Suits and Farming

One of my favorite people to read is Victor Davis Hanson. This is my good fortune because even though I stay busy, he seems to be busier still. Every time I’m in the mood he has plenty of new material for me to look at. The man writes prolifically.

In the not too distant past he has commented on farm politics as well as the lack of historical knowledge of the MBA crowd. See http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/2007/05/19/not_with_a_bang.php and http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/2007/03/22/post_12.php .

I farm part time and do software engineering as my day job. I do the software work from my office here on the farm for the most part. A sweet situation if I do say so myself.

I started doing software, programming and system administration mostly, some systems analysis, twenty some years ago as a Telephone Company employee (GTE). It’s reasonably interesting work and the money’s good.

I’ve met quite a number of MBA types over the years, collectively known as “suits” among the geeks and propeller heads that inhabit the cubicles of the corporate world.

I’ve been working within the same technical niche for all this time, software systems used to manage voice/data networks.

I’ve changed employers four or five times, but I still work with many of the same people I did years ago, and serve many of the same customers. The people that stay are the technical people.

Suits invariably have a planning horizon that does not extend past the end of the quarter, and time in place on any given job that is not much longer. I don’t know where they come from or where they go, I just notice that they don’t stay around long.

This all leads to the subject of historical prospective. See, I’m trying at least to tie this thing together.

I got interested a few years back in Civil War history, and the period leading up to it. I did a bunch of reading and ran into some ideas I had not come across before.

It seems that in the early 19th century there was considerable discomfort in some quarters with the whole notion of working for wages.

For one thing, almost no one did it. The vast majority of people were farmers and of course, self employed. Most other people were artisans of some sort, or merchants.

Cobblers, blacksmiths, store keepers, and the like. Wage labor is a product of the industrial revolution, a new thing at the time.

The thought was that if you were not in control of your own time, you were slave.

Slavery was a common enough situation at the time, not just black chattel slavery in the South, but all sorts of indenture and servitude. The sort of thing people endured to repay debt or learn a trade.

Selling your time by the hour was thought to be something like whoring.

Obviously, this became by far the most common way to earn a living. All of us who have done it have felt at times like the whoring theory had something to it.

This brings us to farming. The sort of farming we do here, part time though it is, is pay cash for all inputs, and direct market everything we don’t consume ourselves.

Yes, it’s easier to do this with an off farm income, would not be possible with out it for most folks like me. Still, the USDA’s own statistics show that most farmers today are folks like me.

And this brings us to farm politics, even though the reader may have lost all hope I’d get back to that.

Like I said, most people who farm are like me, part time or a member of a farming family with considerable off farm income.

One habit I have is watching farm shows on TV. Most of this stuff is mainstream agribusiness.

If all one knew of farming was learned from these shows, a casual observer could be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that agriculture is mostly run by the Federal Government as a mater of national policy. They might even worry that a long congressional recess could cause famine, if we don’t all die of bird flu first.

Or that would be the case if anyone took this political noise at face value, but of course we expect the same sort of doublespeak with the politics of agribusiness that we get with the politics of anything else.

See http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson021002.html for some or Mr. Hanson’s observations (from the Wall Street Journal).

What is discussed in Washington under the guise of agriculture has little in common with what comes to mind when people think of farming.

Certainly farmers like me are not much involved in the politics of agriculture, at least not by choice.

For example, most of the money in the last several farm bills is spent of things like food stamps and school lunch programs. Much of the rest is subsidies paid for commodity crops that the market does not want at the threshold price set by fiat in the farm bill.

Please understand, I don’t believe that the government should spend this money differently than they do now, change things so I get a bigger cut.

This is like any number of government programs that do more harm than good and would just go away if it was up to me. I also know it is not up to me.

My observation is that meaningful change in agricultural practice is not just difficult, it is almost always illegal.

As near as I can tell, regulations about how farming, or the processing and sale of farm products such as food items, must be done are crafted when bureaucrats are told how established market shareholders do things and then decree “This is how it must be done”.

Doing things differently, also known as innovation, therefore becomes illegal.

Taking any product all the way from production to the final consumer without going through some organization big enough to have lawyer on staff is a risk.

