tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18421365648990977342024-03-13T19:51:33.224-07:00meatRaising animals for food in western washington.Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.comBlogger1518125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-91274098589492668622021-08-18T22:13:00.001-07:002021-08-18T22:13:06.422-07:00<p> Hi. It's been a long time since I posted anything. </p><p>Lets see; 2020 was probably the best, most profitable farm year I've ever had. Which is odd to say because of a global pandemic, but it was true. </p><p>So I paid off debts and invested in some new equipment, and put myself into CDL school so I could get licensed to drive a semi truck, and i purchased a semi truck, mostly to haul huge quantities of stuff for my farm. </p><p>I've been pretty conservative in 2021 - I don't know what is going on with our economy - I confess, I just don't understand it, and when the stock market is hitting record highs, and housing is at record levels, and the price of everything seems to be going up and we've still got a global pandemic that doesn't seem to be getting better... I just can't figure it out. </p><p>So for 2021 I've been sticking pretty close to home. Building fences and outbuildings, working on my roads and access points. I purchased a new sawmill, which I'll write a bit about, mostly because I was horrified by lumber prices, and doubly horrified by log prices, so I'm not buying lumber, and I'm not selling logs, I'll go the middle route and sell my logs as lumber. </p><p>I've seriously considered some sort of vlog, and may take a stab at it soon. </p><p>I hope that you and yours are safe and well, and that you are making progress on your goals, dreams and desires. </p><p><br /></p>Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-14822254763031893032020-01-10T23:09:00.002-08:002020-01-10T23:09:32.489-08:00Winter is coming :)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEvXxb0uORY/XhlzEA-R5EI/AAAAAAAAJ_4/XC59o42Jap40FQwlQKDn0y_J-U_WhHXRgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/winter%2Bweather.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="777" height="281" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEvXxb0uORY/XhlzEA-R5EI/AAAAAAAAJ_4/XC59o42Jap40FQwlQKDn0y_J-U_WhHXRgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/winter%2Bweather.png" width="400" /></a></div>
I've gotten 6.75" of rain in the last 10 days; the amount of rain on this property is taking some getting used to. The weatherman says that the next 5 days are going from our usual refrigerator-temperature 40 degrees to fairly cold in our region. In fact, the forecasted cold temperatures a 10 year cold - you have to go back close to 10 years before you find another set of days. <br />
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So cold weather is mostly about making sure that everyone has somewhere out of the wind and dry to sleep. The pigs and cows will usually group up and sleep, but I provide fresh straw when it gets cold.<br />
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after I put out the straw I'll go and check on the animals after dark - mostly to see that everyone has enough space and to see if there's an animal that's sleeping someplace I don't know about; if that happens I'll either provide them bedding there, or I'll move them to where I'd rather they sleep to save bedding and work for me. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">there are 7 pigs in this picture. most are buried in the straw at center. </td></tr>
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Everyone is warm and happy tonight; all set for the coming cold. Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-81818740849553634452020-01-06T21:48:00.002-08:002020-01-06T21:48:29.432-08:00The new farmI purchased my first farmland in 2006; 12 acres on the flood plain of a local river, with about 4 usable acres, the rest was very wet ground. I purchased that land because it was cheap; roughly $6k/acre, which i considered cheap at the time. The area was going through a housing boom at the time, and good farmland was selling for $30k/acre to folks who wanted to build houses on it. <br />
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That patch of ground was a good starting point for me; I learned a lot about dealing with wet ground, getting tractors stuck and unstuck, local regulations and I got a good introduction to the local regulatory agencies, one by one :) <br />
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When i started to farm I spent a few years working through all of the things I could raise and sell; meat chickens, roosters, eggs, sheep, goats, beef and dairy cattle, but each of those has its own expertise, and to do a good job I felt that I had to narrow my focus; so the sheep, goats and chickens got dropped, along with most of the milking stock, but I kept the pigs and beef cattle; but the cattle really needed more land to do a proper job, so i started looking for a new farm location in 2011. <br />
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My second farm was an upgrade; I purchased it in 2013. 70 acres, a bankrupt dairy farm. As part of the purchase I got 52,000 square feet of barn space, which for me was a luxury. Barns are for the farmer, not so much for the animal. Much nicer working under a roof and having endless barn space to husband animals. I also got a complete milking parlor and a manure lagnoon/flush barn setup, and I spent a couple of years looking at it and thinking about it. <br />
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I'm interested in dairy, and cheesemaking, and spent a few years raising dairy cows and milking them, and that's all documented in this blog, but the economics of it just didn't pan out. I couldn't run enough cows on my land to make it work out, and pigs were pretty consistently profitable the whole time. that is to say that I could pencil out a $50 profit per cow, but to make a living at it I would have to own a lot of cows. Even though I had the most expensive parts - barns and milking parlors basically free - I couldn't see how to make a profit being a dairy. Low milk prices for the next 5 years basically reinforced this opinion, and I eventually dropped the idea. <br />
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I've worked out how to get about 2/3rds of my animal feed for free - mostly pre-consumer produce - and that keeps my pig costs low, and I live near a big city, which provides consumers who are willing to buy pork from a pastured producer for a very good price, and between those two points, along with weaned pig sales, there's a pretty good business. <br />
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I ran across a fellow who wanted to buy my farm for a fair price, and we're working through the process of moving my operation from the "old" farm to the "new" farm, which has been a little like taking a step back. The "new" farm has limited barn space, and limited facilities in general, and the house is about half the size of the "old" farm house. <br />
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So from the building perspective, this is a major downsize - but that's not a bad thing. I really didn't use most of the old house; and I have come to understand why farm houses are small, and it's not just economics. I work in the great outdoors every day, and given the choice between 1000 square feet of house and owning another acre or 10... well, I chose the acres. <br />
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The new farm is 450 acres; 75 acres of that is river-bottom cropland, 375 acres is commercial forest land, in various stages of regrowth after logging. The next timber harvest is 40 acres, in about 5 years. With timber there are somethings that I apparently have to do - who would have thought? - but by and large the forest does what forests do.<br />
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As I sit here, on January 6th, 2020, my weather station says that I've gotten 3.2 inches of rain in the last 24 hours, and the forecast is for another couple of inches. Even though I'm only a few miles up the valley from the old farm this new one gets substantially more rain, and the farmers on this land have been trying to control that water for a century. The ground soaks it up; most of the flats are a foot or so of topsoil over sand and gravel that is 50 to 200 feet deep; there are temporary puddles for a few hours after the rain stops, but it all gets absorbed by the ground pretty quickly. <br />
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Prior farmers have installed drain tiles all over the property. Red clay pipes, concrete pipes, wooden wire-wrapped pipes, and ditches. Some of them work, some don't, and I think that digging up and then repairing or destroying the drainage system will be a major part of my chores for the next year or so while I figure it out. Mysterious water flows are usually broken or rotten pipes channeling water from somewhere to somewhere else. <br />
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One of the first mysteries that I need to solve is the water system for the house. The water tests excellent - no problems with the quality at all. But it's gravity fed, and no one I've talked to seems to know where it comes from, other than "up that hill behind the house" - and since water supply is pretty important, I'd like to take a look at it and see if it needs any work pretty soon. <br />
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<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-12780618494042416662019-08-31T21:56:00.002-07:002019-09-01T01:13:16.759-07:00Walter Jefferies Horrible, Terrible, Awful mostly bad year<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture courtesy of WCAX, Vermont. <a href="https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Vermont-farmer-recaptures-almost-all-runaway-pigs-558851501.html">https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Vermont-farmer-recaptures-almost-all-runaway-pigs-558851501.html</a></td></tr>
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Walter Jefferies has been having a pretty hard time over in Vermont. You know it's bad when the local television station puts out a story with this headline:<br />
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<a href="https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Pigs-on-the-loose-plague-Vermont-town-558480511.html"><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">Pigs on the loose plague Vermont town</span></a></h1>
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Apparently Walter has had problems with pigs getting off his property repeatedly, last year and this year, and the local township is getting complaints - and issuing fines. Full disclosure: I've been issued fines by the local animal control for pigs off my property, related to<a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-special-neighbor-dale-strawder.html"> my special neighbor Dale Shelton</a>, but my fines are not even in the same planet as the ones that Walter has been assessed so far: The local township reports that he's been fined </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.wcax.com/video?vid=558747252">$90,000</a></span></b></div>
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He's going to have to sell a lot of pastured pork to pay that kind of fine. I think it's excessive, and it'll probably be reduced, but the local township is apparently pretty mad at him. Here's the quote: </div>
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<a href="https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Pigs-on-the-loose-plague-Vermont-town-558480511.html">"We can issue the civil tickets to him but we have no further control, the state and federal government and the state police need to take action to control the situation of loose pigs in orange" - Angela Eastman, Clerk for the town of orange </a></div>
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Apparently this situation has been going on for weeks and despite the fines hasn't been resolved yet. The news reports also state that they had pigs loose last year too; my guess is that everyone is getting kinda tired of chasing pigs around. </div>
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Walter makes a claim that his fence was damaged by an ex-employee on his web page. I've had <a href="https://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/11/downside-of-hiring-farm-help-isaac.html">my own experiences with bad farm help</a> and I empathize with him on that, but apparently the police have been out multiple times and this has gone on for weeks, a couple of days I could understand, but weeks, well, a little harder. </div>
