Polyface Farm Summer Internship: Week Nine

Reader Contribution by Kristen Kilfoyle

This week was a lot of fence line and firewood work, fun with turkeys and my birthday on the farm (with a surprise guest).

Monday, July 28th

This week’s morning chore was working with the turkeys and the ladies of the Feathernet. At this point, we have two groups of turkeys, one older with fairly large birds and one of younger. While the others were preparing the nets for the new spot for one of the groups, I went up to feed and check on the older ones. This was when I got my first lesson in how to catch turkeys without getting your bell rung in the process. When I pulled up on the four wheeler, I noticed there were two turkeys out. Since wayward animals aren’t encouraged, I was trying to catch them to put them back in the net with their friends. I grabbed one, and they way I caught him left one wing free. This quickly led to my taking several turkey haymakers to the face. I wasn’t expecting the hit to be as hard as it was, which made it kind of funny. Not wanting to admit I had been beat up by a turkey twice, I grabbed the second one keeping both his wings to his body and was able to escape without further incident. We did have one bird that needed to be moved from this group to the other and after the wing incident, I decided to put my sweatshirt on the bird so should she decide to flap her wings while sitting on my lap on the four wheeler, they would be contained. I wish I had my camera because, while dressing up the bird had practical beginnings, she looked really cute in a hooded sweatshirt riding down the mountain and I would have liked to remember it better.

The afternoon was spent having a talk on water with Joel Salatin. I was really excited for this talk, as Dan and I have been trying to figure out the water situation back at Sugar River Farm. (For those of you who only recently started reading these posts, Dan is my fiancé and Sugar River Farm is the property we own in New Hampshire and the business we are building.) We know we need to build a few farm ponds, but wanted to wait until I had the chance to sit in on Joel’s water talk.

Joel’s talk was very inspiring, as Polyface’s water system is essentially built off some ponds, some ¾” and 1 ¼” pipe, and pumps. It is simple, straightforward, portable and inexpensive. Joel’s position, as is with many other permaculture experts, is that investing in water storage is extremely important. We learned two objectives. The first is that, ideally, surface water should never leave your farm. The second is that you should never end a drought with a full pond. Basically, if you need your water, use it! We learned about the many benefits of a farm pond and where they should be placed on your property (Per Joel, “Build more ponds.” I think Polyface should make a tee shirt that says that.), using cisterns, siphons and springs. We also learned very simple ways of how to move this water (mainly using pumps and the aforementioned plastic pipe). Joel has a great way of explaining how to do things in a very simple yet empowering way. I left feeling like building four ponds was entirely doable. The New Hampshire property also doesn’t have gutters (yet), and learning just how much water comes off the roof makes me excited to get back and get those gutters and rain barrels up!

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