There is simply no way to be sure you know what the rules are.

The risk is that at any time some entity you never knew existed may decide you are doing something wrong and hassle you for it.

This could result in anything from a scolding to losing your farm and/or doing jail time.

The odds are you won’t be bothered, if you do things on a small scale and keep your customers happy. Bureaucrats are not prone to go out of their way to do much of anything, even if they can. They have no real reason to notice the existence of most farmers, even less reason to cause them problems, still it can and does happen.

This keeps most small-scale producers out of the retail market, and greatly slows the pace of innovation. That is too bad, because new ideas and practices are needed in agriculture more than in most industries.

I advocate just going ahead, and when I think an idea is good enough, that is what I do. Farming is all about risk after all. We deal with heat, cold, drought, flood, and all the rest.

Last of the lambs born

I'd been tying to keep up to date with lambing information but (obviously) have failed again.

April 27 ewe # 427 had twins, a white ram lamb and a black ewe lamb. We tagged them 66 and 67 respectively.

On April 28 a yearling ewe with # 42 had a single ewe lamb we tagged 68.

Nothing happened birth wise until May 4, when ewe 410, the last mature ewe yet to lamb, had a single ewe lamb.

That will probably do it for the season.

We had 10 yearling ewes in the herd this spring, four of them had lambs, the other 6 most likely will not. We have had about this sort of result with yearlings in the past and consider it to be acceptable.

It is possible one or more of the yearlings will lamb later. We left the rams in with the herd for quite a while over the winter, just because it was convenient to do so.

Any way, with a herd of 30 mature ewes and 10 yearlings we had a lamb crop of 49. We have 21 ram lambs and 28 ewe lambs.

Only one did not survive. Over all we had very few problems and a relatively sort lambing season compared to what we have been through in the past.

No records were broken for productivity either high or low. We certainly had fewer twins, as a percentage of the crop, than last year.

We are pleased with the crop so far. Now all we have to do is get them to market age and sold. So far, so good.

Single Ram Lamb

Thursday (4/26) ewe #428 had a single ram lamb. She had no problems and needed no help.

Local Wildlife

My bride was out in the pasture with the camera the other day and got some pictures of this eagle.

We see it around from time to time, it no doubt nests within a few miles of here.
Click on the photo to enlarge.

Five more lambs since Sunday

Monday ewe #413 had a ram lamb tagged 32.

My bride pulled it, perhaps unnecessarily.

In any case, ewe and lamb are fine.

Tuesday ewe #104 had a single ewe lamb.

A large black ewe lamb.

Also on Tuesday, the yearling ewe #15 had a ram lamb tagged 62.

On Wednesday, ewe #60 had twins, both female.

This ewe was so enormous we had her picked as the one we thought would lamb first.

She was one of the last, obviously.

The lambs were good size, but certainly set no records. Go figure.

Catching Up with the Lambing data

Man, I've let this get out of date. Things have been busy, both with lambing and otherwise.

Thursday (4/19) ewe #37, who is herself only a year old had a single ewe lamb we tagged 58.

This ewe (the mother, that is) did everything she could to turn this lamb into a bummer.

Although she did not reject the lamb outright she would not allow it to nurse.

We made a field jug out of a cattle panel in the corner of the pasture and penned them up. Then we put a rope halter on the mama and tied her to the fence so she could not stop the lamb from nursing. The lamb nursed this way several times a day for a couple of days before the mama allowed it to feed with out being tied up.

Ewe #415 also had a single on Thursday. She had a lamb last year, the first of the season as it happens. She had no problems and needed no help.

On Friday ewe #8, another yearling, had a single ram lamb that was tagged #5. She did fine and needed no help.

Saturday ewe #802 had twins, one male and one female, tagged 17 and 16 respectively. No problems.

Today (Sunday) ewe #437 had twins. She went off by herself under a tree to lamb, as they often do. By the time we noticed, one lamb was fine but the other was dead. Both were ewes, we tagged the survivor 18.

Single ewe lamb

At some point yesterday, ewe number 169 had a single lamb. It is a female and was tagged # 56.

I wasn't around for the event. When feeding last evening she was well back away from the others and did not come all the way in to eat.