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Walter did crowdfund a portion of his butcher shop project, and promised the backers their rewards in 2012. So 7 years later some of those very very patient backers are getting a little fed up. Given that Walter is probably roaming the hills with hotdog buns trying to get his pigs back, I understand it completely when he says it's impossible to answer questions like: <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sugarmtnfarm/building-a-butcher-shop-on-sugarmountainfarm/comments">"Hey, how many people have</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sugarmtnfarm/building-a-butcher-shop-on-sugarmountainfarm/comments">actually got their promised rewards"</a> and "are you ever going to fufill your promises for this project?"</div>
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Full disclosure: Kickstarter banned me from their site when I asked those questions directly. I think that kickstarter is a great platform for the folks that get the money - there's basically very little accountability to the people they make promises to, and apparently no consequences if they just don't do what they say they're going to do as part of their project. </div>
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Cheer up Walter. You could always just shoot them all and make maple syrup!</div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-31598555237261241192019-06-14T03:01:00.001-07:002019-06-14T03:01:23.935-07:00Bigger and betterThe pig business is pretty good these days; it's to the point that I don't advertise anymore; all of my production is sold to people who come to me from word of mouth, and I'm able to sell everything that I produce at my farm gate, or pretty close to it, which is nice. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the 1910 wooden barn on the new farm</td></tr>
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I <a href="https://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-farm-purchase-10-days-and-counting.html">purchased my current farm in 2013</a>, as an upgrade from some land i was farming in the flood plain, and it's been a good 6 years here. This property came with big barns and a 4 bedroom house, and while I do like having <a href="https://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2017/08/big-barn-closed-in-wellhouse-closed-in.html">half an acre under roof</a> I'm not in love with the county government taxing me to death for owning it, and <a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-special-neighbor-dale-strawder.html">my special neighbor</a> is on her 6th year of harassing me. I'll take my profit and move to something better. </div>
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I'm going to put this farm up for sale soon; I'll offer it as four parts, and an interested buyer can buy any or all of it: </div>
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4br/3ba 2500sq ft house on 10 acres, with 4000 square foot horse barn</div>
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35000 square feet of commercial barn, milking parlor on 10 acres</div>
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45 acres of great, flat cropland</div>
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5 acre building lot, off flood plain. </div>
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I'll be moving my operation 8 miles to the east, to a larger farm (larger in the land sense), but smaller in the house and barn sense. there's a single 1910 barn on the property, a wood barn, and a 1200 square foot house. 2 br, 2 baths. </div>
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over the next year I'll be designing and building a farm that is purpose-built for my operation. The last few years have been an exercise in trying to fit a pig operation into a cattle structure, and while i've done it, to be honest, I'll would never have built the barns like the guy did here. he lost his farm because of it. </div>
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I'll be doing all of the things I did here on the new property; a survey to figure out where the edges are. Fencing along the property lines. Remodel the house a little before I move - paint and flooring, update the bathrooms, make sure that it has proper insulation and ventilation. </div>
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The new farm has a pretty substantial gravel deposit on it; a couple of million tons of it, and I'm going to take a stab at permitting a gravel mine on that property over the next year or two as another income stream for the farm, and I'll continue with the pig business, but I'll probably build a processing area as part of the new farm to accommodate those folks who like to process their own pigs. </div>
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Life has had its ups and downs in the last two years, and I'm liking the direction its taking now. </div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-40369809395052569692019-01-08T03:33:00.003-08:002019-01-08T03:33:48.680-08:00pet pigs and/or eating boars or older sowsStory and question from email: <div>
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Hi Bruce, </div>
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The summer before last my husband and I bought two pigs from you that 6 months later we butchered. (Great pigs.) We also left with 4 baby piglets that needed bottle feeding. I volunteered to take them so my summer camp kids could help raise them. (They loved them). You thought they would most likely not make it since they didn't get colostrum from their mother who had abandoned them. Well, two did die but two survived and they are now giant pigs. A male and a female. Friendly pigs that now I don't know what to do with them. The boy never got castrated, and the female doesn't seem to be pregnant. I am wondering what to do. If you have any advice or may know someone who would want them? A breeding pair? I don't have the proper set up for them anymore. They have plowed the extent of my pasture, using an electric fence and now in the barnyard..they have outgrown the barn space. I am told they are too old to butcher and that uncastrated male meat should not be eaten. Sorry to bother you I know you are busy but any advice would be appreciated.</div>
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So there's two possible questions here: (a) what do I do with a pig that I've become attached to and can't see slaughtered or (b) is it ok to eat boars or older sows? </div>
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There's nothing wrong with the meat from older pigs; it tends to be tougher than the meat from younger pigs, but cooked low and slow or braised and it'll be as tender as you want it to be. Crock pots, pressure cookers, or just slow roasting will get you to the degree of tenderness you want in your pork. Older animals will tend to have a higher amount of fat, and for things like salami or other charcuterie may actually work better than a younger pig that isn't as fat. A good salami is about 30% fat in my opinion. </div>
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The meat from boars can be eaten; the concern is with boar taint, which is an unpleasant smell which can be present in the fat of uncastrated male pigs. But there's a couple of things you should know. 1) not everyone can smell or detect boar taint - I had one boar processed that I could not eat because of it, but my brother happily at it - I can smell it, he can't. About 20% of the population can detect boar taint, and the other 80% cannot. </div>
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And not all boars have detectable taint. The easy way to test this is at slaughter time - you slice off some of the fat and fry it up. If you smell frying fat and no unpleasant odor either you can't smell boar taint or there isn't any in that particular animal. </div>
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If there is boar taint you can use that pork in highly spiced sausages. Chorizo or pepperoni being popular choices. </div>
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With respect to keeping a pig that you're attached to, a full-sized sow or boar will maintain weight on 6lbs of feed per day. They'll want more, but my feed price is about $0.19/lb, and so it costs about $1.20/day to feed a full-grown pig, about $36/month. So that's the price of your very large pet. </div>
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With that said, there are several pigs that have died of old age on my farm because I couldn't bring myself to shoot them. Each had a particular story, and each lived a long and happy life. </div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-38178536378869996132019-01-07T00:50:00.000-08:002019-01-07T00:50:01.159-08:00Holiday traditions - MoldovaPart of the business I do on my farm are people who want to have a pig and process it in the way that their tradition and culture has done for ages. One of those groups that I serve is the the Moldovan community that lives in and around Seattle. <div>
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What they like the best is a relatively large pig; 300lbs or so, with a good amount of back fat. They aren't particularly picky on color, and do like to choose the pig that they are going to process, and see it live. </div>
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It's often a little bit of a problem to make sure that they get a pig that they are happy with - I'm asking them on the phone what size pig, they're consulting (pig purchases are often a group endeavor, with 3 or 4 families splitting the pig) and it's a bit of a parlimentary process, and no matter what they tell me on the phone, they almost never pick a pig like the one that they describe. So I smile, and talk slowly, and don't take careful notes; I know that the final decision will be made on the day they come to the farm. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I bought a digital scale with a cage around it to help with their choice; after a decade of this I've got a pretty good eye for pig. I can tell a pigs weight, plus or minus 5 pounds, consistently, but the customers are always skeptical, and so what I do now is ask what size pig they're after, find a pig that weight, and then put it on the scale to show them the weight. </div>
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Some of the folks are skeptical about my scale, too, so I usually ask the person who is closest in weight to the pig that they're after to step on the scale and they usually see that it's pretty accurate, and then we put the pig on and discuss. </div>
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So we put the first pig on the scale, and it's almost always too small. There's a discussion about this, which I'm excluded from because I don't speak the language, but I can get a feel for each faction. There's the "fatter is better" there's the "cost is most important" and then there's the "it's the holidays, lets get the best pig!" and the discussions are usually pretty good natured. </div>
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So I show them the pigs they have a choice of, and they pick one, and I tell them that I need payment up front for the pig - after it's shot, there's no going back! - and after we've settled the pig is killed and stuck and t<a href="https://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/12/russian-way-of-scraping-pig.html">hey proceed to process it.</a> </div>
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They almost always bring a bottle of something to drink; whisky, schnapps, wine - it's the holidays, and this is a celebration for them. they'll be eating well tonight, with friends and family, and another year past. The older people show the younger people and I'm guessing that there's always the story about the really hard work that they used to do. You know the deal - when we walked to school it was uphill both ways, in the snow! that sort of story. </div>
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After they've got the pig scraped they'll cut it up, and eat a bit of the back fat, with salt, directly off the fresh pig, and this is an important part of the ritual of the holiday pig. I'm not a big fan of fat back, but heck, with a shot or two of whiskey, all things are possible!</div>
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It has become a part of my own holiday tradition now, and come november I'm looking at the herd and setting aside a few great pigs for these families. </div>
