Category: Agriculture

Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.

The Soft Start

Since early April, when the frost departed from the soil in the pastures, we have been privy to the scene that unfolds every spring. From 1/4″ clover leaves, cute as a kitten to a grass farmer, to the stout orchardgrass, bullying its way to the heavens, the season never yet disappoints.  But the greens.  They change every day just ever so.  Under gray skies, the glow seems otherworldly.  Sunny skies seem to make smiling green, bright and toothy as it blows gently in a breeze and receives its soundtrack from the newly arrived frenzy of birds.  

The trees are starting to play along as well.  The multitude of reds and yellows adding to the drama of yet another unfolding.  They just frame the scene as the mist and clouds roll by, adding the promise of summer to the dreariness.  Underneath the coming canopy they are all business, soaking up all the moisture they can bear to miraculously turn it into foliage. 

The soft start.  It is frustrating to us as we wait.  Know that we might be the only ones waiting in nature.  The rest are off to the races while we enjoy the view.

Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Quill’s Endians are members of Halcyon Grange and publish a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in the area, and generously permit us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.

Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.

Practice Resurrection

Last fall, as the drought lasted and lasted, we started to bale feed in our neighbor’s field.  Bale feeding can improve soil and the stand of forage in a hurry.  By rolling out round bales and placing an electric fence just so, the cows waste little of the hay and manure the ground below them in an even manner.  What is left behind is a thin compost pile that feeds the communities of bacteria, insects, and microbes as they break down the hay and excrement left behind from the cattle’s slow move through the field.  Organic matter increases, minerals are made bioavailable, and the seed bank, including the new seed from the hay, is stimulated.  Time does the rest. 

If our previous experience with bale feeding holds, the field will become a lot more useful as not only feed, but also a carbon sink and soil creator.  Wendell Berry wrote “practice resurrection”.  On a very small scale, we can help it along and benefit the ecosystem while we benefit the cows by letting them live out their design as ruminants.
 

As this spring has progressed, this particular field, which is sandy-soiled and sloping, has been able to bear traffic with no damage.  So, we resumed our incomplete march to Back Ridge Road, and will be able to treat the whole field to bale feeding.  It is a pleasure to see the cows outdoors taking nutrients uphill that require no shoveling, no composting, and no spreading to do the thing.

Here is to cows pooping where they ought!

Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Quill’s Endians are members of Halcyon Grange and publish a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in the area, and generously permit us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.

Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.

Search for the Holy Grail

March is like the third question posed at The Bridge of Death in Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail. To cross the bridge to spring, you must get it right or stump the questioner.

We know January. We come into it girded and resolved. We can because we know both the question and the answer. Like the first question posed at the bridge, “What is your name?”, we do not need to hesitate. We can tick off 31 days in January because we have realistic expectations and nights that last forever.

February can very much be like the second question, “What is your quest?” It can trip you up. An answer doesn’t come immediately because it takes a little priority and work to settle on such an answer in adult life, but it is still an answerable question. Just like question #1, you’ve answered this before.

We don’t expect much from February. Still girded and not quite out of resolve, we can take 28 or 29 days of it. Heads down and headed in the right direction, we expect nothing and are pleased when, toward the end of the month, we get a little reprieve. 

Not that we need it. 

But March, we might not be able to answer for March. March can be a sucker punch or a love tap. In order to pass to April, March asks, “What is the capitol of Assyria or the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?” or rather more simply asks, “What is your favorite color?” March can bury you. In mud, in rain, in snow, in ice. The grip of winter weakens slowly. Our resolve gets tossed aside by the lies of a beautiful day leaving us prone for the next. It is a 31-day labor for spring.

All will be forgotten come April.

Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Quill’s Endians are members of Halcyon Grange and publish a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in the area, and generously permit us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.