Uncovered Documents by Ima Turkey

We just uncovered some interesting documents as we were cleaning the turkey room recently.  As many of you know, we raise turkeys from chicks to full size.  At that point, we take them to the "park" and they are then key participants in dinners all over the Cedar Valley.  

It appears the trip to the park came none to soon since this last batch of turkeys had among them an individual who was studying our habits a bit too closely.  In fact, this particular bird was looking to take over blog writing duties at some level.  See below what we discovered.
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Staff Writer: Ima Turkey

Individuals looking for an entertaining afternoon should look no further than the Genuine Faux Farm. We have found the guy with the red hat to be extremely amusing as he runs around the farm. In fact, we are conducting a study to find out what sorts of actions/sounds he can be made to respond to (see Pavlov and others). Since he is not really an intelligent being (unlike us turkeys), we have no fear that he will figure out that we are conducting experiments regarding his behavior.

Observations thus far:

• Subject tends to mumble audibly when one of us flies onto or over the fences
• Subject will hesitate in making a choice chasing us (when we're outside the fence) if we divide our numbers and go in opposite directions
• Subject makes strange "hahaha" sounds whenever we run to/fro our room and the gate in the morning.  We think it is a nervous tic of some kind.
• Subject tends to throw yummy produce to locations in the field where one of us is NOT located, though he does tend to have a left/right/forward/back pattern.
• Subject can be trained to bring more tomatoes and cucumbers by eating them quickly.   Similarly, the subject seems to reduce other food types if we show less enthusiasm.  Have not yet managed to get ice cream.
• Subject appears to have limited language ability.  Has attempted to respond to "crowd gobbles."  Enunciation is terrible.  We highly doubt the subject has understanding of the meaning of the words.
• Subject has been trained to allow us to drink out of the hose periodically.  However, Muck learned that subject isn't terribly steady with the hose after getting a face full of water.  Subject has not shown consistency in allowing us to drink out of the hose.  We continue to work on finding a proper prompting action to elicit the desired response.
• Subject appears to respond to sunrise and sunset with certain activities, including bringing us food and water at sunrise and coming out to see us into our room at night.  Has apparently imprinted on us.  Though it does show independence - thank goodness.  Who would want to deal with THAT all day and night?

  

  Ima Turkey at left.

• Subject has been trained to respond and come into view on certain calls, but appears unaware of the desired response once in view.  We remind ourselves that we must take baby-steps in this process.
• Subject appears to be unaware of our scientific endeavors - our ruse continues to work.

We expect to make a final report to the community in December regarding this study.
Respectfully,
Ima Turkey

Fall(s) in Winter

Once upon a time, there were two people who worked on a vegetable farm in Iowa.  They lived on the farm with five cats, chickens, turkeys, ducks and many earthworms.  One day, during the Winter, when it was cold and the crops were not growing, the farmers went on an adventure to a place far away from the farm.

If you saw this sign, where would you go?

They started walking down a steep road.  A helpful person had suggested a hike to a beautiful waterfall.  She said it was only a couple of miles, so the farmers decided that it might be a nice walk.

The friendly trees

Along the way, the farmers met some trees.  There was a cluster of evergreen trees that were very, very tall.  Both farmers were happy to see them and they stood underneath them for awhile.  They thanked the trees for the shade.  The trees were pleased to be helpful and as the farmers continued down the road, they whispered something to them.  But, the farmers did not understand tree language, so they did not know what the trees were saying.

We should have learned tree language.

As the farmers continued to walk, they went under a canopy of lovely trees.  They stopped to admire these trees and took a picture.  They told these trees that they appreciated their beauty.  Of course, the trees were flattered and decided that the farmers were nice.  They spoke to the farmers more loudly than the evergreens.  But, the farmers still did not know tree language and they walked on.

There was a sign to go on a short trial spur called the "Cliff Trial."  They decided to check it out and found a beautiful overlook that had an old guardrail to show travelers where it was safe to stand.  The farmers were pleased to be there and enjoyed the view.

