and you thought you were a farmer huh?

Ha! now i know what it means to farm. to live, walk and dream your daily routine, your future plans and fantasy's, and your worst living nightmares.
sorry its been so long, i think of you all often and wish i could tell you all of the things that have happened, good and bad in my life on this farm in the last month.
short of it:
workshop- 40 people for 3 days on the farm. feeding 40 people (plus all the livestock) and keeping everyone watered during the hottest weekend of the year, learning, lectures, great conversation, networking with bio-community of the northwest....... exciting until......
mad cow- 2yr old bitch of a heifer gored the woman i work for twice then trampled her, not 3 feet from my horrified and helpless eyes. and the workshop must go on, people arrive not even an hour latter. the bad cow at this point in isolation in an upper Field, she proceeds to jump 4 fences and walk very near to innocent workshops twice, and scare the shit out of me completely.
slaughter- killing some of my animals i had come to be good friends with
haying- crazy fun, then the allergy's hit and my head felt like a football for a week, and im still blowing massive amounts of snot out my nose 3 weeks latter.
Farm sitting- last week my bosses had to leave for 5 days. leaving the farm in my care and responsibility. the very morning they left i woke to cows screaming all over the property and knew something was wrong. our 2000lb bull had literally squished a brood cow and in his exhaustion and her injured state the yearling males proceeded to jump her, trample her and injure her badly. i couldn't get one of them off of her at one point, had to run and get help. i fenced her off to no avail, the yearling males would run straight through electric fencing, must be all those hormones in the air. then had to move the whole herd to another pasture. this past week i have learned how to keep a down cow alive. homemade bloat cures, hip shifting massaging and stretching her legs. hauling five gallon buckets of watter and lettuce to her twice a day.
i haven't thought of anything other than keeping that cow alive for days. the boss man has returned and i can let go a little. trying to stay sane amid the insanities of the natural world. the brutality and rawness of it all is a little too much for me in my exhausted state.
oh, i also got chased by hungry big pigs, smart animals. they knew where i was running to and even going through a building to escape out the other side to go and get help they were waiting for me at the other dore. i was trapped. thank god for telephones.
extensive rambling. sorry.
hope some of it makes since. im so tired i feel like i could just die. but happy.
i am proud that i have risen to the challenges physically and mentally of the highest standards i have ever encountered, set upon me by my boss. and as tired as i may be i still sit down at sunset (if im lucky)knowing i worked as hard as i could. knowing that i did the best job that i could. and think how great my life is and how lucky i am to be learning more than i ever thought possible in one of the most beautiful places i have ever lived.
love you all and hope to have time this weekend to work on the assessment and read all of the posted blogs i have missed.
peace and farming, its what makes the world go round.
keep fighting the good fight.
erin

