Some reflections on Virgil's Georgics

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, farmers--at least those farmers who could read--spent their Sunday afternoons reading from either the Bible or from Virgil's Georgics. That farmers read from the Bible is probably not too surprising. But while the Georgics might be a surprising choice for farmers in terms of its antiquity, it certainly wasn't surprising in terms to its subject: which is, of course, agriculture. It's a little shamefacedly, in fact, that I admit never actually having read through the entire work. I thought that it was finally time to address this lacuna, and so I set about doing so these past few weeks.

And what did I think? Like Virgil's Aeneid--which, I hasten to add, I have read--the Georgics is masterfully, beautifully written. The Georgics isn't simply idyllic and agricultural either. I found that there is a purposefulness to its narrative, with the pastoral beauty and orderliness of the cultivated countryside set against troubling civil unrest and general human dissipation. 

As much as Virgil sings of Bacchus, the "Father of the wine-press," for

all things here
Teem with the bounties of thy hand; for thee
With viny autumn laden blooms the field,
And foams the vintage high with brimming vats

that much Virgil also laments that "Bacchus even to crime hath prompted..." Virgil decries that the bountiful fruits of the cultivated land lead man

with havoc [to fall]
Upon a city and its hapless hearths,
From gems to drink, on Tyrian rugs to lie;
This hoards his wealth and broods o'er buried gold;
One at the rostra stares in blank amaze;
One gaping sits transported by the cheers,
The answering cheers of plebs and senate rolled
Along the benches: bathed in brothers' blood
Men revel, and, all delights of hearth and home
For exile changing, a new country seek
Beneath an alien sun.  

The tension of the Georgics, I think, is between the abundance that comes from hard work and the dissipation that seems inevitably to follow from the enjoyment of that abundance, both in the life of a single man and evidently in the life of an entire society. 

In the last book, in contrast to man's inconstancy, Virgil praises the work of the bees, calling their honey "clear-strained nectar sweet," the "gift from heaven." He lauds their orderliness and the abundance they produce, all the while managing to maintain their stoic discipline as opposed to the vacillating, inconstant efforts of man. Human dynasties rise and fall, but for the bees 

Yet deathless doth the race endure, and still
Perennial stands the fortune of their line,
From grandsire unto grandsire backward told.

Of course, my favorite section is where Virgil talks about the work of the shepherd, for nothing symbolizes imminent pastoral disorder better than the capricious behavior of "pestering goats," among other creatures. Virgil's sage advice:

Hedges too must be woven and all beasts
Barred entrance, chiefly while the leaf is young
And witless of disaster.

The word very word "capricious" is derived from caper, capri, Latin for "goat," and Virgil writes regarding the "venom-bite/ Of their hard teeth, whose gnawing scars the hard stem":

For no offence but this to Bacchus bleeds
The goat at every altar...
*******
Therefore to Bacchus duly will we sing
Meet honour with ancestral hymns, and cates
And dishes bear him; and the doomed goat
Led by the horn shall at the altar stand,
Whose entrails rich on hazel-spits we'll roast.

Indeed, I can identify. But I can also identify with Virgil's rhapsodizing over goats' "plenteous store of milk" and their "plump udders clogged":

The more each dry-wrung udder froths the pail,
More copious soon the teat-pressed torrents flow.

And again,

What they milk at dawn,
Or in the daylight hours, at night they press;
What darkling or at sunset, this ere morn
They bear away in baskets- for to town
The shepherd hies him- or with dash of salt
Just sprinkle, and lay by for winter use.

Ultimately, I suppose, Virgil is saying that the order that we impose on nature through agricultural endeavors, and the abundance that results, is always in danger of impending disaster, not so much from the the capriciousness of nature--be it weather, disease, or the ravaging of goats--as from the capriciousness of ourselves.

"This law of life... by the bees obeyed," in other words, is not always something we ourselves obey.

So, the Georgics is a good read, a meditation on free-will and the inconstancy of human beings ever caught between the enjoyment of our "rich acres" and "poverty's shrewd push." I highly recommend it!

