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.
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.