The lamb was up following its mama and except for the fact that it had no ear tag it could have been any of the 30 some lambs we have bouncing around the pasture now.

By the way, we don't just look at the lamb to decide who the sire is. We ran the ewes and rams in separate breeding groups last fall for breeding season.

Two Single Lambs

The ewes gave us Monday off, I guess the with the cold front over the weekend anyone who was close went ahead and lambed.

Tuesday (April 17th) ewe #411 had a single ram lamb that we tagged 54.

In the evening ewe #155 had a single ram lamb that we tagged 55.

My bride thought this last lamb was taking too long and should be pulled. I didn't think so.

We pulled the lamb. Mother and lamb are fine.

It was getting dark by the time we got a picture of 155. My camera doesn't do well in low light so I won't post that one.

Another single ewe lamb

Late last night, nine or ten o’clock, ewe #416 had a single black ewe lamb.

The lamb was tagged #53 and is a female.

Six more lambs and the day ain’t over yet

A cold front came through at daybreak. By 9:30 we got over and inch of rain. Man, we needed it.

We have noticed that weather changes seem to cause lambs.

Ewe # 59 and a single ewe lamb tagged 46.

Ewe #414, who we call grandma because she is the mother of our black breeding ram, had twin ewe lambs tagged 47 and 48.

These lambs are the first “Holstein” lambs of the season.

Ewe #6, who spends most of her time training the other sheep to go through electric fences, had a single ewe lamb we tagged number 49.

She had it on the wrong side of the fence of course.

Ewe #1, my bride’s special pet, had twins. One ewe lamb tagged 50 and a ram lamb tagged 51.

All this before noon.

Four sets of twins

It was a beautiful day for lambing here at the a3farm and indeed lots of lambing was done.

Four different ewes delivered twins. All the ewes from the new bunch we bought last spring, all had had lambs before but not here. They had been on a winter lambing schedule at the Oak Lane Farm where we got them. Most are three year olds.

Ewe 103 had twin ewe lambs.

Ewe 419 also had twin ewe lambs.

Ewe 432 had twin ram lambs.

Ewe 435 had one of each.

Ewe 435 was the first one this year that needed any help.

My bride went to check the sheep just at daybreak while I was working on my first cup of coffee. She came back in saying she needed help. The lamb needed to be pulled and the momma sheep wasn’t going to stand still and cooperate.

The first lamb, the female as it turned out, had one front leg tucked back under her. She had her head and one front hoof out and got stuck right about there.

The mother is rather small and still had a second lamb in her so there was no room to reach around and straighten things out. I have great big hands, which didn’t help.

New lambs are built like gumby dolls, flexible in ways that you never expect. That’s a good thing at times like this. For a while I thought that leg was attached to a different lamb, but eventually I decided it was the right front leg of the lamb that had emerged to its shoulder.

Eventually I got her eased all the way out and as far as I could tell she had all the usual parts in the usual places. She was still breathing too.

I set her over by the mothers head, and after mom rested a while she decided she could take it from there. She started cleaning the lamb, and then had the other one a few minutes later without problem.

We didn't get pictures of everything. The picture here is one of the group from yesterday, but I'm not sure which one.

Two ewes and a ram

Thursday the 12th ewe #106 had twin ewe lambs sometime before noon.

They were tagged 29 and 30.

Later in the day ewe #3 had a single ram lamb.

He was tagged number 31.

Single Ram Lamb

Tuesday before noon ewe #412 had a single ram lamb. We tagged it number 28. No picture yet.

Twins

About 24 hours ago our ewe #2, the funny looking blue faces Leicester, had a set of twins.

They are a ewe lamb numbered 26 and a ram lamb numbered 27.

Neither was weighed (the scale is officially dead) but both are quite small, in the five pound something range. The mother is also small and the lambs seem healthy.

Sorry about the photo, it was taken at a distance in poor light.

Lots of lambs

Last evening about suppertime ewe # 115 delivered twin ram lambs. We numbered them 11 and 14.

She had no problems and needed no help. She is also one of the new group of ewes we bought last spring.

This morning at daybreak we had five more lambs on the ground.

Ewe # 4 had twin ewe lambs. They are numbered 21 and 22.

