Between approximately 10:00 am and 3:00 pm

It hit me today....the days are getting shorter.   This means I kind of want to sit and stare at the ceiling, like a lot of other people this time of year, but need to keep my feet moving.   It always passes.    I started thinking about writing what was happening as a way to keep moving through tasks today.   

I need to avoid the pumpkin bread baked last night, with walnuts and chocolate chips.   Luckily, most of it went into the freezer.

(1) 10:00 a.m. -- I sorted out the electronet fencing, which was still outside, and put it away for the winter.   This took me a chunk of time, because most of the fencing still outside was tangled.   I strung it out way down the driveway and untangled it.   Next, I worked on the roll that I hit with the mower at some point.  Some of the roll has now been thrown away, although I saved the poles.   It took me about three weeks to tell George that I damaged this fencing.    But, he ran into some last year, so he was ok with it.

(2) I went up a ladder and fixed a loose board on the sheep barn.   This also took quite awhile.   I  should have fixed the board as soon as I noticed it, because the plywood hardened, and I couldn't just push it down and hammer it.   It needed some screws, but I didn't have the right size.   Next time go to hardware store....     I used lots of nails, pounding slowly from left to right to get the board down.  This is not how it is supposed to be done, but the plywood is down.

 

(3) I went in the house to water Percy the cat.  He gets 100 ml fluid subcutaneous about the middle of the day due to poor kidneys.   He and the other cat get a meal at the same time.   While he was slowly finishing, I put the wash in the dryer, brought up coffee from the cellar, cleaned two cat boxes, and tidied a bit.   Then, I stopped to check email, which is always a mistake.   Went outside again 1.5 hours later.

(4) I caught two old sheep and trimmed their feet.   I used to be able to do a dozen at a time, but two a day is better now.   It gets to my back.   I actually think this way is easier for them too, because I don't rush. Aurthur (on the right) needs a horn trimmed....goes on the list.

 (5)Three outbuildings need to be sorted out/cleaned before the farm machinery can be put away for the winter.   I got the first cut done on two.  Summer stuff goes to back, pallets get put away, remaining pumpkins get saved or go to compost, etc.    Also, took the two metal cans full of soot from last year's wood stove fires, and spread them out on the hayfield.   We put down soot in place of sand sometimes to keep things less slippery in the winter, but we have more than enough.   Moved the empty metal cans to the front porch, to be ready for more soot.

Small garage --

Before:

After:

Some of the little pumpkins went outside on the steps.

I was finishing up the second outbuilding when George came home unusually early.   We were talking in the driveway, and a young woman came by with a leaflet urging that the Casinos be voted down.   We talked about that for awhile.   Afterwards, I dropped off the last load of sweepings, and went inside.

3:00 pm.

Have something going on this evening, so quitting early to write this up and get something to eat.   Hmmmmm.....maybe pumpkin bread....with walnuts and chocolate chips.

Grass, Rye and Rutabaga

The pictures in this post were taken yesterday.  I took this one to have a record of what the many-times-mowed pasture looks like now.  This is actually just a small corner of the pasture, looking out toward part of the hayfield, and the woods beyond.   Nice green pasture, isn't it?   Looking close up, there seem to be fewer weeds than last year (a GOOD thing).   Will be very curious to see what it looks like in the spring, but am hoping for the best, as always.

 I had left a few carrots out in the garden, because I enjoy having fresh carrots to add to stew.   I only use a couple of carrots per stew so....having maybe a dozen or 15 out there was a lot of stews.   Nice, fresh, very orange, beautiful carrots......   I took down the garden fence about a week ago, and mowed all around to make things tidy.    It must have taken about that long for someone to notice the nice carrots, but he or she did.   You can just see in the picture how the tops of some of them have been nibbled off.    Some of them have been nibbled almost down to the orange root.

Note for next year:   either get all the carrots into the root cellar or freezer before I take the fence down, or move some fence around the carrots!   So far, no one four-footed has been interested in the rutabagas.  They have been through one hard frost.   I boiled up a couple of rutabaga yesterday, added a bit of butter and milk and salt.     They have a mild flavor all their own - quite different from potatoes.  

