Delicious Raw Milk from Rawl's Cows

On the northeast side of Rawl's milking barn was the "milkhouse."  The milkhouse was a separate, extra clean room where the milk was stored.  It was also the place where all of the milking equipment was washed and sanitized.  The milk came into the milk room through sealed, stainless steel milk lines (pipes).  The milk was received into a roughly five gallon glass jar, then pumped through a filter into a 500 gallon DeLaval bulk milk tank, where it was immediately cooled to 34 degrees.  In the bulk tank was a paddle that stirred the milk to ensure that it was uniformly cold.  Additionally, the paddle stirred the unhomogenized raw milk to keep the butterfat mixed into the milk.  If raw cows milk is not stirred, the butterfat rises to the top of the milk.

Ever since reading the chapter in The Have-More Plan on keeping a family cow, I was intrigued and interested in trying some fresh cows milk.  Growing up, we mostly drank reconstituted powdered milk, not the most delicious kind of milk.  Powdered milk was less expensive than the alternatives.  One day while helping Rawl, I was brave enough to ask him if I could have a taste of milk, fresh from the cows.  He opened up the top of his bulk tank and dipped a clean stainless steel cup into the tank retrieving a full glass of milk for me.  I tasted it and was pleasantly surprised.  The milk was sweeter and creamier than any milk I had tasted before.  One glass and I was hooked.  The milk was fresh, raw, unhomogenized milk from pastured dairy cows.

Having become enthralled by the taste of the milk, I wondered whether or not Rawl would let me keep a cow at his farm so I could produce fresh milk for my family.  Rawl told me that if I got a good stainless steel milk can that I could take milk from his bulk tank for my family - free of charge.  That was a great deal.  I was able to take milk home for my family for several years.  We had a one gallon glass jar in the fridge at home in which we would store the milk.  The cream would separate and we would ladle it off to put on our oatmeal or other hot cereal.  This was good stuff.  Sometimes people worry about the safety of raw milk.  In the roughly eight years I brought milk home to my family no one ever got sick from the raw milk.  We thrived on it.

If you are going to produce or drink raw milk, cleanliness is imperative.  Rawl's milk would be tested every tankful by the milk cooperative that bought his milk.  The county health inspector would test the milk every month.  These tests would include several things, but the key tests of importantance for milk quality are related to bacteria counts and leucocyte counts.  Three different bacteria counts were regularly performed, a raw count, a pasteurized count, and a coliform count.  For each of the tests, the milk was incubated for 24 hours to allow the number of bacteria to multiply.  While the results varied somewhat over time, Rawl's raw count was typically between 1,000 and 2,000 per milliliter.  The pasteurized count was typically between 100 and 200 per milliliter.  The coliform count was typically zero.  Those results were excellent.  Typical Grade A milk had a raw count of about 20,000 per milliliter and a pasteurized count of about 1,000 per milliliter.  Rawl's results were excellent due to careful milk handling and sanitation practices we followed.  Rawl's coliform count was typically zero.  A coliform count of zero means that there was no manure contamination.  If you have ever been around cows, you may understand why zero manure contamination is no small feat.  

Comparatively speaking, if you grab a gallon of milk off the shelf at the store, the bacteria count will be approximatley 3,500 per milliliter, using the same test procedures.  In reality, Rawl's raw milk had lower bacteria counts than the pasteurized milk you buy off the shelf in the store.  Lastly, leucocyte counts represent the amount of white blood cell counts in the milk.  Rawl almost always had excellent scores in the 100,000 range.  This indicated that his cows' udder health was good - no mastitis.

I could make this a treatise about the cautions and benefits of good raw milk, but much has already been written about that by others.  If I could choose the milk that I would feed my family, it would be well-produced and handled, raw, grass-fed, unhomogenized, organic milk.  You can't find it in the store in many states.  Where you can find it, it is typically about three to four times the cost of conventionally raised milk, which meets none on my criteria.  Good milk is a wonderful tasting, health promoting product.... my mind slips back to that first glass of milk from Rawl's bulk tank--refreshing!

Hauling Hay and the Value of Pasture

As a ten year old, I was ill-equipped to haul hay.  The small bales of hay weighed as much, and sometimes more than I did with the bales weighing in at 70-90 pounds.  I watched the "men" haul the hay for the first couple of years I worked for Rawl.  When I was 12, I was asked to drive the tractor in the field while the others picked up the bales and stacked them on the wagon towed behind the tractor.  I felt like a king driving the tractor, particularly the John Deere 3020 that Rawl had.  I had to grab onto the hand hold in the fender as well as by the steering wheel as I pulled myself up to the driving platform and seat.

From atop the tractor I could see the hard work, picking up the bales, walking them over to the wagon and either putting them on the wagon or pushing them up in the air onto the stack as the wagon got full.  Usually two people would pick up bales and bring them to the wagon while one person carefully stacked the bales on the wagon.  Stacking the bales on the wagon required both muscle and finesse.  The worst thing ever would be for the stack to fall apart as you drove down the road or pulled in to the barnyard.  The stack on the wagon had to be sturdy enough to endure bumps in the road, braking the tractor, and the steep downhill and uphill slopes encountered when maneuvering the tractor from the hay field to the barn or stacking area.

By the time I was 13, I was strong enough to begin to help hauling hay.  It was fulfilling to know that I had reached that level of masculinity (try not to laugh).  I even tried hauling hay without my shirt on.  That was a bad choice.  I don't recommend that.  The hay, primarily alfalfa, was unforgiving as it gouged my skin and made me bleed.  The pollen from the hay would get onto my skin and in the scratches and made my skin welt up.  My suggestion:  keep your shirt on.

Hauling hay was hard work.  It was physical and exhausting.  We would haul hay from right after breakfast at about 9:00, to milking time at 4:00.  We would take a quick break for lunch as well.  By the end of the day, I was ready to crawl into bed at 8:00.  Rawl had 13-20 acres of hay, depending on the year.  The hay yielded 5-7 tons to the acres, over three cuttings.  We hauled roughly 50-60 tons of hay each year with the first cutting in early June, the second cutting in mid July, and the last cutting in mid to late August.  These were hot and sweaty times of the year.

While stacking the hay on the wagon was important, stacking in the barn or yard was at least as important.  We would put roughly 60-70 bales on a wagon, but we would put 2,500 bales in the barn. The stack had to be built well so it didn't fall down during the time is was stored in the barn.  The stacks got 20-30 feet high with the use of a hay conveyor.  Careful building was required.  Rawl "taught" me several times how to build as stack before I gained a good understanding and became proficient.

