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Sunday on the farm

We are a seven-day-a-week operation, but it remains that winter and weekends are slower.  I spent the morning with the biodigester team, they were completing the training of some of our employees who will maintain and supervise the units.  I know, strange that this takes place on a Sunday, but it's a 7-day training program that runs from Monday to Sunday...

I've spoken about our biodigesters and the concept is simple but the execution is complex, mainly because we compress all the gases we produce (and dry them too).  Both my wife and I spent some time on the training program, but we excused ourselves when it came to the maintenance...if there is a problem we will simply shut the plant down (yes it is possible, for a short time).  It's a biodigester and not a nuclear power station.

My main job on weekends is checking things over. Farms are subject to all kinds of inspections, and last week our head butcher told me that we are really overdue for a surprise inspection of our plant.  This morning, I made sure that all the pens were empty and clean.  Our small plant is based on a model devised by an autistic American woman, who has done more for cattle safety in the past 50 years than anyone else.  Two of our stockmen were around today to feed the cattle, some days I am responsible but it's only every 10/12 days.  This week, since it should be quiet with about half the stockmen we will begin the inspection of all our fences and gates.  We now have almost 8 miles of fences that need maintenance.

There is usually no picking on Sundays, but there was this morning.  Our tomato and mini cucumber production over the past 3 days has been substantially above par, and on Saturday our heirloom cherry tomatoes were ready to go, so my wife and six pickers spent yesterday morning picking these fruits and today I helped too, it is unusual to have an unbalanced production, but it happens from time to time.  It will be one of the topics of conversation with our biologist and ecologist on Monday.  

I fed our egg layers this morning (one of my Sunday chores)  and collected a dozen eggs (we don't do eggs commercially -- our production was entirely for our consumption). Our meat birds have safely ensconced to "camp freezer" and have been for some weeks, so our chicken tractors are empty until spring, they too will have to be inspected and repaired.

Of course, we went to church.  For the first 40 years of my life, I probably went to church fifteen times, marriage, birth, death etc.  But here in the countryside, it is different, first, you meet all your immediate neighbours, I think I expressed already that the church steps are a great place to talk about farming, obviously everyone is aware that we acquired more land, and the usual discussions followed.  We returned home to have lunch with our daughter and her friend and wished them a safe return to school. 

Since the girls left around 3, we spent the rest of the afternoon planning the integration of the new land into the farm.  This week, we are interviewing a candidate for farm manager (we asked our two formans and both declined the additional responsibilities...they are both older ex-farmers).  It is amazing we spent three hours before dinner with a scaled map of the entire farm, boundaries, and services and made a decision to split our cattle herds with the milk cows moving to the new area where we will build a much larger parlour, and finally fully modify the old parlour for our goats.

Note: It's late and I am tired.  Still two comments stating that I am a hypocrite for going to church now that my neighbour knows me, and can make comments about me.  First, this is not America, where people carry their religion on their sleeve.  My neighbours are fully aware that we did not go to church much when living in London (if at all), it is them who invited us, in a very low-key, no-pressure kind of thing.  Typical you mention religion "en passant" and some bozzo make a big deal out of it.  Be warned unkind or unconstructive comments will be banned! 

Note2:  I got a question (several times) about why training now after more than six months of biodigester operations? The training was recurrent training that the installer offered to owners after having the equipment operate for a few months.  They offered the training, I put up a sign-in sheet and those who wanted could join depending on scheduling.  







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