Jonathan Gates reports from Howmars Farm in Franklin, Vermont. Howmars is a certified organic dairy farm, one of many Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative farmer members who supply the milk that goes into making Stonyfield's yogurts and smoothies. The entire family pitches in on this third-generation farm. Jonathan and his father, Howard, converted the farm from conventional dairy farming to organic 9 years ago. Meet Jonathan. He farms with his wife Karen, sons Benjamin, Justin, and Noah, and Jonathan's parents, Howard and Mary.
A snowy Thanksgiving for farm creatures great and small (and proud)
The snowfall late yesterday afternoon and evening left us five or six inches of snow on the ground. With more forecast for tomorrow, Thanksgiving, all the skiers and deer hunters are ecstatic. It makes things a little sloppy around the barn with snow on top of the unfrozen ground, but it wasn't too bad this morning feeding round bales and handling the manure.
The animals take the change of weather in stride. The heifers being overwintered outside in the pole barn were munching hay at the round bale feeder while snowflakes from a passing flurry swirled around them.
The chickens surprised us by wanting to come out of their coops and into the snow once the doors were open. The younger hens followed Rooster Cogburn across the lawn and, of course, right to the bird feeder which Karen had filled this morning.
One reluctant older hen spent the night under one of our decks. She must have gotten caught there when the snow started yesterday afternoon, and then didn't want to cross the snow-covered ground to go back to her coop for the night. We'll be sure to get her out from under there today.
Turkey sales have been excellent. One more person is stopping by this afternoon to pick up her bird. That will bring the number of birds sold to about 30. That leaves 18 in the freezer, some of which we may sell at Chistmas time and the rest we will have to use throughout the year. It's nice to think how many families will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday by serving one of our turkeys. It's encouraging to see people making a choice for locally grown, organic food for their families because they think it is the right thing to do.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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With the weather turning colder and the first snowfall having come several weeks ago, Karen starts filling the bird feeder for all the wild birds in the area. The feeder hangs from the butternut tree on the lawn, and usually attracts the normal crowd. Chickadees, nuthatches, blue jays, sparrows, starlings, woodpeckers, the occasional cardinal, mourning doves, and other various birds visit the spot for a bite to eat.
One other bird variety has found the bird feeder a good place to have a snack. As soon as Karen had filled up the feeder for the first time, the chickens found the seed that had fallen on the ground and quickly gobbled it up. Now, every morning when the chickens are let out the bird feeder is the first place they go. Karen even wonders if they fly up and bump the feeder to make more seed fall on the ground. We haven't witnessed this first hand, but we wonder how much seed gets knocked on the ground. It may be just from the wild birds use of the feeder.
When one of my beef/poultry customers stopped by yesterday for a turkey, she had a good chuckle watching the chickens. Her husband would like some, but she is a little hesitant about it. I told her if she wanted entertainment the chickens would certainly provide it. You just never know where they will get to next. Whether it's under the bird feeder, sitting on top of the tractor, inside the wheel hub of the truck, or on the deck pecking at the patio door, they are always finding some new place to explore and often in a comical way.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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I wanted to answer a question a reader sent in after a recent blog. Liz had to cull her home dairy cows due to Johne's Disease, and she wanted to know if we test our cows for the disease and if we had a "clean" herd. I was very sorry to hear of her plight, and I wanted to address the subject.
Johne's Disease is an incurable bacterial infection that occurs mostly in ruminants, such as dairy cows, and it affects the lower small intestine. Over time the intestinal wall, in reaction to the infection, becomes thickened, impairing its ability to absorb nutrients. The animal, while maintaining a healthy appetite, appears to start wasting away.
Our state was offering funding to test dairy herds, and we decided to enroll our herd and have been working with our vet, Dr. Steve, to do the required testing. The first test was to blood test all the milking animals. This was a simple test, the results came back fairly quickly, and Dr. Steve told us the results were the best he had ever seen. Since Johne's is most often introduced into a herd through purchased animals, we felt confident our herd would test well because we haven't purchased any animals in the last 30 years.
To confirm the blood test results, we were then required to do fecal samples on 30 animals at least 36 months old. The samples were taken the end of September and sent off to be cultured. The results won't be back until next month. We are very confident that our herd will be declared Johne's-free.
This is important for several reasons. In the future, when we sell animals to other farmers, and Johne's-free status may make our animals worth more. Knowing our herd is free of this disease lets us know our animals are healthy and will not suffer health or production problems due Johne's. If any readers want more information, they can visit the website, http://johnes.org.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Moo-vie News: Turkeys gobbling happily in Franklin, Vermont
A few weeks back--before snow came and Daylight Savings Time ended--Jonathan captured his flock of turkeys on camera while they nibbled and gobbled away. The turkeys love being out on fresh green grass and clover. Jonathan's family raises organic turkeys for sale each year. Watch the video by pressing the big arrow in the middle of the screen. (Quality and speed will vary depending upon your computer.)
Draining the watering system before the snow flies
A November sky threatens snow in northern Vermont.
We had some snow flurries go through today, and it motivated me to drain the watering system that feeds the grazing paddocks in the summer time. We have between three and four thousand feet of 3/4" black plastic waterline bringing water to all sections of the grazing system. If we don't drain it before winter really sets in then the water-filled line may freeze and burst.
I took the four-wheeler to save time, and to have light from the headlights since it was getting dark. I went to the end of each line that T's off the main line and opened the faucet so the water would drain. Once this was done, I used the four-wheeler to pull the two large stock tanks, used for watering the cows, back to the barn. These would be rinsed out and stored for the winter.
