The finalized CSA schedule is finally done for all the groups! This always feels like a monumental task when we begin and once the routes are sketched out, it all falls into place. If you have not already received and email showing your schedule, be on the lookout for this today.
The Farmers markets we attend are in full spring/summer swing. On Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning we load the van with coolers and head to Saratoga to see our local customers. This market runs all year round and has been great in getting the community involved; it is a busy market with lots of variety. On Sunday we head for Dorset VT; a lovely old architecture village just to our east over the first ridge of the Green Mountains. This market is held on a green and seems more like a festival and community meeting morning.
We are working hard on getting our own vegetable garden ready. The up and down of the temperatures this spring has caused a bit of havoc in the soil temperature and growing temperature of many of the early plants. We are replanting things like broccoli raab, kale, spinach, and lettuce since they did not grow well for us. We have made a few new pestos with unusual plants like mache and mint after seeing some new recipes in a gardening magazine. Green Goo - yum! The strawberries are beginning to ripen now that all those weeds have been pulled out to let in the sun and warmth.
We’ve been working on our long term fencing plans and have almost finished the new cow lane across the Lewis farm pasture that is one side of the new pig pasture six acre area. The pigs are due to have their first visit tomorrow after their lane is connected between the barn where they sleep at night and the pasture up on the hill. Their view will be awesome across the Hudson Valley to the west and they’ll see the outline of the peaks of the Adirondacks to the northwest. They’ll have lots of grass, lots of woods, and a year round spring for drinking and taking their mud baths. We’ll have the opening parade with treats in buckets to lure them up the hill. Hopefully this will cure the piggy who gets out every night and eats all the leftover dog food in the upstairs of the barn.
My 1955 John Deere 60 tractor is finally put back together after resting all winter with an engine oil leak. A bad $20 oil seal gasket caused a lot of trouble inside the engine. We use this tractor to pull hay wagons, rake and ted (fluff up for faster drying) the hay and York rake the gravel area we are smoothing as we fix the landscaping around our packing barn.
My last news for today is my new Mini Cooper!! I have wanted one for a long time since they started making them again years ago. This one is a 2002 cherry red with a big sunroof and a CD player! I now have a fancy car! I’m getting it registered this afternoon!!
Announcements
Eagle Bridge Custom Meats
We are proud to officially announce the our new USDA processor is Eagle Bridge Custom Meats in Cambridge, NY We have a full schedule with them this year and are able to offer new cuts and new recipes. They finished the design and building of their new facility last year and are now fully USDA certified for everything but Liverwurst making!! So you will see some new cuts, a new label, new cryovac wrapping, some cuts a slightly new technique (esp. pork cutlets). They are very willing to work with us to do as we and you request – so some of the items we have not been able to get in the past we may be able to ask for now.
All the sausage recipes will be a bit different and we will be able to offer beef sausage now. They have been very willing to work with us on replacing the sodium phosphate (a salt) ingredient in the first batch of pork hot dogs with organic cornstarch which was what we tried with the new beef hot dogs and next we are trying a carrot fiber with the next batch of pork hot dogs. Unfortunately, the cornstarch ingredient shown on the label does not say organic, but Debbie assures me that it is. Please let us know your feed back and we hope it all tastes great!
We are also announcing minuscule price increases for certain of our products. Many items are increasing .03 cents per pound, some are a bit more. This is the third year that we have been able to keep our prices fairly stable. Thanks for your support.
Issue of the month
Issues surrounding GMO seeds and foods are typically one of the passionate topics I rail against. As in India where farmers are straining against the forced use of these products, now Haiti is also attempting to fight back. Monsanto is now donating seeds to spread the use of their altered seeds. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/03-9
But these GMO topics are now being dwarfed by the enormity of the problem of the BP/Halliburton/Deepwater Horizon oil spill which is a disaster of still to come proportions. We are all crying for the Gulf. We are all outraged at the corporations, their administrations and their abysmal lack of a disaster recovery plan. We are hoping and praying for a miracle to stop the flow, as the Gulf is already irreparably damaged.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Spring Fencing on the Farm
We have 37 different fields; many of which are perennially pasture. Ten are used as hay fields until June (weather permitting the haying to be done) and they are pastures thereafter. One to four additional fields also might be baled into hay based on the volume of grass available early in the spring. The balance of our hay fields, 17 parcels, are all rented land from three neighbors in the towns of Jackson and Greenwich.
