Pigs and Water

As most of you know, pigs don’t sweat so in warm weather they need water. Plenty of it. Water to drink. Water to dig mud wallows (covering their skin with mud acts as a sun screen and cools them off).
Yesterday, at 3am, I woke up in a panic. I realized that the water lines for the pigs, in their current new pastures, are laying out on the ground and the pipe is black. That means when the sun hits the line it heats up so hot they can't drink it. I got up, got dressed and headed out with a headlamp and started burying line. It took most of the morning and then I had help from one of the guys that knows all the stuff on the parts and gravity and fittings etc. It was a hard day up and down hills in the heat, standing and watching the pro do the work and me doing the learning, holding tools, digging 4" troughs to bury line, managing tools. By 3 pm I was hot, sweaty (unlike the pigs I do sweat and probably smelled worse than a pig) and at first pissed off that I didn't plan the original move well.
That's when I noticed the breathing. The unmistakable labor breathing all moms that give birth have. Right there next to me one of the mama pigs had 9 of the dearest, cutest, sweetest, litters yet (one of them stumbled over to me. She was red on top, white on bottom with a tan backside and 5 black spots on her butt!). She sniffed at my hand, grabbed a finger looking for milk. I carefully put her next to her mama to drink and she latched on with gusto!
All the work laying the line didn't matt
For a moment, all was right with the world (probably is always that way but somehow I need a push a lot of the time to see it). Come visit.

Your humbled Farmer,
Tara Smith

I have been irritated most of my life by the comment “I need to have a balanced life”. I say this comment when I am exhausted or stressed out. Lately that seems to be a lot. Moving the cement chunks out of the store (making more room in the back for packing), while a physically moronic move for a 50 year old was actually brilliant as it caused my right knee to swell up which then caused me to have to sit and think about what caused me to make the “moronic” move.

I started with “I need to get a balanced life”. But what does that actually mean? The judgmental side of me thinks it means “I work until I have put in the required hours (set by someone else). It doesn’t matter if what needed to get done got done. My time is up and I have a balanced life. My life is not about work. I work to live not live to work”.

The defensive side of me toward the “balanced life scenario” says that leaders, business owners, movers and shakers don’t have balanced lives. They work to live and must work 7 days a week to be successful in the beginning of every endeavor. As they train others they can back away from the day-to-day and focus on the vision and future (which fills the time the “day-to-day” was occupying).
The dilemma…what about the people that do what they love and are successful (whatever that means to them)? What if my day is filled with more of the stuff I love to do and it turns out it is the work I am doing or some part of it? What if I delegate more of the stuff I don’t like to do? If I am working but doing what gives me peace, fulfillment and pays my bills so I am not a burden on society, can I do that and call it a balanced life?

Can I get up every morning face my fears and still manage to get the kids off to school or listen to their successes and struggles with a listening ear verses trying to save them from the pains of growing and learning themselves?

Here is an example of what I am thinking for those of you that don’t follow my writing (which is not a strength and I know it). Here is what is fulfilling to me:
6:00 – 6:30 Getting up at 6am to have coffee to talk about my day with my husband
6:45 – 10:30 Moving Chicken Tractors
10:30 – 11:30 Breakfast with my 13 year old
11:30 – 1:00 Run in shower and deliver a talk on farming somewhere in the 2 counties.
1:30 – 5:00 Check in with office staff, e-mail, voicemail, ancillary paperwork.
5:00 – 7:00 Laundry, house work etc. Conversations with my older kids. Dinner?
7:00 – 9:00 Maintenance/Closing chicken tractors/hen houses/check all water
9:00 on is hearing how the family is doing, work, girls, work, girls…hmmmmm

Not sure if it sounds good to you or not but during the day I feel like I am testing my armor. What is possible for me. I know that moving the cement chunks was mentally an ego thing. I did it! I am the WoMan. I still got it going on. Not a smart move given the swelling in my knee. However, I love the peace and quiet putting new clips on the chicken tractors, sitting on the ground talking to the chickens while I fashioned each wire clip to fit. I like learning how to use a new tool and build a solid fence. It feels satisfying to see the business report with all the numbers going in the right directions and not have to create it myself.

I guess what I am saying is that I get juiced when I am exhausted from a day, can see results of my work and the work is good. I feel like my life is meaningful.
There is some draw for me to test the limits of my capability, to see what is possible from my mind and hands (and knee). It is something I don’t get from shopping (unless it is at the salvage yard, love that place). Fear is actually a strong player in my life. The fear that I might be one of the “cold and timid souls, that know neither victory nor defeat” as George Bernard Shaw put it. To play in the arena of life, risking failure for the potential of victory! That is what I am all about and I don’t think “balance” has a place here. But that is just me!

