Learn to prune fruit trees

FRUIT TREE

PRUNING WORKSHOP

Presented To Residents

By

Flip Flop Ranch & Heavenly Growers

Presenter:  Ruth Mayoral

When:   January 19, 2013 10am until whenever!

Where:  Flip Flop Ranch, 9522 Donaldson Rd.

                   Lucerne Valley, CA

Cost:   $10.00  (Covers workshop/supplies and helps ensure

                                             Future needed workshop subjects)                  

To Sign Up:  Call us, (760) 247-5083

                                     Or

                        E-mail us,  heavenlygrowers@gmail.com

or RSVP on facebook by clicking here

You may bring any pruning tools you have, so

that you are comfortable with your pruning tools.

     We are excited about this Pruning Workshop, since many residents have a need for this information.  We are pleased to share this knowledge and hands on experience with you. The workshop is open to the first 30 people to sign up. 

What we need most...an identity

A recent visitor to the farm asked me an excellent question today on the phone.  "What do you need most?"  I was stumped.  So many things flooded into my brain that I couldn't think of any one thing to say.  We need some wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes and other tools.  We need feed.  We need apple trees because we want to start an orchard.  We definitely need to find someone to refinance our hay farm.  We need fencing and irrigation supplies.  We need seeds.  We need paint.  We need, need, need, need, need.  On a farm, you need so many many many things that it's hard to narrow it down to anything!

So I've been thinking about it all evening.  What do we really need?  And I thought, we need an identity.  One of the problems of diversified farming is that you become so diversified you don't specialize in anything.  We raise chickens, geese, pigs, goats, ducks, guineas, turkeys, cows and probably more that I'm not even thinking of right now.  And this is on top of our jobs off the farm.  It's overwhelming just thinking about it all.

Business have to grow up just like people and often have an identity crisis-experimenting with different products and services until they find what works for them

Any good business knows that it can't do everything.  If you try to do everything with your business, it will fail.  A good business has a niche.  So I've been thinking, what's our niche?  Endangered livestock and heirloom vegetables.  When we first started, we focused on our Cotton Patch geese.  That was our big thing.  That was what made us different.  Then we kept adding and adding.  I thought back to when we were first getting going.  We had our geese and we also had melons.  I haven't raised melons in a couple years now because I've been so busy raising everything else.

I think we really need to get back to our original love-geese and melons.  That's not to say that we can't still have chickens or cows, etc.  But we need to focus or it becomes too overwhelming.  And business-wise, customers get overwhelmed too.  If you're known for everything then you become known for nothing.  You can't excel at everything, but you can excel at a few things.  And when you excel, customers come running.  This is the importance of an identity in business and in life.

If you're still trying to find a niche, Joel Salatin offers the suggestion to grow what you like to eat.  If you wouldn't eat it, then you probably shouldn't grow it and you certainly shouldn't specialize in it.  I love melons.  My family loves melons.  And we all adore the geese (plus they taste great).

It's so easy to get carried away, especially when customers request this product and that product.  Our family is going to need to sit down and talk about what exactly we want to specialize in.  Is it melons and geese?  Is it apple trees?  We love apples too (see how quickly we can start getting off track again?).  Should we have a few specialities for different parts of the year?  Geese in the winter and spring, melons in the fall?  Vacation in Europe during the summer?  Well, maybe not that last one, but I can always hope.

Refinancing the farm

Getting the land to farm-or holding onto it-is one of the hardest things for a farmer.  Land is so expensive and it seems like everything is against you.  Banks won't give you loans, or refinance your property, such as in our case.

We currently have a 100 acre piece of farm land in need of refinancing.  If any blog fans are in a financial position to do this, we'd seriously like to talk.

Even in the best of financial times, it is extremely difficult to purchase or refinance farm land.  Lenders like small pieces of property with a home on it.  It's easier to resell than a big hay farm.  There are lenders who specialize in agricultural land, but in this economy nobody is willing to help anyone but the biggest, most financially successful farmers and that excludes just about all the farmers out there.  Most farmers are small and struggling.  Now in our case, we aren't struggling because two of us have really good off the farm jobs.  A refinance would actually lower our monthly payment and the lenders still aren't willing to bite because it's too much of a risk.  Huh?  Seems like a lower monthly payment would lower the risk *scratching my head.*  Guess that's why I'm not a banker.

