Lou posted this Q & A with Mark to his New York Times blog:

Before taking on construction of a timber-frame cabin, he was already a woodworker, building guitars and cabinets. He uses hand tools — planes, saws, chisels.

via Q & A With Mark Van Roojen, a Philosophy Professor and Cabin Builder – Times Topics Blog – NYTimes.com.

Progress in Maine by Lou Ureneck

The 4 black cayuga ducks of Two Mile Ranch can get on and off the little pond by themselves.  Getting to the pond, has never been a problem, getting OFF the pond was a curious time.

First, for just a few hours, and they stayed close to the edges.  I could pick them up from the side.

Then, I had to move on to wearing my waterboots, the ducks would slip away and swim to deeper water when I wanted to take them off for the night.

From there, it was a short hop tome wearing full chest waders, herding the ducks, trying to convince them to go in.  Ultimately, I ended up in the small boat Chase and I built, herding them around the pond and then steering them out.  I asked around and unlike chickens, ducks don’t usually put themselves to bed each night.  And then, an amazing thing happened.

The ducks started to get out on their own each day. First it was every other day of me trying to herd them in, then it was pretty regular: when it is duck :30 — a time decided upon by ducks in their own duck fashion, they get out of the pond, walk up the hill to the cabin, and wait for me to heard them back to their pen.

Gilbert, Indiana Quackers, and Duck Vadar wait at the waters edge while Mocha swims

The drake duck is Gilbert, and he leads Indiana Quackers and Duck Vadar  around the pond most of the time.  Mocha, who has either a vision or neuro problem, doesn’t walk well and is often on her own, but is the on-water leader most of the time.  If there is trouble or concern, the other three usually turn to Mocha for leadership. Often, this means, if Mocha doesn’t want to come off the pond, the others will usually not come off either.

When they do walk back, often Mocha leads, but sometimes the others lead.  Gilbert, the drake, walks and then remembers he’s supposed to establish his dominance, so he nips at my pant leg, left, right,left,right….and then goes back to walking.

This is a video of them on their walk Friday evening at Duck :30. It begins with Mocha in some tall grass. Gilbert, with the  greenest head, charges the camera in the middle, and in the end, he is the last one through the pen gate.

The Farmall 706 which has served Two Mile Ranch since May of 2005

It is time this week to say good bye to my first friend at Two Mile Ranch.  That friend is Ol Red, the Farmall 706 that came as part of the property deal when I bought the farm in 2005.

I never called “Ol Red” by name except in this blog, A tractor does not have the anthropomorphic qualities of the clever creations by Disney and Pixar.  A tractor is a tool, a 50 horsepower piece of iron that when used, taught me valuable lessons.

The previous owners of the farm  assured me the tractor was in great shape — if I wanted to buy it on top of our land purchase.  Once I insisted it be part of the transaction, it was suddenly “as-is”.  The right front tire was flat.  It did not start.  So my realtor and Norman, my neighbor, and I put on a new battery, drained the gasoline turned sludge out of the fuel line, and while we could start it, it wouldn’t run until I replaced a solenoid wire.

That first spring, I learned my first real safety lesson about tractors. With kids in the cab (never again) I slid on wet grass and became high centered in a gully wash.  God looked over us that day…the outcome could have been much worse.

As a result, we met Virlin and Brenda,  neighbors who now watch over my daughter’s horse.  Good people, they pulled us out of the gully.  The right front  tire was off the rim, and because of that, I met Bob of Bob’s Barn, where many of us meet on Saturday mornings to talk about life, the weather, government, and all that is great about sitting at Bob’s barn, talking about the above, instead of actually doing work. This Saturday was no different, except Bob was hard at work on a tractor, moving the wide set rear wheels in to accommodate a narrower track cultivator.  The rest of us stood around watching him work.  It almost looked like some odd, faith-healing ritual.  Frosty, the oldest of the group, offered up a tip on how to move the  tires in using a long chain.  Very impressive.  You can learn a lot from these guys if you just watch and listen.

That first year, I spent a lot of time mowing down the overgrowth trying to learn the shape and lay of the land.  A friend of mine, a long time farmer, did the first pass of mowing for me, through the tall waist and shoulder high grass, helping see places I could safely take the tractor.

The following year, Bob led me to a 12 foot disc about 30 miles from here.  I towed it home with my pickup at about 20 miles per hour and that spring was able to strip disc part of the pheasant habitat in CRP.  I also spent more time mowing.

Then in 2007 and 2008 I disced and planted food plots.  Long hours in a tractor, but nothing like the full time farmers who spend marathon days working their soils.

My most impressive feat was towing  a lumber yard delivery truck out of the mud after he became stuck.  I say my feat, but I didn’t do much more than sit behind the wheel and let out the clutch, the mighty IH Farmall engine did the real work, and I got the glory.

This year, the last time I used it for work, I used a borrowed blade to move a pile of manure across my soon to be planted garden. I think I’ll remember that spring day the longest.

