Monday, February 15, 2010

Winter 2010. So far. Top of the World Farm: Dogwood Mudhole Tennessee


My friends at home, stuck in the drudgery of suburbia, think I’m nuts?

Every morning I wake up before them. Don mud speckled jeans, muck coated boots, and make a bumpy morning commute having only consumed a minimal breakfast and no coffee. I pull into a barnyard where there awaits a herd of sheep, horses, cows, and a gaggle of pigs. My work isn’t done in a cubicle or office. I'm not working to make money so I can buy an HD tv or a bigger shinier car. My job is comprised of slinging shovelfuls of animal crap, wading in ankle deep mud, and lifting heavy buckets of pig food and bales of hay. I go out in the cold winter air and mend fences, move water troughs, and learn about herd health. I typically come home sore and stinking to high heaven...and I couldn’t be happier.

January 4th- February 4th 2010

It’s been a grand first month here at the farm. On my first day I took it upon myself to test the resilience of the Sanders’ brand spankin’ new fence. Having not anticipated the widened turning radius a large stock trailer adds to a 2 ton farm truck I took out a 6X6 treated fence post and almost the entire gate. Oops! Yep, I was a stupid. That new fence now has some character and that good ole “worn in look”. Needless to say the Sanders’ mockery was heaped upon me for some time or at least until Aaron, another farmhand, successfully wrecked the water trailer on its first day back from the shop and took some heat off my back. The Sanders family, although wonderful people, are not the types you want to give a reason to mock you...


Bailing twine fixes everything on the farm....

In the past three weeks our draft horses have escaped their holding paddock four times. Whoda thunk it? That seven 1800lb. horses could break out of a paddock held together by bailing twine? This stuff has the tensile strength of dental floss and the texture of burlap yarn. That they haven’t escaped more than three times is a testament to their stupidity and or laziness. Of course i'm calling the horses stupid when we're the ones that put them in there and used bailing twine to hold them back in the first place. In the words of an intellectual former president "You fool me once shame on me. You full me twice....and, and, I won't be fooled again."

Percheron "Alcatraz"....


While it’s been the point of serious frustration it’s also been a learning experience. For starters, I’ve learned “bailing twine does not hold back 1800 lbs. of horse wanting to get out” and “when horses are penned up for several days the amount of horsecrap produced is staggering”. I mean WOAH. We’re talking a literal shit-ton. In fact unused draft horses are good for just about two things, glue and manure. I’ve learned this is a great way to produce compost. After weeks of crap piling up, you go in with a tractor load of wood chips and cover it. Then you spread shelled corn and continue encouraging your equine friends to let the crap fall where it may. Eventually you have a nice “layer cake” of corn, crap, and wood chips. Then here comes the pigs. They go for that corn the way a fat kid would tackle a cake. Pigs make great aerators; you just don’t want to be standing nearby as they do it or you’ll need a shower and a new change of clothes afterward.

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