There's something about fences that provide security.

As they stood at the overlook, they heard something.

"Na aa aa aa aaaaaa!"

They heard it over and over again and finally found what was talking to them on the cliff opposite the cliff they were on.

They were "goating" us on

There were goats that appeared to be walking on the sheer cliff face.  The farmers knew a little goat and thought the goats were saying something like this:

"Silly farmers, you are not goats.  Stay on your side of the fence."

They said something else about waterfalls, but the farmers didn't quite understand what they were saying, so they went back to the main trail and walked on.

Then, they came to a place where there was no guardrail, there was no fence and they were certain they were at the edge of the world.  A sign that was written in a language the farmers understood said something about sharp dropoffs, loose rock, danger, injury and/or death.  This made the farmers wonder a little bit about their choice for a nice 'walk.' 

This had to be the edge of the world.

One farmer looked at the other and realized what the trees had been saying to them.  They were trying to warn the farmers that the trail to the waterfall could be a little scary for farmers who are used to flat land.

Birds may not be the best advisers for the wingless

As the farmers stood at the edge of the cliff, they were not sure they should go on.  A little bird hopped onto a rock and said,
 "Cheeeep.  Tweet, chip chip chip."
Since the farmers had birds on their farm, they could understand some of what the little bird said.  It said,
"You're ok, if you slip, you just open your wings and fly."

The farmers did not find this at all helpful.

The farmers were amazed that they could take a picture that was in focus.

The farmers looked around and saw interesting rock formations on a cliff across from them.  But, they weren't sure where the waterfall was that the trail signs had mentioned.  They were ready to turn back, but then the bird pointed them in the correct direction.

"Go off the edge of the earth," said the bird.

The trail to the edge of the earth

The farmers did not want to go off the edge of the earth.  But, they crept down the trail carefully, ready to turn around if they found wings were required to continue.  Eventually, they found a trail that was not nearly so close to the edge and they followed it.

Waipo'o Falls

They climbed down a steep trail and over a small stream.  There they found a beautiful pool with a waterfall feeding the pool. 

They climbed over some wood and got closer to the waterfall.  They were tired and they were trying NOT to think about the return trip that went by the edge of the world.

One farmer even got brave enough to take a picture of the short waterfall that led to the drop at the edge of the world.  The other farmer (that would be the one who wears a red hat) had enough of being next to the edge of the world.

The second small falls that feeds the big waterfall.

After catching a second wind, the farmers climbed back up the trail.  And they started to realize exactly how sharp the drop-off was.

Returning past the edge of the world.

The bird was not there, but they met a little tree that was perched on the edge of the world.  The farmers told it that they were amazed at its bravery and its tenacity.  The tree said something to the farmers, but they still did not understand tree language.  But, they got the feeling that the tree was happy to see them.

The tree at the edge of the world.

The farmers made it back to their cabin and were very tired.  They had some dinner and a good night's sleep.  Then, the next day, they went to another place that had very good fences between them and the steep drop at the edge of the world.  They looked in the distance and they found the waterfall and the trail they had walked to get to it. 

Can you see where the farmers walked?

It was at this point, the farmers decided that they should learn tree language.  But, they still were glad they took the trip to the edge of the world and the waterfall they found there.

(ed note: the Waipo'o Falls is listed as an 800' waterfall.  We're not certain whether this includes the short waterfall you see in the second waterfall picture.  We are certain it does not include the first since it is in from the cliff face some distance.  If you look at the last picture closely, you can see there are two stages to the waterfall at the right.  We were at the top of the uppermost stage.)

A Crate Full of Grateful

Thanksgiving is still our favorite holiday and we hope it will always be that way.  We take time to reflect and remember the things and people who got us where we are.  We thought we'd use a "Picture This" approach to show some of the things we are grateful for right now.  The list is opportunistic.  In other words, we selected pictures that we saw that made us feel grateful about something in particular.  There are many, many things that won't show up here and we hope that everyone takes it as intended - an opportunity to give thanks, with the knowledge that we can never be thankful enough.

