All I Need

I am convinced that if I had nothing else I could accomplish most tasks on the farm armed with only these six items: a pocket knife, a bag of 8” cable ties, WD40, needle-nose pliers, a medium sized crescent wrench and duct tape.

Pocketknife: What a gift from God. You can slice a freshly picked apple, tighten a screw, open feed bags, cut bailing twine, scrape corrosive crap off battery terminals, gut out a deer, and when you’re done after a long hard day on the farm, sit under the big maple tree by the house and whittle. A good pocketknife is priceless.

Cable ties: These handy things come in a variety of sizes and thicknesses. I’ve tried many of them but continue to stock the 8-inch variety as my mainstay. They will fasten just about anything and are almost indestructible if you use enough of them. I’ve used them to attach livestock panels to T-posts, hang grain feeders, secure waterers, and to hold a funnel steady while filling the tractor with hydraulic fluid. They can become brittle in the cold, but in the summertime they work even better than duct tape. How many things can you say that about?

WD40: I use WD40 as aromatherapy. It has to be the real WD40 and not some generic rip-off. It simply smells awesome. I believe women would be wise to douse themselves in the stuff rather than perfume. Most guys can’t resist its power. The smell takes us back to days gone by… coating the chain on our dirt bikes before a long summer day’s ride.

I have a mini-can in every vehicle. I have multiple full-sized cans in every building. I’ve used it to lubricate everything from a frozen tractor blade to the receiver hitch on my truck. I’ve used it on a car battery that had a bad connection and wouldn’t start. I have a friend that swears the stuff will cure pink eye. One of the coolest uses is that it makes an awesome blowtorch when sprayed over an open flame. And of course, it works great on rusty nuts. There aren’t many things as frustrating as rusty nuts.

Needle-nosed pliers: I have found that regular pliers work better than needle-nose in most situations. But there are times when the needle-nose variety is the only type that will work in a tight spot. And although they can make the job a little clumsier, they will do almost anything that the regular one will. I have a pair in the tractor toolbox and use the bare handles to bypass the cellanoid whenever I start the old Ford. I’ve used them to scrape things, bend things, and hold small nails when hammering. They’re awesome.

Crescent wrench: Beyond the obvious tightening and loosening tasks this tool can accomplish, I’ve found a crescent wrench works well in other applications as well. I have frequently used it as a hammer to bang on the tractor starter or carburetor depending on which item is causing grief on a given day. I’ve used the hole in the handle to grab and/or yank out a variety of things in demolition projects. It can be used as a small vise when needed. And the handle can make a dandy pry bar in certain situations.

Duct tape: I could write, and others have already written, a book on the various uses of duct tape. On the farm it can hold panels, wires, and tarps together. It can patch a hose. It will work as a band-aid when you’re working on a fence and are far from the medicine cabinet. It can hold the hood of a truck down. I’ve strapped plastic tubes to goat horns with it when the goat in question had a habit of getting their head stuck in the hay feeder. You can winterize the Milkhouse with it. And I have wrapped countless pairs of shoes with the stuff when the shoes seemed like they still had some work left in them. And you can even patch your truck upholstery with it.

I’m not suggesting that you should simply get by with just these six items. Far from it. In fact buying the right tool for the job at hand is good for mental health. Having a growing tool collection is a status symbol. Building the collection should be done with diligence, creativity and careful consideration. And if your wife is anything like mine, it should also be done with a fair amount of stealth.

That said however, I try to make sure that my toolbox is always stocked with these six items. They have been just the right things for the job countless times.

Merry Christmas! Hope you found some of these in your stocking this morning like I did.

Fresh Snow

It's hard to find anything quite as awesome as four-wheeling in a foot or so of fresh powder with the Beatles', "Tomorrow Never Knows," blasting from the stereo and the aroma of jasmine incense filling the truck cab. The only thing missing was a bottle of strawberry wine. In the words of Garp, I lived a good life today.

I Have a Dream...

I have a dream. It's not as profound as Martin's. But it's mine, it's dear to me, and it's reoccurring.

Whenever I make a meal using things that have been grown on our land, I can not help but wish for the day when I make a meal using ONLY the things that we have raised. How freakin' cool that would be. I'm not counting the salt or maybe a couple of spices. But the herbs, eggs, milk, bread, veggies, meat, everything else. We are slowly getting there.

Currently we can raise our own veggies, herbs and some fruit. We get our milk, in season, from the goats. My oldest daughter, Katherine, makes cheese from the goat's milk. Henrietta gives us an occasional egg when the cats don't find it first. I've canned pickles and tomatoes, tomato juice and tomato sauce. We will be slaughtering (gasp) a couple of goats this winter and hopefully a deer or two as well. I butcher the carcasses myself and make our own burger, sausage and jerky along with the roasts, chops and steaks. We have a cider press and our apple trees produce awesome cider. Lisa made four gallons of Nanking Cherry wine last year. I have just under five gallons of blackberry/rhubarb wine brewing right now.

When I begin to add these things up I can't help but think, "You know, we're not that far off." If I can grow a little wheat and maybe a couple of other grains this next year and raise a few more chickens for eggs, I think that we'll be ready. I'm targetting September of 2009 as the big event. More to follow...

Naming Rights

After you purchase a farm, one of the first tasks thay you will face (with perhaps the longest lasting impact) is the age-old ritual of naming locations. The names that you bestow upon these trails, fields, points of interest, etc., will outlive you, your children, and any fence that you might have to build. Regardless of the stoutness of your materials, a name is stronger than any fence. Especially if it's one that I have built. Consequently a great deal of thought must be given to this endeavor.

