This was an up-and-down week, weather-wise. Some warmer and sunny days, some cold and icy. But we were able to collect and for 2 days boiled enough sap to get 1.75 gallons (we sampled the sap to be about 2%, which, according to the “86 Rule” of thumb means 86/2=43 gallons of sap per gallon …
I’m going to change up this blog format from this point forward, and issue regular Monday updates, Lord willing. They’ll be more of just an update on what happened on the farm in the last week, rather than an essay or short article format. That should make this job easier and hopefully, more consistently done. …
The thermometer said 15 degrees this morning, and I believe it. After an unseasonably warm-ish few days, it feels like winter again. But there’s work to do, so after coffee, I headed outside to stack wood. We have limited wood-processing equipment, and no cut and dried tree to speak of. That will change by next …
“Good [coffee] is like music you can taste, color you can smell. There is excellence all around you. You need only be aware to stop and savor it.” – Gusteau I remember the first time I was stunned by a cup of coffee. I’d been slowly coming to understand that coffee, like say, tomatoes or beer, …
It’s a quiet Christmas Eve night on the farm, just the wife and I. Our daughter had 2 cello gigs (Parkside Green and Lyndhurst Community Presbyterian) this evening, but I’m sure she’s on the way home. Gigs often conflict with home gatherings on holidays; that’s the life of a musician-farmer. I was not feeling well, …
This past year has been a flurry of activity, between moving to the property, working on fixing up our houses and outbuildings, preparing fields, planting, harvesting, and making plans for the future. It seems like the warm days have just flown by, and here we are on the edge of winter, when most outdoor work …
Today was the probably the last harvest day of the season from the elderberry field, where we planted – among other things – winter squashes. Jan picked up 2 wheelbarrows full this afternoon. Some are fairly small, but they’ll taste great! We’d already picked a mess earlier, so this was a pretty nice crop. We …
Sounds like a recipe for disaster. But the further we got into the permaculture mini-course, the harder it became for us to wrap our minds around a whole-farm design. And it would/will take a lot longer to complete than we originally considered. So while we have come to agreement on our purpose/vision and a general …
…where angels fear to tread, so the saying goes. We’re no fools, and angels don’t fear what we’re going to do, but it sure feels like we’re rushing in. Things have been brought to a head and we need to make some decisions tonight about our farm design. We brought a large number of plants …
The chicks we purchased about 5 weeks ago are growing like… chicks do. Nancy built a mobile nursery for the little ones, and has been moving it every couple days. They seemed to appreciate the heat lamp the last couple nights it went down near freezing, but don’t seem to mind the 40s temperatures early …