And we resisted getting a tractor?

A working tractor with a basic set of implements has helped us to be more resilient and reduced the wear and tear on the humans.  We're particularly grateful that we've climbed the learning curve to the point that we're pretty comfortable with using the tools reasonably well. 

The high tunnel did its job in 2013

Putting up the high tunnel in 2010 was an incredible leap for our farm.  It wasn't a small investment and we put it up during our worst crop year.  We now look at it as the turning point for our farm.  We can honestly say that if we had not added it, we might have backed out of farming.  If we had not entirely ceased operations, we would have greatly reduced them.  In 2013, the high tunnel was our 'happy place.'  It's always good to have one of those on the farm.

After 2012's spraying event, we noticed a reduction in the insect diversity on the farm.  But, we started to see a slight rebound in our pollinators later in the season this year.  We hope this continues and are grateful that we still have some of these beneficial insects on our side at the farm.

It's good to be a friend to bees...

Dr Wyche's tomatoes...yum.

 The late Fall was a welcome reward for our persistence this season.  We kept at it despite Spring and early Summer rain issues.  As a result, we had a late, but sufficient crop of tomatoes and other fine vegetables.  We were both relieved and thankful for the respite.

It remains to be seen if Mrranda is also grateful for us.

 The companion animals on the farm provide us with a distraction from the things that are stressing us out.  There's something about a gentle purr that lowers the blood pressure.  There are times, of course, that we may not be feeling as charitable towards these critters.  But, overall, they are a positive.

And then, there was the first decent apple crop from our young trees.  Tammy loves her apples and it was satisfying to be able to provide her with plenty of Fall apples for consumption.

Something we haven't seen much of on the farm.

Cover crops - just a good thing to use.

 We're also pleased that research projects result in our using more tools on the farm that increase our resiliency, improve our soil health and/or identify best practices for our farm.  The research project for cover crops encourages us to use them even more often on our farm.

And then, there are vegetables that are new to us that we've picked up because friends who are also veg growers made recommendations.  Romanesco.  It just seemed like an exotic broccoli...or... cauliflower.  Whatever.  Then, Andy brought some for us to eat at a Gang of Four gathering.  Ok, good stuff.  This year, we managed to get a decent crop out of our trial group.  Looks like they're here to stay.

Romanesco - looks weird, tastes good.

 We managed to pick up a couple of flair boxes at auctions.  Sometimes, we are shocked when something we added to the farm at the beginning of the season gets integrated into farm work so completely by year end.  We're grateful to those who have helped us climb the learning curve that now finds us using these tools passably well.  Jeff has been particularly patient as we stumbled along the path to using larger equipment.

A little bit of flair for the farm.

Drip tape dispensers are indespensible

 This year was a year of trying to execute ideas that have been simmering for some time.  The drip tape dispenser has been on my brain for a while.  I knew what I wanted, but never found the time to do it.  Thankfully, Tyler joined us this year, and he enjoys building and working on things like this.  After some description and discussion, here it is.  This thing worked well for us. 

And, a recent post focused on the people.  That was one of our ways to let everyone know that we are grateful for them.  As always, thank you to everyone who supports us - as customers, friends, family, workers and persons who just wish us well. 

We glove our Farm Share CSA members.

 

 As always, beautiful things on the farm remind us to reflect on things that are good in the world.  This is why we plant and maintain flower beds.  Positive farmers keep growing good food.  Seems simple and sometimes simple works.

A very smart man helped us build a tool wall.

If we were unable to get help on the farm, we don't know where we would be.  Sometimes, we feel a bit guilty that we were not the ones who accomplished some of the tasks on the farm.  But, that goes away quickly when we ask ourselves "When exactly, would you have been able to do that?"  Then, we just remember to be grateful for the kindnesses shown by others and the honest labor provided by those we hire. 

