A year in the blogosphere...

Written to Stop the Clocks by Oasis

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
- Albert Einstein

This week's blog post will be my 51st, taking me into my second year of blogging. In the previous year, 1,908 people visited the Fazenda Alfheim blogspot. These 1,908 absolute unique visitors generated 4,883 visits (Benchmark: 203 (+2,305.42%)) from 61 countries/territories, 8,530 pageviews (Benchmark: 370 (+2,205.41%)) and spent an average of 0:02:55 on the site (Benchmark: 00:00:13 (+1,277.43%)). In terms of trending, in September 2008 an average of 97 absolute unique visitors read the blog vs. 184 in June 2009, 198 in July and 188 in August. As a rule, the blog averages in excess of 100 visits per week. To paraphrase Joe Friday from Dragnet fame: "Just the facts, ma'am."

Far more than any numerical significance, the blog has helped us maintain contact with family and friends...and to make new friends. Most recently, Lone used the blog as a calling card of sorts to set up visits at two biodynamic farms in UK, Tablehurst and Plaw Hatch Community Farm in Forest Row, East Sussex, and Grange Village in Newnham-on-Severn. On these visits, Lone and Esben were graciously hosted by Ellie at Tablehurst and David Herman at the Grange.

Tablehurst's hog production consists of 15 sows and two boars, Duroc and Large White. They feed their hogs field beans (own production), oats, wheat, barley and whey from the cheese production at Plaw Hatch Community Farm.

At Tablehurst they do not give the piglets iron injections or drops, but instead a shovelful of soil is placed in the pen where they root. We do not use iron injections or drops, either, since the iron content of our soil is very high. As a result, our piglets acquire what they need simply by rooting.

Different to Alfheim, the hogs at Tablehurst spend the winter months inside and the summer months outside. This is done to conserve the soil. Land used for pigs one year becomes cropland the next.

The hogs are castrated at seven days and slaughtered at 70-80 kg dead weight.

By contrast at the Grange, where they raise Gloucestershire Old Spots, they do not castrate their shoats, but instead eat them before they begin producing hormones (5-6 months and approx. 100 kg).

The Grange also produces goat cheese, and while visiting Lone became completely enamored with the goats. While I agree the goats are very cute, I suspect Lone's interest was stimulated by what she described as the best goat cheese she had ever tasted. Once a Hobbit...

The Grange also has a vegetable garden that is to die for...hopefully we can emulate their success in this area, and we took a huge step to that end this past Saturday by finishing the poultry-proof vegetable garden fencing.

Back at Fazenda Alfheim, Clair cleaned pasture 1 using the Husqvarna 236R brushcutter. Amazing! Pasture 1 (to the right of the dividing fence) looks like a golf course when compared to pasture 2 (on the left), which Clair will clean this week. I made the decision this weekend to ask the Saturday fencing crew to help us reseed the cleaned pastures with calopogônio, capim aruanã and soja perene. This as a supplement to the feces distribution method currently in place. In choosing this route it is my hope that we can significantly speed up the reform of our pastures...and also take advantage of the onset of Spring. In addition to an increase in rain, the temperature is heating up...32˚ Celsius on Sunday...glorious!

The new worker's house is progressing nicely and should be completed on Saturday, October 3rd, se Deus quiser (Portuguese for 7-9-13!), according to Marcos.

Finally, in addition to two biodynamic farm visits, Lone and Esben also managed to pop over to Leicester to visit Johannes and Pelle. During their visit, they visited the school where Johannes teaches, New College Leicester, and also helped Pelle move into his dorm room for year 2 at university.