More Comings and Goings

Some beautiful Cornus Rugosa cuttings that we are rooting for the tree nursery.




It is Full Tilt Spring here on the Village Farm and in the words of our dairy farmer friend, Jeff Bragg, "There is never enough time in May." And, I add, there's a LOT going on to report to our blog followers! All this rain has slowed our planting and transplanting down to a full stop but there is never a shortage of other building, greenhouse and harvesting tasks to do.


We got all of our alliums (onions, leeks and shallots) in before this week of rain as well as first sowings of radishes, carrots, salad greens, salad turnips, beets, herbs and lettuce. That was a bit of a push and even Ben, aged four, was out after dinner one night helping get the seeds in the ground. We don't work after dinner very often but in this case, staring down a week of rain, we thought every minute of daylight should be used to get our crops in the ground. There is no driving on our fields now, or even walking, really. Much too muddy. And so we are waiting for some sun and a warm breeze to dry things out (again!).

A few photo collages to capture more comings and goings. . .First the arrivals.

• Two days ago a big bull calf was born to Charlotte, our Shorthorn beef mama. His name is Chico (in keeping with the custom of naming offspring with the first letter of their mother's first name) and he is a strapping and thrifty guy. He and Charlotte are in a box stall in the barn now, despite being born into that luscious green grass. They get a chance to bond away from the other herd members this way. They will be out to pasture within the next few days.




• The new bulk grain bin is coming together thanks to Tony, a.k.a. Pop, Prentice's father who has been working all the metal and hundreds of nuts and bolts into a gigantic bin. Quite the erector set.




• The plum trees are in bloom, tragically, as there seem to be NO pollinators out and about. . .so no or very few plums this year for the Grassi boys.




• 120 chicks that will graze and laze and grow on VF's lush pastures and make the tastiest chickens for our customers. (Let us know if you would like to be on the chicken list. . .)




• Leroy. He has already been introduced via our facebook feed but here is a picture of the sweet guy. He is about three weeks old now. We are awaiting one more calf in the next week.




• And the "cuban" (cube+cabin), the newest intern dwelling.

And the departures. . .

• We were all sad to see Laura head back to Alabama. She was here for a bit over a month and a few weeks into her stay, she realized she had made a mistake. A growing season in Maine wasn't adding up for her. She wants to farm in Alabama or Georgia and is on her way back there now to begin that adventure again. We were priveleged by her company, help, humor and sincerity and we wish her the very best.




• Sold! Our old plow truck to Ginger and Daniel at Freedom Farm. . .Trucky served us well for 10 years and is off to a second or third or fourth life at another farm with its own snow removal issues.




• Seedlings are a huge spring effort for us. We produce all of our own for the 4-5 acres of VF vegetables but we sell thousands at the Belfast Coop each spring. We deliver van loads twice per week and trust that they are giving many, many a midcoast garden a great start in their own food growing efforts.




• Feeding hay. This was a picture from early April that I love and now that the cows are on grass, the twice daily chore of feeding out hay to the herd is a thing of the past. Until fall of course.

The CSA distributions will start sometime in June though we are waiting to see what the weather does in the coming week before announcing a start date. We still have a few shares left but are nearly full, so if you haven't signed up and would like to or would care to share the idea with a friend, we would love to be your farmers in 2011!!

It is May, and though we may be busy, we also find ourselves basking in the greens and the buds and the babies and all the glorious unknowns that the growing season ahead holds for us.

All the best from your friends,

The Village Farmers

Another farm story.

For a few weeks, Prentice has been collecting and crafting. He was not making a physical piece of art but rather a story. He was asked a few months ago by a friend and CSA member to speak at the U U Church of Belfast's Earth Day gathering about being a farmer. Or he could just simply tell a favorite farm story. Prentice has been focusing his collecting and crafting around our first dairy cow, Jasmine, and her quirks, personality, and how she came to live and then die with us. That was the story he was preparing to tell.. . the one he was supposed to tell.

Well, our farm had a story of its own in mind for us Sunday morning and as you will come to understand, Prentice never made it to Belfast. (He was not hurt, so don't worry, but do read on . . .)

