Tuesday, June 22, 2010

10 days and counting…

Written to At Last! by Etta James

When you're finished changing, you're finished.
- Benjamin Franklin

After posting my previous blog entry, the yin and yang of life and death at Fazenda Alfheim once again swung forcefully against us, tautening us to what felt like our limit while bluntly reminding us of our own fragility, before mercifully undertaking a volte-face, washing over us with a cleansing, rejuvenating power that fuels dreams and strengthens souls. Our roller-coaster began with Sofia Sow losing all of her litter of what we think were 13 piglets to an unseen bicho, most likely a cachorro-do-mata or a suçuarana. Whatever did in Sofia's piglets certainly had to be a large predator as Sofia has a history of producing larger litters consisting of large, strong piglets. The deaths hit everyone hard…lending an extra chill to the sub-10 °C mornings at Alfheim.

Our unsentimental reaction to this sorrow was to build a maternity ward comprising three private hog pens in the old vegetable garden. Unfortunately, the first sow to give birth in this new unit had so severely injured her front legs that she was unable to stand, let alone walk, and Clair, João and I had to push/pull her under the roofing to protect her from the elements. Her first three-four piglets were stillborn, and Lone even suggested that we euthanize her to prevent her from suffering unnecessarily, something that I did not have the heart to do at the time. I also had an inkling…which thankfully turned into the hardiest of piglets…a lone live birth, and one which seems to give her great strength. I feed the sow and her little miracle three times per day, but will have to put her down in a week or so as she will not recover sufficient strength to go through another breeding cycle.

The little miracle signaled a turning point of sorts, and the next sow produced five healthy piglets, all of whom are thriving.

Next up in the birthing queue are the 3 Chiquinas.

A week later, Lone bequeathed me a pair of turkeys and geese. The Tom or gobbler is something to behold. Lone remarked that all of the new, domesticated fowl add their particular riff to the cacophony at the fazenda.

On Thursday that same week, Lone and I traveled to São Paulo, where she delivered product to our restaurant clients and then dropped off Mark at the airport (actually a taxi did the dropping off) and I took a couple of business meetings. While we were gone, Rosana called me twice, once in the morning to inform me that the eight new gilts I recently purchased from Topigs (actually I will only pay for six, the final two being the gratis compensation I negotiated for the poor logistics surrounding the delivery of the first 15 gilts from Topigs) had arrived in Vargem Grande, and later that same day to inform me that Alfheim's first calf had been born, a healthy nougat-colored Bambi, as Lone lovingly calls her. Four days later, on June 21st, our 24th wedding anniversary, our second calf was born, equally adorable and slightly larger than the first. With these two births, our modest herd of Jersey dairy cattle has suddenly grown to eight.

In other farm news, Mark spent a couple of days counting fence posts on all of the pastures, except 10, and hog pens. The tally:
  • Pasture 1: 312 fence posts (3.7 hectares)
  • Pasture 2: 284 (3.1)
  • Pasture 3: 279 (3.0)
  • Pasture 4: 275 (2.9)
  • Pasture 5: 212, (1.7)
  • Pasture 6: 585 (13.2)
  • Pasture 7: 401 (6.2)
  • Pastures 8/9: 510 (10.0)
  • Pasture 10: TBD (?)
  • Total: 2,858 (43.9)
  • Hog Haven: 291 (3.3)
  • Hog Hill A: 298 (3.4)
  • Hog Hill B: 291 (3.3)
  • Pasture 3: 279 (3.0)
  • Pasture 10: TBD (?)
  • Total: 1,159 (12.9)
Next I had to adjust these numbers to compensate for the inferior space efficiency of a square versus a circle (approx. -21.5%), after which we end up with approx. 34.5 hectares of pasture and 10.2 hectares of cropland. We can safely add another 10 hectares for pasture 10, five each for pasture and crops, bringing our totals to approx. 40 and 15 hectares of pasture and cropland, respectively.

We intend to plant corn on most of the cropland. In industrialized agriculture, typical yields should be between six and nine tons per hectare. Honestly, we have no idea what to expect, but we would be extremely pleased with three tons per hectare as it would be enough for us to achieve our goal of animal feed self-sufficiency by early 2011.

To this end, Clair, Dirlei and João finished liming pasture 3, using approx. three tons of lime, one for each hectare of land. With an assist from Lone, I calculated that the hogs produced and distributed between three and five tons of manure during their two months on pasture 3. The combination of manure and lime should do wonders for our crop yields…7-9-13!

The hogs are also being used to help us renovate our pastures, which we ultimately (three-four years hence) hope will support 80 head of dairy cattle, which in turn will produce somewhere north of 600 liters of milk (or > 100 kg of cheese) a day.

And to both of these ends, i.e. improved crop yields and pastures, we will no doubt benefit from our latest Lego toys, a disc plow and a till.

This week's fauna is not a moth…at least not yet.

