The hay man came a day early to bale the hay (the rain clouds were gathering) but it was not dry. It was green. Too green.
So with my heart in my mouth I said maybe we can look at it again tomorrow. Maybe it would not rain. The fella sighed with relief. He had called to say he should bale it and felt responsible but I will keep going if you tell me to, he said, but I am afraid it will mold. The old man, his father, looked at the bales we had drawn and shook his head. Stand them on their edge like this he said rolling the bale under inspection to its side. And shake a little salt on, he said. Waving his old working hands across the hay, miming the delicate distribution of salt. Horses don’t like that mind. He said. I don’t have horses I told him, I am growing food here. I seen your pigs out there he said nodding with a gentle smile at the piglets playing leap frog in the fields. I like me some bacon, he said. He hitched at his denim overalls, resettled his straw hat back onto his head and pushed his teeth back into place with his tongue. We’ll be back tomorrow. It might rain. It might not, you never know. But this will burn your old barn down. Best we come back. Leave the baler here son.
And the flash of their truck had barely turned in the track before old man wind began to roll in with his stormy arrogant smirk. Can you see him. Gliding in like Butter would not melt in his mouth. His cap just so.
Smothering the sun and sending bolts of lightening snapping like fingers at my small pursuits. As we ran to bring in the green bales, the wind heaved the tarpaulin up off the Chickens Ark and wind and its thunder sent sheets of metal falling and pigs bolting through the electric fence and around the corner.
The light changed as it fell, into that deep ominous gold, the glistening unreal beauty of it like we were under heavy water. After we had brought in the hay, laid it out and salted its edges. No ride on the Clatter Box for you. After I had wrestled the tarp back onto the Ark and put the sides on, the wind pushing on one side and whipping things back off the other. Not giving me an inch. After I had called all the piglets back into their run and shut their gate. After I had called Mama into the barn. After we had walked through the dark back up to the house and Ton had jumped a gate and landed on a soundless skunk. The smell shooting back. The dog disappearing in despair. It rained.
Well we’ve baled rained-on hay before. The old man had said.
There you are.
Good morning. I have decided to give myself The Challenge. Take control. For the month of September I will only eat what I have grown on the farm. I know that my pork and beef is still walking about in the fields. And I know it has not been the best potato year and I am not milking Daisy. But I need to start somewhere with this. To get an idea of how it can be.
You need to help me name the challenge. Something succinct and to the point.
Now, I am not a masochist so we need to decide what foods (and drinks) will still be OK. My list is : Coffee. Olive Oil. Flour. I will still buy milk from down the road, because milking the cow is part of my plan. This summer she is dry but we can pretend I think. What about my after work beer and a glass of wine with dinner? I still have some pear cider left and I do make my own wine. Like most things I will just eat or drink Less. (When you make it yourself you are more frugal with consumption). I have vinegar in the cellar, all the herbs and vegetables in the gardens. Honey from last year instead of sugar.
The only fruit will be apples and pears (soon) , and the frozen blueberries and strawberries and peaches that I have harvested already.
Eggs, of course we have piles of eggs.
This will only apply when I am home. I will still go out to dinner if invited and things like that. Though this seldom happens anyway. My ultimate goal is to do this for a year (and then the rest of my life) so I feel it is time to have one of a few dry runs so to speak. I thought about doing it for a week, but that is not a long enough trial. Nor is two weeks. At this time of year we really do live off the farm anyway but I have not applied the challenge. So a month it will be. You and I have today to decide what I am allowed to buy, and what I have to push to the back of the pantry, though really I am not sure that there will be terribly much. The farm supplies an awful lot. I am not short of will power so this will be a fun challenge for me. John will join me when he is home, but he works off the farm. Plus I haven’t told him yet!
I need to do it, so I can see where the weaknesses are. And I would love to have you along for the ride.
Have a lovely day.
Off to work I go.
your friend on the farmy, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
83 responses to “Old Man Wind Brings The Challenge.”