One day, after hauling hay, but right before milking time, Rawl said to me that pasture is really where he made the money that he made on the farm.  I was puzzled.  "Why is that?" I asked.  He said, he didn't have to pay anyone to harvest the pasture because the cows harvested the pasture themselves.  I thought that was interesting, but didn't see that what he paid people to haul hay as very much.  What I didn't consider was all of the equipment, fuel, repairs, maintenance, storage space, etc. that he had to pay for to harvest hay.  Is was worse for corn silage.  On pasture the cows fed themselves, and spread fertilizer while they fed themselves.  It would be years before I realized the simple genius of this concept.

Rawl had earned a special award from the Soil Conservation District for his pasture management.  I didn't get the idea.  It seemed to me that Rawl was a little backwards.  After all, it seemed like no one else still pastured their dairy cows.  I thought Rawl was a little old fashioned.  I thought it was okay, but it seemed to me he was a little behind the times.  I had no idea how far ahead of the curve he was.  Rawl practiced what is commonly called "strip grazing."  In effect, this is a special kind of "Management Intensive Grazing" (MIG), where you give the cows just what they need to meet their daily nutritional requirements well, but not enough so that they spoiled any of it.  This strip grazing allowed the grass to be harvested cleanly by the cows, but then given a rest of about five weeks to recover and grow before it was again harvested by the cows.  This allowed for more nutrient dense feed to be managed in a way that suppressed weeds, prevented soil erosion, built organic matter, improved butterfat yield, improved cow health and all other manner of fantastical things.  Rawl was decades ahead of other dairy or beef farmers on this issue.  Even today, forty years later, many still have not learned the lessons Rawl had learned and put into practice.

I have learned much more about the concepts and science behind MIG over the past 10-15 years.  I hope to be able to implement what Rawl knew and practiced as well as other elements of MIG and other biological farming processes that could make it even better.  Rawl was a good mentor in teaching me about pastures and the value it brought to the farm.

As I look back and think, would I rather cut the hay, rake the hay, bale the hay, haul the hay, stack the hay, feed the hay, clean up the manure, and spread the manure; or would I rather move a single wire in the field and let the cows take care of all that.  I will choose the pasture when it is possible.  I will also be prepared to deal with the hay while trying hard to let the cows do the work as often as is possible.  Simple is good.  Let the cows be cows.  Use human management to help the cows help, rather than harm the environment.

The "Farm" in West Farmington

One of the things that created a strong set of impressions and experiences in my young mind was the "Farm" in West Farmington that my parents and aunt and uncle bought.  I don't recall the year exactly, but I'm willing to say it was 1974 +/- a year.  Now this farms was no ordinary farm.  It was a one acre parcel that had only fair soil, but also had pressurized irrigation on tap right at the front gate.  This is where some of my key gardening, livestock, and farm experiences were based.  On this farm, we grew big gardens, pigs, raspberries and worms.  We had very interesting construction type projects where we built a small pole barn and we drilled a well with a DeepRock well drilling rig.  In many ways, this was a place of dabbling with my ideas from The Have-More Plan.

When I was roughly 12 years old my parents and my aunt and uncle pooled their resources and bought an acre in West Farmington.  The soil was heavy clay and was on the alkaline side of the spectrum.  It was probably less than two miles from the shore of the Great Salt Lake.  The texture of the clay soil was very similar to what I find in Western Oregon where I live today.

I recall several different gardens we grew on this property.  The first year, I remember witnessing and participating in the process of roto-tilling roughly half of the one acre.  That was a big garden.  The spacing was generous.  I recall growing tomatoes, potatoes, corn, more squash that we could shake a stick at, onions, and carrots.  There were probably other things as well, but that is what I recall.  I recall my uncle's father teaching me how to plant corn without a corn planter.  He would take a shovel, push in into the ground a few inches, push the shovel forward, and place two seeds behind the shovel about two inches deep, then pull the shovel out.  I recall the hard work it took weeding the garden and the abundance of the harvest.  In many instances, we harvested way more than we used.  After I was out of college, one summer we lived in Farmington.  I managed the garden.  We grew lot of stuff.  I was in charge, so felt responsible to make sure things were cared for properly.  It was a rewarding experience.  In the fall we harvested dozens of pumpkins that we companion cropped with the sweet corn.  In our little garage, we had probably three dozen pumpkins that we used for Halloween, gave away, and ultimately threw many away.

The second year after we got the farm, I somehow convinced my Dad to get a couple of pigs.  We built a pig pen, after the style and idea from The Have-More Plan.  We got the pigs and fed them extras from our garden, pig weeds (that is a real name), and feed from Smith's Feed on Main Street in Bountiful.  One experience we had was attempting to take the pigs to the Davis County Fair to be a display of sorts.  The pigs were not cooperative and were chased around and around and around, until they were finally corralled back in their pen.  Needless to say, they never made it to the fair.  The water that we had was the pressurized irrigation water that was turned off at the beginning of October.  So we had a tight timeline to raise the pigs to harvest weight.  One of the neighbors down in West Farmington ran a portable abattoire, so he took care of the harvest.  I recall eating the excellent ham and bacon.  My Dad commented, "This is the best ham I have ever eaten!"  And so it is with well raised meat.

My Dad often tried to figure out how to generate a supplemental income using the resources he had available.  One effort was to raise earthworms.  He had several beds of earthworms that he would grow and multiply, and harvest.  The earthworm beds included feeding the earthworms lots of prepared organic matter, including what I recall was primarily horse manure and chopped hay.  Over the years, these beds became highly fertile, much different than the surrounding soils.  I remember helping my Dad with some of the worm bed feeding and preparation.  Ultimately the worm beds turned into a valuable place to grow raspberries.

During my college years, my Dad, some of my brothers, and friends grew an acre of raspberries on the Farm.  I did a fair amount of financial and market analysis to see if it would make sense.  It appeared to make sense.  We installed irrigation and trellising.  We planted an acre of raspberries.  We kept it weeded and fertilized.  The second year and beyond we harvested raspberries.  We were harvesting roughly 10 flats of raspberries, six days a week for about four weeks, starting in mid-June.  The harvest time was chaotic.  The berries needed to be picked early in the morning as they became softer in the heat.  We had to cool the berries as best as we could in a couple of refrigerators we had.  We would take and fill orders in the Farmington area.  I recall dealing with customer complaints and praises.  Ultimately, the raspberry project was a great project that taught me a lot about small farm entrepreneurship.  As I moved away and others got busy, the berry bushes became chopped organic matter that added fertility to the Farm.

The Farm was an experimental plot for me.  I had many hands on experiences there.  Some meeting with success, and some becoming learning experiences in failure.  In part, it was experiences at the Farm that gave me confidence to experiment and know that I could succeed in gardening and farm endeavors.

