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Getting Water to the Worm Beds

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The irrigation system for our worm beds reached another milestone in October: the concrete was poured around the 4×4 support posts. By October 19, the pipe was laid, the swing couplers and risers were installed, and the straps and valves were ready for installation after the concrete cured. The remaining work included those fittings and connecting the new line to our two-inch main. It’s a fairly ordinary collection of pipe, fittings, posts, and concrete, but each piece has taken its turn on the project list. The purpose of all this work is to get moisture into the beds so the biological work can move along. The beds are filled with wood chips, and keeping that material moist is an important part of making it suitable for worms. Access has also been part of the planning: we need to get around the beds for weeding, harvesting material, and eventually replacing logs. The irrigation has to fit into all that activity. This is one of those farm projects where the usefulness of the finished ...
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From Eucalyptus Logs to Worm Beds

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Our outdoor worm-bed project goes back to a load of free eucalyptus logs a couple of years ago. Those logs became the sides of large beds filled with wood chips, with the idea of letting worms and other decomposers gradually turn that material into something useful around the farm. Getting from a pile of logs to working beds has been a “one foot in front of the next” process. Along the way, I removed the old IBC worm bins from the barn this summer. As of mid-October, there was still a trailer full of pieces and a couple more dump trips between us and a completely finished cleanup. The next experiment on the list is to plant fava beans in one of the beds for the winter. The main goal is biomass: growing material that can go back into the beds as part of the composting process. I also hope to save enough seed to repeat the planting without buying more. Starting with one bed gives us a manageable place to observe how the plants do as the plants, worms, and decomposing wood share the same...
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Biden Administration Pushes for Meat Processing Diversification

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 When we think of a meat butcher, many of us think of the familiar picture of the portly gentleman in a white smock, preparing cuts of meat right down the road for us to purchase fresh as can be.  And of course, we all know this picture is largely outdated, save for a few exceptions.  Instead, the modern meat packing plant consists of a huge team of employees all trained with highly specialized skills (rather than the broad-spectrum knowledge of butchers in the past).  The production line is essentially a (dis)assembly line, with each worker making a limited number of repetitive motions to accomplish one narrow portion of the butchering task, as the product moves by at a set speed on meat hooks and conveyers.  Employees work in close proximity to one-another, and conditions are ripe for a highly contagious disease like Covid-19.  The meat packing industry has also consolidated over time,  just like every industry has, with the bulk of the supply moving...
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Fall Tasks on the Ranch

 As you would expect, the tasks completed at TLR change depending on the season, giving the year a certain rhythmic workflow.  We have now begun our fall tasks, which in our fifth year of production, have taken on a grooved familiarity. Since the years flow in a cycle, it can be hard to define a "starting point" for the year's activities.  But in some sense, our production year begins in fall.  Summer tasks are winding down, and we begin preparing the farm for our earliest rains.  Hay is tucked away safely in the barn, to keep it from molding in the rain.  The barn is checked for leaks, and loose sheeting that may allow water infiltration, or may blow off in a storm are battened down.  (TLR is high up on the side of a hill in the Salinas Valley; the valley creates a "wind tunnel" effect, which concentrates wind energy in the valley, especially at our elevation, so winds can be extremely destructive during winter.) Fall is the main mating season for goa...
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Bulk Hay Purchase - Fall and Winter Feed at TLR

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 Throughout the season, we make various bulk purchases of hay to get us through the dry summer months, and the slow-growing winter.  Historically we have experimented with wide array of options for feeding hay, including Bermuda hay, orchard grass, oat hay, teff grass, and alfalfa.  Based on this experimentation, we have found that alfalfa gives the best return on investment, with high protein content, high palatability, and high utilization by the animals.  Alfalfa is the gold standard for protein, and all other feeds use alfalfa by way of comparison for the amount and quality of protein they contain.  Alfalfa is also high in minerals (the "Ash" content in the image below), which ensures that the animals are not eating empty calories, and are instead eating a ration that truly produces healthy animals and healthy meat.  Alfalfa has a digestible energy content of 10.7 megajoules per kilogram of dry matter, and sorghum Sudan grass has a digestible energy con...
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TLR's Favorite Lamb Dish

 Although lamb is one of the most widely eaten meats in the world, the US is not known as a lamb-centric community.  So naturally, to find the best recipes for lamb, it makes sense to look to the communities that have built a cuisine out of lamb, based on a long track record of high per capita lamb consumption.  One such country is Greece , which ranks 5th-highest per capita consumption of lamb in the world. One of the most common lamb dishes in this lamb-loving country is Lamb and Tomato Sauce .  This rather bland name masks an incredible dish, with many layers of flavor, all blended beautifully, and completely complementary of one-another.  It's one of the most common dishes in Greece, and has a 400 year legacy.  Instead of a regional favorite, it can be found throughout the country of Greece, and once you taste it, you'll see why.  Ingredients listed with a * are essential to the dish. Ingredients: 3 tablespoons of olive oil 3 pounds of lamb, bone-...
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Pasture Seeding Update

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 Last month, we described several R&D projects we've taken on to help improve margins as part of continual-improvement on the ranch.  One of the more exciting projects is the seeding of the pastures with a warm-season grass, Piper Sudan Grass.  This is a sorghum/sudan grass hybrid, which is a cross between sorghum grass (often used as a grain for animal feed), and sudan grass.  The grass grows quickly, produces tons of biomass, and has a vigorous root system.  It establishes quickly, and is relatively drought tolerant.  The aggressive root system pushes carbon deep into the soil, and will improve soil conditions over time, allowing for better water infiltration when it rains, more soil biology for nutrient cycling, and more native bunch grass production in the winter and spring. Summers at TLR are the hardest time of year, as pastures dry up, and only the most well-adapted plants can survive the dry conditions.  The native grasses in our area are a...
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