City vs Country

(Wife of PJ Farmer Here )

Just some of the difference I've noticed between city living and country living...

In the city when you run into traffic it usually means that rush hour has commenced.









In the country when you run into traffic it usually means there is a big a@@ piece of farm equipment blocking the whole road and shoulder and no one can get around the big boy.











In the city driving 15 -20 miles seems like nothing. In fact you almost don’t get in your car to go less than that.







In the country 15 miles seems like FOREVER. Without the buildings going by and only cows to count it seems so much longer.










In the city a traffic accident usually involves other vehicles.










In the country a traffic accident usually involves one car and a ditch.











In the city the street lights come on and light up the night.









In the country the stars come out and light up the sky.













In the city there are planned flower gardens and containers.








In the country there are wild flowers along the road.












In the city a kid might point out a cow.










In the country a kid will not only tell you it is a cow, but the type of breed.













In the city you get so excited when you see a deer. You call your friends and say, “I just saw a deer!”



In the country you drive down the middle of the road praying the deer stay in the ditch and leave you the heck alone.










In the city there is always somewhere you can go in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep.





In the country everything closes up by dusk.














In the city you expect a certain amount of professionalism and customer service.











In the country it is seat yourself and we will get to you when we finish catching up on the local gossip.












In the city if you hear gunfire in your neighborhood you watch the news expecting to have them mention it.

In the country if you hear gunfire, it is just your neighbor Clem doing a little target practice.

In the city when someone waves at you, it is most likely the one-finger wave.

In the country people wave because they know we are all neighbors.

In the city you get up hurry up make your coffe e and run out the door to your fast paced life.

In the country you slow down and enjoy the coffee from the deck while listening to the birds sing.

The price of organic

In doing my research of all things organic for our farm, I have come to realize that there are some things that the everyday person or "non-greene" person probably does not think about much.

The biggest complaint heard about organic food is how expensive it is. And if it doesn’t have all those bad chemicals then why does it cost so much more? Producing anything organic is more labor intensive, involves morality testing, is time consuming, very expensive and it is a very risky business venture as well.

On our hobby farm we have the luxury of not having to make a profit. I looked into the process involved to become a certified organic farm and quickly realized we were not there yet and may not ever be. There are a lot of certification fees (which are very expensive) and application fees and record keeping going back 3 years and just when you think you are done you still have to pay fees to stay organic. So I decided that my customers who buy from me, whatever product they choose, whether it is eggs, garden produce or cut flowers, will know me on a personal level and know the great lengths we have gone to "be organic".

So I’m not really in need of the official U.S.D.A Organic seal. There is risk involved in growing organic because if my crops are infested with some bug or mold I must find natural ways to deal with the problem.

I have recently been reading about viticulture (grape growing) in France. Some vineyards are attempting to go organic and that is really changing the way it has been done for hundreds of years. But the change away from synthetic pesticides and fertilizer has lead to a loss of millions of dollars in grapes. Even so many are committed to the new way of growing knowing there is a learning curve. Many simply cannot become “certified” because they want to use synthetic help to save as much of their crop as possible when conditions are bad and using any synthetic treatments means you can’t be “certified organic”.

Here on my farm I have not had many difficulties this year with pests but have found problems in another area that I didn’t at first think would be so hard to over come.

The thing I have found to be the most difficult is finding & buying organic chicken feed.
Depending on where you live in the U.S.A. the availability of feed varies greatly.
Here in rural Wisconsin, it’s kind of like trying to find a four leaf clover. I have searched and looked at several options and sources. Then I had found a great place that had just the right product I wanted and at a reasonable price, only problem… it's in Fishersville, Virginia. That’s 904.10 miles away! No problem they ship it right to you.

Let’s do some math shall we? I need 200lbs of chicken feed that should last me approximately 6 weeks. I have to feed 37 chickens everyday. At $25 per 50lb bag X 4 bags = $100. Ok, that isn’t too bad, but the shipping cost of a 200lb load is $76 ouch. $176 every 6 weeks!!! (Now consider that non-organic feed would cost me $48 for 4 bags and it is just down the road a bit.)

There has got to be some place local to get organic chicken feed right? NOPE!
So back online I go in my quest for the perfect chicken feed. After many hours of searching I finally have some success and I’ve gained knowledge on how the supply chain works in my state.
I found 5 places to buy organic chicken feed from here in WI. 1 only sells by the ton so they were out. I just can’t buy a ton of feed for my 12 birds. 3 of them are on the other side of the state about 6 hrs drive time. Not exactly a trip I want to make very often, but maybe on my way home from a trip to Minnesota (which I make a couple times a year).

