 TURKANA FARMS, LLC Winter Stasis, Photo by Mark ScherzerSheep Overboard!Hi all, Mark here.The farm seems frozen in place just now. We are in winter stasis. The young pullets that arrived in late August have not yet begun laying eggs. It is still too early to start seedlings under lights for spring. With high temperatures in the teens and a brisk north wind, I’m in no mood to trim fruit trees and berry bushes. Contemplating the stillness brings its own pleasure.There was a slight flurry of activity while my partner, Eric, and I were in Québec and friends Arthur and Bernard were farm-sitting: two lambs born on December 27. (The eweling has been named Bernarthur in their honor.) These are very early births. Apparently Suleyman IV, this year’s ram, had just reaching breeding capacity when a few cool nights in early August triggered a surge in his hormones. Cool weather, as you know, triggers sexual hanky panky. It is a phenomenon of animal husbandry fully explored by noted zoologist, Dr. Cole Porter, in his treatise “It’s too Darn Hot”.Suleyman’s hormonal calendar synchronized with that of two ewes he was big enough to mount at that time. But I don’t expect the annual lambalanche of daily births to start until early February, roughly 155 days after Labor Day, when nights got consistently cooler, Suleyman got bigger, and the ewes next got their group menstrual cycle.So, quiet time. A focus on cozy indoor activities.This Saturday night, with the wind whistling outside and Eric in the City, I lit a fire and continued reading the book I have been eagerly chomping on, in small bites, since Christmas: “Champlain’s Dream”, by David Hackett Fischer.Fischer is a prolific historian, keenly sensitive to granular detail, and a great story teller. I have an enduring respect for Albion’s Seed, in which he traces American regional traits such as different levels of funding of public education to cultural norms in the different parts of England from which the region’s first European settlers came.Americans know little more of Samuel de Champlain than that he was a French explorer after whom a big lake is named. That’s because we learn history mostly through the prism of the 13 English colonies and how they grew into the U.S.A. Neighboring regions are discussed if we fought them (French and Indian War, the Alamo) or subsumed them (Louisiana Purchase, for example). I figured Fischer’s book on Champlain would help me better understand not just the history of Québec, where Eric was born and raised, but also its current vibrant culture, which Eric so loves and which I’ve so loved coming to know through him.I did not anticipate that the book would resonate with current geopolitical issues, but it does. Fischer starts by describing the political environment from which Champlain’s explorations arose. During the second half of the sixteenth century, French Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each other in nine civil wars, including brutal pogroms. Hundreds of thousands died. Henry IV, the first Bourbon monarch of France (and likely Champlain’s father through an illegitimate union) came to the throne in 1589 and ultimately ended that strife through a policy of tolerance and a guarantee of prosperity to all, regardless of affiliation. When criticized for buying loyalty from his subjects, he responded that it was far cheaper to buy loyalty than to enforce it through the sword.Champlain operated out of similar humanistic instincts. Repulsed by the oppression, including forced labor of indigenous populations, he saw in Spanish colonies he had visited, he set out to create a different model of colonization in Canada: a culture of collaboration with native peoples whom he respected as equals. For all the inequities to which First Nations have been subjected in Canada, Fischer concludes that the basic approach and tone set by Champlain had positive effects. It seems to me reflected in the much greater respect and influence the autochtones in Canada enjoy today, as compared with most of the rest of the Americas.It made me think: Where are the Henry IVs and Champlains when the world needs them?But reading last night about Champlain’s first colonizing voyage in 1604 brought my focus back from the larger world to the farm. On the boats in Champlain’s small fleet were, it turns out, both chickens and sheep. You see, humans are not the only European colonial settlers of this land. Indeed, even the famed Navajo Churro sheep, one