Description

Stories in this issue:

• A Year in a farm’s Life – Part 2: Spring and Summer: Katrina Julian continues her beautifully written journal about a year on she and Jason’s dairy farm. Read about this fine tuned diversified farm business where all members play essential roles. Katrina does a wonderful job of explaining the complexities of every element of the business, from butchering, soil fertility, child rearing, poultry, planting, and much more. The summer ends with a spectacular effort to help an Amish neighbor with their milking cows after a barn fire.
• Organic Surface Tillage: Anne and Eric Nordell explain the benefits and details of surface tillage for improved soil fertility. They explain their quest for the best process and implements for each of the various cover crops. An excerpt from Fertility Farming by Newman Turner is included.
• Artificial & Natural Intelligence: While humans push the limits of technology with Artificial Intelligence, Jenifer Morrissey takes a look at several researchers exploring the depth of animals’ natural intelligence.
• The Simple Sled: Ralph Rice shows his favorite piece of horse powered equipment and the many uses it has on his farm. His sled is 4ft x 8ft with removable sides. He says it is great both summer and winter.
• Brabant Field Day 2017: The location for this annual event was the Teton Valley of Idaho in 2017. Many work horse teams and teamsters cut and stacked 5-7 tons of hay. The expertise of Daryl Woolstenhulme in haymaking as well as Marvin Brisk’s unique antique equipment added much to the weekend.
• Where are we going?: Dris Abraham, Belgian breeder, discusses his first Belgian mare purchase. He emphasizes the importance of listening, one-on-one, to those with the skills and knowledge to pass along what is necessary to keep this industry alive and successful.
• 2017 USA Plowing Contest: Many photos and a synopsis of this annual event held in Olympia, Kentucky last year. We also included the list of the winners.
• Bethany Caskey – An Inspired Life: enifer Morrissey interviews Caskey as she discusses her life, many talents and skills and the childhood and grandfather that had such a wonderful influence on her.
• Water Security – tips for a safe and reliable water supply: Galen Lehman of Lehman’s Hardware provides an explanation of various methods of lifting well water without power as well as different types of water filtration systems that remove bacterial and chemical contaminants.
• A Wheeled Plow for Minis: Charlie Tennessen provides some history on walking plows. He then takes us through his step by step process to build a walking plow for him miniature donkeys. He includes many pictures of the plow as well as his team pulling.
• A Few Minutes with Kevin Cunningham and Tom Jenkins: Rob Collins interviews two teamsters from opposite sides of the country. One is a lifelong teamster from New Hampshire and the other a shorter term self taught teamster from Northern California. They have a great conversations about their experiences with training and working oxen.
• Pigs: The Original Mortgage Lifter: alph Rice explains why this moniker is true of this clean intelligent animal. He also explains how to raise a pig or two for your own use or to sell including housing and feed recommendations.