Observations at Vernal Equinox
In which the author goes on a journey by taking a leak, gets voyeuristic with poultry, and resists the very human urge to meddle, for now.
It’s been an uneventful kidding season thus far, and that’s a good thing.
A sodden tire rut drunk with rain glints and beckons out beyond the brambled draw. I’ve intruded here to void myself beside a bleak and leafless dogwood. Despite being all alone, I’ve come here in modesty, as if the red wing blackbirds or winter worn cardinals would mind my mictruition. And from this depression on the landscape my eyes are drawn to the lay of the earth. So, dispensing my golden gift to the dogwoods and the brambles, I amble over the prairie, barely stirring at the dawn of another season of renewal, and in reading the landscape, walking the network of emergent growth points of mondarda and cinquefoil, through the wet slaps of sorghastrum thatch against my face, find myself in a place, under a hundred yards from my daily zone of work, that I feel entirely unfamiliar with. I will follow conspicuous landmarks like tire ruts, anthills, and stumps like breadcrumbs, reading the land like a history of disturbance, depletion, reemergance, succession, regeneration, and equilibrium. The approach of spring is revealing new views and old stories of this place, as I retread the grown over footpaths left to rest since the herding and pasturing season ended last.
Like it or not, vernal equinox is upon us, and though I’ve done little to purposefully rest and recuperate over the winter, my body and circadian rhythm have responded to the shortened days as one might expect, with sloth, stiffness of the joints, and low level depression. We are entering a time of year when the air temperature stirs our livestock into anticipation for spring grazing, but the soil temperature, moisture, and forage growth rate make it irresponsible to loose our beasts upon the pastures just yet. At moments, when the sun pushes through in the afternoon and the birds sing cacophonous and the ephemeral gnats form short-lived swarms, the cows will bellow their desire to loaf further afield, the goats activate their flehmen response, spritely kids underfoot and on top of everything, the pigs shall recline in the open sun like lardy solar panels, and the poultry will behave in a very uninhibited manner, regardless of fence. The next day, a cold front may well come through and drive all these animals back to shelter, muddy and a bit deflated, myself included.
Another thing about early spring on our farm. I don’t know how else to put it, but the ducks, chickens, and turkeys are starting to get horny. This is mostly good news, from an animal husbandry perspective, but it can be a bit brutal to watch, and at times, I must watch. Not in a trench-coat wearing, can’t help it I’ve got a problem way, but in a way that informs my economic activities for the season. Still, I would not want to intrude on myself craning my neck to watch if our tom turkey successfully makes it around all the bases with a hen. You don’t have to be a pervert to farm, but a little sex positivity, or at least the ability to compartmentalize the home from the barnyard helps. As stockpersons, we can’t be squeamish about animal sex, but there is probably such a thing as being too interested in it, so I’ll cut my description of turkey mating short.
Observing turkey mating is as close a thing as I have to viewing ballet here in Northeast Missouri, whereas duck mating resembles a judo bout. Whatever kind of entertainment you enjoy, having the responsibility of observing and confirming poultry insemination is a good argument against the human tendency to anthropomorphize their surroundings. What I mean to say is, the poultry dating scene can be brutal. Ducks across gender seem to exhibit hostility throughout breeding season. The drake ducks are mean and competitive with eachother, and they are overexuberant in their affection for the hens, while the hens vie for the best nesting spots, peeping, squeaking and whistling their complaints if not outright brawling to determine hierarchy within the flock.
The soil is tender now, far too delicate to graze, trample, or dig. The weather is fickle too. A warm rain will dump one day, and a cold front will push through behind it, leaving marooned earthworms fleeing saturated soil frozen along the sodden pathways, gleaned the next morning by our ravenous chicken flock. It isn’t time yet to implement our land based projects for the year, it is still time to shut up and observe. This is how I start off by taking a leak and end up on a two hour walkabout. The natural human propensity to lolligag and wander about when the weather is tolerable. Without live vegetation, and particularly in areas that we have grazed, mowed or burnt recently, the way that water moves across our land is laid bare. We can see the places that are poorly drained, and we can make management decisions with that observation in mind. We can determine what trees to plant or not plant, or how to route our paddocks, of when an area may be too fragile to graze. The leafless forest too becomes a place where we can visually organize a plan for effective and efficient stewardship and management. We can define areas that can be thinned, or the path of least resistance for wooded paddocks, without our observations obscured by leaves or interrupted by ticks. It’s a fine time to set survey stakes, make maps, cut a few branches, go puttering around, and other than starting seeds and threatening to break under the burden of the abundance of milk and eggs we daily gather, that’s about it. Go for a walkabout in the place you are, especially in a spring downpour, and you too may see a world of hydrological problems that need a solution. I always come home with a head full of ideas after these walkabouts, and if I’m lucky I forget half of them, because in some ways, the end goal is merely observation. I hope that with enough observation and low-impact interaction that I can gain a better understanding of the ecosystem I’m farming in, the way agrarian peoples have for all of civilization, without satellite imagery or soil tests, which can be helpful, but do not provide enough interaction to make an informed decision about land use and stewardship.
