Berserk Llama Syndrome

I’m finally coming up for air from the depths of our first farm season. Some of the highlights of the busy season included chasing chickens that NEVER go in the direction you expect or want them to go in, catching sheep and sticking my finger into their eyeballs (a humane and chem-free way to check for worms), hours upon sweaty hours of picking beans and much more. I can honestly say that I loved it and I am looking forward to many more years of it all. 

We are also still eating very well. Our meal the other night included almost all farm fresh food: grilled lamb from our pastures marinated in rosemary, mint and garlic from the garden. And a potato soup made with our homegrown chicken stock, potatoes, onions, garlic, and rosemary. We also found an open bottle of white wine left over from an event at the farm that we drank with this amazing dinner. Delicious!

Oh yes, and Ravi the llama has turned out to be a bit crazy. We have to walk by his pasture every day going to and from our apartment. It’s an adventure because he’s often lurking by his fence with his mouth full of spit, just waiting for us to get close enough to hit. The worst thing about llama spit is that it smells disgusting! Derek has taken to running at Ravi with his arms flailing and yelling at the top of his lungs to scare him off. I just try to run really fast past him. At least it provides some entertaining moments.

I hope you are all doing well. We’ll keep the photos and anecdotes coming.

Bee Bandwagon

Honey produced by the bees that live right here on the farm

Bees are, like, so totally in right now.  If you’re an eco-activist 20/30-something, who lives in a soon-to-be-gentrified urban neighborhood, wear skinny jeans and you’re something of a food snob, than you better have a beehive on the rooftop of your apartment building. Although Derek and I actually fit most of those slightly embarrassing qualifications up to last year, we had yet to jump on the bee-bandwagon. So although we're a little late to the party, I'd like to announce that we love bees too!

There are eight beehives scattered around a couple of sites on the farm we live on. A while ago I had the pleasure of observing our bee keeper add a new group of bees to one of our hives that did not survive over the winter. The process was fascinating.

First, we had to do some cleaning.

You can see in the picture above that we have taken a bunch of frames of honeycomb out of the bee box. The bees don’t care that the frames are blackened from use or even that mice may have eaten holes out of the framed honeycomb. They will reconstruct it all like new this year.  We do scrape off areas with chunks of a substance called propolis so that the frames will fit more securely into the hive. Propolis is a secondary product made by the bees. In the photo below you’ll notice that the wood frame looks like it has a golden varnish.  

This varnished look was achieved through the application of propolis by the bees themselves! They manufacture this substance in a process similar to making honey, but instead of using flower nectar, they use sap from trees. (That last part just blew my mind). And then they apply the propolis to any areas of the hive that they want to make more secure. They also use it for its antibacterial properties. If they think a part of the hive is susceptible to disease for some reason, maybe mouse droppings, they will cover that area with the propolis and the hive will remain healthy. 

After the cleaning we put the hives back together, and added the bees to an empty box below so that they could find their own way into their new home.

Another interesting fact I learned is that honey bees are not native to North America. They were brought over by the European settlers. Apparently Native Americans called the honey bee the “white man’s fly” because the honey bee’s movement westward across the continent always preceded the inevitable arrival of Europeans.

Over the course of the afternoon I learned a lot from our enthusiastic bee keeper, but I was also surrounded by flying, buzzing bees the entire time. So, as I was doing my best to concentrate on all the knowledge she was providing, I was also attempting to conjure my absolute most Zen countenance. I thought that, if I was very peaceful and unafraid, the bees wouldn’t bother me. And they didn’t. After it was all done I felt a bit of a rush, as if I had just performed some dangerous act! I suppose hanging out with some bees is as exciting as I need life to get.

I learned so much that afternoon, that I cannot possibly fit it all in tonight. And I also need to save time to put up some more ridiculously cute lamb photos.

All My New Friends Are Really Cute

Every morning when Lesley and I walk to work, there is a chance that we will see a newborn lamb. Needless to say, I like going to work a lot. So far, there are five little lambs running around the farm, and there will be at least seven more in the next week or so if everything goes well. Here are a few pictures of the new arrivals. 

Mystery at the Farm #72

It was a dark and stormy night…

And we were wondering why some of our seedlings wouldn’t grow.

Exhibit A:

Blood Sorrel and Good King Henry are actually supposed to be particularly hardy leafy greens. So it surprised us when no single plant emerged after seeding on February 21st.

Exhibit B:

The plot thickened when we compared lettuce plants that were seeded at different dates. Here we see that the Nancy lettuce plants seeded on March 7th are not growing as quickly as the lettuces seeded a week later, March 13th.

 The weather was very good following the first batch, so we have ruled out weather related problems.

Exhibit C:

Another March 7th seeding completely failed.

