Change of Address

Hello Friends! My blog is now being hosted by our new website! Follow this link to keep up with us on our journey into generalism!

http://www.thesundogfarm.com/?page_id=8

Peace and Love,
Darby

The Heat is On.

Spring had sprung, summer had come, and now we're past the longest day of the year. It's pretty amazing how our farm has transformed from Spring crops to Summer crops in a slow, gradual turning over of beds. We've gone from greens and roots to beans and shoots in a matter of weeks. Our tomatoes are finally ripening and we'll soon be spending hours harvesting those delicious red/orange/yellow orbs. Our beans are just coming on, our Okra is podding, and our squash is out of control. Hot peppers are taking over what used to be a barren clay hilltop and our melons are slowly wandering down the hillside. While the heat of the day is so intense that it causes the leaves of our plants to wilt, it provides for some of the most abundant life I've ever experienced as a grower. Our Lima plants are upwards of eight feet tall and still haven't flowered!



Every morning I awake to the harmonious choir of animal voices. Our pastured chickens are growing what feels like a pound a day and our Buff Orpington Rooster has finally found his voice. He can be heard coaxing the sun from its sleepy hiding place and just as it descends slowly into the West. That has not always been the case for our little, Rooster friend. His name is Spring, he was intended to be a Hen, and it wasn't until he began beating up his roommates and making some of the most awful sounds you could imagine a chicken making that we discovered his hidden identity. When he was learning to crow, I would wake up to what sounded like a monster in the pasture. I found, however; that puberty isn't easy on anybody and now we have a beautiful Rooster who will surely be a beautiful meal for Elliot and I.



Our Jacob Sheep are gorgeous and stoic and are finally feeling at home. Valiant, the ram, has reached the age that he must be separated from the ewes and spends his days with his wether pal, Brewer. Their fleeces are a beautiful mix of black and white and I cannot wait to shear them in the coming spring. I will be spinning their wool and hopefully in addition to our vegetables and fruits I will be selling skeins of yarn and felted wonders.



My babies, the Nubian Goats I raised from bottles, are growing up too. They no longer endlessly search for milk or suckle at unsuspecting fingers. Elliot has the hardest time dealing with the goats. Any time he attempts to feed, clean, or change water, they are jumping on him, climbing on him, and nibbling his clothes, hair, and arms. When asked how he feels about incorporating livestock onto the farm, his response is, "I really like sheep."



But all parts of our farm are important and cherished by both of us (even the goats.) Biodiversity creates balance in nature and we treasure our opportunities to work symbiotically with plants and animals. The sheep and goats provide manure, clothing, milk, meat, cheese, soaps, and lotions. They are to be moved in a rotational grazing system together where their diversity will allow them to feed on different plants in the same pasture space for a more balanced mow down and renewal.



We are busy and tired, but lucky. Our physical exhaustion is met with a mental and spiritual inner peace. Our life is our farm and we hope that you join us at a market or visit us in Douglasville to try our beautiful creations. We are doing this because it is what we love to do and nothing tastes better or is better for you than love.

The Sun Dog Farmers To Market

The rain dance that Elliot and I have been doing for the past few days has finally payed off. A cool, dampness took over our little part of the world this morning and our plants are thankful for the relief (and frankly, so am I.) The weather in Georgia has gone from Winter to Summer in a matter of days and it has taken all of us a little time to get used to (especially those of us who are accustomed to having snow on the ground in April.) Elliot on the other hand, much like our tomato plants, is thriving in the heat he was raised in and is taking my misery as revenge for the frigid weather I put him through in the North.

We have been putting long days of poop moving, dirt mounding, and re-potting in getting ready for the Farmers Market Season that is quickly and mercilessly approaching. Our plants are developing quickly and our fields are coming together with the aid of amendments and tilling in certain areas. Much of our work is done by hand and while our impact is small, it seems our muscles are destined to be large! There is nothing like sleep brought on by physical exhaustion and mental peace.

