Agriculture

Informações:

Sinopse

Turkana Farms, LLC, is a small scale producer of heritage breed livestock and a wide array of vegetables and berries on just over 39 acres in Germantown, New York. Under the stewardship of Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, the farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and eschews the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, growth enhancers, and antibiotics.

Episódios

  • AgriCulture: It’s a Bird-Eat-Bird World

    20/03/2024 Duração: 06min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin March 17, 2024The well fed hawk Photo by Mark ScherzerIt’s a Bird Eat Bird WorldHi all, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Mark here.Just after lunch on a perfect spring-like afternoon this past week, Eric and... Read More ›

  • AgriCulture: Apricity

    05/03/2024 Duração: 06min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin March 3, 2024Eric soaks up apricity Photo by Mark ScherzerApricityHi all, Mark here.Feeling the warm winter sun on my face, working my muscles in a steady rhythm, I was able to fully internalize the new... Read More ›

  • AgriCulture: Spring to Life

    21/02/2024 Duração: 06min

      TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin February 19, 2024 Pullet eggs and other signs of spring Photo by Mark Scherzer Spring to LifeHi all, Mark here. Happy President’s Day.I don’t know how it happened, but over the last week... Read More ›

  • AgriCulture: For Those Who Need a Little Extra Help

    07/02/2024 Duração: 06min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin February 4, 2024Nilufer waits for a lift Photo by Mark ScherzerFor Those Who Need a Little Extra HelpHi all, Mark here.I have a bothersome earworm. In my case, it’s not a song, but a radio... Read More ›

  • AgriCulture: Sheep Overboard!

    25/01/2024 Duração: 07min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCWinter Stasis, Photo by Mark ScherzerSheep Overboard!Hi all, Mark here.The farm seems frozen in place just now. We are in winter stasis. The young pullets that arrived in late August have not yet begun laying eggs. It is still too early to start seedlings under lights for spring. With high temperatures in the teens and a brisk north wind, I'm in no mood to trim fruit trees and berry bushes. Contemplating the stillness brings its own pleasure.There was a slight flurry of activity while my partner, Eric, and I were in Québec and friends Arthur and Bernard were farm-sitting: two lambs born on December 27. (The eweling has been named Bernarthur in their honor.) These are very early births. Apparently Suleyman IV, this year's ram, had just reaching breeding capacity when a few cool nights in early August triggered a surge in his hormones. Cool weather, as you know, triggers sexual hanky panky. It is a phenomenon of animal husbandry fully explored by noted zoologist, Dr. Cole Porter, in his

  • AgriCulture: From the Start, at Two with Nature

    10/01/2024 Duração: 07min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin January 5, 2024Not quite at home in the country, circa 1954, Photo unattributedFrom the Start, at Two with NatureAn Introductory NoteThe morning of the third day of this new year found me packing up belongings in my New York apartment and loading them in my car, preparing to surrender the lease and sever my last official connection to New York City. I wasn't sentimental about it; I hadn't slept there in over three years.In the evening of the third day, back on the farm, a stranger called me. He wanted to connect because he had found on line a 2010 bulletin containing my youthful recollections of summers at a bungalow colony in the Catskills, the same one where he spent summers a generation later.I dug out that bulletin and after rereading it decided to reprint it this week. Not because of my innate laziness, but because I thought it was so appropriate, as I make this change, to be reminded of how strange it is for me to have chosen to be in the country full time

  • AgriCulture: Gathering Darkness, Glimmers of Light

    21/12/2023 Duração: 06min

      TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin December 21, 2023 December Day Dusk Photo by Mark Scherzer Gathering Darkness, Glimmers of LightHi All, Mark here."Gathering darkness" is one of my favorite ways to describe the coming of dusk. In winter, this suggests being enveloped in a warm cocoon when daylight suddenly disappears.This last Sunday, however, dusk did not involve much gathering of darkness. Darkness, thanks to a bank of thick clouds advancing ahead of a major storm, defined the entire day. And though it was mid-December, it was so warm that no cocoon seemed necessary.Was it gloomy? Sure. A perfect match for the gloom induced by a world of war and disintegrating political stability. Was it also a worrisome reminder of dramatic climate change? You betcha!Oddly , the geopolitical situation -- that big-picture human behavior -- feels far more threatening and less manageable to me than the geophysical situation, the vast forces of nature. Why? Because the science of human behavior (th