Notes about Fencing
We've always tried to fence our own fields along the early 19Th century paths of stone walls with gates at the original gateway openings. We maintain miles of modified high tensile fencing powered by 2 100 mile electric fence chargers. One is plugged in at the Lewis farm barn and one is at the Waite's farm barn.
This April we've been pounding into the ground old and new black locust fence posts (black locust is the best for resisting rotting), installing new fiberglass mid span posts, and restringing the wires. We've been repairing gate wires, straightening gate posts leaning in all directions, adding missing gate handles. We are removing errant stones from fields and repositioning them on back on the stone walls. We cut any dead or fallen trees and branches laying across the wires and either save firewood or leave the wood to rot and add to the soil fertility. The HARDEST AND WORST JOB OF ALL IS CUTTING THE MULTI-FLORA ROSES FROM OUR FENCING (the big ones are about 9 feet in diameter!) / A PARTIALLY BLOODY MESS AND AN UNENDING YEARLY TASK (of course it is way better to get them while the are small but some areas are pretty tough to monitor constantly and they grow like weeds!).
WE DO ALL THIS BECAUSE WE STRONGLY BELIEVE the following:
We want to maintain our heritage fields and their boundaries.
We have no interest in using chemicals to eliminate that which we cannot tolerate.
We will try harder to spend more time to cut out our problems prior to them growing to larger proportions.
We will continue to experiment with our animals learning to eat unconventional nutritional plants that are generally unwanted plants (called weeds!).
Thank you for all your support, Alan & Nancy
Notes about Fencing
We've always tried to fence our own fields along the early 19Th century paths of stone walls with gates at the original gateway openings. We maintain miles of modified high tensile fencing powered by 2 100 mile electric fence chargers. One is plugged in at the Lewis farm barn and one is at the Waite's farm barn.
This April we've been pounding into the ground old and new black locust fence posts (black locust is the best for resisting rotting), installing new fiberglass mid span posts, and restringing the wires. We've been repairing gate wires, straightening gate posts leaning in all directions, adding missing gate handles. We are removing errant stones from fields and repositioning them on back on the stone walls. We cut any dead or fallen trees and branches laying across the wires and either save firewood or leave the wood to rot and add to the soil fertility. The HARDEST AND WORST JOB OF ALL IS CUTTING THE MULTI-FLORA ROSES FROM OUR FENCING (the big ones are about 9 feet in diameter!) / A PARTIALLY BLOODY MESS AND AN UNENDING YEARLY TASK (of course it is way better to get them while the are small but some areas are pretty tough to monitor constantly and they grow like weeds!).
WE DO ALL THIS BECAUSE WE STRONGLY BELIEVE the following:
We want to maintain our heritage fields and their boundaries.
We have no interest in using chemicals to eliminate that which we cannot tolerate.
We will try harder to spend more time to cut out our problems prior to them growing to larger proportions.
We will continue to experiment with our animals learning to eat unconventional nutritional plants that are generally unwanted plants (called weeds!).
Thank you for all your support, Alan & Nancy
Friday, April 2, 2010
it's April and Blooming!
What a day today! After days of gray gloom and chilly winds we have bright blue sky, greening grass, warmth and sunshine!!! Yeah!
We have been cleaning up the gardens in spite of the chilly weather and cold soil and this weekend we hope to begin planting seeds of spinach, arugula, beets, lettuce, and carrots under some row cover right out in the garden. My greenhouse seedlings are sprouting; although many of the new sprouts were hiding in our compost (which we never turn over often enough to kill the weed seed). With this warm weather the soil should warm up a bit and maybe allow some plantings directly in the garden. The garlic is up about 2 inches and looking happy and the spring onions are close to ready to start eating!
