Monday, December 22, 2008

Christmas 2008 & New Year 2009

Written to Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith, Jimmy & Wes: The Dynamic Duo

The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

Our furniture finally arrived from the Port of Santos on Friday, so we are temporarily in the midst of boxes, but the Organizator will soon put an end to the clutter. As a result of the move, and the upcoming holidays, this week's blog entry will be truncated. Therefore, until the next proper blog entry in early January 2009, from all of us at Alfheim to all of you: may your Christmas be as merry as these ladies, may your holidays include plenty of horizontal yoga, may your load be lightened by the company of others and may the New Year bring you plenty of whatever riches you wish to lie at your rainbow's end.

Monday, December 15, 2008

December 8 - 14, 2008

Written to Counting Crows, New Amsterdam Live at Heineken Music Hall February 6, 2003

"It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.'' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter."
- C.S. Lewis

The life-death balance on a farm takes more than a little getting used to. On Thursday morning, Clair informed me that Negona had killed, but not eaten, four ducks the day before. Oddly, Clair had placed all four of the dead ducks inside the hen house...completely out character...he is always so tidy. When Lone inquired, Rosana informed her that they did not want us to think that they had killed the ducks and eaten them in our absence. Rosana added that some workers did this, so they decided to leave the dead animals in the hen house to remove any doubt. Wow!

Negona has always shown too much interest in the poultry; Lone, Clair, Chico and I have all caught her in various stages of poultry consumption. After conferring with a veterinarian, who confirmed my suspicion that this tendency was unlikely to abate, Lone and I made the decision to put her down, which I did on Sunday. Very sad, but the idea of chaining Negona up for the rest of her life, the veterinarian's best suggestion after she informed us that she would not assist us in putting her to sleep, just did not seem like any life for a dog -or any animal for that matter. A most difficult decision, but in this case the good of the many outweighed the good of the one.

On Wednesday, on our twice-weekly 16:00 call, Clair informed me that one of the gilts was infected with bicheira (not for the faint of heart), the common name, or miíase, the technical name, an infestation of parasitic larvae. I quickly contacted Dra. Leslie Almeida, a homeopathic veterinarian, and she informed me how to treat this parasite in an manner consistent with the organic certification process guidelines:
  1. Apply Creolina, a coal tar derivative, to the wound;
  2. This chokes off the larva's oxygen supply, forcing them to surface from inside the open wound;
  3. Using tweezers, remove the larvae, which can number in the tens, hundreds or even thousands (approx. 70 in two wounds in our first case);
  4. Clean the wound with cocoa soap;
  5. Apply Calendula to help reduce inflammation, control bleeding and soothe irritated tissue.
There is only one, teansy-weensy detail missing from the above description: in order to administer the treatment, one first has to catch the hog. No small feat! Clair and I chased the infected animal until she tired and we were able to catch hold of a leg each, lay her down on her side and secure her. Lone then took over for Clair securing one of the gilt's back legs while Clair carried out the first treatment. Clair is the only one of the four of us who does not wear glasses, a distinct advantage when trying to find one of these in an open wound. I am happy to report that the results of the first treatment exceeded our expectations. Unfortunately, the next day a second gilt was infected. Being the Thinking Animals that we are, Clair and I concluded that for the second treatment it would be decidedly easier to catch the hog if we fed it first. While in fact this is true, we neglected to calculate how much more difficult it would be tiring out the animal without the warm-up foot chase. Incidentally, while a gilt is being treated, the other hogs circle her and one or two always check on her by nudging her with their snouts. After three treatments, the third administered by Lone and me on our own on Saturday, the infected gilts appear cured (7-9-13). We have since begun spraying the animals with neem, a tree in the mahogany family. The unique feature of neem products is that they do not directly kill pests, but alter the life-processing behavior in such a manner that the insect can no longer feed, breed or undergo metamorphosis.

