American Way Farm: Before and After

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Before and After

This is the clearing project on the north side of the driveway. Since there’s now a permanent fence along the south side, we needed to clear back the brush and trees on the north side to have somewhere to pile the snow this winter. And let me tell you, after last winter's 12 feet of the white stuff (not all at once, thankfully—we’d still be digging), having a designated snow dump zone is critical.

I started by letting the goats in there for a few days. They’re excellent little underbrush eaters and make great "see-through" assistants. Once I could actually see the ground beneath the brambles, I brought in the chainsaw and chipper and went to work. Let’s just say the before-and-after photos are impressive.

Now all that’s left is to drag a few bigger logs to the landfill area, toss down some grass seed, and let nature (and the sheep) take over. By the end of next summer, you won’t even know it was a tangled mess of brush and tree limbs. The sheep will keep it trimmed like a well-maintained golf course—if golf courses were maintained by ruminants.

After all, that’s how this whole sheep/goat/pig/chicken/turkey operation got started in the first place: edible land management. (And yes, it’s exactly as glamorous as it sounds.)

Before:

After:

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When my husband, Jim, and I moved from southern New Hampshire to way, way up north in the fall of 2001, we thought we were just “getting away from it all.” You know—peace, quiet, maybe a moose sighting or two. We weren’t planning a major lifestyle change. We certainly didn’t think we’d be trading paved driveways for muck boots and birthing kits. But life (and nature) had other plans. The thing about the North Country is that it’s very good at growing trees. Tall ones. Fast ones. Persistent ones. Left unchecked, they’ll take over faster than a toddler with a jar of peanut butter. We were starting to lose our view—and not just a “I think the horizon looks a little hazy” kind of loss. I mean, we were being reabsorbed by the forest. So we came up with a brilliant plan: let animals do the work! We figured a couple of pigs and sheep would chew down the underbrush, fertilize the land, and maybe keep us entertained along the way. A few goats joined the team, because apparently we thought chaos was missing. Chickens showed up next, mostly for fly control—but also because they’re hilarious, not to mention that farm eggs are the best. And then, of course, a dog. You need a dog to guard the animals from the coyotes and the goats from each other. Before long, we had an entire ecosystem going. And then the questions started rolling in. “Hey, could you raise a pig for us?” “Do you sell your lamb?” “Got any extra eggs?” “Do you actually drink the goat milk?” And just like that… we were farmers. Not the bib-overalls, pitchfork-wielding kind (well, okay, maybe on Mondays), but full-on livestock-managing, early-rising, hay-in-our-hair kind of farmers. And honestly? We’re loving every minute of it—yes, even the goat-wrangling, fence-mending, rooster-escapes-at-5AM parts. We never saw it coming. But sometimes the best things in life are the ones that sneak up on you—preferably not in the form of a loose pig, but you get the idea.