As the Sun Dog Farmers, we have our first Market this Weekend on Saturday at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market in the Buckhead area. We won't have much to show for ourselves yet (just some eggs and some honey) but we will have a hardy list of things to come. We are thankful for all the support we have had from friends so far and we can't wait to meet all of you Farmers Market shoppers! Following the Peachtree Road Market will be the first Crop Mob Atlanta Volunteer Meeting at the Market and I definitely look forward to meeting all you foodies who want to make a difference.

The Farmers Market really is something that all people should experience. From my journey I can't think of anything more enjoyable than connecting to the people who buy my food or buying food straight from the hands who pick it from the stem or pull it from the ground. The Sterile, plastic, frigid environment of the supermarket really disconnects people from the natural, organic, raw nature of growing. I see the Farmers Market as a great way to start re-establishing that connection. For many, the Supermarket is the only place they have ever seen food on display and the image of a strawberry on a plant or a potato in the ground is not a part of reality. The Farmers Market is a perfect place to reintroduce a self-insufficient culture back to the basics and teach them an old definition for where food comes from and what it means to be "clean."


We'll see ya'll in the city on Saturday. Feel free to give me a high five; I dig those.

Farming Stinks! (And so do I.)

Things on the farm are finally bursting from the soils and germination mixes, just as the Spring blossoms are bursting from their respective trees, shrubs and wildflower stems. Our lives have been non-stop action since we moved our little family onto the plot and I have scarcely had a moment to reflect on it all.



We've had our Farmer's Market Meetings and made our commitments. Now it is time to convince our growing vegetation to fruit and prosper. We have done our best to think only positive thoughts, as we feel this will benefit and carry our little seedlings into this world. This has been more of a feat than it seems. As human beings we have evolved thinking cynically about things in the world. It is a defense mechanism. We don't trust uncertainty or people because a lack of trust can prevent danger. I've done my best to go against the grain of my mental lumber. The only way to do this, really, is to adopt a "go with the flow" attitude which is exceedingly difficult when the fate of so much of your livelihood is out of your personal control. When something happens on the farm (something doesn't germinate, something gets eaten, there is persistent rain for 200 years, one of the dogs runs through a newly seeded field to chase a wandering and unsuspecting chicken) we have to clear our minds of the newly formed obstacles and think of ways the problem will sort itself out or appreciate the way these little happenings alter the course of our journey.


We've made some additions to our family, our four Rhode Island Reds are now older sisters to our newest batch of day old chicks. Maybe the new babies will make them jealous and finally convince them to start laying eggs.


We have a Buff Orpington, Black Australorp, Ameraucana, and a Golden Laced Wyandotte. These little mamas along with their older sisters will be our family birds. Elliot being the cook that he is will go through a lot of eggs during the week if they are available (hopefully to make me all the ice cream and pimento cheese sandwiches I can eat.) Our chickens will live (as the Rhode Island Reds already do) in chicken tractors and be moved across our dormant "No Till" fields at certain times so that we can make the most of their nutritious, nitrogen filled poop.



Speaking of poop, that has been the main word to describe my activities this week. Whether I am cleaning poop from a coop, spreading grass fed cow poop over a field, or mucking out a goat dairy stall and loading the poop filled hay onto a truck, my life has been very poop centered. One of the most natural ways to reestablish a nutrient base to a soil is animal waste. It is a cyclic system, where plants create energy from the sun and steal the nutrients they need to thrive from the soil. Animals eat the energy and some of the nutrients from the plants and the waste material from this activity comes out the other end in a nutrient dense form. On a pasture, this cycle can be seen very readily. As the cows move across a field, eating the vegetation as they go, they are also fertilizing the land with their waste. As long as they are moved often enough (and there are many other factors that determine how often they should move) the grass stays very green and grows relatively quickly. Because we don't want animals walking on our vegetables or browsing their fruiting bodies and vegetables, fruits, and herbs feed on nutrients differently, we bring manure in manually from these animal sources and spread them on our fields.



