What Once Was

When the motivation to write is not there - or the energy to write some of the more ambitious posts can't be found - I go throw some of our farm photos into a post and see what they bring to mind.  I suppose you could argue that some of the reason I like doing this is for the nostalgia, but it would be more accurate to say that I appreciate identifying the changes and improvements that have been accomplished after the moment in time that is captured by the camera.

Chickens on the Loose!
At one point in time the hen room was in the Southeast corner of the old barn.  We built the room using old lumber, much of which had been salvaged from discarded lofts that we were able to pick up from the college campus at the end of the school year.  A very early blog story about Yogi the duck had something to do with our early poultry lodging arrangements.

The pasture area bordered a cement area to the South of the barn and it was separated by the livestock gate you see in the picture below.

Hmmm. That looks like a Worley running in front of the chickens! (2008)

Such gates are not built to keep chickens in (or out, for that matter).  So, one of our earlier challenges was trying to keep the birds in their pasture and out of veggie growing areas on the farm.  The gate area was subject to a number of "chewing gum and baling wire" attempts to keep the birds in (and other critters out).  Since that time, the barn has gone through several stages of deconstruction and is no longer in use at our farm.  The pasture area is still used, but we prefer the solar powered poultry netting to protect our birds (and keep them in their pasture area).  It would be safe to say that the cement area and the barn have degraded over time, but the handling of our poultry flocks has improved significantly.  Sometimes it is difficult to even remember how we USED to handle our flocks because we have made so many adjustments.

Big Clean-Up Job
I think it was 2007 or 2008 when we lost one of our buildings to a very strong wind from the North.  Sadly, this building was probably a better size than the barn for our use, but we arrived at the farm a bit too late to be able to save it.  It took us a few years of on and off efforts to clean up the mess and which culminated in 2010 with us hiring a couple of college students to do some work while we started the growing season.

Part of the motivation was that there was good lumber in that pile and we didn't want it to go to waste.  We realized then (just as we do now) that a more time-efficient approach might have been to pile it up and burn it down.  But, we've never liked throwing away a perfectly useful resource.

Since the time of the big clean-up, this area has been home to cold frames for seed starting, a cleaning area for produce and a couple of raised beds were built in the area during some of our wet growing years.  This scene continues to evolve with last year's addition of our solar panels.

The Turkey Room Emerges
A significant amount of the recovered lumber was used to build a room for our turkeys in the building that we now call the Poultry Pavilion.  Most of the work was completed by Rob's Dad and Denis.  We realized then (and now) that working with repurposed lumber brings about it's own challenges, but we made things work.  I suspect Rob and Tammy did their fair share of the work too.  But, it happened during a time of the year when so much was going on it is pretty hard to keep track of who did what.

 This room has gone through a few modifications since it's initial use, but it remains the turkeys' home base from year to year.  They have access to pasture space by exiting out the back.

We also used some of the wood to put together a deck for a newly purchased hay rack.  The hayrack has always had problems with turning, so it has lost favor as better tools have come around.  But, it is still pretty amazing to consider how many things on our farm were built out of repurposed lumber and parts.  Even more amazing is how many of those things we built have actually reached the end of their useful lives.  I think it is safe to say that we didn't consider that aspect of farming when we started.

Pushing Things Too Far?
One of the things that has improved for us is the addition of tractors to our set of useful tools.  While I will admit that it IS good exercise to pull a cart full of kohlrabi 2500 feet from the harvest area to the pack area, it certainly is NOT very time efficient. 

We got away from using the lawn tractor to pull these green carts around after we lost all of our harvest when a wheel broke on the cart and the driver did not notice until they had driven the entire distance from the field to the pack area.  Um... yeah.

The Joy of Fencing
Perhaps the most shocking part of all of this is how much we have learned over the years.  One area of significant growth is our use of fencing.  We have gotten pretty good at using the poultry netting, but we are also quite pleased with the permanent fencing that went up around the hen pasture.

For those who want to learn a bit about how we raise our poultry you can visit our Poultry Slam post from  2015.  At the point we put that post out, the fencing had been up for a year or so.  If you recall the beginning of this post, you'll remember that we struggled with keeping the birds where we wanted them.  Despite an occasional escapee, this system has worked well for several years now.  The pasture has had bushes and trees added to provide shelter for the birds.  It's actually quite amazing to look at this picture and realize how barren the area seems as compared to what it looks like now.

Actually Growing Onions Successfully?
Early on, onions were not one of our strongest suits.  Our seedlings were often quite tiny when they went in and it was pretty difficult differentiating them from the grassy weeds that liked to come up in their beds.  It was bad enough that one of our workers confessed that they had real nightmares about weeding them.

 My how things have changed.  Like any crop we grow, there can be moments that make one wonder.  But, onions have been one of our most successful crops over the past six years (or more).  So, once again, we apologize to Anden for the nightmares.  On the plus side, he DID get to see the nice new flex tine weeder do its job for us.

Did We Actually Raise Ducks?
It really was not that long ago that we were raising ducks and actually getting featured on Iowa Ingredient for doing so.  Sadly, the joke is that if a small farm wants to stop raising a particular crop, they should get featured in Iowa Ingredient for that crop.  We know that is not entirely true and this is not to cast aspersions on an excellent Iowa Public Television show. 

The real reason for bringing it up is that I was actually surprised to notice that we had ducks in 2017, only a few seasons ago.  It actually feels like we exited that particular project eons ago.

Remember When You Lifted A High Tunnel All By Yourself?
 We added our second high tunnel in 2015.  When it arrived, the person who delivered needed us to unload it in an hour.  We did not have access to a tractor with forks to lift the pallets off.  That meant we had to disassemble the pallets to get things into portions we could lift without mechanical help.

We also needed to keep track of the components so we could ascertain if all of the parts arrived.

Yes, I lifted every component of the high tunnel in the process of unloading the trailer.  Yes, we got it done in less than an hour.  And no, I did not have to move each piece to the build location on my own (thank goodness).