You will have to squint your eyes and look very, very carefully. Pania has come back…
… with One teensy weensy peachick. Of course his/her name will be Chickpea. However it is a dangerous world out there so we will only whisper that name for a while. When she calls him she has a TockTock sound and she is very careful to watch him, making sure that he is keeping up. What a surprise. Not that she is a good mother but that she is a mother at all. I could not find them again yesterday evening so I hope she has him well hidden.
I went to visit another farm yesterday where they raise and sell organic pork and raw milk. Organic pork from grass fed milk. Just fantastic. We had some of their sausages for dinner last night and OH they were good. The farm is called South Pork Ranch (cool aye!) and it is a good old fashioned farm run by hard working people. Donna also has a blog, I discovered yesterday, where among other things she keeps us up to date on her legal battle to keep Illinois a state where we can buy and sell raw milk.
Like you and I, they love good food. It was a tonic for me to see first hand how other people do what I do on a larger scale. They have a wee store too where you can buy the milk and the pork products at a reasonable price so if people choose to eat well they certainly can.
Old fashioned farming in a modern setting is very hard work. There is little generational support. For me there is No Gran in the kitchen. No daughter to take over. This is a big loss on a farm. Often people have no old people to work with us and teach us as they go. No grandpa pottering about in the workshop out the back. No grown children who live in a farm cottage and help out in the day time. So the people who are working these little old fashioned farms need tons of community and peer support. We need to shift our thinking to accomodate this gap. I really hope that this farm has solid support.
The fellow who is managing this farm with his wife said to me that he is looking at selling this farm as a going concern, then buying a smaller place so they can farm on the same small scale as The Kitchens Garden. I said, why. He said: you just can’t get anyone to work as hard as this anymore. We all paused and thought about this terrible statement. This is a successful operation. Beautiful and productive, a real bonus find for me while Daisy is dry. But the workload is phenomenal.
Then I thought of the teenager in this house who is due to leave for the army on Sunday who I have never seen upright for more than an hour usually a lot less. He darts into jobs or training when told to and does them fast, then throws himself back on the couch or in front of a device. He certainly could not work as hard as these farmers do. So once again we need to come back to ourselves. How can we train the next generation to work as hard as we were trained to.
Maybe saving our children and our children’s children is just as important as saving the bees or the butterflies. Am I being simplistic? And now that we know that there are teenagers and young adults out there who have never worked a whole day in their lives what do we do?
I do not know these people yet, though I hope to. And to achieve what they have they surely must have a great network of family support. But I am sure there are many small farm owners who are struggling along in a modern world, wondering exactly why this just got so hard. Is this one of the reasons we are losing our little farms? Young people cannot work as hard as they used to?
Good morning. Speaking of bees, as I suspected Nefertiti’s hive was failing. They tried to raise their own queen but I could not find a queen in the few trays that they have covered with honey. No brood. So I spread a sheet of paper over Cleopatra’s bursting at the seams super and laid Nefertiti’s on top. The bees will nibble through the paper and by the time they have joined they will be used to each others scents, Cleopatra will have huffed her powerful pheromones through the new hive and they will become one.
I need them to have piles of honey for the winter this year, so maybe I will not be taking any honey this season. My plan is to add another big super or even two over the next few months and then next spring I can divide these back up again.
Like many of you we are going to be hot, hot again today. The Bobby is doing much better now that I have corralled him in the deep cool of the barn. That little steer is not a good doer.
The new puss is still up the top in the barn. He is not ready to come down yet which is fine. I am feeding and visiting him up there.
The painter thinks he will be finished today. How fantastic is that!
There was one other thing I was going to tell you but it has dropped straight out of my Paddington Bear brain. Maybe I will remember and pop it in the comments as we go along today.
Have a lovely day.
Your friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
82 responses to “Look what I found yesterday morning!”
You always give me much to think about, Celi. So often folks work their arses off simply so that their children don’t HAVE to work as hard as they do. But are we doing them a favour by doing that? Hmmm. As I said, thought-provoking, thank you. I hope (shhh) Chickpea is ok.. x
This is a worrying concept.. to protect your children from hard work. Hard physical work feels wonderful. When you have been through the heat and the dirt and your muscles and brain have been physically strained and pushed to the limit – it feels fantastic. c
Well done Pania 😉
ohh, what a surprise! a chickpea =)
I think there are still some very hard working young people coming on, but the choices are so diverse, they are choosing other areas in which to do their hard work rather than farming…which still means we are in short supply of people to do what you are doing. I am of about your generation and I could not do what you are doing either, so we will hope for a greater number to choose the good, but hard, life and at least support them and buy their products.
My concern is the teenagers today, and I have met many really hardworking kids who run their own sections of a farm.And it is good that you know of young people who are choosing physically demanding jobs in other fields. If they don’t do the work then we have to continue to import hard workers from other countries. In the seventies around here all the school kids walked the rows, but now even for good money a local farmer will have trouble finding a kid to clean out a grain bin, or muck out pens. I find it mystifying actually. Where are the kids looking for work to save up and GO to university.
I am sure you are just as energetic as i am. And I actually believe I have more energy in my forties and now the fifties than I ever had before. Women peak in their fifties and are at the height of their energy. So I am willing to bet that if someone gave you a wee farm to run you would do just fine!
have a lovely day.. c
Hi Cecilia, I’m jealous of your bees. We discovered a bee swarm in the garden over the river from us, and rang a bee collector. We watched the collection, and pondered if we could have done that – had we had a hive to put them in. A week later, a second swarm arrived – and hung themselves in the same low tree. Kicking ourselves by then that we didn’t have a hive. Ah well, enough to be getting on with, with moving home again and the Lop Eared Pig cafe.
