Daughter’s First Tractor Ride

May 24th, 2013by Ed Bruske · farming

Is there anything more fun than riding a tractor?

Is there anything more fun than riding a tractor?

Could this be the tractor for us?

What you’re looking at is a 30-horse power diesel Kubota with front-end loader, four-wheel drive and agricultural tires. After a relentless search on the internet for  used “compact” tractors around this size, we found this one at a local dealer. Small tractors are in high demand because of all the people like us starting small family farms. The dealer agreed to drop the tractor on our farm so we can test it out. I’m particularly interested to see how it handles our hillside pastures.

Notice the roll bar. There’s also a seat belt. “If it tips over, you won’t get killed,” said one dealer. “You will be injured, however.”

Good to know.

In the front loader is the tank I purchased to deliver water to the sheeps’ watering trough. I wanted to make sure it would ride securely up and down the hill. It does.

There’s nothing fancy about this tractor. No hydrostatic transmission, no air conditioning, no FM radio. This model. the L3000, was made in the years 2000 to 2003. This particular Kubota has 680 hours on it (tractor use is measured in hours, not miles.) The driver who dropped it off declared, “This tractor has been very well taken care of.” He knows the previous owner, who apparently only used it for 10 hours before trading up to a larger model.

We are happy to be able to test drive it over Memorial Day weekend. But the weather could not be less cooperative. For weeks the sun was blaring, almost to intensely to work outside. Now the scene here is absolutely dreary, with constant rain or drizzle, low-scudding clouds and temps that won’t even get out of the 40s tomorrow.

Daughter didn’t mind. Her question was, “Why didn’t you get a tractor with two seats?” But she had a great time riding shotgun without the second seat. She’s getting to that age when she might actually learn to drive on the tractor. But she won’t be trying anything fancy hanging onto the wheel well like this. She needs to be strapped in.

Now, about the price….

→ 2 CommentsTags:

Our New Landscaping Crew

May 23rd, 2013by Ed Bruske · farming, Sustainability

Friesian sheep will help keep the grass mowed

Better than a mower: Friesian sheep cutting grass

Here’s the thing about buying a farm property with 20 acres of pasture: the grass grows whether you want it to or not.

As spring arrived, we were in a race against mother nature. What to do about all that grass? I knew we didn’t want to purchase a mower. What’s the point of building a “sustainable” grass livestock operation if you’re running over the fields with a gas hog spewing CO2? But it would be months, if not years, before we had all our animals in place to graze those pastures. First, we needed a perimeter fence to keep our livestock in and predators out. Then we needed to start buying animals.

While still living in D.C., I called the extension service for Washington County and talked about installing some sheep on the property. The agent in charge of livestock first wanted to take soil samples. So I met him on the property. The test results came back positive: the pH level was close enough to neutral (around 6.2) that we didn’t need to lime the fields. The soil is a bit low in phosphorous. But I told the agent we weren’t interested in amending the pastures, we wanted the livestock to build the soil and bring it more into balance naturally.

The agent put a request for ewes on a listserv that goes out to sheep and goat farmers around the region. Sheep are docile and fairly undemanding. I figured a dozen ewes or so would be a good start. We’d already ordered five Dorper lambs–that’s a breed of hair sheep, meaning they shed rather than make wool–to be picked up in spring 2014.

While our request was broadcast over the internet, I continued to make inquiries locally and came across a sheep farming couple who’s well known for their flock of Friesian sheep and the cheese they produce.

Friesians are especially prized for their milk production. A German breed, they are wool sheep, meaning they will have to be shorn some months down the road. I was hoping to avoid all that with hair sheep. But now I was beginning to think it might not be such a bad thing to have two different kinds of sheep. Who knows? We might like making sheep’s cheese.

The wife was incredibly helpful when I visited their farm: she asked to see an aerial view of our property, and proceeded to draw a plan for paddocks and fencing. Then she showed me six yearling ewes that, for one reason or another, had run afoul of the lambing and milking schedule. Either their lambs had been stillborn, or the lambs had died, or they weren’t producing enough milk.

All six were destined for the slaughterhouse. The price I’d pay was “meat value.” In addition, there were two old ewes on the property–one 11, the other 14–that the owner offered to throw into the bargain as a moderating influence on the younger sheep.

