Bonafide Farm

First casualty

October 19th, 2010 § 0

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You knew it was coming. I knew it was coming.

Friday evening I came home from work and went to feed the guineas. The wind was blowing like crazy, it was spitting rain and cold, and I was barely walking from the second round of a virus that had me down for the past two weeks.

As I filled the guinea water, the door to their house blew open and two birds jumped out, a pearl and a lavender, no doubt freaked by the gale gusting around them. I spent most of the evening chasing them through the fields, trying to get them back home. I tracked them with a flashlight through the tall, uncut pastures as they hunkered down in the grass. At one point I was close enough to grab one, but she erupted under my fingers in a whirl of muscle and beating wings, leaving me in a swirl of feathers.

I gave up, went inside, and posted the 14 remaining birds on CraigsList.

At 10:30 that night I was reading in bed and I heard the cries right under my bedroom window. A few shouts and then quiet. I went to sleep.

Around daybreak I was awoken by more guinea cries. There goes the second one, I thought, and when a quick trip outside to investigate turned up no body, I returned to bed.

When I finally got up for good, I found the front yard littered with pearl guinea feathers. In several distinct patches, which must have been where each attack took place before the bird was finally caught. There was no trace of the lavender’s remains. There was also no trace of my CraigsList post, which appeared to have been ghosted and never showed up. Perhaps it was because I offered the birds for “farm or table?”

I went about my day, out for errands, and when I returned in the afternoon what should I see but the lavender hen walking right outside the guinea coop. She was unscathed, and jumped right in when I opened the door. What a story she had to tell, of her night outside while her mate was murdered! I was amazed that she was alive.

Things improved on Sunday, when the 15 remaining birds spent more than nine hours outside, wallowing in dust holes, sticking close to the house and generally appearing to enjoy themselves. Around dusk I guided them back to their coop and all jumped right in but for one, who spent ten minutes frantically circling the coop before figuring his way in. I shut the door, and bid them all sweet dreams.

Spa day for my trees

October 10th, 2010 § 1

I’d grown tired of my trees looking unkempt in the field, with grass growing right up to their trunks. Not to mention it made mowing very difficult! Pretty ugly, huh?

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So I ordered a load of mulch and a load of compost and got to work yesterday sprucing up the trees.

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First I used a rope and a can of marking paint to draw circles around the trees. Then I got out the weed wacker and took down all the grass within the circles as short as I could get it. I trimmed around the trunks with hand shears.

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Then I put down a layer of newspapers to help kill the grass around the trees, and covered that up with a thin layer of compost. The compost will provide a great nutrient boost to the trees. The hardest part of this project was working alone it was hard to get the newspaper to stay down long enough to get compost on it—the paper kept blowing away in the slightest breeze.

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And then I spread a couple of inches of nice mulch on top of the paper and compost. It was slow work and I am quite sore today from all the pitchforking and shoveling but the trees that I finished look great and seem happy. Stay tuned for a final reveal! Meanwhile, I am taking the day to recuperate and enjoy some good times down in Nelson County at the Festy!

No vacancy

October 8th, 2010 § 0

Of all the bird nests I’ve found, this is the first to contain mummified occupants. Two little babies, broken necks.

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Thanks for the rain, Nicole. You could have kept your tornado.

October 1st, 2010 § 0

Yesterday Tropical Storm Nicole slowly spooled up the East coast, dropping a much-needed four inches of rain on the farm. The rain had tapered off by sunset when I looked outside and saw the landscape suffused with the eeriest yellow/red light:

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I didn’t make the connection until today, but I believe the strange sky was a harbinger of a wild weather night. After sunset, the wind picked up. I went to bed with the windows open to the breeze, but awoke around midnight when the sound of the wind grew too loud to sleep. I got up and shut all the windows. Around two, I awoke again to the sound of large objects flying around outside. I got up and went out on the back porch to bring in the glass-topped coffee table, as I was afraid it would go flying and break. I could barely control the door, the wind was so strong, and the river birches I planted near the porch were blowing parallel to the ground. My chairs had blown off the porch and unceremoniously landed in the mud of the unfinished crawl space hole. I fished them out, fought my way back inside, and slept fitfully the rest of the night as the sounds raged around me.

This morning I woke to this:

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One of my favorite trees, a beautifully shaped Chinese Chestnut in the front yard, had taken a hit. There’s nothing to be done but cut the broken pieces out and live with a lopsided tree. It’s sad, but I could as easily controlled this outcome as I could have controlled the wind.