Your gimpy farmer,
Tara Smith

Innovation

I haven’t been willing to stray from or change anything we learned from Joel Salatin. I found it to be risky and mostly to the detriment of the animals (safety) and workers (efficiency). Until now. Innovation usually comes to me in the middle of the night. The bad news I wake up at 3:15 and realize the mouth guard I use to stop the GRINDING down of my teeth has been worn thin. The good news is I usually have a solution to the problem at hand within the hour. Just laying there giving my brain a moment to speak -it is quite surprising and I count on it.

Two nights ago it was all about the bigger meat chickens. This time of year we are low on green grass. We put in lots of garden vegetables to compensate. But the 6 to 10 week old chickens just seem, well, bored. It is nice out and they are big enough to not get picked up by a hawk so I tried an experiment. We propped up one end of the chicken tractor so they could walk out on the pasture and graze on bugs and plants. It worked. They come out in the am and graze around. They go in for shade if it is too warm. At night they go in on their own for protection. Seems to be working well. We still move the tractor each day to allow pooh to concentrate only one day in any given patch. Everything else seems to be working fine. Chickens seem to be happy. So we have extended the privilege to the rest of the birds that are big enough to not be prey to a hawk. So far so good.

There was one little glitch. I also thought that if I put a batch of 3 weeks olds next to a batch of 8 week olds that they might blend in well enough to be safe. The attack was not from hawks or crows, it was from the 8 week old birds. Apparently they are not interested in sharing pasture with their fellow siblings. They peck at them, drawing blood. Fortunately no one was around to see my reaction. I jumped yelling “Stop it. What are you crazy? Get away. Leave him alone. Have you lost your mind? You don’t bite other chickens”.
Realizing later that this sounded just like talking to a child. I did look around to see if anyone was laughing (that happens a lot). And I still am the boss and get to make the decisions. So there.

Come and visit…
Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

Most people in the world want to live here in the US (regardless of all the complaining we might do). I believe it has to do with our freedoms. Especially the freedom of choice.

The perception is that we always have a choice. In my opinion we do have choice, but it is more complex than that. Let’s take food for instance…

Eating organic, pasture raised, local food meets so many levels of “being green” and it requires a well-informed purchaser to be able to pull it off. Marketing is hard core for bad food and overcoming the lies in our food system is one of the most trying and frustrating things I have done in the last 3 years.

Understanding what REAL food is and what it is not is key to making informed choices. I recommend the following:

http://www.sierraclub.org/truecostoffood/movie.asp
This is a 15 minute video with sources to follow up on.

Food Inc. – DVD movie that fills in the back story of “The True Cost of Food”. You will be amazed. (It is not graphic – great for those sensitive or who are a bit younger) On August 9th, PBS will show an encore presentation of Food, Inc. at 10pm ET (check your local listing. Food, Inc. was just nominated for two News and Documentary Emmy Awards!
Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan. There are 2 versions and I recommend the “young persons” edition for easier reading. He can get very technical.

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer by Joel Salatin. This is a fabulous perspective of how one man models a healthy, sustainable practice building a food system that in turn builds soil which in turn grows grass that photosynthesizes greenhouse gases (CO2) back into the ground…this book is a hoot and gives hope and solutions you can tackle without becoming a farmer.

There is more and we have a library full of it (also in Farmigo for your shopping enjoyment).

Come visit…bring a friend!

Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

Justifying My Actions

Action: Carrot cake for breakfast.

Justification: I read somewhere that walking 10,000 steps a day will keep you in shape.
I wondered how many steps I take, evidently I wondered out loud and someone gave me one of those pedometers. From 7am to 11:00 each morning I walk 17,000 steps, give or take, on hills, in the heat tending the chicken tractors.

Action: Stealing three bites of steak tartar that Tiffani made and gave to Paige for lunch (Paige can’t see me from her office).

Justification: The stuff is amazing and Paige can’t see me from her office.

Action: Eating a huge dinner of massive sautéed vegetables over a beautiful medium rare pork chop.

Justification: Walking through the fields at night with Roland checking sniffing all things adds on some steps along with the work of hosing him down to get all the duck weed out of his coat because he HAD to jump into the pond. There are steps to get the goats out of the garden (they have discovered the garden) and out of the chicken feed (they discovered that too).