Ode to the strimmer

I love strimmers aka brushcutters. I bought my first strimmer when I had my market garden in Germany - a demo model Husqvarna: until then I had always associated the brand Husqvarna with sewing machines but the dealer convinced me that it was one of the best brands and this one was special with anti vibration handle so you wouldn't get the numb fingers syndrome which in the end leads to loss of sense of temperature. I loved it, I strimmed many an acre on my market garden in Germany and used it as a weeding machine, harvester and composter all-in-one. My Husqvarna lasted 3 years: until I had some volunteers working on the farm who didn't know that a strimmer has a 2-stroke engine and needs a petrol-oil mixture. So they filled it with straight petrol and the engine seized up: end of my lovely Husqvarna. That was in Holland and I went off to the mechanics (Ramon came along) and we had a choice between a cheap yellow one and a more expensive red one. Ramon wanted the yellow one but I decided on the red one because that was a Honda 4-stroke machine which meant there couldn't ever be a mistake any more in not mixing the oil in because it uses straight petrol. Sadly I sold the business soon afterwards and the Honda strimmer with it. At Emerson I bought a Husqvarna second hand: stupid. Never ever buy a second hand strimmer! If a strimmer is good the owner will use it until it dies, if a strimmer is bad or starts to have problems you sell it on eBay. The Husqvarna had some service on and off but has been composting for the last couple of years in the lorry body. In Brasil we bought a second hand Stihl - and of course Cabaclo got the mixture wrong and off I went in our Volkswagen beatle (lovely but hugely inpractical without a boot - strimmer peeping out through the window while I was making my way to the nearest Stihl repair shop) to get a new cylinder. Back in the UK I thought I had a clever idea and I bought the cheapest strimmer they had in the Homebase and took out the 3 year extended warrenty: I thought that would give as a sort of monthly subscription on new strimmers whenever the thing would die. And so it went: that year we went three times to Homebase for a new strimmer, but unfortunately we were obviously not the only ones whose strimmer died whenever we tried to use it for more than 5 minutes so they were out of stock most of the time. We still have the last specimen lying composting in the lorrybody next to the Husqvarna...
So - but now... I bought a Stihl.... The Rolls Royce among the strimmers. Expensive, made in Germany by real underground blacksmithing dwarfs, put together by Swiss elves with the knowhow of ancient watch makers - a shining example of excellence. So today I took delivery of my new coveted toy and went on strimming all those annoying nettles around my transplants - harbouring the worst mistake God ever created. The strimmer is my new weapon against people's enemy number one: these slimy, grey-black horrible disgusting little buggers, these all-devouring snotty intestines, these rampant jellyfish bogeys: SLUGS
Sometimes I have dreams of strimming my way through a whole avenue of slugs, their entrails splashing and slushing all about and me as the iron-clad hero saving humanity from this worst plague of all eternity...hmmm I like that vision

Anyway - bottom line: buy a strimmer, and if you do: buy a Stihl.

I'm off to Dartmoor for a few days (strimmer in my rucksack) and I wish you all a happy weekend!

Arjen

Locaturkeyvore

If it's not chickens, it seems, it's turkeys. The lovely little bundles of tweeting feathers have, till now, been housed just inside the sheep barn next to the farm dining room. They showed a disappointing tendency to attempt to experience reincarnation in the early stages of their journey to Christmas dinner. It was discovered by Raf & Stein that the special (and therefore expensive), turkey starter food we were buying in was too big. The turkeys obviously hadn't read the bag. So each morning we milled turkey food pellets into turkey food powder.

Today was turkey field day. So, scissors in hand, Raf and I set to cutting wings and putting turkeys in crates ready for transportation. New crates. Apparently turkeys can catch some fairly nasty things from chickens so we bought shiny new boxes for the single journey. I guess its not so important when they make the return trip, although I'm sure we'll at least power wash the crates.

Very hot day, but turkeys seemed to like their new home, immediately fnding the (deliberate) hole in the hurriedly constructed holding pen. They stay in the turkey field but penned up in up netting until they are big enough to have outgrown crow food.

Plucking good time to be had by all.

chlorine gas

thanks for your email robin... problem with chlorine is that one takes in most breathing it in whilst bathing since it vapourises so easily. it's actually very simple to get rid of chlorine since it vapourises if left to stand in an open container overnight. i'm no expert on plumbing so i have no idea how difficult it might be to do something with a water tank to allow this to occur. below i include an exchange of emails between me, matt and gregg re water. i will write to nik from water research to ask about how to do filtering/dechlorination on a whole house scale. if anyone is willing to offer advice or otherwise get involved in lobbying for this etc . then do let me know, i suppose the more people are on it the more likely it is to happen. equally from experience it can take half an eternity just to get someone to do a simple information gathering exercise, as i learned with steering group so sometimes better to do this oneself.. i suppose this was my main source of frustration.

2008/7/21 Gregg Davis :

Dear Adam;
Through the vision process the commitment was taken to address the food issue primarily through development of the integrated college garden, fundraising soon to begin and adverts for garderners out in the world. This is obviously more a middle term - longer term solution though i think a good one. Short term there hasnt been a specific call for all organic nor do we have funds for this at present. STudent reaction was pretty mixed on willingness to pay more for it. So with regret that will have to wait.
This is first time i am hearing this level of detail on water projects. I certainly dont have any problem with filters going in. Do you have a cost estimate for all houses and what kind of filters - i am pretty conversant with these issues from health point of view.
Longer term i think there is obviusly a great deal that we can and should be doing with a water research center right on our property!