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I was talking with my grounds manager at work today when she dropped off a pruning book for me to borrow. I told her this makes me even more interested in planting trees for the future, though I know that when I do that I open myself up to heartache when things go awry. “Yes, but nothing ventured, nothing gained,” was her reply. And I think that’s very apt advice that applies not only to trees, but to the farm and the whole of a life lived on it.

Windfall!

September 30th, 2010 § 0

I was on a walk a few nights ago when I looked up and lo and behold, right before me was a holy grail I’d searched for since moving to the farm. Native persimmons, or the poetic diospyros virginiana!

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This particular tree was maybe 20 feet tall and growing at the edge of the woods along a road. Its branches were full of orange fruit. I picked up a persimmon that had fallen to the ground and took a bite. It was a delightful taste I’d never experienced—and very different from the cultivated Japanese persimmons I’ve bought in stores and greatly enjoyed. This wild persimmon tasted like jellied honeysuckle, if you can imagine that.

I couldn’t believe my fortune and gathered a couple of the less-rotten looking fruits and ate them for dessert tonight. I kept the seeds and will plant them to try to grow my own trees. Though research tells me that the optimum fruit-bearing age for native persimmons is 25 to 50 years, with luck I may start to enjoy fruit by my mid-forties!

In the meantime, I plan to brave the ticks to again walk my woods looking for my own wild-growing tree. And last year I planted a tiny Fuyu persimmon tree, just to hedge my bets!

The anniversaries just keep coming

September 29th, 2010 § 0

One year ago today I started BonafideFarm.com, the blog you’re now reading. As this anniversary approached, and I’ve been thinking a lot about why I started the blog and where to take it in the future.

Last year I knew I was about to embark on a pretty big construction project, and I wanted the blog as a way to keep a journal of the house being built. I am so glad I did—it’s really been remarkable to look back at some of my posts from the past year and marvel at how far I’ve come. It provides a good dose of perspective—I tend to always feel as though I am behind and should be doing more, so much so that I fail to appreciate what I’ve actually accomplished. The blog’s been a good tool for developing this awareness in myself.

I’ve also enjoyed how the blog has in its quiet way encouraged me with two activities I love, writing and photography. I will probably always write and make pictures, but what I like about the blog is the immediacy of it—how I can snap a photo and within a few minutes (satellite internet connection willing) have it online where everyone I care about can see it. I like being able to so easily share my world with friends and family spread across the globe.

I have been kicking a few ideas around for where I’d like to take Bonafide Farm, both the physical farm and the .com. Nothing’s yet ready for its big reveal, but stay tuned. I realize there are only so many guinea pictures I can post before I bore you and have to come up with something fresh. That said, enjoy this Happy Blogiversary Guinea:

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One year later

September 28th, 2010 § 0

I came downstairs early this morning to make my tea and was greeted with the most stunning sunrise I’ve seen in weeks. We got two inches of rain yesterday, and the departing clouds made for a riotously beautiful sky. I could feel the relief of the trees and plants and grass as they exhaled well-scrubbed air.

I’ve never been a fan of rainy days. They make me sad and slow. But since moving to the farm and experiencing a summer of drought—and seeing and sensing drought’s physical and psychological effects on plants, animals and people—I am coming around to appreciate the days when no sun shines and water falls to earth.

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It was a beautiful morning to celebrate an anniversary. A year ago today I “broke ground” on my house. Well, demo began on the old house, which at that point I was still planning to renovate. A year ago today I thought I was in the remodeling business, not new construction, as I would learn a day or two later with the discovery of all that termite damage. Isn’t it amazing what a difference a few days can make in the direction of our lives, and on a larger scale, what can be done in a year with the right resources, creativity, determination, and moral support?

And with that, I dedicate this post to my parents, without whom I would not have made it through this last crazy, terrifying, wonderful year, not to mention the entirety of my life. Thank you for farming with me.

Farmer member of the hunt

September 27th, 2010 § 0

Came home tonight to a note in my mailbox:

Dear xxxxx—

We are running the hounds tomorrow at 9-00 clock. hope that’s ok. if not, give us a call at xxx xxxx. Thanks xxxxx.

How genteel!

Childhood bed

September 24th, 2010 § 0

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First day of fall full moon

September 23rd, 2010 § 0

I was on my way to bed last night when the full moon drew me outside onto the front porch. The September full moon has the very autumnal name of harvest moon, though with the recent heat and drought—mid 90’s temps today—it still feels like summer, not fall. I love it.

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But fall is definitely coming. I felt it as I drove home late tonight, in the way the air grew chill as I drove across in the gullies and over bridges, but returned to warm and dry along the ridge lines and across the open pastures.

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