And finally, we are grateful for the opportunity to visit beautiful places and to have a chance to recharge our batteries away from the farm every so often.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Texting in the 1800s

I do enjoy postal history from the 1860's - so you will periodically find that I put things I find interesting out onto our blog.  Perhaps some of you will enjoy them as well.  At the very least, it gives the farmer a chance to pursue and share things that are not directly related to the farm.

In this electronic/wireless age we take the ability to communicate instantly for granted.  In the 1860's, if you wanted to 'text' someone overseas, it took some time.  For example, a letter to England typically took 10 days to cross the Atlantic.  So, a very quick response to an inquiry would easily take 25 days to receive.

Here is a page from my collection with two envelopes sent from the United States to Europe.  Both of these have slits cut into them that were used to fumigate the envelopes.  These were cut open during a cholera outbreak in an effort to reduce the spread of the disease.  It was known at that time that the mail wasn't carrying the disease, but people felt better if it seemed efforts were being taken to protect the public.

If you want to read the details on the page below, the text will be bigger if you select the image and open in a second window.

If you look carefully, you can see both slits on the top envelope, for display, I have placed a white strip of paper into the slits to highlight where they are.  There is a single slit on the second envelope.

There are instances of mail being disinfected in the United States by fumigation, or sometimes soaking, in various ways to prevent the spread of disease as late as the 1920's.  Even recently, we have seen disinfection of mail using irradiation in response to the mailing of anthrax.

Where in the World?

The farmers got a break from the farm.  But, where did they go?  We're not telling (yet).  If you already know because you have talked to us, don't answer here.  Those who aren't privy to where we were headed can feel free to try to figure out where these pictures come from.

It was dry here.

And, there was a sharp dropoff

And, not too far south of there, we walked on a swinging bridge.

Pharm and Filately

November is the time of the year when Rob gets a chance to revisit his hobby.  That means you all get to see some of postal history and philatelic stuff he likes.

If you also enjoy this sort of thing - good for you!  If you think it's ok in small doses - also good for you.  If you dislike it.  Um...  Too bad, I'm still doing this!

Uniformity in production was prized in 1896.

One of the collections I am working on is a horticulture/agriculture related theme.  Of course, the closer they get to what we do, the happier I am.  And, yes, I do tend to favor the older material that has stamps on them.

That said - take a look at the carrots shown above.  Lohrman Seed Company was hoping you would notice the uniform shape and size of the carrots on the envelope here.  So, it is not exactly a new thing that growers and consumers emphasize looks, sometimes to the detriment of other qualities.  But, I will say one thing about carrots and uniform sizes.  If you want them to be uniform, you have to spend alot of time thinning the plants to make sure spacing is just right.  I'm afraid I'm not willing to do that.  And, frankly, alot of people like the smaller carrots and others like the bigger carrots.  So, we'll do fine with what we're doing.

You may also note that these carrots look pretty stocky and shorter.  At the time of this mailing, there were more efforts in developing shorter root carrots for growers with rockier or shallower soils.

Wheel hoes and wheeled seeders.  They've been around for a bit.

The Planet Jr. models for wheel hoes and wheeled seeders are often credited or some of the very tools we use on the farm today.  I haven't had the time to determine if the root of this model came from them or not, but I can tell you that when you tell another person who farms like we do that we use a Planet Jr type wheel hoe, they will typically understand.

S.L. Allen and Co also sold Flexible Flyer sleds.  Why am I telling you this?  I don't know.  Why not? 

Reverse of the Planet Jr envelope

Oh wait!  That's why I told you about Flexible Flyer - it's mentioned on the back of the envelope.  A little diversity in their product line. 

The picture depicted on the reverse side is interesting, to say the least.  That is one *big* field for five guys to cultivate with wheel hoes.  And, the rows seem pretty clean already.  However, I have to admit that this is probably the best time to be cultivating - before the weeds are terribly evident.  But, we all know the ideal is rarely reached. 