  • AgriCulture: Getting Real

    08/12/2023 Duração: 07min

      TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin December 3, 2023 Entourage of Affection: Doodle, Sophie and Pepsche up front, Orhan and Skunkie behind Photo by Mark Scherzer Getting RealHi All, Mark here."They're so calm and so healthy looking!" Steve's reaction to the atmosphere in the barn, while here on a brief visit last week, mirrored my sense of things. The sheep do seem remarkably robust, cooperative, orderly, and affectionate.These days, it's a joy to be with the sheep. If they are in the barn when I enter, it is entirely predictable that the two closest to my entry door will be Sophie, a four year old ewe, and Doodle, the by now well-known one year old wether. Both were bottle-fed as lambs. Both are positioned to greet me, looking for a nuzzle, a scratch on the cheek, a hello. They are sometimes accompanied by the senior wether, Orhan, middle aged ewes Pepsche or Skunkie, or one or both of the two oldest ewes in the flock, Nilufer and Lale, who are now past breeding age.Lately, before I

  • AgriCulture: November Days 2023

    14/11/2023 Duração: 06min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin November 13, 2023Matt begins the turkey sendoff Photo by Mark ScherzerNovember Days 2023Hi All, Mark here.Before dawn this very chilly morning, with just a subtle glow visible on the horizon and a heavy frost lining every blade of grass and branch, Macho Matt and I donned head lamps and trundled up to the barn to catch the turkeys while they were still asleep on their roosts. The idea was to confine them, with the least trauma possible, in the portable pen where they had started their journey here back in May. We kept them penned there until a trailer arrived a couple of hours later to bring them to the farm near Canajoharie where they will be processed.All went smoothly. They were groggy for the first stage, and, most likely because they were in familiar surroundings for the next couple of hours, they were almost all calm and composed through the second stage. That's when I got on my knees and crawled into the pen to catch them and hand them out to Matt. He, i

  • AgriCulture: War and Thanksgiving Peace

    31/10/2023 Duração: 07min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin October 29, 2023Turkeys stroll in a copse of trees Photo by Mark ScherzerWar and Thanksgiving PeaceHi All, Mark here.Ever since 1969, Thanksgiving has meant to me the coziness of home, a celebration of enveloping security. Maybe it represented that to me because Thanksgiving was the first time I returned home after leaving for College. Coming back to a world of parental supervision and support, I always brought with me friends who, because of distance from their homes, needed a surrogate family on that occasion. Our holiday was not highly formal. My mother, an elementary school teacher, offered a sort of "in loco parentis" familiarity I think some of my friends still remember fondly to this day.November weather contributes to the need for a homey, warm event. Thanksgiving is the first major holiday after summer when you really want to sharing a meal indoors.My association of the holiday with a certain cocooning embrace led me recently to confide to an old friend

  • AgriCulture: A Tale of Two States

    18/10/2023 Duração: 07min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin October 15, 2023Two in One by Antoinette Schultze. Israel and Palestine? Photo by Eric RouleauBlind Rage: A Tale of Two StatesHi All, Mark here.This bulletin is generally intended to be a chronicle of my life through the prism of the farm; sweet tales of caring for animals and growing plants, while I tangentially remind you to buy the farm's products. But I haven't been mentally engaged with the farm this week. Instead, I have been obsessively following the awful events in Israel and Gaza.I address that situation knowing well that much ink has already been spilled, and you may find it not my place to chime in. I have the sort of visceral connection to Israel that comes from having a father who was a Holocaust survivor. When my parents married in 1948 (the year the state of Israel was founded) they debated moving there. But not only did I end up American, I have never even visited Israel.I also know that any expression of my views is likely to offend someone. All

  • AgriCulture: The Sunny Side of Town

    03/10/2023 Duração: 07min

     TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin September 30, 2023Looking at the Sunny Side: Jerusalem Artichokes in Bloom Photo by Mark ScherzerThe Sunny Side of TownHi All, Mark here.With Yom Kippur over and Eric returned to the City, I started this week ready for my first extended stretch in months without company on the farm. I resolved with great energy to make dramatic progress on organizing EVERYTHING.Tuesday, I managed a packed office schedule, plus made progress on mucking the barn and harvesting vegetables. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning I finished updating a several-weeks-overdue chapter of a legal treatise. I followed that with a big feed run (for the critters and me). To be super-efficient, late Wednesday I consolidated two vaccinations (COVID and RSV) into a single drug store visit, and got back to the farm before dusk.Chores that evening went well. After shooing most of the turkeys into their side of the barn through the north door, and heading the sheep off from following the turkeys in t