The mashed rutabaga is slightly sweet, with just a hunt of bitter underneath.   The color is a very light tannish/yellow.   Yum!!  Very good!!!!   And, the fresh roots look good.   I've never been attracted by the wax-covered hacked up roots in the supermarket.   And, there is no way to know how fresh those are, or when they were taken from the ground (before or after frost?)

Maybe next year, I'll think about growing some more, and put out fresh ones one day for sale, with the leaves still attached, after a hard frost (the frost is supposed to make them sweeter).   Wonder if people would be interested?   The leaves are large and good for compost.   Or, I could cut off the leaves for the buyer and keep them for the compost here.   But, either way....fresh and good rutabaga.

Little Pumpkins

I imagine that having way too many little pumpkins, and far too few potatoes, is one of those learning curve things about starting up a small, family farm.   Still....having far too many little pumpkins feels like having a big stainless steel bowl of those chocolate coins covered with gold paper.

But, we don't need so many of them.   So, I took fifty of them down to Bangor and dropped them off at a non-profit involved with kids.

Wicked Old Witch

She was green too, that Wicked Old Witch of the West. 

 

I've been reading "small farm" blogs - finding popular ones.    I can see why some of these are popular:  cute kids, cute bunnies, cute chicks.

The pumpkins look a lot like mine.    If I weren't on a farm, wouldn't I want to focus on the chickies?  And, the authors are doing good marketing, too.

But, some days I just don't want to go there.   Farms are not always "clean".   There is that pesky manure, and lots of bugs and mud, and occasional blood.  There are the inevitable injuries to oneself, and one runs into wild living things with machinery from time to time, which is one of my least favorite things.

I must have mowed the pasture 7 times this year, trying to reduce the weed seed load.   I won't really know how well this worked until things come up next year.   I've already warned George I may have to use the same amount of gas next year for mowing.   Sometimes we measure our emotional costs with gas - the price goes up and down at the pump too.

Most of the grass clippings were allowed to drop and nourish the pasture.   It is already looking more lush.   One cutting was collected and went for mulch in part of the spring vegetable garden.    It was lovely stuff that made everything look tidy, as well as discouraging weeds and adding nutrients to the soil.

 I decided I could really use some clippings on part of the "put to bed" fall garden beds so....I've been out for a couple of days hunting mulch.   This ideally involves aiming for spots where leaves have fallen, which gives me the double benefit of grass clippings with nitrogen and dead leaves with carbon.   Of course, it is fall, and there is a lot of dew in the morning.   And, we've had lots of rain.

So, things are kind of wet.   I think the mower on the small John Deere and its grass catcher jammed maybe...17 or 18 times one day.   To clear it, I turn everything off (mower and tractor), then get down on my knees and stick my hand under to where that really, really sharp blade whirls around, and painstakingly pick out the stuck grass.   Then, I open up the "tunnel" on the side of the mower, which carries the clippings up to the catcher, and stick my hand in up to my shoulder, and pull out the packed grass there.   Then I whack the top of the "tunnel" to get any grass clippings to fall out of that part.   Then I get up and move around to the back of the mower and open up the "catcher" to see if the top if the tunnel going into the catcher needs clearing or the thing just jammed because the bags are full and need to be emptied.

If you want to play the witch, this is a great way to turn your hands green.

Oooooooooh, look out, here comes the Wicked Old Witch!!  :)

Hard Frost, Names and Oil Change

This time of year it is hard to remember that there was a hard frost about a week ago - hard enough for me to make ghost tracks on leaving the house in the morning.

It was gorgeous weather yesterday - perfect fall football weather for the University of Maine's homecoming game, and the team won!  We didn't go, but listened to part of the game on the radio.   I particularly like the band.

A hard frost should push me along to take care of chores that will be much less pleasant in colder weather, like trimming hooves or catching and worming someone.   But, I want to slow down and enjoy things when it is this pretty.

