out and pick them right away, to be sure we have enough good ones, un-nibbled by voles, to fill the order. The app requires that we spring to attention immediately when an order is placed because if we don't accept the order by noon, it is deemed declined. The tyranny of technology.Among many advantages I anticipated with Troy and Victoria taking over after Peter’s death was their high comfort level with modern technology, a byproduct of their youth and fine educations. I figured if anyone could figure out a way to take advantage of the good in this technology without suffering the negatives, they could.In many ways, my expectations have been borne out. They are real data hounds. They have created not only a highly refined freezer inventory and a “spreadsheep” to keep track of our sheep herd, but have been data and research driven in every aspect of their work. They research the nutritional mix in the sheep's diet and the many roads to hoof health. They even keep tabs on how many loads of combined sheep poop and hay they take out of the barn when mucking it.Their strategy has already borne fruit. They've figured out who the productive ewes are through their lambing patterns over time, and whose less healthy birth lines should not be encouraged. They will be making our breeding more selective. They've figured out ways to economize on hoof treatments. They've saved several vulnerable newborns, including most recently the lamb Sophie, who is being
TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin March 15, 2019
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: THE WEATHER HAS WARMED. WE EXPECT SPRING WILL ACTUALLY ARRIVE SOME TIME SOON.EGGS CONTINUE TO ABOUND, PLEASE ORDER ...The opposite of chaos is things coming together.
First Time
Hey all. Troy here.I’m sure you all are familiar with the phrase, “There’s a first time for everything.” You often hear it when someone wants you to do something that you’ve never done before and that you don’t want to do. I realize that it’s supposed to be encouraging, like they are saying, “Don’t let the uncertainty stop you from trying.” However, the wording has always confused me, and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s actually a veiled threat. To me, it sounds like, “Every possible future will happen,” and more specifically, “Do it now, or it will happen TO you eventually.” This may very well be true. The idea that everything that can happen does indeed happen is actually a well-known theory in quantum physics. It is basically the flip side to “things that are impossible don’t happen.” While this seems like a pretty airtight theory, it doesn’t seem to scale well to the macro-world. I feel like I’m not alone in seeing a lot of impossible things happen over the past several years. Maybe sometime between the Big Bang and right now the idea mutated into Murphy’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Seems about right to me.By nature, all of these theories of everything are unfalsifiable; thus, they are bad theories in the eyes of science. Even so, I’m starting to really believe the one about me doing all the things I’ve never done before. Ever since I got to the farm, I’ve been scratching things off my “never have I ever” list like there’s no tomorrow. I can now confidently tell people that, “Yes, I have mucked a whole barn by myself,” or, “Of course, who hasn’t ridden on the back of a ram before?” or my personal favorite, “Why yes, I have orchestrated a playdate between a baby lamb and a baby rabbit, I do that all the time.”As I write this, I get to scratch yet another thing off my list: I just survived my first week on the farm all by myself! That’s right, this week, both Mark and Victoria stole away to New York City – Mark to do his usual lawyer stuff, and Victoria to complete a fiber arts residency with the Fiberhouse Collective – leaving me behind to keep all of the animals, including myself, alive (it’s okay, I’m not bitter). I’m sure all of us wondered whether or not this week would abide by Murphy’s Law. How quickly could I send this farm into irreparable chaos? Or would it be the farm that breaks me beyond repair? Well, it’s certainly been a packed week, but I’m happy to report that no one died, there were no disasters, and all went rather smoothly. In fact, the biggest drama ended up being whether or not I’d get the bulletin written in time.While the animals did need quite a bit of attention this week, my biggest challenge was actually the new project I took on: staining and assembling a spinning wheel for the first time. Last weekend, before Victoria left on her fiber adventure, she generously gave me my dream come true, the gift of a new spinning wheel. I wanted to start spinning right away; that way, I could write this bulletin all about spinning on the wheel, and my upgrade from the drop spindle to the wheel, and how cool it is that my last name just happens to be Spindler, etc. Before any of that though, I had to first stain and finish all of the wooden parts, then assemble them.Unfortunately, as a total novice at treating wood, I didn’t realize how long that process would take. It turns out, you have to wait a whole 24 hours between applications of the wood finish – some pieces of wood needed at least three coats! Plus, they recommend you sand each piece using a subsequently finer grain sandpaper, starting at 120 grit then 180 then 220 (some people go all the way to 320 or 400 grit), and then more sanding after each coat of finishes drying.