Saturday night was stormy. Wind gusts of 55mph were predicted and we feel quite certain we experienced those here "on the prairie" as our friend Paul, calls our farm. I lay awake that night for many minutes fretting over the two hoop structures, the greenhouse and hoophouse, the former is heated for our thousands of seedlings, the latter is unheated and full of salad greens. I did not go out in the night to check on anything. I just fretted.

Sunday morning, I did go out to do chores: feed the cows , chicks and layers. Usually, checking on the greenhouse is part of chores but as it was so windyrainy. . . and I had just wrestled four windowpanes back into their rightful places in the chicken coop, I headed inside for breakfast.

(Always check.)

Prentice was all dressed and ready to head to Belfast and he did check in the greenhouse before leaving for town. Joseph was also outside as he was going to go to town with Prentice. . .when Josey heard yelling "JoJo! JOJO!" from the greenhouse. Josey peeked his head in, was told to "Go get Mommy" and he sprinted for the house.

Needless to say I dashed, leaving Josey with the phone and the two littles. (Being a resourceful lad, he pulled two chairs up to the windows and all three boys watched the greenhouse for any sign of their parents -- or the danger that Josey must have felt in the air.)

The greenhouse was coming unglued. Breaking apart. Snapping. Etc.

The heavy winds had thrashed the plastic so that the metal straps that hold/held the hipboard (a shoulder height 2x8 that runs the whole length of the greenhouse) to the frame, had all snapped.

When I found Prentice he was inside the greenhouse, leaning over a whole colony of baby eggplants and holding onto the wooden hipboard with every muscle in his body. The plastic was blowing and heaving and were it not for Prentice's vice grip, it would have blown right off.

Like that group game in grade school where you all hang onto edges of a big blue parachute . . .but there was just Prentice and a mighty howl tugging at the huge plastic sheet over his head.

Luckily, there were ratchet straps underfoot (did Prentice get those?). After discussing the options, we decided to cut through the plastic, feed a strap through the plastic and around the hipboards and fasten the other end to the baseboards (also big boards, but these rest on the ground). I messed around with the straps for a few moments before realizing that we needed to switch places.

Prentice got two straps situated while I held onto the hipboard, rising and falling with the wind's gusts. We ran for more rope and tied the hipboard to the baseboard in four other places.

It was secure.

I ran in to check on the children, rather to make sure they weren't too worried and to give them an update. I knew they were safe in the house. They were in fine spirits and were all talking about the "silly chickens" which were (also) out in the gale.

As I replayed this morning adventure in my mind, I was struck by a new awareness of having a home based business. Our farm allows our children not only to work along side us on a daily basis, observe and participate in decision making and compromise (we often disagree!) but also, on this day they watched mother and father deal with a small emergency. I do hope the experience lives in them not as a fearsome one, but rather one where they felt safe inside, helpful to the cause, and pleasantly relieved when the crisis was over.

Being about as adrenaline-averse a person as could be, I was wiped out for the rest of the day. I also felt that I had to tell the story to everyone I encountered or spoke with by phone. And the telling continues on this thing called a blog. (Thanks for reading/listening!)

Farm drama. I might even say I would rather chase loose cows than do that again. Phew.

. . .another farm story that is now ours to tell.
Prentice may have his own version.
With warm, safe and calm wishes for all of you,
Polly

What I know about right now.

Here is what I know. It is spring. The grass is greening and the cows are restless. The greenhouse is almost full. Prentice and Laura and William have been working on sheathing the new cabin. They put a snazzy green roof on the cabin this week, too. It is cold today so I made parsnip, chicken, and garden pea soup for lunch. The soup had some warming spices and was accompanied by biscuits. Molasses ginger cookies were also consumed. We are enjoying eating and selling micro greens and we should have spring salad mix galore from the hoophouse in a few weeks. The baby chicks are getting all their adult feathers. We need to clean out a winter's worth of manure from the hen house, aka eggmobile. I am volunteering for that job. We are hosting a farm tour tomorrow that the Belfast Coop has organized. We cleaned up the yard and greenhouse today to ready for that. I also know that Willie, aka William, took the picture you see above. It is of Cosmos seedlings. All is well, basically. The farm pulses on. . .animals, plants and people. It is a good and optimistic time of year, that I know. With warm wishes to all of our supporters and friends, Polly for all of us.