Each animal produces a different sort of manure due to their specific digestive systems which have evolved around the food they eat. We typically classify the manures in two different categories, Hot and Cold. A Hot manure is a manure that has a form of Nitrogen in it that is readily accessible to plants. You would not want to apply a Hot manure directly to a soil and put plants into it immediately, because the Nitrogen would be too available and would "burn" the plants. A cold manure is poop that has a form of nitrogen that is not easily accessible to the plants. It either has less of the nutrient, or it is in a form that takes time to break down. These manures can be applied directly and can begin fertilizing your plants and soil. Some Hot manures are cow and chicken, which need to be aged before applied to the field (or added to a composting system.) We got our grass fed cow poop long before we intended to apply it to our fields and our chickens forage over and deposit their goods on fields not in use. The goat poop we have been picking up, because it is cold, will be applied to fields directly where we intend on planting melons (and rabbit manure works in the same way.)

Where there is good poop to be found, you will probably find me moving it. The easiest way to get healthy, productive vegetation is to provide a nutrient rich, diverse soil. More on that later..

If I see you soon, sorry for the smell!

Oh, How to Coexist!

It's been a very rainy few days down at the farm; everything looking like a mud soup (with the occasional vegetable medley). We got our first chickens for our own personal egg production from a friend of Skip's who raises chickens for a living. Gifted four Rhode Island Reds just about to lay. Their bodies seem to reflect their "teenager" status; some parts seemingly full grown, some parts lanky and awkward, all parts moody with attitude. We are planning out our rotational grazing flock now, which should materialize very soon (keep your eyes peeled for beautiful, grass fed eggs at your local Market.)

We've had some bad luck trying to start our crops next to a thriving rodent population. Their mischievous nature has made it near impossible to evade their regular robberies of our seeds and seedlings. I'm not a huge fan of traps and death, so it has been a true test of our patience trying to use positive energy and ingenuity to secure our fort and stabilize a symbiotic relationship. I worked raising calves for a woman named Johanna Laggis on a 400 cow dairy farm in East Hardwick, Vermont a few years back who solved a similar problem in a way I find to be quite amazing.

Johanna raises some of the healthiest Jersey Calves in the state of Vermont, utilizing preventative medicine techniques and a state-of-the-art barn that gives each calf extra comfort and breathing room. This barn is well ventilated, and for that reason, she had House Sparrows come in and eat the feed from the calf bins. While this was not much of a big to do, each bird not taking much grain or water from any one bucket, the birds began to deposit the digested grains all over the place. Johanna began to worry that the poop on the buckets would make her herd sick (let alone it was a horrible chore cleaning them out incessantly) and decided to ask the birds to leave.

She went into the barn one morning and explained to the birds that they could drink as much water as they wanted and feed on the grain from the buckets as long as they did not poop where the calves were feeding. After a week or two, Johanna noticed that her respectful positive energy had cured the poop problem and while the birds continued to roost in the rafters of the barn, they did not poop where the calves ate their food or drank their water.

Now I know this sounds hard to believe, but since that day I have heard several stories similar to this one from vegetable production farms, to livestock farms. Johanna is a very scientific, sensible woman herself and I can't imagine her believing something like this unless it had happened to her, first hand. Now here lies my real problem...

Last night I tried to employ this method. Elliot and I sat in the greenhouse and explained our situation to the rodents of the farm. I had to ask Elliot to leave when I spoke, in fear that his presence would make me laugh or not take the situation seriously. I poured my heart out to the rats, explaining that this was my soul source of income and in human terms that is unfortunately the best survival technique I've got. I told them I loved them and asked them, for their safety, to avoid the peanut butter traps.

The next morning we awoke to the biggest raid yet! The One trap nibbled on, another trap dismantled and covered in ants. An entire tray of Spinach gone with Pac Choy and Kohlrabi seedlings nipped down to the soil. Maybe I said the wrong things. Maybe I lacked rodent finesse! Whatever happened, I seemed to have made it worse. If anyone knows the appropriate words to use with rats or what turns them off, let me know!

For now, I will continue to try and reconnect myself to the whispers of Mother Nature; rediscover the language of Symbiosis found in many multi-species relationships. I do wish I were better at picking up languages.

