{"id":98681,"date":"2026-04-14T06:09:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T10:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/?p=98681"},"modified":"2026-04-14T06:09:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T10:09:25","slug":"view-from-the-farm-november-2017-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-1-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/?p=98681","title":{"rendered":"View from the Farm – April, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Webmaster’s note: <\/em>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practice Resurrection<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Last fall, as the drought lasted and lasted, we started to bale feed in our neighbor’s field.\u00a0 Bale feeding can improve soil and the stand of forage in a hurry.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Organic matter increases, minerals are made bioavailable, and the seed bank, including the new seed from the hay, is stimulated.\u00a0 Time does the rest.\u00a0

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.\u00a0 Wendell Berry wrote “practice resurrection”.\u00a0 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.
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As this spring has progressed, this particular field, which is sandy-soiled and sloping, has been able to bear traffic with no damage.\u00a0 So, we resumed our incomplete march to Back Ridge Road, and will be able to treat the whole field to bale feeding.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is to cows pooping where they ought!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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<\/a> for more information.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.\u00a0 Bale feeding can improve soil and the stand of forage … Continue reading “View from the Farm – April, 2026”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,74,688],"post_folder":[704],"class_list":["post-98681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","tag-agriculture-2","tag-farms","tag-quills-end-farm"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Walter Boomsma","author_link":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/?author=2122"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"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.\u00a0 Bale feeding can improve soil and the stand of forage…","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1arC1-pFD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98682,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98681\/revisions\/98682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98681"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_folder&post=98681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}