If I look at Google Earth, I now see that there is a big house on the Farm with a small horse barn and horse training/exercise ring out back.  It doesn't appear to me that there are any food crops on the farm.  That makes me a little sad.

Watering Corn for Rawl

When I started working for Rawl, I was a wee lad of 10 years old.  For a couple of years, I fed calves, cleaned stalls, brought the cows in from the pasture to be milked, and sometimes fed the cows hay in the evening.  When I was 12 years old, I started to grow and became more physically capable.  Rawl asked me if I would like to help him water (irrigate) his corn that he was raising for silage.  The silage was winter feed for the cows.  He told me he would pay me extra during the summer for help with this.  I was excited to become more useful and more fully integrated into the overall farming operation.

Now watering corn wasn't turning on some sprinkling system like a center pivot or a big gun sprinkler.  The type of corn watering I did was like 19th century technology stuff.  It was hard work that required attention to detail.  We used ditches, shovels, rocks, and the most high tech stuff of all was old, empty corn seed bags to act as dams.

The corn needed watering from roughly mid-June through the end of August.  Rain was scarce and pretty much inconsequential in Utah.  In the Farmington, the average annual rainfall was high for Utah, at about 18 inches a year.  The summer saw maybe two inches of rain.  To put that in perspective, corn needs about two inches of rain a week to thrive.  This is the type of rain that certain areas of the midwest receive that allows them to grow corn without irrigation.

During the summer, after morning chores were completed at about 8:00, I would run home for a quick breakfast.  I would pack up my ice water jug and head to one of three or four corn fields Rawl had.  I would ride my bike to two of the fields or walk to two other fields.  The highly coveted irrigation water would be available in the ditch.

I would use my shovel, rocks, and paper bags to create a diversion and a dam in the ditch to bring the water to the tops of the corn rows which had furrows between them.  I would use my shovel to place little rocks in the water path to regulate the amount of water flowing down each furrow.  The goal was to get water in all of the rows from the top of the row to the bottom of the row at about the same time.  This required the initial set up of the water turn and constant monitoring to see if each row needed more or less water from the top.  Much of the time was just watching and checking.  Watering corn also gave a lot of time for having a wandering mind, thought, and contemplation.  Sometimes when things were going well, it allowed for a short little nap under a tree in the shade.  I would try to get a good stable set at about 1:30 or 2:00, then make a mad dash for home to get some lunch.  Then I would race right back.

Each water turn typically took about 90 minutes.  That is how long it took to get the water from the top of the rows to the bottom.  I typically had enough water to do about ten rows at a time.  The field sizes were between four and ten acres.  Usually, it would take two days to water most of the fields.  I would water corn Monday through Saturday.  Rawl gave me Sunday off from watering corn.  I really, really looked forward to that Sunday.  To me, it truly was a day of rest.

Rawl typically had about 20-25 acres of corn for silage.  That amount of corn would feed Rawl's cows corn silage from about October to April, when they were off of the pasture.

As the corn grew, I had to walk the rows to make sure I could see where the water was and to repair any furrow damage that resulted from the water washing over from one furrow to another.  Ultimately the corn would grow to about eight feet tall, with pollen covered tassles at the top.  The pollen would drop all over me and get in my shirt.  At times my skin would welt up because of the pollen.  Generally that was my least favorite part.

Watering corn was "teenager" work.  I was glad to be viewed as a teenager and able to contribute more to Rawl's modest dairy farm.  Watering corn was not all fun and games.  It was hard work.  It was hot, sweaty, and sometimes frustrating.  It was also very satisfying when I got the end of the summer and we had a good corn harvest.

Living Self Sufficiently in the Space Where You Live

That horse-drawn corn planter sent me on a quest that was quite expansive for my young mind.  I've spent literally weeks, months, maybe years of my life trying to understand how a family could live self-sufficiently inside of a defined property boundary. How could a family realistically provide for all of its needs from the place in which the family lives, without degrading the resources and without importing resources?

Providing food and energy, mostly energy for heat and on-farm motive power, were my primary focus for years of thinking.  Having read The Have-More Plan and having worked on Rawl's farm, my thoughts turned to growing food and the inputs required to grow it and cook it.  Also, living in Utah, with the cold winters, the idea of keeping warm was high on my list.

Rawl was an innovative farmer for his time.  It would take me many years to figure out just how innovative he was.  That said, he farmed conventionally at the core.  He imported a fair amount of fertility.  His primary fertility imports were nitrogen in the forms of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate.  He used these inputs for both corn and pasture, as well as for grass fields that he harvested as hay.  He didn't use those inputs on the alfalfa hay fields because alfalfa was a legume that had the capability of fixing its own nitrogen.  Rawl actually limited the importation of nitrogen because he regularly used the manure of his 40-50 cows on his corn, hay, and pasture fields.  Rawl effectively used his on farm resources.  As a young lad, I saw Rawl importing fertility and wondered what one would have to do so that it was unnecessary to import fertility.

I also saw Rawl use biocides (herbicides and pesticides) on a limited basis.  I saw him use herbicides on a limited basis in his corn fields to limit weed competition beyond what basic cultivation was capable of doing.  I also recall one time when he used pesticides on his corn field.  He had planted corn in one of his lower fields.  The corn emerged normally.  When it was between six and twelve inches tall, corn borer went through the field and ate of almost all of the little corn stalks just below the surface.  I recall looking at the field, seeing all of the little corn stalks falling over.  When I picked up the little corn stalks to see what was wrong, there were no roots attached.  Rawl used a corn borer pesticide on the field and replanted the corn.  Additionally in very limited places in the pastures, Rawl used the ubiquitous 2-4-D (non-selective broadleaf plant killer) to kill of primarily cockleburs and wild roses.  It did not kill the grass in the pastures, only the broadleaf weeds.  I believe in the eight years I worked for him, he used 2-4-D three or four times in one pasture.  As I saw this, my mind went to the idea of how one could farm without the use of these off-farm inputs, biocides.  Only later in life would I begin to question the harm that biocides could have on humans, domesticated animal (farm stock like cows), and the food/soil web on the farm.

I wondered if it were possible to grow food without bringing in fertilizer.  Could a family just use manure?  Could you raise enough feed for livestock without importing fertilizer?  What about compost?  Did that somehow magically create fertility that wasn't already there?  Could you grow your own fertilizer?  Could you raise food that didn't need biocides?  I recalled the Hughs family down the road.  They had an apple orchard.  They sprayed their apples on a regular schedule.  Was it possible to grow apples without biocides.  I liked apples and applesauce.  I thought farmers of 100 years prior did not have ammonium sulfate or biocides.  How did they live?  I recall from a junior high history class that one of the reasons why farmers kept moving west from the east coast was because they kept using up or burning up the soil.  They would use all of the fertility.  Yet somehow that land grew trees, nuts, berries, and grass for thousands of years without any ammonium sulfate or 2-4-D.  I wondered how that could be.

