EEC Forest Stewardship

I’ve been away from the farm for a writing workshop, and returned to find a beautiful gift in the front garden. This spring, a single morel fruited for Leafhopper Farm. It’s the third year in a row we’ve had surprise morel action in the cultivated garden space. The personal excitement I get out of this wonderful site is endless. I never expect them, but some how, they arrive, even if it’s only a solitary bloom. On a bed of fresh dandelion flowers, I feast! It’s nettle, dandelion, and a mix of winter garden greens in a spring diet. Gratitude for such a gift from the land, and the ability to share it with another who has never enjoyed this fruit of the soil before.

This is the 3rd generation of Ayam Cemani chicks from Leafhopper Farm. All ten chicks are developing nicely, and there are some fine looking hens in the bunch, along with a few cockerels. We’ll attempt capon action (rooster castration) soon, if timing is right. They have to be operated on while young, and these guys are at the right age. The technique will be challenging, but I’ve handled a lot of birds and want to make it easier to integrate the whole flock without the need for so many separate pens. Because this idea involves surgery, my thoughts are, this is too “high maintenance”, but the idea that hatched chicks are 50/50 male/female ratio, it could offer a lot of production worthy meat into our poultry system.

I’m always fascinated by the barred rooster which shows up. Each batch of chicks has had at least one. In this flock, there is also a silver colored hen. I look forward to seeing what she turns into as her mature feathers come in. These chicks have moved into an outside pen, just in time for the warmer weather. They are growing up fast, and will soon be moved in with the rest of the adult flock, bringing our laying hen number back towards 40.

We’ve had many inches of rain over the past few weeks, and plants are erupting into production with the coming light and warming temperatures. Weiss Creek is up and flowing fast, but that’s not a guarantee of good moisture in the soil. There are typical signs of saturation, but the deep watering our large forest expects through very light rain all winter has not happened in years. Instead, heavy rain created fast runoff, not soaking in for the long haul of summer drought. The climate changes will continue to haunt this forest and many like it for decades to come. My western hemlock trees are starting to die, and they are the indicator species of drought in our temperate rain forests. Many of them are half dead, meaning that entire tree failure is inevitable. We will be seeing much more dramatic change in this lifetime, so get ready.

The rains have also brought back our lovely fungal friends in the region, and I am happily wandering the property, looking for shy up and coming mushrooms. We had the worst season of chantrelles I’ve ever known last fall, and I hope these rains bring on a recovery bloom, because mushrooms are so good, so good.

Clockwise from top left: Gandoerma applanatum (artist’s conc), LBM-little brown mushroom (deer mushroom), Hirneola polytricha (black wood ear fungus), and a mystery white mushroom I don’t know yet! It’s endless exploration on the fungus front.

In other news of the fungi function, our mushroom logs are starting to perk up more. The mottling color continues to grow, indicating that inoculation has happened in the dead wood. Yay! With luck, these logs will be the first to produce yummy edible mushrooms for our farm by next fall. We’ve got many more logs to plug and set up before it gets too hot. Summer will be running at us full tilt before long, which dries up the environment and makes plug spawn unhappy.

We are using red aldar, and plugging with Fungi Perfecti strains of shiitake, oyster, and turkey tail. I highly recommend this website to anyone interested in mushrooms! By ordering mushrooms at Fungi Perfecti, you’ll also be supporting great research on mycology to better humanity and the planet as a whole. It’s great to be cultivating these fungi on the landscape at Leafhopper Farm, and to see the wild ones popping up with the onset of spring.

We’re slow roasting duck for dinner, and the flavors are amazing. Yes, it was time to cull the magpies from the pond. Male ducks should be slaughtered when they are first mature (after 7 weeks). Ours are a little older, but not by much, and the carcass was still supple and juicy. Older drakes are tough and dry, making them stew birds, rather than meaty meals with potato and veggies above. If you have some fresh herbs in your garden this spring, or some dry herbs like the kitchen sage added to the onion garlic potatoes, such flavors go wonderfully with the oily dark meat.

My partner and I both agree that duck is indeed, a reward for the work put in. We’re expecting 20 ducklings in late April. These khaki campbells are suited to pasture conditions, with nesting space and a night shut in. The ducks will be our first layer flock study folding into our rotational grazing systems here at Leafhopper Farm. The ducks are great sluggers, and I hope to let them loose in the gardens after our harvests next fall. Depending on how the pond is looking, we might also allow the flock into the water for a little while again to help with sealing, once the water level rises again.