The memory includes  another friend  who I’ve said ’so long’ too as well. “King Louie” — the pheasant who though he was a dog– insisted on charging at the tractor and running beneath its wheels as I worked.  I had to stop several times and chase him off to be sure  I didn’t’ run him over.  He hung around the farm a few more weeks, and after nesting season began, he disappeared.

As the Farmall was found, April 23, 2005

Which brings us to last week and Sunday. A new potential owner for the Farmall stopped by. He had heard I was selling the tractor and is building a campground nearby and it would be a good match.  My needs are now for a smaller tractor; a “chore” tractor, that can do some mowing, some loader work, and drink less gas.

Today, he and another man came by and negotiated a tough, but fair deal for both of us.  He’ll pick it up early in the week and I say ’so long’ to an old friend.  It’s a great tractor with lots of life in it.  In a Pixar movie, “retireing” to a campground sounds like a plot device.  In the real world of Two Mile Ranch, it’s time to go tractor shopping.

This is not a big change in my life. I don’t own a TV.  (No, I’m not a snob or against TV, I just get my media through other sources….and a borrowed LCD projector and my Macbook turns a white sheet hung on the deck into the largest wide-screen outdoor theater in the entire county.)

But for the millions of Americans who depended on translator stations in the past to boost the analog signal to be watched over the air, they are now forced to be tv free, or subscribe to satellite tv.

Michael Perry, author of Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting, spoke at Barnes and Nobel to a small appreciative group in the lobby of the store. To start with, what’s not to like about a man who poses on the cover of his book holding a Barred Rock chicken? (My two roosters are both Barred Rocks, collectively named “The Inmates”)

Perry is the author of several magazine articles as well as Population:485 and Truck.  During his informal and warm chat, he shared personal stories and some readings from Coop. He also gave a shout out to Gene Logsdon’s books, praising All Flesh is Grass, which I mentioned here.

The striking thing about Perry is his candor and lack of proselytizing about any nuvo-rural movement.  He’s quick to share that this book is about his experiences, not a how-to for what readers should or should not do.  Although his story about “snot-rocket” — a phrased clipped from his text by a sensitive New York editor–might be considered how-to.

The writer’s life may seem glamorous, but to someone with a family and a small farm, I imagine being on the road, meeting strangers everyday in a new town is both thrilling and exhausting.  Perry did take the time to chat with each guest as he signed their books.  He and I swapped stories about ducks (”Do they put themselves in each night like chickens?”) and pheasants  (a neighbor of Perry’s raises them and a few manage to get lose each year) and the importance of starting small  (not trying to do everything at once).  He and his wife have 43 acres, which he shares is about 42 and a half too much, but he’s clearly proud of what he and his family are tyring to do.

In his forward to Coop, Perry shares:

I am grateful for anyone who reads my writing, even–or especially–with a critical eye, and one phrase never suffers from repetition:  Thank you, reader.

Family dairy farmers listen to speakers during the rally in Manchester, Iowa Saturday, May 30

I had the pleasure  of spending Saturday with nearly 200 people concerned about the future of small farm life.  A vibrant dairy farmer in Iowa, Jerry Harvey,  organized a “Dairy Farmers Rally for Fair Prices” in Manchester, Iowa.  I learned of the event via Twitter and offered to help show my support by taking some photos of the event on behalf of Farm Aid.

Understanding the dairy farmer’s problem is difficult, and their message is both complicated to tell and confusing to most consumers.  But to listen to the speakers, what is happening in dairy now is worse than at any other time in our history.  Even more alarming is that dairy farms may be the first of many types of farms to fall under similar economic pressures.

At the end of the day, while a number of opinions and ideas were shared, there is consensus among the group present on actions which need to be taken now, and action which need to be explored for longer term solutions  Those solutions are summed up on the Farm Aid blog:

1. pressure for immediate action from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to set a temporary floor price for milk
2. a sustained push for the best possible long-term federal legislation on dairy pricing;
3. a renewed call for strict enforcement and expansion of anti-trust regulation to ensure that independent producers are no longer victimized by big dairy conglomerates, processors, and their cronies;
4. direct cooperation between family farmers and consumers to ensure fair prices and high quality family farm products for everyone.

During the three hour event, most in the audience remained in their chairs set up in the livestock sale barn parking lot, listening to the speakers.  Even local media, who often has a habit of doing a quick run-and-gun pick up of some video and an interviews, lingered longer that normal.

Rally organizer Jerry Harvey takes a call from Farm Aid President Willie Nelson during the rally

Most impressive was this was a grass roots led effort, not dominated by politicians or lobbyists, but dairy farmers from many states, working together to organize and tell their story.

In 2006, the USDA estimated nearly 70,000 dairy farms in the US, popular estimates quoted this year puts the number around 60,000.  The average herd size is between 125 and 150 cows, but the majority of herds are smaller than 100 cows.