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
Green E-Market Bulletin March 8, 2019
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: WE ARE BOTTLE FEEDING A LAMB WHO IS GETTING INSUFFICIENT MILK FROM HER MOM. SHE IS IMPRINTING STRONGLY ON TROY.EGGS CONTINUE TO ABOUND, PLEASE ORDER
Lettuce and peas waiting for real sunlight Grow Light Hi everyone It's Victoria here.
I returned this week from a journey back to my homeland (also, the most honorable Dolly Parton’s homeland) in East Tennessee. It’s just under thirteen hours of driving from here, so I felt like I needed to make the most of my time back, as I imagine it will be a while before I can make that drive again, especially by myself.Despite some catastrophic flooding while I was there, I managed to spend hours tooling around the local yarn and wool shop and sifting through piles of books with my grandma, Frances Fox. She’s a community fixture, working as a storyteller, tour guide, craftsperson, fiber teacher, and all-around local historian, and is my best and surest connection to the place where both of us (and Dolly) grew up. In a brief, clear, break between rain storms, we went out to her back yard and dug wildflowers, something we’ve done together since I was tiny. She sent me back with pots of Arrow-Leaf Arum, Horsetail, Lenten Rose and bluebells, and I’m doing my best to keep them alive until the ground thaws and I can find a spot on the farm to plant them. If they make it, we’ll be completing a circle of growth and propagation that crosses time and distance, surviving fire, flood, and displacement, to bloom as a delicate and ephemeral symbol of endurance and resilience. Boy, I hope we make it.On the propagation front, I also received a message this week about the Morton Seed Library, located within Morton Memorial Library in Rhinecliff. When I was there for a community seed swap this winter, I signed up for their Seed Steward program, where community members receive both starter seed and ongoing support and training to propagate additional seeds for the library, and for their own stock. If you are in the area and anticipate having a little extra space in your garden this year, I recommend signing up to help produce locally adapted seed strains, and so we can eat cake at the library together.This program is one tiny example of the overwhelming wealth of community possibilities I’ve blundered into since arriving in the Hudson Valley. I have to admit, I was fully prepared to spend the majority of my time here solo (and maybe was even looking forward to the idea of haunting a huge old house by myself?). So far, aside from a few lonely weeks before Troy arrived, this has not been the case. Despite the distance, our dear friends Lauren and Morgan came up from Raleigh for Valentine’s day and helped us prune our trees and berry bushes. This week, our friend Lexi came to stay and work on their children’s book, The Ship We Built, even reading with our newest baby lambs. Thanks to Nica and the Fiberhouse Collective, I’ll be in Brooklyn all next week working on a fiber residency, and I can’t wait to report back about all the weird stuff I’m going to make while I’m there. I’m already getting carried away with thoughts of springtime dyeing, basketry, and outdoor felting as soon as it’s warm enough, as well as dreaming up the massive party we’ll have to celebrate Mapquest’s birthday.Still, going home reminded me of how much I miss it, and leaving was even harder because I had to say goodbye to my baby brother. I’m not sure what this winter would have looked like without his incredible sense of humor and nonstop stream of ambient music, arcane facts, and food safety advice, and I can’t really imagine the next season without him. Given the latitude, it was almost spring in Gatlinburg while I was there, and I already miss the plants I didn’t manage to dig up and drag with me. This feeling of full-hearted nostalgia isn’t what I usually associate with the onset of early spring, which usually has all the associations of a fres
TURKANA FARMS, LLC
Green E-Market Bulletin March 1, 2019
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: VICTORIA HAS RETURNED FROM A BRIEF SOJOURN IN NORTH CAROLINA AND TENNESSEE WITH A DRUM CARDER, ENABLING THE PRODUCTION OF ROVING FROM OUR VAST STORE OF KARAKUL FLEECES. WATCH THESE PAGES FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS OF NEW PRODUCTSEGGS CONTINUE TO ABOUND, PLEASE ORDER
Awfully placid sources of fever Karakul Fever Hi All, Mark here.