I was reading someone else's farm blog yesterday.   The writer referred to family members by obviously descriptive, made-up names like Farmer Man, Tall Kid, or something....probably to protect their privacy.  My family members don't want their names used either.   So, I mentioned this to my spouse, with examples, and asked what he'd like to be called.   He said "George" (not his name).    I said "that isn't the concept".   He said "George".

So, George and I were just out changing the oil and oil filters on the two tractors, and a few other things.   I hadn't changed the oil and filters before on the tractors, so wanted to learn.   I've changed the oil on a push mower, and held various funnels for various persons at various times but....I tend to handle food more, and George tends to handle machinery more, in general.

At this point, if you have been changing oil since you were 2 1/2 years old, stop reading.

Undertaking a new learning experience like this always seems to accentuate the differences between one and one's spouse.  I am very toxics-averse.   George eats toxics for breakfast.   Although we use organic practices on the farm, machinery requires lots of toxic stuff, like diesel and gas.  

My first victim is in the picture below.  I had just started the Agco Allis as George instructed, to warm up the engine so the oil would flow.   I also moved the tractor a bit out of the garage so we could breath.   I moved it back onto the cement floor before we changed the oil.

I unscrewed the oil plug over a funnel, that plugged into the top of a container for used oil, that was over an old kitty litter pan (our secondary containment system), which sat on a cement floor.

The funnel I used was too small for the large flow, so the funnel quickly overflowed and  I found myself half way up to my elbows in about a gallon and a half of pouring, dirty, used, oil.    Without commenting, George deftly swept in and rescued the oil plug and very small copper washer that goes with it, before I dropped them into the murky depths of the oily goo rapidly filling up the pan.

George:  "Oh, that happened to me too".

Me:   "And you didn't think to warn me?"

George:  "Why?"

He wasn't setting me up; it just didn't occur to him.   What is a little oil between oneself and one's tractor?

We have a refrain that we use on occasion, and it goes both ways...."who did you marry?"

End of process picture below.   I'd been planing to take some "during" photos, but the oil bath was not conducive.   The picture is of the pan that is for any last drips.  The pan is under the oil plug/filter, and on top of a garbage bag just in case of, I don't know, an earthquake.  It makes me feel better.

So...now I want to find a bigger pan for secondary containment because this one almost wasn't big enough....and a bigger funnel.   And, the pan doesn't fit under the John Deere so we need something better over there....doesn't have to be fancy....large, old baking pan?

Addendum

George read this post and commented that (1) we don't need a new pan and (2) "George" is for George Costanza.

Roses and Rye.

Lovely, bright morning after a hard rain last night and a hard frost earlier this week.    In spite of all that, there are still a few rose petals on the large bush in front of the house.   Keep in mind, this is Downeast Maine, and we aren't on the coast where things are milder.   I am so impressed with this bush.

There was good news this morning.   The winter rye that went into some of the vegetable beds a few days ago, late,  just sprouted.   It is very hard to see when it first comes up:  you really have to look because it is dark purple against the dark brown ground.   See that vertical stuff?   In a couple of days it will green up.   Plan B for if the rye didn't come up or if it doesn't get thick enough before it stops growing this year, is to seriously start cutting and collecting grass, and do a huge amount of mulching.   I'd rather not do that.    So...the sprouting is good.

Normally, the seed should have gone in well before this, but I took a whole lot of time dealing with squash vines with downy mildew -- bagging and removing them.    Downy mildew is not very serious - lots of organic gardens see it late in the season.   We got all the pumpkins and squash we needed before it wilted the vines.   But, it cuts production so I need to do what I can to discourage it.

I've got unintentional test cases running in some of the beds.   This is some "older" winter rye in another bed.  This area was not tilled at the end of the season.   I just pulled out the plants, raked a little, tossed in some rye, and rolled it.   I need it to grow more and fill in the gaps.

Just for comparison purposes -- this is a bed that had rye about a foot long until last weekend.   The soil was nicely covered.    But....something possessed me to mow it.    So...there is now some mulch down from the leavings and...I'm waiting for the rye to come back a bit.