A special thank you to ducks, as teachers, workers, gleaners, cleaners, quacking good company, and nurturing to us as we toast the water birds and roast a good dinner!

Did I mention there’s a lot of back-stock trail-cam footage? The vegetation has sprung forth, covering the once limp hanging vines of blackberries are now shooting out buds in preparation for the growing season here at Leafhopper Farm. Ungulates all over the place are feasting on the young growth, and this veracious herbivore in the footage above shows the almost panicked browsing on the fence line where this camera was placed. There were almost ten similar moments captured by two different does on the land.

You can see the trailing blackberry leaves in this doe’s mouth as she browses along, compelled by hunger and the onset of new growth. These does are also most likely pregnant, working to put on the weight to develop their fawns. My goat does act much the same way. This year, my goats kidded a little early; usually, they drop in April or May. The black-tail deer drop fawns from May through June. It is understandable why they are feasting with such appetite right now.

And now for something completely different…

Who do you think this is?

You’ll miss it if you blink at the very beginning of the film. I control the film with my mouse to study the movement and eyes. Theories abound! I’ll tell you one thing; it’s not a deer!

I’ve been taking a bit of time to go through recent trail cam footage and have a lot of black tail deer behavior. Something particular I’ve noticed is how the deer are looking a little itchy. I’d like to say it’s because of the warmer spring weather starting to come, signaling many animals to shed. My goats have been dropping their winter coats, and spending a lot of time rubbing up against trees to comb out the itchy loose hair. However, the deer behavior is different; instead of rubbing against things, I see specific biting and scraping on the hind end. The itching is concentrated in only a few places, and the “hot spots” are visible, taking more hair than necessary in a shed.

This leads me to think the deer are struggling with the warm up as an activation of parasites. Mites and lice feed externally on deer, while worms prefer to live inside the animal. Both cause irritation on the body, but the worms are most active in the gut and butt, the two places this deer is rubbing. In nature, many young deer can die of parasite infestations, but enough make it through to adult hood with enough immunity built up to handle a small colony within them. Still, I bet by summer, this doe will have a bare hind end and look mangy. What’s also alarming, is the fact that many of these parasites on the deer, can be picked up by the goat at Leafhopper Farm! This is indeed a reason to take note of what the deer are feeling, as a cue to treat and manage parasites in the farm herd.

I used to pay a lot of money to my vet for a fecal sample, which should be done on multiple animals, leading to continued costs seasonally to maintain herd health. Well, with the gift of a microscope from my loving partner, and the internet to explain, I am proud to say I’ve started doing my own in house fecal exams and the results are thrilling!

This is a look at my goat Bran’s fecal matter. It’s some poop mixed in saline solution (epson salt in water) and dripped onto a slide for observation. You can see a lung worm and some potential tapeworms, but the picture is hard to take down a microscope.

There are also some nematodes in this fecal sample, which are no surprise either. Goats eat a lot off the ground, so they pick things up, as do all grazing animals, and meat eaters, and us. Yes, we too carry worms, though I will not be doing a fecal sample on myself anytime soon. 😉 With the help of this microscope, I can actually see what’s eating my animals. The parasite count in a goat determines how bad the infestation, and subsequent damage to the internal system of a goat will be. All my goats are still up and running seemingly well, but parasites are tricky, and may lay dormant in a host animal for months, or even years. They will grow to infest an animal when it’s immune system is weak, like a doe after she has given birth, hence dosing the herd now, after kidding. The kids will need to be observed too, because the young are vulnerable, and mothers can pass infestations on to their offspring through milk, and in utero through the blood.

The lung worms were my suspect, and I’m glad to know that’s what’s happening; an easily treatable infestation. My goats are always in need of a worming in the spring, things warm up encouraging the world of microscopic animal life to reanimate . Usually I use garlic, but in this case, the lung worm requires something more potent, and so, I bought a chemical wormer for full treatment; after 6 years of holistic management. Because The Pacific Northwest is so damp and warm a lot of the year, parasites can hit hard, and kill animals if you are not observing and taking the proper precautions.

For the deer, nature decides, for the goats, my fecal exam tells me what the extent of infestation is, because goats always have some worms in their system. Then I know when there is a high count of worms, and it’s time to start treating. This is usually in the spring, and you can bet that if your goats are eating anything off the ground, they have picked up some friends, who won’t be so friendly once they establish a colony in or on the body of their host.