We have raised our food for so many years. We are in our 70’s now. As young marrieds we can remember sitting down to the Thanksgiving table and saying everythihng in front of us was home grown. The exceptions were flour, salt, spices, etc. Even our lard came from our pigs. We had dairy, beef, pigs, chickens (eggs & meat), even the turkey was home-grown. We did all this while my DH worked a full time fireman’s job. For us it was “The Season’s Bounty.” Or call it “The Farm’s Bounty.” We always gave thanks for a year’s hard work and plentitude. Don’t forget to factor in income from your farm. Also when you barter comes into it, too. The farm provides. I don’t think you wil miss out, you raise so much.
Sorry it rained, in our valley in Northern CA the major crop is Alfalfa. This year we have had countless thunder & lightning storms. The weather is the topic of the day. A curse and a blessing, as we so need the water.
It will be fun to follow your quest. I think you will be really surprised.
Have a great day!
Morning Bev, yes I think that the surprise will be that very little changes. I hope so anyway! Barter is very good point, I can barter eggs for produce from other peoples gardens for instance. Cucumbers being the one that springs to mind.. Anyway, time for me to get out into the garden before it gets too hot, i hear thunder though.. c
Ours is a very small, smallholding but we still experience that thrill and feeling of well-being when all the food on our plate is home produced!
Christine
blasted rain both of us got rained out still raining on us here was sent to see an orthopedic surgeon now i have to wait a week to see if my knee will heal on its own. here’s hoping depending on the amount of rain it can be tedded and re raked then baled part of mine was already baled but the rain got it that night that i was hurt. be a blessing mike
That must be grizzly .. inside in the rain with a busted knee and watching it rain on your hay. We don’t have a tedder, too small for such a machine, we dot 1/8th of an inch so I am hoping it will dry out today without further drama. Our hay man will be at church tomorrow so unless it dries VERY fast(to bale this afternoon) we might bale on monday. i told John to start reading the manual for our baler!
Have you tried brewing beer for your after work beer? It’s an interesting challenge and I look forward to the posts about it. Given that farms over history would trade and barter with each other, can you do that and still keep your challenge? I would think it would be very difficult to solely live off the farm. As we only have a 1/3 of an acre and it’s mostly buildings we can’t completely do this but we do try to make most of our stuff from scratch and grow what we can. It makes such a difference!
It makes a HUGE difference, even just the herbs and veges in the summer save you piles and look how healthy they are. Barter has come up twice now so i shall have to have a good look at the idea. Especially for when i do this for a YEAR! c
You could also make your own cheese but it is a lot of work and it’s not like you are sitting around looking for something to do!
Yes i do make my own cheese, i usually start a fresh one just about every morning when i am milking or a parmesan, I love parmesan, in fact cheese is why i got daisy! It is hard to find good cheese down here at a reasonable price. c
You are lucky to have the fresh raw milk right there. We have a local farm where we can get it for cheese. So good. 🙂
Oh and brewing beer sounds like something I would LIKE to do! c
Hubby brews beer and I make red, white and elderberry wine! 😀
I would love to know how to make beer simply.. that would be great! c
It’s wonderful to have home brewed beer. We love doing it.
Those skyscapes look beautiful. Poor little frightened pigs 😉
Your sky is beautiful although very threading. The salting of the bales is a new one for me. We have never done so. Let us know how it goes. Horses can NOT eat mold either and to have a bale heat and combust is bad, very bad. so if the salt helps…outstanding. I’ve seen a few hay stack fires in my lifetime and it is extremely alarming and hot and fast. Thankfully we have never had one here.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
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This is why these bales he baled green are sitting alone and being watched! They are not going up the top until I am sure they are cold. I gave some to Daisy and she was so excited she forgot to chew, so if all else fails i can feed them out fast. but not too fast! c
I just wanted to say that I’m so excited about your challenge! It will be fascinating to see what you can do with all the wonderful food you raise. I am looking forward to lovely pics of all that deliciousness! I know you make your own cheese, will you do that with the milk you buy or do you already have cheese made? and butter? If I get a vote, I think that coffee should be allowed. It is an absolute necessity with all you do each day. I say you barter for it with some of the eggs.
Poor Ton! And you. We know who has to clean up after that. You did get some gorgeous sky shots!