The world confuses me some times. For reasons I may never understand, after raising them for eighteen years our Karakul sheep suddenly seem to be a hot commodity. Was I wrong, I wonder, to think of phasing myself out of farming and transferring the operation to Troy and Victoria, when I may have finally hit the jackpot? Should I switch gears and give up my law practice to devote myself full time to mining this mother lode?It’s not unusual in this season to get inquiries or orders for slaughtered lambs, as Easter and Passover approach. What has been unusual in the past couple of weeks is to get four different requests for Karakul breeding stock. Troy has been talking about reducing our herd by about half to fit in with his and Victoria’s plans as to where to devote their farming energy. Remarkably, despite the birth of a couple of dozen lambs since last month, thanks to this level of interest it seems they will be able to achieve that goal.As with all other aspects of life, I am constantly struck by the variations in human desire. The first request we received was from a professor in New Jersey who wants to start raising a small herd of heritage breed sheep on her property, starting with four ewes and a ram. I’m presuming a lot here, but based on her academic profile and the scale operation she contemplates, I assume her desire is driven by something akin to what motivated us to start with our four matriarchs, Bridget, Myra, Kybele and Marina, back in 2001. Call it the romance of sheep keeping.My late partner, Peter, and I had seen some Karakuls at the Sheep and Wool Festival during our first year on the farm. This fat tailed breed reminded Peter of the sheep he had seen grazing all over Turkey in the forty preceding years he had spent living and traveling there. They produced the rough type of wool that was used for weaving the Turkish flat weavings (kilims) and making the felt products that he sold in his business. After researching their history he was entranced by the romance of their being possibly the ur-sheep, the first breed bred by humans from which all the other breeds branched off. Hence our choice of Karakuls.I have viewed myself as just a sidekick to Peter’s projects and desires, but this morning realized I already had a certain romance regarding sheep in my own mind as well. My senior year in college, my friends and I rented a house in a ritzy Philadelphia suburb, Gladwyne, from a professor on sabbatical. Though his house was no mansion, it was on a road overlooking the Schuykill River across the street from an estate owned by the Dorrance family, of the Campbell Soup fortune. We never actually saw the house, to my recollection, but their front gate was in fact in the midst of a sheep pasture, where the site of a grazing flock, quite a novelty to me, gave me great pleasure. In retrospect, I think it may also have made me associate grazing sheep with gentility and privilege. I wonder if my sense of satisfaction now, when I look across our pasture and see the sheep peacefully grazing, doesn’t have some element in it of that unconscious association, giving me a delusion economic success.Our next inquiry came from a fellow who had purchased about fifteen sheep from us last year, and wants more. He is, I believe, of Uzbeki ancestry, and his desire appears to be more in the nature of establishing a culinarily oriented business. Central Asians seem to enjoy eating the meat of the Karakuls when they get to mutton stage. But for many, especially the Jews and Muslims for whom pork would be anathema, the special att
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: THREE NEW LAMBS. VERNON THE BOAR SEEMS TO BE ENJOYING A SPRING AWAKENING. EGGS CONTINUE TO ABOUND, PLEASE ORDER
The Elusive Moses Margulies Found; Flock Genealogy; Hey All, Troy here.
