Winter Work

Here's Clark relaxing in the winter loafing yard after a long morning of dropping off hay for the cattle.  There's less work for the Fjords during the winter months, but Clark and his fellow Suffolk teammate Fred stay pretty busy almost every day. Along with the feeding and manure spreading, there's also the random odd job like hauling firewood or harrowing.
While Clark is as steady and dependable and they come, all the horses benefit from some kind of work as often as possible.  It's no surprise that after a few days of laying around the barn and eating hay, some of the younger horses like to pretend that they've forgotten how to work when duty calls.

Out to Pasture

We have six different pastures we use for grazing and haying here on the farm and we've informally given each a name loosely based on some physical feature. There is the "Mailbox" pasture, the "Upper" pasture, the "Shire" pasture... things like that.  Here we have Ryan driving Fred and Clark back from dropping off hay in what we inventively call the "Waterfall" pasture.  This particular nook is one of the most remote spots of the farm, and due to its' northern exposure and the tall maples, cedars and hemlocks on the hillside above,  it gets very little direct sunlight. At the moment, it is the home of Big John (the Dexter bull) and his harem and attendants.  

Winter Feeding

We've been feeding hay in the waterfall pasture for a few weeks now even though there is still some grass, but the animals seem to appreciate the extra feed, and it allows the pasture to rest and recover over the winter.

The young heifers and steers are being kept outside, while the milk cow and the new mama and calf stay in the barn.  At feeding time, we toss a few large forks full of loose hay down from the loft, load it up on the wagon, and head out with Fred and Clark.  It didn't take long for the cows to figure out that the approaching wagon meant chow time.  Here Ryan is hauling the hay out to the far side of the pasture so that the same spot of ground doesn't get trampled day after day. Moving the feed around also utilizes the animal's natural abilities as self-loading manure spreaders.

Lilac's New Calf

Lilac has been as big as a house for a couple of weeks, and we moved her into the barn a few days ago before the cold spell.  This morning while I was mucking the stalls, I noticed that she stopped munching her hay, laid down, and about 15 minutes later... 

Stormy Weather II

Winter came early to the farm this year with about 8 inches of snow falling through the evening yesterday, followed by clear skies and sub-freezing temperatures.  We usually get these kinds of storms in December and January, but hardly ever, according to the long-time locals, before Thanksgiving.

The cold probably finished off the mangel tops, which were providing good feed for the chickens and the pigs, but there are still plenty of the roots themselves which should have weathered the cold without much trouble.  The carrots are likely finished, but the collards should be fine.

We spent some time this last summer getting the barn more warm and snug for the winter months.  Mike finished all the doors and windows, and we have plenty of good hay and straw.  

Ed Mowing with Fred and Barney

Here is a nice picture of the early days of the farm. Ed is hooking up Fred and Barney, neither of whom are still with us, to a McCormick-Deering #9 sickle bar mower. The #7 and #9, along with the John Deere Big 4 (see photo on previous post), represent the apex of horse drawn technology. Thousands of these mowers were manufactured from the late 30's until 1945 or so when tractors began to displace horses at a rapid rate. These mowers are ground driven, taking power from the wheels and transferring it, via the pitman stick to the sickle itself. These late model mowers feature an enclosed gearbox in which the gears run in an oil bath "just like an automobile." There are still several thousand of these gems doing good work on farms all over the country, a testament to the good workmanship and sound engineering of the farm machinery of the this era.

Stormy Weather

The fortunate alchemy of air, water and mountains that bless Western Washington with an almost ideal climate for farming becomes something of a curse on those rare occasions when the weather does turn bad.  Here on the farm, in the valley of the Stillaguamish River, the wind hardly ever blows harder than 10 or 15 miles an hour, and usually, not at all. So when we do get a wind storm (with the obligatory downpour) we also get a lot of downed trees.

Last night a strong weather system rolled across Puget Sound with gusty winds, lightning and heavy rain. We were without power for most of the day here on the farm, but that doesn't really put much of a damper on the day's work of cleaning up. Surprisingly, not too many trees came down, and none directly on any of the roads or power lines. In the photo we see Terry looking over a tree that just missed the road, and will probably be stacked firewood within a week.  As luck would have it, last night was the start of our winter schedule for the horses, and so they were all warm and dry in the barn.   

Winter Cover Crops

Here's Ryan mowing a cover crop of oats sown back at the end of July following potatoes. Surprisingly, some of the oats were actually starting to head out. Last winter's oats were killed by a hard freeze in December, which was ideal for planting early spring crops. When a cover crop winter kills, you don't have to deal with knocking back a live cover come spring. With our generally mild winters, I doubt oats will winter kill every year. We shall see. For fields and garden beds that will not be planted until later in the season, and where we want robust spring growth, winter hardy rye is a good choice.

Cover crops are important for protecting soil from winter rains, trapping and holding excess nitrogen, competing with weeds, adding organic matter to the soil as well as contributing to a healthy soil structure. Nature abhors bare ground and so should we.

Still Working the Land

The seasons may change, but the work stays the same.  Ed has been using horses to work the land here at the farm for over thirty years - that's him, above, doing some long-ago spring harrowing down by the old barn. When so much of this area has been put under development in recent years, with strip malls, giant chain stores and fast-food dispensaries now growing on what used to be productive farm land, Littlefield Farm remains an oasis in a changing landscape. Below is Ryan harrowing yesterday, before planting the winter wheat.

Bringing in the Sheaves

We harvested the oats last week, and despite a little bit of rain, everthing is now safely in the barn. Thanks to Ed for these photos.