Comings and Goings of April 2011

Note: Sorry, the formatting on this seems particularly cheeky today! It looks good when I write it and then when it is published it is all wonky. Welcome to the moist days of early spring when Mother Nature seems to be humming a soft, waking up kind of song, wiping the sleep from her eyes and looking around at all the possibilities. There is much to come and a few things on their way out for the year. . .

Comings:

• 16" of fresh snow


• April Fool's pranks


• more hay for our cows


• Killdeer in the gardens


• Robins in the fields


• Canada geese overhead and in the fields


• Woodcock calls at dusk "Bszzt. Bszzt."


• Wee plants from within wee seeds (still so amazing to me!)


• Mud (I know it is there, beneath all the snow)


• Germinating spinach, beetgreens and turnips in the unheated hoophouse


• Chicks










• William and Laura, 2011 interns (already) extraordinaires


• "Red," dog intern extraordinaire (she goes with Laura)


• Pussy willows

Goings:

• 16" of not so fresh snow


• Still enjoying the last of root cellared apple cider, kim chi, saurcraut, carrots, potatoes, etc.


• Maple sap gathering adventures

• Maple syrup boiling chess games

• Snowdrops

To these we say, "Goodbye for now!" and "See you next year!"

Have a lovely day, all. . . ~Polly

A hole in the ice

Since 1998, when Prentice was given his first cow, we have had anywhere from one to ten cows through the winters. Most of those winters have been weathered here at the Village Farm in Freedom and most have involved long, stiff lengths of frozen or freezing hoses that we have used to water the herd. Last year, Prentice had an idea that was "just the thing," everyday brilliance, let's say. . . of foregoing the hassle of the hoses in favor of an old fashioned solution: a hole in the ice.

Our "unplugged" barn (read: no electricity or running water) is 600 feet or so south of the house and what it lacks in conveniences, it makes up for in its charm. Sheathed in re-used metal siding (read: rumpled and peppered with holes), it isn't pretty. This fact has never occurred to me, but it doesn't have even one window. But it does the job, as they say, and it is in a wonderful site; the barn is situated on the south side of a little knoll and is smack dab next to a small pond.

We call this little kettle, "the barn pond" or "the frog pond" if it is spring.

I have a mighty fascination with pre-historic times and often find myself wondering at all the things we have forgotten over the millenia. Anyways, keeping a hole in the ice open, and dipping a bucket into it each and every day of the winter is the closest thing to going back in time that I have ever experienced. People have been doing this for thousands of years. There is something about that hole in the ice that is as primal to northern latitudes people as the fiery hearth. In some ways, it is the hearth's opposite: dark, cold and spooky. But, like the hearth, it is life-giving and elemental.

(Sometimes when I gaze into the hole, I pretend I am a polar bear, waiting for a seal to surface.)

Our four adult cows and two teenagers drink about 30-40 gallons of water per day in the winter. For me (Polly), that is 4 trips to and from the pond with an almost full five gallon bucket in each hand.

One January day, as I was pouring a bucketful into the cows' trough, I saw a black something in the water. It was a tadpole. I thought that tadpoles buried their little selves in the mud for the cold months! This one was quite perky and not at all muddy, and so I decided it would make a good surprise for the boys. The poor thing sloshed all the way up to the house with me and when I showed it to Josey and Ben, they politely told me to "please put it back, Mama." I was expecting them to want to keep it in a fishbowl --as a pet! But no. I suppose it was an odd visitor from another season and they just assumed catch their own tadpoles by themselves in the spring.

The hole in the ice is a winter treat and will go the way of the snowmen and snow forts in the weeks ahead. Needless to say, I will miss it and already look forward to tending its edges next winter.

Spring is on the way,

Polly

Pre Buy Season for Vegetables (and Flowers!)