I'll let the lines drain by gravity overnight, and tomorrow I'll hitch up the air compressor to blow out any remaing water in the line. With that job done, the line will be ready next spring when grazing season starts and I won't have to worry about looking for leaks caused by burst sections in the line.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Today my dad said to me the words I hate to hear: "The barn drain is plugged. I'll go rent the snake."
The barn drain, which comes from the milkhouse and milking parlor, travels 250 to 300 feet underground until it spills out onto a grass filter. Because of the distance, the drain plugs every once in a while. Usually we can remove the plug using a 200-foot plumbers snake. If the snake doesn't do the job, then we have to get a backhoe in to dig up the line and find the plug.
Jonathan begins the snaking of the long drain pipe, with a trusty lab Yukon standing by.
We worked at the blockage for almost three hours and it wasn't looking good. The snake was going up the drain about 175 feet before we were stopped, and over the nearly three hours we gained what seemed like inches. It looked like the backhoe option was going to come in to play. Finally, just before it was time to quit for the afternoon milking, I heard a rumbling up in the pipe and I scrambled out of the way before a deluge of backed-up drain water poured out of the end of the drain pipe. SUCCESS!!!
The blockage becomes unblocked in one explosion of stuff!
We were all glad we only had to pay for the rental of the plumbers snake instead of several hours of backhoe work. We wiped off the snake and put it in the back of Dad's vehicle so it would be ready to go back in the morning. I can't remember having such a hard time getting the blockage out of the drain. Hopefully it will run trouble-free through the winter.
Left: Farmer Jonathan and his father, Howard, after a successful day at unblocking a troublesome drain.
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When our tractor needs new tires, the "garage" comes to us
With the farm settling into winter mode, we become very dependent on our loader tractor. We use that tractor to feed the round bales, clean the freestall barn, load the compost for spreading, bring sawdust to the barns to bed down the animals, and plow snow. If the loader tractor goes down for any reason, we have to hustle to get it back in operation again. Today we replaced the front tires on that tractor since one of the tires had been losing air, and both tires were pretty worn.
A company in St. Albans, Wood's Tires, has a mobile unit that will travel to farms to replace tires on all types of farm equipment. My dad thought that instead of us taking both tires off the tractor and bringing them in to be replaced, we should just have to mobile unit come up here and replace them. That sounded good to me.
The man arrived at the farm a little after 7:30, and by 9 o'clock he had both new tires on and the tractor was ready to go. We won't have to worry about getting up in the morning and finding a tractor with a flat tire.
After our morning walk, I headed back to the barn to scrape out the barn with the loader tractor. And after lunch, I loaded and spread several loads of compost on a section of pasture. The new tires seemed to be holding air fine, and the better traction made it easier to get in and out of the compost windrow when loading the spreader.
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I stopped in to see Sylvia Peletier the other day. We built a chicken coop for her this spring, and I hadn't seen her in quite awhile. I had stopped once to finish picking up left over building materials and to drop off a layer box that I had built for the coop, but no one was around that day. I wanted to see how they had finished the coop and how the chickens were doing.
Sylvia, as always, was so happy to have company and she was just bubbling over with excitement about her hens. Her husband, Ron, and her grandson, Josh, had done a wonderful job painting and trimming the chicken coop. The yellow paint job that Josh had done made the coop look so bright and cheerful. Ron had put up the layer box, but the hens were still getting used to it. After seeing the Cadillac version of chicken coops, it made me feel bad for my hens back home. It's a good thing my hens didn't see the Peltier's coop. They'd refuse to lay in their coop ever again!!
It made me very good inside to see how much enjoyment Sylvia was getting out of her chickens and chicken coop. She showed me all the pictures she had taken of her chicks as they were growing through the spring and summer. For all the challenges she faces just getting through her daily routine, I hope the gift we gave her this spring has brightened her day in small way. And I hope she is enjoying the eggs!
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
Left: Sylvia, back in the spring when this project started.
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The first snowfall of the season started last night, and by morning we had 4-5 inches of heavy wet snow on the ground. With the leaves still on many of the trees because of the extended warm weather, the tree branches held a lot more snow causing many branches,and young trees, to snap off. With it staying so warm into the fall, it seems like we went right from summer to winter.
I was very glad we had spent the last couple of days moving animals around to where they would be for the winter. We put 8 heifers back inside the young stock barn, and the remaining heifers and steers that were outside we moved across the road so they would have access to the pole barn for shelter. This morning with all the snow, all the animals had a dry place for shelter. Dennis has been bringing loads of round bales, so I had plenty of feed to give to the cows and young stock this morning, too. I especially thought of Kathy, the calf I found in the woods, and how fortunate it was that I found her yesterday before this messy storm.
I guess I have to accept that the grazing season is done, and it is time to change into the winter routine here at Howmars Farm. Bringing feed to the animals, hauling bedding to the freestalls and pole barn, and hauling away the manure will be added to the daily routine of milking the cows and doing the young stock chores. I'll put away my "golf bag" of fencing supplies until nex April, and dream of green grass growing again while I plow snow and feed round bales.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Jonathan Gates reports from Howmars Farm in Franklin, Vermont.
I guess I have to accept that the grazing season is done, and it is time to change into the winter routine here at Howmars Farm. Bringing feed to the animals, hauling bedding to the freestalls and pole barn, and hauling away the manure will be added to the daily routine of milking the cows and doing the young stock chores. I'll put away my "golf bag" of fencing supplies until nex April, and dream of green grass growing again while I plow snow and feed round bales.