Friday on the Farm

As promised, here is a picture of the little poults living in our garage:

As you can see, they are not very photogenic, and will pretty much try to do anything in their power to get away from humans. We don't know why this group of babies is the most flighty we've ever had. They came from the same breeder we got ours from last year, and last years poults were extremely human curious, they loved to check us out and were often intent on pecking at wedding rings, buttons, or other shiny things we might be wearing. These guys are the complete opposite of that; we will have a fun time catching them to move them to their outside pen.

Due to an odd, overly warm spring, a lot of our plants are ahead of schedule. At the end of the 1st week of June, we are already nearing the end of strawberry season, and many of our roses are in full bloom. We have a new one we bought for $3 this spring, that was just twigs when we set it in the ground, but now after just a month or so of babying, we are rewarded with this:

I didn't think that much about it, but Ryan brought it to my attention that this yellow rose with pink edges is very similar to the ones we wore and carried as boutenieres and bouquets at our wedding. I knew I picked this variety for some reason!

As strawberry season draws to a close, we've been searching for new to us ways to preserve this bounty of produce. We made jam, and froze some, but you can only use so many frozen strawberries. Yesterday, I sliced up a bunch and put them in the food dehydrator we borrowed from Mom and Dad. They have completely dried out in 24 hours, and have went from bright red little slices, to dark red, dry little bits of strawberry sweetness. They will be a welcome treat on cereal or as a snack later this year.

Summer Time on the Farm

It seems like the weather has moved directly from late April to July, and now we're back to late May again. And while this proves to be a bit much for our human bodies to adjust to, the plants and animals here on the farm seem to actually thrive in it. It was just about 2 weeks ago that our strawberry plants looked like this.

Since that picture we have collected several gallons of strawberries from our little 50 plant patch, and I have tried my hand at strawberry pie, strawberry ice cream, starwberry jam, and next on my list dried strawberries and strawberry fruit leather. Besides lots of eating fresh strawberries straight off the plant, before they even make it to the house. Yum!!!

And while we seem to have strawberries on the brain, and if you look at us we might seem a little red from all the fabulous anthocyanins we've eaten lately; strawberries aren't the only thing we're growing around here.

Requiring just as much daily attention as our strawberry patch are the noisy little birds found in various buildings around the property. On May 7 we upped our farmyard bird population from 6 chickens and 2 turkeys to now having 36 chickens and 6 turkeys! Granted most of that population isn't a month old yet. Though in 3 weeks they have went from being covered with down fluff to growing feathers, and being able to be outside part of the day now. The 30 baby chicks are living in the old turkey shed. The day we put them out there, they looked like this:

Now they look like this:

For more on the animals and other happenings . . . check back tomorrow.

Spring Time is Upon Us!

We're only a few days into April, and already it seems as though spring is full upon us. Over a week of unseasonably warm weather, with lots of sunshine has put most of the plants and animals on our farm "in the mood"! Our silver maple and pussy willows are the first to burst buds, and hang out flowers and catkins, putting pollen in the air. We just noticed today that as you look out over the east part of the pasture, it is suddenly purple with hundreds of violets in full bloom.

Some unknown force has upped our turkey hen's normal fertility; she has been producing an egg every day, instead of the regular every other day turkey egg-laying cycle. And over the past few days she has been spending more and more time with her eggs, sitting on them, and re-arranging the straw around her, getting that glassy eyed, broodiness look about her, equal parts intense concentration, dreaminess, and fierceness. She has set up in an old plastic dog house we put out in the pasture, and our only problem with her nesting location is how much all the other birds like to walk into the little building, and check out what's going on. Her turkey consort, Thomas, has yet to quite understand that his courtship days for this spring are over, and continues to strut his stuff, even though his fair maid is now completely ignoring him to care for her eggs and spend the occasional moment foraging for grass and bugs.

As we hoped, Good Friday found us working in the garden, praising the good weather that allowed us to hill in too many potatoes, the first of our onions, and direct seed peas, broccoli, cauliflower, mesclun mix, radishes, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts. We may have over planted a bit, but the good weather and a cheerful trip to our local fruit / seeds / a little bit of everything store had inspired us. And then just our good luck that it rained a nice bit the next day to give the little boost of moisture to give our seeds a good start. Today we found that a little squirrel had danced through our onion row and dug up a couple, but then found that they evidently didn't suit his taste.

