Hello spring . . . where are you?

I feel like it has been weeks now that I wake up and look out the window, hoping for that one day that will signal it's here. Maple sugaring starts it in my blood, and for some reason it feels like that the earth should warm up and shine as soon as that last golden jar is cool and slid onto the shelf. But 2011 has failed to comply with the requisite warmth and sunshine.

It doesn't help that spring is going on in our upstairs bedroom right now:

As you can see our started seeds are well on their way to becoming well established plants. In another week or so the brocollis would like nothing better that being able to start spending their days outside in gentle spring sunshine, and then brought inside the garage at night so they don't get frosted.


And then there's the potatoes. Just put to start sprouting in the windowsill this morning.

Though already they have little nubbins of sprouts . . . it won't be long before it will be time to plop them into the just barely warmed ground. In time for them to grown into fresh new potatoes with the first green beans at the end of June. All just a dream right now.


On to other subjects. We acquired a friend for Runt this weekend. His name is Hamball, and while a little smaller than Runt (which seems ironic that anything could be smaller than a runt, but then Runt isn't really small any more), they seem to do a good job of keeping each other company.

And another wrinkle in the farmer/conservationist/pet lover internal conflict. Outdoor cats . . . under the bird feeder. There are plenty of voles, mice, and moles out there, easily accessible judging by all their trails, holes, and hills. And yet she has a hankering for my feathered friends. Argh!

Long Awaited Introduction . . . Runt the Pig

This is Runt the pig. The latest addition to our farm . . . though we've had him for a few weeks now. We decided that he was bolstered up enough that he would look OK for his photo shoot (ha! ha!). He has grown quite a bit since we got him, and has went from hiding in the straw in a corner of his small building to running out to greet us with all kinds of funny pig snorts when he hears us coming.

As far as breed goes, we think he's at least part if not full-blooded Hampshire. Right now he's kinda growing out of that scrawny little piglet look into the longer, muscled look of a good sized feeder pig. Ha! like I really know what I'm talking about . . . just comparing him to pigs I've seen at the fair and stuff. Plus things we've learned on line, from books, and family.



The hardest part of raising animals for meat . . . knowing that someday we will be the cause of their no longer being, and that their bodies will be in our freezer, and that we will fix them for supper. But I console myself with the fact that I know that I have given these animals a good life. They have decent, clean shelter, plenty of good food and clean water, sunshine and air, and plenty of scratches and pats when ever they would like them. And it also keeps us raising them, knowing that by taking good care of their bodies, we are producing good food that will help take care of our bodies.

Plus folks . . . who needs TV, when you've got a pig, cattle, chickens, and turkeys in the backyard. Their antics are constant and hilarious, and we've discovered that just how we like to watch our critters . . . the calves like to watch the pig. They haven't quite decided what he is, but run up to his fence to chat whenever he comes out of his building.  And then will just stand there forever watching him.

Three and a half gallons!

Three and a half gallons . . . the amount of maple syrup we have made in the last month. Which is almost three times as much as we made last year, and twice as much as we made the year before that. I think it can mostly be attributed to a longish season with several bouts of near perfect sap run weather. The biggest sap run we had: Tuesday, March 8 we gathered 14 almost 15 gallons of sap from 5 trees in 24 hours or less. Over the season, we figured we gathered over 108 gallons of sap, which works out to a little less than 20 gallons of sap per tap (one of our trees had 2 taps). That's a lot for our itty, bitty sugarbush. 

That's a lot of jars lined up on our kitchen table (or other places to catch the sunlight). It ranges from color from light amber to dark amber, and from crystal clear to slightly cloudy. While we could still be collecting sap, using a propane burner limits our season because of the cost of propane.  This past weekend we hit our propane purchasing limit, and so boiled off our last batch of 2011 on Sunday.  Though I don't think we'll see much of if any sap runs after today or tomorrow, with warming night time and day time temperatures. And the trees will start to break open their buds meaning "buddy" sap, which doesn't make very good syrup.

On Sunday, we could already tell that the quality of the sap had change. Our syrup produced that day wasn't as crystal clear as other ones, and when I poured it through cheese cloth to filter it, we got a thick layer of sugar sand.

Which is minerals and other stuff that settles out of syrup, and that can be filtered out almost completely if you have a sophisticated filtering system. We don't have a sophisticated filtering system yet, just cheesecloth over a sieve. This is the only batch we got that much sugar sand out of; in most of the other batches you'll just see a thin film of it on the bottom of the jar. So if you see a grayish or light brown film on the bottom of a jar, no worries that's just the sugar sand. When you hit it when you're pouring out your jar, you've hit the bottom. The few drops of syrup left will be gritty and not worth using.

By the way did you see the sunset last night? It was a beauty (my photo editor enhanced the colors a little more than I like, but it really was almost this bright in some spots).

Timmmbberrr . . .

At our house this weekend, among many other things we cut down a tree.