Alan, Colin and Dylan have been busy getting the fences and pastures ready for spring. Jack the horse and Pedro the donkey are already grazing the short green grass growing beside the stream in their pasture. Horses eat grass with their teeth, cutting off the grass very short when it is so nice and tender like the new April grass. The cows must wait a bit for the grass to grow longer as they grab the grass with their tongue and then use their teeth to chop off the blades. When the grass starts growing and the sun and the warmth begins to really be felt, all the animals start roaming around to find forage. With all the windy storms this winter, many limbs and trees had fallen across the fences and each pasture must be checked to make sure the fence is up. The old farm pickup truck is loaded with the fence electricity tester, chainsaws, extra chains, sharpeners, gas, oil, branch loppers, wire, wire cutters, extra fence posts, and extra wire holders for the posts. You drive slowly along the edge of each pasture watching the wire to be sure it is still up, intact and not touching anything but the plastic wire holders so that there will be no short circuiting of the electricity. At each repair spot, you jump out and fix what is needed; move the branch, cut the tree and repair the wire, install a new post to lift the wire off the ground where the deer have jumped through and knocked the fence down. Once all set again, continue driving through the next of the 40 or so hayfields, pastures and paddocks until all is well. We have miles of fences and the other important point is that the electricity has to have a path throughout the network of wire so the circuit is wholesome.
Today we plan to fence a new area for the pigs to explore. That is really fun to watch. Sometimes, if you are allowing them into a new area where the fence has stopped them before, they are smart enough to know they do not want to cross the line and they need to be lured across to the new site. Once the first brave pig ventures to explore, the others follow; some with enthusiasm and some more slowly. They will have a great time digging up this new area that we’d like loosened up. There will be mounds in some areas and craters in others. There is not much grass to eat yet so the majority of their searching for nutrients is under the surface! Some farmers actually use the pigs to till new fields and gardens.
The other big project we have been working on these days is a new backhoe. We do not have much equipment except for all nine of Alan’s 1950’s John Deere tractors. For haying we have a mower, a tedder, a rake, a baler. We have a manure spreader which we use for compost since the cows spread their own manure (thank goodness!). We have discs we use for preparing seeding areas or mowing sapling areas where the little trees have gotten ahead of the cows eating them. But a backhoe would help us in areas of fixing culver crossings under the farm roads, fixing water swales that have filled with runoff over the years, grading our road to the north barn where we pack your orders, and all kinds or projects for improvement of the terrain. Alan has run an ad in the local swap paper for about 3 years looking for one and finally he has negotiated a deal for one. He is so excited. We think that Salem Farm supply is delivering it today after checking it all out and changing all the fluids for us. We know what Alan will be doing this weekend – maybe digging and filling practice holes! Not everyone’s idea of great fun!
Happy Easter and hope you enjoyed Passover and your Seder.
We are welcoming the wonderful weather and have begun, a little while after you folks, to wear short sleeves and no jackets! We hope no one was too fooled yesterday. We hope you are all happy and hopeful for the future.
Take care, Nancy and Alan
We have been cleaning up the gardens in spite of the chilly weather and cold soil and this weekend we hope to begin planting seeds of spinach, arugula, beets, lettuce, and carrots under some row cover right out in the garden. My greenhouse seedlings are sprouting; although many of the new sprouts were hiding in our compost (which we never turn over often enough to kill the weed seed). With this warm weather the soil should warm up a bit and maybe allow some plantings directly in the garden. The garlic is up about 2 inches and looking happy and the spring onions are close to ready to start eating!