 

 

The Cats clamor for kibble in the early morning light at Leafhopper Farm! These prowling feline fantastics have kept the mice out of the grain room, the voles out of the garden, and have a handled on our rat population under the hen house. They occasionally stalk the humming bird feeder, but no fast fliers have been hit yet. Birds are wiser around the farm, taking to the shrubs and hedgerows with gusto when any cat’s around. My cat alarm identification has gone up, and I look forward to testing it in the woods soon.

What am I talking about? Bird language! Birds make special calls for different events, and the pitch of the calls changes, depending on what the bird want to communicate. The sounds relate very much to what they are trying to convey, like a “shh-shh” “shushing” noise directed towards a threat, like people walking near-bye, or a cat stalking a nest. Shrill noises are alarms, a sort of shouting through the woods to let everyone else know there is danger, usually a predator moving through a bird’s territory.

The chickens have bird language, just like their wilder cousins. When an aerial threat flies over, the hens make a low “tulck” cluck, deep in the throat and subtle, but all the birds will look up and watch the sky for danger, passing on the low “tulck” warning through the flock. When I am “raiding” the nests for eggs, a laying hen might give what I call a “dinosaur” call. It’s a very reptilian, shrill roaring, like the raptors in Jurassic Park (I think they used digitally manipulated chicken noises). That muted roar is definitely telling me not to come near the nest. On this fine morning, the hens are clucking merrily as they glean some Scratch and Peck breakfast among our swales.

Living in a saturated environment can sometimes overwhelm the senses. Observing frost heaves coming out of dead twigs in a sea of woody detritus; patchwork sewn together with time and careful intimacy, laced in ice on a cold morning, blue light cast’s the ground aglow.

 

The kids are having their first week out all together as the sun shines down. We’re really lucking out with the nice Spring weather! The goats are doing quite well, with both momma does keeping on the weight and producing great milk. I’ll be enjoying some of Brownie’s next week, as by then, the kids will be eating more solid food and can afford to let me have a few mason jars here and there. With all these kids, our herd has doubled in size. It’s going to take some smart adjusting to navigate this growing family. That’s the fun of developing a healthy goat herd here at Leafhopper Farm!

Leafhopper Farm is emerging as a productive restoration farm in the face of many challenges in our modern agricultural economy, but none so fierce as climate change. In the summers of 2015, 2016, and 2017 we had record droughts. In the winters of 2016 and 2017, we broke record rain levels. These two statistics seem counter intuitive, but they are the facts, and it’s been a game changer in the agricultural community, no matter the size, product, or production. In the hill country, where Leafhopper Farm is located, the summer droughts have put a tax on local wells, making it impossible to irrigate large production gardens.

These limitations have been solved in the development of certain water systems, including swales, rain catchment, and hugaculture/mulching techniques, but it will be this year in 2018, that the full water systems of Leafhopper Farm come together to support larger food forest aspirations. With the instillation of a 20,000 gallon pillow tank, we can utilize enough roof catchment to flood irrigate our swale systems!

The tank will also provide security against summer fire threats, which are becoming a very real hazard to us here on the west side of The Cascades. This large rain catchment system was designed in our original plan, and is at last, being fully implemented.

Many of you who do not live in western Washington, but do know of Seattle’s legendary rain, might be confused with how our temperate rain forest is experiencing drought, especially with all the record breaking rain during our 9 month wet season. Right? Well, the rain is coming down in heavy bursts, over a few hours, like flash flooding in the south. We all know that when a lot of rain falls at once, little of it has time to soak into the ground. Instead, it’s washing into our rivers and streams, then to The Seattle Sound and into the ocean. Our forests are not getting the deep, slow drip continuous rain of misty damp we’re used to getting in winter.

Another detriment playing out in our climate change is snow pack levels. In 2015, there was very little snow in the mountains by spring melt time. Rivers dropped to record low levels, and salmon runs were non-existent that fall. It was a scary summer, full of fire and scorching temperatures, which killed many cool weather crops, traditionally planted in the temperate Pacific Northwest. The past two summers, I’ve grown tomatoes without a greenhouse. That’s incredible for western Washington! The down side, is that many of my native species are beginning to succeed. Western Hemlocks are the most obvious. The drought conditions have stressed these water loving trees and many are starting to die. On my land, 20% of them are past recovery and will be taken down to prevent fire threat.

