Planting in December

December is not a time for planting here in the Ozarks, or so I thought.  That paradigm was changed this weekend.

I spent a big part of the last two days helping my freinds, Jerry and Terry at Sonlight Farm planting blackberries; lots of blackberries; 900 blackberry plants.  The ground is cold and damp.  We have had several frosty nights lately including Friday night.  It rained mid-week.  So when we started planting about 10:30 Saturday morning the frost had just melted off the more shaded areas of the farm and the soil ranged from a bit too damp to gumbo-like.

The area for the berry plantation had been tilled repeatedly this fall.  As the rows were layed out Jerry tilled them again.  This at least broke up the frost in the soil and stirred it good.  The plants were planted three feet apart in rows ten feet apart. 

We (Jerry, Terry, a young man named Robby, and I) planted more than 400 on Saturday. Jerry, Robby and I finished the rest after dinner today.  The last plant was in the ground when there was just enough light left to complete the work.  The three of us shared a deep sense of accomplishment!

Jerry purchased the blackberry plants from Arkansas Berry & Plant Farm .  The plants were very nice with canes ten to twelve inches long and healthy roots.  They don't ship them until after frost in their location which is why they arrived here in December.  It is important that the plants be dormant before shipping. The picture above is of the growing fields of black berries at Arkansas Berry & Plant Farm.

None of us who worked at it would tell you the conditions were pleasant. The ground was cold and wet with an air temperature in the high 40's at best.  Three of the four of us are 60 or older.  But I believe each of us would tell you that the work was worthwhile and uplifting in that we were planting something in hopes of gaining and enjoying a harvest later. 



The discomfort of having our gloved hands (and our knees) in the cold mud was somewhat mitigated by the thoughts of enjoying warm blackberry cobler in the future.  The total experience was enhanced by the fellowship with others who all share a love of God and an appreciation for his creation and provision.

What will our efforts yield in reality?  Will blackberry plants that have been "mudded in" grow and flourish?
Well, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen", so I would say that what we engaged in this weekend involves a certain amount of faith.  Faith that the plants we put in the ground were truly blackberry plants and of high quality and vigor; faith that the soil in which they were planted contains the nutrients they require; faith that sufficient moisture will be available throughout the winter and the coming seasons to support them; and faith that God will bless our efforts.  Yes, planting in any season is an act of faith.



An exasperating day on the farm.

Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say this has been an exasperating day on the farm.  When I went out to do chores this morning I found our boar Uncle back in the pasture with the bred gilts and the sow with the new litter.  I had seperated him to the next paddock yesterday and the day before that. 

The first time he got back into the pasture by pushing through at the botttom of the gate.  I double chained it thinking that would stop him.  It did; at the gate.  Instead he went over the 36" field fence last night.  Today I strung a hot wire (electric fence) above the field fence.  In the process I saw that one of the piglets was lying dead out of the nest.  The nest was pretty well beatendown so I have a hunch the boar was harrassing the sow and the piglet was collateral damage.

I had to go buy more straw today.  When I returned and was hauling straw out for the sow to augment her nest, I found another piglet mired in the mud and dead.  Then there were four.  Did I mention it has rained off and on throughout the day?  We really do need the rain so it is a blessing.

I slogged around in the mud trying to move the remaining piglets into the hog shelter.  The mama would have none of it, and valuing the wholeness of my limbs, I did not challenge her.  Perhaps if I had someone here to help, we might have been able to accomplish it.

Now it's dark out and the rain is pelting down.  I am trying to encourage myself with the thought that the sow might some how move her brood on her own.  Or she may have used the straw and rebuilt her nest to keep her young relatively dry.  Thankfully, it is not cold out.

"The Lord gives and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Births and birthdays

The resident granddaughters love the movie Charlotte’s Web. Consequently, I have more than a passing awareness of the story. Those who know that about me were not surprised when I named our Hampshire boar after one of the characters in the story. I named him “Uncle”.


Perhaps you recall Uncle the large, apparently not-too-bright, boar hog that won the contest for best pig. This left Wilbur’s life in the balance until he was awarded a special medal essentially for being famous. Yep, he was famous for being famous.  Sounds like some of the people whose names appear so often in the headlines.  Anyway, I didn’t name my big boar after Wilbur because, in my opinion, Wilbur was a sniveling little sissy.
You can take one look at my boar “Uncle” and know that he is no sissy!

I bought Uncle in the middle of July this year. The weather was hot! Not great for moving hogs and not great for breeding hogs. By the first of August, I could confirm that Uncle was taking his job seriously. Whether his job was being taken seriously by the gilt hogs remained to be seen.

Time passed and the gilts continued to come into heat one by one. And then they didn’t.

Now understand all of this procreation activity was taking place out in the pasture without supervision. That left me in the position of having to carefully observe the females and try to gauge the stage of their gestation. It has been twenty-five years or more since last I raised hogs so I have been floundering. My confidence in my own judgment and Uncle’s effectiveness has ebbed and flowed.

Well this morning the wondering and guessing ended for our first gilt. About 9:00 I found her and her litter in a nest she had scraped out out in the pasture. She chose to ignore the hog shelter I built and placed in the field for her use. I went back to the barn and got a bale of straw to augment the nest she had made. When I got back to her, she was up eating the afterbirth. Though I didn’t get real close, I could see that she had five piglets alive and four or five more that were not. 

When I went back out in the afternoon she had taken the straw and created a big billowy nest for her young.  While I watched she was still working it around to get it to her liking.  Two or three piglets wondered out of the nest and back.  After a bit she laid down and the five little ones locked on.

She is a first-time mother. This is the first time I have farrowed pigs in the pasture. But this is the direction I want to pursue. My goal is to have hogs that can reproduce and raise young without confinement buildings. If I was a commercial hog farmer, 50% mortality at birth would be catastrophic. On this farm it’s just a sadness. My father-in-law used to say in such cases, “As long as it doesn’t come closer to the house than the barn, it will be okay.”

By the way, today resident granddaughter number one turns six years old!

"Consider the Ant" Proverbs 6:6

Our little homestead has also been home to our daughter and two granddaughters for the last two-and-a-half years.  This suits me fine most days as I am a believer in multigenerational homes.  I wrote some about that in my very first blog that you can read here.

I really enjoy watching these girls grow and change from stage to stage. The oldest girl will be six years old later this month. This past summer she progressed from screaming and having a hissy fit whenever a bug flew by her to actually catching and holding bugs, caterpillars, and worms.  She picked up a tent caterpillar and kept it in a jar for weeks.  The accompanying picture shows her hands full of creepy crawly things she collected one afternoon.

At some point in the summer she learned about worm castings and ant holes.  She and her sister watched little brown ants "harvesting" a dead grasshopper.  I explained how each ant would take a little tiny bite of the grasshopper and carry down into their nest so that they would have food for winter.

As the summer progressed she counted the jars of tomatoes, pickles, and beans that we canned.  I told her that we were storing food for the winter just like the ants.  Since we weren't canning all of these vegetables at the same time, the idea of putting food by for use later was talked about several times.

Just a couple weeks ago during deer season, she asked, "Grandpa, are you going to shoot a deer for winter?"  I'm not a hunter at this point but I sure am proud of how my granddaughter has learned about putting food by for winter.  That is an important concept and a big part of why we live where we do rather than in a suburban neighborhood someplace.

I believe it is important now, and may become more important in the future, to know how to grow and preserve food at home.  If you are not familiar with the processes involved, I encourage you to learn about them.