Come the Revolution

We’ve got a good crop of aphid-eating lady beetles in the garden this year. On the one hand, that means we have aphids. On the other hand, it means nature is doin’ its beautiful, balance-keeping thing.

The only thing that could make it better is if we didn’t have to drive home after late nights at the garden. Maybe next year.
I find myself thinking often of the farmer from the first farm I apprenticed at. He’s a vegetable farmer, but truly he’s a tomato farmer. I’m guessing 1/4 of his tilled acreage was devoted to the botanical fruit, and he was damn good at growing them.

This year the Garden of the Revolution has about 200 tomato plants. It’s a risk after last year’s blight, but 8 months of buying tomato sauce that is sub-par and shipped from who knows where is quite enough. If all goes well we’ll have sauce, salsa, stewed, sun dried, and soups soon. In the meanwhile, we have a lot of time to look forward to turning our hands yellow and black from the dust on the tomato plants.

Last night they needed some love. It was past time for suckering for most of them, but they were desperate for the airflow with the heat wave in New England this week. So after a full day of work for each of us, we drove up to the farm and suckered those tomato plants.

It reminded me of how nice it is to work in the garden in the evening. As we got to the last plant, the dusk was giving way to darkness and the haze that had rolled in while we worked had turned the air into a blanket of moisture. Glad to have finished right as the plants started turning wet from the haze, we packed up and headed home. \

Botanically speaking, rhubarb is a vegetable, but a clever New York court decreed in 1947 that, since we use it like a fruit, we should call it a fruit. This suits me fine, since it means that even in Vermont (where we won’t have fresh local strawberries until late June at best) we can expect the first fruit of the season in May.

Some long time ago, my grandfather put a patch of rhubarb out behind the farmhouse. It grew next to an old shed still affectionately referred to as the chicken house, in the shade of a big thorn tree. I grew up eating the stuff — in the summer my cousins and I would pull big stalks off the plant and dip the ends in sugar, gnawing off big puckery bites and going back for more. As far back as I can remember, we young’ns were the only ones who ever picked it.

The chicken house came down a few years back, and this year the thorn tree finally stuck the wrong person and was cut into firewood, but the rhubarb patch is still there and thriving. When we visited my family last week I took the opportunity to harvest a couple of pounds. I can’t wait to move somewhere with a little bit of land, so I can take a division of that prolific plant.

Last week I broke out the canner and made a simple batch of rhubarb jam. It’s exciting to have something fresh in the pantry, and to already have something to show for this season: the first fruits of spring, all saved up in a jar.

(That hat, by the way? We picked it up on our visit to Hancock Shaker Village — another fixture of my childhood.)

We’re ready. And by “ready,” I mean relatively prepared for all the successes and failures that make up a farming life.

When we moved to Vermont just over a year ago, there wasn’t much we were sure of. We knew that we had work, from mid-April through October, at an organic vegetable farm; we knew we had an affordable apartment with a month-to-month lease; we knew we had each other. Beyond that, a lot of things were up in the air.

For starters, I didn’t know for certain that I would even like farming. I had a hunch that I would, but then I’d also once had a hunch that I’d really like haggis (and I’ll just let you guess how that one turned out). I knew that it would be hard work, and that my wimpy citified muscles and never-leave-home-without-it inhaler were a liability. There was a pretty good chance that I would stink at farm work. Could I hack it?

We also had no idea how long we’d be staying in Vermont. When the season was over, would we be able to find other work? Would we even want to stay in this area? Where would we go next?

The season came and went, and it was as hard as I expected. But I made it through, proved a valuable member of the team (most days), learned so much I felt like I was in grad school, and oh hey — I loved it. I won’t say I loved every minute of it, because there were some minutes that felt like torture. Like, for example, the many hundreds of minutes that we spent planting onions in the unseasonably cold, wet New England spring. Overall, though, it was a good experience, and that good experience has led us to the next step.