Why aren't any of the people in this picture wearing a red hat?  Strange.

Goals - It's About Reaching for Them - Part I

Weather has gotten colder and I have time to do a bit more with assessing how our year went and how we might like to move forward.  This year, there was a bit more motivation for season analysis with the Dream Big, Grow Here grant contest requiring some preparation and energy.  We're still processing much of went on this year, just as we are still harvesting and planting, but it is clear that the work load is shifting.

Every year, we set a number of goals for ourselves.  In some cases we fail and in others we succeed.  Sometimes the failure is through no fault of our own, just as some successes might have less to do with us than we'd like to think.  It isn't surprising that reaching goals gives much satisfaction and falling short can be a source of disappointment and frustration.  But, at the end of the day, it is the struggle to achieve the goals and the things we learned from the struggle that stay with us.  Failure forces us to learn and adjust.  It challenges us to improve and pay a bit more attention in the future.  Success encourages us to keep trying and reminds us that there are rewards to be had during and after the struggle to achieve the goal.  It is the act of setting and striving to reach these goals that helps maintain the desire to become better at what we do on the farm.

In our case, we set a number of goals - some are more formal than others.  Of course, there is the goal to "have a good growing season" and "keep our customers happy with quality produce, poultry, etc."  But, we'll focus on more measurable goals in a series of posts over the next few months.

1. Brrrrroccoli

In January, we asked our share holders what they'd like to see more of during the growing season.  Broccoli was mentioned several times.  The link above will take you to a blog post that discusses our goals for this crop.  But, to make it easier:

Broccoli(left) and Cauliflower

• Double our production from 2013
• Maintain a crop that continues to have outstanding taste
• Provide 4 weeks of broccoli to the CSA minimum
• Have additional broccoli for sales outside of the CSA

The late start to the season got in the way of implementing our plan for this crop in its entirety.  But, we were able to do a fair amount with it.  We did not double our production, but we did increase the production amount from 2012.  As a result, we were able to provide broccoli to our regular season CSA farm shares for 6 weeks of the season and 1 week in the Fall extended season.  On the other hand, we did not feel that we had excess broccoli at any given time to sell.  And, happily, we continue to be pleased with the taste of the broccoli.  The quality was excellent this year, even if the heads were a bit smaller than 2012.  Our strategies for 2014 will be a refinement of this year's approach.  We'll stick to Gypsy and Belstar (as long as seed is available).  It is likely we'll stay simple for 2014 and save variety experimentation with broccoli for 2015.  Instead, we'll run an experiment with cultivation versus mulch and see where that goes.

2. Improve Communication with Our Farm Share CSA Members

Ok, maybe you didn't see us actively share this goal with everyone in a specific post.  But, we do think persons who have been with us for more than one year have noticed improvements in this area.

We've been trying to share our responses to questions people ask us.  One example can be viewed in our What Makes Farming Fun post.   We've learned that people don't always ask on the blog or on Facebook, but they will ask us in face to face settings, or sometimes via email.  We're pretty good about responding in those situations, but then we realized that these are good opportunities to share our answers.  And, like the post linked above, we realize that many of you enjoy hearing answers to questions that are not necessarily specific to a function of the farm.

Of course, our email newsletters have evolved and we've stuck to a format in hopes that it will aid members in finding what they need.  We have to admit that Tammy wasn't sure Rob's humor was the best thing to add.  But, after the dust has settled and the groaning over awful puns was past, we have to admit that the tone of the communications going both ways tended to be positive.  And that was really our overall goal for this season's communications - we needed to stay positive!

We've been told that blog posts that have more pictures are favorites, so we try to do a 'picture this' type post, like this one for September, as often as we are able.  Another definite favorite is anything that features the views and opinions of our animals.  This Fall, we had a well-liked guest appearance by Jake the turkey.  And, we have to admit that we are not so good at giving views of the people on the farm.  So, we will continue to work on that.

