Max stands in the middle of the pasture, orange Wall-E t-shirt topping his hand-me-down Oakland A’s shorts. His body tenses as he waits for the signal from his big sister. It is her job to put the alfalfa in the trough for the cows. It is a distraction, aimed to occupy Cookie while I coax Mocha out for her evening milking.

Cookie, mother of Luisa and foster mom to Star, only gets milked in the morning. Each evening, the calves go into the adjoining pen so that Cookie’s milk can build up overnight. We milk her in the morning and feed that milk to the other 2 calves and/or to the pigs, then her calves come back in to finish up what is left. Cookie has a lot of milk.

So each evening, we traipse out to the field. I carry a bucket for the milk in one hand and a bucket of wash water in the other. Bella runs to the other side of the pasture and throws in some alfalfa to tempt Cookie while I call Mocha in to milk. I take my place at Mocha’s side and begin milking as Bella opens the gate for the calves. Max takes his place in the center of the field, awaiting his cue.

He is all boy, except for the pink Hello Kitty rubber boots he insists on borrowing from Olivia. He fidgets as he waits, eager to do his job.

Bella entices Star first and he trots over to the gate. Max rushes in to make sure Star gets all the way across the pasture then resumes his spot at the center of the field. Luisa separates easily, but she is in no hurry. She runs toward Max and he begins his routine.

He raises his arms out at his sides, lunges in her direction and yells. “YAH!  YAH!”

Luisa, only a month old, is already taller than the top of his blonde head. She looks at him in surprise. She is the princess of the pasture and she has no intention of being bossed around by anyone, let alone this small creature.

“YAH! YAH!” he yells again. She shoots him another look and lopes away, joining the other calves. Luisa runs just fast enough to get out of the way of this mini madman, slow enough to show that she isn’t the least bit afraid of him.

“Good job,” Bella yells from the sidelines and Max latches the gates. On the way out, she puts her arm around his shoulder. “Pretty soon, you’ll be moving cattle all by yourself,” she tells them. 

My little cowboy grows an inch taller just thinking about it.

There are a few chickens who have been brave enough to cross the picket lines and management reports a steady 3 dozen eggs a day, down from the usual 10 dozen daily. Both the duck union and the quail union have thoughtfully considered striking in solidarity, but the membership turned down the proposal with a unanimous vote, so duck and quail eggs are still in abundance.

While labor negotiations continue, we will not be able to attend the Farmers’ Market.  We thank you for your patience.

Yesterday we checked and checked. The irrigation ditch provided water to make a wallow for the pigs to keep cool. The big fruitless mulberry tree provided shade to many of the animals. We did multiple checks for water, shade, comfort of the others and yet….

We lost a rabbit, 3 laying hens and 5 meat chickens. There was no obvious problem, just the heat. We’ve had losses before when the temperature has spiked. It just doesn’t ever get to be routine. It always feels like failure.

It is market day and the figs are ripe. The alarm is set for sometime dark, but I’m already awake, mentally preparing for the rush. I stumble into the kitchen, grab a cuppa joe and slip my sockless feet into Muck boots. On my way out the door, I grab Brian’s denim shirt to use as a light jacket. The calendar says summer, but this morning whispers autumn, a cool breeze insistently turning to wind as I head out to the fig tree with a box.

 I push myself into the arms of the tree, still-warm coffee sloshing around in my stomach as I navigate through the sticky leaves searching for figs. When figs are ripe, they change color subtly from a bright green to a softer yellow. The once-perky fruit begins to droop, heavy and tired. Many develop stretch marks; pregnant flesh anxious to deliver.

 Across the field, the cows look at me, startled. They lie there, chewing their cud, trying to figure out what might be happening. My girls are creatures of habit and this is not, in their opinion, how the day is supposed to begin. Like me, they can’t believe I’m up and out at such an hour.

