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.

Winter Drought

With snow on the ground and winter enveloping us, it may seem hard to remember  that we still are in a drought. But it’s very present with us here at the farm this winter.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week because of a quickly approaching deadline for a drought relief grant. We are hoping to get funding for an irrigation pond. Re-charge rates, test pits, volume, acreage, conversion charts,  rates of application–all the water things are on my mind as the critters chew through the limited quantity of hay from last year.

I’m learning the multitude of steps involved should anyone ever dig a proper pond for irrigation.  It seems the excavator might be the first and last step instead of the only step. Lots of steps in between. In the meantime, I’m trying to set aside enough time to complete the actual first step, completing the grant application for funding.

Winter doesn’t help, even though I always think that is where time resides. “I’ll get to that in the winter, when I have time.”  Winter farming doesn’t really agree with that sentiment. Everything now must be hauled to the farm, into the barn, and back out. The hay, the water, the bedding.  The milk, the manure, the used bedding. The shoveling and the loading and unloading. They all take time, and daylight time at that.  There is nothing so wonderful after winter as watching cows poop on grass.

It’s hard to think of a pond, which only holds summery type feelings, when forking out 2027’s compost from the barn while wearing a load of laundry.  Perhaps, if I concentrate now and write the grant well, I can add some resilience in the future when drought strikes again.

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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.

Rings of Growth

Heather and I had a chance to walk along the shore on Saturday. The trees in those woods along the harbor hold up a mirror, I think, about the people, too, who inhabit the rugged coast of Maine.

A clear, cold January day in the single digits with a biting wind and little snow cover shows the struggles. Some of the trees seem to have taken wrong turns before beating a path toward a “success” that is not wholly guaranteed. One bad storm, one poor year and…
the experiment changes.

The tree becomes forest floor duff. In the meantime, hold on to that ledge with all you’ve got. Send out another root to catch an inch of soil. Nourishment and anchor all in one and a better chance to stave off the inevitable. It’s hard living along the coast.

But the beauty of the struggle is inescapable. The stone, stacked by God to hold just enough back from the open jaws of the Atlantic. The rockweed, placed just so that the tide delivers food for the stretching roots. The crooked, crooked shoreline to offer just enough windbreak to hold on. The clear, cold sky, reading stature and form like an open book, laying the natural history bare for any and all to see.

This winter has come off just right. It’s a reminder that another ring of growth comes with scars from the wind and the waves. This winter also shows us what is necessary for survival. A good roof over sturdy walls. Plenty of laundry layered on a body to be outdoors. Woods to break the wind. A full pantry to keep you. A farmer to fill it. 

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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 her 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.

Why Three Acres?

I’ve been listening to some interviews with notable farmers and local food activists. The podcasts, put on by The Real Organic project, showcase the contrarian nature of people that belong to and love a place.

There is inherent in soil care a touch of philosophy, an outcropping of the results seen and unseen. The results are immediate and take lifetimes, so agrarians must, as Wendell Berry writes, count the humus as gain.

An interview with the late Michael Phillips, an orchardist and author from New Hampshire, reminded me again that the language of farming needs to change. His use of the term “radical diversity” in nurturing his orchard is foreign to the current agricultural monoculture model which drives the vast majority of the production in our country. His three-acre orchard contains 120 varieties of apples. The under story of his orchard received as much care as the fruit producing (income producing) over story. 

When asked why three acres, his answer was about stewardship, not markets, income, or demand. He could properly take care of three acres of trees…so, three. I wonder if he would have liked more orchard, but his place and his stewardship limited him.

He relied on natural food stores and an apple CSA to sell his apples, eschewing the wholesale market that drives overproduction and the destruction of our farmlands and farmers. He shared his lifetime of knowledge in his books and in workshops, hoping, no doubt, to inspire the care in more folks. We need those folks as we move forward in addressing the myriad of issues surrounding our current agricultural circumstances.

The most vital part of agricultural reform is you. Nourishing, delicious, local food only exists when people make the concerted effort to patronize the local producers with business, encouragement, and an evangelical fervor. We need creative eaters with pantries and refrigerators that are filled with neighbors’ produce. We need systems that bypass consumer culture and benefit eaters and farmers rather than commodity traders and poison vendors. Farmers need you in their overall picture as we tend our places because it is an honor, as well as a responsibility to feed you, and… feed you well.

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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 her 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.

Creatures of the Future

We are creatures of the future. Hope keeps us moving forward. It keeps us living for another day, making plans, and looking for results that make lives better. 

But the future needs the present and the past for grounding. The last 80 years provides an ominous grounding for hope in farming. Since the 1970s, when then Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz’s “get big or get out” proclamation laid the policy groundwork for the consolidation of farmland in the U.S., many farms have “got out” while few have “got big”. The course of agriculture has been bound to a destruction ethos. Bigger machinery, more chemicals, and less reliance on human labor through technology has brought us to our current predicament. 

Less than 2% of the U.S. population is involved in farming and the average age of the remaining farmers is 58 years. Only 4% of U.S. farmland grows food for direct human consumption.

So why hope? Why continue producing food and improving soil for less than minimum wage? For what future?

The past and present, grounding as they are for hope, cannot predict any future. They can only teach. We use the knowledge gained here in the present to prepare for the future.

Today’s action is all we have to leave in the past. If we care for our neighbors, we eschew the destruction ethos and feed them like family. If we value human labor and skill and the meaning of useful fulfilling work for our community, we keep our reliance on technology to a minimum. If we rely on youth for help and vision, we help the average age of the farmer drop, and the percentage of folks involved in agriculture rise.

I think that the most important thing about the past, present, and future is soil. We are soil. From it we are made and to it we return. It calls to us when we are without regular contact, and needs our care to care for us.

So let’s care for soil, encourage our youth, and nourish our neighbors. The present can be delicious, even in the future.

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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 her area and generously permit us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.