We sealed the deal right there. By now, my grass was starting to get tall. I needed a mowing team fast. Our fence contractor, who was busy installing posts for the electric perimeter fence, quickly shifted gears and built a permanent paddock with woven wire fencing somewhat more than 10,000 square feet in size. That will be the area where we can house the sheep in winter if we need to, deal with lambing or veterinary issues, or gather sheep for transport.

Expert landscapers, no fossil fuels required

Expert landscapers, no fossil fuels required

Yesterday, our new landscaping crew arrived in a trailer. The truck backed up to the gate, we opened the door, and the sheep trotted out into their new quarters and immediately set to work.

Chomp, chomp, chomp.

These guys eat grass practically all day long, rain or shine. As soon as they’ve trimmed one area, we’ll use portable electric fencing to move them to another. Their poop and pee enriches the soil, encouraging all kinds of microbes and tiny critters that nourish the grass and discourage weeds. It’s exactly the kind of virtuous cycle we want to establish on our farm, so that diversity abounds and our livestock flourish naturally and without a lot of chemicals, hay, grain feeds or other expensive inputs.

Next to consider: how we get these younger ewes pregnant in the fall so we have lambs next year.

→ 2 CommentsTags:

Readers Have Spoken: Buy the Tractor!

May 22nd, 2013by Ed Bruske · farming, Sustainability

Needed: a vehicle to negotiate hillside pastures

Needed: a vehicle to negotiate our hillside pastures

Many readers responded to our hand-wringing over a tractor purchase and the vote was unanimous: Buy the tractor!

My sister Diane, who owned a small farm in northern Illinois with her husband years ago, was emphatic: “We used our tractor ALL the time, and we only had 5.5 acres.”

Vermont farmer and author Ben Hewitt was equally blunt: “Buy the tractor, Ed,” Ben wrote after I left a comment on his blog. “Get a horse, too, but definitely buy the tractor.”

Fellow sustainable food blogger Rob Frost, addressing our concerns about polluting with a diesel tractor, allayed our fears with his usual command of agricultural factoids.

“Even if you stick to dino diesel, don’t fret the carbon guilt. -Every pound of beef (conventional) is good for ~40# of CO2– your pastured raised beef will offset a bunch of diesel, and don’t forget the sequestering of the soil building aspects of your pasture raised beefies,” Rob wrote. He made a brilliant suggestion for fueling the tractor environmentally. We could, Rob said, “grow your own Sunflower oil (75 gallons/acre) and form a co-op to buy the press.”

“If you want to be purer run sunflowers in alley crops between rows of hybrid poplar / willow grown for fuel/hugelkultur; 1-2 acres would net you 3-6 tons of carbon/year. Have a game plan for when the SHTF, but in the mean time ‘put the mask on your own face first.’ ”

For a moment, we had toyed with the idea of purchasing draft horses instead of a tractor. Wouldn’t it be romantic to farm by hand, without fuel-guzzling machines? We could become paragons of sustainability, we thought wistfully.

Our friend and realtor Gini, who’s been farming a small homestead here for years and owned draft horses with her partner at one time, quickly quashed that idea. “Don’t go there,” Gini wrote. “Even with a background in horses it is back-breaking and you have to be committed (in more ways than one) to living with and taking care of them.”

We had calculated that buying horses would be much cheaper than getting a tractor. Agricultural equipment can be very expensive. But Gini noted that she and her partner were laying out $300 a month to feed their horses. Plus, she warned, draft horses are really big and can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. “They would never intentionally hurt anyone, but if they step on you or squeeze you against a wall, you can get hurt.”

Gini said her partner had been dragged by their horses “on more than one occasion.” Echoing that sentiment, a recent New York Times article linked by one of our readers described how a farmer’s wife had both her legs broken when their team of draft horses got spooked, broke into a run and slammed her into a fence.

At our age, we probably don’t have time to train ourselves on draft horses, nor can we afford a serious injury. So thanks, readers, for setting us straight. It looks like there’s a tractor in our future.

And guess what? We already have one in mind.

→ 8 CommentsTags: ··