Gregg Davis

2008/7/21 Gregg Davis :

Adam, additionally, the college is becoming more and more subject to UK legislation around Health and safety issues, or lets say the enforcement level is picking up so we'll want to ensure that any remedies we develop are harmonizing with those regs. I dont see an issue there but is something the college ignores at its peril.

----- Original Message -----
From: A Ortaa
To: gdavis@###ne.org
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 3:32 PM
Subject: Water and food

Greetings Gregg,

I have posed to Matt the question of whether anything had moved on with the questions of water and food quality, which I feel are of great importance and should not be neglected any further, the water in particular. This article outlines the effects of chlorine in one's water fairly succinctly:

http://www.netstarter.com.au/Content_Common/pg-chlorine-effects-in-water.seo

Below is our conversation, I have not heard anything more since:

[quote message:]

2008/6/17 A Ortaa :
All hail Matt,

A bit confused about the water question since Nick said that there was enough money in the student initiatives fund for a water filter for the kitchen and tearoom and John Wilkes said that he would be prepared to design a flowform for the tearoom. I told all this to Dave from Foundation who was going to find out more about which filter and talk more with the water folks etc, then get back to Steering Group. I take it this hasn't happened? The chlorine in the water is damn horrible, and this should not be put off any more, since it was clear to me in March that getting one filter was feasible. The short term action should be to put in at least one filter ASAP, I thought we had agreed on that, long term is installing proper filters in the houses, for which of course fundraising will be required.

About the food well no surprise, what you don't know doesn't hurt you say some, but did nothing become of the questionnaire q. asking if people would be prepared to pay more for all organic food? I want to know about this because I need to let the college know if I'm going to take meals next year. Not really sure if I want to continue with SG, since I intend to engage in various extra curricular things. Anyway thanks for replying to my message, perhaps now you wish you hadn't... but it seems crazy to me that people can go on drinking that bad water. Seems people will cease to notice even quite extreme things once they become accustomed to them. It's really not hard, the money is (or at least was) on the table! Speak to Nick again to confirm this, and if you would let me know how things progress.

Best,

A.

2008/6/15 Matt :
Hi Adam,
Sorry for the no reply, we've made some slow progress on the water front - the idea is currently that we will do the fundraising ourselves rather than relying on the college to pay for it, so a small group has been working on checking out the options and we will start a long-term fundraising campaign next year.. As for the food, not much has been done in Steering Group, but there is a VSG plan to bring back the garden in a big way and through that, supply the kitchen with BD veggies etc. Also it's hoped that a BD Nutrition course will be starting in the next couple of years, so that will no doubt be coupled with a greater consciousness of the nutritional value of the food we get in the college.. We'll mention both of these issues to the Management group when we meet them in the next week or two..
Just so you're aware, we've been talking about some changes to the format of SG and we're planning on meeting in the orientation week before term starts to discuss and formalize some of those ideas and plan for the term ahead, so it would be good if you can make it for that..
hope you're well, looking forward to seeing you in September,
take care,
Matt

[/end quote message]


Since the Steering Group was apparently unable to do anything more with this matter in my absence I ask whether you have any plans for improving the situation.

Warm Regards,

Adam

*********

have not yet read that article, but is it not the case that in praising what speculators do for markets necessitates remaining in the paradigm that a globalised market is a good thing?

if you ever find yourself with 90min to spare (yeah right... fortunately it's divided into 10 min sections here's a lecture on codex alimentarius.