The farm is bracing for a continual trend of hotter summers, heavy rain winters. The lack of snow pack in our mountains right now tells me we’re in for more hot, dry weather this coming summer in 2018. On the farm, we’re planting drought resistant trees, like oak and pine. Our creek buffer will support the wet loving trees like Hemlock and Red Cedar. Our USDA grant to restore and replant is moving right along in it’s process. We’ve taken soil samples, checked to make sure no culturally sensitive areas could be present on the property, and planned out a list of species, hedge designs, and specific locations of wet spots where riparian species can thrive. The feds are strict, but that’s great for this work, and the farm’s future stewarding Weiss Creek.

Our S2 rated (Salmon Bearing, Secondary Source->tributary of a major salmon spawning river) is fed by springs. It’s continued to flow through all the droughts, and that’s comforting, though I wonder how much more water would be coming through if we were getting the water in slow seep doses to replenish our aquifers. Now, with the onset of heavy rains, the creek often changes levels, with mass runoff events. I wonder if there is enough water flowing by fall, to encourage salmon up the smaller tributaries, where they usually spawn in their home creeks.

My love of the mountains, specifically skiing, gives me a chance to track snow and what’s happening during the crucial winter snow pack build up, which will directly impact production in the coming seasons. The melt rate is also very important to know. Last winter, there were “adequate” snow levels, but a few 90dagree days in April melted the snow quite rapidly, causing flooding, and the loss of our snow early in the season. This quick melt contributed to a bad fire season later in the summer. On the mountain right now, there is currently what’s considered normal snow pack. But that’s not taking into consideration the final tally of snow this season, or what the Spring temperatures will do to melt off the water too quickly. On another note, the link above is maps put together by USDA and National Resources Conservation Service. The map has a sub-text warning that funding will prevent them making a map next year, leaving many of us farmers wondering how we will be able to predict and prepare for climate change in the future.

It’s important in agriculture, to build in multiple fail-safe production methods to prevent total crop loss. To mono-crop, means you’re in the fast lane to famine. Investing in diversity helps support healthy land and resilient crops, most of which are perennial in nature. Fruit and nut trees are a long term investment, but the pay off comes for generations. It does take proper care and good planning to cultivate any long term success in life. Leafhopper Farm will be ready for whatever nature offers. The farm will continue to mass plant trees, shrubs, and medicinal plants which work together to form a tight knit community of plant allies, which will in turn, support us in our stewardship of place.

 

Our head doe dropped her kids last weekend and we’re now celebrating three kids at Leafhopper Farm! These two newest additions to the herd are settling in now after an initial some what violent entrance into this world. When I heard the cries coming from the barn, I knew what was happening. Coming into the birthing stall, I found two wet kids shivering in the hay and nearby, a broken water bucket that had been cracked down the side in two places. It looked like Brownie has stepped backwards into the bucket in the throws of labor. Neither kid was wet with water, and the after birth was laying neatly in a pile on the floor. Thankfully, no one was drowned.

The two kids were up and kicking almost immediately, it’s an impressive thing to see newborn animals right up and active within minutes of their birth. These two were hoping around and looking for Mom’s milk. Meantime, our other doe, who had kidded last week, was calling in confusion as her own baby wandered around his new friends trying to meet them. Brownie did not care, already acquainted with Gwern. The new kids were male and female, another set of twins! Well, as Branwen began to sniff the two new kids, she suddenly lifted her ears (a sign of aggression) and began snorting (another sign of aggression). Then she charged the little male goat and pummeled him with her horns. This behavior took me off guard. Brownie was so calm with Branwen’s kid, I had not expected the same courtesy to be withdrawn once Brownie’s kids arrived.

Initially, I thought the attack was simply a miscommunication, in which one male kid was mixed up with the other, and both Mom’s were confused. I tried moving each Mom with her babes to opposite sides of the stall, to prevent mixing in the moment of bonding for Brownie. But Branwen was determined, and, crossing the stall, she grabbed Brownie’s male kid by the shoulder and threw him across the stall. Blood came out of the little kid’s nose and that was enough to tell me this was not going to work. Branwen and Gwern were moving to another stall. After the separation, everyone settled down. This kidding issue is not common, and never happened before at Leafhopper Farm.

My theory now, is that Branwen picked up on the fact that another buck was now in the herd. I was not able to find anything about this online, but what I did see was aggression towards only the male babies. The little girl goat was left alone. There must be something in the smell. It all came down to sniffing, then butting. What I know now is that my does must be separated at kidding time. Luckily, the barn can turn into 3 stalls, and everyone has settled in happily. The kids are alright!