Anyhow, if you're looking for a sound investment and you want to help a farmer out then send us a note! FlipFlopRanch@gmail.com

For a would-be farmer, the best course of action to get land is connecting with an older farmer.  Many farmer's children are not interested in farming the land after dad and mom retire and there's a good possibility that you, even though you're not family, can farm for them and eventually purchase it at dirt cheap (pun intended).  Sometimes farmers even will their land to their younger farm partner.  Farm Link, or in our state California Farm Link, helps to bring together the older farming generation with the younger farming generation in order to help young people get access to land.

If there's any young farmers out there interested in farming and in need of land, talk to us about this too!

Farm women and depression

Farm woman during the great depression

Too many responsibilities, environmental and social influences, and stressors place farm women at high risk for depressive symptoms (link to research article).  When guests come to our farm, they often are jealous of the slower paced, stress free lifestyle that we live.  You're so lucky!  They tell us.  We wish we could live a life like this.  Of course as soon as you ask them if they want to join in chopping wood or butchering, they often decline in order to take a nap while you go do the chore. And good for them, that's what a relaxing visit is supposed to be, but unfortunately that's not what farm life is lol!!

Farming is actually one of the most dangerous occupations in the world-more dangerous than a police officer or a pilot.  Women seem to be at a much higher risk of depression in the farming world as they try to juggle all the roles of mother, wife, farmer, marketer, accountant, risk manager, and so on that are required by farm life.  Farms also tend to be isolated and the social relationships that one has in city life is cut down to sometimes nobody.  This is one of the reasons we decided to start a guest ranch.  We were sick of never having people over.  We've also put more effort into fostering relationships with our neighbors.  Women also tend to take on more and more of the responsibilities on the farm so that their men (husbands/sons) can have off the farm jobs and make more money.  This can lead to increase in fatigue and isolation.

Financial stress is probably one of the biggest predictors of depression in farm women (well, anyone really).  And boy is there a lot of financial stress in farming.  Unlike other product production, you can't force your chickens to lay eggs or your geese to hatch or your cows to put on weight.  You can't force your crops to grow.  And the time it takes to farm makes it super difficult to have enough time to find customers for when everything actually is working (and that never happens-at least not everything at the same time, there's always SOMETHING going wrong on a farm).  Then when you do have customers, they often balk at paying the price of your product because everyone is so used to purchasing food that is subsidized by the federal government and is being sold at below the cost of producing it.  Sigh....not that I'm depressed or anything.

But seriously, it's hard to live on a farm.  It's wonderful too, but if you want to farm then you need to look at the realities of farm life and you need to really plan on how to deal with the stresses that are there.  How are you going to keep yourself from being lonely?  How are you going to keep from being overwhelmed with all your responsibilities?  How are you going to keep from stressing over the fact that your ten year old is driving a tractor that is responsible for farmer deaths all over the country?  You can't be a helicopter parent when you're raising a farm kid.  Living on a farm can be the most wonderful or the most horrible thing in the world.  It all depends on how you look at it.

Horse blanket commitments

Once you’ve decided that your horse might benefit from blanketing, you still have plenty of smaller decisions to make. Does he need a light blanket or sheet for daytime and a heavier blanket for night? Will he be turned out, necessitating a waterproof blanket, or does he just need a stable blanket for time indoors? Will he be turned out with other horses who will run and play? If so, he needs a blanket that will survive that.

Or will you turn him out blanketless, but then groom him before re-blanketing? If he rolls in the mud with his blanket, what will he wear while you’re washing the muddy one?

And aside from the cost of buying a blanket or two, there’s the time commitment that goes with blanketing and unblanketing, day after day. Who is going to do that work? If your horse is cold, blanketing may be your best option. But if you have choices, such as whether to body clip him or not, other time and nuisance factors come into play.

There’s the matter of keeping the blanket clean. Depending on the blanket materials, that may mean brushing the underside of it daily—or at least checking it—to remove any hay, hair, or stickers that could potentially rub against your horse’s coat. It may mean washing the blanket, which also means drying it thoroughly before putting it back on your horse. This likely means you’re going to need a second blanket. Don’t forget that it’s inevitable that you’ll have to do some repairs—even if it’s only to reattach a buckle.

Even with a blanket, which will help keep your horse clean, you should groom your horse every day. He’ll get itchy wearing a blanket, just as you would if you wore the same sweater day in and day out.