Aside from the two cases of miíase, the hogs have otherwise made a complete recovery from their recent malaise. As such I owe a huge shout-out to my very good friend and the world's most curious orthopedic surgeon, and now wannabe veterinarian's apprentice, Tony Matan, who correctly diagnosed the hogs as suffering from sunburn. Impressive, particularly considering his only diagnostic input was my blog entry. Undoubtedly, there were many factors that affected the hogs condition, but exposure to the sun was the drop that caused their cup to run over...and not in the my cup runneth over sense. The gilts are again extremely active -even motoring around the pen at Usain Bolt-like speeds. They have also become more brazen in their search for contact. Yesterday one of the gilts not named Miss Massey actually let me rub her back and belly. In sum, while duck land suffered four tragic casualties this week, the mojo has returned to hog land.

On Thursday, December 18th, we hope to move the gilts to a permanent pen, where they will begin living caipira or free range -after a week or so of acclimatization. Their new pen is approx. 625 m2, almost twice as large as Lone's garden-to-be, and opens onto a beautiful pasture and a recently harvested field of mandioca...aka cassava, yuca, manioc or mogo. I cannot wait to set them loose. To this end Chico and Martins dug down 51 fence posts for the pig pen on Thursday! It should be added that Thursday's total of 51 fence posts for the pig pen came on top of approx. 160 pasture fence posts, each with four-strands of Belgo Motto® Farpa Vermelha barbed-wire, that they installed from Monday to Wednesday! When I said they were craftsman, I was not exagerating. Take a look at these examples (1, 2) of their fence lines! S * T * R * A * I G * H * T!

A few more details on the older of the dynamic duo. It turns out that Martins is 74, has a son who is nine years old, sadly his first wife died, and his father lived to be 116 years old! Yes, 116 years old! Legend...wait for it...

Lone finished painting the interior of our house...two coats...and it looks spectacular! If all goes well, we hope to receive our furniture from UK, which is actually in the Port of Santos, on Thursday, December 18th (7-9-13!).

On Saturday we decided to thin out the brood of dwarf chickens. We slaughtered five in all. The lucky survivors: the casal, our first farm animals -not counting the ill-fated, cachorro-do-mato chicks- and the loony rooster who has accompanied the two mother hens and their broods ever since they arrived. No reason to risk upsetting the latter life balance. Clair and I performed the neck snapping and feather plucking, while Lone and Rosana butchered the birds. Feather-plucking was surprisingly easy. On Saturday, Lone and I ate one dwarf chicken each for dinner...they are pretty lean creatures, but very, very tasty. Anyway, it was time to make room for the next batch...seven of Elle's chicks, three of whom appear to be cockrels based on their recent aggressiveness, and the 22 surviving chicks from the two mother hens.

On Sunday I had my hair cut by Janni in Vargem Grande. R$5.00 (€1.56 or $2.02) in all!

On Monday, we received a visit from Paulo Basetto Agro, a veterinarian who works with Fazenda Brazil, where we purchased the gilts. As always, each expert visit adds a layer to our nascent farming knowledge as well as a couple of additional contacts.

Finally, my apologies for the lateness of this post. Paulo's visit lasted most of Monday, and Picasa demanded a storage upgrade that took several hours to activate. No blog without photos.

Monday, December 8, 2008

December 1 - 7, 2008

Written to Ali Farka Toure, The Source

Quote of the Day - Marie Curie - "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."

The King is dead...long live the King! On Thursday morning we discovered that Kong had become late sometime on Wednesday night. Clair initially proposed various theories, all of which revolved around Kong not liking his feed etc. After a bit of back and forth, and my pointing out both that the chicken feed is scientifically balanced and that Kong seemed to have a hardy appetite, Rosana blurted out that Kong was old...very old, apparently. It seems that this blogging rube had been duped into buying a geriatric rooster. Once Rosana broke the story, Clair added that it was true, after which Rosana added that Clair, in fact, had pointed this out to her when he first saw Kong. This information explained a number of things, Kong's surprisingly gentle nature, his careful gait. Well...Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. In the end, better an old rooster than an old bull or boar.

As sad as I was about old Kong, my mood picked up when I went to inspect the fencing. Chico and Martins, his compadre, had indeed been busy. The managed to complete 146 fence posts in only three and one-half days! Clair helped immeasurably by espalhando or distributing most of the fence posts approx. two meters apart along the fence line, but any way you slice it or dice this is an impressive feat. Chico is, as mentioned earlier, 61 years old and Martins is 73! Chico continues to mention how slow Martins is, but also how reliable. And they are not just productive, they are also craftsmen. After lunch on Thursday, I drove them back to São Luiz do Paraitinga as Chico had some bills to pay. They seemed pleased with the job and genuinely enjoyed Rosana's food. I took advantage of the trip to drop off Negona at the vet to be castrated.