We’re looking for a little plot of land of our own.

We’re not looking to buy property right now. Our finances are such that five years ago, someone would’ve certainly tried to sell us on one of those infamous adjustable rate mortgages; now most bankers would probably look at us and laugh. We’re doing respectably well, and might even qualify for a USDA-funded loan, but we see no sense in rushing into a purchase that might not be exactly what we need.

Instead, we’re looking into leasing opportunities in the areas we’d most like to live and work. We’re putting together a business plan, investigating niche markets, and preparing want-ads for local papers. We’re scanning the agricultural internet for opportunities that fit our needs.

Cian, ever the realist, is anxious that I not get my heart set on having our own land to work by next spring, but then he had the same concerns a year and a half ago when we were looking for somewhere to apprentice. I have phenomenal luck and a knack for landing in just the right place, with a little help from friends and providence. So here it is, the official announcement: we’re looking for our Ten Acres Enough, and I just know we’re going to find it.

A co-worker let me know that he was waiting out front for me. I met him and he gave specific instructions, “grab a paper bag, come out to the car, put the jar in the paper bag before you go back inside.”

Only a week before I had become aware of this scraggly looking man who brought contraband here at the same day and time every week. The street goes from being empty to peopled to empty again following the station wagon that brings this contraband. This dangerous, illegal substance that is sold out of the back of an old car?

It’s raw milk.

That’s it. That’s why all the discretion and concerns of who sees me make the exchange and that he parks on the opposite side of the street from the small grocery. The fact that everyone slips him cash as he hands over a nondescript paper bag.

What’s funny is that in Vermont, raw milk is legal to buy directly from the farmer. It’s never allowed to be just purchased at a farmer’s market (or out of a car trunk), though- pre-purchased deliveries and on-farm direct sales are legal if the farmer registers with the state and follows the regulations set by the state. The thing that he does that’s illegal is direct sales out of his trunk, likely because he can’t afford to build a new barn to the specifications required for certification. They likely require, among other things, that the hand-washing sink is not in the same room as the milk processing, so that you can clean your hands before and after sanitizing the processing room… outside of the room.

If we were in New Hampshire, raw milk sales would be legal on the farm, through home delivery, from a milk pasteurization plant (I really don’t understand this one), or at a boarding house if the milk is produced on premises and there is a sign announcing that the milk served is raw. That sounds like outdated legislation to me.

In New York it’s legal to sell raw milk if the sales are done on-farm and the farm is registered as a raw milk dairy with the state. In Massachusetts individual towns get to decide whether or not raw milk sales are legal. In Washington DC and some 17 or so states, raw milk sales are illegal under all circumstances. Five more states allow raw milk to be sold as pet food, but not for human consumption. Some other states require “cow shares,” which mean that the people are not purchasing milk, but accepting the portion of the milk that is fair based on their partial ownership of the cow.

More organizations are being vocal about how raw milk sales can be an integral part of small farms- allowing the farms to become more viable and more sustainable. It’s also considered a health food- many lactose intolerant adults (myself included) can tolerate raw milk, likely because it contains the killed-by-pasteurization microbes that help the body break down lactose.

The main argument against raw milk sales is that raw milk is risky due to it’s microbial activity. With healthy cows and clean equipment, the risk of infection due to raw milk consumption is very low. For anyone unhappy with the risk- the corner store will continue to offer industrial farms’ homogenized, pasteurized milk, even if it becomes legal in New Jersey, Delaware, Hawaii, and Iowa (among other states) to put raw milk for sale alongside.

Recent news on raw milk: USA Today

One of the joys of seasons is that in the fall, when the mercury dips to 48 degrees, we rush to don sweaters and scarves and complain of the chill; in the spring, when the forecast calls for a 48 degree day, we pull the tee-shirts out of our closets with mad glee and dash outside to soak up all the vitamin D our poor, sun-starved bodies can manage.

