Farm News 03-13-05
Sunday morning, after chores, 31°
Rosie Loses a Litter
Sunday morning I woke up at about 6:00, throat raw and head aching, and remembered that I had forgotten to give Rosie a nest box. So, I dressed, went out to the rabbitry, and put a nest box in for her and stuffed some shredded paper in it.
What I did was put her in a snit. She didn't like that box and wouldn't go in it. Monday morning I found her pushing some shredded paper into a corner, where she started pulling fur. An hour later she had produced a bunch of little pink wiggly bunnies. Sadly, it was just too cold for bunnies who weren't in a nest box and none of them survived.
Next week Rosie can start another pregnancy. Rabbits are very much 'use it or lose it' animals; does who go too long between pregnancies frequently become sterile.
Ayte's eight are peaking in the cute stage right now. They're fuzzy and funny, bouncing around the cage.
IDFA
There is a plan behind all this farm news drivel. The Family Farm is a creation of the Independence Day Family Association (IDFA). IDFA is a not-for-profit corporation that is dedicated to the idea that most people need a place in the country, sometime, if nothing else as a place to scatter their ashes. IDFA is attempting to design a model for a rural setting that offers opportunities for people of every age and calling it The Family Farm.
We are looking at a place where:
We are trying to develop guidelines for groups who wish to create and operate a place in the country. We are looking at far more than a golf course or a place to fish. To be capable of long term sustainability such a property would need to provide services to members at most stages in their lives.
The Family Farm model includes an 8-12 bed nursing home and supported living cabins for 8-24 residents, a council of elders in residence. There are now several projects underway building and operating 8-12 bed long term care facilities. Such small facilities are not necessarily more expensive to operate on a per patient basis than the traditional 100+ bed places and can be more comfortable for the residents. Our model places the long term care home in the midst of activities by the extended families of the residents. The small size gives the residents more opportunities to participate in the decisions made in operating the facility.
The nursing home and the supported living capable cabins give a total population of 16-24 retiree residents. Having a bunch of seniors all in one place is bound to lead to reunion planning. A spacious shelter house with a kitchen, showers, and toilets would help them with their plans. The shelter house could also serve for weddings, memorial services, and a communal summer dining room for the residents and guests.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a summer camp for the kids available every summer? A summer camp where Grandmother lives. A summer camp where a family can raise a garden, with the parents helping on weekends. The operating staff requirements are minimal because of the resident senior population. The environment we propose will provide kids with a safe place, whether for overnight or an entire school year.
We don't like to think about it, but any sizable group will need a refuge for victims of family violence. With the bunkhouses providing overflow space for kids, an extra cabin could provide space for a broken fragment of a family.
Of course, every Family Farm needs a vegetable garden, orchard, vineyard, and some berry patches. Chickens supply eggs and garbage disposal. Ducks keep the grasshoppers under control and turkeys accent holiday tables. A milk goat or two are generally nice to have in the barn. In general, a Family Farm needs the same kinds of homestead livestock as have generally been found in small, rural villages.
Add to this a pond or two for fishing and swimming and a playground area for smaller children. Some farms will want a stable and horses, others might choose to build in an eight hole golf course. A woodworking shop might be added or an observatory.
The Family Farm, as we see it, would have a minimal year-round resident population of eighteen to twenty, with fifty being a practical upper limit on resident population, a very small village. Providing sustainable infrastructures for populations in this range is becoming attainable and should be a primary goal in creating a Family Farm. In fact, sustainability must be fundamental to both the physical and the organizational parts of a Family Farm.
IDFA's model includes a Family Archives, a mini-museum with facilities for genealogical and historical research. This is the place where people can leave the portfolios of their lives and those portfolios can then be found by any of their descendants.
It is probably possible to create a Family Farm with as few as thirty households participating. Because the plans include building a long term care facility, there are loan and tax benefits available. Income from the nursing home combined with retirement cottage rents can be sufficient to amortize a fairly large mortgage.
How do you find twenty nine other households you would consider as partners? A church might be a good start. IDFA suggests that Family Farms be incorporated as churches, when possible. Your own extended family is another place to start. And, you can enter into the IDFA discussions of design guides for Family Farms.
Calvin Hits the Late Teen Trail
Calvin has moved on to a real job. He landed a full-time job in a cement factory south of Topeka and is now living near Lyndon. Good luck, Calvin, and watch out for ice. I've been urging him to find a full time job but now that he's gone I'll miss him.
Tom Turkey's Testosterone Trot
Christmas, the Blue Slate male turkey, is possibly the most testosterone besotted creature I have ever kept on the farm; worse than buck goats and teenage boys, even. He has a simple routine:
Now, I know that a lot of people are going to say, “And there is something unusual here?”, and, the answer is, “Yes. He doesn't stop for the equivalent of a cheeseburger.” Occasionally, in the evening, if I leave a light on in the rabbitry, Christmas will drop in for a nice meal, which I gladly provide, if I happen to be there. He seems to be sturdy enough, and I don't plan to eat him, so I'm letting him stay lean and concentrate on his business.