Also, I thought if a family was going to raise food, they would need to plow the land and haul stuff.  I reasoned that a family would need horses to do that work.  Horses ate pasture, hay, and grain.  Pasture and hay were relatively straight forward to grow with horse motive power, but grain was not.  You needed specialized equipment to harvest grain.  I reasoned that perhaps we could use a scythe to reap the grain, but was about threshing it?  I wondered if horses really needed grain, or if they could just eat really good hay and pasture.  The wild horses didn't eat any grain.  Why would a farm horse have to eat grain if they had good hay and pasture?

Foods matured in season.  In Utah, there was a long, cold winter where no food was produced.  I saw my Mom can fruits and put away grains for storage.  We froze meat and vegetables for storage.  We even canned green beans for storage and made pickles.  My Dad put in a small root cellar on the south west side of the house to store potatoes and carrots for winter.  Working on the farm, I imagined having a milk cow.  I raised chickens.  We raised hogs.  We raised a big garden at times as well.  We did these things, yet we still went to the store.  We still had to go get food from elsewhere.  How could a family raise all of its own food, inside the boundaries of the place where they lived?

We didn't raise our own firewood.  We would buy it.  That bothered me.  How could a family raise its own firewood to keep warm during the winter and cook with year around?  I decided a family would have to dedicate part of its land to growing firewood.   One of the questions was how much land it would take to grown enough firewood for the family energy needs.

Over the years, the questions would pile up, becoming more and more complicated and esoteric.  Questions would arise about building materials, electricity, transportation, clothing, household chemicals, manufactured consumer goods, etc. Was it sensible to raise extra food and export it outside of the boundaries of the family property to obtain other goods not easily derived from the family farm?  If you exported food and its associated nutrients and fertility, would you have to import the same amount of nutrients in another form to replace them?  What about water for both domestic and farm use?  The list of questions would go on and on...  Gradually, sensible answers started to come into place.  Those questions and answers have helped me frame a conceptual design for a farm that would provide for my family in a relatively closed-loop fashion, inside the boundaries of where we live.

The idea of living inside of a defined boundary and providing for all of ones needs is an ideal.  It is a direction.  I think that a large percentage of what a family needs can be provided within a defined boundary.  I am also quite convinced that the quality of what a family can provide for itself is potentially much higher than like commodity offerings from the lowest cost modes of production.  I also think that humans have used barter and trade to create much enhanced lives.  The questions evolve to how does a family utilize the resources inside of the boundaries of its space to be as self-sufficient as possible and to live the healthiest, most joyful life possible?

The web of considerations have grown exponentially over the years, providing fodder for thought, design, development of ideals, and ultimately pragmatism.  I still have much to learn through experience that will help me move directionally towards answers that make sense.

The Horse Drawn Corn Planter

At the top of Rawl's farm property, two driveways descended sharply to the west into the barn yard.  The milk room and milking barn were towards the top of the property, just below Rawl's small orchard.  The baby calf barn and hay barn were next, followed by the cow yard, silo, and feed bunker.  Towards the bottom of the barn yard, and off to the north a bit was Rawl's "older calf" pen and shelter, which housed the calves which were roughly three to nine months of age.  In one corner of the older calf shelter was an old green and yellow horse drawn corn planter.  I don't know if it was a John Deere or an Oliver corn planter, but I suspect it was a John Deere.  This corn planter and the OPEC oil embargo of '72-73 created a problem in my mind that I was determined to solve.

Having witnessed the impact of the OPEC oil embargo, first hand, as a ten year old, I was deeply concerned about how countries thousands of miles away could impact my life and the life of my family and fellow Americans so directly.  It was as if they could control much of our fate on a whim.  If they didn't like us, they could refuse to trade or sell oil to us.  That would drive up fuel prices, fertilizer prices, and other prices of items that depended on fuel for delivery.  I wondered what would happen if the oil stopped flowing.  What if there were no more oil for farming?  What if there were no more oil for automobiles?  What if there were no more oil for delivery trucks or the milk truck which came every other morning to pick up fresh milk from Rawl's farm?

As I observed the old, unused, horse-drawn corn planter, I came to the conclusion that at least Rawl had a corn planter if we had to go back to using horses for motive power if there were no diesel or gasoline for the tractors.

I didn't think through all of the energy requirements of the farm operation.  But I started to think through the issues.  The farm was old enough that is was quite clear that petroleum and electricity came well after the farm was established and made operational.  I assumed that there must be a way back to farming without dependence on middle-eastern oil producing countries.  I assumed we would be able to bring back horses and use them effectively to farm Rawl's modest farm of roughly 80 acres.

I had little experience with horses at that time.  I had ridden horses a few times, but had never really seen a draft horse or draft mule.  I don't think it was until years later when Budweiser started using Clydesdales in their advertising that I started to grasp the size of the draft horse breeds.  Rawl had never really farmed with horses, but I did not know that at the time.  I know he witnessed the tail end of the horse farming era.  I think he was glad to move on to tractors.  

But the cool thing about the idea of farming with horses is that horses could participate in raising their own energy sources.  They could eat pasture, hay, and maybe grain if they were working hard.  With pasture, they could even eliminate most human intervention.  The horses would not depend on OPEC.  The horses would depend on themselves and on the farmer(s).  That would be both Rawl and I, in my own mind at the time.

I started to wonder if we had gone too far with depending on other people or other countries for providing us with basic needs.  What if we had to take care of ourselves?  I had heard much about the Great Depression from my Grandparents.  What if fuel were rationed?  What if food were rationed?  What if other basic necessities were rationed?  The OPEC oil embargo and the horse-drawn corn planter set my mind in motion on the merits of being self-sufficient.  

Could one take care of himself and his family?  Could someone provide for himself and his family?  Could a community provide for their own needs?  Could a country provide for their own needs?  In short, I started asking the question, "How can someone provide for all of his or her own needs in the space in which they live?"

Job As a Ten Year Old on Rawl's Farm

I had a blast feeding Rawl's calves night after night.  I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have Rawl let me feed his calves.  I enjoyed working with the animals.  I enjoyed taking responsbility for the animals.  Rawl helped correct my feeding of hay and grain to make sure I was not feeding too much or too little.

At the end of a week's feeding of the calves, Rawl came into the calf barn, where I was feeding the calves.  He asked how I liked feed the calves.  He asked if I would be interested in continuing to do it.  He told me that he was busy with his other farming activities, and wondered if I would be willing to continue feeding the calves in the afternoon and morning for the foreseeable future.  I was delighted that he would be willing to let me continue to feed the calves.  The next question was stunning to me.  He asked me if I would work for him.  He told me he was willing to pay me $40 a month to come feed the calves in the afternoon and mornings.  Wow!  I could not believe my luck.  I was head over heels.  Not only would I get to feed the calves, but I would get paid for it as well.