Risk and Reward

Attached is a recent article from the Economist that gives a short and not totally convincing argument in favour of market speculators. However, it does give some key points regarding their activities. It discusses oil but the ideas are appilicable to soft commodities. Primarily, their involvement and effect is usually over exaggerated and they make a convenient scapegoat (especially where there is policy failure). Secondly, the benefits they provide, namely market liquidity, are usually ignored. The risks taken by speculators ensures price transparency and depth of market for those with something to sell. Without them, markets would tend to be fragmented and illiquid with prices guarded by the dominant buyers and sellers (in our case large landowners or farmers and supermarkets). This would increase profitability for those that can really manipulate markets: governments and cartels.

codex alimentarius and other insignificant musings

hello to those reading (arjen, kristof, robin?)

my health is unfortunately rather poor at present, i am seriously considering whether spending another 6 months imbibing and bathing in forest row's heavily chlorinated water is the best thing for me.

nice to hear about your plant communications kristof, this had been my intention in persuing bd, however at the moment constant tiredness largely limits my attention to the required movements for the job i am being asked to perform, whilst in better periods i am able to becomeconscious of these movements and likewise remember breathing. this i think is the foundation of conscious work with plant energies. but it is perhaps the unconscious/passive element, which needs to be combined with conscious 'research', i.e. posing a question, or attuning oneself to a certain frequency. this is something that standard education has given us no tuition in; for we are trained to be passive absorbers of information. likewise nice to hear that you are doing something of that calls upon the use of inspiration. i fear that i cannot say the same about packing vegetables. quite often i feel like i'm working in a factory here; it takes great effort to prevent robotism. i suppose most people don't have this struggle so i should be grateful for the opportunity (gurdjieffian approach). or masochism?

remembering to do energetic diagnoses of plant energies with hands has also been forgotten in the rush of farm life (who'd have thought), though i did manage to do this over the prep barrel, however we have only sprayed about 4 times, apparently too busy to do more (i am quite disillusioned about this supposedly being a biodynamic farm - it seems that the demeter stamp is a requirement of the rent agreement. one worker was even complaining about being made to stir preps.) the times that i did stir i entered into an altered state through the process. regular energetic exercises seem necessary to be able to start to trust one's hands, in my case qi gong/chi gung. sadly my vision is not so great for whatever reason, and visual reading of plant forms is likewise quite important in communicating with them i would say. would be interested to know how you enter into communication kristof... don't be afraid to tell us will you now?

anyway, here some links to keep one going:

Sonic bloom

Flower clock

on the gm resistance front, if you are not familiar with the codex alimentarius, it is perhaps advisable to become so. linked to in the title of this post is an interview with a man named ian crane discussing this agenda, as well as some relevant videos and links. in the light of such things a btec seems rather frivolrous... methinks ensnaring us in a theoretical frame of mind, when it is action that is called for.

one more article about a leaked world bank report on gm and biofuels.

robin i believe you never replied to my request for elucidation of speculation in food after i posted the last batch of articles on this topic.

blessings,

a.

Cherry Grower

ORGANIC GARDENER WANTED

Cherry Orchards Camphill Community, a residential therapeutic community in Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, is looking for an Organic Gardener.

The vegetable garden at Cherry Orchards is part of a small farm, including livestock. The one acre garden provides nearly all of our own vegetables and fruit, grown to Soil Association organic standards. This feeds a community of around twenty adults year round.

We are seeking an Organic Gardener to help us in this work. An understanding of organic horticulture is necessary, along with enthusiasm and a willingness to carry on learning. This may suit an individual seeking to build on their existing knowledge and experience in such work, and offers the potential for future development of the position here.

The position is full time; 37.5 hours per week; starting salary £15,600 per annum.

For an informal chat and further information please contact Adam on 0781 7173233

For written details please write to: Adam Hesketh, Cherry Orchards Camphill Community, Canford Lane, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol BS9 3PE , or e-mail: cherryorchards@camphill.org.uk

Closing date for applications 31st August 2008; interviews September 2008.

Angelic Organics

Arjen and I both had a similar meeting today. Arjen has floweritis and is obviously affected so forgot to relive this encounter with you all. However, I know that Arjen had a guest weeder in his flower garden today. I know 'cos the guest weeder wandered down to the farm and helped me fix the topper and chase some sheep. Who was the mystery farm hand? Farmer John! THE farmer John, of real dirt fame. So we chewed the cud for a few hours as we yielded wrenches and hammers, discussing BD, IFOAM, anthroposophy, mintill, S&P500, toplinks etc. A most entertaining afternoon.

