Rainbow at Dawn

We set a live-capture trap for whatever it is that's scaling the fence and eating the sweet corn, using cat food for bait on the assumption that we're dealing with raccoons. Temperatures cooled enough overnight that about four o'clock this morning I turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows and listened to the breeze in the sycamore, the bullfrogs in the pond, and a few errant drops of rain upon the roof. By five-thirty I'd had enough bed time and got up to find that the trap hadn't caught anything, but neither were there any freshly-molested corn stalks.

Just at sunrise this was the view to the east.

And to the west, a symbol of hope. A little later a nice shower fell but I don't think it amounted even to a tenth of an inch.

We're finalizing preparations for a to-do that commences in a few days, the Palmer Long Outdoor Weekend, Muscatine Edition. The working-out of the acronym is left as an exercise for the reader.

We're keen to get the trails in good shape, so Alan and I were out with the chainsaw and rotary brush mower, pushing through the spots where fallen trees obstructed the old tractor trails that we're re-establishing, and finishing the surfaces.

Eye Chair exposed! It had been buried beneath a fallen, over-mature black cherry.

That black cherry is now a stack of logs. We're looking into ways we might market the wood, possibly as stock for lathe turners, lumber for furniture or flooring, or gunstock blanks.

Here a trail branches into a loop through Cedar Grove. Counting the field perimeters I think we've got about three miles of trail at this point, with a wonderful variety of vantages, up and down hills, along the creek, past the old growth giants.

And we've essentially completed the shooting platform at the trap range. It is a very sturdy construction!

We've got some other features in store for our guests this weekend, and those that follow. But that is all for today!

Independent Days

Yesterday two fawns came up to the house to graze just a few feet from where Donna was sitting. Here they are between the barn and the dam. Adult deer had been stumbling through the gardens and I'd find fresh tracks on almost a daily basis. Their grazing is evidenced by a tearing away of the foliage, in contrast to the clean, knife-like cuts left by the rabbits. We'd been leaving the northwest field to grow up however it might, but after I found many spots in the interior where deer had been sleeping, I mowed it to deprive them of cover and move them away from the gardens. That was a couple weeks ago, and it seems to have worked.

As Sylvia suggested, we wrapped the main gardens in 24" poultry netting and this finally seems to have excluded the rabbits, though they continue to ravage the roses and other flowers around the house. The fences we erected earlier are of welded wire and at first they seemed to do the trick. But the manufacturer, who apparently never actually tested the product, increased the spacing between the wires from bottom to top from about one and a half to four inches. Within a week of installation the rabbits learned they could just stand on their hind legs and pass through the larger openings. So now we have a second fence over the first fence – live and learn...

There appear to be four different sizes of rabbit now. Their gestation period is only thirty days, so three new generations since April. This bunny was grazing near the concord grapes vines, which are heavily laden with fruit, at twilight yesterday.

Yesterday's beautiful sunset, painted in Maxfield Parrish hues.

We probably should have looked under the leaves earlier because now we're confronted with bushels of cucumbers from the seven hills, each with three or four vines. We're having a little pickling contest. Donna's are in the large half-gallon jars on the right, mine in the quart jars adjacent, and Alan is working on his batch. None of us has made pickles or done any canning before. A common ingredient in the recipes is calcium hydroxide, the same lime that one sprinkles down the hole after using an outhouse. We're pickling green beans, too.

Between the transplants and the volunteers there are going to be lots of tomatoes and I want to build a dehydrator before they ripen.

The cicadas have been singing for a couple weeks now, and there are fireflies every night. The coyotes have been close lately, as close as the far side of the pond, and I'm now hearing owls in the vicinity. At one point today there were three great blue herons on the pond, and a pair of plover have made a home here.

The algae in the pond remains an aesthetic concern but all other evidence seems to indicate the pond is healthy. We spoke with the neighbor upstream who is growing only hay crops and who said he has not fertilized those fields in years, so nutrient loading doesn't seem to be an issue – Donna's aquarium test strips confirm this. We'd like to displace the algae with such plants as grasses, arrowleaf, and pad lily, but for now all it takes is a little breeze from the right direction to clear the algae to the side and leave the beach area clean and inviting. It's pretty fun being able to take a break from outside work and just walk into the pond for a splash and a paddle.