  • AgriCulture: A Partial Reflection

    19/09/2023 Duração: 07min

    TURKANA FARMS, LLC Green E-Market Bulletin September 17, 2023 Leader of the Flock: Back from the Far Pasture Photo by Mark Scherzer A Partial ReflectionHi All, Mark here.Saturday morning didn’t start so well. The expensive self-propelled lawnmower I bought last May, just back from repairs two weeks ago because some parts in the engine were missing, making it idle too fast, had to go back again. Now the electric starter, one of its most attractive features, was completely dead.As I loaded the mower into the car, I heard several turkeys uttering distress calls up near the barn. Such calls often happen when a turkey flies over the eight-foot fence and can’t figure out the way back to its mates because it is right up against that fence. But they generally lack urgency; the tone conveys frustration. The calls this morning were louder, more constant and had a desperate quality, demanding immediate attention.Approaching the barn, I saw just four turkeys. They were fine. So why the distress? It took just sec

  • AgriCulture:

    06/09/2023 Duração: 07min
  • AgriCulture: Chasing a Dream

    15/08/2023 Duração: 07min

    Hi All, Mark here. I loved the look of agriculture long before I ever had a farm. Yesterday I was struck by the geometric artistry of long rows of corn, lined up like so many soldiers in formation, undulating over a hill nearby. It recalled to my mind other images filed away in my album of landscape "greatest hits": potato fields I would bike past some thirty five years ago, all in white or purple bloom, gently sloping toward the ocean on the East End of Long Island; endless rows of perfect sunflowers along the roads of Thrace, injecting a bright vital energy into an otherwise dull flat landscape. These scenes are painted on a wide canvas, planted by machine, and using plants that have been developed to replicate each other as exactly as possible. I don't know whether pesticides, herbicides or insecticides are used to keep the spaces between the planted rows weed-free and bare. Nonetheless, the plants that compose the tableau are magnificent living things and the visual effect of their uniform arrangement app

  • Agriculture-Chekhov’s Gun

    30/04/2023 Duração: 06min

    A deadly chewed rhubarb leaf Photo by Mark Scherzer "It's just like Checkov's gun!" Steve practically hooted into the telephone. As if my call was all about the plot of some comedic play, and not serious business. It was not exactly the reaction I expected after I called him to say I was afraid I might have killed Doodle, the sweet lamb who was rejected by his mother at birth while Steve was minding the farm last July, and has bonded with us human caregivers, Steve in particular, ever since. To be fair, Steve didn't hoot derisively until he had figured out, through an extended discussion of the circumstances, that Doodle's demise was highly unlikely. I had told him that I had been doing chores Tuesday evening and was transferring a cartload of compost to the vegetable garden with Doodle in my company, as is typically the case when I'm near the barn. I wanted to dump some nourishment on a planting bed I was preparing near the rhubarb patch. And before I knew it, I saw out of the corner of my eye Doodle

  • Agriculture-This Summer I Will Make a Garden

    23/04/2023 Duração: 06min

    Broccoli heading for a new garden bed Photo by Eric Rouleau Tuning in this morning to Ici Musique, the Montréal radio station, we were immediately reminded that it's Earth Day. The theme of Eric's favorite program was songs involving gardens. Appropriately, I had scheduled this weekend to be a full weekend of working in the vegetable garden. Rather than plain old Earth Day, though, I'd call it Earth Moving Day. The garden this year is, at least at the initial stages, something of a back breaker. Spring garden preparation is always strenuous. It inevitably requires digging to prepare planting beds and hauling compost. This year, I've made the compost distribution an add-on to daily chores. After I unload the muck from the barn floor on the still decomposing part of the my compost mountain, I wheel the cart down the other side and fill it with already cured compost. I then wheel that to the vegetable garden (Doodle of course tagging along), dump the compost on a planting bed, and bring the cart back t

  • AgriCulture-Generosity of Spirit

    16/04/2023 Duração: 06min

    When it became apparent that my sister and brother-in-law would be traveling through the Hudson Valley at the end of this week, I decided that it would make sense to move the ritual Passover seder meal to Good Friday, midway between the first night of Passover and Easter Sunday. Because of the co-occurrence of the holidays, Eric and I discussed possibly having a fusion seder/Easter feast, in which coquilles Saint-Jacques would take the place of gefilte fish and a roast ham would substitute for the brisket. But the challenge of melding a holiday meal built around bread that didn't have time to rise with one symbolized by bread that has risen is confounding. Two different stories, matzoh and hot cross buns. Sometimes you simply have to recognize real differences. Matt takes a lamb appreciation break Photo by Mark Scherzer So we proceeded with a traditional seder on Friday (albeit with the Christians outnumbering the Jews), and will proceed with a traditional Easter dinner today (with the Jews, conversel

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