Friday was a tough day for two reasons. First, the gilts seemed to be struggling...were generally out of sorts and having trouble walking, something we first noticed on Thursday, though then it was not nearly as pronounced. I spoke with a number of knowledgeable people who suggested everything from a lack of conditioning -prior to their arrival at Alfheim, they have lived their entire existence in a one and one-half meter by one and one-half meter pen- to stress caused by the change in environment and diet to heat. Most worrying! Second, I was having trouble securing organic hog feed -and we were running out of what little we had! As a result, I spent almost the entire day trying to lock down deliveries from two suppliers, Premix and Fruto do Sol. While it may seem like a somewhat disorganized, last-ditch effort, I first contacted both on or around November 18th! One of the struggles for an organic (or wanna-be organic) farmer is the difficulty of acquiring certified feed. While I can buy animal feed in pretty much any bairro of 600 inhabitants or more, organic feed is indeed a rare commodity. After many, many hours on the phone, I succeeded in securing a Sunday delivery of 60, 60 kg sacks of biodynamic corn from Fruto do Sol, which arrived, though I was alone to unload it...3,600 kg of hurt, and a Tuesday delivery from Premix of 40, 30 kg sacks of hog feed (7-9-13!).

On Saturday morning Lone and I added a water trough and three lean-tos, for extra shade, to the hog pen. We also pampered them as much as possible, feeding them some surplus corn that had sprouted from the scatterings of last year's harvest as well as some local grass that Clair and Rosana had showed us the day before (and told us that hogs liked). The corn was a big hit, the grass, too. The combination of the lean-tos and the water trough seems to have helped the gilts a great deal (note to self: while hogs may be able to drink from a hose, they seem to fare better with a water trough). In the end, then, all of the work seems to have paid off, and the gilts are looking more stable and active. While we believe the worst has passed, we have nonetheless scheduled a visit next week with a veterinarian who works at Fazenda Brasil, where we purchased the gilts.

This week we also inherited two kittens from our very good friends, John Tomizuka and Paula Zandomeni. More accurately, a woman at their apartment complex, Eugenia, takes in strays, has them csatrated and feeds them. They are extremely cute, and in time we hope that they will develop into effective mouse traps...certainly more effective than Esben's three-week experiment this summer with mechanical mouse traps. His endeavor produced a number of fine meals of bread and cheese for the mice, but nothing in the way of dead rodents. In short, mice 3, Esben 0!

Finally, this week Lone learned to catch hens, the ducks at last became waterborne and, like clockwork, Negão returned on Saturday. We all hope he will stay this time, especially Layla.

Monday, December 1, 2008

November 24 - 30, 2008

Written to Derek and the Dominos, Live at the Fillmore [Disk 2]

Funny Quote of the Day - Lily Tomlin - "The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

Apologies for the delay in publishing this week's blog entry. I had to pick up Chico and his crew of one this morning and deliver them to Alfheim to begin fencing. As a result, Lone and I had to delay our weekly trip to São Paulo by 24 hours.

While on the subject of arrivals, our return to Alfheim on Tuesday evening brought another surprise...this time of the positive variety: Casas Bahia had at last delivered our two guest beds (Lone commented that she would have made up our bed before taking a picture, but when the only covers one has is a sleeping bag, I am not sure it makes a huge difference). Finally, an end to the dual-occupancy single bed after nine weeks! And my first taste of a sleeping unit larger than a single bed since July! Now that's progress!

Despite the upgrade, I nonetheless awoke on Wednesday morning very tired and unable to gain traction on much of anything. Thankfully the hog truck arrived in the afternoon, hardening my focus. What a sight! The first order of business was constructing a ramp on which to guide the gilts down into Lone's garden-to-be. No way were any of us going to attempt to carry 20 gilts (young females, usually under 12 months of age, that have not reproduced) weighing an average of 90 kg each. A couple of scrap doors later, and we were ready for descent. Step 1: push/pull gilt onto ramp. Step 2: guide gilt into center of ramp. Step 3: slide gilt down ramp. Step 4: repeat 19 times. Step 5: close the gate. Step 6: enjoy the moment.

