Lone lands in London

Written to Life Ain't Worth Livin' by J.W. Warren

It is not legal (in Nebraska) for a tavern owner to serve beer unless a nice kettle of soup is also brewing.
- Real Funny Dumb Laws in the United States

Lone boarded a non-stop TAM flight to UK last night, and I just confirmed that she landed safely in London, was picked up by Esben and the two have already returned to Cirencester, where Esben studies.

As mentioned in last week's blog post, Lone will be away until late October. In the meantime, both Fazenda Alfheim and I will try to make do without our better half. In addition, of course, to visiting our boys in UK and her family and friends in Denmark, Lone has scheduled four visits to organic and/or biodynamic farms, two each in UK and Denmark, a couple of which produce hogs. One of the farms Lone will visit, Doves Farm, is a true pioneer of the organic movement. Amazingly, this visit came about while we were relaxing at Emmanuel Rengade's pousada. As it turned out, one of the guests, Lucy, knows the family that owns and runs Doves Farm, and she helped Lone set up a visit. Talk about synchronicity!

While Lone is away, we will begin, among other priorities, a systematic process of cleaning the pastures with our newly acquired Husqvarna 236R brushcutter. Clair loves it, but has found that using it is very demanding physically. As a result, we have agreed that he should limit this work to one pasture per week, i.e. two-three mornings per week. By comparison, this same work would take at least three times longer if he were limited to using a scythe.

In the afternoons, Clair will reseed Hog Haven, which the hogs laid bare before being moved to Hogwood, with another of our new tools. Thankfully, Hog Hill, our third giant pig pen, has recovered nicely since we first had it plowed with oxen and planted sunflowers back in March. Since then the vegetation has regenerated, and even though it is not as dense as Hogwood, it will nonetheless make an attractive scampering ground for our new gilts, who, despite their diminutive size, display an almost proportionally impressive ability to clear vegetation as their parents.

In sum, then, the grandparents, as the first generation of hogs are known, reside in Hogwood, while the next generation of producers will reside on Hog Hill. While all of this residing is taking place, we will reseed Hog Haven in preparation for a new group of gilts, or alternatively as a surplus area if Hogwood or Hog Hill should require a period of fallow. It is worth noting that Hogwood is comprised of three separate areas, each approx. one to one and one-half hectares, while Hog Hill is comprised of two separate areas, each approx. one hectare. The hogs will be rotated within these areas according to their rate of habitat destruction. After reseeding Hog Haven with milheto, soja perene and calopogônio, we will add a fence in the middle in order to create two separate areas à la Hog Hill, each approx. one hectare. As discussed in an earlier blog post, we are currently seeding our existing pastures with calopogônio, capim aruanã and soja perene, all of which we mix into the mineral salt that the horses and cows consume (distribution by feces).

And speaking of horses and cows, we discovered this weekend, much to our horror, that our gentle, old horses possess a nasty streak when it comes to sharing mineral salt with their bovine compadres. In brief, they shoo the cattle away and eat all of the mineral salt immediately. As a result, we decided to place the cattle on pasture 5, for example, while leaving the horses on pasture 4. When the cattle are moved, as they are daily, to pasture 6, 7, 8 etc., the horses are subsequently moved to pasture 5, 6, 7 etc. Hopefully in this way the cattle will get their daily requirement of mineral salt, approx. 100 gr per cow.

In other farm news, Sandra, our duck, has produced nine very cute ducklings, and the Saturday fencers have almost completed fencing the large field in front of our house. This will become Lone's new and improved vegetable garden, with a chicken-wire fence to keep out inquisitive poultry. This new garden is just under one hectare -plenty of room to grow bounteous quantities of Danish potatoes to accompany Alfheim's homemade chicken.

Finally, our new hand grain grinder arrived on Friday. While we were unable to assemble it for a test grind during the weekend, it certainly was not for lack of interest. Once properly assembled, we will have an easier time grinding organic corn for the chicks and ducklings.