Every time I drive down Rte 137 to Belfast, I pass Thompson's Oil and their lit up roadside sign onto which the folks in the office (with the plastic letters) can post messages. These signs are ubiquitous in rural Maine. The maple syrup shacks have them, the granges, the gas stations and farmstands. Starting in September or maybe even earlier, the one at Thompson's announces "Pre-Buy Season is Here." Buying propane or heating oil is cheaper if you lock in at September prices. At least that is the hope.

Well, we have no marquee sign but this blog will have to do. I am taking a lead from this terminology and announcing that "Pre-Buy Season is Here" --for Village Farm vegetables.

We are happy and excited to be heading into our 4th year of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) here and hope that we will have the privilege of growing for YOU in the months ahead.

CSA is a way to support a local farm with your financial commitment in advance of the growing season. Yes, our CSA helps us pay for expenses that we incur in the spring but more than that, it creates a community of eaters and a community of farm supporters. We know where our vegetables are going before they are even picked. We do our marketing in the slower winter months and then get busy growing for the households that have signed on as members.

Purchasing a CSA share is also a commitment to your health! Many members have told us how many MORE vegetables they eat during the Village Farm CSA season. That is something to consider.

Any of you who have been CSA members know what fresh and flavorful, nutrient dense, and downright beautiful vegetables we grow around here. We wash them, cool them and let you select your week's sustenance each Monday(in Belfast) or Tuesday (at the farm) evening from June-October. If you have never been a member of a CSA, give us a call with your questions. We can provide as much detail on what we have grown and distributed in the past as you could possibly want and will let you know what to expect in 2011.

We might also add to our marquee sign "Find us on Facebook" as we have indeed, taken the plunge with the hopes of connecting to our customers, friends and potential CSA members in the way/place where most people seem to be. . . on Facebook. We hope this is not folly but we are going to give it a try.

That said, word of mouth is simply and truly the best form of advertising for small businesses like ours, so please, if you would, spread the word about Village Farm. We are hoping to grow our CSA from 63 to 75 households in 2011.

What else is new? We will be offering a flower share this year, downsizing/simplifying to offer just one share size, and growing roots and greens for a fall CSA share (more on that in a few months!) Remember flowers? That is a bee in there having morning glory nectar for breakfast.

That is the news from here.

Best wishes to one and all.

From all of us at Village Farm,

Polly

Shovelling Acres

Usually we refer to the +/- 4 acres of crops that we plant and cultivate and harvest but this winter we are into acres of snow removal. Prentice and the Ford plowtruck have kept the driveway passable with dozens and dozens of trips to and fro. I am not counting that in the snow removal calculations, however.

The only building on the place when we bought it in 2001 was a delapidated pole barn south of where our house sits now. At that time, we were happy to have a place to shelter and milk our small herd of cattle and to stash all of Prentice's wood collection (he was a cabinet maker before farming full-time, remember. . .) Well that 40x 60 pole barn is still delapidated. You might say more delapidated now than ever, despite some minor improvements for the cows' quarters. . . and with all this snow, and hearing of collapsed barns around, Prentice set to shovelling it off. It took him several hours over a couple of days. The roof was "spongy" underfoot (Uh-oh).

Then there are the hoophouses. We have both been somewhat maniacally shovelling up and down all sides of the tomato house and heated greenhouse lest the snow builds up above the hipboards = about shoulder height boards that anchor the plastic and form the top of the roll up sides. Yikes. So far (knock on wood) all is well but he have seen and heard of collapsed (hoop) houses and it makes a farmer want to cry.

We long ago stopped shovelling to the chicken tractor, outdoor water hydrant, even the cellar door has been turned over to King Winter's drifts. We do have the all-important snowforts however, and a path from the driveway to the front door. Shovel-shovel.

A few weeks ago Josey realized that he could climb up three graduated lumber piles then the old green house roof to arrive at the top of a fairly steep slope and the peak of the garage/shop building. Sledding has never been such a thrill. This week he has been jumping off the roof as well. Weeee!

Thankfully, there is always the hearth to retreat to after a wintry adventure.

Wishing you warmth and good company during these brighter and longer days of winter.

All the best from here,

Polly, and all at Village Farm