Midwestern Bio-Ag

September 1, 2011

I enjoyed attending a Midwestern Bio-Ag field day.  Fertilizer is their main business, but they also deal in feed and seed.  Pictured is a large truck which is used to spread fertilizer, and a red buggy which a farmer can pull behind a tractor to spread fertilizer.

Gary Zimmer is the founder of Midwestern Bio-Ag.  I picked up a copy of his new book, “Advancing Biological Farming.”  He sold me in his introduction, when he wrote:

“So please, when you read this book don’t be too quick to judge.  Don’t read between the lines.  I’m sure you can find some details you won’t or can’t agree with, but remember, these are my thoughts, observations, ideas, and experiences up to this point in time.  Show me a better way and I’m ready to make changes and take on new ideas after they have been tested and their success demonstrated on the farm.  I want to know when it works, how it works, why it works or doesn’t work.  If a new idea makes sense, improves quality and/or yield, and is profitable, then let’s go with it.”

I always listen to a person who admits he doesn’t know everything.

I have a difficult time knowing if a fertilizer is real, or “foo-foo dust”.  There are so many variables in farming, it’s nearly impossible to know if a little something we spread on the fields has an effect.  Unless I correct a visible deficiency, fertilizer is almost faith-based.

That being said, I’m thinking about working with Midwestern Bio-Ag for my fertilizer wants and needs.  I plan to figure ways to test the effectiveness of their products.

6 Comments | Curious crops, Curious farmer, Curious fertilizer | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

New Farm

August 25, 2011

Big news.  I’m splitting up farming with my parents.

A little background.  My parents own 510 acres with roughly 200 acres tillable, and 300 acres pasture.  I own 120 acres with roughly 80 acres tillable, and 40 acres pasture.  We have managed our farms as a collective farm for the past 17 years.

We raise beef cattle and hogs, pasturing and growing all the forages for the cattle, and growing all the corn and oats and straw bedding for the hogs.  Soybean meal is purchased for the hogs.

A few years ago, I started a partnership with a couple about my age to direct-market an increasing amount of our beef and pork in the Madison markets.  This is where my passion lies, and I want to continue this business.

So I’ve been spending a lot of brain power figuring out how to do this on my farm.  What I’ve decided so far is to buy steers in the fall and grass-finish them the following green season.  I believe I have enough pasture and forage to raise enough cattle to meet the demand of our direct-market.

What I’m going to have to give up is the beautiful herd of cows and calves  pictured below.  I simply don’t have enough land to have everything.

I am going to continue to have my swine breeding stock.  Genetics is another one of my passions, so I have to continue to play with the genetics of something.  I plan on raising just enough hogs for my direct-market.  I’ll probably have to purchase more of the grain than I do now.

Pictured below is a Duroc boar I raised who will be the first herdsire on my new farm.  I haven’t named him yet, so I thought it would be fun if you have a suggestion to leave a comment.  I’ll pick the best name out of your suggestions.

This blog will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this change.  Since I no longer have anyone’s privacy to protect but my own, I can be as open as I am brave.  I’m looking forward to sharing more.

21 Comments | Curious farmer | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

Like Sharks Circling a Chum Ship

August 14, 2011

Herald of spring,

Barnswallows are back!

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Tropical winters,

Wisconsin summers.

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New mud nest,

Or top-mud the old one.

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Two or three clutches,

Of insatiable young.

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Dive-bombing children,

And curious cats.

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Feeding their young,

Who wait on the line.

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Finally feasting,

On Leafhoppers flying.

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Circling tractor,

As I mow hay.

2 Comments | Curious farmer, Curious nature | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

2011 Corn Height, 4th of July

July 4, 2011

This is a traditional 4th of July picture in my family.  Shepherd snapped the photo this year.  Links to the last two years are here and here.

Leave a Comment » | Curious children, Curious crops, Curious farmer | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

Best Laid Plans

June 14, 2011

We built a small corral at the intersection of four pastures.  It’s way out back, and we never had a good way to catch a cow that needed help out there.

I checked the cows late one afternoon.  A cow was trying to calve, and looked like she had been straining for awhile, but nothing was showing.  We gave her an hour and checked her again.  Sure enough, one foot was sticking out, but not the other one.

We decided to get her in.  We were excited to use our new corral.  Two ATVs, a jeep, low-stress stockmanship, and we had her in the corral, barely.  She was starting to get hot.  She circled the corral a few times, charged at the gate I was standing by, put her nose over the top board, and jumped and pushed.  Once the board broke, her body weight broke down the wire panel, and she was over and out.

“Well, she’s on her own now.  No sense getting killed over her.”

The next morning, Dad drove back from checking the cows.

“Is she dead?”

“No, and she’s got a live calf, runnin’ around healthy.”

“Do you think we were just too early?”

“No, I think the calf got straightened out when she jumped the fence.”

Dad smiled.

4 Comments | Curious cattle, Curious farmer, Curious livestock costs | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

Our Goat-Proof Garden

June 6, 2011

Our garden.  If gardening was a sport, Citygirlfriend would be tested for performance-enhancing drugs.   Click to see her garden last year.

Our garden is actually a collaborative effort.  She has  lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes.  The boys and I have potatoes, peas, radishes, beets.

We had to put up a two-strand electric fence, powered by a battery fence charger, to keep the goats out.  It’s probably not true that goats will eat anything, but they will try anything, and take seconds and thirds of stuff they like.

What goats really like is to browse trees and bushes.  They will take every advantage to reach a little higher.