Following successful delivery, I went in to examine the animals and ended up administering a cooling hand-bath to one of the gilts that seemed to be suffering from overheating (a true All Creatures Great and Small moment). She recovered quickly and was soon on her feet and enjoying her new surroundings with the rest of her crew. The breed we purchased has been described as uma salada or a salad, a mix of many breeds: Duroc, Large Whites, Nilos, Piau. The result: lean, beautiful animals. Most amazing of all has been how quickly these closed-production hogs have adapted to their enhanced indpenedence in Lone's garden-to-be. Almost as soon as they de-ramped, they began to root. They are quickly transforming Lone's garden-to-be, rooting and preparing the soil for planting. They are also extremely social animals, rarely passing one another without what I have dubbed the snout shake, a quick, ever-so-subtle bump of their snouts along with a quick sniff. They also enjoy sleeping in large groups, in some cases very large groups. And if any of you ever doubted whether a hog could drink from a hose, you can now rest easy knowing that they can.

On Thursday I had to travel to Natividade da Serra, my first visit, to give testimony in a fatal car accident that I only barely avoided becoming a part of some months back on Rodovia dos Tamoios. Lone was kind enough to accompany me. Natividade da Serra is well-organized, clean and quiet, an altogether lovely small town. While waiting for me, Lone managed to pick up a stray dog, Negona, from the local padaria or bakery. After running a few other errands, we put Negona into the back of our car and traveled back to Alfheim. She is still a bit too much of a puppy, but within 24 hours her tail moved from its then-permanent position between her hind legs to its natural position of high and wagging. It is obvious that she had been badly mistreated, so the speed of her transformation was remarkable.

Somewhat ironic that within a period of less than two weeks we lost Negão and gained Negona. As if to underscore the irony, on Saturday who should show up as though he had barely been away but the Rambling Man himself, Negão...nothing more than a jaunt of nine km separating us. Layla was, of course, ecstatic, even working through her briefly injured paw to limp along on three and one-half paws whenever we went for a walk. The three knuckleheads seem to enjoy each others company. Now we will just have to see for how long the prodigal son stays put.

Thursday and Friday were also used to construct the Burj Al Arab of hen houses, complete with walk-in door (Lone's engineering contribution) and three bamboo roosting pins. The 20 mm plywood is buried 50 cm into the ground, so if something does happen to any of the chickens, it won't be from a subterranean assault. The ducks were moved in first, followed by Kong, Elle, the two mother hens and their respective broods and finally Rosanna's slightly larger chicks, which are, in fact, Elles, though she no longer recognizes them as such, having been separated from them very early on. The dwarf chickens joined the brood the following evening.

We feed the gilts every day at 16:00, approx. 3% of their body weight or 2.7 kg of feed per animal. We have begun training them to come to the sound of a bell, a trick that took all of two days. This will be important when they begin living free range in the forest. The advantage of the bell is that it has the same sound regardless of who is feeding them on any given day. As you will see from the sequence of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 photos, they respond very well to this trick. My hope is that we can also use this trick to transfer them from Lone's garden-to-be to their next pig pen, a way station before their final stop in the forest, a part of the farm that we refer to as Lothlórien.

While Clair and I were building the hen house, Lone and Rosana readied the apartment for the arrival of Chico and the man (on Monday, December 1st).

On Saturday, our king-sized mattress arrived...almost. The truck that delivered it had gotten stuck in the mud on Friday somewhere en route. That morning one of the two delivery men arrived on foot as close to our front door as the dogs would allow and informed us that their truck was outside the entrance to the fazenda and was unable to enter because of the poor condition of the dirt road. I took the dogs and went to investigate. After a little back and forth, I convinced them that the three of us could carry the mattress on foot to the house, 1.8 km of one of my less brilliant ideas, but we succeeded.

Finally, we spent Sunday marking pastures with the markers from the orange graveyard. Already excited to return to Alfheim and see the progress on the fencing.