My Wings are Tired

I've been a ramblin' woman for the past few days and I have only recently been settled enough to make an update to our tale. Elliot and I flew to Pennsylvania for four days to visit my family. We had a big chili eating party,



watched Food Inc with my father, cooked meals and spent much of our time catching up with the stories, myths and legends that have been brewing in our absence. It is always good to go home, even when home becomes increasingly different every trip. Farmland in Lancaster County over the past few years has suffered land loss associated with suburban development. Considered one of the most fertile soils in the East, it is a tragedy to see such beautiful growing space become parking lots and tree-less deserts of identical houses angled in slightly different directions. Many of the houses themselves serve as uninhabited haunts as the poor economy has prevented many of them from being sold.

While wildlife in Atlanta never seemed to have disappeared, it was exciting to see the early signs of spring slowly fill the fields and trees of the Pennsylvania landscape. Migrating Canada Geese, Blackbirds, the occasional Robin or two, waterways full of Mergansers and Gulls, the lone Heron.. Every one seeming to bring warmer weather to the snow covered terrain. Our most exciting find had to be two Pileated Woodpeckers on a tree together moving up and down as if partaking in an ancient dance. We were able to watch the dance for several minutes before our presence made them embarrassed or bothered. I don't blame them for taking off; most ancient things worth knowing are secrets and sometimes you aren't meant to get the whole story.



We abruptly migrated South to Atlanta and moved into our camper/homestead. It was very refreshing that first morning waking to the sounds of chickens, songbirds, frogs, and a babbling creek. Fresh air greeted our nostrils as we stepped onto our porch followed by the wonderful smells of lightly tilled earth, aging cow manure, and the occasional blooming wildflower. Elliot has been spending the past few days working up to 12 hour shifts prepping the fields for the Spring crops and preparing seeds.



I have prepared our nest with a deep cleaning and arranged our artifacts throughout the cozy space. It feels like home now, one we can crawl back to and cook up our produce after a hard days work in the fields.



Today I went over to Farmer D Organics and gave a Backyard Chickens for Beginners Workshop that was a great success. The excitement associated with raising chickens in Atlanta these days is a wonderful representation of how many human beings are turning back to their roots. Many of the individuals in the class had chickens growing up and want to share this experience with their own growing family. Developing a healthy partnership with the animals producing your food not only ensures fresh, healthy ingredients at every meal, it makes people feel more empowered to take steps towards being more self sufficient. It's time for us to start deciding what we should and should not eat, as opposed to trusting massive companies to have our best interests in mind.

Finally, I must mention my newest project with Rationally Creative's Mike Lorey and Food and Ag Fanatic Kimmy Coburn, The Atlanta Crop Mob. It is Atlanta's very own volunteer network set to give foodie folks real hands on experiences on farms and the local Atlanta farming network lots of extra hands on large projects.

There is much to be done in Atlanta concerning the growing local foodscape and I am sure I will be a busy bee this Spring.

Northern Transplant Meets Red Clay

Once again I am in transition from one reality to another. From Vermont I have traveled South for hospitality, vitality, and dumplings. From deep brown soils to bright red clays, I know there is much to learn about my new home. I've been roaming the city streets of Atlanta for about 6 months and I am finally moving back into the quiet spaces of the natural world. While I have valued the lessons learned on the bustling speedways of the city and the lessons spread,


I know that my roots dig deepest in lands where the bees are the busiest and trees teach the value of patience.

I am moving onto the Glover Family Farm owned by Skip and Cookie Glover. They have spent most of their lives educating youth about the importance of growing food organically and have been instrumental in building the food movements that exist in Atlanta today. The other farmer that works out his passions over the land is the young, Joe Reynolds from Love is Love Farm. His sweetheart, Judith Winfrey, is a peaceful warrior for healthy food and heads up Slow Food Atlanta. They lease land from Skip and have developed a following of individuals eager to receive their CSA shares throughout the season. Both farmers are gifted stewards of the landscape and I am more than grateful to contribute to their efforts and ultimately continue to learn from them.