Alan, Colin and Dylan have been busy getting the fences and pastures ready for spring. Jack the horse and Pedro the donkey are already grazing the short green grass growing beside the stream in their pasture. Horses eat grass with their teeth, cutting off the grass very short when it is so nice and tender like the new April grass. The cows must wait a bit for the grass to grow longer as they grab the grass with their tongue and then use their teeth to chop off the blades. When the grass starts growing and the sun and the warmth begins to really be felt, all the animals start roaming around to find forage. With all the windy storms this winter, many limbs and trees had fallen across the fences and each pasture must be checked to make sure the fence is up. The old farm pickup truck is loaded with the fence electricity tester, chainsaws, extra chains, sharpeners, gas, oil, branch loppers, wire, wire cutters, extra fence posts, and extra wire holders for the posts. You drive slowly along the edge of each pasture watching the wire to be sure it is still up, intact and not touching anything but the plastic wire holders so that there will be no short circuiting of the electricity. At each repair spot, you jump out and fix what is needed; move the branch, cut the tree and repair the wire, install a new post to lift the wire off the ground where the deer have jumped through and knocked the fence down. Once all set again, continue driving through the next of the 40 or so hayfields, pastures and paddocks until all is well. We have miles of fences and the other important point is that the electricity has to have a path throughout the network of wire so the circuit is wholesome.
Today we plan to fence a new area for the pigs to explore. That is really fun to watch. Sometimes, if you are allowing them into a new area where the fence has stopped them before, they are smart enough to know they do not want to cross the line and they need to be lured across to the new site. Once the first brave pig ventures to explore, the others follow; some with enthusiasm and some more slowly. They will have a great time digging up this new area that we’d like loosened up. There will be mounds in some areas and craters in others. There is not much grass to eat yet so the majority of their searching for nutrients is under the surface! Some farmers actually use the pigs to till new fields and gardens.
The other big project we have been working on these days is a new backhoe. We do not have much equipment except for all nine of Alan’s 1950’s John Deere tractors. For haying we have a mower, a tedder, a rake, a baler. We have a manure spreader which we use for compost since the cows spread their own manure (thank goodness!). We have discs we use for preparing seeding areas or mowing sapling areas where the little trees have gotten ahead of the cows eating them. But a backhoe would help us in areas of fixing culver crossings under the farm roads, fixing water swales that have filled with runoff over the years, grading our road to the north barn where we pack your orders, and all kinds or projects for improvement of the terrain. Alan has run an ad in the local swap paper for about 3 years looking for one and finally he has negotiated a deal for one. He is so excited. We think that Salem Farm supply is delivering it today after checking it all out and changing all the fluids for us. We know what Alan will be doing this weekend – maybe digging and filling practice holes! Not everyone’s idea of great fun!
Happy Easter and hope you enjoyed Passover and your Seder.
We are welcoming the wonderful weather and have begun, a little while after you folks, to wear short sleeves and no jackets! We hope no one was too fooled yesterday. We hope you are all happy and hopeful for the future.
Take care, Nancy and Alan
Monday, March 8, 2010
early March
Written a week ago.........
It is a beautiful partly sunny day here in the eastern foothills of the Green Mountains. The maple sap is running in our region as the temperatures rise above freezing each day and drop below freezing each evening. All the cleaning activity of the blue tubes that carry the sap to the stainless steel sap collectors at the bottom of the sugar bush slopes has been done. Using water from the tank trucks (that are used later for carrying sap to the farm tanks), the water is pumped up through the tubular lines that stretch from the bottom of the hill into smaller and smaller arteries that eventually link to each tap on each sugar maple tree. Then the taps are all connected to each tree (a certain number of taps based on the diameter of the tree) and the sap drips into the tubes and flows downhill through the lines connecting into larger and larger tubes until it reaches the tank at the bottom. The Reid’s truck of Sugar Mill Farm comes every day to the bottom of our road where one of there tanks collects sap from the hillside across the road. They check the amount of sap and bring it to the farm when the tank becomes full enough. At the farm, they check the brix of the sap, the sugar content (just like when you make wine) to see how sweet it is. This is what determines how many gallons of sap will make a gallon of syrup. The average amount is 40 gallons! So it has been fun to see the activity each day and entice us to look forward to Maple Weekend, March 20 and 21 when the sap houses all around NY are open to the public for tours and tasting.