 In a few moments, the rest of the farm wakes up. My kids are out doing their chores early, and the sheep and lambs are not as cautious as the cows. A chorus of bleats threatens to overwhelm the suddenly urgent bawling of the calves. Turkeys gobble a welcome to my daughter who feeds them. Not to be left out, the ducks begin clamoring for a treat.

 By now, my box is nearly full of figs, and the cows have determined that they may as well get up. Cookie ambles over to the gate, ready to be milked. Mocha follows close behind, each one vying to be the first to get a bucket of grain and the relief of an emptied udder. They stand, patiently waiting as Brian lugs out the milk machine.

 I wash Cookie’s udder and we hook her up. The milk squirts into the machine, hot against the cool stainless steel. I go back to picking figs as Brian monitors milking progress. In a few minutes, the milking is finished. I take in my figs and go to collect duck eggs. One hand is dedicated to opening gates and picking up eggs. The other hand—the clean hand, if you will—picks more fruit.

I head in with a dozen duck eggs, my stomach full of figs, Asian pears, fresh prunes and a peach whose juice dribbled down my chin in the cool of the morning. I forget that I need to fix breakfast for the children until the whining begins. I wonder what sort of mother forgets to make breakfast. I send the children out to raid the trees for themselves and put some rice on the stove. We’ll top it with butter, brown sugar and some milk, fresh from the cow.

The older girls have loaded the van, and they hop in with Brian to go to market.

Morning has begun.

I started thinking about the numbers. What would half a BILLION eggs look like? How long would it take our little flock to lay that many?  If we take the 550 million eggs recalled and divide by 12, we come up with 45,833,333 dozen eggs. If you account for culled eggs–eggs that are cracked or misshapen, we could easily round up to say 46 million dozen eggs would be needed to get 45,833,333 dozen eggs. Plus, it makes my math easier

Our chickens right now are averaging about 10 dozen eggs per day. In the spring, they lay more, in the fall and winter, their production falls off to about half that. Still, 10 is nice even number and it is roughly the average year round. Plus, as previously noted, I’m all for easy math.

To produce 46 million dozen eggs at 10 dozen eggs per day, it would take our hens 4,600,000 days. That’s 12,602 YEARS (not accounting for leap years).

Even the smaller farm, the one that recalled “only” 170 million eggs must be huge. It would take us 3881 years to collect 14,166,666 million dozen eggs.

I feel really, really small.

And small feels just right.

And if the rewards aren’t enough to entice me to buy locally-grown foods, here are some “flavors” currently available via Big Ag.

Taco Bell salmonella outbreak http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/08/06/taco-bell-linked-to-nationwide-salmonella-outbreaks/

E coli in Romaine lettuce http://www.zimbio.com/Freshway+Foods/articles/bcDOwuBVByV/Romaine+Lettuce+Recall+2010

Listeriosis in bagged salad http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100262093&gt1=31036

Typhoid in fruit pulp http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38680483/ns/health-infectious_diseases/?gt1=43001

Pick your poison!

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/farm-97964-godfrey-muck.html

And then I had an idea. I have a new regulation to impose. In these dark economic times, perhaps a ray of hope to government budgets everywhere. I think we should levy a tax on politicians who produce too much wind (from either end, thank you). We should regulate, license and apply a fee schedule to stupid ideas. The dumber the idea, the higher the fee.

I wonder how long it would take to erase the national debt.

Now, as a farmer, I want to keep the dust down because doing so makes my animals happy, my neighbors happy and my family happy. But sometimes…..dust happens.

Now, a “recall” is an event. In the most recent meat recall (as with many), the press releases don’t tell you where the meat came from or where it was sold. You are just supposed to figure out if you have it.

I was re-reading part of Barbara Kingsolver’s book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” today and she reminds me that defamation of beef is illegal in 13 states. So please, draw your own conclusions. I have nothing to say.

Well, maybe I have one thing to say. I would encourage you to find out where your meat comes from. If you can live with where it comes from and how it was raised, I’m fine with that.