Our fellow apprentice Katie was disappointed when her herb seedlings of calamint wouldn’t take off. We were about to find out that it was more than a novice mistake.

Findings:

When the farm’s copy of Farmers’ Almanac 2012 arrived in the mail we used it as an investigation tool for our mystery. The Farmers’ Almanac has been published every year since 1818 and is still an invaluable resource for farmers.

We checked the section of the publication called Gardening with the Moon. There is a short explanation that you can see in the photo below.

And here’s what we found:

February 21-22: described as “Barren days”.  We planted the Good King Henry and Blood Sorrel on Feb. 21^st. This indicates that it is not a good time to plant seeds

March 5-8: is described as, “A most barren period”! This is when we planted the lettuces and herbs that didn’t work out!

Is it really possible that the Farmers’ Almanac could predict what would happen to our plants when seeded during specific phases of the moon? To me, it seems almost supernatural and very hard to believe. But at the same time, this publication has provided highly trustworthy information to farmers for almost 200 years. 

I decided to do a little more research and found some scientific evidence to back up our findings. We have all heard that the ocean’s tides are governed by our moon. I learned that the tides are highest during the full moon and the new moon. At these times the moon’s gravitational pull is at it’s highest. But it affects more subtle bodies of water too, including moisture in the ground. So if we plant seeds during the full or new moon, they will absorb more moisture and grow more vigorously.

In contrast, during the half-moon following the full-moon the gravitational pull is at it’s lowest point and so seeds have a harder time germinating.  This is when we planted the seeds in question above.

Somehow the moon can even tell us when “…seeds will rot in the ground”. The Almanac predicted this for last Wednesday and Thursday March 28^th and 29^th. So we decided to take the almanac’s advice and hold off seeding more lettuces until Friday.

This theory has much more depth than what I’ve summarized here. If you’re interested you can learn more at: www.gardeningbythemoon.com

I suppose we can't say for sure if the mystery was truly solved. There are so many factors that play into the success of any growing thing. And as a beginning farmer, it would take me a while to see all the variables. But I must say, this mystery made me a believer in gardening by the moon!

A Romance with Weeding

You don’t see many swimming pools on farms. Even though I’ve visited fewer than a dozen farms, I hardly feel like I’m going out on a limb by saying that. The farm we’re working on has one, and it even has a cute little pool house to go with it. I’m guessing the dairy farmer who owned the property in the 1950s wasn’t the one who had it built. The current owners didn’t have it installed either. After all, putting in a swimming pool usually isn’t the first thing you do when you are creating a highly diversified small farm. 

So what do you do when you buy a farm that has a swimming pool? You fill it in with dirt and make it a garden, of course! While I’m sure there will be days this summer when I will be wishing I could turn back the hands of time and talk them out of it, right now I have to say I think it was a brilliant idea. And because I spent almost a full week weeding the entire pool so we could start planting, I’ve thought about it a lot. On Saturday, when the Master Farmer was giving a tour of the farm to a group of people, she came to the swimming pool and said, “Swimming pools are frivolous; gardens are practical.” Well said, Annie. I will keep telling myself that in August!

Most people would probably think that a week of weeding would be torturous. I know I kind of expected it to be. On the first day, I stared out at the pool of weeds and tried desperately to think of any other jobs I had forgotten about that I could use as a means of escape. But somewhere along the way, boredom turned to satisfaction which eventually turned to a strange kind of pleasure. Sure, it might not have been as much fun as watching newborn lambs learning how to walk, but it was still weirdly enjoyable.

Even though the weeding is done for now, there is still plenty of work to be done in the pool garden. We will be building garden beds for the next week or so, and then we can begin planting. Over the course of the year, we’ll be harvesting some delicious pumpkins, potatoes, leeks, and squash. Before that happens, though, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of chances to become reacquainted with my newfound love of weeding.  

The Season has Begun!

Before March 15th there was plenty of work to do, but there was no real sense of urgency about it.  Annie, the Master Farmer, kept referring to the change that would take place around that day, but it always seemed so far away. So I was caught a little by surprise when Annie began running around maniacally, in an excited panic saying, “Lesley, it’s March 14^th!” And for a split second I wondered why she was so worked up, and then I remembered that the busy season was now upon us.

There are so many tasks written on each of the daily squares now that the mind boggles a little to look at it. They are written very very tiny, so that all of them can fit, and so that it gives you a little head ache to try and decipher all the work that will be happening each day.  We are seeding so many new vegetables that it is hard to believe that we will have space for them all.  We are building garden beds only slightly faster than we transplant veggies into them. Building and shaping garden beds is no easy task. I have shed that winter layer of pounds and added some biceps in only the last week or so I think.   