The heat and lack of rain are a concern. Corn and soybean prices have been spiking in recent days on forecasts of drought throughout this growing season.

I've been reading about raising fish in cages and I think I can use the sunfish and catfish in the pond for stock – a natural hatchery. That may wait until next spring; building the cages will be a good winter project.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

No one here got a very good sleep last night due to the incessant bellowing of a cow somewhere along the north fenceline. There's a skeleton next to the creek on our place that speaks to the possibility of cows getting caught in fences, or foundering in mud and water, or getting sick and being brought down by predators. It was so loud, and sounded so unhappy, that I seriously considered getting dressed and going out with a flashlight to see what I could find. Don't the owners account for their animals at night? Would one deliberately leave a single member of a herd at the back of a remote wooded pasture?

It's a mystery.

How does one become a farmer? Either you pick up the skills from your forebears, or you partner with an experienced farmer, or you just figure it out on your own. We're half a generation removed – our father farmed with his father until his early twenties, then became an academic and international consulting engineer. I, too, have degrees in agricultural engineering, but they're not degrees in farming. I've gardened intensively, but that's not farming, and it doesn't scale up. Permaculture offers a path from the one to the other, and that's where we're at.

(Oh! There goes a firefly.)

So then, we read our books and manuals, talk to the agency folk and anyone else with experience, and make a practice of trial and error.

Today saw the completion of the rabbit fencing around the vegetable gardens, with 5-foot wide gates that will admit the little tractor if necessary. If we've done it right, we'll stop cursing and once again celebrate the crepuscular bunny parties.

Research continues into biochar and synfuel production through pyrolysis of wood chips. I need to take a welding class.

This and That

Venus' solar transit was obscured but these skies were also surely something I won't see again in my lifetime.

The vegetable gardens are not yet fully enclosed by fencing but already overnight the rabbits burrowed beneath one completed section, and deer knocked down another. I'm thinking bloody thoughts. Could the Dalai Lama be a farmer?

Incremental Progress

A trip to Menard's and the dock deck is now fitted with a beach umbrella.

The east garden has most of its rabbit fence installed, all but a gate, and both gardens should be protected in another day or two. Effectively? We'll see.

A second rain barrel has been plumbed and with the new stand we'll have enough head to water the top of the west garden.

The front yard is looking fine.

Research continues into U.K. West Country style cider and the special varieties of apple that make them: sweet, bittersweet, sharp, and bittersharp. Typically, a cider is made from a single type of apple and then several ciders are blended to produce a commercial product. Everywhere but the U.S. the term cider means "hard cider" and non-alcoholic cider is just apple juice. Our taste testing of currently available U.S. offerings continues as well, and the big challenge seems to be making a cider that one wants another after the first – most are made from dessert apples and are too sweet for hop-loving craft beer drinkers.

Challenges for Brain and Brawn

This farming enterprise is nearly as much a philosophical and intellectual undertaking as a practical one.

To wit, is this cottontail rabbit a varmint? Yes, when it's in the garden, eating the little shoots and sprouts before the plants can establish, long before they produce any food for our household. This is not a hobby – we intend to support ourselves on this bit of land to the extent possible. Fences are expensive, .22 shells are not. So far we are trying to talk the rabbits out of eating from the gardens. Blood meal spread around the perimeter is sometimes effective, so perhaps we'll try that. (Ah, but where did the blood meal come from? It's a fractal pattern of consequences and responsibilities.)

The professional advice is unambiguous and unsentimental – the most effective control of rabbits is by hunting and trapping. Alan's research indicates that cottontails live only about a year before succumbing to the many diseases and predators that threaten them, so is being shot any different from an adult rabbit's perspective than being eaten by a coyote or owl? But there are lots of them. Say we determined the rabbits in the gardens had to be killed. If we talk ourselves into eating those varmints with food value, we might be eating rabbit every fortnight, maybe every week. Only one way to find out...