Coffee, salt, olive oil, and maybe yeast would be on my list for you! Soap and Skunk Off too. September Farmy Challenge for the name. C if it helps I will volunteer to be your sister two villages away living on a coffee farm and will barter coffee for eggs 🙂 Will really be very interesting to see how this pans out – us city slickers are far too reliant on convenience stores just around the corner! Laura
I have both a sour dough starter and a kefir (sorry i know that is not a good word in SA) starter as well, both for making bread so brilliantly i don’t need yeast either.. I would love to have you down the road with a coffee farm! Wow! c
how about sustainable september ….the SS challenge! what will you do for cheese?
I will make fresh cheese, we will have to make do with that i am afraid. No bought cheeses. And all my hard cheese is gone now. But I am still going to buy/barter for the raw milk from down the road to make my own soft cheeses and yoghurt and butter and icecream. I am just going to pretend I am still milking. I don’t want to get too pedantic! c
Your hay story twigged a certain spot at the bottom of my stomach. I realized that’s the spot that always went sour when we raised hay. It started the day the hay was cut and didn’t get better until each cutting was in the barn. The only other thing that comes close to unsettling that spot is waiting for an angel food cake to come out of the oven.
Good for you Celi – I will be sending my thoughts of encouragement on your September Trial. A couple of things I have done this summer to help me – bought fat back from the pig farmer and made my own lard and froze it. Will be using it to bake pies in the winter (as well as Roast Potatoes, my favorite!) Got given a load of chicken feet from the chicken farmer and along with carrots, onions, celery made some wonderful chicken stock that is also in the freezer for my winter soups. I have been making my own granola for my breakfast so I couldn’t go without oats and nuts although I have been drying my own fruit to add to it To be honest I think it will be easier (for me anyway) in the winter as a good soup/stew can go a long way and ‘changed’ into so many recipes ie. Shepherds Pie, Curry, Cottage Pie Spaghetti Bolognase, just by adding a few things here and there. Even plain old Leek and Potato soup is delicious on a cold winter day! Trying to think of anything I would add, but I think Salt, Olive Oil (actually I have started using Coconut oil) and TEA (or coffee, but I’m a tea drinker) would be on my must have list.
Chicken broth from your own fresh chickens triumphs over store bought chicken broth! I chill mine and skim off the fat leaving a nice yellow jelly! Superb for soups and mashed potatoes in place of milk! I cook my rice and polenta in it as well…great flavor.
I look forward to the broth from my own chickens, the ones i make now are not ass good at all! c
will be tooting my horn for you! with great admiration.
I’d add butter to that list, but maybe you don’t use it. I know you can live a month with basically your own grown food. You can do it!
I admire your hard work and noble ambition. You will do well! I’m glad you have yeast and honey and vinegar. Those would be on my must-have list. One thing I’d want to have on hand is cinnamon. I know it’s not exactly living off the land but I’ve grown quite partial to plain cinnamon powder (no sugar) with honey (no butter) on homemade bread. And even though I often eat salt-free, a little salt is necessary for most bread making.
Your post was beautifully written! It was so poetic and lyrical that I actually read it twice. You are an excellent writer. “Smothering the sun and sending bolts of lightening snapping like fingers at my small pursuits.” Wow.
“Smothering the sun and sending bolts of lightening snapping like fingers at my small pursuits.” Wow from me too! Love the way you write.
morning julia. How interesting that you would choose cinnamon, it sounds lovey with honey on your bread! c
Lovely challenge! I would keep coffee, olive oil and flour as well. We didn’t have any garden this year as I hurt my back right about the time it would have gone in, but I did harvest garlic, and we have some herbs that keep coming up. We could live off our pork, lamb, goat and chicken for a long time, and we have the goat milk and the cheeses I make, which I freeze so we have them all year.
Have you read Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? I listened to the audio book which was even nicer because she, her husband and her two daughters read their own parts. They did “the challenge” for a year and it’s a lovely read, very thought provoking. (They also ate out when it came up, but tried for restaurants using locally sourced meat and produce). It made me think a lot more about the oil that’s consumed in the transport of food across the globe. Kind of sick-making, really, when you think about it.
I have read her book and it was a great read, some excellent recipes in there too. My ambition is to live like this always, as long as my body will stand it anyway, so starting with a month hopefully gives me a chance to look at the idea more closely. Each year is different! c