Interesting things happen on a farm, some fun, some less so. This is a good place to check for a picture of day-to-day life on Cairncrest Farm.
By Garth Brown The farm has a particular character as winter settles in, with smoke blue clouds and purple forests set off by snow so bright it looks like more light is coming from the ground than the sky. It hasn’t been particularly cold, and the stream is free of ice and flowing well. Crows hop...
By Garth Brown Nothing makes a farmer’s heart sink like the sight of livestock charging across a neighbor’s field; a fence is easy to take for granted until the moment thirty sheep are on the wrong side of it heading for parts unknown. I can’t find the precise quote, but the late, great Gene Logsdon...
By Edmund Brown Last week in the newsletter Garth used a photo I took of our pigs in the woods. The lead photo in all its anodyne glory shows a bramble patch, and then the pig pic shows the same brambles but zoomed back about 20 feet. This fall I’ve run the pigs along the...
By Garth Brown When I first moved to this farm a small cottage still stood off by itself in the pasture across the street from the dairy barn. It had been built in the 1860s, and for the next century it was lived in by the hired hand. This was a typical arrangement, with housing...
By Edmund Brown Two weeks ago I mentioned rotational grazing. I thought this week perhaps it would be interesting to show all the hardware I use to keep the cows on fresh grass every day. First, a quick summary of the manifold reasons that rotational grazing is a worthwhile practice. Grasses and ruminants co-evolved to...
By Edmund Brown With snow flakes falling as I write this sentence, it sure doesn't feel like Spring at the moment. But yesterday I got slightly sun-pinked when I took my shirt off while digging out a waterline hydrant. So I do trust warmth is on its way. I've started letting the cattle have at...
By Garth Brown Alanna’s grandfather, Frank Rose, remains straight-backed and tall at ninety-two. When he knows he’s in the middle of a really good line about one of his many areas of expertise, and even more when he’s telling a funny story to children, he has a charming habit of interrupting himself with a chuckle...
By Garth Brown As I write this rain falls heavy on the pasture and runs down the windows, giving the yellow grass and the distant line of trees a vague blurriness. It is always a hard time of year in central New York. Winter lets go slowly, with warmth trading for cold and rain trading...
By Garth Brown As days have turned cold and nights colder, as snow has once again come to cover the land, I have returned to intentionally getting really, really cold. You can read a bit about my introduction to the practice in this post, and you can see me at the peak of my powers in...
By Garth Brown There’s a strange sort of doublethink that for me accompanies weather events. As a storm approaches my better self hopes that the forecast is wrong, that the breathless articles about impending disaster are a product of catastrophizing. At the same time, my inner nine year old can’t help but think how cool...