bloodline in the ancestry of Turkana Farms’ American Karakuls, descend from sheep brought to Mexico by Coronado in the 1540s.I suspect sheep and chickens were included on Champlain’s boat for the same reasons they are my mainstays on the farm. They are relatively small, relatively manageable, and they produce food quickly. Fischer compassionately speculates about the critters’ reaction to a stormy, tumultuous crossing. I assumed they’d be kept in the dark ship’s hold, and miserable even on a calm voyage. But it seems that on ships of the 1600s, sheep would have been kept in outdoor pens on the gun deck. That would explain how a sheep could go overboard. Fischer, the cautious historian, doesn’t tell us how this happened. But according to local lore, as they approached land the sheep got excited for the pasture it saw, jumped ship and swam to shore. It was slaughtered at Champlain’s direction for a feast, and that is how the settlement of Port Mouton, Nova Scotia, got its name.The local lore makes sense to me. Even if recently fed, my sheep will knock me and any other sheep out of their way in their mad dash for favored food. After four weeks at sea, on a diet of undoubtedly degraded hay, I can believe a sheep would jump ship and swim. Good and ample food, water and shelter, the common needs of sheep and humans, go a long way to keeping the peace. Mark checks out the new lamb photo by Arthur GaryAttention Christmas Tree DismantlersYour unsprayed Christmas trees, once denuded of decorations, become a welcome snack for the sheep. Feel free to drop yours by.WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEKEggs are plentiful and about to get more so, as the new chickens I started in August will start laying soon.In the red meat department, frozen lamb:Butterflied legs of lamb $16/lbRib or Loin chops (packs of 2) $14/lb Small racks of lamb $14/lb Riblets (breast of lamb) $8/lb Lamb shanks (packs of 2) $12/lbIn the not so red meat department, frozen heritage breed turkeys, raised on organic grain, see below, $12/lbIn the yellow and white palette: Eggs: $6/dozen  WHAT ELSE IS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK –AN 1878 SQUARE GRAND PIANO FREEThat’s right folks, I have finally as of July 27 received a Department of Environmental Conservation permit to transfer this antique piano, with its ivory keys. It has a venerable history and I want to find it a good home. You’d just need to come get it. Please email me at markscherzer@gmail.com or call at 917-544-6464 if you’d like to make it yours.HOW ABOUT A NEW YEAR’S TURKEY?HERITAGE BREED TURKEYS: This year we raised Holland Whites, Chocolates and Blue Slates. We still have frozen a couple in the 8 to 9 lb range, and about 6 birds ranging from 11 to 15 lbs. They were delicious for Thanksgiving. Fed on organic feed, pastured all day once they got big enough to go out, $12 lb  FARM PICKUPS:Email us your order at farm@turkanafarms.com, and let us know when you’d like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I’m now here full time, we’re abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we’ll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email. HEAR OUR SHOWIf you’d enjoy hearing these bulletins out loud instead of reading them, we broadcast them on Robin Hood Radio, the nation’s smallest NPR station. You can find it on FM 91.9, AM 1020, WBSL-FM 91.7 “The Voice of Berkshire School” or streaming on the web at www.robinhoodradio.com, where podcasts of past broadcasts are also available under the title AgriCulture in the “On Demand” section. FM 91.7 “The Voice of Berkshire School”can be heard from just south of Pittsfield to the CT border. You can hear the station on WHDD FM 91.9 from Ashley Falls, MA down through the Cornwalls and in NY from just south of Hillsdale down to Dover Plains. You can hear the station on AM1020 from Stockbridge, MA to Kent and from Poughkeepsie to Pawling to Kent, Goshen, Torrington, Norfolk, and Ashley. Recently added for those in the Route 22 corridor from Ancram down to Pawling is FM frequency 97.5 And of course you can listen in our own neighborhood of Southwestern Columbia and Northwestern Dutchess County, where it is being broadcast from Annandale on Hudson, 88.1 FM. FOLLOW USThe bulletins may also now be found in written form on line as well, at the Germantown, NY, portal ofhttp://imby.com/germantown/userblogs/agriculture-turkana-farms/ |
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