Ewe #170 and twins as well, one ram and one ewe. They are numbered 23 and 24.

Ewe #400 had a single ewe lamb. She is numbered 25.

No weights on any of these yet, the scale was acting up but it seems OK now.

We have two breeding rams, one white Kathadin and one black that is mostly Florida Native. It’s easy to tell who sired who.

Lambing season starts Easter Sunday.

The plan was to move the ewes to new ground so the lambs will be exposed to fewer pathogens when they hit the ground.

We got the fences set up and went to get the sheep from the dry lot where we have been penning them up at night.

We found the first lambs of the season in the dry lot with everyone else.

No one explained to them about pathogens, so they simply proceeded to bounce around the way new lambs do.

The Ewe was #101, we tagged the lambs #9, a ram lamb @ 7lbs 1 oz, and #10, a ewe lamb @ 6lbs 15oz.

While we were at it we moved the chickens to new ground as well.

One down, thirty nine to go.

You all may be seeing lots of baby pictures in the near future.

Scratch the ground and shoot up the sheep

Over the winter the chickens were more or less confined in an area for the pasture near the house.

Lots of junk hay was tossed in for bedding. This area is destined to be this years corn and cowpea patch.

The original post is here: Big honking chicken tractor

Mr. Nelson brought his funky old Farmall tractor over and disked it all up.

He is 50% of the “Over the hill gang” that sometimes helps out around here, Mr. Cooney being the other half. Both these guys are 80 years old and have forgotten more about farming that I ever hope to know.

I asked him why the tractor wasn’t red like they usually are. He said that he has this one dressed up like the ones that the hi-way department had for mowing the roadside back in the day.

He shows this tractor and some old hit and miss engines he has at the County fair and such places.

Mr. Nelson is the guy who keeps my 1960 vintage New Holland hay baler going.

Saturday was spent watching Mr. Nelson work and fixing some fence. Sunday we gave the ewes their yearly CD/T vaccine boosters and helped butcher out friends Rhonda and Brian’s last nine broiler chickens.

Us part time farmers must sometimes do things when we can rather than when we should, but we muddle through somehow.

Small World; Who’s a farmer?

Quite a few years ago now I came across a title in a bin full of marked down hardback books at a chain bookstore outlet near where I lived. I had never heard of the author but the subject matter had to do with farming so I picked it up.

It told the story of a young California farmer trying to continue and grow a family farm that had already been in place for several generations.

That plot line by itself would be enough to interest me, but the author, aside from being a farm kid was an academic, specifically an authority on classical civilizations (Greece, Rome, etc) in the California University system.

The book contained some interesting information about the ancient Greek Yeoman farmer and comparisons to the modern family farmer that has become more and more stressed these past few decades.

Anything that portrays individualism in a positive light is sure to get my approval. I very much enjoyed the book.

I have a good friend who I lent the book to after it came up in conversation. He took it home and read it. His wife pointed out that the author had been published lately in the National Review magazine. The author is, for those who haven’t figured it out already, Victor Davis Hanson. The book was “Fields without Dreams”.

He still writes prolifically, here: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/ and other places. Most of what I see out there is political. I often agree with him, I often disagree. I always admire his well-reasoned logic.

I think he sees himself as a farmer more than an author or an academic. I think he would give the title of farmer a loftier status than the others. I have not seen him say that in so many words, but that’s how I read him.

He did a blog entry the other day that touched one the subject of “Mad Farmers” that gave me a chuckle.

Was it really Raining?

I'm fairly sure it rained around here once, long ago.

In the last post I said we got nearly half and inch. Guess how much we have had since then. That dry dusty cough was the answer.

I just looked at the ten day forecast. A 10% chance of rain was the biggest number in the whole forecast.

I read on the other farm blogs that everyone is struggling through mud season. If you are in that situation, please feel free to send some of that moisture down here.

It's Raining!

Rain and just in the nick of time. We have had about one half inch of rain since last night.

If I listen close I swear I can hear the grass grow.

I have a load of supplemental feed coming today for the ewes to get them through lambing and lactation.

But there should be no need to supply forage, and a good thing to, since one thing I have in common with everyone else around here is that I am out of hay.