Although this year on that weekend, Alan and I will be making our delivery on Saturday, staying in NY and the next day going to the Riverdale annual farmer/member meeting. This event includes any farmers who can attend and the CSA new recruits and existing members who attend to talk, ask questions, and exchange ideas about the upcoming season. It is warm and fun and very nice to be a part and feel the mutual appreciation and respect that everyone has for the wonderful partnership of CSA and farm.
The snow still blankets the ground here – we got 24 inches at the height of the storm. I needed my snowshoes that day to blaze a trail for the pigs to get to their spring watering hole. It was a sight I am sure to see me tromping with big foot steps to make a path across the hillside with a parade of squealing pigs pushing each other to be first in the line behind me. I was so glad they did not step on the back of the snowshoes all the way! All the while they were making a great path in the deep snow that would be used often by them all. Within a few days the snow sunk quickly in the warmer weather to a dense wet layer that now freezes at night into hard pack. With the warmer temperatures, there is running water under the snow every day and the mud cannot be far behind once the snow melts. In the places we plowed and shoveled, there is already mud. We are all getting out our mud boots. I even took a walk through the snow to the greenhouse the other evening to get myself into the mood for getting some garden seedlings started. Spring is indeed on the way!!
Take care and get ready for the new season, Nancy and Alan
It is a beautiful partly sunny day here in the eastern foothills of the Green Mountains. The maple sap is running in our region as the temperatures rise above freezing each day and drop below freezing each evening. All the cleaning activity of the blue tubes that carry the sap to the stainless steel sap collectors at the bottom of the sugar bush slopes has been done. Using water from the tank trucks (that are used later for carrying sap to the farm tanks), the water is pumped up through the tubular lines that stretch from the bottom of the hill into smaller and smaller arteries that eventually link to each tap on each sugar maple tree. Then the taps are all connected to each tree (a certain number of taps based on the diameter of the tree) and the sap drips into the tubes and flows downhill through the lines connecting into larger and larger tubes until it reaches the tank at the bottom. The Reid’s truck of Sugar Mill Farm comes every day to the bottom of our road where one of there tanks collects sap from the hillside across the road. They check the amount of sap and bring it to the farm when the tank becomes full enough. At the farm, they check the brix of the sap, the sugar content (just like when you make wine) to see how sweet it is. This is what determines how many gallons of sap will make a gallon of syrup. The average amount is 40 gallons! So it has been fun to see the activity each day and entice us to look forward to Maple Weekend, March 20 and 21 when the sap houses all around NY are open to the public for tours and tasting.
Although this year on that weekend, Alan and I will be making our delivery on Saturday, staying in NY and the next day going to the Riverdale annual farmer/member meeting. This event includes any farmers who can attend and the CSA new recruits and existing members who attend to talk, ask questions, and exchange ideas about the upcoming season. It is warm and fun and very nice to be a part and feel the mutual appreciation and respect that everyone has for the wonderful partnership of CSA and farm.
The snow still blankets the ground here – we got 24 inches at the height of the storm. I needed my snowshoes that day to blaze a trail for the pigs to get to their spring watering hole. It was a sight I am sure to see me tromping with big foot steps to make a path across the hillside with a parade of squealing pigs pushing each other to be first in the line behind me. I was so glad they did not step on the back of the snowshoes all the way! All the while they were making a great path in the deep snow that would be used often by them all. Within a few days the snow sunk quickly in the warmer weather to a dense wet layer that now freezes at night into hard pack. With the warmer temperatures, there is running water under the snow every day and the mud cannot be far behind once the snow melts. In the places we plowed and shoveled, there is already mud. We are all getting out our mud boots. I even took a walk through the snow to the greenhouse the other evening to get myself into the mood for getting some garden seedlings started. Spring is indeed on the way!!
Take care and get ready for the new season, Nancy and Alan
the snow is melting!