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Happy holidays to everyone, and here's to a prosperous 2019 for you and yours!</div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-41927834908985871792018-04-24T22:21:00.002-07:002018-04-24T22:21:28.381-07:00What makes it harder to farm? I got a call today from a man that I've done business with for the last 6 years. He asked me if I'd heard anything, any rumors, and I said no, I hadn't, and asked him about what. <br />
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"Well, the corporate headquarters decided that they are going to close the feed mill on highway 20, and you've been a bulk customer of that mill, and as of June you'll have to do something else for your feed". <br />
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Apparently they will give a couple of weeks of pay for every year of service, which must be cold comfort for those guys working at the mill who are 55 or older; I see plenty of folks who get this sort of layoff and then take a substantial pay cut on their next job. For the corporation it's pretty easy math; no more health care costs, lower employee salary cost, and more profits for the shareholders. That's all that matters, right? <br />
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The closing of this mill was a surprise. That mill makes more than 100 tons a day of feed for the local market, which gives it roughly $33k a day in sales, or $600k a month; in the pig farmer area I know of at least 3 pig farmers who are going to have to find another feed source for their complete ration. <br />
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I've just brought in 500 pigs, and I had plans to bring in another 500 a little later this year. For me this is sort of like saying "hey, the only hardware store in your county is going out of business, so if you need hammers, or nails or whatever, you can drive 10 hours to get them. Sorry about that!<br />
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I asked about the plans and there was some vague answer about relocating the mill to eastern oregon somewhere, or stockton california (more than 1,000 miles away), and that for bagged feed that they'd be running trucks up here to supply the 100 tons of bagged feed that they were currently selling, but there wasn't a solution for bulk feed as I need it. <br />
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I'm glad that he called now, because I'm just about to start planting corn, and it looks like I'm going to plant a lot of corn. I have been working towards growing and manufacturing my own feed - vertical integration - for years now, and I guess it's time that I started planting farm-scale crops. <br />
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farm-scale: Enough grain crops so that I have sufficient supply for 1 year or more of operation of my farm. I'll do corn first, and then figure out minerals and protein later. I can actually get concentrate that is designed to be added to corn to make a complete ration for pigs, and I guess I'm going there sooner than I thought. Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-36535904838046708882018-04-20T16:43:00.001-07:002018-04-20T16:43:54.586-07:00first pigs on the new farmNew pigs for a new farm. This location is central to several fields, so it'll be the pigs home base. I'll run fencing from here to various areas that they'll graze on. <div>
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The pen is pretty simple; hog panels connected with torsion screws that I made from pieces of high-tensile wire. I re-use these panels for years, so having a simple solution for connecting them that doesnt damage the panel is good. </div>
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This fence isn't particulary sturdy - the little pigs won't push on it much as long as everything they need is inside the pen. Full feeders, automatic waterer, and plenty of buddies makes for content weaners. </div>
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Later I'll run my electric fence inside this physical barrier to teach the pigs to avoid it, and then they'll be ready to start rotationally grazing. </div>
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The weather is just starting to warm up, the grass is growing, but we haven't hit the spring growth spurt yet. </div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-75315519382029209672018-03-31T21:25:00.001-07:002018-03-31T21:25:49.244-07:00Raising pigs on pasture aloneOne of the things that I get questions on from customers is what I feed my pigs. A mixture of complete feed, produce from super markets, bread and other human food that is past its prime or there's been some sort of accident that makes it available to me. (<a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2009/11/12000-pumpkin-pies.html">Accidents like spearing the side of a container of pumpkin pie filling with a forklift.</a> The pie filling is just pureed pumpkin, but they can't use it in the food production because it's punctured - but the pigs like it just fine. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">click on picture for more detail<br /></td></tr>
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There's a segment of the customers who are puzzled by that - why don't I raise my pigs on grass alone, like the guy in vermont? Or on acorns like the farmers in spain? It's happened often enough that I have a standard talk - "well, that guy in vermont who claims to raise pigs on pasture alone, <a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2009/11/10000-sugar-mountain-farm-challenge.html">I offered him $10,000 to raise pigs per his claimed standards</a>, and he declined. "<br />
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There's no question that you could raise pigs on forage alone; wild pigs manage to do that every year, and in warmer areas of the country they've been so successful that they have become pests and are basically hunted without restriction. If that's true, why not raise my pigs on forage alone? <br />
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The claim made was that you could keep 20 pigs on an acre of ground and have those 20 pigs grow from weaned pig size to market weight on the forage they got from that amount of ground alone. <br />
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So lets put some numbers on that: to grow from 40lb feeder pig size to finished pig size at 250lbs is 210lbs of weight gain. In a heated barn with very good nutrition and no immune challenges like the common cold - that amount of weight gain would take 520lbs of feed (2.5 lbs of feed per pound of gain). <br />
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There's a lot of research on what to feed pigs and their nutritional needs vary by the growth stage they are in, but in a general sense we can get close enough for discussion by using the calorie value of a pound of corn (1660) and a pound of soybeans (2030). <a href="http://mysrf.org/pdf/pdf_swine/s1.pdf">Pig feed is about 70% corn and 30% soybeans</a>, so (.7 * 1660 + .3 * 2030 = ) 1771 calories per pound of feed.<br />
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To raise one pig from 40lbs to 250lbs takes a little under a million calories in perfect conditions - remember, these pigs are in temperature controlled barns and are protected from disease or anything else that would impede their growth. <br />
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That's different than the environment when they are raised outdoors. My experience with pigs raised on pasture is that they consume more feed; in the early parts of the year they're using the calories to keep themselves warm, in the later parts to keep themselves cool, and all of the time to fight off all of the small ailments that they're exposed to in nature. Every time they get a sniffle it doesn't hurt them, but it does hurt the efficiency of gain. <br />
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So for this hypothetical pasture I'd need to grow roughly 20 million calories worth of food at a minimum, with the real number probably being closer to 30, in order to meet the nutritional needs of the pigs. <br />
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Lets take a look at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-corn-the-worlds-most-important-food-crop/2015/07/12/78d86530-25a8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html?utm_term=.c393c93a9fed">how many calories per acre various crops produce</a>: <br />
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Corn: 15 million<br />
Potatoes: 15 million<br />
Rice: 11 million<br />
Soybeans: 6 million<br />
Wheat: 4 million<br />
Broccoli: 2.5 million<br />
Spinach: 1.7 million<br />
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To get 15 million calories of corn from an acre you can't keep the pigs in the same area. The corn has to be planted, grow and mature in order to get the full calorie advantage. That is not what the claim<br />
is: the claim is you can keep 20 pigs an acre and have them get all of the food they need from that acre while they live here. Even if you reduced the number of pigs by half - 10 pigs per acre - you'd still need to have the entire acre covered with either corn or potatoes that grew unmolested and were harvested when maximum calories were available. <br />
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That's why I don't believe the claims of having raised pigs on forage alone. Not in the area described, and not at the speed claimed ("10% to 20% slower than on regular feed"). <br />
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Now it's entirely possible to raise enough crops to feed pigs on your own. I'm doing that on my farm now - I plant separate acreage with corn and harvest that corn to form the bulk of my pig feed. <a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2015/05/grazing-and-pigs-and-hay.html">My pigs are kept outdoors, on vegetation</a> - mostly alfalfa, which they enjoy eating - and they're given a ration of last-years corn to grow on. In the winter the pigs allowed out,but choose to spend most of their time in the barn, sheltered from the weather. <br />
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What would it take to grow a pig on pasture forage alone? <br />
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To raise 10 pigs on pasture you need an acre of corn somewhere to feed them, or you need to provide enough acreage so that each hog has multiple acres to forage from, as wild pigs often do. And you'll get a result that is closer to wild pig than farm pig - a much leaner body, a much smaller body, and much less fat. I am not aware of any commercial pig venture that is doing that now. Even iberico pigs in spain are fed a grain ration: <br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: minion-pro; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.28px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<a href="https://feedtim.com/home/espana/jamoniberico"><strong style="word-wrap: break-word;">BLACK label (100% Jamón Ibérico de Bellota)</strong> – 100% pure-bred Iberian black pig / Purely acorn diet during the Montanera (natural grain for the rest of the year) / 100% organic free-range / Aged for minimum 3 years</a></div>
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<a href="https://feedtim.com/home/espana/jamoniberico"><strong style="word-wrap: break-word;">RED label (Jamón Ibérico de Bellota)</strong> – 50-75% Iberian black pig genes / Diet of cereals & acorns / 100% organic free-range / Aged for minimum 3 years</a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: minion-pro; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.28px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<a href="https://feedtim.com/home/espana/jamoniberico"><strong style="word-wrap: break-word;">GREEN label (Jamón Ibérico de Cebo de Campo)</strong> – At least 50% Iberian black pig genes / Diet of cereals and natural pasture / 100% organic free-range</a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: minion-pro; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.28px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<a href="https://feedtim.com/home/espana/jamoniberico"><strong style="word-wrap: break-word;">WHITE label (Jamón Ibérico de Cebo)</strong> – At least 50% Iberian black pig genes / Diet of cereals / Commercially reared</a></div>