 It just isn't fun if you don't play.

Hay, Garden and a Big WHEW

Whew - been an exciting couple of weeks.    I brought in a few bales of second-cut hay for the old sheep, which put us over the amount (financially speaking) that we needed to make to keep the land classified as agricultural land for tax purposes.    In Maine, one can count both sales figures and product consumed on farm toward this total, and ours includes a bit of both.   I expected this year and next to be tough in this regard, until we got more activities going on the farm, but we were counting every bale and weighing every vegetable this year. 

We still have hay that needs to be sold, but  I don't think that will be a problem this year.   It is a hard year for buyers to find good day.   

Carrots headed for the blanching pot

The hay was difficult to get in the barn because of the wet weather this year.   Three of the last five years have been difficult for hay here, with the heavy clay soils that take a long time to dry.   The investment in a hay tedder this year paid off (a "tedder" helps to cure hay faster, so hay can be brought in during a shorter weather-window).  Modelling related to global warming predicts that Maine should get wetter, so maybe that has something to do with it.   In any case, the rain just underscores that we need to continue to diversity. 

The first frost was predicted for last night, although we had the good luck not to get much.   But, just in case, we brought in a lot of vegetables yesterday.   The acorn squash we'll be eating this winter is now in the basement.    I already cooked a couple with butter and brown sugar, and it definitely gets a thumbs up. Some pie pumpkins are curing in an old and warm wooden garage, before being moved to the cool basement with the acorn and spaghetti squash.   The onions are drying.   I've been blanching vegetables all summer for the freezer, which now contains lots of frozen summer squash, broccoli, string beans, and carrots.  There are also bags of frozen cherry tomatoes, and lots of frozen zucchini bread (some with walnuts and chocolate chips).    I'm still intending to put some potatoes, rutabagas, and fresh carrots into the root cellar.

This was the first summer  that we haven't had both adults working full time off-farm, plus trying to run the farm.   Things have changed a lot.   It isn't easy, but it is always interesting.

If anyone reads this who bought hay or seedlings or vegetables from us this year, I just want to say thank you. Every bit helped.   Thanks also to family and friends who listened patiently to intense comments about haying machinery, green manure, or the weather.

Pumpkins

I didn't expect to be writing about pumpkins in August, but Hurricane Irene pushed things ahead a bit.  We've started bringing the pie pumpkins in.    Most are still out in the garden, but I put a few in the old wooden garage, with a lot of drying onions.   The first and the last pumpkins always seem to be the prettiest.

The plan is to cook and freeze pumpkin puree this year.   Yum ... pumpkin pie.

Irene

A quick post to say we got really lucky with Irene. Tthere was no damage to the farm equipment .  The tarp on the baler held.   We're still planning to cut a bit of second-cut hay.

There is a bit of damage in the garden, but things could have been so much worse.   The bean plants didn't lose all their flowers; green tomatoes are still ripening.



Farm websie seems to be down.... so is the website for the company hosting the site. 

Rainy Squash Sunday

I love rainy Sundays in August.   There are a whole lot of things that can get put off due to the rain*, so things slow down.    And, even imperfect squash that will be bread or compost are pretty.   

*Turn over the new garden bed and plant winter rye; bush hog; mow; move hay bales; weed; plant more veggies; paint; trim sheep hooves (wet sheep are a bit slippery); grease outside machinery; fix loose board on side of barn; fix fences; move the garden fence again....

I mowed along the garden fence but didn't get it moved.....

Keeping tidy while it rains

Potato plants in the garden

It has been a very wet spring.   We finally got a little hay in the barn, but the first small batch will need to go for mulch hay (lower price) because the ground was a bit too damp.   The second small batch was baled when the humidity was a bit too high, so it is being checked regularly for heating in the bales.    If it doesn't heat up, which might happen in the next two weeks but could happen in the next two months, it will be kept for sheep on the farm.    The animals here usually get the first hay, and this year we need to keep it just to keep an eye on it.  Whew, amazing the extra work and worry caused by a little humidity.

