Fazenda Alfheim turns two

Written to Live at the Fillmore by Derek & Dominos

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

- Oscar Wilde

Anella and Sandra departed Alfheim, and Brazil, on Monday, June 28th. Lone dropped them off in São Paulo, where she spent the week visiting with friends in anticipation of Esben's arrival on Friday, July 2nd. And arrive he did -despite a terminal mixup between mother and son which resulted in our jovial middle son spending the morning chatting up the Polícia Federal at Guarulhos International Airport in order to kill time while waiting to find Lone- bigger (6' 5" or 195.6 cm and now officially taller than his father) and badder than ever.

While Lone was away, we cracked on back at Alfheim with this season's priorities:

• preparing croplands
• improving pastures
• building the infrastructure to fatten up 1,000 chicks

Along the way, we added 18 beautiful piglets from the 3 Chiquinas, who interestingly all gave birth within the same 24-hour period, and to identically colored piglets, all of whom are doing extremely well. These 18 piglets are also the first from our own producers, i.e. they are the offspring of sows born at Alfheim. In other words, Biggy is now officially a grandfather. Fortunately, we managed to finish construction of our eight-pen hog maternity ward the morning of the day on which the 3 Chiquinas gave birth. We are excited about the positive impact that we expect this new birthing area at the base of Hog Haven to have on our hog production.

In addition to these 18 new piglets, we are fattening another 19 piglets for slaughter over the next couple of months, two sows are well advanced in the birthing queue and another seven are on deck.

On July 1st we moved the remaining Fazenda Brazil hogs from Hog Hill to pasture 6, where we added a house and a simple feed storage area so they could begin clearing and fertilizing the pasture. During what I anticipate to be their four-month stay, they will produce and distribute 5.6 tons of manure on the 13.2 hectares of pasture. When their work is complete, we will add 13 tons of lime and 317 liters of raw milk.

We have begun applying raw milk to our pastures after reading a fascinating article in the Stockman Grass Farmer, which recounted the experience of Spalding, Nebraska, dairyman, Bob Bernt, who applied three pounds of raw organic milk to a portion of his corn crop.

Raw, organic milk appears to be a great fertilizer for forages. In a University of Nebraska monitored trial on a private ranch near Page, Nebraska, an application of three gallons of raw, organic milk to irrigated pasture increased dry matter production by 1200 pounds per acre within 45 days.

University of Nebraska extension specialist, Terry Gompert, said University agronomists have no idea why plants respond so strongly to such a small amount of raw, organic milk. "It must stimulate the soil microbes somehow," he said. In contrast, Kenneth King in southeastern Kansas said he has been spraying skimmed milk and cheese whey on his pastures all summer and has seen absolutely no response. "I am pretty sure it only stimulates the microbes and that when they are working in high gear already no response will be observed. On the other hand, in a depleted or microbe deficient soil a response will be seen."

We began applying raw milk to pasture 5, which we limed last week, and we will monitor the results closely over the coming weeks and months.

I also managed to source milho criolo or heirloom corn, i.e. non-hybrid corn, placing an order for 200 kg of five different varieties, the largest portion of which is called Amarelão. We will be able to harvest this corn and save seeds for planting in 2011 and beyond. I would rather cut off my right hand than pay a royalty to Monsanto!

We could afford to take pasture 6 out of production for clearing and fertilizing (powered by hogs) because pasture 2 will be brought back into rotation on August 1st, approx. five months after placing our hogs on it to clear and fertilize the pasture.

By moving the group I hogs, Hog Hill is now also freed up to be prepared for planting, and we will begin doing so immediately. When complete, this will add another 2.7 hectares of cropland to pasture 3's 2.4 hectares, giving us 5.1 hectares on which we can plant our milho criolo.

After moving the group I hogs, we moved the 23 Topigs gilts + Betty from our vegetable garden, which we have recently decided instead to use for planting crops, to Hog Weald, our newest, four-hectare, state-of-the-art free range hog pen. In all, we now have five hog pens, Hog Haven, slightly reduced from its original size due to the newly inaugurated maternity ward, Hog Hill, half of which will be used for crops and half which has been fallow since February, Hogwood, which has been fallow since February, Hog Copse, which has been fallow since May, and Hog Weald, which we recently took into production. Esben will be measuring these areas over the next couple of days, but I am comfortable asserting that each hog pen is between three and five hectares -each consisting of two-four chambers equipped with housing, running water, feed storage shelters and treatment pens. Suddenly we have oodles of space for our herd of 60 sows, two boars and 700 plus piglets -the latter as temporary residents spread across the year- a far cry from where we found ourselves a year ago.

So we celebrate our two-year anniversary where we began, with Esben working at Fazenda Alfheim, though thankfully this time for a period of (at least) three years as opposed to two months. He is now taller than Mausolous, weighs more than a gilt of 150 days and brings with him three years of schooling from The Royal Agricultural College. We are indeed lucky to have him. Esben will transition with me over the coming month, after which I will turn the day-to-day management of Fazenda Alfheim over to him.