With another pair of twins joining us this morning, our count has come to twenty four new lambs in 2019 (so far). The growing lamb gang is starting to fill up the limited space we have in our shelters. Able to squeeze into any nook, they go pretty much wherever they like, and there’s nothing the moms or I can do about it. I often see the lambs climb and stand upon older ewes, showing off their spritely youth; meanwhile, the ewes take it stoically, quietly cursing the lambs for stealing their energy in the form of milk. Or so I imagine.As keepers of a heritage breed, we need to pay attention to these newcomers as they start to distinguish themselves from the group. Which ones will make the cut for our next generation of breeding stock, and which ones will be, unfortunately, voted off the island? For ramlings, we have to decide very quickly, because it is not recommended to castrate them after their first week. If we want to keep a ram around to continue our line or to sell as a stud, we have to make the decision before getting much information about his general fitness. We must look to the parents for traits we like that hopefully get passed on to their offspring. We should also know the grandparents, so that we can optimize the flock’s genetic diversity. This is one reason why I highly value archives. It is also why I was excited to comb through all of the old Turkana Farms birth records and add them to our work-in-progress “Spreadsheep.”Mark was happy to support my mission, but not without a bit of warning and apology for the state of their records. He handed over a large binder and several folders brimming with documents and pictures. I gladly accepted them, feeling like I hit a data motherlode. However, I soon learned this was not a simple, copy-paste task, but rather a complex logic puzzle. The data I was eager to uncover was not as clean and clear-cut as I expected: many records were missing, some contradicted each other, and others were simply illegible. This was not a goldmine; it was an archaeological dig. I was excavating the family tree of our flock.My own family as a whole is quite fascinated with genealogy, although my sister, Beth, does most of the digging for us. A natural archivist, she loves to hunt down marriage certificates, census records, visa affidavits, or at the very least, any evidence that two people were in the same village at the same time. However, these prey can be quite wily and elusive at times. In one seemingly straightforward case, Beth tried to find the link between our great grandmother, Eva Margulies, and her supposed cousin Sidney Margulies. The relationship is significant, because Sidney sponsored Eva’s family (which included our grandfather) to immigrate to the U.S. during WWII. It all seems to make sense: they have the same last name, and they claimed to be “cousins.” Well, it turns out actually proving this to be true is rather fraught with dead-ends and misdirections.Trying to find out who Sidney’s parents were, Beth discovered that Sidney actually went by “Osias” before he immigrated to the U.S. in 1920. This Anglicization was a common occurrence for immigrants coming to America as a part of the assimilation process. As it turns out, this was also common for the sheep coming to Turkana Farms as well! In a twist on Anglicization, Mark and Peter would Turkicize the names of rams coming in from other farms. I was thrown when some ewes were registered as being sired by “King” while the birth records showed the same ewes being born to “Kraal.” Apparently, they were the same ram before and after assimilation into Turkana society. At least I can ask Mark when I run into discrepancies like this. Beth instead needs to wade deeper into the document swamp.Beth traced Sidney’s family
WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK? DRIVING TO THE CITY? ROOM FOR A LARGE LAMP IN A BOX? I (MARK) TOLD A FRIEND I WOULD BRING A LARGE LAMP TO THE CITY FOR HIM, NOT REALIZING THE BOX WOULD NOT REALLY BE TRANSPORTABLE ON THE TRAIN. IF ANYONE HAPPENS TO BE DRIVING WITH AN SUV OR WITH AN EMPTY BACK SEAT TO THE CITY, AND WOULD NOT MIND A SILENT COMPANION THAT I'D PICK UP FROM YOU THERE, I'D LOVE TO HITCH THE LAMP A RIDE. 518-537-3815
With the right skills, any shelter can be a home: Home Making