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<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-62232354883880445442018-03-26T22:00:00.001-07:002018-03-26T22:00:37.112-07:00I can finally talk about this: Part 6, the trialAfter the flurry of events beween Nov 13th and Nov 22nd things are quiet. Dale ignores me, I ignore her. The trial is set for March 21st 2018 and I wait. On one hand I'd like to get this over - either way, guilty or not guilty - at least there would be some certainty. <div>
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On March 21st I showed up at the courthouse at the scheduled time - 830 am, and the prosecutor and my attorney spent the next 3 hours arguing about everything; my attorney won some points, the prosecutor won some, from my lay point of view it was interesting. more so because if I lost this case I could be going to jail, or be fined a large amount, or both. They argue what can be admitted, and what can't. there's a huge controversy about pictures with writing on them - they get tossed out. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">this evidence picture was ruled inadmissible because of the marks on it</td></tr>
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<br />Jury selection was voie dire; basically a set of open ended questions asked of potential jurors. I'm scrutizing the faces and trying to figure out who will be sympathetic, or at least fair, to my arguments. </div>
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One juror says "He's got four counts against him? why are we wasting our time! this should have been solved outside of court with a fine". Another says "He should keep his animals on his property and if it happens twice it's his fault!" "I keep cattle and if he's got them running loose constantly its on him!" </div>
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I'm not very hopeful at this point. I notice from the juror questionnaire that one of the jurors works at the local chicken farm as a manager - he gets a check. The guy who understands the difference between 'beyond a reasonable doubt' and 'a preponderance of evidence' gets a check. The other 4 jurors and an alternate are ciphers to me. I don't know what they'll think, or do. I hope that they'll listen to my attorney and I think that I only need one to get a hung jury, and that makes me feel better. but I'm worried</div>
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The jury seated, Ms. Shelton goes on the stand. questions by prosecutor: (all dialogue paraphrased) "I took those pictures, they show pigs in the road, i live nearby, i've told him his pigs are out". My attorney questions: "i have made dozens of complaints about mr. king. i did turn him in for the building permit. i used to own</div>
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the property he now owns. i own the road. i own the land. he has no right to use the road. i have a permit that allows that. i've tried to get him arrested on trespass. this has been going on for years"</div>
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during this there's a whole bunch of objections by my attorney and by the prosecutor. the poor jury is standing up and going into the jury room every 10 minutes so the issues can be hashed out without them hearing what they are. my attorney is objecting to ms. shelton saying they're my pigs; she doesn't know that as a fact, etc. </div>
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I watch the jury and hope that we're not losing them in this. I can't really watch their faces because i have to turn and look at them to do so and I don't want to seem like i'm staring at them. I want to stare at them. i want to read their minds. </div>
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office davis from animal control gets up and says "yes, i've inspected bruces fences and he's spent thousands of dollars on them". </div>
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The court adjourns for the evening and I go home to a sleepless night. </div>
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The next morning we bring officer davis back to the stand, ask a couple of questions about his involvement in the case "i didn't take any of the pictures, I didn't see any of the animals, I didn't look at most of mr. kings fence" and the prosecutor rests. </div>
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I offer a witness who talks about the fence, and then i'm on the stand. I answer my attorneys questions carefully; my attorney is terrified that I'm going to do something that will convict me, and i'm too. I answer clearly, with YES or NO as much as possible. i draw a picture of my fencing. I talk about the activity on the farm that month - deliveries, employees, contractors, customers, everyone opening and closing gates. I talk about the 6 week delay in my learning about the incidents and how that makes it impossible for me to fix any problem. i say she could come and knock on my door, honk her horn or call me but she doesn't do any of that. she wants me to pay a fine, she wants to hurt me. </div>
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the closing arguments are direct: Find mr. King guilty. this is not a trial about ms. shelton its</div>
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about pigs out. Convict him! Ms Shelton has an axe to grind, and the prosecution has never</div>
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even proven they're his pigs. She let those pigs out, she's causing these problems, she'll do anything to get Mr. King even turning herself in for violations she committed in an effort to harm my client!</div>
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Of course the pigs are Mr. Kings - no one else in the area has pigs. Jury duty doesn't mean you don't have common sense - you do. convict Mr. King</div>
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It's a little surreal to hear your own case being argued. this was a first for me. </div>
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We are all done with testimony by noon. The judge declares lunch, and tells the jury to begin their deliberation at 1:15. The jury files out, and I'm told to stay within 15 minutes of the court for the rest of the day. I go home, and sit and stare at my tv but i'm not registering. I have no idea how the jury is going to rule. </div>
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1:30pm i get a call from my attorney. They have a verdict. I'm crushed. They barely had enough time to work through the jury instructions. Hung juries take a long time to happen. I know its not a hung jury. </div>
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I drive to the courthouse picturing myself wearing an orange jumpsuit and picking up litter along the freeway. I wonder what the fine will be. I'm wondering if they convicted me of one count and let me off on the others, or if I got all counts. I grit my teeth and walk through the courthouse security, and I rise from the defendants seat and watch the jury as they enter. </div>
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The jury won't meet my eyes. I'm cooked. </div>
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Not guilty on all counts. </div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-13923526696055641722018-03-26T21:14:00.001-07:002018-03-26T21:14:20.290-07:00I can finally talk about this part 5: What are you doing with that bale of hay?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A couple of days after Dales son got her cows off of my property she took this photo and sent it into animal control with a witness statement as part of a complaint. It shows a cow outside her fence and gate, eating some hay from a bale that is on a red handtruck. as per usual I didn't find out about this complaint until weeks after the fact. <br />
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The picture was taken after dark, in a wind and hailstorm. You farmers out there: Do you wait until after dark in the hail to do your chores? She's retired. No job. Was home all day as near as I can tell.<br />
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Dale claims that she was out feeding her cows and this cow happened to be there at the same time, and that the bale of hay that the cow is eating she was going to feed to her cows.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IBOrlJOn5Rc/WrnC0byJNoI/AAAAAAAAJ4c/9q1IeBePT9IWfYOFdnUCzMpijiLnAsb_gCLcBGAs/s1600/dale%2Bcow%2Bfeeding.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="708" height="267" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IBOrlJOn5Rc/WrnC0byJNoI/AAAAAAAAJ4c/9q1IeBePT9IWfYOFdnUCzMpijiLnAsb_gCLcBGAs/s320/dale%2Bcow%2Bfeeding.png" width="320" /></a></div>
this is a diagram of the area - the blue "cow here" is where the cow is pictured. the red line is the shortest distance between her hay storage and where the cows are fed. The orange line is where she claims to have been feeding the cows. <br />
I don't know of any farmer who waits until the hail and wind to feed their animals after dark. I also don't know of any farmer who would choose to go through two locked gates (red and green in the diagram) every day to feed the cows. I do know that you can lead a cow around with a bale of hay, particularly if that hay is something that cows really like, like alfalfa.<br />
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On the morning of January 22nd I woke up to find her cows in my grapes again. Here's a summary of the video:<br />
I watch as dale brings down the same handtruck as in the 19th photo, opens my fence, herds her two cows out, and down the driveway, and closes up my fence. You want to know how I think that cow got in front of her gate? Dale just demonstrated it for me, on video. I ask her here what she wants out of all of this. She can't answer. I don't think she knows. <br />
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She notes that there's alfalfa from the area of my fence she opens to her gate. I'm sure there is. I couldn't tell you when it was put there, but in my opinion it was put there by her on the evening of the 19th when she was luring my cow through the fence she opened.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/261907916" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/261907916">Shelton cows out 2nd time, opens fence and herds them through</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user12728307">bruce king</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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Next: The trial<br />
<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-61366798982923524462018-03-26T15:30:00.001-07:002018-03-26T15:30:59.620-07:00I can finally talk about this: Part 4 - funny businessSo at this point in this saga it's roughly November 15th.<br />
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here's a summary of this entry: Nov 13-17: Ms Sheltons cows turn up on my property and run around for 3 or 4 days. I don't know they are her cows, eventually the end up back at the fence<br />
closest to her property and she retrieves them. She makes claims in the video that somehow my bull did this. She'll later claim that I hired someone to do this, or that I "suggested" that someone do this. that changes later to a story about how I took her gates apart at the hinge side and opened them that way - and she knows this because one of the bolts on the gate was shinier than the others. <br />
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I've got the regulatory folks under control - there are only so many agencies, and eventually everyone who's involved gets a feel for the nature of the complaints that Ms. Shelton is making, and they settle into a routine, too. While they are interested in complaints and follow up on them, all of these agencies have bigger fish to fry than me and nothing seems to be wrong when they check it out.<br />
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The criminal charges are pending - 4 counts of animals at large - and we've got a trial date of March 21st for a jury trial. I'm concerned about going to court - I still don't have any good explanation for why the animals are out. They've got pictures of pigs on the road. It would seem that they have me dead to rights - it's hard to argue with the pictures.<br />
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The new camera system installation has completely shut down the animal complaints. Which is good, but suspicious as well. It points out that I've got a human problem, not an animal problem.<br />
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In the meantime, I've gotten word from the planning department that their official policy is that fences should not be in the right of way, so I take down my fence and move it back 20', so that it's<br />
