On Perception

I wrote this well over a week ago, but just got to typing it today. While the timing is bad, the lesson is still a good one.

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This past weekend the baffling American instiution of “Daylight Savings Time” worked it’s magic on our clocks and gave most people an “extra hour’s sleep” on a Sunday after what may have been a late Halloween night. The apprentices here at Nature’s Harmony spent this past week debating what day we actually would save time on and what affect it would have on our schedule. Yes we would have an extra hour, but the sun would rise earlier. Since we start our chores at sunrise, we would have to get up earlier to get everything done. As it turned out, Saturday was a long day and none of us changed our clocks. My alarm went off at 6:30 and I was out do chores at 7:30 with the sun just coming up. We were supposed to meet Liz at 8 to feed Ana’s puppies and I realized that my phone said 6:30. Time had changed and not even told us. Without an appointment to remind us, we could have gone days or even weeks before we even noticed that the time changed. Sunday night at our farm dinner, we talked about it and decided that “time” as in “what time is it?” is irrelevant at the farm because our time revolves around light and seasons.

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All of this had me thinking about perception. Being around the animals here at the farm, I am realizing how much perception matters to them. I’ll give a few examples that should illustrate what I mean.

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First off is an incident that happened yesterday. As some of you may know, we use rotational grazing at the farm which means that we give the cows and sheep new pasture every day. In order to do this, we have to set up a new electric fence for the animals and then move them to their new paddock. At one of the corners we usually form a gate that we open to let them in. Usually we swing this gate into the new paddock, call on the animals, who are usually ready to move, and let them do all the moving. Yesterday we had a weird set-up for our gate and we were forced to swing their gate into an old paddock. We then gave our customary calls, “come on cows!”, “come on sheep!”, but only a few of them went for the new paddock. The rest began to panic and trample the fence. They were confused because other animals had made it to the other side but all they could see was a new corner. It was easy for us to see the gate clearly had opened, but their perception, visual and mental, was not allowing them to see what we saw. Luckily, we got the animals to the new paddock, but not without them almost disassembling our fence.

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Another good example of this is our chickens. Since I got to the farm, we have always had problems with chickens getting into our processing shed and leaving little “surprises” for us all over our ice machine. This is a mess that we don’t want to have to deal with every week, but we also leave the processing shed open to natural light, to be visible from the outside, and to be easy to get in and out of. So to remedy our problem, we put up clear plastic strips on the front of the shed. At first, Mario and I were not convinced that this would keep out the birds because it is not very much of a physical barrier for them. In fact, it would be pretty easy for them to walk right through one of the seams, but their perception tells them that it is a window or a wall and they don’t even try to walk through it. It’s an easy solution that takes into account a factor that I am learning you have to use to your advantage in farming – the animal’s perspective.

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All of this brought me back to thinking about my situation when I moved to this farm. I have thought for a while that I would like to make a living off of farming, but I felt too unprepared to jump right into it and take all the risks that I would need to take to get started. Perhaps there was also more than a small part of me which thought that I just couldn’t do it. Yet after working here for a not even 2 months, I am starting to gain confidence that starting to farm on my own is something I could do. I am peeling back the thin plastic strips and seeing that the opportunities will be there for me if I am willing to take them. In the meantime, I have plenty to learn and lots of opportunities to enjoy the farming life.

The lovely processing shed

Meals of the weeks

Above: Breakfast burritos with sausage, eggs, and fresh salsa.

Below: Garden salad with fresh greens, radishes, banana peppers,
grated parmesan and citrus vinagrette.

The Need for Balance

I am not sure why I thought that this would not be the case, but I am quickly learning that life on the farm is full of the same lessons that I learned in the “real world.” Perhaps they are more poignant and noticeable in the situation that I am in here at the farm, but they are the same lessons. Take, for example, one of the first “rules” that I learned here at the farm: Have Priorities. Being the perfectionist that I am, it was difficult and stressful for me to learn that there is only so much time in a day and too many things to do. I don’t have to make too much of a leap to extend this to other areas of “real life,” which undoubtedly require us to have priorities.

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The lesson that I have been learning recently here at the farm is the need for balance. This applies to many aspects of life here. For example, we have to be balanced in our approach to raising animals “naturally.” What does that even mean? For us, it means raising our animals in such a way that they can express their natural characteristics and thrive off of their surroundings with as little help and input as possible from us, the farmers. For this reason, we don’t give the sows farrowing huts, because we want them to develop the genetics to birth and raise piglets without them. In some cases, this has been a really hard decision to make. Many of the Berkshire sows that we have lack the natural mothering characteristics that we believe need to a part of our animal’s genetics, and many of them have lost full litters in a matter of days. The response for many people in this situation would be to just give them farrowing huts and that would solve the problem. Perhaps it would, but we would never be giving these animals the chance to develop the characteristics they need to survive and reproduce naturally. On the other hand, we have to remember that this farm is trying to mimic natural processes and that these are not wild animals. The cows and chickens are given a chance to express their natural tendencies, but they are still managed by us. So we have to remain balanced in our approach to taking care of these animals. We want to take care of them and protect them, but we also want to encourage them to develop natural characteristics.

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In the same way, I have been learning a lesson about balance for myself. Somewhat foolishly I decided to take my one day off last week driving 8 hours in a 24 hour span to go visit some friends up in NC for an Oktoberfest/Self-Sufficiency celebration they were having at their house. While I had a great time getting to visit with old friends and learning how to make sausage and apple cider, I did not get good rest and take the time to prepare for the week ahead. By failing to balance work with rest, I set myself up for a very hard next couple of days. In addition, I spent most of my day Tuesday running around trying to get things done and didn’t spend any time recovering from my weekend. Finally, nature or providence has caught up with me as I was forced to take another day off today because I got sick, probably with a mild case of food poisoning but I am not sure. Hopefully the rest that I have gotten today will leave me more prepared to take on the work that we have the rest of the week and Farm School this weekend, an event where we will have 25 aspiring farmers here all day Saturday to learn about our farming methods. Either way, I have learned my lesson about balance and look ahead to the many things that I will have to learn in my farming experience.

Meal(s) of the Week(s)
Top: Made from scratch wheat pancakes with
Nature's Harmony honey, Ossabaw sausage, and coffee.
Below: Slow-roasted sirloin with sweet potatoes,
risotto bianco, green beans, and homemade salsa with chips.
(not pictured: sauteed okra with oven-roasted tomatoes)

Amos with some homemade sausage at Oktoberfest 2009