Growing a Farmer

by Kurt Timmermeister

  My newest project is to use this basic method, but to adapt it in the manner of the Italian balsamic vinegar procedure. In that tradition, the juice from Trebbiano grapes is boiled down to concentrate, to make it sweeter. Once the juice is of a suitable sweetness, the yeast is pitched and the process continues as for a regular vinegar. In the case of balsamic vinegar, a complex process of transferring the vinegar from barrels to ever-smaller barrels of different woods over a period of many years further concentrates the flavors and the sugars. Paul Bertolli gives an excellent description in his book Cooking by Hand.

  My interest lies in trying this process with apple juice. I have taken the fresh apple juice and reduced it by half through boiling, heightening the sweetness of the juice and leaving it a dark mahogany color. The yeast has been pitched and the juice fermented. The barrel is full with the mother making her transformation. Only time will tell of its success.

  Red wine vinegar follows a more modern course in my kitchen. Few grapevines prosper on the farm, and yet red wine flows freely at this farm’s table. As is often the case, it runs too freely. The bad bottle, the disappointing vintage, the glass filled when a half a glass would suffice—all contribute to the red wine vinegar barrel. Every night those extra bits, an ounce here, an ounce there, are poured into the cask. Every night the vinegar is topped up, kept full, ready for the next salad. The acids in the vinegar keep it all very healthy and nice. I must use those extra bits of wine. Wasting food is the greatest sin; all must be used.

  I cherish these casks; the vinegar in them provides the punch to the food prepared in this kitchen. Without the needed acid, the salads would be flat and bland, the sauces simply sweet. The original goal was an orchard of apple trees for bubbly hard cider. I do not expect to ever meet this particular end, but the sweet apple redux poured on my morning pancakes and the tart apple cider vinegar are an ample goal, and one I value. As I walk across the upper pasture, I still often cringe at the uneven orchard: some trees tall and flourishing, filled with fruit, some struggling along and others continually nipped down by the deer. Each spring a carton of new apple whips, first-year starts, will arrive in the mail and the process will continue.

  The journey of building hives and an orchard, of producing my own honey, cider and vinegar, has proved immensely enjoyable for me. Though both the beekeeping project and the birth of my orchard were relatively time-consuming, I was still working full-time in the city. These endeavors amounted to elaborate, delicious food-yielding hobbies, not viable business models. I never sold any honey or cider, I was more than happy enjoying it with friends. Down the line I would have to reconcile my love for producing food with a need to cover my expenses and earn a livelihood, but at the time I was content to revel in the wonders my land had produced.

  Five

  Sheep, Goats, Pastures and Grazing

  Ah, sheep: the eternal symbol of the pasture. I always visualize rolling green pastures somewhere vaguely in England, with sheep spread out, grazing for as far as you can see. In the distance, they look calm and peaceful and without problems; living their peaceful, pastoral life.

  And they are lovely creatures: simple, content and at peace.

  Sheep are gateway animals. They are the first farm animals many, including myself, have, and are a smart way to get started as a farmer and to get a feel for animals. My first two animals here were a ewe and a ram that friends gave me. They believed that they were going to raise sheep and realized quickly that they would stick with raising children and sent the sheep over to me. I really didn’t want them. I was looking for pigs and hadn’t been able to find any. But I did have a fenced area and figured putting sheep there was a good start. I put little thought into it. I had no idea what sheep ate or what I would have to do to keep them alive.

  I had fenced a large area, probably an acre in size in anticipation of the pigs that would not arrive for years later. The sheep could live in this paddock. There was a bit of grass in it, but of very low quality. Early on a visitor came to my place and I gave him a tour. I knew that he had some experience in horticulture, working as a landscape architect in the Bay Area. When we came to the paddock in question I noted that the grass was in the process of going to seed, its stalks high and a seed head about to form. With feigned authority, I explained that this was “timothy grass.” I had no idea what timothy grass was or what it looked like and was basing my assessment entirely on a passing comment by a friend of mine who said he fed his horses timothy grass. It sounded of high quality. The landscape architect in question gently took me aside and whispered, “Actually, Kurt, it is not timothy grass, but rather feather grass, with almost no nutritional value whatsoever; you might consider seeding some pasture grasses.” I felt a bit taken aback, and thankfully the sheep chewed it down and somehow found some merit in it.

  For water, I ran a series of hoses from the houses to this far pen. Twelve acres is small in comparison to most commercial farms, but when water is needed on one end of the property and the only water connection is on the other end, it is a formidable task to connect the two far points. I went to the hardware store and picked up two seventy-five-foot hoses. One hundred and fifty feet had to be adequate to reach the far sheep. Two more drives to the hardware store, two large armfuls of plastic hoses, a sizable addition to my credit card, and the sheep had water.

  Surprisingly, the sheep lived. Poor-quality food, little or no shelter from the sun except the shade provided by the odd tree on the edge of the property and intermittent ignorant attention by myself, all led to a surprisingly good outcome. The ram succeeded in breeding the old ewe. Come spring after that first year, the ewe gave birth to twins.

