I’ve been thinking lately about how important is it to have a network of people doing the same kind of work, growing food for CSAs, farmer’s markets, and other direct distribution outlets. The encouragement and brain-storming with other farmers makes such a difference in my mental health. Although we live in a capitalist society, in which we are all competing for resources, I find that the benefits of many small farmers far outweighs the competition for customers. As I see it, the potential for marketing locally grown and raised food is endless, and the real difficult part is educating consumers to the importance of buying local and possibly spending just a little bit more on their dinners. I know it can be tricky negotiating this line between competition and support, particularly for more established farmers who are used to dominating the market, and now potentially feel more pressure to compete with all the small farms starting up through the county. Yet the more farmers we have in the area means that we are that much more able to feed the whole community, and to reach out to those who can’t afford or don’t understand the importance of fresh, local food. I find it so inspiring to see the faces of the interns who are farming here in Nevada County. Of the vibrant passion they bring to our community and the inspiration to make something of their own. We are training the competition in a sense, yet this is the most important work we do in my opinion.

And a little update from the field because it’s so beautiful right now it makes my heart hurt. Everything is in bloom, the sunflowers nodding their heads over the upright amaranth, the zinnias blooming faster than we can pick them. We planted all the fall/winter kale, cabbage, broccoli, chard, and beets. And diligently weeded and thinned all the direct-seeded beds. The corn is tasseling and should be ready to pick in the next few weeks, and the eggplant and peppers are falling over from the heaviness of their fruit. Now is truly the time of bounty, the waning days of mid-summer. Enjoy the river and the lushness of life at this time of year!
Willow

In the words of Farmer Willow: “It was a really wonderful event, and particularly gratifying to see so many new faces of people with genuine interest in small-scale, local agriculture. At Soil Sisters Farm we had approximately eighty people come through the field and brave the sun with hats and water bottles to see where their food is grown. I am always struck with the beauty of the farm and the importance of the work of growing food when I see it through the eyes of newcomers with a thirst for knowledge. It is easy to get caught up in the daily tasks of the work – digging, seeding, weeding, hoeing, harvesting – and forget the over arching reasons of why we are doing this at all. But when I see the excitement of a 6-year-old at an adolescent goat baaing through the fence, and the joy of a mother when her child plucks a pea from the vine and loves it, it confirms my strong belief that everybody should know where their food comes from, and that this is the work I should be doing. I feel such gratitude to the community for supporting our efforts as a non-profit to educate and sustain farmers and consumers, and to those who came out to the farms for re-affirming my passion for growing and cultivating food in a sustainable fashion”

When the lambs arrived at Bluebird Farm the pasturing was much easier. The twelve of them came in the middle of March, purchased as three-month-olds from a family farm near Auburn and driven north in a horse trailer. Of the twelve that came, nine were of a breed called Dorper–a breed meant only for meat–one was a Cheviot–a smaller, cuter sheep meant to amuse and entertain the children at the annual Easter gathering–and two were Hampshire–darker and capable of putting more weight on their slightly larger frames. In March, Bluebird had ample grass for the twelve. As in years past, they would be pastured around the property using a combination of permanent pasture sites (with immoveable, metal fences) and electrified netting, which could be moved about to create temporary paddocks.

During their first cycle of the grounds, they were moved some twenty times, from small paddock to small paddock: from the pond, across the barn field, down into the woods and around the horse corral, into the fruit orchard, along the outskirts of the vegetable field, down under the black walnut tree used for Living Lands’ potlucks, onto the main house’s front yard, across the drive again into the forest, and down finally back towards the pond. This initial cycle took a little over a month and ensured that when we returned to the pond-area’s permanent pasture, the grasses there, that the lambs some weeks before had taken from six inches down to two, had returned to their original height and could be pastured on again.

Aside from a brief though nerve-wracking afternoon when they found their way out of the fence and found alone a few miles away on Indian Flat Road (most excitingly for them I’m sure) some of the best looking pasture in Nevada County, the lambs have been rotating happily from paddock to paddock here at Bluebird. At a certain point, when the super-rich, nitrogenous clover and grasses seemed to be aggravating their respiratory, I began giving them three-grain hay, only ever a flake or two a day, to provide them with dryer roughage. And so for three months now, they’ve been chomping on the sun’s free grasses and a mouthful or two daily of hay. When they arrived, each weighed around forty pounds (they were weighed as a group and that number simply divided by twelve); now, we hope, each lamb will weigh somewhere close to eighty (we have no scale nor, frankly, do we have any reliable technique to get close enough to grab and weigh this particularly panicky animal).

As our weather changed and as our pastures dried, the sheep no longer ate as much: they sense in the altered chemistry of the grass that has gone to seed that they can no longer procure their sought-after nutrients: let out in the fruit orchard, they immediately flocked towards and preferred the trees (much to my exasperation) and wild blackberry bushes, knowing that they were more vibrant, nutrient-dense foods. With irrigated pasture, we would be able to keep the lambs on the grasses year-round, as the showering water could convince the grasses to stay away from seed. But here at Bluebird, we are not equipped with large-scale irrigation and so the drying weather and dying pastures dictate to us the lambs’ harvest-time, surely how it must once have worked in times before electric water pumps and portable rubber hosing.

Although the wet and cold spring has slowed the planting and growth down, our fields are still full of abundance.  Lettuce and salad greens glowing in their beds. Kale, chard, broccoli, cabbage, and asian greens beginning to bulk up with the longer days.  Onions and garlic just starting to form heads, and the carrots and beets vigorously growing green with the promise of thick roots ahead.

It has been a spring filled with helping hands at Soil Sisters farm, and revelations and tales told amid the digging and amending.   So much of Living Lands Network is about creating community, and this has been truly in evidence with the successful volunteer days, awesome interns, and wonderful friends who lend their hands in a myriad of ways.  We are so excited to create and generate more community involvement with the upcoming membership drive and farm tour.  Hopefully more friendships can be made over this passion we all feel toward growing nourishing food for ourselves and our loved ones.

Willow

We would love to have you as one of our member supporters! Sign up now and please spread the word!

Your Farmer,

Tim Van Wagner

That was a great day at Harmony Valley today. We got a lot done thanks to all the helping hands. The fence is almost done and the perennial plantings are realling starting to take form. We’re going to figure out which day works best as a “set” volunteer day….which will be easier when the weather is more predictable in the spring and summer.

Thanks again and we’ll see you again soon!

One of your farmers,

Tim

We still have CSA shares available for this season! We are going to have so much delicious produce, fruit, and flowers that’ll make you cry they are so pretty!  Sign up by going to the CSA section and downloading the form.  Send it our way and you’re in! Tell your friends too, we need more of our community supporting local farms directly, that way we can grow more farmers and more farms for Nevada County!

Can’t wait to hear from you,

Maisie

I just wanted to let you know that we still have space in our gardening workshops. The first class was this past Saturday but it’s not too late to join in on the fun.

We’ve got a great little group of passionate aspiring gardeners. We went over a lot of the beginning-of-the-season things, planted a bunch of kale, chard, and collards in the green house and then enjoyed a great lunch prepared by In The Kitchen – Jim Gates’ free range ground beef meatloaf, greens from the garden, squash, and a nice carrot vinegar salad!

If you’re interested email me at tim_van_wagner@hotmail.com

Spring is around the corner!

Farmer Tim