Course over

Soooo that was the week course - 11 folks from the UK, US, Argentina and Canada for a week course on etheric forces... Always nice but it takes me away from the flowers and I don't think I'll do it again next year. I like the flowers!! Flowers rule!! Give me more flowers!! A flower in the morning, a flower in the evening, all over this world - yeeeheeee

Jardineiro full on! (click here for Bernie Krause)

Dear Classmates,

As Planet influences are clearly experienced on the personal life, the educational garden is finally being planted after a lot of preparational soil work and planning.
At the moment I am planting hedges around, beds with kitchen herbs in hexagonical shapes (John Wilks would be proude!), Solonaceaes, Rootvegetables and medicinal herbs.
I will leave some beds to plant with the children of course!

I am reading a book ¨the magic of Findhorn¨for the second time and it gives me a very good view on working with elemental and natural kingdoms. I am more talking to plants then to people at the moment.

Besides that I would like to show you the work of this man Bernie Krause, who works with sound recordings and measurement on health of the natural habitat or ecosystem.
I will invest in a quality portable sound recorder and hope to do my own experiments soon.
I would especially recommend the article from 96 in the magazine, the wild duck!

And besides Robin E. isn´t there anyone doing someting interesting worth sharing???

Big Hug
Kristof

General Motors

I do have something else to do, honest....I heard this earlier:

Genetic engineering. Not really engineering is it? The engineering equivalent of what geneticists do would be to throw lumps of concrete and steel into a river and if someone manages to walk across, call it a bridge.

Time for bed.

Test Card

Topping and test match. Bliss.

All day in the tractor with wonderful views of rolling Sussex countryside creating beautiful patterns whilst listening to England play magnificently at Lords (rare) against the dear South Africans (of which we have a few on the farm). A proper summers day (rain included).

Manure or Monsanto

Yesterday was all about compost and preparations (in the pouring rain). Today was all about cow sh*t. Remember the 500 we made last September and dug up in March, and how wet it was? It is still wet, so today we took it out of the jar and put it on a board in the sheep barn to dry out (it still smells). We also cut nettles and buried them.

First thing after breakfast we took 2 wheel barrows all the way to the top of the farm, where the cows needed to be moved from, and collected as much cow sh*t as we could. This was then taken back down to (Blue) Peter's garden and deposited in a brick lined pit (here's one I made earlier). This was prepped with compost preps and Hey pre(p)sto, cow pat pit preparation. We covered with wood and will revisit every month or so to stir and add preps.

David instigated this as we do not have enough compost for all the fields. Which seems odd as the farm feels intensive from a livestock perspective so one would expect there to be enough compost. We don't produce all our own feed (buying in field beans [23t last May] and chicken feed). So a few imbalances to the farm organism .

Attached article from FT (click on title) is one of the better written giving the proGM argument. It is still blatantly corporate hype and all the sources are industry sponsored bodies. It gives no conclusive arguments and again, much of it is jam tomorrow (8-10yrs for GM wheat, thank goodness).

And what of herbicides? Check this out from The Observer for a great organic PR exercise by Dow Chemicals.

Another day, another chicken

Rain, cool, needed. Chickens, hmmmm.

We have too many chickens. How does that work? Surely there is a well thought out and designed system. Huge investment went into the field, houses and processing unit. Chicken is the in meat; four legs bad, two legs good (to completely misquote Orwell); red meat is 'bad' for you, white meat is 'good' for you; free range chicken is all over the press from J. Oliver to H. Fearnly -Whittingwhatever. And we have too many.

Well, we did. Since Max took over the chickens from Neil and we have recovered from the Feb break-in, the survival rate has shot up and so from 150ish we now have 200ish per week (as we should from a fortnightly 425 day olds delivery). However, Richard is out of here from friday (off to Devon with Melanie to work for a farm selling its meat online), Barry is on holiday until Monday and we just aren't getting the customer numbers in the shop (we still sell out of Sirloin and Fillet pretty quickly though).

