Young Holstein. Photo by Nancy Jane Kern

MY FATHER WAS A DAIRY FARMER as far back as I could remember starting in the late 1940s. All the local farmers had a cow for milk, butter and possibly cheese, which was mostly for family needs and not the main source of income. Our Town of Austerlitz had been a big sheep and wool area, probably because of demand and possibly because it was hilly and rocky with clay soil suited for these animals. Sheep could graze almost anywhere and eat almost anything.

When demand for wool diminished my father decided the better paying dairy cattle farming was the way to go. He was recently married and needed to prepare for supporting a family. I remember seeing the skull of our farm’s last big Merino ram down in the corner of a pasture below the barn. It had huge, curled horns. My father said he was mean, and you couldn’t turn your back on him, or he would butt you flat on your face.

My father seemed happy to say goodbye to the sheep and start on a new career with cattle. We had a few mixed heritage cows and a big red and white Ayrshire bull, and then, when he could afford it, he bought a few registered Holsteins (the black and white cows). My mother didn’t like potentially dangerous bulls around, so when the new artificial insemination service became available there were no more bulls. Artificial insemination also gave us access to some of the top Holstein bulls in the country via their frozen semen. We used nothing but the best until we had a small, but high-quality herd of registered Holsteins with great milk production. Read more…

THE RICH GOLDEN SUN MELTS the winter snow and starts our beautiful spring season of flowers. Our first yellow flowers were the tiny aconite in the beds behind the house and they are often accompanied by white snow drops. It is so nice to see growing things again and yellow is the color of joy and happiness.

We traditionally force forsythia to bloom and brought in a few branches and placed them in water. The warmth of the kitchen tricked the buds and leaves into coming out and was the first spring bouquet to cheer me up. The daffodils are finally out of the ground on our cool hilltop. My mother always planted daffodils each fall and added more varieties to her large collection. It was so nice to take a container and knife outside and just keep cutting them. Her only rule was always leaving a few in each clump so they would still look pretty outside.

I often took bunches of daffodils to work, and we all enjoyed them. She loved to walk around the house and farm to greet and admire each clump, as if she were checking up on how her “other children” were doing. The pond in the meadow below the barn was another of her favorite spots for daffodils, and they had to be placed so hungry cattle would leave them alone and not trample them. This problem was solved by planting the daffodils on the steepest banks away from the shallow spot where the cows liked to drink. Read more…

WE’RE A SOCIETY that believes in testing. We test our cars for emissions, our food for safety, and goodness knows many of us have experienced the Covid-19 test. So it may seem natural to test our garden soil, but before we put spade to earth, perhaps we should start with the why and how.

Why should we care? The most common type of soil testing horticulturists speak of, nutrient analysis, tells us the elements available to the plant, the pH of the soil (relative acidity or alkalinity) and the organic matter content. These measurements provide one part of the picture of soil health (we’re ignoring important factors such as soil structure, texture and biology here) and we can then estimate which nutrients are lacking or even in excess for optimal plant growth. That last bit really gets to the point – we want to know about our soil so that we can help plants grow to their full potential. In this way, gardening is like parenting a child or raising a puppy. Read more…