out of the right of way. It's a bit of work, but I'd rather have the fence in the right place than have to move it again later. So I tear down the 800' of fence, move it back 20', and put it back up.<br />
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While the fence is down I replace it with a temporary fence that you'll see in the video below.<br />
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On November 14th I'm counting my cows in my pasture and I come up with an extra cow. On the 15th I count them more carefully and come up with 3 extra cows. I take a picture of those cows the next morning.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Extra cows in my pasture - 2 black cows + spotted calf</td></tr>
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These cows are about a half mile northeast of my farm buildings in a fallow area of pasture. You can see the barns of my upstream neighbor in the distance to the north. The cows are where it says "3323 feet" in the picture below - I'm standing little south of the cows when I took that picture.<br />
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Black cows are common in this area; so I call the four neighbors with cows closest to where they were and over the next 24 hours they all come back and say it's not their cows.<br />
later that day, the 16th, the cows are at the other end of my property, next to the fence between dale and I.<br />
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that's annoying because they'ge torn down the fence i use to keep the cows out of my grapes and<br />
they've been in the grapes.<br />
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On the 17th the darn cows are back in my grapes again.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">just chased them out of my grapes for the 3rd time</td></tr>
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I still don't know who owns these cows and they've been all over my property for days. Usually cow owners notice their animals gone, but so far no one has claimed them.<br />
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So I'm out looking at these cows and Ms. Shelton comes to the fence and starts yelling at me. "what happened! what happened!!". I walk away and think about this.<br />
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This is a really touchy area. She is the sole witness in a criminal trial and has a history of filing restraining orders against me and making wild accusations against me. I asked my attorney what he suggested if I were to encounter Ms. Shelton and he said "video the entire incident, start to finish. You don't want to be in a he-said-she-said situation with her. Be obvious about your recording - don't hide it. " So following my attorneys advice I made the video at the bottom of this entry.<br />
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Let me summarize the video (below at bottom of this entry): I walk up to dale and ask her if those are her cows. She doesn't respond. I tell her that if they are her cows that she should get them back. She doesn't respond. She has a theory on how her cows got on my property - my bull has somehow caused it - and points to an area of the fence that is damaged as "proof" of this. I ask her to get her animals back and walk away. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">fence damage</td></tr>
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The top of the woven wire fence is bent over towards my property. I would associate that pattern to something coming across the fence towards me. If an animal had gone the other way it would have bent in the direction of that travel, away from my property. From this I would guess that her cattle crossed the fence here onto my property.<br />
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The Sheriff did respond and I think I talked to the deputy about this. He laughed and said "don't worry about it", and that was the last I heard of it before I got the public disclosure a few weeks later that showed that Ms. Shelton attempted to get me charged with livestock theft. No charges were filed and I was not contacted by anyone about investigating this incident. I have the impression the sheriff thought her cows had gotten out and that was that.<br />
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Note: this animal stuff happens out of the range of my cameras. Whatever is going on here I don't have security camera footage of it, and the other stuff that happens also will occur outside the range of the security cameras.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="1138" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/261919796" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
<a href="https://vimeo.com/261919796">037</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user12728307">bruce king</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-48304369208244093852018-03-24T21:36:00.003-07:002018-03-24T21:36:52.724-07:00I can finally talk about this: Part 3 - $50,000 bailAt this point I've had a whole series of animal control tickets and regulatory agency visits; racked up about $1,000 in fines (and paid them) and I've been scratching my head for most of a year trying to figure out what's going on. The regulatory folks are pretty easy to deal with: none of them ended up doing anything other than constantly inspecting my property - honestly, I got used to having random groups of people show up at my door demanding to see this or that. It had became routine after 4 years of this. Even the regulator agencies were getting bored. "Hi Bruce - planting again? " "Yep, mostly alfalfa and some orchard grass" "OK, just making sure. Have a nice day!" "You too, Bob!". <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Everything in the orange box is covered by my security system now</td></tr>
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I've been all over my fences and gates and I'm starting to get skeptical that it's a fencing problem; it's pretty clear that I need more information but it's not obvious what that is, or how I'll get it. </div>
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I interviewed 3 criminal defense attorneys, and picked one that I think is good; he's a judge pro-tem (sits in for judges when they need trial coverage) is the named partner at his firm, and has excellent reviews on avvo - but honestly, picking an attorney is a roll of the dice in itself. I'm not going with the public defender here; the stakes are pretty high, and I've never regretted hiring a good lawyer. </div>
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So I consult with my attorney, and we start working the case, and the prosecutor sends over a plea bargain; if I plead guilty they'll only recommend I do a week or so in jail, pay a thousand dollar fine, and probation for 2 years - and if I break that probation by having an animal out, why, i go to jail for a year. </div>
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Since I'm not having much luck figuring out the animal stuff so far the prospect of being able to guarantee not having a single animal out for 2 years looks impossible. I have to solve this before</div>
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I can make any commitment in that area, and so we push the trial date back and hire an investigator to start interviewing the only witness in the case - Dale Shelton - and the defense attorney is handling it. </div>
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A month later I get a call from my attorney: The prosecutor is making a motion regarding the conditions of my release - apparently they've received MORE complaints about animals out, and the prosecutor is asking the court to set a $50,000 bail and to throw me in jail if I can't make it. </div>
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In the court hearing the judge hearing the matter states "if the problem is that he can't keep animals on his property how is throwing him in jail supposed to make it more likely animals will be kept on his property?", and I thought that was a good point. The prosecutor isn't having any of that, presses hard, and eventually the judge issues a warning that I should abide by the laws regarding herding animals on the road, and dismisses it. No bail is set. </div>
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Pretty scary hearing. </div>
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But I still have the basic problem with the animals, and I still can't figure it out. Finally in August of 2017 I go to costco and buy a home security system for $299 - it comes with 4 cameras and records the video for a month or so, so it's easy to go back to review what goes on. I buy another 4 cameras (total of 8) and mount them on my house so that I can see the whole area where everything is going on. </div>
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If animals are going to get out I'll be able to see how, and why, and that may solve this mystery. </div>
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The day I put the cameras in things seem to quiet down. Ms. Shelton drives by quickly; she doesn't loiter at her mailbox; she's not patrolling the edge of my property in her car anymore. I didn't hide the cameras; I wanted them to act as a deterrent as much as to show me what was going on. A pig doesn't care if there's a camera. A person does. </div>
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And BAM! Just like that all of the animal stuff stops. No more complaints. </div>
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September, Oct, and through the first part of November 2017 everything is quiet. I'm wondering</div>
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why I didn't think of this before. Pretty happy with my purchase. </div>
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On November 10th I'm idly googling my own name and I run across a legal notice in the paper - with my name on it. What? I note the court, the date and time and case number, and the next morning I go to the court to find that Dale has filed her 2nd anti-harrassment order against me. </div>
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The hearing is in 5 days. Another round of discussions with my attorney, and we appear in court for the hearing. Judge hears the case, Dale testifies for an hour or so, and the judge dismisses her motion for the order. The judge states from the bench: "Ms. Shelton was confused when she filed this order"</div>
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Dale was trying to get me to take my cameras down via this order. She complained that I was using the cameras to surveil her, and asked the court to order me to take them down. The cameras were mounted to my house and fence, and showed only my fences and gates. You can't even see dales house from mine. </div>
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Why does Dale care so much about my cameras? If there are violations of law,the cameras will show it all. She has taken hundreds of photos of my house, myself, my livestock and my property - but apparently she is the only one who is allowed to do so. It's very odd. Suspicious. </div>
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But this attempted order makes me look carefully at what the cameras had captured in the time</div>
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they'd been up. </div>
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Next: Why are you there, Ms. Shelton? And what are you doing with that hay?</div>
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And yes, there will be pictures and video in the next entry. </div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-55547350329452905722018-03-23T19:45:00.001-07:002018-03-23T19:51:25.416-07:00I can finally talk about this: part 2 - the animals on the roadOne of the biggest problems that I had with my neighbor was the constant complaints to animal control about my animals being out on the county road, and a couple of blog readers have asked 1) if there were animals on the road, and 2) how they got on the road. I'm going to talk about that in this post.<br />
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Everything happened within a few feet of my gates - sometimes 5 feet, sometimes 20 feet. At no point were any of the animals more than 30 feet from my property in any of the photos. </div>
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The picture above shows my farm (on the right side of the photos) and Ms. sheltons mobile home (in the center top). The colored dots are where pigs are in the photos. All of the pigs are pictured right next to my house, hundreds of feet from everyone elses house. Right where two of my gates meet the road. Here's the photos used in evidence for the charges<br />