Although Christmas seldom interrupts the above routine to eat, he does take a break to drum occasionally. “Drumming”, as I would interpret it from observation, is quite similar to an after lights-out ritual performed nightly in the military school I once attended.
Christmas steps out into a smooth, sunny spot, spreads his feathers to the widest, and begins. His wattles and warts turn brilliant red, his face is bright blue, and his feathers vibrate in buzzes and rattles. Every so often he makes a sound like a defective whoopee cushion, with some other wheezes and groans right at the upper and lower ends of my hearing range.
Slowly, he turns around, showing all of his beauty. His tail display is very elaborate when viewed from the rear. Staying in one spot, he turns around, and around, and around, slowly, and then his right foot starts to strike the ground harder with each step. Soon he changes to striking the ground twice with his right foot on each step. Gradually, he changes from circling to standing on his left foot and drumming the right on the ground.
Sometimes he changes feet and loses a beat or two, but he picks it up again quickly. He's quite vigorous in striking the ground with his foot and I can hear him from fifty feet away. Then he starts crouching. His tail, once fanned vertical, is sweeping down behind him, still spread but now horizontal. Still drumming with one foot, he begins circling again, crouching lower and lower, and beginning to extend his head forward. Suddenly he stops, neck extended, tail fanned flat on the ground behind him, crouched down on the ground, perfectly still, and then a light tremor rustles through his feathers. He stands up, shakes his feathers out, circles a few times, and returns to [1].
E-mail Subscribers: Subscriptions are free until 2036, when they will increase to $5 per year. To subscribe, unsubscribe, contribute stories, complain or send a gift subscription, send an email to FarmNews@GeezerNet.com . The editor reserves the right to steal ideas submitted, rewrite submissions, and sign false names to them whenever it strikes his fancy to do so.
Rosie Loses a Litter
Sunday morning I woke up at about 6:00, throat raw and head aching, and remembered that I had forgotten to give Rosie a nest box. So, I dressed, went out to the rabbitry, and put a nest box in for her and stuffed some shredded paper in it.
What I did was put her in a snit. She didn't like that box and wouldn't go in it. Monday morning I found her pushing some shredded paper into a corner, where she started pulling fur. An hour later she had produced a bunch of little pink wiggly bunnies. Sadly, it was just too cold for bunnies who weren't in a nest box and none of them survived.
Next week Rosie can start another pregnancy. Rabbits are very much 'use it or lose it' animals; does who go too long between pregnancies frequently become sterile.
Ayte's eight are peaking in the cute stage right now. They're fuzzy and funny, bouncing around the cage.
IDFA
There is a plan behind all this farm news drivel. The Family Farm is a creation of the Independence Day Family Association (IDFA). IDFA is a not-for-profit corporation that is dedicated to the idea that most people need a place in the country, sometime, if nothing else as a place to scatter their ashes. IDFA is attempting to design a model for a rural setting that offers opportunities for people of every age and calling it The Family Farm.
- The Family Farm has a farm house and a farm manager
- Eight to sixteen cabins for retirees and refugees
- Bunkhouses for groups of kids
- A10-12 bed long term care facility (‘nursing home’)
- A community garden area and orchard
- The buildings and assortment of livestock found on homesteads 150 years ago
- Areas set up for family camping
- A pond for fishing or swimming
- A shelter house for large covered dish events
We are looking at a place where:
- kids can spend a summer on the farm
- we can go to find the end of life
- there are facilities to hold a big party
We are trying to develop guidelines for groups who wish to create and operate a place in the country. We are looking at far more than a golf course or a place to fish. To be capable of long term sustainability such a property would need to provide services to members at most stages in their lives.
The Family Farm model includes an 8-12 bed nursing home and supported living cabins for 8-24 residents, a council of elders in residence. There are now several projects underway building and operating 8-12 bed long term care facilities. Such small facilities are not necessarily more expensive to operate on a per patient basis than the traditional 100+ bed places and can be more comfortable for the residents. Our model places the long term care home in the midst of activities by the extended families of the residents. The small size gives the residents more opportunities to participate in the decisions made in operating the facility.
The nursing home and the supported living capable cabins give a total population of 16-24 retiree residents. Having a bunch of seniors all in one place is bound to lead to reunion planning. A spacious shelter house with a kitchen, showers, and toilets would help them with their plans. The shelter house could also serve for weddings, memorial services, and a communal summer dining room for the residents and guests.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a summer camp for the kids available every summer? A summer camp where Grandmother lives. A summer camp where a family can raise a garden, with the parents helping on weekends. The operating staff requirements are minimal because of the resident senior population. The environment we propose will provide kids with a safe place, whether for overnight or an entire school year.