Plaw Hatch is not really selling any meat at the moment, certainly none of Tablehursts, due to the lack of a shop manager (Alex has gone and a replacement has yet to be found).

So we had too many chickens. Fortunately, a call to a London butcher saw us lose 30 a week at the right price and, whilst rehanging their sign with the JCB, 12 were sold to The Chequers. Still, with the right marketing and a little more focus we should ideally be able to sell everything through the shop. Work in progress. Also of note, The Foresters now sells only organic food, including Tablehurst sausages. Trebles all round.

Tomoko

Dear students in BD agriculture training,



I am considering applying to Emerson Collage Biodynamic Agriculture Program for September 2008 and would very much like to hear current students’ voice on the program and a life in Emerson Collage. I understand that you are busy with your practicum now. If you can spare time with me talking over the phone, via email, or in person, it would be a great help for me in making this big (and expensive) decision. I am now in England and would like to visit Emerson Collage and a few other training centers in the third week of July between July 14th and 18th. If you are happy to provide me your honest feedback of the program, would you send me your contact information and best time to reach you if you do not mind me calling or visiting you?



My email address is:

tomokoku@hawaii.edu



Many thanks and enjoy your practicum,



Tomoko Kurokawa

Wheat from the chaff

Head of large agribusiness company, Syngenta, talks honestly about GM reality and prospects and it gets reported! That qualifies as a miracle in the current climate where US Agriculture secretary talks nonsense, UK Agriculture minister talks nonsense and most newspapers/media are reporting GM as a solution rather than giving a balanced analysis (click on title).

There are a few exceptions - the BBC science editor on Newsnight reported recently that Europe relaxing GM regulations will not infact help lower animal feedstock costs. In the year to May 08 the fastest rising price of animal feedstock was Argentine GM soya, +100%, which has full approval for import to EU.

Also, the Daily Mail (of all organs) published a more balanced view recently.

etc.

We have been bailing nonGM grass into silage. Good year for silage, not too much rain, dried quickly in bright sunshine and light breeze, bailed and wrapped in a couple of days. 800 bails so far. Barn dance friday so also unwrapping large round straw bails and making small bails (200) as the rats have chewed through the string of all the small bails made last year.

Barley is ok in some fields but well mown by rabbits, deer and geese in others. Preps are getting sprayed, fields are getting topped, animals have been vaccinated (Plaw Hatch chose not to interestingly). Generally going well. Had to worm the spring lambs and ewes saturday as 2 died from a worm picked up from deer. Clean grazing is tough when carrying the amount of animals we are at the moment and raises a question of intensity. More fencing is part of the solution.

A good spring and early summer so far, bit of rain would be nice especially for Stein's recently planted pear trees, they desperately need water.

Job at Glencraig

Camphill was established to teach, train and care for those with learning disability and continues to do this after 60 years. From the beginning the intention was to do work not as a “job” in the usual sense, but as a way of life.

The Camphill Community at Glencraig, near Holywood in County Down, was the first Camphill Centre in Northern Ireland. It opened in April 1954

Vacancy for Bio-Organic/Biodynamic Farmer

Camphill Community Glencraig urgently requires a trained Bio-Organic/Biodynamic Farmer with enthusiasm to join our community and develop our working farm.

We have a dairy and beef herd, pigs and crops, and willing hands to make farming a social endeavour. Glencraig has been farmed organically and biodynamically for over 50 years and is looking for new and dynamic ways of working into the future.

If you are interested please contact us and come for a visit – we would love to meet you. Families are very welcome. For further information please contact Anja in Co-worker Recruitment and Welfare Group:
Camphill Community Glencraig
4 Seahill road
Craigavad Email: office@glencraig.org.uk
Holywood Telephone: 02890423396
BT18 0DB Fax: 02890428199
Northern Ireland

Also Vacancy for a Young Farm Worker (Volunteer) Glencraig Farm warmly invites a young person looking for farm work. Little or no experience needed. For further information, please contact us using the details as above.

FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO www.glencraig.org.uk