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You can click on any of these photos to see a larger version<br />
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All of the photos were taken by Dale Shelton - she testified that in court. She testified that the time and date stamps were correct. Most of the pictures show her sitting in her car when the picture is taken. None of the pictures show my gates or my fence.<br />
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Pictures are hard to argue with - clearly there are pigs in the road. But there's some funny business about this pictures, and with my neighbor.<br />
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Think about this: If she's concerned about pigs in the road, she could just call me, or get out of her car and walk 20 feet to my front door, and reasonably expect that I would take care of the situation right there. With the pigs out, I could then immediately have the best chance of figuring out how they got out - pigs like to go back into the same area they came out of, so if you want to know how a pig got somewhere just chase it a little and it'll show you.<br />
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But Ms. Shelton wouldn't notify me, or call animal control. She'd take these photos and then keep them for a few weeks or a month; she testified to this. After waiting a few weeks she'd send them to animal control, who would wait a few more weeks, and then issue me a notice of violation.<br />
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What this meant is that I didn't get any indication that the animals were out until 4 to 8 weeks after the fact, and that "notice" would come with a $200 fine, which Ms. Shelton was probably overjoyed about.<br />
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I would then be in the position of trying to figure out what happened a month or two ago - did someone leave the gate open? Is there a hole in the fence? Are these even my pigs - could they be the neighbors? <br />
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I'd like you to think about what you ate for lunch 6 weeks ago. It was like that for me trying to figure out why these animals were out. What was I doing on august 11th I'd think - on october 15!<br />
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Meanwhile the fines kept piling up. All in all Ms. Shelton cost me over $1000 in fines to animal control.<br />
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Next: How I think that the animals were getting out<br />
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-23410273242532576942018-03-22T16:40:00.001-07:002018-03-22T16:40:34.663-07:00I can finally talk about this: This is what has been going on with meI've had a huge distraction in my farming provided to me by a neighbor of mine. If you'd like to get a feel for what the history is, you can <a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-special-neighbor-dale-strawder.html">check out what I wrote about her in 2013</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My special neighbor, Dale Shelton</td></tr>
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Yes, 2013. She's been on her rampage for 5 years. In those five years she's called every regulatory agency she can think of to complain about where I keep my pigs on my property, what I feed my pigs, where I feed my pigs, whether there is manure or contaminated water coming from my property. She complained when I was plowing my field and planting grass (he is filling and grading without a permit!) and so on. </div>
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In those five years she's reached the Washington State Department of Ecology, The Washington State Veterinarian, The Snohomish County health Department, the Snohomish County Planning and Development Services (building permits), Snohomish County Sheriff and Snohomish County Animal control. </div>
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She has registered one or many complaints (With animal services she's made at least 100 calls and registered something like 20 formal complaints) and each one has responded by contacting me in writing, sending staff members to my farm to inspect, or having that agency in turn contact other agencies, who then contact me or send staff members. </div>
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I wrote up one of those early visits in 2013, by the <a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/08/visit-by-department-of-ecology-today.html">Department of Ecology</a> but that wasn't the last visit by that department, and that wasn't the only department that did visit. I've gotten to know every possible regulatory agency and staff member in my area on a first name basis. </div>
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I started getting complaints about my livestock on the road, and for the longest time I couldn't figure out how they were getting out. It would work like this: I'd get a notice, with some pictures of a pig or cow out of my fence, on say July 1st. But the notice I got wouldn't be until the end of July, or into August - weeks after the fact. And the notice would come with a fine - initially $50, but eventually getting to $200 a shot. This gets expensive quick. </div>
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I would appeal the fines, and try to figure out what was going on; maybe we were moving animals, or maybe someone else opened a gate, or maybe they're not my animals, but the appeal process for this violations is a bit of a kangaroo court in my opinion. The hearings examiner who hears them has never upheld any appeal of animals at loose at any time on any basis for his entire tenure in my opinion and based on the research that I was able to do, and as a result I'd just pay the fine after losing my civil appeal and move on. But the complaints kept coming, and pretty soon animal control decided that they would charge me criminally for the animals out. </div>
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Every time I'd get a notice that I had an animal out 4 to 6 weeks before I'd go out, and look carefully at the fences and gates, and if I saw anything amiss I'd do something. Add more fencing. A hog panel. More posts. Clear the brush. Make sure the fence was carrying a good charge, whatever I could do. But the complaints, and pictures, and fines, continued. </div>
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At some point I received a criminal summons from the Snohomish County Prosecutor that they were going to charge me with 11 counts of criminal animals at large,and that each count carried a penalty of up to 90 days in jail and a $1000 fine; potentially I would have to serve nearly 4 years in jail and pay $11,000 in fines if I were given the maximum sentence as charged. </div>
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4 years in jail. that's serious jail time. </div>
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Ms. Shelton wasn't satisfied with that though. While complaining to all of these agencies about me she filed an anti-harrassment order against me, claiming that I was harassing HER. She did this<a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2014/03/my-special-neighbor-dale-strawer-nee.html"> first in 2014</a>, and then a second time in November of 2017. If she was granted either of those orders all she had to do to have me arrested is claim that I frowned at her, basically. And she's my next-door neighbor. That would be unbearable. <br />
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So now I'm dealing with a restraining order, a multi-count criminal prosecution and random complaints to agencies, along with a building permit... oh. I didn't talk about the building permit yet.<br />
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Dale and her husband used to own this property, and during the time they owned it they built two barns. They apparently didn't get any permits for those barns, and they didn't disclose that to me when I purchased the property. One small barn, and then other is the biggest, most expensive barn on the property. <br />
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Dale admitted in court that she made this anonymous complaint (that's her handwriting) and that she did so to harm me. Dale is a retired permit/construction inspector for the department of transportation. If anyone knows when a permit is needed, she's the one. <br />
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Snohomish county Planning and Development services investigated, and found that yes, buildings were present on my property that were constructed without permits. in 2006. <br />
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I purchased the property in 2013. Dale turned herself in for a violation that she committed to harm me - I have to say, that shows dedication. She's putting herself at financial risk by doing so,but apparently no cost is too high if she can cause me pain. So in addition to all of the other stuff she's putting me through she tosses building permits onto the fire, and then fans it by making followup calls to every agency on a regular basis. <br />
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Criminal charges. Potentially 4 years in Jail. More than 10 thousand dollars in Criminal fines possible. Building permits that cost tens of thousands of dollars to complete. Civil fines. Regulatory action. <br />
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That's on top of having to run a business, and all of the normal challenges of farming.<br />
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You wondered why I slacked off on blogging? I was a little busy :)<br />
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-65266675477544641822018-03-22T02:14:00.000-07:002018-03-22T02:14:09.035-07:00Now is the time for beesIf you've considered keeping bees, now is the time to make that happen. The package bee season is in about two weeks, and the cost this year for 3lbs of bees plus a queen is $140 , +-$10. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">i get the plastic pallets for free, and they work well for hive base</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">nice to see the bees flying on a warm day!</td></tr>
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You'll find bee packages advertised in your local craigslist, in the farm and garden section. You'll need a hive to put them in, and you can find "beginner beekeeper" packages on the web. <br />
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My hives did pretty well this year, compared to previous years. I had 6 hives going into the winter, with 3 surviving now, for a 50% dieoff. The hives that died show different patterns. One hive, full of honey and pollen, is pretty much empty of bees. Another hive shows what I call a starvation pattern; there is still some honey in the hive, but the bees clustered in the center away from it, and died in a group. <br />
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The third hive that died has some bees, more than the empty hive, but not as many dead bees as the starve off hive. <br />
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Because the hives that died off may have something that is contagious to bees I'll discard the combs and bake the woodware in my oven to sterilize it - the bottom board and the supers themselves. The hives survived will get new combs to grow into; I'll leave the existing combs there. Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-46998306288750075082018-03-07T17:29:00.002-08:002018-03-07T17:29:58.738-08:00Farmers haven't made a profit in canada since 1986...Ran across a study that points out that the agribusiness payments made by farmers in Canada have consumed at least 100% of all farm net profit, and in some cases more than 100% - farmers have had<br />
to make pay to keep farming their land after all the profit was gone, between 2006 and 2009. <br />
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Who is taking the farmers money? Agribusiness. Those folks who sell you the improved seed and the better-weed-spray and the computerized tractor and all of the other stuff that makes farming easier have figured out how to basically take every cent from the farmers for the last 32 years. <br />
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What do the farmers live on? Primarly the subsidy offered by the Canadian government. Without that subsidy these farmers would have been out of business long ago. <br />