Finally, only 10 more days until our new Farm Manager, Esben Christoffer Hesketh, arrives for duty, coming off a third straight ranking as the #1 student in his year at the Royal Agricultural College, the oldest agricultural college in the English speaking world! Not surprisingly, we can't wait.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Hitting our stride


Take care of your Thoughts because they become Words.
Take care of your Words because they become Actions.
Take care of your Actions because they become your Habits.
Take care of your Habits because they become your Character.
Take care of your Character because it will form your Destiny, and your Destiny will be your Life ... and ...
There is no religion higher than the Truth.
- the Dalai Lama

While things take time (TTT) is as true as ever when speaking of farming, it is also true that we are beginning to hit our stride and establish a daily routine that pushes us ever closer to our short- and medium-term goals.

Only last week I spent an entire Thursday morning walking the fazenda with Clair, Dirlei and João, planning the next critical three-four months in painstaking detail. The motivation for this hands-on planning session was the upcoming window for planting crops, which begins in the second half of July and ends in the first half of November. Before we can begin planting, of course, there are a number of critical tasks which must be completed:
  • Manually clear the remaining post-hog shrubbery on pasture 3. Clair, Dirlei and João, with a couple of spirited contributions from Mark, have basically finished this job -in less than one week. √
  • Treat the pastures and fields with calcium. We recently purchased 14 tons of calcium through the Casa da Agricultura in Natividade da Serra, the first seven tons of which were delivered this morning. √
  • Secure the delivery of the plow, till and planter. Delivery has been confirmed by Agritech Lavrale Ltda. in Campinas for June 17th. √
  • Ensure sufficient hog pens so as to avoid the need to fence during the critical weeks of planting. Hogwood is essentially ready and waiting for a new rotation, Hog Copse was emptied on June 1st and is in recovery mode (approx. six months) and Hog Weald, our latest construct, is still virgin territory…un-tread-upon and waiting. By my back-of-the-envelope calculation, our existing stock of hog pens will carry us through Q1 2011. √
  • Pick and store mandioca (cassava) branches for planting in September. As the branches can be stored for approx. three months, we will begin this task next week.
  • Secure untreated bean and corn seeds, mandioca branches and sugar cane and elephant grass stalks. We would like to plant sweat potatoes as well, but thus far have been unable to identify a supplier with sufficient volume. √
In sum, we are primed for a successful planting season, which in turn should allow us to achieve our goal of animal feed self-sufficiency beginning in Q1 2011. Given that feed is our second greatest expense, after wages, and unquestionably the biggest pain in the behind logistically-speaking, this would be a monstrous accomplishment. 7-9-13!

Over the past two plus weeks, when not planning the upcoming planting season, we partook in a couple of enjoyable outings:

1. Anella, Sandra, Mark, Emmanuel Cabale, another charming frog (worth reading the link) who is working with Emmanuel Rengade on his Fazenda Santa Helena project along with Jeff and Suzanna (an American couple who we hitherto had not had the pleasure of meeting) and I went for a gentle trek along the easiest of the three trails in the Parque Estadual da Serra do Mar, Núcleo Santa Virgínia, the six km, three waterfall, Trilha do Garcez.

Lone drew the short straw and stayed behind, taking advantage of a kind offer of assistance from our former neighbor, Januara, to check up on Lone's bees. In addition, Bia, Lone's former pottery teacher in São Paulo, paid us a visit, bringing with her a glorious clay salt pig as a present. After the hike, everyone returned to Alfheim for a BBQ and a chilaxing afternoon that effortlessly morphed into evening.

The following Monday Lone took the young folks to Picinguaba and Ubatuba, where Anella and Sandra, in particular, took full advantage of the opportunity to store up some Brazilian sand, surf and sun before heading back to their harsh Nordic fædreland. While Lone, Mark, Anella and Sandra were out frolicking, I stayed home to mind the fazenda.

In other farm-related news, the piglets are thriving, the first group of which will be ready for slaughter at eight weeks, essentially two months earlier than previous batches. We are definitely getting the hang of this.

And speaking of getting the hang of something, we are now officially experts at herding hogs…moving three different groups between gardens, pastures and pens in one day, in some cases more than a kilometer -and after lunch no-less (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14). Completely hassle-free. Amazing what a difference a year makes.

Lone is now officially a milk maid, though her dairy cattle herding skills leave a bit more than a bit to be desired, something she will have to work to improve as our herd of dairy cattle is set to expand by two, perhaps as early as this weekend. In preparation for the birth of the calves, the men built a stall in the corral, which they proudly displayed for the camera.

And speaking of menagerie expansion, Sofia Sow, so named by Anella, gave birth to an unquantified litter yesterday, after holding out for what seemed like forever, or at least for what looked like a physiological impossibility.

Finally, for all of you who own iPods/iPads, I would like to plug the iTunes U, Apple's collection of university content. I have started to download an eclectic collection of lectures whenever I visit the an urban center near or far, and the quality, in most cases, is nothing short of extraordinary -and free! Currently auditing: Justice with Michael Sandel.

Equally free, virtually any older work of classic literature on Amazon.com. I just finished downloading 16 works to my Kindle this morning, including The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Oliver Twist and Crime and Punishment.

What did we ever do before the internet?