The bottom line is that I am in much better shape than when I was an executive in the insurance industry.
Sitting at a desk on the phone or eating hotel food while traveling had all its appeal (it was clean and my fingers and toes were pretty). But I was fat and unhealthy and frankly bored. Not that that was a reason to go into farming. But it was a reason to take pause, consider what I wanted my life to be like, what I wanted to contribute back…okay I didn’t take pause, I jumped in but that would not suffice to make this point: Working physically as well as mentally rocks. Just like my “pipes” as my son calls my arms. I feel good. I sleep well and I get to eat cake for breakfast!

Warning: If you are having thoughts of going into farming and you are over 45 I would suggest a gym first.

Your Buff Farmer!
Tara Smith

Just when I think we are a fad I get a call. This guy wants to know what to do with the $2 million dollars he has from selling shares in a company. He wonders about organic food as an investment. I sent him to my friend that is an investor doing just that. He buys farm land with investors’ money, turns it into organic producing land within 5 years and the return is 8% starting at the 5 year mark. I was surprised to learn the surge of people putting their money into such an investment and the reasons why. Not just the return. The majority say it is to guarantee organic food for their grandchildren. Most of these investors are over 50 and believe the stock market is not trustworthy but organic land (or land becoming organic) is a safe and smart investment for their families futures. I found that fascinating.
So those occasionally fleeting thoughts of selling the farm because my hands are cut up from moving chickens or I can’t get out of bed without groaning like an old man are just that...fleeting. If anything I would like to lease more land with investors to allow us to raise more chicken on less challenging ground (those hills are tough). Maybe a manicure first…

Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

It’s All About the Twinkie Defense

I have to say congratulations to you as members. Not because you want to feed your kids and selves real food and not because you want to support the farm so you can choose real food (even though those are great reasons). There is another reason.

Remember the Twinkie defense? The defendant killed 2 well known leaders in the community and claimed he was depressed from eating too many Twinkies causing him to lash out and murder. It didn’t fly and he was convicted. Read on and keep the Twinkie in mind…









There was a meeting in Marin yesterday that addressed the availability of healthy food for those that are at or below the poverty line. Now, you know my stand on those that are above the poverty line. The stand about choices. We have a choice to buy a new gadget or pay for real food. However, those that are below the poverty line have less options. Some much less.

In the San Rafael Canal district there are 5 fast food restaurants and no grocery stores. Has something to do with zoning. Really? Are you kidding me? Our county and city planners don’t have a bigger vision than that? Wait…hold on…it is really complicated. So complicated that there is no accountability at any level of government. No one has the authority to make a better choice to plan for growth and distribution of healthy food. What would it take to put a farmers market in the Canal District? A lot of bright minds to get past all the zoning etc. But that wouldn’t be the show stopper.

The show stopper is the cost of the food. The supply and cost to raise it with land prices, workers comp and labor board requirements are cost prohibitive, today. They will remain that way until enough of the middle to high income families and leaders in our communities decide that enough is enough. But why would we decide that? Best to look closely at why. There is a huge health care cost for children that grow up eating from a convenience store or seniors that can’t physically access healthy food and end up eating processed “plastic” food delivered by well-meaning volunteers.

It’s called welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and Medicare. Programs that are creating a wave of higher costs because they cannot address the problem adequately. And the unhealthy are growing in numbers beyond control. The food system, or lack thereof, is feeding the health care system. Nice little monopoly.

Sitting in this meeting my head wanted to explode. All I could think about is why it is okay to sell Twinkies in the store? My husband, the level headed one in our marriage, said it had something to do with some document called the Constitution. Yeah, whatever. I think it is more about leadership.

Leadership like they have in Fairfax. The community decided to ban “polystyrene” from use in restaurants and stores. Makes great sense. The stuff doesn’t biodegrade, creates landfill and litter issues so they ban it. Seems simple.

So why not create a vision that by 2015 we have only real food in any outlet for food i.e. restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, schools etc. What would it take to do it? The best way I know how to accomplish a huge goal is to write down all the reasons why it can’t be done and work on each issue one by one. That process puts all the overwhelming stuff in to bite size pieces and it is amazing how much can get done in a short time. Utilizing many people for small projects vs. few doing all the work is another method to Get Sh*t Done.

Can you feel it? The insanity. Anybody interested in leading us out of it?
Your Farmer,
Tara Smith