Scratchy-Bitey Farm Cat

He's a fine cat. He's been with us a long, long time, longer than our draft horses, our farm, our teenage daughter. He's caught more than his share of mice and voles and moles and rats and squirrels and chipmunks and birds. And he has made a fine reputation for himself as a scratchy-bitey farm cat.

As a kitten, he was so vigorous and gleeful in his pouncing on the feet or any other moving body part under the blankets that we had to lock him out of the bedroom. Then, in the night, when I had to get up to visit the bathroom . . . I knew it was coming, but I didn't know when. I tiptoed across the floor, holding my breath in the dark. Then . . . Pounce! I would squawk, heart pounding, while the kitty wrapped his paws firmly around my ankle. I shuffled along, the kitty happily sliding across the wooden floor, gnawing on my leg. Our kitty loved this game. I found it a little daunting.

The kitty, for his part, found our various moves daunting: from the first pleasant house of ankle-gnawing to the second terrible place of four dreadful dogs to the third so-so place with its startling appearance of a team of draft horses and a baby. Then on to the fourth place, our vegetable farm in New Hampshire, where our scratchy-bitey cat came into his glory.

He wondered from haymow to garden to field to farmhouse, catching rodents. He slept where he chose, ate what he chose, and scratched and bit whom he chose. When we started our CSA garden, our kitty ran up to the CSA members with great enthusiasm. He rubbed his head against legs. A hand descended, ready to pet. The hand petted; a voice crooned. The kitty put his ears back, swished his tail, hissed and spit and scratched and bit, and ran off, apparently insulted by the whole proceeding.

We began to issue kitty warnings. This is a scratchy-bitey kitty, we'd say. He might seem very friendly, we'd say. Consider yourself warned, we'd say. Quickly people learned about our kitty, and their children learned too, with occasional tears.

Things went on fairly calmly until, a few years later, we got another kitty: another all black kitty, a very friendly, lovey-dovey kitty.

“Uh-oh,” CSA members would say, “Which one is that?” as an enthusiastic black kitty ran over.

“Look at the toes,” we'd advise. “The friendly one has lots of toes.”

As one member said, “By the time I figure out the toes, it's too late.”

Sadly, our second black kitty disappeared one day, after only a year with us. Then it was quite clear again just who the resident black kitty was.

Over the years, our scratchy-bitey black kitty has risen to new heights. For a while he decided that sleeping on the dark shelf where members reach in blindly for plastic bags was a fine idea. He didn't like his naps disturbed, needless to say. Then he began to believe that taking a nap on a tray of cucumbers that we had set aside in the house, ready for pickling, was appealing. We discouraged this strongly.

Next, one day in the shed, as a farmer came to greet a CSA member, the latter said, “Boy, am I glad to see you! I started to reach in the bin for my lettuce, but your black cat is sitting on the top of the cloth. I took my hand out again, fast!”

“Oh, geesh,” said the farmer apologetically. “I don't know why anyone would want to lie on a wet cloth on top of lettuce. Come on out of there, you naughty kitty!”

From then on, we made Scratchy-Bitey stay inside on harvest day. He seemed happy to come back to taking naps on our pickling cucumbers.

But as he gets older, our fine kitty is more tolerant than he used to be. Sometimes he asks us to pick him up and pet him. He even purrs, a small rusty purr.

One morning, when I am holding and petting the kitty, I say to my fellow farmer, “I feel a little more confident with him, when he's actually purring,”

My fellow makes a wry face. “Sometimes he's been purring when he scratched and bit me.”

I draw my head back from the kitty's teeth and claws.

“Is that true?” I say to Ol' Scratchy-Bitey.

The kitty purrs.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Feb 17-23, 2016
 

Greenhouses, Dollhouses -- Life on the Farm

 I love dollhouses. Growing up, I filled my shelves with miniature scenes, tiny dolls and furniture and food. I had a little grocery, and a little library, complete with mini-produce and mini-books. I still have all my dollhouse beds and books and beeswax apples and pears, all tucked into boxes. One year, for my birthday, I decided what I really truly wanted, besides world-wide peace and world-wide sustainable agriculture, was to unpack my boxes, into a whole big proper dollhouse.