This Wednesday was perfectly typical in all regards: At noon, you could find Troy and me and our two newest friends crouched in the hay loft atop the barn, surrounded by house sparrows and their detritus, pulling armfuls of wool out of black contractor bags and heaping them into massive, hairy haystacks, bits of fluff raining around us like soot. Early the day before, I’d gotten a phone call from a Bard student named Sophia who was searching for bulk sheep fleeces for her senior project, and had heard that we might be able to help. I can’t tell you how nice it feels to know these kind of rumors are being spread about me.Sophia brought along Mickey, her friend and a resident fiber expert from Hudson Valley Sheep and Wool Co., and together we scaled the treacherous hay loft steps, stumbled to the farthest-back corner, and began the daunting task of searching through our accumulated fleece collection for the right stuff. Over the years, our flock has managed to grow far more wool than any pair of farmers could possibly process (as detailed in past newsletters), and the sacks of sheared fleeces have accumulated in heaps -- a veritable archive of woolen history. To a casual observer, we probably looked like mad vagabonds from some post-apocalyptic landscape, elbows deep in trash bags, covered in feathers and dust, holding matted hanks of hair up to the light and exclaiming with delight, “It’s perfect!” (If this impression becomes part of my rumored persona, I won’t be upset). But for our current purposes, these sacks hold treasure.Sophia’s project, essentially her Studio Arts senior thesis, is the construction of a yurt made entirely from natural, locally extracted materials. She’s already sourced and assembled maple poles for the frame, and begun to craft panels of felt for the covering. When she called and told me about her project and asked if I could help, my mouth fell open, as Troy and I have talked (or more accurately, wildly fantasized) about creating exactly such a structure since the moment we got here and met the Karakuls. “Yurt” is a Turkic word for this particular type of tent-like structure, made with a collapsible frame covered in felt, and their history is deeply entwined with the nomadic people of Central Asia who cultivated our hairy, fat-tailed sheep. Showing Sophia the Turkana house and talking about the goals of her project, it felt as if we had both come a long way to reach the same unexpected conclusion.We loaded Sophia’s tiny car to the brim with twenty pounds of wool and sent her back to her equally tiny studio where her structure waits, unassembled, for spring. That peculiar feeling, of a surprise discovery of treasure, stayed after she drove away, and only grew stronger when we picked up a pair of our closest Raleigh friends from the train station and brought them back to the house. While cooking dinner with them, plus my brother and neighbor Adam, we kept circling back to the totally improbable story of how we met, and the circuitous paths that brought all of us together, eating British White steaks in our glorious kitchen. Between the six of us we could count well over two dozen moves in the last ten years, including an improbable number of overlapping permutations, like the winter that Troy and I spent camped out in Lauren and Morgan’s front room in the Cheese Factory, or the weeks my brother spent helping me farm at Oberlin. Collectively, we have a mountain of experience in creating new homes, apart and togethe
Last weekend, as we zoomed from a frigid start around 0 degrees Saturday morning to a springlike sunny 50s on Sunday afternoon, I took the opportunity to enjoy tea, biscuits, and lovely walk in his back field with my across-the-street neighbor, Adam, and his and Annette’s dog, Pearl. I knew the weather was just a delicious tease, and that we would be back in deep winter again for a good while before the real deal was upon us. But it was enough to evoke for me the hunger for spring Peter used to express about this time of year, when he began complaining of “cabin fever” and accordingly started planning our annual April jaunt to New Orleans.
From the high ground on the walk back from the south border of Adam and Annette’s property I got an unaccustomed distant view of our barn and the field running from there down to the road. There, calmly, in the mid-afternoon sun, our entire sheep herd, large dots at that distance, appeared to be sauntering slowly back toward the barn from the roadside manger on Lasher Avenue where they had been munching hay and the remaining skeletons of discarded Christmas trees. Generally, left on their own, the movement of the herd is a very slow motion kind of event. In an open field full of grass, the herd reminds me of an amoeba or bit of protoplasm, irregularly shaped. They lurch fitfully in one direction or another, guided by some unspoken signals they convey to one another. Although the herd has some clear leaders, the mechanism by which they decide to shift from side to side or take unexpected turns is not fully apparent.
