Larry Kidrowski's Excavator

Larry was hired to do the digging of the basement (house is in the background).  Although the mason that we hired doesn’t want the hole dug for the basement for a week or so, Larry mentioned that he might have some labor show-up on Saturday to dig stumps.  With the stumps gone, the digging of the foundation should go relatively quick and easy.

On her way out of town, she stopped into the county office building.  A couple days ago we got a call stating the farm’s building permits were approved and could be paid for, so today Carol did.  I must say, the permits are expensive in this county.  It cost the farm $1100… but here they are.

Building Permits

What next?  Get the excavator out here to start digging a hole.  We hired Larry Kidrowski for that project.  He done excavation work for us in the past.  Larry has also done work with the masonry and construction contractor that we hired.  For the basement construction/masonry – we’ll have Matt Haats do that for us… and for the house’s framing needs, we’ll hire Joel Johnson.  I’ve known Joel since high school… he’s also our neighbor (just across the section).

The meeting started with a brief explanation of our situation and why we are seeking loan money.  Since Carol and I have been farming for less than 10 years, we are considered beginning farmers.  With that in mind, Mr. Forsberg went over the FSA loan program(s) that would best fit our financial needs.  He discussed loan rates, terms and fund uses.  He was very thorough and pleasant.  He did mention his concern with the farm being in a trust and how the FSA rules, as he understood them, does not allow for a trust to receive a loan.  The loans can only be awarded to owner-operators and his rhetorical question was simple, “How can a trust operate a farm?!“  Good point.  Mike said he would speak with higher-ups and see if there was a way for the trust to qualify for a loan.

Ms. Kling didn’t seem too concerned and mentioned to us that she thought the meeting went well and that we have options, should we not get a loan on behalf of the trust.  We still have some paperwork to turn-in before we can consider the application complete.  Once the application is complete, we wait.  By law, we should hear a yay or nay withing 10 days.

The loan request for the trust isn’t that much (as dairies go) and will be used to upgrade the barn and milk room.  The rest of the funds, in order to start/run a dairy, will be a loan that Carol and I will need to qualify for.  That amount is approx. $125,000.  It will be to buy dairy cows, dairy/milking equipment and additional machinery that will be necessary to harvest and store forages (silage & hay) for the operation.  We should mention, the only reason we need the trust to get a loan is that when there are upgrades to the barn, those improvements (concrete, roof improvements, etc…) become part of the real property – permanent fixtures that cannot be removed or easily liquidated.

We’ve been in the fields, but not as much as we would like.  For awhile, most folks in this area were a bit worried that we may be experiencing a serious drought.  As of the end of March, we hadn’t got much for moisture since the end of July 2012 – very little snow and just a few showers.  We did get about and inch in the beginning of April.  The advice I was given was by friends and neighbors at that time was, “don’t work the fields unless your going to plant.“  A person needs to conserve the moisture and one needs the seed to be in contact with the moist soil.  In a typical year, rain will do that job and there is little to worry about.

Lately, it appears as though we will experience our needed and expected moisture.  A couple weeks ago, we had nearly 2″ of precipitation over a week and a half period.  The forecast for the next 8-10 days is warm and wet – perfect for spring.  I’ve just gotten in the fields… anticipating moisture.

Instead of plowing the 10 acre field, I disked twice.  With fuel prices high and moisture low, I thought using the disk was a wiser choice.  It covers more ground and doesn’t penetrate the soils as deep.  This lets me conserve fuel as well as moisture.  I’m hoping we won’t have too many weeds – spring plowing usually gives us good weed suppression.

After the double disking. I went over the ground one last time with the harrow (a.k.a. a spring tooth drag).  The harrow smooths the ridges that were created by the disk.  The ground looked good, smelled great and was ready for seed.  It was worked, but not over-worked.

I had some seed-corn left over from last year, so I decided to take the risk and try a little planting early.  With rain on it’s way, I decided to ready the old, IH 56, 4-row planter and set it up for a higher than normal seed population.  Since the seed is old, I would suspect some of the corn to be no longer viable.  Instead of the normal 26k-28k seeds/acre, I bumped it to approx. 31,000 seeds.  For 36″ rows, that’s pretty dense… but some corn won’t come up and some will be terminated, post-emergent, due to harrowing.

It’s a crap shoot.  Old seed, high population and early planting, I’m taking a risk… but a risk worth taking.  If it doesn’t germinate or if it freezes after is does, I’ll simply replant.

We were told that it has been taking approx. 10 days for the permits to be approved.  We’re hoping we included all the paper-work needed for this to move through the system smoothly.  There was no mention of elevation drawings being needed… but, just in case they are needed, we have been working on those as well.

Below, are the drawings, thus far.

Front of house

Side of house

Back of House

We created these drawings on our home computer… not bad for amateurs, huh?