I drew my dollhouse all out on paper, and my sweet fellow helped me build it, using scrap plywood from our woodshed, and old paneling from our house, and our kind neighbor's precise and numerous tools. My dollhouse is a wonderful project, and so far, after eight years, I have the siding cut and nailed on, and the shingled roof three-quarters completed, and the windows and doors in. I haven't even begun on the interior (or on unpacking my boxes) yet; this is a life-long wonderful project.

And what, you may ask, does all this have to with sustainable farming in winter in New Hampshire? Everything, I say! Of course, farming itself can be a life-long wonderful project, if you're inclined to be a farmer. Plus a New Hampshire farmer in winter has a lot more time to work on her dollhouse than a New Hampshire farmer any other time of year.

But the big connection? You guessed it: greenhouses! We have four greenhouses on our vegetable farm, and surely greenhouse are the dollhouses of the agricultural world, each greenhouse a miniature farm.

The greenhouse mini-farm has dirt, and sun, and air and light and water. It has plants and compost and insects and the occasional butterfly or bird or vole. But it's all on such a small, manageable scale (especially if you conveniently overlook the manufacture and construction and maintenance of the greenhouses, the drip irrigation, the propane heater, and other such trivial details). A dollhouse has a roof and walls and windows and furniture and inhabitants, but it too is all on such a small, manageable scale.

The greenhouse is also a highly protected environment, just like the dollhouse. No high winds or beating rains or deep snows generally come and wreak havoc in my dollhouse, and no high winds or beating rains or deep snows generally come and wreak havoc in my greenhouses, either.

And, just like in a dollhouse, in a greenhouse a person can believe that she has quite a lot of say about the inhabitants, whether they be tiny ceramic or wooden or woolen people, or whether they be tiny tomatoes, peppers, and onions. I can suggest to my dollhouse people that they all take naps, or celebrate Christmas early, or turn the living room into a bedroom, and generally it happens.

Likewise, I can suggest to my greenhouse irrigation that it rain a lot, or rain a little; and I can suggest to my greenhouse heater that the place warm up a lot, or warm up just a little; and I can suggest to my greenhouse plants that they grow quickly or slowly, with the clever use of irrigation, heaters, and compost; and generally that happens too.

Then, too, both dollhouses and greenhouse provide endless pleasant tinkering. This time of year there is the unhurried pulling up of dead plants, the digging of beds, and the applying of compost. In a few months, there will be the sowing of seeds, the potting up of seedlings, the watering and pruning, all on a much smaller, lighter scale than in the big outside world of field and weather. This is especially nice for a farmer such as myself, who prefers light and medium duty greenhouse and dollhouse work to the heavy farming work that involves grunting, jostling, and pulled muscles.  

In the dollhouse, there is little jostling and grunting, and so far I have strained no muscles in the endless pleasant tinkering of making tiny wallpaper or tiny embroidered blankets or tiny framed pictures; or in making mini-presents for the mini-people to open in front of their mini-Christmas tree, festive with mini-decorations: oh, the possibilities are endless!

But the best thing about greenhouses and dollhouses has to be the shared element of fantasy: the belief that everything will turn out just the way a person hopes. For example, the dollhouse people will lead happy, fulfilled, and productive lives, and the greenhouse plants will live happy, fulfilled, and productive lives, which will help the farming people to live happy, productive, and fulfilled lives.  

And then of course, there is always the dream of greenhouses and dollhouses coming perfectly together: imagine a tiny glass greenhouse, filled with tiny living plants, and tiny watering cans, tiny hoes, tiny shovels! So lovely! So fun to make! So manageable! So sustainable! So everything!


Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Dec 23- Dec 29, 2015

Farmers: Grumpy or Grateful?