When you finally decide to get hives, order a little cardboard box called a nuc, it is perfect for dropping a swarm into. And you are right they are pretty easy to recover! Just think of all that lovely honey drizzled over your pork chops. you are shifting again? Closer to the cafe?
Not closer, just time to buy, we had to rent for 6 months or so after we sold ours.
Oh excellent! I hope you have found somewhere just right..
Yes indeed. We are thinking along the same lines as we work in the heat the past couple of weeks. How nice it would be to reduce our farm to something smaller and sustainable for our family, just for us and our family. Sigh. I have never worked so hard in my life. But I am also healthier than I’ve ever been. You are right about the young people. I just turned 57 and have more stamina than my 20-something interns in this weather. But they keep coming back, so we must be doing something right! So many things to think about.
Good job Pania!
You are right about the health and fitness. Women are at their best in their fifties i think, i certainly can do way more physically than i could twenty years ago. I wonder why that is? c
There are still hard-working young people but they seem to be more few and far between, at least in my line of work. As for how to get help on the farms, have your new friends thought about offering an internship through a local university? Many require their students to do a practical application of their learning. It could be mutually beneficial–young and older sharing knowledge and ideas, a pipeline of workers to help the farm, and a way to find permanent help since some of the young people would be coming from families without a farm themselves.
It is a wonderful idea, do the interns get paid very much, do you have to house them as well? interesting.. c
From what I read it depends on the school. Sometimes it’s room and board and sometimes it’s a small paycheck. Even some high schools are doing programs like this.
sounds like a great network.. c
Hoo Boy, will the army basic training have some surprises for TTT 🙂 Was going to suggest Egoli as a name for new puss – it is the Zulu name meaning “place of gold”. Off to peruse links above. Laura
Forgot to say Congrats Pania and welcome little Chicpea. 🙂 Laura
Egoli is perfect .. thank you Laura.. place of gold, he raced down the barn ladder to met me this morning, so he is certainly adapting, my biggest problem is Scrapper, he hates everyone and especially other cats.. but Egoli (see his name fits already) is bigger so maybe it will work out! c
🙂 🙂 Zulu’s are also great warriors> Laura
Good! He will need to be.. c
Welcome, Chickpea!
What a lovely surprise and what a lot to think about in this post. I am so glad, too, that you have found a source for milk. When you said Daisy was going to be dry for 8 months, it sounded like a long time to be without milk!
I know, lucky i like my coffee black as well! But now i have a source.. c
I am lucky, blessed really, to have 2 sets of gran and gramps pop in and help often and more importantly teach me about farming. My adult children do always come and help when there is big work to do. They all have always been hard workers, physically and mentaly.
They PLAY hard too! Work, Play, Rest. All with gusto. That’s the Key!
Wonderful. i am sure lot of the isolation comes from geography. i know that this is my problem, my children and father are thousands of miles away .. bit far to help with the Hay!! c
And thanks for a promt for a post today. Fellow bloggers are wonderful that way. Always make me think a bit harder and see goodness of the everyday.
I clapped my hands with glee for Pania and Chickpea. Fingers crossed that this great big wicked world will be kind to them. I think TTT will get a big surprise in the army. I hope your new farming friends don’t sell, but find someone to help.
Love,
ViV
She is still here this morning, so far so good! c
Interesting observations about family farming. My grandparents farmed in upstate Maine many years ago and had 9 children to help (and it was morning to sundown help). Since it was during the Great Depression they also had a few additional laborers who worked for meals and slept in the barn. I remember my mother telling me that at the end of the year, my grandfather had one quarter in cash after selling the crops. Of course being pretty much self sufficient & many years ago that quarter had more value. As her brothers and sisters got older though they drifted to the cities to work in factories during WWII because the farm could just not sustain all of them & future children. One brother stayed to carry on the farm. Farming is very hard work and I think it has to be in your blood to make a go of it which I don’t think entices many young people today.
It is hard but in a sensible doable kind of way. Especially if you farm sustainably so that neither you nor your land is stretched past its resources, late summer and into the fall is very busy, but there are lulls.. c
Ahhhh – Chickpea!
*In a whisper* yippee we have a baby Chickpea. Love the name! Also thrilled that our new kitty is still happy and settling in – super excited about the painting being finished today – woohoo!
I think children have become lazy now days because parents allow it from an early age – it is easier to put them in front of the TV or some other device to keep them quiet and happy as opposed to working through issues or having to parent. Also, older folk have a lot more tenacity than younger folk so instinctively work harder – well that’s just my pennies worth.
Have a beautiful weekend C.
🙂 Mandy xo
Hi Celia – I think you’re right – things have swung a bit far. My hubby worked in a dairy from the time he was five and I was always out all day with horses and being outside. While I wouldn’t want my kids to be rural workers in the way some kids were even a generation ago, I know they do love getting stuck in when we have real ‘work’ to do and at least one of mine is a great cook, so I have to be proud of that much.
Cooking and working in the kitchen is excellent work, prepping, cooking serving and cleaning up are all taxing. And there is great pride in the product. And rural work is not a bad thing to do. It is extremely rewarding.. c
I agree – there is a wonderful rhythm about rural life which you can’t experience in the city easily. And there are always those amazing times when you’re working hard outside and then you look up and all the colours and light around you have changed.