If your horse is turned out with his blanket, you have to make sure that the fabric doesn’t absorb and hold water when it gets soaked. A wet blanket will get a horse cold very quickly. Read the labels carefully. “Water-resistant” may be fine in a light mist, but you need “waterproof” if your horse is to stay out in the weather. And that means you’ll have to re-weatherproof it after cleaning.

Of course, you’ll have to be sure that the blanket fits well and doesn’t rub your horse’s coat. Even if it seems to fit, keep an eye out for the telltale hairs that seem as though they’ve been shortened, as if newly clipped or roughed up. This often happens over the hips, on the shoulders, or around the neck opening or withers after the horse has been wearing the blanket for a while.

When the hair gets rubbed, the skin will become tender also. For some horses, even a good-fitting blanket will eventually rub, so he may need an undergarment that will allow the blanket to slip along his shoulders more easily.

And even when everything works perfectly, you can still come home to find your horse naked and your blanket investment shredded by a naughty pasture mate.

As in most things, getting by as nature intended is generally your best option. But when blanketing is the right choice, you get to enjoy the warm feeling of knowing you’ve done your best for your buddy.

When to blanket a horse

The farther you get from the ideal, the more appropriate it is to consider a blanket. Not every horse has a wooly coat. Some breeds of horses have thinner coats, and others have thin coats from blanketing, being under lights, living in a warm climate or barn, or having been clipped. Even within a barn, you may find one horse who doesn’t need a blanket, another who just needs a sheet at night, and another who seems to require a winter parka.

But a fuzzy coat isn’t the only determining factor. Consider whether the horse is underweight, isn’t eating enough roughage, isn’t able to get out of the wind or wet, or has some health concern that compromises his ability to stay warm. Remember, though, when you put a blanket on your horse, you squash that natural insulating layer of air in his coat. In borderline situations, he may actually be more comfortable wearing his natural blanket than your store-bought one.

It’s usually necessary to blanket a body-clipped horse. You can layer blankets, the way you might wear a light sweater under your coat. And for any horse out in wet weather, keeping him dry is key to keeping him warm.

If the horse isn’t body clipped, you have the dual challenge of cooling the horse down after a workout without allowing him to get chilled. You’ll need to put towels or a wool cooler under a light sheet and remove the towel or cooler as it gets damp.

With any horse, you should periodically reach under the blanket to be sure the horse isn’t hot or sweaty, especially a horse who has been worked, because he can appear cool but then get sweaty again once he is back in the stall.

Though horses adapt to changes in climate, they don’t adapt well to rapid changes. So the horse who was fine when left unblanketed last week might benefit from light blanketing tonight as the leading edge of a cold front comes through. Remember that the big worry during weather changes is that the horse may colic, often due to decreased drinking. So while blanketing is important, having not-too-cold water is critical.

Some owners think they’re doing their horses a favor by closing up a barn to keep their horses warm. But they’re also closing in ammonia fumes and allowing moisture to build up. So instead of heating the barn, it’s better to blanket the horses and allow for plenty of ventilation.

It takes calories to stay warm, and some horses need all the calories they can eat. That’s especially true of older horses who have difficulty chewing or holding weight, and of horses who have been through a health or shipping stress. In those cases, blanketing helps conserve energy and boosts their ability to stay warm.

If blanketing is the best option for your horse, try to avoid having him wear the blanket 24/7. Even a little unblanketed turnout time in the sunlight on a winter day will do most horses good—whether to have a good roll or just to give their skin a breather from the blanket.

How do horses stay warm?

Horses stay warm much better than people do, and they are quite comfortable even when you and I might be reaching for a jacket. In short, you can’t determine a horse’s need for a blanket by how chilly you feel.

The primary way a horse gets or stays warm is by digesting hay. Digestion is really a fermentation process, and one of the by-products is heat. When your horse is facing a cold night, the first consideration is to provide him with plenty of hay to keep that furnace burning. And in order for that digestion process to work well, he needs water. Ideally it won’t be ice cold.

The horse’s bulk is a great help in keeping warmth in. Think of how thick a horse’s body is, relative to the slender frame of a human. Just as a large block of ice takes longer to thaw than a smaller chunk, a large, warm body stays warmer longer than a thin one.

On top of that, a horse’s winter coat has the ability to fluff up, the hair literally standing on end, thereby creating a warm layer of air around the horse. Long “guard” hairs create an additional layer and fend off light rain or snow.

Even though it’s cold out, an average horse in good condition, eating plenty of roughage, and wearing his own hair coat is probably going to stay warm—as long as he can stay dry and isn’t in direct wind.