At age 10, I had never had a job before.  I had mowed my parents' lawn for 25 cents, but I had never really earned any kind of substantial discretionary money.  I didn't know how to spend money.   I had a savings account at Davis County Bank.  I had put $5.00 in the account in order to open it..  The whole money thing was a mind swirl for me.  It would take awhile to process.

While I certainly understand Rawl's needing help, what Rawl did for me, in giving me, as a ten year old lad, a chance to take on a significant responsibility and to give me both personal and economic rewards for doing so, was one of the most significant life impacting events of my entire life.  I would learn many things about farming, personal responsibility, animal husbandry, care of animals, kindness, hard work, and a sleep schedule that has never recovered.  Working on Rawl's farm gave me a work ethic that kids today rarely have an opportunity to learn.  Most kids, even when I was young, eschewed responsibilty.  They would rather play and have fun, or sleep in.

Working for Rawl, I learned about hard work.  I learned about being dependable and reliable.  At age ten, for the next couple of years, I would work for about an hour in the mornings and an hour in the late afternoon.  I would get up and go feed the calves before school.  After school, I would go feed the calves as well.  During the summer I would do the same.  I had to be there every morning and every night.  Rawl would give me Sunday night off, which was very kind of him.  As I grew older, bigger, and stronger, I was able to help with field work.  Through most of my junior high school  years and all of my high school years, my summers were full of work.  I would work from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., with an hour break for breakfast and an hour break for lunch.  I would only do that six days a week, resting up on Sunday.

I suspect today that Rawl may have been called out on child labor laws.  I look back and saw the privilege I had to learn, and grow.  I scratch my head when I see current laws that "protect" children from such "exploitation and abuse."  I saw it as a distinct privilege.  I would do it over again.  I wish my kids would have had similar opportunities.

Maybe on Grandpa's Farm, my potential future grandkids or neighbor kids will have an opportunity to learn and grow under my tutelage.  Rawl was an important mentor in my life.  Perhaps I will have the opportunity to pass it on to others.

"Volunteering" to Feed Rawl's Calves

Some time after I went to see Rawl's cows the first time, I started going back again and again and again.  Rawl didn't seem to mind my being around.  I stayed out of the way.  I did what he asked.  I think I asked pretty good questions for a nine or ten year old.  After several days of doing that, he asked me if I would come early one day to help him feed the young calves.  I was pretty excited about that and said, "Yes!"

On the day I went down to feed the calves, at 5:00, Rawl mixed up milk replacer for the calves over four weeks of age.  I actually liked the smell of it pretty well.  It smelled good.  Rawl poured a couple of quarts of milk replacer in a bucket and I would put it in front of the calves that were tied in the calf barn.  The calves would eagerly push their noses deep in the bucket and drink their meal.  It was pretty exciting.  After feeding the calves their milk replacer, I gave them each a good handful of hay.  Rawl showed me how to give each of them grain as well.

After we were done milking the cows, Rawl saved a few gallons of fresh, warm milk to feed to the younger calves.  Rawl had me feed the younger calves out of a bucket with a nipple on it.  It was pretty much the same as bottle feeding the calves, but the nipple was attached to a bucket instead of a bottle.  Rawl told me that his idea was to give the calves a good start on whole milk for the first month before switching them to milk replacer.  Eventually, he would wean them at about three months of age.  I asked him, "If milk is better for them than milk replacer, why do you feed the older calves milk replacer?"  Rawl said, "I sell milk to earn my living.  I lose more money using the milk to feed the calves than it costs me to buy milk replacer to feed the calves.

At three months of age, the calves would get all the hay they would eat, roughly a quart of grain mix a day, and all the water they could drink.  Typically by the time they were about three months of age, the calves would move out of the calf barn, where they were tied, to a small corral for the older calves.  Rawl spent focused time helping me and letting me "help" with the very young stock.  

There was a door between the milking barn and the calf barn that would allow me to get the grain out of the grainary and go in to feed the calves.  The grainary was a big room full of grain mix from Pillsbury, that was delivered about once a month.

I was enthralled with feeding the calves.  I was walking on cloud nine.  After a couple of days of his showing me how to feed the calves, he asked me if I wanted to do it on my own.  Of course I said, "Yes!"  The first day of feeding the calves on my own was a little scary.  Would I do it right?  What if I made a mistake?  Sometimes the calves were pretty aggressive going after their milk or milk replacer.  What if they accidentally hurt me?  When I was ten years of age, the young calves weighed more than I did.  A Holstein calf weighs about 80-85 pounds at birth.  Within a couple of days I was a confident calf feeder.  I was living a dream.  What could be better that feeding Rawl's calves and helping him out?  It was fun.  It was exciting.  It was great.

Visiting Rawl's Cows

One of the chapters in The Have-More Plan was on keeping a family cow.  As a young child, I found myself going back to that chapter repeatedly.  I read the descriptions of the different breeds of cows, including how much milk they gave daily, the butterfat content, and their respective temperments.  I recall asking my Mom what docile meant.  Holsteins were the breed that gave the most milk, with the lowest butterfat content, and a temperment listed as, "docile."  What did that mean?  Was it good or bad?  My Mom was able to help me understand that it meant "calm."  I was fascinated by the idea of a dairy cow, fresh milk, cream that rises that can be made into butter...  There was so much to learn that was beyond the scope of a six page chapter.

We moved to Farmington when I was six.  Down the hill and across the street and a little to the south was Rawl's dairy farm.  Rawl had those black and white Holstein cows.

Over time, I became more and more interested in Rawl's cows.  I wanted to go see them, but I was too afraid, as a child, to go ask Rawl if I could come see his cows.  Rumors amongst the children in the neighborhood were that Rawl didn't like kids.  That made him even more scary.  Eventually, after talking about it over and over again, my Mom called Rawl and asked if I could come see his cows.  Much to my delight, he said, "Yes."

It was late Winter when I went down to see Rawl's cows.  I was nine, almost ten years old.  I recall wearing a jacket because it was chilly.  I went down at 5:00, because that was milking time and I would be able to see the cows up close.  I excitedly walked down the hill to Rawl's barn.  The door was closed, so I knocked on the door, oblivious to the fact that Rawl really couldn't hear my timid knocks.  Eventually, I knocked hard enough that he opened the door.  I walked into the warm barn, heated by all of those cows.  It was amazing.