But don’t think that I’m complaining. I absolutely love running to each new task and then having such a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day when we can walk around and actually see all of the work that we did. And, as most of you know, I also find a lot of joy in physical exhaustion.

While all of this is going on, the land is waking up. So as I run from the green house to the lower garden to the barn and back to the greenhouse I get to watch everything around the farm begin to grow.

These asparagus are a perennial plant and come back every spring. These are the first to poke their heads through the dirt.

And the above are the apple trees that Derek and I spent so much time pruning. We didn’t kill them!! I might just call that our first great accomplishment here.

What to Expect When Your Sheep are Expecting

Unlike the chicks, our impending little lambs will not picked up with the mail. They will be arriving to the farm via the birth canal.  All farm hands must be at the ready to meet this precious cargo.  To that end, Derek and I are reading up on the signs we should watch for in order to tell that the sheep are going into labor. As on-farm staff, we will also be responsible for checking on the sheep during the off-hours and responding if help is needed with the labor process, even in the middle of the night.  At this point, a 2am call to go catch some lambs seems pretty wonderful. But I’ll admit, as a newbie farmer, I may be romanticizing this a bit. 

The Ewes (mother sheep) have been pregnant for almost 5 months now. We are expecting them to start lambing sometime between the 15^th of March and the beginning of April.  Here’s what we are looking for:

• Sunken appearance in hips

This one certainly doesn't look sunken.

• Full udders

This is a hard one with no experience. We think they look a little more pronounced than they did before, but that they will get larger before it's time.

• Pawing at the ground before lying down. 

• A change in feeding habits

Still hungry as always! No change here.

• Standing or lying apart from the group

These Ewes haven't left each others' sides all day, and I was never able to catch them lying down. I guess we have nothing to worry about today.

As you can see, the signs are not all that clear to those of us who have never seen them. I can imagine that, beginning the 15^th, I will be running to the livestock manager every hour or so claiming that I’ve seen “the signs!” Hopefully I can reign myself in so that I don’t become The-Girl-Who-Cried-Lamb.

By the way, thanks to our fellow apprentice Katie, for inspiring the title of this blog post.

A Box of Chicks and a Bag of 'Bugs

Everywhere on the farm, there are signs that spring is rapidly approaching. The taps on the maple trees are drying up. The days are getting longer. The greenhouses are exploding with growth. The shipments of chicks have started arriving in the mail.

On Thursday, we got word that a box of 100 chicks was waiting for us at the post office. I’m guessing that postal workers don’t handle much cargo this cute.

The thought of chicks being sent through the mail seems a little strange at first, but most farms these days (both organic and conventional) buy their chicks from a hatchery. It’s incredibly easy: you choose the breeds you are looking for, the number of chicks you want, and, for a small fee, you can select the sex of the birds that you want sent to you as well.

Since these chickens will be used as egg layers, paying the fee makes sense. A flock of mostly hens means more eggs for the farm. It also means the hens can lay their eggs in peace. If you’ve ever seen chickens mate, you can understand the problems that would arise in a flock with too many roosters.

After the chicks made it home from the post office, they were taken straight to the brooding room which was already nice and toasty in anticipation of their arrival. We took them out of the box one by one, dipped their beaks into the waterer so they would know where to get a drink, and stood back to watch the chicks explore their new home for awhile.

A box of chicks wasn’t the only interesting package to arrive in the mail this week. We also received a bag full of ladybugs for the greenhouses that one of the farmers ordered to take care of a few aphids that were spotted last week. While ladybugs might not be as cute and fluffy as the chicks, it still feels pretty wonderful to walk around the greenhouse, sprinkling them onto the beds, knowing that pests are being taken care of without having to pick up a spray bottle filled with something scary. 

Chickens and Roosters

I have a guilty pleasure. It's like a soap opera. I call it "The Chicken Yard". After letting the chickens out of their roost and into the sunlight in the morning I can't tear myself away to finish the other chores. I just have to watch the daily dramas unfold. There is always something going on, never a dull moment. Just take one look at either of our two flocks and you’ll see bosom buddies, fights, sexual liaisons, outcasts, beauty, fear, bravery, and contentedness. The roosters' antics are some of the easiest to capture on film.

The chickens here are important for more reasons than pure entertainment. The farmers here have chosen to raise “Heritage” breeds of hens. Heritage breeds, as their name suggests, have a historic significance because they have been used since the days when small family farms were the norm and every household raised a few pigs, or chickens, or a cow. These breeds are very hardy, and they usually feed on pasture alone, or other natural resources like acorns, roots, bugs and berries. And this actually makes them tastier for us! Heritage breeds are able to express their natural animal instincts by foraging on feed they find for themselves, rather than being fed corn, by having space to roam, and by living in animal communities that mimic those in the wild. Basically, they have the ability to live out a more natural existence, which we think makes them happier.

