What is a Farm?
What is a Farm anyway? I am sure that question brings lots of different thoughts to different folks. To some its a romantic notion, or a vision of a bygone era. To others it’s a production unit or a place of drudgery and hard work. Some I am sure see a farm as a weight around their neck like Thoreau wrote in Walden Pond when he posed the question of “why would any man want to tie a farm around his neck”, (rough paraphrase).
One of my favorite books by Wendell Berry is titled “The Gift of Good Land”. That’s a title I personally like as it reflects my view of a farm as a truly special gift. The more you farm the more you become aware of the farm as a dynamic place teeming with life in a constant state of change and growth. Weather , soils, water, plants, living animals and humans all make it so.
Take the weather, it’s never the same from day to day or season to season. It brings our four seasons, sometimes thought of as cold, wet, lush and dry complete with sub-periods of mini droughts, heat waves, wet periods. The farm vegetation adjusts to these and other variables and continues to reproduce as do the forests, growing in cycles of youthful exuberance and death and decay. A giant machine uniquely designed to capture solar energy and convert it to useful life-sustaining products is what one sage called it. The weather assists this process.
Years ago when we were looking to buy a farm a wise real estate agent who was a retired farmer told me when you buy a farm you should look at the soils first. Good soils will pay for barns and other necessary amenities needed for an efficient and profitable farm enterprise. Our farm is what is sometimes commonly referred to in these parts as a small hill farm, one, which in a previous era was very common in New England. A few milk cows, and a horse or two, lots of manual labor and you could make a living on such a place. It has pretty good soils by Vermont standards, some are classified as prime agricultural soils and others carry a lesser inspiring nomenclature.
But soils and soil life are critical to a natural farm and somewhat less so to a conventional farm because there chemicals can prop up a farm for a long time, albeit at a high cost in both operational capital and in the long term loss of valuable soil properties. Soils are a world in themselves and a complex interrelated system of chemistry and biology that act together to help feed the plant and eventually the other life forms that depend on it for substance. Millions or billions of bacteria, fungi, microhezia, and other soil life work endlessly to keep the soil alive and provide food for the plant community which depends on the soil for it’s life and health.
And think about water. Farms need lots of water and the better the quality, the higher the value. Rain is the principal water source and it’s in a continuous cycle of evaporation, condensation into rainfall, runoff in brooks and streams and storage in underground cisterns and above ground containments. Water that is filtered through the earth dissolves minerals which become available to plants and animals when the water is taken up through the plant roots or seeps out of the earth into brooks and streams. Good tasting non polluted water is a constant blessing. We have a good clean spring which we use to water the cattle during the summer months. This spring runs at 2 gallons per minute all year round. Also, we have a deep drilled well for the house water supply which will produce 10 gallons per minute of the best tasting water you ever had. A year round brook runs through the center of the farm. This brook, which has no name, originates across the street in some springs. It crosses the road and wanders down the property line between the neighboring farm and ours. Part way through the farm it gets detained for a while in a pond which is home to fish, frogs, salamanders, wetland plants, insects, snails and is a great attraction for blue herons, ducks , otters, a beaver and a drinking spot for white tail deer and other woodland critters. We enjoy it in the summer for a quick dip after a hot work day or to laze away a Sunday afternoon floating in tire tubes on its cool surface.
The brook leaves the pond and runs through the woods on its never ending way as it passes though the farm on its endless journey to the Connecticut River. This section of brook is enchanting with water falls and twisted babbling paths through the cool woods as the water fights its way down slope to its destination. This part is a favorite walk for visitors who have been known to become so taken by its’ charm that adults will succumb to the temptation to walk in the water with shoes on just to feel the cool and crystal clean water flowing around their feet.
The faithful sun falls on the land in various intensities depending on the season, aspect or lay of the land and the cloud cover. Some fields tilt south and are the first to green up in the spring, grow the best grass and stay green the longest in the fall. Some areas receive little sun because they face north and are also tilted that way. The vegetation here is different with moss and evergreen trees in abundance. I wonder if the earth’s designer made evergreen trees for spots like this so they would have all year to glean the light they would need to thrive. Favorite spots in the summer to sit and think, or for the cows to lay and chew cud are these North slopes at the wood edge. Maybe a second reason is that some of the best views are from these areas, views that encompass our little valley with its five homes all in view. Often from this high vista one can see Grandmolly working in the vegetable garden or my neighbor Scott pruning his antique apple trees or Larry working his flower beds.
Our vegetable garden is in an area with naturally good soils and almost in a micro-climate facing southwest and sheltered from the westerly wind by a hedge row of trees. This little spot produces a bounty of organic vegetables in our short summer season and has never seen a drop of chemical spray or fertilizer. Composted cow manure does wonders for plant health and growth and we use a little on the garden and a lot on our fields. Our short growing season is offset by long daylight days in the summer which the growing plants thrive on.
And then the forest which frames the farm, our source of firewood for winter heat, a saw log for boards and beams for building projects and a shelter and haven for wildlife which includes deer, fox, turkeys, porcupine, coons, coyotes, mice, and chipmunks, grouse, woodcock, bears and many others all of which are only seen on occasion but live in and on this part of the farm.
The fields’ plant communities are important and diverse. Various grasses, cool and warm season types, provide a variety of energy, vitamins and minerals to our grazing livestock. Legumes such as red and white clover are interspersed among the grasses in the fields and are valuable sources of protein for the cows and nectar for the honey bees as are the wildflowers which grace the land and roadsides and add some beauty and diversity as well as an attraction for the ever vigilant bee colonies. Legumes have the special ability to take nitrogen from the air and make it available to the grasses for growth. Lightning and rain also are important sources of this essential chemical for plant growth and health. Earth worms provide tunnels in the soil that allow rain to get below into the soil and in the process the earthworms eat the cow dung which they also break down into valuable plant food. Birds thrive on the fly larva which incubate in the cow patties and add their song in the morning to awaken the day. I have even read that the birds’ morning songs stimulate the grasses to begin the days’ growth.
The list of interactions is endless and the dynamics of a living farm are vast and, most, likely still remain to be discovered. So what is a farm anyway? You rarely, if ever, hear that question, possibly because there is no succinct answer to it. Thankfully, what a farm is, is so complex and diverse that it cannot be reduced to a simplistic word or paragraph definition as is so common today in our technological and scientific culture and, personally, I like it that way.