Update from BenSyl via Facebook: "Maybe the rabbits in your area are smarter, stronger or more persistent than those here, but we find that a simple, cheap fence of 12" chicken wire suffices to keep them out almost entirely. Of course, it does nothing to discourage the deer!"

Yes, the deer may be facing electricity.

Soil erosion has been a serious problem on this farm historically, and some major civil engineering works have been installed across the decades to control it, but there are still some significant problem areas. This photo shows the head of a gully that has advanced right up to the property line, and the overgrazed cattle pasture on the other side that is contributing to the problem. Water exerts an inexorable force and about the only way to deal with it in a situation like this is to spread it, infiltrate it, expend its energy, or install very expensive hardened structures. It's a difficult, long-term situation.

After many hours of shoveling over several days, we've moved those 16 tons of beach sand down the slope. The algae shown here is far less evident this morning after spraying yesterday.

The west vegetable garden consisted of garden rows between wide strips of turf, but the turf spreads, requires mowing, and consumes a lot of water. We have a large supply of moving boxes that I'm recycling as mulch to kill the grass. The cardboard is weighted with compost and this fall or next spring when it's all sufficiently disintegrated we'll till it under. The garden soil has been neglected in recent years, is heavy with clay, and needs a lot of help to improve its tilth.

An old concord grape vine frames cattle grazing in a neighbor's wooded pasture just across the north fence line.

Derith visited last evening and on our walk after dinner we surprised a coyote as it emerged from the woods onto the lane about a hundred feet ahead of us. It looked sleek and well-fed.

Flickers and woodpeckers! Fireflies! Strawberries! Bats!

Tempered Romance

Alan & Donna, from their experiences in the semi-rural suburbs of Minneapolis, know the destructive and disruptive potential of white tail deer and Canada geese. I come to the farm with rather less prejudice for these species, but I take their concerns seriously. Giant rats and flying pigs. The prior owners' attempt to enlarge the orchard just provided food for the deer to browse upon, and a row of larger ornamental maples along the lane show a lot of damage from "buck rubs" – the males rub their heads against the trunk so violently that the bark comes off and the tree can be girdled and killed. A part of the antlering process, I suppose.

A pair of geese (or several, but we only see two at a time) have persistently tried to make a home on the pond, but A&D are quick to discourage them, and serious enough to employ weapons. We've a powerful slingshot that uses large steel ball bearings. A near miss and the goose doesn't even startle, but a direct hit gets it moving. "So, then," I ask, "what happens when we break a goose's wing and it can't fly away?" "We get the .22." And then what? Do we eat the goose? Can we legally take a goose that way? None of us has ever dressed a game bird, but we're prepared to give it a go when the time comes. A range and weapons expert on one of Alan's work teams suggested a type of plastic pellet ballistically similar to the ball bearing but which will float and can be retrieved, and which won't break a goose's wing.

I was in the machine shed when a mouse appeared. I spoke to it and it approached and kind of hung out while I was preparing to use the tractor. "Have you met the friendly mouse in the machine shed?" I asked Alan. "Friendly mouse?" he replied. "Bunny frolics and now a friendly mouse – are we living in a frickin' Disney movie?"

Beatrix Potter's locution is rather interesting: Peter Rabbit's mother tells him his father had an accident in Mr. MacGregor's vegetable garden.

A weed is a plant out of place, and a varmint an animal out of place. Ok, so then what? I have no qualms about destroying every thistle I see, and even find myself thinking about where are the thistles I haven't found yet. There are no half-measures with thistles. But what about animals? The ones with faces?

At the time I began studying agricultural engineering, Iowa State's program required farm experience, so I spent the summer after high school working on the farm of family friends south of Ames. As I was learning the routine early on, one morning the farmer's son and I were slopping the hogs when a large rat scurried out from under the feeder. I was shocked at the sight, but my mentor didn't hesitate a moment before chasing down the thing and stomping it to death, further shocking me. There were no half-measures with rats on that farm.

Of course it's not just us. A great blue heron circled the pond this morning and prepared to land but was harassed by a pair of blue jays, and once they were satisfied a pair of red wing blackbirds took up the  chase.

Ultimately it's a working out of biologist Lewis Thomas' dictum: life is a game of 'now I eat you'.