Dirt-poor farmer / Living off the land in Oakland, and watching every dollar

Novella Carpenter, The writer, at home in Oakland with one of her chickens. Novella Carpenter, The writer, at home in Oakland with one of her chickens. Photo: Novella Carpenter Photo: Novella Carpenter Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Dirt-poor farmer / Living off the land in Oakland, and watching every dollar 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

I packed three of my kid goats into the back of my truck the other day and headed for the large animal clinic in Cotati. We made quite a scene on the highway -- all three kids in a dog crate, my beat-up truck bearing more rust than paint, flecks of alfalfa drifting around like green flakes of snow.

The goats were born on my little farm in Oakland, where I have been keeping bees, chickens, rabbits and goats for the past six years. In the past I've raised ducks and turkeys, and one year I raised two pigs. Mostly I am a subsistence farmer: I grow enough vegetables to feed myself and some other families in my neighborhood. Sometimes I sell food to underground restaurants. I raise chickens for eggs, and goats for their milk and meat.

Read The Chronicle's review of "Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer.">>>

I try to do things as frugally as possible on the farm. With the pigs, for instance, I never bought them swine feed, which comes in big bags made by Purina. Instead, I raised them on scraps I salvaged from the local restaurant and grocery store dumpsters. Instead of soy and corn pellets, I fed them bruised peaches and burnt pizza, old wontons and expired cheeses. They ended up making the most delicious pork I had ever tasted.

Horns a plenty

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As I slowed down at the Richmond bridge toll booth to hand over my $4, Hedwig, my biggest goatling, let out a wail that sounded like a small child calling for help. The tollbooth operator looked concerned until he saw the little black and white horned animal in the crate. He smiled and waved me by.

Going across the bridge, I looked intently into the rearview mirror every few minutes to make sure the girls were okay. The white one, Milky Way, was taking a nap, the golden one, Ginger Fox, was chewing her cud thoughtfully, and Hedwig was still bleating. As the beauty of Marin county unfolded before me, I started to feel a little anxious about our visit to the vet.

Trips to the veterinarian are always expensive, and this trip was no exception. The goal was to get the goats' horns disbudded -- or seared off. If you live in a city, goats' horns are a serious hazard to human health -- they can gouge out eyes or rip flesh. Horned animals also can cause major injuries to other animals and to themselves (they can get caught it fences, for example). I only had to think of one of our small neighborhood kids getting his eye gouged out by one of my goats, and my mind was made up: I needed to have their horns removed.

When the goats were a week old, the ideal time for disbudding, I didn't have enough money to take them to the vet. I had to wait three more weeks until I got my next paycheck. I've been on a major budget with my farm operations, but like most farmers in America, I was -- and am -- almost totally broke. According to the most recent Structure and Finances of U.S. Farms report put out by the USDA in 2007, "The average operating profit margin and average rates of return on assets and equity are negative for small farms." Looking at the spreadsheet, I had a shiver of recognition. So-called residential/lifestyle farms (of which there are 837,000) have a profit margin of negative 35 percent! Low sales farms (about 400,000) are at negative 36 percent. These stats reminded me of joke about a farmer who wins the lottery. He's asked what he's going to do with the money: "I reckon I'll keep farming until the money runs out," he says.

If it's such a money pit, why do I try to be a farmer at all? I suppose it runs in my blood, as does poverty. I grew up poor with my back-to-the-land parents in Idaho. On my birth certificate, my father listed "rancher" as his profession, though we never had more than 20 head of cattle. We lived in a trailer and I remember many meals of Spam. But after the ranch got going, we ended up eating very well on the farm's bounty: wild venison, freshly picked strawberries and milk straight from the cow. After my parents divorced, my sister and I went to live with my mom in rural Washington State. A single mom raising us on the low income of a schoolteacher meant times were tough -- we had enough to eat but couldn't afford name brand clothing or any extras. My sister and I both got jobs before we were 14. When I was in high school, I always wanted to be a doctor: it meant money and status. Later, on scholarship at the University of Washington, I realized that I wanted to be a writer instead. My mom took it with grim humor: "What pays worse than a teacher?" she laughed. "A journalist."

She was right, I've never made over $25,000 a year working in publishing and then doing free-lance writing. Then I started farming and any extra money has gone toward that. It's like I'm drawn to poverty because it's a comfortable place for me. I'll admit to feeling a strange glee when I look at my bank balance and it's at $6. There's a tightrope-walking feeling about it. Something awful but thrilling at the same time. I would never know what to do if I actually had money. I don't save well, and spend money frivolously. When I got my first advance for my book, I bought two goats. Maybe I knew that they would literally eat up my income, that they would become like dependent children, always needing something. The rest of the money, I put in the stock market -- at the highest point it had been in the Dow's history. You all know how that's going.