Chicken available immediately--please share

Dear Raleigh-area friends, 

Due to the extreme heat forecast for the next several days, we are processing our organic, free-range broiler chickens today, ahead of our planned schedule. This is an act of faith, as we do not currently have freezer space for these 21 chickens. 

As I write, at least a dozen are still available, and we will be putting them on ice in the short term. Even if you haven't purchased from us before, please consider trying us out. At $4.25/lb., I know they're not cheap, but it's actually a reasonable price for free-range, organic chicken that comes from a small, family farm rather than from an oversized factory farm. 

We also have available cucumbers, free-range eggs, and goat milk. Kleinshire is located at 879 Cheves Rd., Zebulon, just a mile from Bunn. 

Text to make sure that chicken is still available before leaving: (919) 780-7864. In your generosity, PLEASE CONSIDER PASSING THIS MESSAGE ON TO OTHERS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. 

Thank you, and God bless... 

Franz and Rosemary Klein

UPDATE (7/8): Thank you, everybody, who responded. We were able to sell all the chickens right away. Stay tuned, as we'll have more available in the fall!

First Thoughts on our new "Simple Pulse" milker

We've been milking the old fashioned way since we bought our first three Nigerian does "in milk" back in the spring of 2014. For about nearly as long, I've been wondering how easy milking would be with a milking system of some kind. Rosemary and I have investigated different possibilities, reading many opinionated blog posts from different folks. A week ago, I finally swallowed deeply and paid $570 plus shipping and handling for the "Simple Pulse Professional Home Milking System."

The "Simple Pulse" is a pretty cool concept, the brainchild of a husband and wife who have a goat farm on the West Coast. It consists of a vacuum pump to create suction, together with a vacuum chamber and a pulsator. One hose is connected from the vacuum chamber to the milk jar to create suction and draw the milk in. Another hose is connected from the pulsator to the two teat "inflations" in order to draw the milk from the goat's udder into another hose leading back to the jar.

In theory, milking is as simple as cleaning the goat's teats, turning on the suction pump, attaching the inflations to the teats, and watching the milk flow into the jar. And indeed, as soon as I figured out how to put everything together, it worked exactly as promised. After three milkings, the goats seem to have accepted the contraption. We are getting about the same about of milk as we were by hand-milking, maybe even a little more.

So, my first thoughts are kudos to the couple who contrived to put together this milking system. It's a nifty contraption that works as promised. My understanding is that it's as good or better than most everything "hobby-farm sized" on the market, and certainly better than more cheaply priced options. That said, there are a few "cons" that I thought I'd put out there for anybody who is considering making a similar purchase:

• The milker increases in value the more goats that you milk. Although I'll probably save some time once I get more used to it, at present it actually takes me a little longer to use the milker than it would to milk by hand. This is with milking two full-sized goats and one Nigerian. In essence, the hold-up is cleaning the lines after milking is finished. This involves, at a minimum, running some soapy water and then some plain water through the lines and hanging them up to dry. It doesn't sound like much, but it is time consuming, especially without a milk house. I'm actually thinking of storing the milker until we have more goats "in milk," as I'm not confident that its benefits outweigh the inconvenience of daily cleaning and storage.
• There is also an inconvenience for anybody who milks both full-sized and dwarf-sized goats. Since we have two full-sized goats in milk, I elected to purchase inflations for larger teats. Our one Nigerian who is "in milk," however, is a first-freshener with very small teats. Although I can attach the inflations, they won't draw out all the milk. This means that I have to finish milking her by hand. And unless I wanted to bring out the filter system that we use for hand-milking, the best I can do is give the rest of the Nigerian's milk to the cats. "Simple Pulse" also sells Nigerian-sized inflations, but I imagine that it would be inconvenient at best to switch inflation sizes mid-milking.
• Finally, I'm still a little intimidated by the vacuum pump due to the oil mist that it emits as it runs. Already, the oil level has gone down somewhat, and I've had to order more oil. At $11 per quart, it might not be a huge amount of money, but add the electricity to that, and consider that milking by hand simply involves burning some calories while developing stronger hand muscles, and then it all starts to add up.

In no way is this a negative review. The "Simple Pulse" is a nifty little machine, and even if I end up packing it away for another day when we have more goats "in milk," I'm impressed by what I've observed so far.