The Literal Learning Curve: Haying with Horses

Sometimes when we talk about the learning curve in haying with horses, we like to actually show it: our literal learning curve.

There are two curves, to be precise, one on each of the massive posts that frame the doorway of our barn.

“Come on over,” we say, “Here it is! Our learning curve!” We point out the elegant curve that has been carved out each of the posts, just at the height of the floorboards of our haywagon. Yes, indeed, it took more than a few tries to gauge the width of the haywagon, and the width of the barn door, and the width of the swing necessary with the horses from the right, and the width of the swing necessary with the horses from the left.

Of course, given that the haywagon is eight feet eight inches wide, and the doorway is nine feet one inch wide, and that the hay on a loaded wagon sticks out a good foot on either side, there's no wonder we have a literal learning curve. In fact, it is only my fellow farmer, the teamster here, who can take credit for the learning curve, as he both carved it out of the posts, and finally conquered all the widths and swings.

For our part, my farmer-daughter and I, riding on the top of the full wagon, do our best to ensure all will go well while entering the barn by hiding our heads and squeezing our eyes shut, in order to ward off the big thunk. We must be doing our part very nicely, along with the teamster and the horses, because we haven't had a big thunk and an abrupt stop in years.

We all like this very much, including the horses. The horses pull hard up the slight incline to the barn door, and they are not delighted when they come to a thumping halt, nor are they especially fond of the load becoming unexpectedly heavier as the post is being carved by the wagon floorboards.

We've also have had a few instances when it wasn't the floorboards that halted the works, but the hay itself. When the load is both big and unbalanced, the hay tends to gets stuck in the doorway. Then the horses have to hold the load steady while we riders slide down the load and race for the chucks.

We chuck the wagon to take the weight off the horses, and then we chuck off some of the hay, and ask the horses to pull again. They do, willing and strong horses that they are. Once we actually get the wagon into the barn, we unload the hay into the mow, which can be quick and easy, in a clear spot, or long and hard, if we have to stuff the hay up in the rafters. After unloading, there are the two massive posts on the exit door to navigate. Generally this is much easier, and these two posts don't show much learning curve wear.

But we do have a vivid memory of one year, when our big horse Ben was new to the haywagon, and my fellow farmer was giving Ben some practice in making small adjustments to an empty wagon that was just slightly too far to one side as it went out the exit door. This is finer work, not requiring brawn so much as precision. Backing up is already very fiddly work for a horse, and backing up a few steps, going forward at a slight angle, backing up, over and over again, was all just too much for a green horse. At one point, Benny had a complete fit in the harness, not going backwards or forwards, but somehow making his entire body into fits of frustration visible to all.

“Oh, Benny,” we said, sympathizing and laughing at the same time, and we unhitched him then and there, and brought in his wise old auntie Betsey while he had a rest in his stall.

Now wise old Auntie Betsey is buried underneath our apple tree, right across from the barn doors, where she can keep track of things, and Ben has become much older and wiser himself, twelve or more years later.

Whether we can say the same for the farmers is another matter, since here we are, learning curves, head-hiding, eye-closing and all, still crazily making hay.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, July 31- Aug 6, 2019

Can't See the Garden for the Weeds

We've come a long way in our weeding since we first started farming. Why, back in the early days, we lost entire crops to weeds.

My fellow farmer and I would go out to check the planting of carrots, recently germinated. A little weedy, we said, but not too bad. We could wait a bit to tend the carrots, surely, while we tackle the much weedier peas and salad greens.

A week passes, and we check the carrots again. We are in complete agreement: these carrots are getting urgent. We better get to them this week.

Another week. Getting urgent turns to “Oh my gosh, the carrots are desperate! We have to weed these, without fail!”

But, yes, another week passes, and the carrots have entirely disappeared, under nearly knee-high weeds.

“Don't panic,” we farmers bolster each other, “We're having a weeding and ice cream party this very weekend, and our fine CSA members will clear this out in a jiffy!”

Oh, ha ha ha. Even with our fine CSA members, and our careful work, trying to hold in the wisps of carrots while rooting out the gigantic weeds, we are able to clear about twenty feet, out of six hundred, in three hours.

“Well, we've got a good start?” we say, with more hope than sense, and rush to another crisis in the garden.

The next week, one stalwart volunteer returns. We are surprised to see him. “I just wanted to help you finish those carrots,” he says.

“Oh,” we answer, looking quickly at one another. We don't want to break this kind member's heart, but we have to admit the the sensible truth. “We, uh, we realized, we didn't think, there was no way, without losing everything else, the weeds were just so big, the carrots didn't germinate all that well, we just had to . . .” we stumble around, and finally get it out: “We plowed them under.”

“Oh!” the nice fellow says, not seeming heartbroken at all, but looking rather jaunty. His whole afternoon has opened up before him, and he makes his escape, before we suggest yet another crop desperate for weeding.