The smell was actually rather pleasant.  The cows were big.  Rawl told me that the milking barn held 18 cows.  He had a milking machine with three milkers so he could milk three cows at a time.  I was fascinated to see the milkers hanging from the cows udders.  He took me into the milk room where I could see the fresh milk surging into a large glass jar.  I could also see when a pump would click on and move the milk from the jar to the refrigerated tank.  The tank looked huge.  It held 500 gallons, which seemed gigantic to me at the time.

As cows do, some of them pooped and pee'd into the dairy gutter behind them.  I was intrigued by the dairy gutter since there was a picture of a dairy gutter in the dairy goat section of The Have-More Plan.  It held the manure in place, but the urine drained out and disappeared under the wall.  I later learned that it moved the urine out to a pasture.  It was a dream come true.  I got to read about something, then I got to see it first hand.  This became a normal patterm for me over the course of my life.  Read, see, learn.

Sheepishly, as a nine year old, I asked Rawl how he could tell the difference between a cow and a bull.  At that point, somehow I hadn't grasped the concept that in the cow world, only the females lactated and produced milk.  In my mind, I presumed that roughly half of the cows in the barn were females and half were males.  Rawl's response was indicitive of his simple, straight forward answers.  He asked in return, "How do you tell the difference between a boy and a girl?"  I cogitated on that for a minute, and decided it was better not to ask any further questions.  I looked at the cows in the barn and they all looked anatomically similar.  That is because they were.

That visit to see Rawl's cows was a thrilling experience in my young life.  I recall it vividly.  It opened many doors both future experiences and doors in my mind to explore possibilities.  Life was good.

The Fruits of Rose Park

Kids usually prefer fruit over vegetables.  I was no exception.  In Rose Park, we actually had quite a variety of fruits available to tantilize our palates and tempt the fate of parents discovering unsupervised consumption.  We had strawberries, raspberries, apples, apricots, peaches and plums.  One good thing about the variety is that the ripening dates spanned late spring through early fall.  We had sporadic opportunities through the outdoor months to sample the fruits of the backyard.

My favorite fruit from the Rose Park home was raspberries.  As a small child, maybe four years old, my Mom sent me out with a small pail to pick some raspberries.  After 20-30 minutes, she called me to come in.  I had five or six raspberries in my little pail and red stains around my mouth.  "What did you do with the raspberries?" my Mom asked.  I held out the pail, proud that I had picked raspberries for her.  "Oh dear!" she exclaimed.  "You weren't supposed to eat them all!"  I hung my little head, but still loved every one of those delicious berries I accidently popped into my mouth.

The strawberries were just outside of the back porch, on the southeast corner of the glossy green house.  Those strawberries just begged to be picked and eaten as I walked to and from the backyard.  Strawberries were special because they were the first fruit that ripened, a few weeks before the raspberries.  They were small and sweet, very different from the large, crunchy, relatively tasteless strawberries we typically find in the store these days.  It would take me a number of years to understand why those little ones by the back porch tasted so much better than the ones from the store.

The fruit trees provided not only fruit, but trees to climb and scale and to set afire the imaginations of children.  One summer day, before the apples were fully ripe, my brother, Dave, my sister, Penny, and I set out to construct a communication device between the apple tree and the plum tree.  We got two tin cans and used a nail and hammer to punch a hole in the respective can ends.  We used string with a button on the end to connect those cans.  We had heard that the can phones would work better if you rubbed a bar of soap on the string, so we did that.  We had a grand time talking to each other on the can phones.  Even with that fun, I was distracted by the green apples in the tree where I was stationed.  I picked one to eat.  It was hard and sour.  It made me pucker.  I was suprised it wasn't all that delicious.  Penny told me that if I put a little salt on the green apples, they would taste better.  She was right.  I'm still not a fan of green apples.

The fruit from the Rose Park house set me on a course to appreciating and antipicating fresh fruit.  Maybe on my farm, I can pick some fresh raspberries on my way back from the barn to go with my breakfast.

The Rose Park Vegetable Garden

Living in Rose Park as a young child, I learned several things from the vegetable garden in the back corner of the yard.  I learned that planning and planting a garden was almost uncontrollably exciting.  I learned that fresh vegetables were quite yummy.  And little did I know at the time, I learned a bit about appropriate technology that is scale and place appropriate.  In this post, I will explore a bit about each of these topics.

I remember as a young child, the buzz and excitement in the spring as we talked about getting ready to plant the garden.  I remember the discussions between my parents about what to plant and when to plant it.  I remember the idea that we had to get the garden ready to plant.  We talked about early vegetables like radishes and peas.  We talked about tomatoes and growing them to make Grandma Leishman's chili and meat sauces.  I remember talking about sweet corn.  How I loved sweet corn!  I wondered, could we plant the whole garden in sweet corn?!  It was the best!  As I recall of my young childhood memories, the house was abuzz with the prospects of getting out of the winter confines of the house and getting our hands in the dirt so we could plant our garden.  It was exciting to plan and to prepare.  It gave a hope for the new.  It gave hope for the excitement of summer after the cold white and gray winter kept us inside for months on end.  I liked the idea of growing the food that we would eat.  It seemed proper.  It seemed right.  Everyone would want to grown their own food, or so I thought.

One vivid memory I have, which seems quite odd to me as I glance backward now, is a memory of sitting in the garden by the tomato plants and eating green tomato after green tomato.  They were delicious.  I remember sharing these tomatoes with someone.  I don't quite recall whom.  Was it my brother, Tim?  Maybe?  Was it my sister, Penny?  I don't think so, she was too grown up for such antics.  Perhaps was it the little neighbor girl, who was my brother's age?  I think her name was Karen Cannon.  My memory is foggy on that one.  At any rate, I remember being scolded by my parents for eating the tomatoes before they were ripe.  At the same time, I recall their thinking it quite funny that I was eating green tomatoes with gusto and lack of cultural concern for their unapproved coloring.

Other garden foods tasted delicious too.  Carrots from the garden tasted both sweeter and with more of a bite than grocery store carrots.  I wasn't much of a fan of lettuce at that point in my life, but I remember eating some leaf lettuce from the garden.  Sometimes I would cringe at a hole in the leaf a bug had eaten.  Sweet corn was the best, of course.  We didn't have a large garden, but we grew a few ears of sweet corn, enough for a couple of dinners.  Each and every thing was yummy.