Last Sunday, when there was still six inches of snow on the ground, the movement was more orderly, single file, up the path they had created to get from the barn to the road without getting their feet unduly wet. But they always move at a pace that allows older and lamer sheep to stay with the group.
I was struck by the contrast between the herd’s sauntering pace Sunday afternoon and what I had witnessed just that morning at chores. Then, too, there was a substantial group down by the manger at the road. As Troy and I stocked the hay in the barn and annex mangers and set up their grain treat bowls, many, alerted by our noises and closing of the barn doors, realized what we were doing, and made their way up to gather outside the barn doors, ready to thunder in and get as much grain as they could when we reopened the barn. But a few lambs were so absorbed with whatever they were doing that they had not gotten the message.
When we rolled open the doors and the excited baas of the herd reached a crescendo, the ears of young lambs down by the road perked up, and when they realized they were alone down there they charged at lightning speed back up toward the barn, bleating most of the way. In their case, their urgent movement was clearly not for the grain. At that age, they generally are muscled aside at grain time and they only develop the grain habit over months. It was rather the separation from the herd and particularly from their mothers that impelled their mad dash to rejoin the group. The sorts of bleats they emitted betrayed their motives.
Both the slow movement of the herd that usually allows stragglers to stay with the group and the mad dash of the lambs when separated express the importance to sheep of the group staying together.
Sheep have long been symbols of extreme group think. People are described as sheep like when they appear to be unthinkingly following some invisible diktat that comes from their membership in a group. People of my political persuasion often dismiss MAGA-hat wearing Trump supporters this way. A friend of mine of decidedly more conservative bent told me that the white-garbed women at the State of the Union address last week evoked in his mind the wearers of Mao jackets during the Chinese cultural revolution. That comment in turn provoked another friend, from a far leftier perspective, to w
World's Biggest Etch-a-Sketch
This week the polar vortex blessed us with another half-foot of snow and a three-day cold snap. Luckily, we were at the edge of its harsh boreal wrath, experiencing a mere -5º F, as opposed to the record-breaking lows in the Midwest. Even so, it was enough to keep us and the animals nestled in our shelters, waiting for the next micro-Spring to shoo away the biting winds and relieve our poor noses.The cold and snow have certainly dampened the noise and activity around here, but not everyone has decided to sleep through it. In fact, the snow has revealed quite a bit of wintry drama unfolding while we huddle by the fire. After a few nights undisturbed, the ground is now criss-crossed with tracks from a menagerie. All together, the tracks look chaotic, like they were made by a bunch of wandering drunks, but I know each one is the result of some secret mission. As I do my morning rounds, I try to read them like so many leaked confidential documents – What were these animals up to?Making my way to the pigs, I couldn’t help but notice the deer tracks going right across the pond and up to our fence. Upon reaching the fence, the tracks circle around a few times and continue alongside it for a good distance. No doubt they are looking for defensive weaknesses. I’m sure they’d love to get a taste of the evergreen shrubs we have planted by the back door. Fortunately, the new, highly decorative eight foot fencing Peter and Mark had installed a year ago has held fast. There is no evidence of the deer on our side. Yet.Dancing around the pigs’ feed bin is a host of little feeder bird prints. There are even a few wing prints in the snow indicating they put on a real show. I can only assume these pesky birds have been there to chirp at and tease our poor old boar, Vernon. He’s slow and lumbering, and frankly, he’s seen better days. I can only imagine what kind of name-calling and ridiculing those birds are subjecting him to. Although, to be honest, sometimes even we find it hard to resist the urge to pick on him. Poor Vernon.On my way to the sheep, I catch the tiniest little paw prints exploring the edges of our compost mountain. The little dots in the snow made a hopping pattern like rabbit tracks, but could there be a rabbit that small? Is there a bunny out there that dwarfs even our tiny baby rabbit, Mapquest? Some sort of mythological bunny that fits in your pocket, never grows up, whispers secrets to you, and loves compost? The snow only tells us so much.After finishing the morning chores, I decide to do some more investigating. I find an extensive network of tracks that meander all around the