We've continued to do some things that people have identified as favorites, such as our posts on vegetable varieties, such as our Veg Variety Winners.  And, our crop reports are simply a way to have something out there to keep you informed as to what is on its way (or not).

We continue to work on signage, email responses, order forms and any number of ways where we can make things more consistent and easier for you to work with us.  We're pleased with the efforts this year, but we're very aware that this is one of those times where continuous improvement will be far better than delayed perfection.

(to be continued)

November Picture This

We have a few new photos to share, so we thought we'd use them as a way to tell everyone about some of our recent accomplishments.

First, many of you probably know that we move our high tunnel once a year - typically in the Fall.  Well, we got it done on November 2.  It was a bit later than we would like, but it wasn't that long ago that we picked a batch of tomatoes out of the building in the East position (Oct 23 to be exact).

A beautiful November day.

 Tammy was quick enough to grab the camera and take a picture of the high tunnel just inside the building to its East.  Here is the before picture - taken at about 4pm (the first picture was about 1pm).  You can see the door is already on the ground.  Take note of the grey carts at the right.

High tunnel in the East position (Nov 2)

 We were both a bit busy for the next few hours, so no pictures of that.  But, we did get the tunnel moved that day.  This picture was taken early on Sunday (Nov 3).

High tunnel in West position (Nov 3)

One of the reasons this happened on November 2 was the welcome help from a group of Wartburg students who spent a few hours on the farm Saturday morning.  Since it was a bit chilly, we focused on work in the high tunnel.  Though, we did get some portable buildings moved.  It's become a bit of a tradition to feed the birds at the end of the job.  This picture is pretty cool as it catches tomatoes in mid-air.

The last of the high tunnel tomatoes go to the chickens!

We've actually been graced with the presence of a few groups this Fall, and we've been grateful for each one of them.  The Environmental Biology class came out and got the nickel tour, then followed with a little bit of work on the farm.  We've had a couple of IS 101 groups out and we exchanged some food for a little work on Oct 18 as well.  The turkeys and hens were pretty pleased with the harvest these three ladies came up with.

Harvesting cull tomatoes for the birds.

Shifting gears.... we do still have some flowers on the farm.  But, I suppose the first picture might be construed as cheating a bit.... the plant is in the house.  But, when an orchid blooms, even if it isn't one of the more exotic ones, it is worth noting.

Our orchid rewards Tammy's efforts

The orchid was recently repotted.  It is our understanding that most orchids are pretty slow to show that they liked (or disliked) any particular treatment.  This plant is positively hasty for an orchid.  It flowered just four months after the repot.

On the other hand, we had a monkshood throw out a couple of flowers for us to see the first week of November.  It was shivering when I took the picture, but it still had flowers.

Monkshood

Shifting back to accomplishments....  We did manage to get our garlic into the ground this weekend.  Actually, some of it went in last weekend and the rest went in this weekend.  But, when you put in about 3000 garlic, who's worried about a week gap?

Northern White and Music garlic cloves to plant.

Tammy, caught in a picture!

We had some pretty strong winds from the East this week.  We noticed something looked a little different Friday night, but it was pretty dark.  The difference was confirmed Saturday morning.

The barn's new look.

Clearly, the angle of the wind had to be perfect.  It just rolled the entire lower section of the West roof line up and over the edge of the wall.

Nice of the barn to put the roof where Rob can work on it.

And, of course, we would be remiss if we did not make note of the Dream Big, Grow Here grant contest that GFF participated in this Fall.  We entered this program in an effort to raise some money towards a second high tunnel.  It started with a voting phase and our request for votes can be seen in this post.  We finished a close second (4 votes back) and earned the right to "pitch" our idea for the $5000 prize offered by the Cedar Valley regional contest.  The pitch occurred on Thursday of the past week and apparently went well.  We are now in possession of a big check that the bank doesn't want to cash.  Happily, the one they will cash can be picked up this week.

There's our start for a new high tunnel.