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I'm all for progress, and I'm all for efficiency, but I can't pay more than all of my income and still be a farmer. Could you? <br />
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<a href="http://www.darrinqualman.com/canadian-net-farm-income/">You'll find the study here: </a><br />
<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-41366109071472601042018-03-06T21:08:00.000-08:002018-03-06T21:08:41.655-08:00Farm spring to-do listLooking through the seed catalogs now, thinking about what I'm going to plant. <br />
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This is an aerial view of the new farm. It's 40 acres in a square, and the house and barns are directly in the center, which is actually where I'd put my house if I were to build a new one. This is an older farm; the barn was built to be hand-worked and shoveled; I'm going to guess 1905 or 1907 based on some deed information, but certainly no later than about 1920. The house is newer; the previous owners family told me that it was run as a dairy and the house burned down one year, so the farmer rebuilt the house with masonry blocks because of the three little pigs :), so a masonry block house it is. <br />
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The picture is oriented so that north is up. Along the south edge is a pretty thick stand of young cedar trees; they're not mature enough to be timber,but they'll be there in 20 years or so. Where the trees are is a steep hill that rises to the south. <br />
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At some point in the past they installed at least two generations of drain tiles; once with clay and cement pipes, and once with plastic corrugated pipe. Even with that there's still a fair bit of water that flows off the hillside, down past the house and continues to the north property line. <br />
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The ground hasn't been worked in a while, and it's pretty rough and rippled; which isn't a problem if you're grazing cattle, but slows you down when you're harvesting hay or any other crop. I suspect that the ground fertility and PH isn't where it should be and that I'll have to do something before the final crop is planted. In this area that usually means a healthy dose of lime (3-6 tons per acre) and then trace minerals (copper, sulfur, selnium, that sort of thing), and then whatever is called for in terms of fertilizers. I'm going to hold off on making crop choices until I get the soil back, but whatever I do end up with has got to take into account wet feet, at least during the winter; and that limits the choices I can make. <br />
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Speaking of rough; someone at some point took a trackhoe and dug holes in random places around the pasture. maybe 20 or 30. They're 4' wide and about 6' deep. I guess that was to keep you awake as you drive around on the tractor!<br />
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At this point I'm inclined to plow and final-grade the land to get it reasonably flat, and look at the drain tiles to see what shape they're in, how much water they're carrying now, and figure out if I want to do something about them - flush them out, replace them, ignore them. Not sure at this point. <br />
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In the northwest corner there's a small group of trees. It looks like that may have been either a barn or a previous house or corral; there's lumber there and some old implements; next to it, to the east, is a small gravel borrow area. The gravel area fills with water at this time of year; its about a half-acre in size, and would actually make a nice farm pond if it could hold water. Maybe feed it new water from the drain tiles. Kinda fun to think about. <br />
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The plowing will have to wait until we've got some drier weather; in the meanttime I can repair the barbed-wire fences there, put in an electric, and graze the cattle on the new growth, particularly in the areas where I'll be working the soil. No reason not to get some forage off of it before I plow it. <br />
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<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-13436478719421667572018-02-28T19:00:00.002-08:002018-02-28T19:00:44.881-08:00Question: How to find a farm to lease or buy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NvixYxQZIWY/WpdrvTVwHfI/AAAAAAAAJyI/IRYTPDF_KY4bGA33GUFDmbC0nnRP9qMdwCLcBGAs/s1600/oso%2Bfarm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="724" data-original-width="1036" height="278" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NvixYxQZIWY/WpdrvTVwHfI/AAAAAAAAJyI/IRYTPDF_KY4bGA33GUFDmbC0nnRP9qMdwCLcBGAs/s400/oso%2Bfarm.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A farm is a red barn, right? the new farm I purchased in 2017</td></tr>
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There are lots of folks who want to farm, and the question comes up pretty frequently. Here's how this one went: <br />
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<i>Hi there fellow farmers! I am a little new to the farm real estate scene. I am farming in my current location, but it's really not a viable area for it. After doing a lot of research, the areas that we are interested in DO have farms for sale, but the problem is either</i></div>
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<i>A) They want to sell right away (therefore the possibility of using an FSA Loan, our only option, doesn't work for them)</i></div>
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<i>or</i></div>
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<i>B) There may be someone to work with us, but I have no idea how to find those people because I don't actually know anyone in the area.</i></div>
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<i>It's pretty far away, so just dropping by to get to know people would be really hard but I might be able to make a weekend out of it.</i></div>
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<i>So, dear fellow farmers, what would you do if you needed to move to a different area where you didn't know anyone?</i></div>
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<i>Context: Northern California looking to move to Western Oregon, Western Washington, or possibly Denver-ish if their housing market crashes</i></div>
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I'll be looking for a new tenant for the farm pictured above this summer (current tenant moving to montana) so I asked what sort of farming that they wanted to do. Answer? </div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i>Hey that pretty much fits our timeline! We're currently raising Icelandic Sheep, Kunekune pigs, various rare breed chickens. We're small right now because we're restricted but we want to grow as fast as possible, but really want to be 100% grass fed. As long as you have grass we'll be happy.</i></span></div>
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Nothing that they described really sounded like profit to me, and unfortunately profit is how you pay the rent. So I wrote back: </div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">3br houses rent in this area for $1500-1800/month. utilities are another $150. The 40 acres is in grass right now, produces 500 round bales a year @600lbs each (2-3 cuttings, weather depending). the bales cost me $13 each to produce, sell for $35, so the land nets about $11k/year, or roughly $275 profit per acre per year. so if you wanted a couple of acres you'd have to pay at least that per acre to make it worth my while.</span><br style="background-color: white; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white;">I'm talking about this to you to give you an idea of what the math with be with any farmer landlord. your enterprise would need to produce $1600+150 = 1750 per month to cover the rent, and if you wanted 3 acres, add another (275 * 3 / 12 = ) $70 a month for $1820/month.</span><br style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white;">have you thought this through to the point where you have a plan to net (after taxes) $3k a month?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Think I was too rough on them? </span></div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-59610825141010003012018-02-19T17:50:00.001-08:002018-02-19T17:50:05.249-08:00Cold and freezing and hot curry<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iN51OhnQdCQ/Wot5ND0ZsHI/AAAAAAAAJxs/1jujWwSSaUcfF60smaXPshXyUNGXjH3wwCLcBGAs/s1600/20180219_172131%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iN51OhnQdCQ/Wot5ND0ZsHI/AAAAAAAAJxs/1jujWwSSaUcfF60smaXPshXyUNGXjH3wwCLcBGAs/s320/20180219_172131%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My dogs cavorting in the snow</td></tr>
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I have a love-hate relationship with the cold. the love part is that it's absolutely beautiful; I live in the foothills of the cascades, and there's forested hills on every side. Snow on evergreens is really pretty; and the cold crisp air means that hard work is a little easier; and the mud turns into concrete, and walking and driving are a little easier. <br />
<br />
The hate part is that all of my carefully maintained automatic watering systems go out the window, and bowls and buckets become the water delivery method of choice; I usually only have to do it a week or so a year, so it's a nuisance, but not enough of one that I'll spend the money on heated water sources. A simple bowl or bucket that gets checked and refilled daily is hard to beat for cheap, or simplicity <br />
<br />
I hand-feed the nursing sows anyways; it's a formal time for me to take a look at the sow and her litter and the conditions - are they dry, do they have enough food, what's the body condition of everyone - so walking around with a hose during the rounds isn't too much trouble. The piglets are chilly this time of year; they spend a lot of their time pressed up against moms belly and jostling for position.<br />
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When I come back in it's nice to eat something warm, and spicy, and good. So tonight I made chicken curry. <br />
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1 whole onion<br />
2 tablespoons olive oil<br />
2 bay leaves<br />
2 jalapeno peppers<br />
1 8oz can tomato sauce<br />
2 tablespoons curry powder (sometimes i'll use 3)<br />
1 cup cooked/canned chicken<br />
2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/2" pieces<br />
1 cup frozen peas<br />
1 teaspoon of fresh chopped ginger<br />
3 cloves fresh chopped garlic<br />
<br />
Slice the onion up and toss into a 2 quart saucepan with the olive<br />
oil, bay leaves and the peppers. Remove the seeds and membranes<br />
from the peppers if you don't like your curry hot. <br />
<br />
Saute at medium-high heat until the onion is translucent, and<br />
then turn the heat down and continue to cook; watch the color<br />
of the onions; you want them a little carmelized, about the<br />
color of light brown sugar. <br />
<br />
Add the tomato sauce and refill the tomato can and add that, too.<br />
Toss in the curry powder, the chicken and the potatoes. Cook<br />
at low heat until the potatoes are tender, roughly 15 minutes. Be careful here;<br />
you can easily burn the bottom of it with higher heat. Go slow and stir it a few<br />
times. Patience will be rewarded. <br />
<br />
When the potatoes are cooked, add the garlic and ginger, and the peas.<br />
Stir them in, and turn off the heat. The heat will thaw and barely cook<br />
the peas and they'll be perfect. Wait a couple of minutes and serve over rice<br />
(see picture, above) <br />
<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-1224526799884032492018-01-09T19:30:00.001-08:002018-01-09T19:30:20.673-08:00Hand raising a family milk cowMy favorite milk cow died this last year from calving complications; she was 6 years old, and that's<div>
young for a cow to die, and I was pretty sad about it. I have a small herd of beef cattle that I would</div>
<div>
run the milk cow with, and it was always handy to have her around to lead the other cattle with. I'd walk out, put a halter on her, and then lead her wherever I wanted the herd and they'd all follow. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p82RHzuIbtI/WlWHfwjhAzI/AAAAAAAAJu8/TmMTdrEeeQ8R8VdUH56EzFltJBJv2KNXwCLcBGAs/s1600/milk%2Bcow%2Bas%2Ba%2Bcalf.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p82RHzuIbtI/WlWHfwjhAzI/AAAAAAAAJu8/TmMTdrEeeQ8R8VdUH56EzFltJBJv2KNXwCLcBGAs/s1600/milk%2Bcow%2Bas%2Ba%2Bcalf.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My original milk cow in 2012 that I named "cow" because I suck at names</td></tr>