Or I should rephrase that. Ryan cut down the tree. I stood way off to the side watching, waiting to yell loudly over the sound of the chainsaw that it was swaying, and he should get out of the way NOW! But he doesn't really need me to tell him that . . . he's cut down trees before and knows what to expect. Its more of just an insurance policy I guess. Plus I had helped make the decision about ending the life of the tree, so I figured I should be there to witness.


Which is kinda of a hard thing for me. I like trees a lot! My mom knew I was a goner for Ryan when I said that he had lots of trees at his house, and he likes them!  A better picture of my feelings . . .  a t-shirt I once saw that said "I don't just hug trees, I kiss them too!" They are wonderful in so many ways: shade, erosion control, nuts & berries, habitat, beauty, leaning on, climbing, hugging,  etc. etc. I can't think of one native tree that I don't have a good word for . . . just don't get me started on invasive exotics. I have obviously digressed.


But on the very bright side this walnut tree won't be slowly poisoning our garden anymore, which is a very good thing. Walnut trees have this substance called juglone in most parts of their tissue, which while not really a problem for people, can cause a problem for some plants.  If these plants are grown anywhere near a walnut tree, they will at least fail to flourish and sometimes will even die. And it just so happens that most of the nightshade family, tomatoes, peppers, potates, etc don't really tolerate juglone. We have learned this the hard way over the past few years. So it was either move the garden or cut down the tree. You can see who won.  Now hopefully the small roots near the garden will rot into the soil in the next couple of years, and we'll be happily juglone free.


The other upside of cutting down a walnut tree on your property. Beautiful lumber. I can't wait to see what this looks like when we get it milled. I am visioning a small piece of walnut furniture somewhere in my house in the future.

In the end, cutting down this tree only took about 15 minutes at the most. The rest of this weekend was spent doing things like turning and organizing the compost pile, cleaning the chicken house, finishing the last of the maple syrup. Plus Ryan worked on getting the fence for the pig's area put up, and putting a partition in our outdoor feed trough, so we can start feeding the calves outside and not have to worry about them pushing grain down the big hole in one end.

The feeling of spring busyness is in the air as the temperature climbs, and all these projects start calling our names. In the next post, I promise I'll talk about the end of maple sugaring for 2011, and other fun stuff.

Friday on the Farm

Spring is officially on its way. We have a turkey egg. Fresh laid Wednesday by Ginny the 1 year old turkey hen. If you're wondering why its in an egg carton in the house, and not out in her nest . . . turkeys will start laying eggs several days and/or weeks before they will end up sitting on them. In the mean time, we will probably have some below freezing temperatures. Frozen egg equals dead egg. So we bring them inside, and replace them with plastic eggs filled with sand until it either warms up or she starts sitting on them.


Otherwise, it's trying really hard to look like a warm early spring day outside. Trying is the key word there though. It might get to be 40 today if we're lucky, but the wind is strong enough it seems to negate the sunshine effect.

Here Chicky, Chicky

I was not really intending that this be a photo of the chickens running towards the camera. I was hoping to get this idyllic picture of all our birds busily foraging around the 2 relaxing calves. Obviously this was not to be. Which might be my fault. Since the last time I approached the fence was to drop in some leftovers for them. For chickens they have good memories, or are pretty well conditioned that person standing at the fence means treats for them. I wasn't even calling "Here chicky, chicky" like I do when I have something for them.  And I couldn't even get a second picture of the calves laying down because they got all excited and thought there might be some stale tortilla shells in it for them (their favorite!). Oh, how disappointed they all were when they figured out that I just had this dumb camera in my hand.


We finally have a patch of noticeable green outside the house. An area of bulbs that the frost heaved close to the surface are sending up little green shoots. Woo hoo! 12 days and counting!

18 days and counting

Eighteen days until what? The spring equinox of course! Which doesn't mean that the weather is going to instantly change . . . but there is hope! Just starting out, March on the farm is pretty desolate looking. If you look at the grass long enough, you might see some green, but that's if you look really hard.

As you  can see everything is pretty well brown. Whether if its dead, dormant, or muddy. There's a good chance that it is some shade of brown.

At least the sunshine does a good job of counteracting all the browness though, and highlighting the beautiful pale blue late winter sky.

As you can see, the calves were not content to munch their morning hay while I toured the barnyard, but felt pulled to follow me as I walked the fence edge catching the sunlight at different angles. They do this when I gather sap too, or just walk the fence line with Ryan to check for any damage that needs fixing. Whether we want to be or not, we are part of their "herd." Except we're special because we bring the food.

I am excitedly down to 4 empty sap storage buckets this morning. The sap kettle has been going pretty much non-stop for the last going on 3 days, except for the few hours we sleep each night. The results so far is 4 pints (1/2 gallon) of medium amber syrup.

(And yes it is as good as it looks . . . I did a little taste test before I canned it.)  Hopefully I'll get a couple of more jars from what's in the kettle right now. And then maybe a few days respite from boiling before the next run hits.


Sally the cat has a request. If you have seen her friend Henry, please tell him she would like him to come home.  After being by herself for a whole day while he is out on a tomcat hiatus, she is bored. And must resort to doing silly things like attacking the bottom of the tent flap.