property. By their size, I guess they belong to a fox, but they have an almost spectral quality to them. Several times the tracks approach our fence and then pass right through as if nothing were there at all – no sign of struggling or digging, just an unbroken stride. I begin to think this was not a fox, but rather the spirit of a fox haunting our property, longing to punish the mice that slipped through its paws when it still had breath in its lungs. But then I saw some of its scat, and decided it was probably just a normal fox, as ghosts are not known to defecate.Eventually, the tracks lead me to the fox’s cozy den not far from our house. How exciting to find our furry neighbor’s home! Is it inside right now? Will we be friends? But soon, this excitement turns into self-consciousness. Am I disturbing it? Will it be nervous that I discovered it and make a home elsewhere? Perhaps the snow has shown me too much.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. The farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. The farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. The farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
About Turkana Farms
Turkana Farms was established in 2000 on a fragment of a much larger former dairy farm and orchard which was slated for further subdivision and development. Envisioned as a weekend farming project, it became a full time endeavor. There are many roads to agriculture. Turkana Farms is small – 39 acres (about 8 city blocks by 5 blocks), compared with an average farm size of 211 acres in New York State and 442 acres in the U.S. Our guiding principles are sustainability, diversity and social responsibility. To us, this includes: ► Reducing environmental impact: limiting the number of animals grazing per acre, fertilizing with composted manures rather than chemical fertilizers, avoiding pesticides and herbicides. Our small scale allows us to work by hand rather than machine for many tasks. ► Buying locally produced grain and feed, organic where feasible. Our poultry eat our own weeds and vegetables, while the cows and pigs enjoy surplus apples from the orchards of the Rider Farm, next door. ► Raising heritage breed animals and heirloom vegetable varieties, to preserve biodiversity while maximizing flavor ► Treating our animals humanely ► Knowing our customers. We encourage direct farm to consumer connections, including farm visits. ► Enjoying our surroundings – integrating our home, gardens and agriculture into an organic and visually pleasing whole, on the model of a working “villa.”
About Turkana Farms
Turkana Farms was established in 2000 on a fragment of a much larger former dairy farm and orchard which was slated for further subdivision and development. Envisioned as a weekend farming project, it became a full time endeavor. There are many roads to agriculture. Turkana Farms is small – 39 acres (about 8 city blocks by 5 blocks), compared with an average farm size of 211 acres in New York State and 442 acres in the U.S. Our guiding principles are sustainability, diversity and social responsibility. To us, this includes: ► Reducing environmental impact: limiting the number of animals grazing per acre, fertilizing with composted manures rather than chemical fertilizers, avoiding pesticides and herbicides. Our small scale allows us to work by hand rather than machine for many tasks. ► Buying locally produced grain and feed, organic where feasible. Our poultry eat our own weeds and vegetables, while the cows and pigs enjoy surplus apples from the orchards of the Rider Farm, next door. ► Raising heritage breed animals and heirloom vegetable varieties, to preserve biodiversity while maximizing flavor ► Treating our animals humanely ► Knowing our customers. We encourage direct farm to consumer connections, including farm visits. ► Enjoying our surroundings – integrating our home, gardens and agriculture into an organic and visually pleasing whole, on the model of a working “villa.”
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. The farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small-scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics. Our approach can best be described as artisanal rather than industrial
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small-scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics. Our approach can best be described as artisanal rather than industrial
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small-scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics. Our approach can best be described as artisanal rather than industrial
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small-scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics. Our approach can best be described as artisanal rather than industrial
Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small-scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics. Our approach can best be described as artisanal rather than industrial