In November, it's easy for a vegetable farmer to come up with a list. But this time of year it isn't a list of things to do, though there's plenty yet. This is more of a thanksgiving kind of list, a pumpkin pie and warm houses and gratitude kind of list.

First of all, I'm grateful for the hard frost, and all the dead plants it has produced: harvest is over! Second of all, I'm grateful that it is not the night before the hard frost, when the harvest was not over, and my fellow farmer and I were up until one-thirty a.m., topping all the root vegetables we had picked all afternoon. We heaped them up on the shed tables in a towering pile: the great wall of turnips and rutabagas, the great mountain of carrots, the great mountain range and great wall of beets.

We were glad for a scrappy sort of supper between the harvesting and the topping, and we were glad for such good crops, and we were glad we had harvested in the daylight and saved the topping for our electric lights in the shed. When my fellow and I went out for our second shift at 8 p.m., it all seemed pretty doable. How long would it take to top a bunch of vegetables, after all?

Out in the shed, I liked the quiet night, with the occasional hoot of an owl, howl of a coyote. Plus we were making progress: carrots done. Not too many radishes: radishes done. Turnips and rutabagas were a little more daunting, but at least they have lots of leaf, so we could move through the pile fairly quickly, in the hour or two range. We even had a little pleasant conversation during the turnip and rutabaga hours.

“I'm so glad I put my winter boots on,” I said.

“Me too,” answered my fellow.

A half hour passed. “I'm so glad we didn't have to pick the Brussels sprouts and leeks, on top of everything else.”

“Me too,” agreed my fellow.

Another half hour. “All right! Just the beets left!” my fellow said.

“I'm kind of dreading the beets,” I answered, facing the mountain range and wall directly for the first time.

“Yeah,” said my fellow, facing them too.

We sagged a moment, and then we began the beets, as well as the next phase of the getting through the topping hours program. This is when I thought how grateful I was that I didn't have to top beets all day, every day, or all night, every night. I thought how grateful I was that I had a bed to go to if I ever finished the beets. I had a bed, and blankets, and I had food for my next meal, I had a kitchen to make the meal in, a table to eat it on, and good company to eat it with. Plus I had good company right then: I was really glad my fellow farmer was out topping beets with me.

But even with all this gratitude, the mountains of beets seemed to get no smaller.

For a little variety, I started chopping the beet tops instead of twisting them. This gave my twisting muscles a rest, and plus it gave me more to be grateful for. For example, I was not in a factory, cutting up chicken hour after hour, not allowed to take a break even to go to the bathroom, working double and triple shifts just to keep my kids fed, my little kids who have to wait in the car while I am working. I read this in a book, a true story, and I felt very grateful that I was chopping beet tops by choice, with dignity and self-direction and an eye towards sustainability.

This worked for another half hour.

Then I was getting cold, and tired, and stiff, and I was more grumpy than grateful. Thus began the third  phase, when I needed to significantly up the gratitude ante.

I'm so glad no one is threatening me with this knife, I said to myself. Then, “I'm so glad I'm not living in a war zone,” I said aloud to my fellow, who looked a little surprised. “Planes could be coming over with bombs,” I added. I was quite serious.  

“Wow,” said my fellow, “Thinking like that helps you feel better?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “To help me appreciate all we have. Doesn't it help you?”

“Well . . . I guess . . .” he said doubtfully, and then he held up the last bunch of beets. “This make me feel better.”

“Oh, fiiinnnally.” I was too worn out even to cheer. Together, we chopped off the last tops, and stumbled into the house with the last bags of beets. 

“I wonder what time it is,” I said.

“I didn't want to tell you,” answered my wise fellow, looking at his watch. “It's one-thirty in the morning.”

“Holy-moly,” I said, “It's a good thing I didn't know that before. I would have given up a long time ago.”

“Are you saying you're really glad you don't wear a watch, really grateful you don't wear a watch?” asked my funny fellow.

Yeah, something like that.
 

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Nov 25- Dec 1, 2015