Otherwise, we spend time scouting the land for signs of things sprouting, flowering, and fruiting, everything in its season. Strawberries and rhubarb, the favored spring "fruit" combination, are looking good, both green and sprouting on or ahead of schedule.

Sugarin' Season Again

It's the second weekend in March and our sap buckets are running empty; lows in the 40s the past few days have left our trees thinking about splitting buds instead of sending sugar sap up. We did get about 27 gallons of sap between our tap date of March 2 and March 10, which boiled down to a pint short of 1 gallon of syrup. The syrup is a nice quality with a medium amber color. We need to work on our post boiling filtration though; our jars have a lot of sugar sand in the bottom of them. The weather forecast is calling for a few nights in the low 30s this week; we are hoping that's enough to get sap flowing a little bit longer or its going to have been a very short sugarin' season. We have other spring tasks going on around here besides making syrup. There are young onion plants growing in a flat in the upstairs window, and we just planted peppers and cole crops one evening this week. The broccoli seeds have sprouted, and we would anticipate many more to follow soon. It is crazy how fast spring is approaching, and with it so many outdoor tasks. It won't be long before our frypan special chick order will be waiting for pick up at the post office, and we'll be anxiously watching our turkey hen for signs of egg laying and broodiness. We hope Good Friday finds us planting potatoes and onions, and maybe even some peas and broccoli. Keep your fingers crossed for a seasonable, pleasant spring!

Spring Fever!

Got our seed onions started indoors this week. Also put our order in for 25 meat bird chicks due to be here the first of May. And then last night called and have 4 Bourben Red poults ordered for the end of April. Plan on tapping supar maple trees at the end of this week. So our spring has started even though its still pretty cold and snowy outside. Enjoying 2010 so far, my work is going strong and Sarah is starting to get enrollment forms in.

Hello 2010

We cannot believe it is already the new year. January is here in full force, with a small snowstorm expected to start overnight. But that's ok . . . if it's going to be this cold, it had better snow!

We leave the year 2009 behind full of fond memories. It being a year of many good things. In July we welcomed a new niece to the family, Miss Isabel, the first grandchild on Sarah's side. At the O'Hara farm we completed several projects that helped to further our homestead goals. Late last winter we completed our living room (as we described earlier on this blog), and have been enjoying the new furniture, flooring, and paint all year. Outside, Ryan enclosed a significant portion of our property with a woven wire fence to make a pasture for livestock. Inside this pasture, we built a new and improved poultry house. Up off the ground, to discourage rodents, and with large south facing windows, this nice little building suits our purposes very well. We have been very pleased that with the extreme cold, the building seems to manage to be at least a few degrees warmer than outside, and on sunny days up to 10 degrees warmer. We decided to keep all of our birds in one house this winter, not separating the chickens and turkeys, and they seem to be thriving, with the rooster gracefully handing over the top dog position of the flock to the tom turkey (but hey if you only weight 7 pounds, wouldn't you turn it over to someone who weighs 20?). We enjoy their antics, and have appreciated the steady supply of eggs since they started laying earlier this fall. We help them out with a timed light that turns on before the sun comes up, so that their days don't seem so short.

In 2010 we are hoping to add a little lean-to to the side of the poultry house to provide shelter for a couple of beef steers that we're planning on acquiring in the spring. While the ground is still frozen we hope to drag the turkey shed we built 2 years ago inside the pasture fence to provide a separate house for the turkeys if the female decides to set on a clutch this spring. And also move our garden shed to the other side of the garden to open up a new space, and expand the garden a bit.

We just finished perusing our farm journal and realized that in only a couple of short months we will be tapping maple trees, and starting seeds under the grow lights; the cycle of our growing year starting over again. Each year we build in more of the details of our yearly routine, and make this place more our own.

Wishing you and yours a blessed, bountiful, and peaceful 2010.

Christmas is in sight.

Christmas is just around the corner, and things have really slowed down around here. We are taking a little break before things take off again for the new year. Merry Christmas!