Now, we can't say we've gotten to be better, faster weeders over the years; in fact, we may be just a smidge slower and creakier than we were 25 years ago.

But we are smarter weeders. Since we couldn't see the garden for the weeds, so to speak, we decided to open up a little more garden land, in order to rest garden sections in yearly succession, rather than having every bit of the garden in production all the time. Over the long-term, what with bare fallowing and cover cropping, we've been able to knock back the weed seed bank considerably.

In the short-term, we've been able to prioritize our weeding. We look at how vigorous the crop is, and how long it needs to stay in the ground. Those carrots, for example, need serious and speedy weeding. Carrots take three weeks to germinate, which means most weeds already have a head start. Carrots also have such fine feathery tops that they're not able to compete with any broad-leafed and vigorous weed, or really even any narrow-leafed and not very vigorous weed. Carrots also stay in the ground a long time, compared to some other crops. Salad turnips are sown at the same time, but they grow quickly, and so are harvested quickly, which means a different weeding technique altogether. We have another vivid memory of a volunteer, in a salad turnip bed, who was wading in weeds. Her progress, not surprisingly, was very slow.

We went over to see how it was going, and realized she was taking out every weed, from the giant to the miniscule. She also had a look of weeding despair on her face. We recognized that look, and we knew how to help.

“Oh,” we said gaily, realizing we hadn't explained what we meant: “These salad turnips will be out of the ground and into people's stomachs in less than two weeks! You don't really have to weed them! You just have to find them!”

We demonstrated: finding a crop means cutting out the giant weeds with a pair of clippers, so that we can see the vegetables to harvest. Things speeded up considerably, and our volunteer began to whistle.

Of course, we are still all about weeding, here on our sustainable vegetable farm, especially in July. But happily, we haven't even had to “find” a crop, or plow a crop under, in many years, which is excellent progress. Speaking of which, I believe I'll go out and weed those carrots.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, July 3-July 9, 2019

Whether We Like It or Not

Lately my fellow farmer and I have been thinking about the poem our daughter learned years ago in school:

Whether the weather be fine,
or whether the weather be not;
whether the weather be cold,
or whether the weather be hot;
we'll weather the weather,
whatever the weather,
whether we like it or not.

We thought this rhyme was pretty funny at first, but this vegetable season we have not felt quite so amused. What with snow four times in April, and six weeks of no rain, in May and early June, we were beginning to wonder whether we would be able to grow any produce at all. And now, in July and August, what do we have?

Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain.

Every rainy day, the soil gets soggier and soggier and the weeds get bigger and bigger. The broccoli heads rot on the plant and the cabbage splits and the beet greens suffer and the lettuce won't grow and the yellow squash won't ripen.

Then there are the fall crops we have not yet been able to sow, because of the rain. Or the bed of beets, which we just managed to plant between raindrops, which hardly germinated at all. There are the beans and the kale and the chard, all soggy and peaked. And the hay, far past its prime, languishing in the wet fields, which is particularly painful considering our very foolish decision not to mow hay a month ago when we had a sunny chance.

What's a soggy, peaked farmer to do? Especially a soggy, peaked farmer who wants to write a funny, cheerful sustainable farming column? Hmm.

Well, how about the greenhouses? Certainly this year we are especially grateful for the relatively dry, relatively weed-free greenhouses, from which we are happily harvesting, albeit two weeks later and a little more slowly than usual, ripe tomatoes and sweet red peppers and green peppers and hot peppers and basil and squash and cucumbers.

On the other hand, even in the greenhouses, we are faced with a problem, not a weather problem per se, but a problem no less. It began last March, when we were starting our tomatoes on the heat mat, as is our usual method. We came out cheerfully one March morning to greet all the happy little tomato seedlings from our second sowing. But all the happy little tomato seedlings were quite dead.

The heat mat wiring had gone flooey, and cooked all our little plants. It was too late to sow any more seeds, so, for the first time in twenty years of farming, we had to buy tomato starts from another farm. My tomato-loving fellow farmer was sad, but resigned, and ordered up starts for a good-tasting, nice-looking, half-pound tomato.

Soon we had the new transplants settled in the greenhouse beds. As they grew, we were a little concerned at the general spindliness of the plants. We were a little more concerned when we saw the small size of the first fruits. Then we were very concerned, as the tomatoes ripened, finally, in August, and we looked over two hundred feet of spindly plants with puny fruit, fruit which also cracks at an alarming rate, and ranks a solid mediocre in taste and texture.

“What the heck kind of half-pound, good-tasting tomato is this?” said my fellow farmer.

“Not much of one,” said I.

And not long after, I said to myself, on a rainy rainy rainy day, also in August, “What the heck kind of funny, cheerful sustainable farming column is this? Not much of one.”