I really don't know how large the garden was that we had, by I imagine it being maybe 30 X 50 feet.  This certainly wasn't big enough for a tractor.  We really didn't have access to a roto-tiller either.  The solution was quite common, and reflective of an appropriate technology.  My Dad turned over the garden with a shovel.  One shovelful at a time.  He would step down on the shovel and rock it back.  He would take the shovelful of soil and flip it over and sometimes knock the overturned soil to break up any clumps of dirt.  My Dad let me try.  I felt successful in helping, but I'm sure it was mostly about my participating and learning the basic ideas associated with the skills.  A 35 pound child doesn't have much hope in pushing the shovel into the ground very far, let alone turning that shovelful of soil over.  What I didn't realize at that point is that the shovel really was the appropriate technology for the size of garden we had.  We didn't need to spend hundreds of dollars on a tiller that would get used for 20 minutes a year.  The shovel was just fine for what we were trying to do.

The Rose Park garden helped to build a base of memories, principles, and ideals that continued to feed my farm dreams for decades.  I can grow my own food.  Growing your own food can be fun.  Planning the garden is an annual treasure in dreaming and experience.  Appropriate technology is good and satisfying.  Remember, you don't need a dump truck to go to the lumber yard to pick up a couple of 2 X 4's.

What Kind of Farm Do I Want?

People often ask me what kind of farm I want.  When I query what they mean by that, the answers usually underscore a common theme of how people of today think of farms in the US.  The usual replies indicate some form of specialized production.  The answers to my queries are exemplified by these answers.  "I mean, do you want an apple orchard, or a dairy farm?"  Or something like this, "Since you have chickens, I thought you might want a chicken farm."  Or lastly, "My grandfather had a vegetable farm that he ran in the summer, so I was wondering if you wanted to do something similar."  The answer to the question of what kind of farm I want is much more complicated than a type of specialized production.  But we can start with that angle.

The type of farm I want would be categorized as a "mixed farm."  A mixed farm has a variety of agricultural production efforts.  A mixed farm typically grows a variety of crops and animals.  Most farms of 100 years ago were mixed farms.  Each of the production enterprises usually supported in some fashion one or more other enterprises on the farm.  For example, corn might be raised to feed the hogs and to sell on the market.  The hogs in turn would clean up the fallen apples in the orchards and consume the left over whey or buttermilk from on farm dairy processing.  The chickens would lay eggs, provide meat, keep the insects at bay, and act as a second line of defense against small rodent infestations.  The orchard would provide nuts and fruit for the farm as well as shade for the sheep in the summer, and access to insects for the chickens, turkeys, and hogs.  The vegetable garden provided food for the farm family and bartering goods for neighbors or other local farm families that raised other foods not raised on a specific farm.  The woodlot provided firewood, fence posts, lumber for building, acorns for hogs, and a cool restful place to get away from everything for awhile.  These are just a few examples of the interactions on a mixed farm.

Aside from the general production focus of the farm, there are many other aspects that are worthy of discussion.  There is the question of purpose.  There is the question of size.  There is a question of production philosophy.  Of course there are other aspects of some importance, but I will limit this post to these remaining three items.

I imagine several purposes to my farm.  In no particular order these are the primary purposes that come to mind.  I've always wanted to raise food for may family.  My reasons for wanting to raise my family's food has evolved over time, among which are self-sufficiency, nutrition, variety, and economics.  As I age, I also want a purpose to have to get out of bed everyday and stay active.  I'd like my farm to provide me with an opportunity or requirement to do a good 20 hours a week of physical and mental activity.  One aspect of the farm that I believe I want is to provide some level of income in retirement.  Even though I have worked hard and have been fortunate to have good employment in my career, the prospects of living on my retirement savings and Social Security seems troublesome to me, particularly given the tenuous state of the Social Security system.  I feel a need to be able to provide an ongoing modest income stream, which I believe I can do with proper focus on my farm.

When I consider the size of the farm I would like, I think in scenarios.  I have scenarios that range from three to 60 acres, but I usually focus on three scenarios.  The first is a small version of about three acres, plus or minus.  On these three acres, I could raise most food for my family and have some very limited ability to produce an outside, supplemental income.  The next scenario is usually imagined as a 10-15 acre scenario.  This provides everything that the three acre scenario, plus the ability to raise larger livestock, such as cattle, and also provide a greater opportunity for supplemental retirement income.  The last scenario I usually imagine as a 30-40 acre farm.  This provides all the options of the smaller scenarios, plus much greater ability to raise more large stock and provide the level of supplemental retirement income that I believe would be more optimal.  The final selection of size will depend on what is available and on other circumstances at the time of selection.

In terms of production philosophy, my ideal harks back to what I imagined as a child of the 70's during the OPEC oil embargo.  As an early teen, I asked myself, "How could we grow all the food we needed and provide everything else we needed without any inputs from outside the property?"  The question is largely a theoretical question, but its direction is still important to me as the backbone of my farming philosophy.  I hate to use the cliche word, sustainability, but I will, primarily because I thought of it as an early teen before it became defined and redefined by elitists and oligarchs to fit their needs and the ideas they were peddling at the moment.  I want a farm that can provide excellent food for my family, in an ongoing repeatable manner, requiring as little off farm inputs as possible to do so.  In my mind, that is the definition of the sustainable farm I seek.

In a nutshell, what I have imagined as my ideal scenario is that I would like to have a mixed farm where I can raise food for my family, earn a supplemental retirement income, that is 30-40 acres in size and can be run in a sustainable manner using well-defined, stacked production enterprises and appropriate technology and techniques.  How is that for a run on sentence?  I reserve the right to change my mind, whenever I want.

Grandpa Ward's The "Have More" Plan

My questions into honey bees (mentioned in my previous post) led my Mom to ask her father, my Grandpa Ward, about any books he might have that might shed some light onto the topic of raising honey bees.  The treasure that emerged from that discussion dramatically shaped my thinking about what I wanted in life and provided foundational context to my wanting a farm.  That treasure was The "Have More" Plan, by Ed and Carolyn Robinson.
 

The subtitle to The "Have More" Plan was "A Little Land - A Lot of Living."  This ideal was the perspective of a young couple who had escaped apartment living in New York City to buy a house and about 2 1/2 acres in rural Connecticut in the 1940's.  This was just shortly after the Great Depression, so I am sure that experience significantly impacted their thinking, planning, and implementation of their little farm.

The Robinsons had determined that by raising your own food, a family could save enough money to pay for a house, and the cost of the commute to a city job.  More importantly, a family could have a much better quality of life and more nutritious and fresher food to boot.  On the Robinson homestead, they raised most of their own food.  They raised a vegetable garden, berries, grapes, herbs, bees, chickens, rabbits, goats, pigs, and wood for fires.  They canned or froze their own fruits and vegetables.  They extracted their own honey.  They made their own dairy products.  They had fun together as a family as they enjoyed the outdoors and interacting with nature.  The production techniques and the ideal of the homestead framed what I wanted from a farm.

