Little Month of Horrors
June / July Genuine Faux Farm Newsletter
The idea of writing a monthly farm newsletter started for us as far back as 2006 or maybe even earlier than that. At the time, we maintained our own website and added the most recent edition at the first of each month - often combining a couple of months in the Winter. When we started the blog in 2009/2010 the newsletters became blog entries near the first of the month - though April was always fraught with foolishness. And now, I write a farm newsletter whenever it seems like I should write a farm newsletter.
So, what’s the occasion this time?
Well, I think we might have survived the Little Month of Horrors - also known as June. Although, the beginning of July is looking a bit like a continuation of June, which means the jury is still out.
I guess we’ll just have to keep pushing forward and see how things go.
June - Little Month of Horrors
June has been a challenge for our farm since the beginning. It’s been enough of a challenge that I don’t know why I didn’t think of calling it the Little Month of Horrors sooner than this. I suspect one reason is that my brain is often numb with all of the things we have to deal with during this particular month of the year. This year, for some reason, my brain is either less numb or or just numb enough for me to be creatively irritated by all of the “things.”
Tammy actually put her finger on the thing that makes June so difficult when she noted that the events that wear us down are the sort that require that we stop what we’re doing to address the issue. So, not only do these things halt forward progress - they are working to set us back if we don’t address them. And it seems to both of us that every June is full of these show-stoppers.
Don’t know what I am talking about? Well, let me enlighten you.
There was a ruckus coming from the vicinity of the hen room and pasture. Now, we’ve raised chickens for many years now and we know the difference between hens just being fussy and hens that are actually in trouble. So, of course, I had to head out there and try deal with a raccoon that had just successfully killed one of the laying hens.
Now, I suppose we could have ignored it. But, we’ve had cases where a raccoon has decided to kill multiple chickens at a time. Failure on our part to intervene could have consequences far greater than just one bird.
So, I dropped everything to deal with the raccoon as best I could. Then, since I knew that raccoon would be back unless I stayed in the pasture with the hens, I went about herding chickens into their room.
Have you tried herding chickens that are not ready to go inside? If you have, you feel my pain. If you haven’t…
Let me invite you to our farm to herd some chickens.
This past June we have now lost enough of our laying hen flock to raccoons that we are no longer letting the birds out on their pasture. Now, instead of working on the farm things we really want (and need) to be doing, we’re working on solutions to move the hens and get them somewhere with better protection. Once that is done, the birds will go back to day-ranging.
A Historically Challenging Month at GFF
I mentioned our previous years of newsletters and took a few moments to review some of the June entries just to see if I’m letting recent events color my opinion of the month. All that review did was tell me we’re actually having a pretty good June so far. That might be only because we’ve scaled back on the farm and it no longer holds the prominent position for our income that it once did.
Obviously, the weather has often been one of those things that stops forward progress and demands that we go into emergency response mode. It was a June storm (2007?) that knocked a building down onto our truck - the truck that we needed to get to farmers’ markets. There was a June tornado that went just a couple miles south of our farm in 2010. There are multiple years where excessive rains set us back and we struggled to get crops in, cultivated and/or harvested. In fact, there are more Junes in my record books where things were too wet than there were when it was too dry. I even recall one June where I had to crawl into the shelter with the broiler chickens to lift them out of water and put them onto dry straw. But, when it was dry - it was very dry - which also required immediate responses on our parts.
I find multiple references to strong wind events that required clean up or repairs. And, of course, there are heat waves that caused the early crops to bolt (go to seed) and farm workers to wilt. There was even a memorable heat wave in 2012 that saw us trying to spray down our broiler chickens with a water mist to try to keep them from overheating. While we only lost a few birds, we never recovered the rather significant number of hours lost to the process of keeping them alive.
And it’s not just the weather that gets into the act.
June is the month for the well to break down (2013). Tractors stop working (pick a year) and Achilles tendons need to be repaired and reattached (Tammy in 2022). We know that things often break in June because their use is heavy and the time for maintenance is short. This is the time when wallets fall out of pockets somewhere on the farm. June is the best time for tools, chicken wire, or other objects to get left or accidentally dropped in fields so they can be rapidly covered by growing foliage. All of these things get found in July by a mower or other piece of equipment in various unpleasant ways.
June often finds us watching helplessly while some of the row crop fields get sprayed with herbicides on days that are too windy for the application. And, June has been the month that dicamba has routinely volatilized and drifted, forcing us to stop growing peppers and tomatoes in the fields. Unfortunately, June gives way to July, when these same farms apply insecticides and fungicides - but that’s a topic for another day.
June is also the month for CSA farms, like ours was until 2020, to struggle to fill shares because the warm season crops haven’t really started yet and the early season crops have given up. At farmers’ markets, people started to annoy us with questions about when the tomatoes will arrive (late July at the earliest) while they turn their collective noses up at the beautiful lettuce still available on our table.
And, of course, June is a month where we have all sorts of crops at practically every phase of production - seeding, transplanting, cultivation and harvest.
What Flavor of Varmint Would You Like?
June is also the month at the Genuine Faux Farm when some of the wildlife emphasize the “wild” part of their lives which brings them into conflict with our farm. There are all sorts of critters that have young and they are all hungry - so the parents often go to greater lengths to grab any meal they can. Whatever contract or agreement to co-exist with them we had gets scrapped and they move from being inconvenient on our farm to a becoming huge detriment.
While we do not begrudge space for wildlife, we do struggle with the menu selections they start making once the calendar turns to June. Raccoons start considering frequent chicken (or turkey) dinners. The deer appreciate salads that come in pots, young trees, high tunnels, or our veggie plots. The rabbits are pleased whenever new seedlings get transplanted and the woodchucks love finding seedling trays and just turning them into trays sans seedlings.
These are not the only critters that elevate themselves into pest (or varmint) status at our farm. In wetter seasons, the mosquitos can be annoying - but the real issue in June are the Buffalo gnats. These biting gnats have been so consistently bad in June that we stopped scheduling any event at our farm during the month. End of May? Fine. Beginning of July? Should be okay. But, June? No, thank you.
After a couple of years of drought, the gnat population is a bit lower. And, the winds have been higher this June than they often have been most other years. So, happily, the gnats have not been as awful as some of the previous years. But I still sport bites around my ears, forehead and neck from these little nasties. I’m just not the pincussion I often am this time of year - and I am grateful for that small blessing.
Now that we have entered the month of July, I am hopeful that the worst is over. However, I am fully aware that varmints, weather issues, equipment problems, and other challenges don’t really care about the artificial boundaries we create with our calendars.
Perhaps things don’t really change all that much in July. Maybe we just develop the callouses in June so we don’t feel the pain as much during the next thirty-one days. For now, I’m sticking with calling June the Little Month of Horrors. I sure do hope July leaves us with a better impression this year!
Have a good day and an excellent remainder of your week everyone!
Ah, Rob, I hear you. Although I have far fewer responsibilities than you, I feel your pain. A factor for me is that June seems to come right after January.
Mid-winter for me is a bit slower in terms of "gotta do's". Then suddenly it's June and that list is longer, while the "unanticipated crop-ups" list becomes the longest. And to compensate for the apparent loss of February - May, June lengthens to 150 days. Go Figure.