What gorgeous weather the last two days! It reached 50 degrees on our hilltop and the water was running everywhere from the melting snow. The sky is a bright lovely blue; different than the gray and overcast feel of winter. Even the view on the horizon is hazy with humidity from the evaporating snow. Many places around us did not get the 2 feet of snow we did a week or so ago and so all of their snow is gone already. Others are pruning, cleaning up gardens and getting started with spring, and so we are getting antsy to get outside without being ankle deep in snow. I guess I’ll just spend the time in the nice warm greenhouse planting seeds and soaking up the sunny warmth.
Alan and Colin are making some of the last carpentry details of the north barn where we store all the products and pack all of your orders. Maybe by summer we will move our office there and make it officially not in our library/office anymore. They are trimming around doors, finishing some wiring, finishing the windows and stair railings and hopefully we’ll put up some of the posters and pictures we have had waiting for the final touches. They will be working inside until the ground thaws too. The first big chore of spring is checking the fences – a few miles of them it seems – to be sure we can keep the cows safe in our pastures when the grass begins growing again. Most of the winter there have been tractor repairs to be done and the biggest project, the transmission of the 2 cylinder John Deere 60 tractor, is almost complete. There was a broken gear inside and soon it will be all back together and humming thanks to Colin’s mechanical genius.
So we hope you too are looking forward to spring and new projects and new places for your energy and now that we can feel it, it can’t happen too soon! We love winter but then we love all the seasons and the seasonal beauty of the northeast US!
Take care, Nancy and Alan
Alan and Colin are making some of the last carpentry details of the north barn where we store all the products and pack all of your orders. Maybe by summer we will move our office there and make it officially not in our library/office anymore. They are trimming around doors, finishing some wiring, finishing the windows and stair railings and hopefully we’ll put up some of the posters and pictures we have had waiting for the final touches. They will be working inside until the ground thaws too. The first big chore of spring is checking the fences – a few miles of them it seems – to be sure we can keep the cows safe in our pastures when the grass begins growing again. Most of the winter there have been tractor repairs to be done and the biggest project, the transmission of the 2 cylinder John Deere 60 tractor, is almost complete. There was a broken gear inside and soon it will be all back together and humming thanks to Colin’s mechanical genius.
So we hope you too are looking forward to spring and new projects and new places for your energy and now that we can feel it, it can’t happen too soon! We love winter but then we love all the seasons and the seasonal beauty of the northeast US!
Take care, Nancy and Alan
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Between the Holidays
The ups and downs of the holidays are being matched by the up and down of the thermometer these days! It is bitter cold today in the wind and up here on the side of our hill. The horse and donkey are hanging out in their shed to have a windbreak and the pigs are resting inside the barn in the hay in the sunshine to soak up all the warmth they can. Yesterday Alan and Colin let the cows into the south shed to be out of the wind last night as they were wet from the snow and when the temperature started dropping and the wind picked up you just know it was going to be cold, cold, cold. After the warmth of the last week and the rain (which ruined all the snow that we had), our feeling of being acclimated was spoiled. Now we are wearing long johns and lined pants and about three shirts but chores are also abbreviated in the winter when you don't have to worry so much about the fencing, where to move the herd next, herd check for new calves and many other grazing season tasks. These last few days of the year you don't really want to work hard but there is always lots to do and catch up on. As a matter of fact, thanks to Colin for offering to attend both farmer's' markets this first January weekend, Alan and I had a whole day of chores only and then sleeping, reading, resting, brushing the dogs and doing nothing! We even were able to warm the turkey soup and not even cook! Nice change for the new year start.
Now a day later, we have 6 more inches of snow on top of the first 6 from Friday/Saturday. It is a lovely light, fluffy and fun to run through kicking up a wake snow. I had my new Christmas sled out for a run down the pasture and the dogs were joyfully running along beside me. My eyes got really big once when I really got going and I wasn't sure what lumps were under the surface to whack me good! Luckily the sled is a pretty hefty thickness. The skiers, snowshoers, sledders should all be thrilled with this lovely bonanza. The softness of the snow absorbs the sounds too and so it can be sooo quiet except for chickadees and an occasional snowplow far off on the main road. It is stilling snowing lightly. It seems like all outside is black, white and brown shades.