Observing how run-off interacts with this swale.
Observation, with whatever senses one has available, can inform our impact on natural systems. This is true in every area of land use and development, but agriculture is what I’m most familiar with. Getting out there in my boots and tromping around this time of year doesn’t only tell me how water moves, it gives me other clues about how my ecosystem functions. Green mosses correlate with deep shade here, in both forest and field. Patches of moss between clumps of warm season grasses give us the clue that an area may be underdisturbed. Wildlife makes its presence known through various tracks, scat, and leavings. Remnant nests of birds, mammals and insects all denote vital habitat worthy of our consideration as humans relating to land. Imagine if real estate developers had to create an ecosystem inventory every time they intended to dig a foundation or build a new road. Most of them would probably be annoyed, which is reason enough for me to suggest it, but I also believe some percentage might rethink their plans. As an ecology oriented farmer, I am willing to rethink my own plans. I don’t always have the opportunities for developing the food system of my dreams, but I do have the privilege of leaving some areas undisturbed or minimally managed, and these places can serve as important references for us later in the context of a larger, functioning ecosystem that I want to grow food in. In high density subsistence agriculture, folks don’t necessarily have the privelege to leave marginal or sub-optimal land fallow or wild, but it seems that we in the affluent western world can, based on the surplus we produce that goes to livestock, processed food, and biofuels.
Observing domesticated animals is also a helpful way to approach our relationship to our surroundings. Watch a domestic cat or dog throughout the year, and make note of where they spend their time resting. These are the warmest places in winter, and the coolest places in summer. No need to buy one of those fancy photo-solar meters … a cat will tell you where the best solar gain is, and a dog will lead you to the coolest soils in hot weather. Chickens will mark sheltered locations on the pasture for you by speckling these sites with manure on windy days.
In the world of permaculture, there’s a respectable enough cliche that the land will tell us what it wants. I think learning what land wants takes some effort on our part. We need to learn its language and become conversational in it. And we may learn that what the land “wants” and what we want are two different things. We must compromise some, or practice an agriculture that will fail sooner or later, perhaps catastrophically.
Fang helps demonstrate the best place to be on a cold and rainy day.
So the days are longer than the nights now. I can no longer go to bed at 8 PM and feel fine about myself like I could one month ago. Today might be my last day of sloth for some time. I will be busy with observations, mapping, marking, plotting out the location and orientation of hundreds of trees, and looking toward the first moves we play in the chess-game of multi-species rotational grazing. There is manure to spread, pruning cuts to make, fence to mend, and seeds to plant. I have to begin helping with dairy processing, and find a way to get the boxes and buckets of eggs popping up throughout our living space sold and into the hands of people who need them. I won’t go on. My to do list may not make interesting reading, but it certainly would fill a few pages.
Spring approaches gradually, and then suddenly. All of these years, the transitions between seasons are still hard for me, and vernal reemergence is probably my least favorite. I value having a dynamic life informed by the seasons and my surroundings, but gaining momentum for the spring time is a consistent challenge for me. By and by, I’ll rejoin the rhythm of the fat and flitting robins of the field, or the reveling chorus of spring peepers, but for now it is enough to put one muddy boot in front of the other and strain against the metaphorical 1,600 pound hay bale that I have to roll across the trembling barnyard mire. The rain will pour as certainly as the flies will swarm, and taking a two hour bathroom break to wend my way through field, creek, wood and marsh will give way to industrious execution of my agrarian duties. Success in farming is dependent upon good timing, and now is the time to watch, not act.
Watching, and with patience,
BB
Thanks for following me through my farm year thus far. Creating the obligation for myself to regularly write has been another way for me to sit back and take account of my surroundings and farm with some greater purpose and understanding. I hope that reading the almanac is as informative for you as it is for me to write. I’ve developed a list of topics I’ll be covering over time, in addition to journal pieces like this one. One offer I’d like to make is publishing an occasional Dear Abby / Car Talk style advice column for all things food, agriculture, garden and homestead related, so please feel free to share your questions with me, and much thanks to all the folks who have signed up to support my work. It feels good to know that long-form writing and storytelling still have a place in the impatient age of social media. Please share this project with someone you think may benefit from it!