  There is nothing like a young animal to inspire, or maybe to cloud the judgment of, a young farmer-to-be. Baby lambs, much like baby goats, calves, and piglets, are supremely endearing. They reek of innocence and goodness. Fresh-faced, bright-eyed and with an intoxicating optimism, they drew me in. I wanted more, more sheep, so that I could have more baby lambs. I am reminded at this point of Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire. The central premise of his mind-altering book is the idea that the most brilliant species, both plant and animal, create ways to use humans for their continued existence. Tomatoes are guaranteed existence with little or no chance of extinction because they “convinced” us to love them, to plant them the world over. The animal, the plant, that does not have this persuasion will be ignored, extinct, dead. I now think of most agricultural animals this way after reading Pollan’s book years ago.

  Unlike their young, sheep are not particularly endearing. Large, loud, less than bright, smelly, needing to be sheared yearly, they have little in the asset column. And then once a year, generally on a sunny, fine spring morning, they produce one, two, three lovely lambs. Suddenly the other 364 days of loud, loutish behavior on the part of the sheep is forgotten as we pick up the baby lambs.

  I fell for it entirely. That one ewe with her twins became two, which became four and so on. Originally I fell for the cuteness of the baby lambs, the way they bounce unbelievably higher than their bodies, their nonstop playfulness with the other lambs. Months later I realized that the time of cute had expired. Not yet a year old, these lambs had less lamb, more sheep to them.

  As these lambs’ intended function was not just to be cute and bounce across the pastures, but rather to provide meat for the farm, I called the butcher out to slaughter the lambs. He quickly dealt their death and handed me the carcass of meat. Having little sense of the preciousness of lamb, I threw a barbecue party. We roasted two lovely, large lambs on a spit: four hind legs, a couple dozen chops and four fore shanks. Turned on a spit over a small fire, basted with rosemary and fat, the meat cooked splendidly: juicy, rare on the interior, charred on the exterior and tremendously tender throughout. I loved it. Everyone there loved it. I needed more lambs; I had eaten my year’s supply in an afternoon.

  And so I had learned that sheep have two enduring reasons for remaining on this planet: the cute factor
of lambs and the superb meat that follows a few months later. In my world, sheep have a place at the table; they will not go the way of the dodo bird, the homing pigeon.

  The first animals that people generally acquire are not sheep but goats. In my opinion, this is a poor choice. I hear from many people who think they will move out of the city, quit their jobs, buy a few goats and make goat cheese. I try to react with an enthusiasm that matches theirs. They seem to believe that they are the first to come up with the plan to make goat cheese and leave their jobs in the city. Thankfully, I was too timid to announce my plans to anyone all those many years ago.

  Goats really are beautiful animals, very clean and tidy and full of personality. Goat cheese is especially tasty and reeks of the French countryside. Little rounds of white cheese, often with some ash or a few flower petals or cracked pepper—it’s a lovely pastoral daydream. But the reality of keeping goats is much different. They are beautiful and full of personality, but also can be quite pesky. They have an uncanny ability to outwit any fence, gate or confinement. If they just escaped and wandered around with their sweet demeanor it might work, but their wily intelligence leads them right to the best tree or your favorite plant and they nip it down to the ground. Quickly. Effortlessly. Silently. If you are lucky they will stay on your property and only wreak havoc on your favorite trees. If you aren’t so lucky, your neighbor’s favorite trees will fall victim to your cute goats as well.

  I think they plan it out. Spending their afternoons chewing their cuds and looking over their fence, getting a sense of which plants you really care about. Watching you prune and water and fawn over a beautiful specimen that is close to blooming, something that would break your heart if it were to be eaten.

  When they get a chance to jump a fence or squeeze through a space in between fence boards, they head directly for that predetermined tree. Their goal is not nourishment, but rather to inflict punishment upon you. They want you to know that they are in charge, that you are merely there to assist them in their life on your farm.

  Beneath the hooves of sheep, goats and certainly cows lies the breadbasket of the farm: the pasture. Pasture is simply grass, the lawn that the ruminants eat for sustenance. When I look at the bulk of a thousand-pound cow or a hundred-and-fifty-pound sheep or goat, all those bones and flesh and hide, I’m awed that they are the product of daily grass nibbling. The lawn deserves respect.

  Following the north road of the farm up the hill, through a bit of woods, one comes out onto the upper pasture. A canopy of large trees darkens the north road; it is an intimate space. And then the trees end and all is open; the full, expansive pasture stands before you. It is dark green from years of being fertilized by cow manure, the grass nibbled flat and even by the large selective tongues of the cows grazing. The pasture is not flat, but rather rolls in large hills. Not perfect land, but it is the pasture that I have to work with, and years of maintaining it have improved it greatly.

  Dotting the pastures are a few large trees that I felt were worth saving when I cleared the land. Mountain ash, madrona, Himalayan birch, Pacific Coast dogwoods. Because of these trees, some solitary, some in groups, the pasture looks unlike a customary pasture at a dairy farm. Most dairy farms are located on flat land, river-bottom land, down in the valley. My pastures are on the highest point of the island, no rivers run through them, no mountains rise up from the sides; so trees remain. If a pasture is designed to maximize grazing and to facilitate ease of tractoring, trees are quickly removed. It is slower and more difficult to drive the tractor around the trees and between the small groves of birches. I prefer a bit of visual beauty over the loss of efficiency, and the cows enjoy the shade from the trees as well.