New free time in the next few months should offer us a time of planning and organization. Both Alan and I struggle with how to manage so many different topics. It seems hard to keep them up to date and not end up with multiple piles of paperwork all over your desk. We'll be working on trying different methods to stay ahead of the clutter and stay on top of the tasks at hand. I guess many of you also know the small business/organization blues of too much to do, and you do have to do it all and there are too few hands to make it all happen as you'd like it to be done. We are even ready to create a written strategic plan that is not just floating around in Alan's head and my head in different perspective versions. It is a little unbelievable when we realize how much we have accomplished in these last years of "making the farm self-sustainable" with few written procedures about anything - we would rather just do it. So a new decade and a new aspect to the business of farming.
Like ours, we hope your New Year is looking positive with opportunities for change, improvement, organization, and in January usually more exercise too. We resolve to better show our gratitude to our families, our friends, and our beautiful inspiring surroundings. Let the new decade begin! With many thanks for being part of our lives, Nancy and Alan
Now a day later, we have 6 more inches of snow on top of the first 6 from Friday/Saturday. It is a lovely light, fluffy and fun to run through kicking up a wake snow. I had my new Christmas sled out for a run down the pasture and the dogs were joyfully running along beside me. My eyes got really big once when I really got going and I wasn't sure what lumps were under the surface to whack me good! Luckily the sled is a pretty hefty thickness. The skiers, snowshoers, sledders should all be thrilled with this lovely bonanza. The softness of the snow absorbs the sounds too and so it can be sooo quiet except for chickadees and an occasional snowplow far off on the main road. It is stilling snowing lightly. It seems like all outside is black, white and brown shades.
New free time in the next few months should offer us a time of planning and organization. Both Alan and I struggle with how to manage so many different topics. It seems hard to keep them up to date and not end up with multiple piles of paperwork all over your desk. We'll be working on trying different methods to stay ahead of the clutter and stay on top of the tasks at hand. I guess many of you also know the small business/organization blues of too much to do, and you do have to do it all and there are too few hands to make it all happen as you'd like it to be done. We are even ready to create a written strategic plan that is not just floating around in Alan's head and my head in different perspective versions. It is a little unbelievable when we realize how much we have accomplished in these last years of "making the farm self-sustainable" with few written procedures about anything - we would rather just do it. So a new decade and a new aspect to the business of farming.
Like ours, we hope your New Year is looking positive with opportunities for change, improvement, organization, and in January usually more exercise too. We resolve to better show our gratitude to our families, our friends, and our beautiful inspiring surroundings. Let the new decade begin! With many thanks for being part of our lives, Nancy and Alan
Monday, December 28, 2009
December news from the farm,
We all finally feel a bit rested from the whirlwind of the 3 Thanksgiving deliveries one after the other. Our backs were pretty tired and we just wanted to do anything but work in the walk in freezer! So the holiday was a welcome respite from the hustle and our family dinner at Uncle Walt’s was a delicious and warm success. We all bring our “usual” dishes with the flair of different recipes each year. This year I made 2 cranberry delights; Mom’s fresh relish with oranges, lime, lemon, cranberries and maple syrup all finely chopped and mixed in the blender and my new blueberry, currant, cranberry and maple syrup compote cooked for about 10 minutes and deliciously juicy. It was a wonderfully warm day and a baseball game and a football game perked up the kids’ appetites.
The warm weather as been very welcome but it seems odd that the ground is still very soft and the big rain this week made for some pretty muddy tractor tracks up into the pastures. We are taking advantage of the lack of the warmth and began feeding the cows hay up in the hilly pastures by the house. Until a bit of snow and ice deter Colin from wanting to drive up the steep slope with a big round bale on the front and back of the tractor, we’ll be able to have the cows fertilize these fields and also introduce more varieties of forage from any leftover hay. When the snow arrives, the herd will move to the flatter fields at the Waite’s part of the farm.