That leaves one supplier left. After studying the ingredients of said supplier I find that a lot of the protein in there feed comes from soybeans. And I’ve notice that the case for all organic chicken feed in the state of Wisconsin. So what is wrong with soybeans? Well I called my source in Fishersville, VA (remember the one I liked but didn’t want to pay the shipping). They are promoting “soy-free” feed and I wanted to know why? Turns out soy is no longer cool, here is why http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/index.html
(In case you don’t want to look up the link… soybeans have a form of estrogen that has been linked to early onset of puberty in teen girls, retardation of sexual organs and maturity in boys, cancer in women and other problems…). Ok, some bad stuff in there, but it does seem to be accumulative and in the mean time I’m just happy to find organic feed, even if it does have soybeans, at least they are organic.

Today I drove to 2 hrs to Frank Organic Feed & Supply in Jefferson, WI. I had placed my order by phone and made arrangements to meet the owner, Joe Carens. When I arrived Joe was there with my order and we had conversation about chickens, gardening and the organic business. Joe was nice enough to let me take a couple of photos before I left, and then me and my chicken feed went home.

Joe also has a soy-free alternative for chicken feed, only problem… again it is by the tonnage. So, either I need more chickens to feed, cough up the money for shipping or Joe has offered to call us the next time someone orders soy-free feed, and if we are in the market, he will order an extra 200lbs of feed for us. Now thats service.
Heck maybe we can even find a few other farms around here willing to go in together and buy a large quantity of soy-free feed. You never know, maybe in 3 years we will be the supplier of organic grains to make feed for this neck of the woods.



Frank Organic Feed and Supply
121 W. Candise St.
Jefferson, WI 53549

Contact: Joe Carnes
FAX: 920-674-5729
Office: 920-674-5730

Center Flower Garden

Wife of Pajama Farmer
Our house is at the top of a hill with a circle drive way on top. The middle of the circle is filled with grass, clover, other "noxious" weeds, and a big light pole. It’s actually pretty boring. In the winter we have to snow-blow our way through the middle to have a straight line to the garage. In the spring it is usually pretty mucky (like everything else in the thaw) and in the summer and fall it just is. The landlord has been seen driving through the grass so I know he isn’t worried about “ruining the lawn”, but I wanted to spice it up some how.

A flower garden, yep that’s the ticket! Of course I was about to dig up someone else’s sod and plant a garden around their light pole. I hope Steve (landlord) meant it when he said we could do what we wanted.

I picked the light pole to make the garden because I wanted to grow morning glories up it. That and I figured the pole would stop a snowplow from ruining it and those who drove across the grass, again... the light pole would help guard my garden. The hard part was digging up the sod. I swear the grass and roots were a foot deep and well packed.

I marked out a rough kidney shape and told Daryl that I wanted all the sod removed. He looked at me like I was crazy. Then he tried to convince me to make it smaller. Poor guy, he knew I wouldn’t be able to remove all the sod myself, though I did loosen about 1/3 of it. (Daryl came up with a great place to put the sod which was watered a lot and has grown in nicely in its new home.)

I had a plan for what I wanted, but sharing a vision that is in your head can be difficult. I tried to tell Daryl what I saw, but he wasn’t seeing it. But my wonderful husband just followed my directions knowing that even if he didn’t see it or understand it he would help me bring it about.

I wanted to make a “secret garden” in my garden; see, not so easy to explain. I wanted a faux garden gate with a rock path that leads to this “secret garden”. I wanted to make a short rock wall around the whole thing, with another wall/fence inside around my inner garden. I found an old piece of bark that I leaned up agaisnt the pole to help the plants climb. I could see it all in my head. This was what it looked like after we dug, put first row of rock around garden, made path and set up the gate.
Not very impressive and I think Steve thought I was crazy. I bought seeds and we started some flowers inside. I didn’t really have a plan for the types of flowers except poppies. I wanted a section of just poppies. Other than that I’d wing it. I got a 2 different wild flower mixtures, one annual and the other perennial. I mixed them together and sprinkled them on either side of my dirt path (it was still missing stones).

I planted my baby marigolds and 4 0’clocks that I had started inside. I bought a few plants so it wasn’t ALL dirt and then I waited. Darn seeds were taking too long! We added a lot of manure to the dirt and sand since it was pretty clayish when we started. I must have checked that garden every morning for a month before I finally saw something.Unfortunately for me, this spring did not start out very strong. We had cold and rain longer than normal and the growing season didn’t not get off to a good start. I only hope our growing season isn’t cut short in the fall too or us and everyone else will be hurting.
Finally the flowers did what flowers will do, they grew. I know my watching them and trying to coax them along didn’t make them grow faster, but it was nice to see some thing happening.

Then it happened, everything I had hoped, the poppies bloomed and they are glorious!! I LOVE them. The rocks in the path look great. I am still not done. I want to make the rock "wall" at least 2 layers high, and I want to plant a Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (a really neat shrub) in the middle of the grass section for my "secret garden". I'm still going to fence in that "secret garden" and I still have a few empty spots to fill, but I'm waiting for the perennial sales to start at a nursery near us. They have some unique plants I want to use. BUT as you can see my vision is starting to take shape & form and even Daryl and Steve can see what I see.