We don't like to think about it, but any sizable group will need a refuge for victims of family violence. With the bunkhouses providing overflow space for kids, an extra cabin could provide space for a broken fragment of a family.
Of course, every Family Farm needs a vegetable garden, orchard, vineyard, and some berry patches. Chickens supply eggs and garbage disposal. Ducks keep the grasshoppers under control and turkeys accent holiday tables. A milk goat or two are generally nice to have in the barn. In general, a Family Farm needs the same kinds of homestead livestock as have generally been found in small, rural villages.
Add to this a pond or two for fishing and swimming and a playground area for smaller children. Some farms will want a stable and horses, others might choose to build in an eight hole golf course. A woodworking shop might be added or an observatory.
The Family Farm, as we see it, would have a minimal year-round resident population of eighteen to twenty, with fifty being a practical upper limit on resident population, a very small village. Providing sustainable infrastructures for populations in this range is becoming attainable and should be a primary goal in creating a Family Farm. In fact, sustainability must be fundamental to both the physical and the organizational parts of a Family Farm.
IDFA's model includes a Family Archives, a mini-museum with facilities for genealogical and historical research. This is the place where people can leave the portfolios of their lives and those portfolios can then be found by any of their descendants.
It is probably possible to create a Family Farm with as few as thirty households participating. Because the plans include building a long term care facility, there are loan and tax benefits available. Income from the nursing home combined with retirement cottage rents can be sufficient to amortize a fairly large mortgage.
How do you find twenty nine other households you would consider as partners? A church might be a good start. IDFA suggests that Family Farms be incorporated as churches, when possible. Your own extended family is another place to start. And, you can enter into the IDFA discussions of design guides for Family Farms.
Calvin Hits the Late Teen Trail
Calvin has moved on to a real job. He landed a full-time job in a cement factory south of Topeka and is now living near Lyndon. Good luck, Calvin, and watch out for ice. I've been urging him to find a full time job but now that he's gone I'll miss him.
Tom Turkey's Testosterone Trot
Christmas, the Blue Slate male turkey, is possibly the most testosterone besotted creature I have ever kept on the farm; worse than buck goats and teenage boys, even. He has a simple routine:
- Look for moving object; when one is spotted, move toward it
- Display
- If moving object does not change into sexually receptive female, go to [1].
Now, I know that a lot of people are going to say, “And there is something unusual here?”, and, the answer is, “Yes. He doesn't stop for the equivalent of a cheeseburger.” Occasionally, in the evening, if I leave a light on in the rabbitry, Christmas will drop in for a nice meal, which I gladly provide, if I happen to be there. He seems to be sturdy enough, and I don't plan to eat him, so I'm letting him stay lean and concentrate on his business.
Although Christmas seldom interrupts the above routine to eat, he does take a break to drum occasionally. “Drumming”, as I would interpret it from observation, is quite similar to an after lights-out ritual performed nightly in the military school I once attended.
Christmas steps out into a smooth, sunny spot, spreads his feathers to the widest, and begins. His wattles and warts turn brilliant red, his face is bright blue, and his feathers vibrate in buzzes and rattles. Every so often he makes a sound like a defective whoopee cushion, with some other wheezes and groans right at the upper and lower ends of my hearing range.
Slowly, he turns around, showing all of his beauty. His tail display is very elaborate when viewed from the rear. Staying in one spot, he turns around, and around, and around, slowly, and then his right foot starts to strike the ground harder with each step. Soon he changes to striking the ground twice with his right foot on each step. Gradually, he changes from circling to standing on his left foot and drumming the right on the ground.
Sometimes he changes feet and loses a beat or two, but he picks it up again quickly. He's quite vigorous in striking the ground with his foot and I can hear him from fifty feet away. Then he starts crouching. His tail, once fanned vertical, is sweeping down behind him, still spread but now horizontal. Still drumming with one foot, he begins circling again, crouching lower and lower, and beginning to extend his head forward. Suddenly he stops, neck extended, tail fanned flat on the ground behind him, crouched down on the ground, perfectly still, and then a light tremor rustles through his feathers. He stands up, shakes his feathers out, circles a few times, and returns to [1].
E-mail Subscribers: Subscriptions are free until 2036, when they will increase to $5 per year. To subscribe, unsubscribe, contribute stories, complain or send a gift subscription, send an email to FarmNews@GeezerNet.com . The editor reserves the right to steal ideas submitted, rewrite submissions, and sign false names to them whenever it strikes his fancy to do so.
posted by The Geezer at 8:07 AM
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