Happier than who, you ask? Happier than mainstream agriculture’s hybrid farm animals. Hybrids have genetic traits selected specifically for large growth. Their natural instincts have been bred out of them and they typically live in factory like settings where they are confined in small spaces and fed a diet consisting only of corn. Unfortunately, the existence of these breeds puts the Heritage breeds in danger of being lost. So farmers like us need to preserve Heritage breeds in order to preserve the small farming way of life. 

So, after that big rant…take a look at some of the beautiful chickens we get to raise around here:

 

We call the above chicken Napoleon. She's not much of a dictator, but she does love to pose! See the resemblance? 

I love her fuzzy feet!

On the End of Days, GMOs, and Small-Scale Grain

After we made the decision to try to become farmers, it took months of planning to figure out how we were going to make this transition. Because we knew we had so much to learn, we would spend a lot of time reading books written by small farmers and watching every documentary about farming that we came across. This helped keep us excited about our decision, but, in a way, it also served as a reminder of how far we were from our goal of farming. Reading a book about cows as the apartment shakes from traffic on the nearby expressway has a way of doing that.

Yesterday, we attended the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut (CT NOFA) Winter conference, our first ever conference where we were rubbing shoulders with actual farmers who make an actual living from the land. Even though we’re still a long way off from that, it still felt good to walk around knowing that we’ve started our journey.

There were over forty different workshops throughout the day as well as a keynote address by Jeffrey Smith, who is an expert on the health and environmental dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). If you are wondering what, exactly, a GMO is, you are not alone. Smith started his presentation by surveying the audience’s understanding of the topic. Even in an auditorium packed with organic food enthusiasts, very few people seemed to know much about GMOs.

A GMO is born when a scientist takes genes from one species and artificially forces them into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal. For example, inserting genes from a fish into a plant to make it more resistant to cold. That probably doesn’t capture the horror of the consequences of eating a diet containing GMOs: organ damage, gastrointestinal disorders, accelerated aging, infertility, and other delightful ailments.

Damn, Jeffrey! I haven’t been so afraid since Sunday school, when every other week we were treated to videos about the rapture!

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however. He was excited about a bill currently being considered by the Connecticut General Assembly that would require all products containing GMOs to be labeled. If the bill passes, it could completely transform the food industry because, all of a sudden, Kraft Foods, among others, would be looking to buy massive amounts of non-GMO crops.

Jeffrey has created a shopping guide to help people avoid GMO foods. If you are interested in learning more about it, go to www.nongmoshoppingguide.com.

The best part of the day, though, had to be the workshops. We heard from farmers, scientists, and doctors on a wide range of topics including: growing nuts in the northeast, root cellaring, naturopathic remedies, small-scale grain production, and a history of the Connecticut forest.

Rodger Phillips, who runs Grow Hartford, an urban farm that also has youth internships in the summer, gave the small-scale grain production talk. He concluded the talk by giving everyone in attendance some seeds for spring wheat. 

There has been a lot of talk on the farm of growing some feed for the pigs and chickens this year to create more of a closed-loop system, so it’s possible these seeds will come in handy!

Gleaning

Sometimes it seems that the decision to become farmers is a selfish one. We get to be outside under the sun all day, hang out with cute animals, play in the dirt and eat delicious food. Luckily, the farmers we work for are not going to let us get away with having this much fun without also giving back to the community.  But, besides selling at the farmers’ markets, what can farmers do? They’re poor!

Actually, farmers often throw away a huge percentage of their crops. Jonathan Bloom quotes farmers who do not sell between 25% and 50% of their crops in his book American Wasteland. So our farm is organizing a “Gleaning” project which aims to reduce waste of this valuable food. Not only are we committed to sending our excess crops to the local food bank, but we are also coordinating with other local farmers so that we can harvest their excess crops and bring them to the food bank too.

The project is still in its infancy, be we’ve already seen some success. One of our farmer friends called us last week and said they didn’t know what to do with a whole greenhouse full of spinach. Our little team of four farmers went over the next day and harvested 32 pounds of the nutritious green. It only took an hour and then a quick run to the food bank. Now, our community members who cannot afford to buy all the groceries they need, will be getting healthy, organic greens.

Most of us love to hate on vegetables, so maybe this doesn’t seem like such a wonderful donation. But I have thought for a long time that the “organic” movement is an elite one. Only those with money can afford to eat healthy. As farmers, I realize that it will be very important to help make nutrition accessible to everyone.

Many of you may be familiar with the amazing San Francisco Food Bank, where there is a huge variety of fresh vegetables available every week. We do not have anything like that here in Connecticut. Our spinach was the only produce available that did not come in a can at this food bank. Hopefully we can up the bar a bit more over the course of the year.