Saturday, June 28, 2014

Good Sports

The hours and days and weeks go by at a good clip, don't they? No faster at Village Farm than anywhere else, I guess, but the non-stop action of May and June, the sprint that starts the already short Maine Summer.. . breathless we are not, but tired every night, yes.

Here are a few pictures taken about the place. 
 Our second batch of 200 'Red Bros', a red feathered, bred for grazing meat chicken, has arrived. When they arrive at the Post Office, we unpack them immediately and give each a drink. Benny says the holes in the packing box are so they can whisper to each other en route.


 They learn with that one dip and then are ready to help themselves.
And the following picture is just a gift from the camera gods. Neither chick nor boy posed for this. I just love it: a captured vision of two small beings having a moment together. 
It is really not cliche or an overstatement to say that we care for every one of our animals, even the ones that we raise for meat.

 
 We ask our farm crew to start work at 6 every morning. Sights like this are common and welcome.

 And then there is mid-morning and high clouds.

 And then there are broken down tractors and multiple calls to mechanic friends.


 Muffin tins full of bolts. And reconstruction. A fixed tractor.

 There are snail trails on the hoophouse endwalls and turtle trails in the driveway. Killdeer making a loud living in the gardens and an elusive snipe circling, circling. When I called it "an unremarkable bird" (not a bad thing in my book!!) today, Eliot thought that the snipe was trying its best to be quite remarkable. Such are the conversations, at times.

 Prentice was a good sport to let me clean off and dress up his barn workbench for the on-farm dinner by Chef Frank Giglio a few weeks ago. It was a lovely evening. Great great food. Lovely company. (I don't have any pictures.)

 Prentice is also a good sport about the state of his farm bike seat. 

 And boy, is he a good sport about machinery breakdowns.This is the irrigation pump and in the background the fuel tank to the John Deere. The Allis Chalmers cultivating tractor was also giving him grief this week.


 Luckily, there are large beds of gorgeous spinach

 and broccoli coming along to cheer him up when the grease is too much for him.

And small victories when machinery gets fixed, and crops get much needed water.

And sweet Sundays on Freedom Pond in a new to us sailboat.

And of course, it is all relative, right? This Village Farm resident has her own problems and joys. 
It was our joy to cross her path on our way to the pond.

All our best wishes for a lovely end of June-early July to one and all!
Polly and Prentice, boys and crew..