Note to self

I've never been a poor person who is able to hide the fact of my poverty, either. I somehow always manage to stain my clothes, have a bad haircut, and drive cars that get more and more dilapidated. I never learned how to take care of things because I'm used to them disappearing. The material world escapes me. I'm hopeful, though, like so many Americans. Hopeful that this next month is going to be much better. I even keep a running tally of things I will buy once I finally make some money (in no particular order):

1. goat registration 2. a burdizzo (a castrating tool) 3. a disbudding iron 4. new boots (the ones I'm wearing right now have a hole in the sole) 5. new Levis 6. new bras (all the elastic is gone in the three I have left) 7. a new mattress (my boyfriend and I found the one we sleep on) 8. a dentist appointment 9. a decent haircut

I send these things to myself via e-mail, because I'll forget otherwise.

I figured out that the main reason I'm running at a loss is because of the farm. When I did my taxes in April, the receipts spoke for themselves. I spend, I found, $60 a month on hay -- that's $18/bale from the local racetrack. And that's supplemented with tree branches and shrub clippings that I scrounge for. A dairy feed supplement costs $30 per bag, sunflower seeds another $28 per bag, sweet feed (a combo of corn, oats, barley and molasses) is $25. Minerals, salt and kelp cost about $20 per month. Udder wipes, teat dip, milk filters are another $15 month. Cabbage and salt to make them sauerkraut: $5 per week. Yes, they are my babies, and I love to feed them well.

The chickens and the rabbits are less expensive. I spend about $20 a month on chicken feed and oyster shells; the same on the rabbits. From them I get eggs and meat -- which is more affordable than buying them from the store (assuming a dozen eggs per week, organic eggs at $5 per dozen; and $5 per pound for rabbit meat). Still, I lose money: I could be eating rice and beans, right, not organic eggs and rabbit meat. I partially justify it by the manure the animals make, which grows the vegetables. And the animals are my entertainment, too.

The moment of truth

I arrived to the hospital's barn just as the vet's office opened. I brought in Hedwig, who is a La Mancha goat with tiny ears and big blue eyes. I had the vet look at her. Her horns had gotten pretty big. "We'll have to put her under for the operation," he said.

"How much will that cost?" I asked, seized by fear.

"About $125 dollars," he said.

That's how much I had budgeted for all of the goats to get disbudded. I shook my head, suddenly feeling very sorry for myself, and my goats.

"I can't afford that," I said. "Let me get the others for you to look at." I put Hedwig back in the truck and looked at the other two. Ginger Fox was my favorite goat -- would I have to decide which of them to disbud? I knew I couldn't keep horned animals on the farm so whichever one I couldn't afford to disbud, I would have to sell to someone. I brought Ginger and Milky Way into the office.

I was lucky. These other two were pure Nigerian Dwarf goats who had much smaller horn buds -- could be disbudded without gas, the vet told me. I was relieved and brought them into the operating room. They got shots of a general anesthetic into their horn area and he disbudded them quickly. My bill came to $147, and I wrote a check that I prayed had enough money in the account. If I had disbudded earlier, like I had done the year before when I had more money than this year, it would have been $60. It's a lesson that I learn over and over again, yet never remember: if you have money, you can do things well and save money. If you have to wait because of financial troubles, you end up spending more. It's like that with cell phone minutes, vehicle registration, health care, and yes, animal husbandry.

On the drive back, the goats frisked around their dog crate as if nothing had happened, even though two of them had burn marks on their heads, I wondered what I would do with Hedwig. It was a paradox -- her horns would grow and flourish, but they would mark her as dangerous and make her nearly worthless. I felt a terrible bitterness at not having enough money. And I know people will criticize me, as they criticize people with children they can't afford: why do you have them if you can't take care of them? I know I'm being selfish and that I should plan ahead better, that I should get a real job, maybe that pays well. But the joys of the farmer--pulling carrots out of the earth, watching a newborn goat's first steps, the soft clucking of chickens in the morning -- I can't let those go no matter how much it costs me.

Once we got home, the goatlings bleated from the back of the truck, and the mom goats called out to their babies from behind the fence. This went on until I carried each of the babies back to its mother. One still horned and soon to be taken away, two changed for the better so they could remain. Their respective moms nuzzled the little goats' heads and pretended not to notice anything had happened.

Novella Carpenter is the author of the memoir, "Farm City: the Education of an Urban Farmer." She lives and farms near downtown Oakland and keeps a blog at ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com/. Her work has appeared in Salon.com, Edible San Francisco and Mother Jones.