Letter from your Agroecology Coordinator - News from Cerrillos

Dear Farm Fam,

Simon coming atcha with another update from my time farming in New Mexico – Cerrillos addition. On September 30th I said goodbye to Loose Leaf Farm in Albuquerque and started my short journey Northwards to the small town of Los Cerrillos where my next farm, Chelenzo Farms, is located. Well, to be more precise the farm is located outside of Cerrillos; to get to the farm one must drive about 1.5 miles down a bumpy, eroded dirt road that makes the Baltimore potholes feel like driving over a pebble. Once arrived you’ll be in the high desert of New Mexico and met with spectacular views of rolling hills bespeckled with life such as juniper trees, chamisa, cholla, snakeweed, saltbush, prickly pear cactus, and much more. The ecosystem is quite different from the farm I was last at (Loose Leaf Farm) where you would find larger trees like cottonwoods and soil with a higher clay content. 

The operation of the farm, and thus my daily tasks, differ too. Chelenzo Farms has a herdshare which, much like a CSA, allows community members weekly access to goat milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. Almost every morning I help with milking the goats – something I had never done before which took me a bit to get the hang of. Unfortunately it's not as easy as just squeezing the udder. It requires a consistent but rolling pressure throughout your hand which should be cinched high around the goat’s teat. We get about ½ gallon of milk per day but are currently only milking two of the goats due to some herd health concerns. The goats are mainly breeds that are well adjusted to the mountainous conditions like Nubian and La Mancha. These goats are known for being trusty milkers with higher butterfat content and also having a sweet temperament well suited for a family farm like the one I am on. The milk that isn’t immediately given to the herdshare will be used to make cheese (mainly chevre), yogurt, and ice cream. Making the cheese is surprisingly easy – you just have to get the milk up to 86 degrees F and then remove from the heat and add your chevre cheese culture –1 packet per gallon of milk. You then give it a stir, let it sit for about 8 hrs and then, using a cheesecloth and colander, remove the cheese from the whey overnight. The next morning, voila! you have chevre. We will usually season it with salt and herbs from the garden but it's really a blank canvas for your pallet; add some sundried tomatoes, roasted garlic, berry compote or sugar for a sweeter flair.

Once the milking is taken care of, some time is spent with the rest of the herd and the other animals; two pigs and a flock of chickens. The chickens that are currently around are just egg layers for personal use – the chickens for eating were processed a couple of months before I arrived. The pigs arrived just a few days after myself and are being raised for consumption. They arrived as small piglets just a few weeks old but have been rapidly growing since – about a pound a day!

For a goat to be milked it has to be impregnated about once every two years which means your herd can grow rather quickly. This creates a bit of a challenge since goats eat a lot and need space to forage. Some choose to keep some of the kids and raise them to be milked while selling the others. Often when selling the goats they will be used for meat, especially if it is a wether (castrated male) since it does not provide the benefit of breeding.

While I was here, two from the herd were killed and processed for meat and hide – a wether that would not sell and a two year old doe with CAE (Caprine arthritis encephalitis), a virus that made her arthritic and unable to be milked. I was not required to participate or even be present for the killing and processing, but I chose to be. This was an incredibly challenging and emotional task as I had grown a connection with the herd. Goats are very social, curious creatures and this herd really found their way into my heart where I found myself having a relationship with each goat. This made me want to see the relationship through with these two goats and I also wanted to learn humane and ethical ways to kill and process goats. As hard as it was, I was glad to be there to honor the goats’ lives. As an advocate for reestablishing a robust relationship to our food, I believe it is very important to know where one’s food is coming from, and for those who choose to eat meat to do their best to find providers that give the animal a good life and a quick and painless death. It is so important to appreciate the offering that another life has made for one’s nourishment regardless of whether that life is of flora or fauna.

This farm also has a smaller garden space in comparison to my last farm but we are still able to produce enough food for ourselves and to sell at the local Cerrillos Farmers Market. They have a very laid back market with about eight vendors and there isn’t too much money to be made at market but it's been a great way to build relationships with the community. At these markets I’ve been able to learn about the community garden efforts in town and what tastes to cater to for the locals. This October we were able to bring many leafy greens, sugar pumpkins, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, radishes, turnips, and herbs. It has been fun to learn the trial and errors this farm has gone through to build up a more nutrient rich and living soil in the high desert. Most recently they have found success with a hugelkultur style bed in the rows they grow in.

Aside from the animals and veggies, Chelenzo Farms has also been working on some land restoration and have been planting a variety of desert shrubs, cholla, agave, and cactus. I’ve been able to lend a hand with caring for young agave and had a hand in planting hundreds of shrubs on a steep slope in an attempt to stabilize the soil and reduce erosion. They receive some pretty heavy rains in the summer that can have some pretty intense erosive power. I was present to an unseasonably strong storm during my stay and it was pretty intense to be so high up with a sky covered in a latticework of lightning right overhead. Due to the importance of water in such a dry ecosystem there is some great water capture work being done in the area. I was lucky enough to go to a showing of a docuseries in Santa Fe that captured the work of Bill Zeedyk who is doing some incredible work with low-tech, low-cost projects to “think like water” and restore ecosystems. I would definitely recommend looking into his work if you are interested in that sort of thing – there is definitely plenty of information that could be applied to how we approach stormwater solutions on the East Coast.

My time is now up as a wwoofer and I’ll be sad to be leaving the Southwest, but I am so appreciative for all it has given me during my time here and look forward to returning in the future. I’ll also be happy to return to Freetown Farm and see what everyone has been busy with during my time away! Next time you’re around make sure to say hi :)

Ever Growing,
Simon