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I found a little heifer that I thought might work at the auction. She's 330lbs, about the same as the <a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2012/04/family-milk-cow-project.html">original milk cow</a> and I just now got done getting her set up in the barn after transporting her from the auction; she looks to be 4 months old, which is the age that I wanted to start with. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I don't want to mix her with my cows for a while for quarantine reasons, so I'll pen her away from the other stock and feed and care for her over the next few weeks to make sure that she's healthy and in</div>
<div>
good shape. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Part of the initial care for a new cow is to get it on a healthcare schedule that you know about; I don't know when she was last wormed, or if she was, and what if any vaccinations she's gotten, so I wormed her and gave her an 8 way vaccination and bangs vaccination. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I use an old-school method of tracking animal vaccinations - i have a calendar on the wall that contains the vaccination status of my dogs and livestock, and I can look back at it to see where things are. I have to be careful to put it down as soon as I do it however; because if I can't remember it and it's not on the calendar I'll do it again, and while it probably won't hurt to get two doses, it's an unneeded expense. </div>
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This 330lb calf was $150 at the auction, which works out to be about 45 cents a pound; I mention that</div>
<div>
because started beef calves of the same weight sell for a lot more. a 330lb beef calf would have sold for about $400 - assuming $1.25/lb. Beef calves are pretty popular right now and will get more popular as we get into spring. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I'll be buying more beef calves this year if I can find some that I like the look of and that aren't too expensive. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
If you'd like to see the process I went through with the last cow, <a href="http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/2012/04/family-milk-cow-project.html">you'll find the first entry here</a>, and that entry contains a link to all of the blog posts I made about that cow. </div>
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Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-69809890746266529152017-12-23T20:41:00.000-08:002017-12-23T20:41:00.642-08:00Closing in on 2018 - bought a(nother) new farmIt's been a while since I last wrote about the farm. I've had an issue I cannot talk about right now occupying my free time, and plenty of stuff on the farm occupying my work time. <br />
<br />
I purchased another farm down the road from me this year; another 40 acres and a house and barn. I bought it mostly for the land; I wanted more cropland that I owned - but was pleasantly surprised to find that someone about 40 years ago had planted really nice things around the house. <br />
<br />
So the new farm came with a mature american chestnut tree, a mature black walnut tree, the biggest fig tree I've ever seen, and a variety of other homestead-like plantings. I spent a little bit of the fall<br />
clearing the blackberries and overgrowth and I'm looking forward to completing that work this spring. the black walnut tree and chestnut tree are about 75' tall, and the fig tree is 30' tall. <br />
<br />
I purchased the property on an as-is, where-is basis; I figured that if the house was too terrible I'd just<br />
tear it down, but it turns out to need some work to improve it, but it's good as it is. I did decide the<br />
kitchen was too terrible and rehabbed it, and I've found some folks who seem happy to live there,<br />
so I'll rent it out and see how that goes for the next year. <br />
<br />
The purchase price for this farm was a little under 8k/acre, which is a little more than the 6k/acre<br />
I paid for my main farm, but still within reason. With a little juggling I can probably develop<br />
and sell an acre of it as a mobile home lot or a house building lot and pay off the property if I can<br />
do it before the housing market in this area crashes - because I think that we're overvalued right now<br />
in washington state, and I can't see it going up much from here. <br />
<br />
When it's low I buy, when it's high I sell, and I've been selling property this year. <br />
<br />
Around the farm: <br />
<br />
Pig business is good. Currently have 60 sows and 5 boars. Seeking a market for my cull sows and<br />
hate selling them at auction, but when they have to go, they've gotta go. holiday sales of pigs<br />
are always pretty fun; lots of cultures have pigs as a celebration meal, so I've got groups of<br />
happy customers processing their own pigs almost every day of december; I was offered a bit<br />
of crisped fat and salt by a romanian family that was here yesterday; it's their favorite part of<br />
the process-the-pig tradition, and I accepted it with a smile. <br />
<br />
Milking cows are all dried off this time of year; I'm aiming my calving at march of the year so that the cows can be on the best grass of the year as they produce milk for their calves and me. I only milk 1 cow each year, as the 5 gallons or so of milk that single cow produces is more than I or even my extended family can consume, and you can only make so much cheese :)<br />
<br />
I've cut my chicken flock down to a rooster and a dozen or so young laying hens; keeping chickens in the winter is a bigger chore than I need right now, so I'll wait for warmer weather to bring in the roosters. i like to raise 300 to 500 heritage roosters a year and sell them to the live chicken folks.<br />
I'll order the chicks delivered in late feb or early march and sell them through the summer as they<br />
reach the weights that people like to eat them at. they grow slowly compared to cornish cross, but the demand is good, and the price is good. <br />
<br />
I'm going to move the majority of the cows to the new farm in the spring; which will free up the ground here for corn, and I'll plant 40 acres of corn next year. I'll also plant some wheat, alfalfa and orchard grass next year, and try some soybeans as well. I like the idea of growing my own feed for<br />
my own animals, and I think I have enough land to do the job right now. It makes economic sense because I'm my own customer for the feed, and when I buy pig feed I'm paying the equivalent of $10 a bushel for corn/soybean mix and I can raise the corn for about $3/bushel, everything included, which means I think I can cut my feed bill by at least 30% for the carbohydrates, but the protein part I'm still working on. <br />
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<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-11120006431410296762017-08-21T22:40:00.000-07:002017-08-21T22:40:00.356-07:00Drowning in honeyThere are worse problems to have :)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-feJ872pZjhw/WZvDIm-PgLI/AAAAAAAAJus/7oCkuhPgB_8D8Xu77E3c8mjdyfYXVIo0wCLcBGAs/s1600/beehive%2Bcomponents.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1336" height="361" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-feJ872pZjhw/WZvDIm-PgLI/AAAAAAAAJus/7oCkuhPgB_8D8Xu77E3c8mjdyfYXVIo0wCLcBGAs/s640/beehive%2Bcomponents.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://westernbee.com/pages/beehive.html</td></tr>
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My bee setup is basically what's shown in the picture above; I don't use a hive stand - I use shipping pallets so I can pick up the hives and move them with equipment, and I haven't ever needed to use a queen excluder, but some folks do. <br />
<br />
This year has been really good for the bees. Hot weather and good blooms for most everything that they like. I started the year with 4 hives, now have 8 due to swarms, and I'm pulling the honey supers off the hives. <br />
<br />
Every hive has produced honey this year; even those that started as packages and then swarmed. The lowest producing hive was at 2 gallons of honey, the highest producing hive between 6 and 7 gallons (each!). <br />
<br />
So my eight hives have produced 22.5 gallons of honey, which doesn't sound like a lot until you go to<br />
bottle it - I've produced 17 cases of half pint and pint jars so far, and still have honey to go. <br />
<br />
The weather has been cooperative - hot and sunny (with the occasional eclipse), so opening the hives and working with the bees has been relatively easy. <br />
<br />
There's still some honey to be gathered out there, and I'm pulling the honey now by swapping empty for full. I'll pull the honey supers off of the hives when it cools down in september so that the bees have a smaller area to keep warm during the winter. <br />
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<br />Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-53408714421242679952017-08-10T01:57:00.000-07:002017-08-10T01:57:04.485-07:00Big barn - closed in! Wellhouse - closed in!Finished two of the projects for this summer - the well house and the big barn.<br />
<br />
Closed in means that the roof is on, and the walls are complete, and it's weather-tight. Work still needs to be done, but it can be done inside, out of the rain - and on a non-emergency basis. It's always nice when you can choose the time you work on something, instead of having it chosen for you :)<br />
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Plywood sheathing is expensive but it holds up a lot better in wet and damp environments, and the wellhouse is pretty damp and cool most of the year. Plywood is $19/sheet, OSB, a more common alternative, is about $8/sheet<br />
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I framed the wellhouse with 2x6 to allow space for insulation and to be able to bury the plumbing in the walls if I chose. Most of it I left exposed for easy maintenance. the old wellhouse is in the picture above, to the right on the bottom. The new wellhouse is about 30" above grade, the old one is built on grade. the old one floods - the new one won't. <br />
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I had some sheets of siding from the big barn project - so I used that, and some trim, and picked a door that matched the existing door on the dairy office for the farm, so it has a nice consistent look with the rest of the outbuildings. <br />
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It looks a little odd with the door set to the side, but that's so that I can stack pallets of salt to the left of the door. The local hardware store gives a much better price for salt when you buy a pallet at a time, and I use a fair bit of it to soften our (very hard) water. <br />
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This is the south face of the barn. Man door on the far left, 16'x23' sliding barn doors in the center. The yellow bollards are there to stop people from running into the door frame with equipment - hopefully they won't, or the bollard will prevent damage :)<br />
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This picture was taken as we applied the last bit of skin to the barn. The top 3' of the east and west walls are clear panels, and they provide plenty of light on the inside so you don't need artificial light during daylight hours. Much more pleasant (and cheaper!) to work with. <br />
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The barn itself is 250x100, and it's clear-span. No pillars or anything in the center. The ceiling in the center (measured from the floor to the lowest point of the structural steel, is just shy of 20'. <br />
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I include this picture of us attaching the barn doors and adjusting them to provide a little bit of scale. Its really hard to see how big this barn is until you put two people on top of one another, and can have a 3rd and most of a 4th and still not hit the top of the barn. I rented the manlift, and was glad I did. Would have taken much much longer to do this with ladders or scaffolding. <br />
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We have two strips of concrete to pour in the big barn to complete the floor, but that can now be done anytime - we have a roof and walls, and can heat the space if we need to. Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.com1