All right, farmer, I admonish myself, focus on the positive:

We may have 200 feet of pathetic tomatoes in the greenhouses, but we also have 200 feet of our own delicious big tomatoes, along with another 150 feet of our own cherry and plum tomatoes. Despite the general sogginess, we are still harvesting lots of good things in the garden. We also could have much, much worse weather than we are having.

Plus we have an idea.

“Let's rip out all these dumb little tomatoes and plant the fall crops in the nice, relatively dry, relatively weed-free greenhouse!” says my fellow.

“Excellent!” I answer. “And let's bellow out the rhyme while we're at it! We'll weather the weather, whatever the weather . . .”

My fellow joins in the holler: “Whether we like it or not!”

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Aug 29-Sept 4, 2018

It's Too Hot to Hay

Recently we farmers decided that it would be a fine time to take a break from the Marvelous Year of Maintenance. We thought we might attend to some other minor farming matters, such as weeding, harvesting, haying, and fall planting.

However, the farming spirits seem perfectly happy to tailor maintenance issues to our every activity. Take haying, for example.

Early in July, we had a stretch of sunny haying weather. Unfortunately, it was also a stretch of 95 plus degree heat. We knew we ought to make hay, but we were feeling mighty hot. Plus we discovered we had a lot to do just to get ready to make hay.

First, as my fellow farmer was cultivating the broccoli with the horses, the team suddenly swerved out of the pathway. Crunch! Crunch! went the broccoli plants as the horses stepped merrily on them.

“Whoa, whoa!” my fellow said urgently.

“Everything all right?” I called worriedly from across the garden.

“The lines broke again,” answered my fellow. “I couldn't steer. But the horses stopped right away. I think we only lost maybe five plants. Hey, will you get the duct tape?”

Oh, geesh. Duct tape. By the time I got back with it, the teamster and the horses were at the end of the row, and the rest of the broccoli was nicely weeded and hilled. I was surprised.

“I just stuck the old tape back together,” said my fellow. “It worked! But I'll still take that roll.”

I handed him the tape, wondering what he was planning.

With a flourish, my fellow hung the roll on the hames of the harness. “There!” he said. “Just in case I need it!”

I couldn't help laughing. A roll of duct tape hanging from the harness: what a perfect symbol of the Marvelous Year of Maintenance!

It was funny, but I was worried. My fellow was planning to mow hay the next day, which is not an easy task for the horses, and involves a 6 foot long razor sharp sickle bar. I didn't relish the idea of the driving lines breaking yet again.

“Did you order the new lines yet?” I asked.

“Not yet. I keep meaning to.”

“Let's do it right away. Maybe they could be shipped today, in time to mow tomorrow.”

We ordered the lines, and then my fellow looked the mower bar over. “I guess I have to replace the pole,” he sighed. “The end of it is rotten.”

But we had used up our last home-cut pole, when we replaced the pole on the spreader earlier in the Marvelous Year of Maintenance. “Maybe I could just shift the neck yoke back a little, to a better part of the pole,” my fellow said.

“I thought you already did that last year.”

“I did, but maybe I can do it again. I looked it up, and you only need 9 feet 6 inches between the neck yoke and where the evener is attached to the pole.”

“Did you measure it? Do you have that much?”

“More or less,” he said, not very reassuringly.

Meanwhile, it was getting hotter and hotter. Even discussing the potential repair made us break into a sweat.

Then we remembered that it was going to take a morning's work to clear out the barn floor so we could get the haywagon in the barn. The hay wagon itself was loaded down too,with all the wood we bought to replace the baseboards in the greenhouse, which we hadn't yet accomplished. Plus the wagon needed a repair, as it broke on the very last load of last year, in preparation perhaps for the upcoming Marvelous Year of Maintenance.

We stood in the shade, doing nothing, wiping our brows. Our horses stood in the barn, doing nothing, wiping their brows.

“It's too hot to breathe, let alone hay,” I said.

“Let's check the weather again. Maybe now it's going to rain?”

We checked the weather again. Still very very hot, for the next three days. But there was a slight chance of thunderstorms the next day!

And there were the broken lines. And the rotting pole. And the clearing of the barn, and the unloading and repair of the hay wagon.

“And our horses are getting pretty old,” I suggested, “to work so hard in this heat.”

“And we are getting pretty old,” my fellow suggested, “to work so hard in this heat.”

My fellow farmer looked at me. I looked at him.

“Let's not mow,” he whispered. “Let's wait.”

“All right!” I whispered back, guiltily, gleefully. Of course, it is not wise to miss any haying weather, as we never know when, or if, we'll get some more. But fueled by our tremendous relief at not haying in the terrible heat, we get an enormous amount of weeding, harvesting, and fall planting done in the terrible heat. And we might even get to those haying maintenance tasks before the next stretch of sunny, yet cool and breezy, haying weather . . .

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Aug 1- Aug7,  2018