Look at how they pruned the cherry tree, pictured below, as far as they could reach.  Using livestock for landscaping has probably been practiced  forever, but it’s experiencing something of a resurgence.  I see why.

1 Comment | Curious farmer, Curious garden | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

Old MacDonald’s Farm

May 29, 2011

Old MacDonald called.  He wants his farm back.

We’ve added a dog, two lambs, four goats, two ponies, and a boarder, to the cattle, hogs, chickens, and cats who already called this farm home.

What have I learned?

  1. Goats are as smart as dogs.
  2. Sheep are half as smart as goats.
  3. Ponies and boarders are fun, interesting, and trouble.

We started in January with Sparky, a Rat Terrier mix from the Dane County Humane Society.  Then we got two bottle goats, which Citygirlfriend and sons kept warm and fed through all those cold days and night of winter.  They’re pictured in this post.  Melissa visited for the first time also, in a blizzard, and liked it.

In March, Shepherd sold his bottle calf from last summer at the local livestock auction.  He put his profits into a pregnant dairy goat, Amber, pictured below.  She was supposed to kid in a couple of weeks, but had a healthy kid the next day.  The kid is named Oreo, and is in the next picture.

Thinking Gameboy needed more chores, we bought two, orphaned, Icelandic lambs from my partners for Gameboy to bottle feed.  One is in the top picture. Fortuitously, Melissa quit her job and moved in with us, so she took over the chore of helping Gameboy feed the lambs.

Melissa is finding herself, or finding a husband.  If you are a single farmer reading this, she is fun, interesting, 27 years old, and no more trouble than any other woman.  I’m also offering a dowry of two ponies, lambs negotiable.

Melissa and Citygirlfriend started asking about ponies.  I made a list of all the things that needed to be done before we could get ponies, thinking they wouldn’t put forth the effort.  Lo and behold, they were serious.  They hired a carpenter and remodeled the old hog shed into a goat and lamb shed.  They fixed up the old stable, and made a tack/grooming room out of the old feed room.  So, the bottom picture shows Melissa with her Welsh ponies.  All I can say is I’ll keep you updated.

2 Comments | Curious farmer, Curious living | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

Oats and Hay Seeding

May 11, 2011

This is our oat drill with roller behind. It has two compartments for seeds, shown below.  The smaller one holds alfalfa and timothy.  The larger one holds oats and perennial ryegrass.

The oats and perennial ryegrass is dropped into the small furrow made by the disc blade.  The alfalfa and timothy is dribbled onto the ground behind the planter via tubes, not shown.

The roller breaks up more soil clods, and ensures a firm seed bed and good soil to seed contact.

Below is the planted seedbed.  This is also the picture I’m using for the May 7th square-foot saturday.

I planted this field, M6, on May 3rd.  That’s the latest I’ve ever planted oats, and exactly one month later than I finished planting oats last year.  I planned on showing a square-foot in this field, so I’m sticking with the plan, even though I’m not happy with the planting date.  Oats grow well in cool weather.

It was a late spring, but the truth is we missed a small planting window in April because we were in the middle of building a new barb-wire fence and didn’t want to stop.  We thought we would be able to plant a few days later, but a couple weeks of wet weather ruined that plan.

Farming is about windows.  You want to do the right job at the right time.  Work the soil and plant too wet, and you face compaction and yield reduction.  Plant late, and you miss valuable heat units and yield is reduced.

Check back every weekend and we’ll see how this field progresses.

3 Comments | Curious crops, Curious farmer, Curious Square-foot | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

How Much Wood?

April 25, 2011

How much wood does my outdoor wood boiler use?  Make a guess and you’ll have a chance to win.

I cut up a medium-sized tree.  I started burning it on a Sunday afternoon.  The weather was blustery and in the 30′s.  We kept the house at 75F, and the door to the uninsulated porch open most of the time.

I’ll show a few pictures of the cutting process, and you’ll get a feel for the size of the tree.

This elm tree died and fell over into a field, so it needed to be cut up before planting.  I used the bale carrier on the tractor to apply upward pressure so my chainsaw wouldn’t be pinched as I cut down through the trunk, separating the tree from the roots.

I pulled the tree by the wood boiler.  Shepherd held goggles over his eyes as I cut it up.

I use the bale carrier to lift the tree off the ground to make it easier to cut.

How long do you think this tree lasted?  Make your guess in days, and put it in the comments.  Closest one wins a $25 gift certificate to Kiva.  One entry per person.  No duplicate days, first one with the right number wins.  Good luck!

12 Comments | Curious farmer | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

Robert Frost: A Blue Ribbon at Amesbury

March 6, 2011

How can a poem, written years before, capture the way I feel?  In “A Blue Ribbon at Amesbury,” Robert Frost writes my thoughts, my feelings.

“A Blue Ribbon at Amesbury” describes a young man’s mind, as he observes his blue-ribbon winning hen.

Excerpt:

The one who gave her ankle-band,
Her keeper, empty pail in hand,
He lingers too, averse to slight
His chores for all the wintry night.

He leans against the dusty wall,
Immured almost beyond recall,
A depth past many swinging doors
And many litter-muffled floors.

He meditates the breeder’s art.
He has a half a mind to start,
With her for Mother Eve, a race
That shall all living things displace.

The cattle on my farm can be traced back over fifty years, the hogs over thirty, the chickens over ten.  We are always selecting, always monitoring, always striving.

Thank you Quantum Devices, Inc. for your guess. Since you were the only one to guess which Frost poem is my favorite, you win the $25 gift certificate to Kiva.

1 Comment | Curious farmer, Curious genetics, Curious writing | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

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