When we first moved to Maine, I didn’t grasp the importance of manure like I do now…

It was the end of winter…our fields were typical northern Maine fields, rotating between potato and oats, harvested and plowed, covered in snow. These fields gradually revealed rows and rows of brown, rocky (very rocky) soil. We purposefully arrived before spring in order to be here for planting season.  We had plans for a large garden and brought seeds for a cover crop of forage oats and a mixture of grasses for pasture..  But, we quickly learned that what is good soil for potato and oats is not necessarily ready for a garden of sweet corn.  We ended up with a garden full of yellow leafy corn stalks and half ear sized corn.  Our pasture grew a good amount of clover, but not very much grass, leaving us to wonder how we can better plan for our soil the year after…

Picking rocks is a real job on our farm… and on most farms in Maine!

This second year our planning was put into action.  Over the winter we kept our cows in the barn. Now, cows generally do well in the cold, especially our heritage breed American Milking Devon Cows will prefer being outside in the dead of winter.  But, keeping cows inside will help keep the water line from freezing in the barn during subzero degree weather.  As one can imagine, though, it can be more work to keep a barn clean with a dozen cows eating and drinking, and excreting…but, what I didn’t really appreciate at the time of shoveling (manure), that this was our source of the much needed nutrients!  Little by little, we moved rich manure into our handy dandy wheel barrow and pitched it onto our garden. After that area was covered, we gradually extended the bounty to nearby pastures.

Growing our cows which grow our pastures, which grow our cows…

Our walks with the wheel barrow did pay off, however. Our garden grew extra-ordinarily well this year, having corn that recovered once from a heavy rain storm and then again from a devastating hail storm. We were also pleasantly surprised by how our pastures progressed.  Where we thought we might have put on too much manure in some places (spreading manure by hand, well a pitch fork, is not easy or evenly spread), actually was the best insulation that the field could have asked for this winter. The lack of snow cover with rhythmic heaving from the temperature changes would have exposed large areas to ‘winter kill,’ which would have been evident only after plants did not grow… Some of neighbors suffered large areas of ‘winter kill’ but most of our pastures were fortunately protected, especially in areas that we had manure.

Fresh and sweet corn

Our pastures did so well this year, with abundant clover, grass and my husband’s personal favorite: trefoil; that our grass fed cows got fat, yes chubby on just the pasture alone.

Happy Cows

I didn’t know this, but chubby heifers can sometimes be a problem. They sometimes can have trouble getting pregnant… Unfortunately (or fortunately), one of our beef cows (half Charolais and half Angus cow) failed to conceive despite multiple attempts at breeding both last summer and this year. In a small herd that needs to get bigger, or especially in a dairy herd that needs to produce milk, heifers that can’t get bred don’t stay long. I don’t know if being chubby was our girl’s problem, but on farm, where hard decisions sometimes need to be made, it was time for her to be beef.

Happy Beef

But really, I don’t know a better way for a farm to show its personal achievement than to send off an animal for beef that has been lovingly raised over the last 2 years, feeding it amazing pastures, with rotational grazing, and three minutes of scratching a day. (Dale tells me that studies show that three min of scratching a day causes a statistically significant increase in weight gain.)

Turkey for Thanksgiving

I have to say, I am super excited about each animal we raise for meat, or eggs, or milk. Not only do we “know where it comes from,” but we know what they are eating, we know where they are, what they are doing, and we know them, ourselves.

Not enough cows for our pasture…had to make it into bailage.

Yes, often it is sad to see them go, but we do remember to thank God for his provisions at each meal of each day… It is just amazing to see the “food chain” at work in the seemly simple (yet scientifically complex) ecosystem of our small farm: Cow eats dried grass, produces manure, fertilizes soil, grows clover, rich grass (and trefoil), cows eat pasture, cows grow and produces excellent and healthier, milk and meat…Yes!

[Remind me to talk about why grass fed beef and dairy is healthier…I’d be happy to!]

And here, milk turns into pork: It’s a food Web!