We got enough hay in to check out all the machinery,  and try out the new hay tedder.   A tedder spreads cut hay out broadly so it can dry more quickly and evenly.  I don't think we'd have gotten any hay in so far without the tedder.   I feel good that I operated all the machinery in the field, with help from my husband hooking up and adjusting things.   There was that incident with the tractor and the garage door but....I might write about that when my face turns a lighter shade of red!

Any hay baled in July will be "late first-cut hay", which is less nutritious than hay of the same quality baled earlier in the year.   We'd have liked to have baled earlier, but the weather didn't agree with that goal this year, as is probably true for many hay producers in Maine. 

String bean plants

I just wandered out into the garden to take pictures and cheer myself up.   The overcast skies and damp air make the soil and mulch dark and soft.  In spite of the lack of sun, and the usual invasion of cucumber beetles, the plants are hanging in there.

I tried to help the young squash plants repel the beetles by sprinkling soot from the wood stove on the leaves.   Ash doesn't kill the beetles as an insecticide would, but the beetles seem to try to avoid the ash. 

There was a deer in the garden last night.    His narrow feet left big, deep tracks in the soft ground.   It looks like he checked things out, but didn't eat much of anything.   Good deer!

I am off to wash sheets and pull weeds....tidy the beds all around.

Squash plants

March 15, 2011

It is one of those very rare days when the snow is so dense from rising temperatures that I can walk on it without sinking.   I can even climb drifts!  The coming world of spring has been my basement for the last couple of weeks, but now the world has opened up and I can go anywhere for a brief period until the snow softens, and makes me sink again.

Copra onions (Fedco seed) growing in the basement under lights.

Some wild seed on the snow, out beyond the pasture.

We can't mend fencing like this until the snow melts some more, and the fence can be pulled up.  Right now, it is frozen down.   Luckily, the sheep don't want to come out this far through the snow.

Winter rye that was planted last summer is starting to appear in a couple of corners of the vegetable beds.

Tracks crossing a fence that needs mending.  Cat?  Coyote?  Coyote tracking a cat?

Pump, Percy and Onions

The temperature got into the upper 40s today, and everything is melting.  We used a new red pump to lift the hay baler and remove a tire for repair.   The first seedlings (onions) appeared under lights in the basement.

We don't normally allow cats on the kitchen table, but Percy is an exception.  He has poor kidneys, and needs an injection of fluids once a day.  He doesn't like this any more than anyone would, so the deal we worked out with him is that he gets to sit on the corner of the kitchen table (attractive spot since previously forbidden), and he gets fed while being "watered".  Percy has been wonderfully good about this, and even comes and gets us if we are late.

The day after - digging out

When the snow is the deeper than the height of the porch, I can't just scrape off the porch anymore.  It is so nice and easy just to scrape!   After we got the driveway and paths dug out, I put wood ash down on the slickest corner of the driveway.  We keep a couple of cans on the porch to hold the ash from the woodstove.  It isn't as good as sand if you are stuck, but it isn't bad.   And, it is free.

Storm

Big storm going on out there.  I went to check on the sheep and couldn't find the path to the barn.  I gave up shoveling  a route some time ago.  The wind just blows the snow off the field and piles it between the drive way and the barn.  I've been carefully walking along the route, packing down the snow as I go out and back twice a day.  I'm usually fine as long as I don't step off the hard packed part into deep snow.

Well, there was no way to find out where that hard area was with all the blowing and drifting, so I kept sinking, and it took me awhile to get to the barn.  I came back with my long shepherd's crook, and used it to feel ahead and fine the hard packed area.  That helped.

Spent part of the evening in the basement putting up new grow lights and thinking about getting the onion seed going.   It is a little late, but not too bad.     I put together some little wooden boxes for soil.  No one came down to find out what all the hammering was about.  When it is blowing like this, people stay put where they are, in front of the woodstove or under the covers.

We need to get dug out tomorrow morning so I can go to a gardening workshop.  Spring!!