The Columbia Missourian reports 25 percent of Pennsylvania’s dairy farms may close:

“It’s an inequity that cries out for attention, consideration and action,” said Sen. Robert Casey, a Democrat from the dairy stronghold of Pennsylvania. Casey projects that 25 percent of his state’s 7,400 dairy farms could disappear because of the crisis.

To learn more see the USDA or Farm Aid’s Ask Hilde.

Okay, well, not just a belt.

One of the pulleys is attached to an idler arm and it appeared to be bent, and when I tried to straighten it, it snapped into two pieces, so the trip to the implement dealer was or a belt AND this broken piece.  At the dealer, they pop open a computer screen and after drilling down through various models of tractors, mower decks, and schematics, the counter man and I found the diagram with the needed parts.  This wasn’t my first parts rode0…I’ve done this before, and I was smart and brought part of the broken piece so we could identify it on the computer.  Or so I thought I was smart.

Simple enough and less than $20 later, I was returning on the 20 minute drive to Two Mile Ranch.

Back on the ground, as I disassembled the pully arm, all was going quite well until I discovered there are two plastic bushing in the hole that guide tis arm over the shaft (remember this shaft, we’ll come back to it later.)  One of the bushings came out easily and could be resued, the second bushing was damanges as I took it out and totally un-usable.

Back in the car, back the 20 minute trip, back to the implement dealer.  $less than $5 of plastic parts later, I was back inthe car, back o0nn the 20 minute trip, and back at Two Mile Ranch.  Put together, I re mounted the mower deck to the bottom of the tractor and when I atached the drive belt, the shaft (remember the shaft?) tiped forward and angled the pulley into the metal of the mower deck.

Ugh.  I took everything back apart, looked at this shaft.  It’s welded with a plate to the top of the deck.  But it is much more bendable than it should be.  It can easily be repositioned with hand force. So, I loaded the deck into the car, drive the 20 minutes back to the implement dealer, figuring they see these all the time and if this is common, they may also have a fix.  What resulted was some head scratching, a spacer, and a “good luck”.  And a bill for less than $20.

Back at Two Mile, Norman came by looking for more mushrooms and as I was leaving, offered to take the deck and weld it.

He dropped it off later that night, and let me tell you, he did it right.  The deck is back on the mower, and it works well again.

But is was one of those “other” days.

It’s a fair question. The idea of living alone in less than 700 ft. is a far cry from typical. Readers familiar with Walden think of Henry David Thoreau, carving out his existence on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s back lot on the edge of Walden Pond. Astute readers of Walden know that Thoreau spent time in the local town almost daily, and had a continuous stream of visitors throughout the 2+ years he lived on the edge of the pond.

Like Thoreau, and others who live a rural and solitary life, I’ve found “alone” is far from lonely and often, isn’t so alone.  Saturday was a typical day.

I woke Saturday morning after hearing the wind blow beginning about 1:30 in the morning. I slept fine but no no one was blowing, meant a change in the weather was coming. After yesterday’s torrential rain, a day of sunshine would be a welcome break. Indeed, the clouds broke early in the morning and most of the day after noon was sunny and bright.

Because I teach graduate students, and the semesters just getting started, I began the day looking over e-mails and reviewing the online course websites. I made a scrambled egg burrito and look forward to a few months from now when the eggs will be from my own flock of chickens. With a couple coffee in hand, I drove north in the town to spend time in Bob’s Barn, the local meeting place where men my age and older swap stories about the week and generally look after each other. At 48 years old, I’m a youngster there. “Frosty” is pushing 80 years old, and talks and acts younger than many of my co-workers half his age.

This morning’s conversation was nothing special, but this group is covered such topics as stem cell research, CABG surgery, the economy, foreign policy, and angiograms. Today’s chat included the pros and cons of Windows XP versus Vista.  And a little bit of “tractor porn” as we talked about new machines some of the locals are using in the fields this year.

When the conversation wound down and everyone headed off to do their chores, I returned to Two Mile to move some mulch and plant my final 10 trees. After launch I spent some time online, helping a few graduate students find their way in their new course. Later in the afternoon, I picked up some dirt, and a flat of flowers to plant in the feed trough I’m converting to an above ground planter. Soon after, Norman my friend and occasional man-who-keeps-an-eye-on-the-place-while-I-am-gone, came by to do some morel mushroom hunting in the trees.

Saturday’s dinner was a stir-fry of chicken, peas, and peppers, all of which will be home grown by this time next year. With garden planting just days away, I look forward to seeing what does well in the new garden space. While Bob Wills music played in the background, my friends Eli and Caroline drove by in their horse-drawn buggy. Seeing their buggy reminded me that I want to buy some baskets from Caroline next time I drive by their home on Elk Chapel Road.

The ducks, chickens, and pheasants are all fed and watered. The sun is beginning to move towards the edge of the hill across the highway. The iPod plays Bob Wills, Asleep at the Wheel, and a collection of country music. Lyle Lovett sneaks in a tune now and then.

Just another day in paradise. Just another day at Two Mile Ranch.