Three Things Farming Taught me . TKG. Sustainable Sunday

Only three? I hear you say! OK. You caught me. There are more than three.

These are my most important farming thoughts today. AND there are six. Well, maybe seven but who’s counting.

I have been full time farming - growing organic sustainably managed grains and food including proteins and vegetables for families here in Illinois for 25 years now. The blog thekitchensgarden.com has been running almost daily since 2011.

I am not the farmers wife. I am the farmer. In fact I object to the term wife! Let alone farmers wife.

Anyway I am confident enough in my role as a farmer to share my thoughts.

Here are SIX (maybe Seven) things farming taught me.

Avoid overcrowding the land

Give all the animals and birds plenty of space to grow and move. Lots of open space and clean air and a ton of the great outdoors. Be careful not to crowd more animals or gardens or buildings onto land that cannot sustain your expectations. Less is best.

Don’t be greedy.

Intentional Introductions

Gradually aquaint animals and birds with each other. Be thoughtful and gentle. They are not people but there are similarities. Animals feel fear. They get frights. They go into shock. Changes affect their bellies. When their brain has forgotten something often their bodies will not forget. Just like people - so try to allow a side by side relationship before the animals are put together.

Go slow.

Make the First Step

Managing a farm the old fashioned way is a bit like playing chess. A farmer needs to study the board and plan her moves ahead, and have a number of back up game plans in her mind in case that plan goes sideways. Which it usually does.

If something seems too hard just make the first step. For example get out the ladder and lean it on the side of the barn where you need to do the repairs.

Just drag the damn ladder over there. Then get a hammer and have a think.

The first step is the hardest and the most critical in life’s chess game.

Take the Long way round.

Aunty Google is training us to use short cuts as often as possible. Don’t do it. We LEARN so much more when we spurn the short cut and take the long way round. Make yourself put your hands behind your back like a headmaster and STROLL the long way round. Just think of the steps!

Cruise round all eyes and legs instead of bolting through.

Have old fashioned back ups.

The power will go out. Machines will break down. Animals will get sick. Have a space where you keep the old-fashioned tools and simple grandma remedies.

I tell my farm interns to look at every animal and say:

“Where is your water. Where is your wallow. When’s dinner. How’s your bed?!”

I also tell them that if the animals start answering it is time for siesta!

Our needs are actually pretty basic. Don’t complicate things.

Be ready to get back to basics fast.

The Other Beating Heart

Most animals are happier with another beating heart in close proximity. Especially at night time when the bad things come out.

Find your people wherever they might be.

WaiWai the rescue potbelly pig usually sleeps with LuLu the cat right next to him.

Don’t leave an animal or bird lonely. Get a cat. (Or maybe a pig).

Take Small Bites.

If you have to clear the whole hay loft of old hay, don’t try to do it all in a day. Plan ahead - add it to your daily chores. Pick a time, set the alarm and throw those bales until times up. Then climb back down. Not a minute longer. Every day. It is so liberating. And by taking small bites you train your body, you will build fitness. You work with your body not against it.

Do no harm to yourself.

I write using this timed system as well. I write at speed until my time is up then go outside and make a few moves on the farm, let my brain fill with words again and then go back to the keyboard.

The Kitchens Garden Farm

Ducklings and Quacker

Quacker is seldom far from the ducklings, who grow about an inch a day! Last night they were in the process of following Quacker off under the trees towards the pond when I came out to put them to bed. It was a rainy night. A bastard mink night. No way were they going to be lala’ing about on the pond with Aunty Quacker on a Bloody Bastard Mink Night.

Plus they don’t even have feathers or wings!

Cows and Calves

A big black cow jammed her fat body through the creep chair. She must have pgone down on her knees the naughty beastie. Much more of that and she will break down my infrastructure. So I have let them live, sleep and eat together now. No more nursery.

The herd is now a herd I think.

Chicks

The chicks are a bunch of escape artists - I spend all day putting them back in their run but it is too hot to keep them locked in the brooder. Too hot and stinky. So they run about, scratching everything up and bleeding through the holes in the chicken wire but thats ok.

Their feathers are almost all in. Unlike the ducklings the chicks are half down and half feathers. A very cute stage.

Turkey Poults

The turkeys are flying. Yes. Sigh. They still live with the chicks and when I open the door to the early cool of dawn they FLY OUT. Straight to the walls of the area - pause - then fly up and over. Sigh again.

We have white, silver and black turkey poults and the white ones look like very naughty angels. They are noisy. I can always find them. They are also easy to catch even with those long legs.

Rescue Pigs

Everything is about the wallows this week. The temps have been loitering in the mid to high nineties. No-one is panicking, the property is surrounded in trees, we were prepared for summer to come, and every pig has at least one tree and a wallow. Every morning I drag around the hoses and fill the wallows.

The Charlottes

These pigs are still in their leggy tween stage. Very friendly. Very nibbly. And fun to play with.

They have two wallows as I change them over from an old wallow that has too much sun now. And these white pigs (and me) cannot be in the sun. We burn - we burn without a hint of tan.

The Kitchens Gardens

The gardens for the kitchens are not your normal kind of gardens. I grow most of my veges in with the flowers, or in random pots or out in the fields.

My favourite at the moment is the pumpkin patch and we are growing those for the kids and the pigs.

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🎥 TKG Take Ten

The favorite this week is:

The Ducklings! Watch for their little tail feathers!

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🐞The Kitchens Garden Blog ( since 2011)

The favorite this week is:

The Ducklings Move up in the Farmy World

The ducks win again!!

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🌻Sustainable Sunday

OK - Here is my offer for this Sustainable Sunday Tip.

If you have a blocked sink or (horrors) blocked toilet. You are going to have to put some gloves on and bucket out all but a little water. The Dump 1/2 a cup of baking soda into the water. THEN dump a cup of vinegar into the baking soda. It will Foam up! Very dramatic.

Leave it all alone for 30 minutes then come back and flush or let the tap run.

It worked for me! I hope it works for you. The blockage must have been way on down the pipes because the sink and the toilet were not draining. Mainly because I had not been in my study while I was in New Zealand. Pipes like to have water running down them every now and then.

Lesson learned.

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🐞 Thank you so much for popping in and getting this far! Thank you to the internet for coming back on!

Take care and Talk soon in the comments. Or if you love it - like it. ❤️

🐞See you tomorrow morning at thekitchensgarden.com.

OR right here tomorrow evening.

Celi