First of all, you must determine whether or not your property merits naming anything. This determination is easily reached by studying the size of the property. For instance, if you can see the extent of your “spread” from the kitchen window, you may want to hold off. Naming anything on a piece of land this size will be viewed as silly by everyone.

I grew up on Indian Creek Farm. What a great name to start with despite its political incorrectness. The farm wasn’t a working farm but rather my dad’s private 490-acre nature park. With a place that large, naming places wasn’t merely a fun pastime, it was imperative. Confusion, chaos and utter anarchy would otherwise have reigned as no one would be able to tell anyone else where they were going. This would have created a massive communication break-down leading to social unrest, mass panic, crazed rioting, and an apocalyptic-like tearing apart of the very moral fabric and consciousness of our community. Basically the worst parts of the Bible.

We avoided all of this because we named stuff.

We had numerous names for places on my parents' farm. Corr Hollow, the Black Hole, Picnic Point, the Logging Road, Rattlesnake Rock, the Lead Mines, the North Forty, the Cave, Jacob's Cabin, Cow Leap, the White Cliffs of Dover, and Buck Nut Stump just to name a few. Each name held some sort of significance related to the site’s location, purpose, appearance, and/or history.

Naming objects, fields, sites, roads, etc., must follow certain rules of order to be done correctly. Protocol is key. If followed, this protocol will dictate, for example, whether history or appearance is the compelling quality to steer naming. Remember, you are naming something for all eternity so be careful with your words.

Here's a brief synopsis of some of the names given to places on Indian Creek Farm, and how those places received their names:
Corr Hollow: (Historical) We were told that a family named, “Corr,” were squatters on the extreme northeast end of the property. The area where they reportedly lived was a broad "hollow" or valley with a spring and a small stream running through it. And so it was named. The spring, interestingly, is the source of Indian Creek which flows on down to the Wisconsin River. Thus, two names were established.
The Lead Mines: (Historical/Appearance) One of our hillsides was covered with craters that were the remains of mineshafts made by early settlers. The craters were anywhere from 10 to 30 feet wide and perhaps as much as 10 feet deep. The land resembled a World War I battlefield and was an absolute paradise for a kid.
Rattlesnake Rock: (Appearance) I named this one. It was and is a huge oval granite bolder, about 10 feet wide and 5 feet high that sits along the trail leading up one of the farm's hills. Through my child's eyes I saw a huge rattlesnake head whenever I saw that rock. Adults agreed and the name stuck.
Jacob's Cabin: (Historical) Jacob Bennett mined the farm for lead years before we were ever around. Only the location of his cabin bears his name because that's all that remains. The cabin blew up with Jacob in it when some of the dynamite that he used for mining caught a spark from the fireplace. Tragic, yes. But when you're an adventurous five year old boy and hear a story like this... well, can a story really get any cooler?
Buck Nut Stump: (Recent Historical) One of our old hunting buddies, "Ike" Isenhart, shot an 8 point buck at this spot right on the edge of one of our forest trails. He gutted it there and left, uh, part of the buck on the stump. Enough said.

Some names transfer from previous ownership. The Imhoff family had rented our current farm for many, many years before we purchased it. It was known to everyone around as the, "Imhoff Farm." We named it, “Hillsong Farm,” after we bought it. But if you were to ask any of the locals where Hillsong Farm was located, they would give you a puzzled look and utter, “Huh?” If you asked them where the old Imhoff farm was located, they could lead you all the way up County Highway N and right down our driveway.

Fortunately for me, our farm’s name was the only thing that was named when we purchased it. Therefore I had a clean pallet to work my naming magic. And I tackled the project with an almost drunken giddiness.

The smallest field that happens to have the highest elevation on our farm was one of the first to be named. I was hunting on it shortly after we purchased the farm. It had not been planted in some time, but parts and pieces of what had been planted there remained.

Every time that I took a step there was a very loud, “Crunch!” I tried avoiding obvious stalks. I tried walking toe-heal, toe-heal. I tried heal-toe. I even tried crossing to a different section of the field to find some less vocal debris. Nothing worked.

I later made it back to the house and talked with Lisa about the hunt. I told her about the uppermost field and how crunchy it was when I walked through it. There it was. From that day forward that field will forever be known as, “The Crunchy Field.”

Once you have named a location and others have begun to use that name, you cannot change it. Trust me on this. It can not be undone, so tread carefully.

I tried to rename the Crunchy Field a few times. I tried, “the Top Field,” but no one embraced it. “Top Two,” was another possibility since the field is roughly two acres. That one failed as well. Nothing was ever strong enough to overcome the initial recognition of a site and its first name. The lesson: if you are not sold on a name, do not share it with anyone.

Other names have taken residence on the Hillsong Farm map. The “Ridge Road,” is so named because it’s the main road that runs up the ridge and leads to the top of the hill. I said there is a certain protocol involved in farmland naming rights, not rocket science. Creativity can be in short supply as well.

The “Junk Pile” got its name because (you guessed it) there’s a junk pile there. “The Orchard,” is found in the very same place where you can find all of our apple trees. “Three Oaks,” is our pet cemetery. There are three oak trees there. The “Hickory Grove” has hickory trees. It’s amazingly difficult at times. But if you are patient, eventually the perfect name will jump out at you.

Look for the obvious and keep it simple when you name places on your property. Try to be somewhat creative, but don't get hung up on it if you can't. Most importantly, remember to take it slowly. The only thing that sets quicker than cement is a new name that is spoken by two.