From Here to There and Back Again

It's a journey, farming the land. It's a circle.
We are often asked, at the stable, what do we do with the manure produced. Well, it's a fact of life that if you have a horse, you have manure. To put it politely. The average horse produces in the range of 31 pounds of the stuff every day. That's the sort of thing that can keep piling up. And it does!

For us, it starts here, with the hay. We no longer make our own hay. The amount of work, and the timing, and the equipment required, make it not so feasible for the number of horses we have, so we purchase hay. This, Nancy points out, is where she has gone seriously wrong. Once upon a time, not so very long ago, she remembers us taking the hay off the front field, that lovely open stretch that is now lawn and host to baseball games, soccer games, manhunt, kite flying and a host of other open space activities. We sold that hay. Now she has horses, and we mow the lawn and buy the hay. It's enough to make Kevin O'Leary weep.

Back to our journey.... the hay goes to the horses.





And then, after a little processing, the hay goes into the stalls. The chickens provide their own special blend into the manure mixture.





From which it moves here, to the big orange dumpster provided to us by Aces Waste Management. We've got it down to a system. When the bin is full -- which takes about five weeks, it is moved into the back field far away from any water sources or neighbours, and piled up. There are three different piles on the go at any one time.

There is the old pile, which has had up to ten years to age to a fabulous black compost soil. There is the middle pile, which is no longer active, and is well on its way to becoming black gold for future gardens. And there is the current pile, receiving regular donations.

Since the manure pile also receives all the Kitchen compost from our own houses and from our guests, this can be an interesting spot. Seeds often spring up, from some discarded scraps. Last year, some pumpkin and squash seeds 'volunteered' up there in the back 40. The entire manure pile was covered with thick dark vines, and heavy with fruit come fall. Native grasses will move in on the older pile, but underneath that, when Brian pulls away the top layer, the compost is rich and dark, crumbly and clean and just shouting out to be spread in the gardens. We do sell it to friends and neighbours. As Julia, from Foxwood Inn, says, she doesn't take s*** from just anyone...

Come spring, when we are getting our big organic garden ready to go for the year, we bring back truckloads of the compost to be worked into the soil. There will be some harrowing moments with the garden tractor and a roto-tiller, and then the seeds go in.

Come summer, the vegetables will be ready for the table. The corn will be ready for our world famous cook-out. The horses will even get some of the carrots, and the chickens will enjoy some of the corn as well.

It's a circle. And it's all good...