My Mom read me sections of The "Have More" Plan when I was a child.  As soon as I could read adequately, I read each precious chapter.  I learned how to raise laying hens.  I learned how to feed pigs.  I learned how to milk goats.  I learned about having a family cow.  I learned about having a family wood lot.  I read and re-read The Have More Plan as a child and a teenager.

When I was about 15 years old I had a liver colored German Short Haired Pointer named, Cindy.  I got her in the Fall as a puppy, so I would bring her in the house to sleep at night due to the cold weather.  One night, she found my Grandpa's copy of The Have More Plan that he had loaned to us a decade earlier.  She unmercifully ripped off the hardback cover and chewed much of the book to pieces.  I was heartbroken and tried to mend the book, however unsuccessfully.  I replaced it with an edited version of the book that came in paperback.  Eventually, I was able to find a hardback copy of the book at a used book store and was able to replace Grandpa's copy about 30 years after Cindy shredded it.

Ed Robinson was focused on efficiency.  He wanted to set up his food production processes and facilities to be as efficient as possible.  I think this is a laudable goal and worthy of careful consideration.  Over time, I found that Ed focused too much on mimicing commercial agriculture production methods and less on how to raise more optimally nutritious foods.  That said, The Have More Plan provided the foundations of my farming dreams and the ideal of raising my family's food.

I've probably read The Have More Plan about 20 times in my life.  As is often said about good books, I find that I learn something new with each reading.  Maybe I should read it again, next week.

Honey Bee in a Jar

I lived in Rose Park, near Salt Lake City, from the time I was born until I was 6 1/2 years old.  We lived in a smallish house that was painted a bright glossy green with white trim.  To the south of our house was our driveway, then our neighbor's property with a small strip of grass, a bush, then the house.  The neighbors were the Riches, although I'm not sure about the spelling on that. The father's name was Mac.  For whatever reason, I don't recall the mother's name.  The next house down was Grandma and Grandpa Case's house.  They really weren't my grandma and grandpa, but they were the granparents of the Riches' children.  Enough of that trivia, let's get to the interesting thing, the bush by the driveway.

In the springtime, the Riches' bush, by our driveway, was covered in blossoms.  I remember the sweet aroma.  As a wee lad of four years old I found myself fascinated by the honey bees in the bush, seemingly rummaging through a flower then flying to the next flower.

 I wondered what they were doing and why they were doing it.  I asked my Mom if we could catch a honey bee in a jar and watch it.  Given that our house was perpetually blessed with babies, we had just the jar for it, a Gerber baby food jar, with the paper label removed, of course.  We captured the honey bee and took it into the kitchen.  My mom and I sat by the table and talked about the honey bee.  I was fascinated to learn that these bees made honey and they helped the flowers.  Why were the bees in the bushes?  Where did they live?  Did they have a mom and a dad?  Could they be pets?  Could I keep some bees in my bedroom?  My questions were endless.

My Mom and I went to the library and got a good children's book on honey bees.  I sat by my Mom on the green vinyl couch in the living room as she read the book to me.  We looked at the pictures.  We talked about the pictures.  I learned that bees lived in hives.  I learned there was a queen that laid eggs.  I learned that bees gathered nectar and made it into honey for their food.  "Honey is yummy!" I exclaimed.  I liked honey on toast, on pancakes, but most of all on peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

I learned much about honey bees for a four year old.  I was enthralled by the idea, that maybe one day I could keep bees and they would make honey, enough for themselves and for me.  I eagerly looked forward to the day when I could have my own hive of bees, and honey from that hive.

Introduction - Post #1

You may wonder why a middle-aged MBA with a "professional" life may want to have a farm.  The purpose of this introduction is to explain in general terms the reasons for this apparent insanity.  "Grandpa's Farm" is a concept that sprouted in rudimentary form in the mind of a wee lad of four years old, when I watched honeybees gather nectar from the neighbor's bush.  I wanted bees for the delicious honey they produced.  I wanted to know more.

Growing up, I was fascinated by the thought of growing food for my family.  I wanted to raise vegetables, especially tomatoes and corn.  I wanted to pick berries, eat some, and help my Mom make jam.  Raspberry jam was my favorite.  I wanted to pick apples, peaches, and pears.  I liked to eat them fresh, but I also liked to eat them in the Winter and Spring out of the jars my Mom canned for our family.  I wanted to raise chickens to lay eggs for our family.  First I got three White Leghorn chicks.  I soon decided three was not enough and I got ten more.  The eggs were fabulously fresh.  I wanted pigs to eat our leftover garden produce and leftovers from our table.  The bacon was amazing.  I wanted to raise beef for our family, so I cooperated with a friend and did so.  I wanted to be able to feed my family well.  I wanted to feed my family good food, better than store bought food.  I wanted to feed them adequately, nutritiously, deliciously, fantastically.  I had a dream, a dream that I imagined would be both rewarding and fulfilling.

Farming is hard work.  Why yes it is.  I speak from experience.  Why would anyone want to work that hard?  Because it is immensely fulfilling and rewarding.  Amazing things happen in the farming process, with amazing things being produced.  I have experience with farming, so I can approach this with my eyes wide open.  I started working on a dairy farm at age 10.  By the time I was 14, my average summer work week on Rawl's dairy farm was between 75 and 80 hours.  Many hours were hard work, but many hours included watching toads in the irrigation ditch and dragon flies as the flew by.  In college, I worked two more years at the Utah State University Dairy farm.  I fed calves, herded cattle, milked cows, fed cows, etc.  When I was milking, my shift started at 2:30 am.  I got done in time for 8:30 classes.  I am aware of the hard work of farming.  I am also aware of the tremendous satisfaction and reward that comes from farming.  Call me crazy, my kids do.

Through life, nutrition became more important to me as I learned that it started with the soil and impacted our plant foods,our animal foods, eventually our bodies and our physical and mental health.  I learned about soil science.  I learned about sustainability.  I learned about how to grow fantastic food efficiently.  I learned how to grow nutritionally dense food well and how nutritionally dense food could create the foundation of health in children, leading to healthier, happier lives for them.  I learned that nutritionally dense foods are hard to come by in the standard channels of distribution (grocery stores).  I learned that nutritionally dense food is scarce and therefore expensive.  I wanted to grow great food for my kids, grand kids, friends, and family.  I wanted my loved ones to have a place in the country to come and get away from suburbia and find both great food aplenty and peace and joy in nature.  That is why I want a farm, Grandpa's Farm.

This blog is about my journey from a wee lad through years of experience and learning and also dreaming and planning for the ways in which I would grown fantastic, nutritionally dense food on my very own farm.  I expect this blog to be roughly a ten year blog of the past, present, and future, with close up experience of buying, building, and reaping the harvest and the joy at Grandpa's Farm.