Culture Shock

Wife of PJ Farmer here...

Well it isn't hard to adjust to such a beautiful place and I have lived in the country before. Heck in one town, we lived on Main Street and were next-door to a dairy farm, can we say "country town"!

The hard part about moving here was leaving my friends and the lack of city culture. There is one african american man at my work and I want to tell him how nice it is to see a face with some color in it. The town that is 15 miles away is actually a pretty ethnically diverse town, but I am used to being surrounded by it, not having to drive to it.


I also miss my pets. Within one month we lost both Rex (our dog) and Flower (our cat) to unnatural deaths.

Rex who we have had in our family for 3+ years, was hit by a car on the hwy we live on. In the city he wouldn’t leave our backyard if we let him. He want to be next to us. When we went camping people were amazed that we rarely had him on a leash. Rex stayed with us, listened to us and was wonderful with Trinity.

When we moved to the country a funny thing happened to Rex, the “hound” in him came out. In the city going for walks he was a “sight hound”, usually watching where we were going and not sniffing very much. In the country his nose got to smell things for the first time. He would run in the low land, the woods, the field, anywhere he could.

Rex was still an obedient dog, but heaven forbid we leave him outside by himself for very long. Once he was outside for about 15 minutes. We got a call from someone who picked him up and he was 5 miles away!! 5 MILES! The boy could run. Spring time was when this all happened. As the snow melted away and brought new smells, something in Rex just clicked. He was a joy to watch. Running, sniffing, chasing… he was alive. Then it happened and so quick too… let out just to go potty in the drizzling rain. We had been tying him up so that he wouldn’t run if we weren’t outside, but hadn’t that time. I guess he saw his opportunity to run across the highway to sniff the lake and that was it.

He was hit twice and died pretty quickly. Daryl buried him under some trees facing our house so that he is always coming home to us. Trinity still talks about him and that was months ago. Landlord says that every dog he had as a kid was killed on that road. Makes me wonder how we can have a dog and keep it alive.

Then in less then a month,our cat Flower was killed. I’ve had Flower for 10 years. She also LOVED the country. She would wander around the yard killing mice, moles and other little vermin. Flower would scamper after us as we worked around the yard. If she was outside when we drove up, she would be there to greet us.

Back story… our landlord has a woodchuck problem. For some reason the woodchuck likes to dig up under the shed part of the barn. Every time the hole is filled in, the woodchuck digs in again. Now being more of a conservationist then our landlord, I would have just left it or bought a live trap. The area the woodchuck is getting into, well there nothing the critter can hurt, so I would probably have just left it. The landlord used old fashioned traps, the evil kind… you know the ones I mean.

Now they had been in that shed for quite a long time with no success. I even forgot they were there. Flower had never gone near that area, so I didn’t link the two… I know, you are ahead of me and yes, Flower died by one of those traps while Daryl and I were away shopping.

Stupid traps!! Flower is now next to Rex with flowers planted on their graves. I also got the landlord to promise never to use those traps again and to only use live traps in the future.

So I had a few things to get over, but the senseless deaths of the pets was and is one of the hardest. We miss them both very much!

Good farmers have patience

Nothing to do now but water and wait...and wait.. and wait... (did I mention I’m not good at waiting)
After working so hard I found myself looking for things to do ~ cut the grass, water the gardens, feed the chickens and that's about it. Well there’s always something to do, but now that I’m working full-time there isn’t enough time to start new projects. I’m not the kind of guy that has a lot of patience, but I’m getting better (kind of have to on a farm, plants grow at their own darn pace).

We really enjoyed watching all the song birds around the farm. I put up a few birdhouses up that we could see from the house. I also enjoyed many mornings sipping my fine coffee on the deck bird watching. (My wife would sit on the deck in the early spring mornings huddled in a bathrobe with a cup of coffee to listen to the birds and smell spring coming.)












After coffee I would go exploring the grounds, one day I found 26 pieces of terracotta drain tile all stacked together next to the woods. I should mention there are natural water springs on the farm not far from the house. I then carried several pieces of the tile back to the lower garden… I had a idea.

















During this time I also started to transplant some lilac bush to make privacy hedge. Oh yeah, now my wife wanted to make another flower bed. My trusty shovel was never out of arms reach. I have a lot of landscaping experience. In the 16 years I was in the city, I had worked for two landscaping companies and a nursery/craft store. I was also self-employed for many years, maintaining perennial gardens for little old ladies. So when my wife says "I have an idea for a flower bed honey". I know that’s going to mean serious work. Good thing for her I happen to be good at it.



I did 98% of the work and let her plant the flowers. I think she was having a harder time adjusting to the country life than me. She has a lot of friends back in the city; I was always the lone wolf type. I enjoyed listening to her come to me with excitement over the next flower blooming or the new bird in the feeder, or critter she found. Learning to enjoy the simpler things in life is something that happens only after a considerable amount of time out of the carpool lane.