We've packed up our few possessions, our dogs (Bell and Forest),


and our inspiration and moved them into our camper turned homestead. We're looking forward to working with vegetables, bee hives, goats, chickens, and hungry people. My love, Elliot Smith,


will be spending his days sharing his talents with Skip and Joe growing produce and hopefully picking up more tips on how to grow holistically and heal burdened soils. I hope to spend much of my time doing similar things, along with working on my writing endeavors and my food related projects focused on helping the less fortunate Atlanta communities (stay tuned for more details.)

We consider ourselves new wave nomads and this next adventure in our lives will certainly be full of experiences that will deepen our love for the Earth and its gifts. Balancing our connections from the boonies to the city will give us new perspectives and help us relate to the people who will be sustained on our food. Our first projects include: getting away from the media and tv, the spring growing season, developing a good pastured chicken rotation, locating some goat breeders, becoming seed saving experts, and reconnecting to that sweet, simple life.

If you live in the ATL and care about food; we'll be seeing you soon.

Hey, I'm No Expert.

I have found through my own experiences that the hardest thing in the world to do, especially in public, is to admit you are wrong or don't know something. The hunger to be ever-aware, always on top, dominates our emotional and instinctual selves. Through the advent of science, we have labeled consistency as truth and from that day forward we have been placing experiences, phenomenon, life, civilization, creatures, matter, people and so on into boxes whose identity is constructed by us. This makes the idea of not knowing something seem pretty daunting.

The problem that this poses on a society whose information comes from experts in science and scientific law, who know everything there is to know about one particular thing, is not only the lack of holistic approaches to problems, but also the incorporation of biases and agendas. Someone might know that a certain approach works for keeping pests away from your garden vegetables, but being an expert in pesticides does not make you an expert on pests.

Our species has become too centered on creating individuals who are experts in overly specific fields of study. I feel strongly that it is time to start removing ourselves from the over-specialization of our insatiable society and start awarding ourselves honorary degrees in generalism. I think it is time to become hobbyists in tribal knowledge. If you have illnesses or children with them, don't just let the doctor be the expert, teach yourself about healing using herbal remedies and food. If you like eating delicious meals, teach yourself to grow and cook. If you eat dairy products, get an animal and care for it, milk it, make cheese. Make clothing. A trouble tree in your yard? Pick up a book and learn proper axe technique. Build something from the wood.

Turn off the tv, step away from the computer, and download some free information and skill-sets from your arms and legs. Investigate deeply into the world of self sufficiency and learn to distrust anyone claiming to be an expert.

One of the most inspiring days of my life has come from openly admitting that there are things about this world I may never claim to know. Even within our educational systems we are rhythmically pressured into believing that learning equals knowing. For the most part, I would say, learning equals understanding and that knowing truly isn't that important. What is important in my life is what I can do with my two hands to care for myself, those I love, and this world.

Taking Root

It's the beginning all over again.

A wild relative, in agriculture and the vast wilderness beyond, refers to a plant that shares genetic material with a fruit, herb, or vegetable commonly used by humans. They are plants that can be found growing naturally that produce edibles and live in symbiotic relationships with other naturally occurring vegetation. They are a beautiful reminder that resources are an abundant gift of nature and they serve as protectors of biodiversity.

As human beings, we spend a lot of our time altering things to meet our specific needs. We want our crops to be predictable, identical, to produce a bountiful harvest, to thrive in conditions that are easy to maintain. Our drive to control everything around us stems from a desire to create an environment that is beneficial for our friends, family, and children.

While I understand and sympathize with many of the goals of our civilization, I think in some respects our disconnect with nature is harmful to our planet and to our own species. I will use this medium to extend stories of hope in a world that is owned by dollars and cents. I will share stories of my experiences, beliefs, and of the people right here in Georgia constructing change every single day.

As a warning, I am too young to "know" anything, and I am always learning. I am passionate and opinionated. I am full of love to the point of idealism. I am hairy, dirty, and smelly. I have an overwhelming sense of hope that sprouts from Atlanta's newest moves towards a greener lifestyle. I am a newbie to the South and I have proud Northern roots.

I hope you join me, this is going to be a long trip.