All winter long, pedestrians stare responsibly down at their own feet, avoiding snow banks, puddles, and patches of ice. You know it’s spring in New England when passersby once again begin to meet eyes and smile. This urge for human contact is stronger in spring than any other time of year, and the exchanged look is acknowledgment of a shared secret: we may be fully-grown adults now, but these first few days of spring still make us want to play hopscotch, or ditch class, or at the very least eat lunch outside.

Everywhere around us we see signs of spring. We hear the peepers at night, calling to each other to come out and play. We see the first shoots of daffodils and crocuses, poking their little green heads out of the ground. Canada geese reverse their arrow and point north once again. Trees begin to blossom, and on campuses across the northeast, college students park themselves on sparse plots of grass to sunbathe in as little clothing as they can bear.

Some part of me goes into hibernation each winter; I exist in survival mode, by putting my head down and pushing, emotionlessly, through the cold and the wet and the absolute dearth of sunlight. I speak no more than I have to and I go out of my way for no one, as though I’m trying to conserve my energy for what’s left of the long New England winter. Last week the temperature reached a whole 48 degrees and I, overdressed in a sweater and a light jacket, made small-talk with a stranger on a street corner. As he walked away I realized: this is my sign of spring.

I’m not just of Irish heritage, I’m of Irish Catholic heritage. Also Italian Catholic heritage. That means that even though I haven’t been a practicing Catholic in over a decade, I still think about Lent. And Lent, as anyone reading will likely not know, started last Wednesday after a night of meat eating for most and debauchery for a few. It continues until after the Easter vigil on April 3rd if you’re anxious to get back to what you’ve given up, or when you wake up on April 4th if you’re like my family (“No, you are not allowed to eat a creme egg. You have to wait until tomorrow!”).

For what would now be considered a traditional Lenten Fast is also a simplified meal plan started and ended with a day of true fasting. What is usually done is to have a small breakfast, a small lunch, and a sensible dinner, with no snacks between. There were at least some years where my father drank only water during Lent.

What I’m encouraging my family and friends to engage this year is not just to eat less food, but also to eat better food. Give up high fructose corn syrup (especially if you’re already giving up soda). Give up canned goods if you can afford to do so. Bake your own bread for the 7 weeks or eat whole wheat. Use the time you spend in the kitchen contemplating history, contemplating simplicity, contemplating the body and soul that you have and are choosing to nurture by filling it with natural foods.

And then after what, at least within my family, will be a ridiculous amount of chocolate and cursing (the two big things they abstain from) on Easter Sunday, this diet, or some semblance thereof, will likely no longer feel like abstention. It might just feel like good, real food.

We received a copy of this book — an original edition, no less — as a gift from friends last week. I found this passage especially lovely:

There is no home like the farm home. And with the incomparable charm of rural home life comes the infinite pleasure of creative effort and the exhilaration of contending with nature and winning bread from the bare ground. There are a constancy and a stability about it all. There is something to build on, something to look forward to in the years to come. [. . . ] Some people in the cities have an idea that farm work is not an “elevating” occupation, but I want to say to you, my friends, with all the earnestness of which I am capable, that agriculture is one of the most dignified employments in which a man can engage.

-Edward Owen Dean, Opportunities in Farming

The federal animal-tracking program NAIS would have been a disaster for small-scale farmers and homesteaders; the grassroots No-NAIS movement turned it into a PR nightmare for the USDA. Last week, Ag Sec’y Tom Vilsack proposed a new, more flexible program. Read on for details.

A NAIS history lesson

Way back in the day, some people at USDA dreamed up NAIS — a National Animal Identification System. While the intention — track disease, protect farms with good practices and hold others accountable– may have been noble, NAIS was the farming equivalent of “using a hatchet where you need a scalpel” (as a certain President might put it). NAIS would have required farmers, homesteaders and even pet owners to register their animals with the government, tag them, track and report their movements (across state borders, not around the farm), and submit yearly paperwork and fees.