From a townie’s point of view, we’ve had a sucky weekend and maybe an even a suckier (if that’s even a real word?) forecast for the week.  But from a farmer’s point of view, it’s heaven.  It’s been dry out here and we need the moisture bad.  Except for two days giving us a less than ½” of rain each, about 3-4 weeks ago, we really haven’t had much pecipitation since August.  Our winter season snow was minimal, if that.  And our spring has been feeling more like summer – sunny, warm and dry.

These last couple of days have been different, but thankfully so.  Coming into this last weekend, we’ve received approx. .7″.  Today brought another ½” and it’s still raining, sort of.  The best part is that we have more rain in the forecast (along with high winds) until morning, and that includes a chance of snow flurries.  So far, just rain… and tornado warnings in some of the neighboring counties.  But back to the best part… we have several more days of predicted rain… or at least a good chance of more rain.

The 1st Calf Of The Season

Last year, Sammy wasn’t so lucky.  Although she, again, had the first calf of the season, she delivered prematurely and the calf was dead.  She had a little heifer calf – the same color as this year’s calf.  So, even though she had a bull calf this year, we were excited to see a living, breathing and on-time calf.  We’re thinking of naming him Conway.  The name is Gaelic in origin, and the meaning of Conway is “hound of the plain“.  In our area that would be a reference to a coyote, which we have plenty of.

Here Is Sammy Watching Over Her New Calf

Here on this farm, we have a two strike rule.  If an animal “strikes-out” s/he is gone (or eaten).  It cost too much money to have non-producing animals around.

Any day now, we should be seeing another calf.  Our black heifer is due.  We were expecting her to go before Sammy.

Tomorrow, and the following weeks, we will be watching for calves.

The other gilt (Jane), who looked pregnant (nearly all the time) still had not had her pigs.  That’s the reason we thought either she was no good or the boar was no good.  Well. we’re happy to say that we know for certain, that both the gilt and the boar are both able to produce.  We no longer need to wonder.

Jane finally has her piglets

The bad news is that Carol found 4 piglets in the pen – 2 were dead.  All piglets looked well developed.  We really have no idea why 2 didn’t make it.  The piglets that were alive (1 male, 1 female) seemed to be thriving.

After finishing the chores (feeding the other pigs, hand-miking the dairy goats, and feeding the goats and sheep in the yard) we went back to check on the new mama.  Odd… after an hour or more later, it looked like the pig was still having contractions.  She’d push for a minute or so, then relax.  Carol went to the house to get some surgical gloves.  When she returned, she examined Jane.  Carol said, “I think I feel a nose… Yep, I feel teeth.”  Upon further exploration, Carol determined that the piglet she felt, seemed stuck.  Five minutes later, with Carol’s assistance, we had another live piglet – a gilt.  It didn’t take long after that that the sow passed her afterbirth.  OK… now she’s done.

UPDATED: During evening chores, we found another dead piglet.  It was buried in the straw… another female. 

We never really discussed dairy seriously, as I was TOTALLY against milking cows for a living.  Growing up on a farm, you’re rarely on the fence on this subject… you either love it or you run from it.  When I was younger – I ran.

At the same time as the discussion of dairy came up, Carol and I also looked into the Land Stewardship Project’s ‘Farm Beginnings‘ program.  At that time, we felt the classes were too far away from us to attend, especially with a handicapped child at home.  So we waited.  Then last year, when the new class locations and schedules was announce, we signed up.  It worked out.  We were able to fit the classes into our schedule and finding respite care for our special needs daughter.

We hoped Farm Beginnings would help us by leading us to an enterprise… it didn’t.  That’s not what the classes are for.  What we were able to do was let the class help us discover what made sense to us, as a family and for the farm… and for all the right reasons.  At first, we thought a cheese making business was right for us, but as we used the tools of discovery that were presented to us, cheese making as a profession was not a good fit.  What kept coming back to us, regardless of how many times we pushed the idea away, was the enterprise of a small, pasture-based, sustainable, organic dairy.  When we say sustainable we mean that we will produce all that we need, in terms of feeds, bedding and pasture.

The Farm Beginnings classes were held every 2 weeks.  As we progressed through our classes, we did our homework.  The first thing we discovered is that a dairy would/could meet our farm’s needs – financially, holistically, socially and ethically.  It just plain fit.  After doing much research and connecting with many organizations (USDA, LSP, Minnesota Dairy Initiatives, Farm Business Management and more) and the individuals within, it was obvious dairy is what we really wanted to do.

We played with numbers, we toured various milking setups,  contacted 2 of the area’s organic dairy processors and asked questions from experts and we talked to the neighbors when helping with chores… it made financial sense.  Then yesterday, we met with our Farm Business Management instructor.  He organized our financials for us and developed a cash-flow analyses for the enterprise of dairy.  Although we still need to examine some minor details, he told us that if a dairy is something we wanted to do, it made financial sense.  He could see no reason as to why we shouldn’t go ahead with it… and he added that getting financing for the dairy should be relatively easy… it looked that good.

We have an appointment with the Farm Service Administration on March 07, at our local USDA office.  We will be discussing how to finance our potential project.