The slow down of our pace has allowed me to get back to the local yoga class periodically to stretch out those back muscles and spend some time with my sister and niece over the holiday weekend. Alan has been keeping up a robust pace. He has been creating an acceptable Town of Jackson annual budget and trying to pare down the Washington County annual budget. In November he had to run for re-election for town supervisor against his first opponent in 15 years. He won! Only half of the 1000 voters turned out for the vote. Now the next month is filling up with holiday events and getting ready for the snow.
Over the weekend to our amazement, we had our first snow and it was a beauty. It was one of those light, fluffy, big flake afternoons with our dark colored dogs looking like reverse dalmations. The snow stuck to every surface, twig and windshield. It was just enough to cover everything and turn our little valley into a white snow bowl looking suitable for skiing. The cows were a bit surprised to find all their hay and grass had disappeared but were eating it and finding the grass underneath! It was a bit harder than usual for the tractor to make it up the steep hill but Alan, the expert driver that he is (on the tractor and in the delivery van!) made it to the top. Today it is all still here; not much melting happening and there will likely be more by Wednesday! I just wish the ground would freeze! Hope you are all staying warm on those windy streets!
We hope you all have a wonderful December season and stay warm and be healthy!
Best wishes, Nancy & Alan
We all finally feel a bit rested from the whirlwind of the 3 Thanksgiving deliveries one after the other. Our backs were pretty tired and we just wanted to do anything but work in the walk in freezer! So the holiday was a welcome respite from the hustle and our family dinner at Uncle Walt’s was a delicious and warm success. We all bring our “usual” dishes with the flair of different recipes each year. This year I made 2 cranberry delights; Mom’s fresh relish with oranges, lime, lemon, cranberries and maple syrup all finely chopped and mixed in the blender and my new blueberry, currant, cranberry and maple syrup compote cooked for about 10 minutes and deliciously juicy. It was a wonderfully warm day and a baseball game and a football game perked up the kids’ appetites.
The warm weather as been very welcome but it seems odd that the ground is still very soft and the big rain this week made for some pretty muddy tractor tracks up into the pastures. We are taking advantage of the lack of the warmth and began feeding the cows hay up in the hilly pastures by the house. Until a bit of snow and ice deter Colin from wanting to drive up the steep slope with a big round bale on the front and back of the tractor, we’ll be able to have the cows fertilize these fields and also introduce more varieties of forage from any leftover hay. When the snow arrives, the herd will move to the flatter fields at the Waite’s part of the farm.
The slow down of our pace has allowed me to get back to the local yoga class periodically to stretch out those back muscles and spend some time with my sister and niece over the holiday weekend. Alan has been keeping up a robust pace. He has been creating an acceptable Town of Jackson annual budget and trying to pare down the Washington County annual budget. In November he had to run for re-election for town supervisor against his first opponent in 15 years. He won! Only half of the 1000 voters turned out for the vote. Now the next month is filling up with holiday events and getting ready for the snow.
Over the weekend to our amazement, we had our first snow and it was a beauty. It was one of those light, fluffy, big flake afternoons with our dark colored dogs looking like reverse dalmations. The snow stuck to every surface, twig and windshield. It was just enough to cover everything and turn our little valley into a white snow bowl looking suitable for skiing. The cows were a bit surprised to find all their hay and grass had disappeared but were eating it and finding the grass underneath! It was a bit harder than usual for the tractor to make it up the steep hill but Alan, the expert driver that he is (on the tractor and in the delivery van!) made it to the top. Today it is all still here; not much melting happening and there will likely be more by Wednesday! I just wish the ground would freeze! Hope you are all staying warm on those windy streets!
We hope you all have a wonderful December season and stay warm and be healthy!
Best wishes, Nancy & Alan
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