The expense of the fees and tagging equipment would have driven many small farmers out of business. Others would have chosen to operate illegally under the radar. Beyond the expense, there was a principle at stake: Small producers were being punished for Big Ag’s bad behavior, and the effect would be to drive what little competition feedlot farms have out of business.

And there’s also that whole government-oversight thing. I bet you can guess how most farmers feel about that.

NAIS first came on the scene in Spring of 2005 and was supposed to be fully implemented by now, but USDA began backing off (thanks to major grassroots opposition) as early as April, 2006. Last week, USDA announced that NAIS is dead in the water, and a new program is slated to take its place.

Animal Disease Traceability Framework

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack proposed a new program to replace NAIS. Here are some basics of the proposal:

• After the Feds work with states to create a minimum standard, the details and administration of the program will be left to individual states. Records will also be owned and maintained at the state, rather than the federal, level.
• Only producers whose animals will be moved in “interstate commerce” will be subject to the new framework. Homesteaders and most small farmers will be exempt, including those selling live animals at local markets.
• Whereas NAIS required the use of expensive and excessive electronic chip identifiers, states will decide what forms of ID are officially required under the new framework. Visual tags and brands will be an acceptable possibility.
• Much of the $120 million already spent on NAIS paid for elements that will be useful under the new framework as well — IT infrastructure, for example, and NAIS electronic tags that have already been implemented under the voluntary program.

You can read more details at USDA’s Animal Disease Traceability site. USDA hopes to issue a proposed rule for the federal minimum requirements next winter, at which time they’ll offer a 90-day comment period. No need to wait until then to make your opinion heard, though — get in touch with your state veterinarian [pdf] to let them know what you think of the new proposed framework.

In college the first big snowfall was when I decided to put my bicycle into hibernation. It’s not that I didn’t want to ride, but having tried to ride the bike across campus (to an indoor, caged location) was a comedic event. The tires just couldn’t cut through the snow and find any asphalt. Besides, I thought, no one else was out on their bicycles anymore.

After college I lived in a city, a real city, where it didn’t snow too much too often and the asphalt held the sun’s warmth for weeks of cloudy weather. Where it was safer, or at least it seemed so, to bike in the winter than to walk. The first time it snowed I realized how safe it was for me to be able to feel the control the tires had through my feet. If I started slipping, I could feel it.

Now I’m in a town that is not particularly bike friendly, where the snow doesn’t disappear the day after it falls. And I’ve decided to stay on the bicycle during the winter. The difference is that here, where the windchill on the way home from work can dip below 0°F, I need to be wearing a facemask and goggles.

There are a few important things to remember about winter biking, aside from the proper attire. Believe me, if you don’t wear enough clothes, you’ll know it. The other things have to do with caring for your bike. The salt and grime that end up on the underside of your car also end up on your bike. It’s important to frequently clean off your bike. A damp cloth is usually enough. Also, it’s important to have the right kind of lubricant- one that can handle cold and wet conditions- and to use it liberally and frequently. That salt and grime? Yeah, definitely not something that you want mucking up your gears.

If it’s icy or you’re concerned about traction, it’s ok to let a little air out of your treaded mountain bike tires. This will give you more surface contact, which is better for icy conditions. If you’re in an area that’s always got ice during the winter months, invest in one (for your front tire) or two studded tires.

If you have a road bike, the thin tires may help you more during snow than my mountain bike tires do. They can cut through, rather than floating on top of, the white fluffy stuff. This will likely work to your benefit provided there isn’t an ice skating rink below the layer of powder. So if you’re riding on 700c’s be careful in spring as the thawing and freezing often leaves a layer of ice behind.

You’ll end up going pretty slow in fresh snow, but being able to experience the snowfall and the crunching beneath your wheels will more than make up for the extended commute. Biking is the most beautiful way to experience a snowy night.