  Pastures contain a variety of grasses and legumes among lesser weeds and other plants. Grasses in pasture are generally perennial, spread by rhizomes. Grasses make up the bulk of the pasture; legumes, which are of the pea family, a much smaller percentage.

  The grasses have long roots: the rhizomes. Although grasses can also spread through seeds, in a pasture setting it is rare to ever let the grass go to seed. The pasture fills in through the spreading of the roots. They grow underground for a few inches out from the crown of the plant and then emerge from the soil as more grass. Over time, the grass becomes a solid mass of roots and crowns and the green blades above the surface.

  The crowns of the grasses contain the sugars: the energy of the plants. The act of the sun hitting the green grass is photosynthesis: the energy of the sun converted to sugars in the crown of the plant. This energy, this sugar, is what gives the plant the ability to grow. Ideally the plant has large roots, a healthy crown and an equally large top of grass. The plant would be balanced at this point. When the top of the plant is cut, or chewed down by an animal, then the crown must spend part of its stored energy that was captured from the sun to regrow.

  The more grass that needs to be replaced, the more energy that needs to be expended. In order to replace that energy, the plant needs green grass for photosynthesis. If it has all been chewed down, then the time to capture the requisite energy is longer. If the grass is still long, then the crown can quickly recover from the loss of grass.

  This basic concept of the regrowth of grass is paramount to understanding how to manage pastures. The quantity of land available is generally fixed; that is, it is very difficult to gain more pastureland. Land is expensive, in short supply, and more likely than not in use and not available. Better management of pastureland, in effect, gives the small farmer more food for his animals.

  The result is the basic concept of rotational grazing. Not new, not revolutionary, but still rather difficult to accomplish well, despite its wide use. I fail miserably most of the time.

  Rotational grazing takes this basic concept of grass and leverages it to the benefit of the pasture. If the grass is kept long it will quickly rebound from grazing. If the grass is kept short, it will be very slow to rebound from grazing. The trick is to feed the animals without letting them graze the grass too far to the crown. Easier said than done.

  The method that has been developed is to only allow the animals to graze when the grass is of adequate height. The minimum height is generally two inches tall. Less than that and the animals have overgrazed the pasture. When they have grazed down to two inches, then they must be quickly removed from that pasture until the grass has regrown to adequate length.

  What has made this possible in the last couple of decades is the invention of flexible, movable and inexpensive fencing. What now exist are portable electric fences and wires that can be moved often, quickly, and still manage to confine large or small animals. These fences are relatively lightweight and manageable. Paddocks can be defined, the grass within grazed and then the paddock left to regrow, while the animals are moved to another quickly defined paddock.

  The procedure is thus: the large pasture is divided into individual paddocks with the flexible fencing. Each paddock contains the amount of pasture that the animals on the farm can eat in one day without overgrazing. At the end of every day, the animals are moved to the next paddock. Ideally, when they are at the last paddock, the first paddock in the rotation is ready for the animals to return to.

  If the paddocks have not recovered by the time that the herd comes back around, then the animals are returned to a “sacrifice” area. In this smallish paddock, the animals will live chewing the grass to the nubbins while they are fed hay or other feed. Only when the other paddocks return to ample height will the animals be returned to pasture. Depending on the climate, this time frame could be all the months of fall and winter when the grass is not growing at all, or it could be simply an additional day while the fast-growing summer grass catches up.

  The result of this rotational grazing system is that the animals take the best of the pasture and leave it in a state healthy enough to quickly regrow. If the animals are left on pasture continuously, then they will graze the pasture to the ground and it will take weeks or months to recover rather
than days or weeks.

  For the past ten years I have read about rotational grazing, most notably in Joel Salatin’s Salad Bar Beef, the most complete book on the subject. I understand how it works. I embrace the concept. I took a class from the local county extension office. I get it. And yet, I never seem to do it well.

  The fine details are in order. Pasture is needed: real pasture. Not lousy grass on even worse soil, but pasture that can grow grass. The most heartening part of Salatin’s book is his description of the history of his family’s place, Polyface Farm. When his father bought the farm in Swoope, Virginia, in 1961 and began to set up portable fences, they used fence posts set in old tires filled with concrete, as the ground was too rocky and compacted to hold a portable fence post. Now, decades later, Salatin’s pastures are deep, rich and loamy, with a fence post easily tapped in. My pastures are closer to the tire-concrete years than the rich-loamy years.

  Without vibrant pastures, the animals are relegated to the sacrifice paddock for most all of the year while you wait for the scrubby grasses to grow. If they’re confined to a small paddock, the animals’ manure quickly piles up. For reasons of health, the manure must be removed daily. Emotionally, keeping animals in a small paddock is difficult. Here are the animals that you care for, both literally and figuratively. They are living in a paddock of bare earth, pockmarked by manure, and yet feet away is a large pasture. A pasture unable to support them year-round, but nonetheless, a pasture. The temptation is always there to open the gates and let them graze free.