A winter of firsts

This winter has been a little harder than most on the farm.  Normally we are outside for most of the season working on various projects, but this years weather has been harsh.  When temperatures are tolerable in the single digits, the winds have been blowing a gale causing fingers to go numb quickly.  Pounding posts for the greenhouse has been impossible as the January thaw which usually has us outside with our first campfire didn't show up this year.  But alas, when you can't get outside, you work on other projects.  It has been a winter of firsts - but definitely not lasts.

Our chickens have continued to lay, despite the weather and we got our first blue egg this weekend.















I tried a new flavor of jelly - plum apple.  It is beautiful in the jar and even more delicious on toast.

We attended our first winter farmers market last week and we did pretty well.








Spring does promise to arrive eventually and temperatures are creeping closer to tolerable each week.  Today I will clean out and ready the brooder box, baby chicks are scheduled to arrive this weekend.

Potatoes, strawberries and sunflowers

Tonight when I returned from my off farm job, I watered the remaining plants in the greenhouse and planted potatoes.  Aged compost is mixed with some good soil and about a pound of seed potatoes to the bottom tire.  As the plants emerge, dirt will be added until the top tire is filled.  This year, there are enough left over tires (my cousin and I both replaced our rigs this year and the old tires don't fit the new-to-us cars) that I might try a third level.  Last year the yield was a little better than 25 lbs from one set of two stacked tires.  I don't know that I can double it, but even another 25% would be awesome.  There remains another couple pounds of potatoes meant for Zeb that sprouted before he got them; back to the barn tomorrow night for another set of radials.

The greenhouse is looking pretty barren as transplants move from the shelves to the soil.  Some of the last plants to leave are the flowers.  Many are already in; but even though these leggy, sad looking transplants are the last into the ground, they will grow into eight to ten foot tall sunflowers.  I will pick the best looking one and cover it with some pantyhose leftover from a corporate life I fondly remember, but no longer participate in.  There is a beetle which bores into the seed leaving good size holes and killing the seed.  Last year they left me with less than 20 good seeds and only four of them germinated.  It would be nice to have some seeds for snacking and salads but right now I grow them because I like them and to attract the wild birds.

Next to the sunflowers is the freshly weeded strawberry patch, one that is far too small for all the strawberries that Little man consumes in two weeks, let alone a season.  My objective this year is to get a yield, no matter how small.  If I am successful in keeping the moles, chipmunks, squirrels, birds and bugs away from the berries, without the use of pesticides, then I will expand the patch.  The strawberries will be harvested long before the sunflowers ripen, so those birds shouldn't be an issue.  My first patch of berries was planted where there was entirely too much weed pressure.  I spent at least an hour a week weeding that patch (weeding doesn't make you money, although it is a good stress reliever) and it was still a losing battle.  When there were finally berries on the vine, we would get two and the rest would go to the critters.  Eventually there will be enough berries grown on this farm to fill all the pies for farmers market and fill Little man's quota.  Maybe I should start clearing another couple of acres...

It's always good to stop and regroup.

Last year I paused.  It had been nine years since I jumped in.  I was burnt out, I was overtired, it seemed like nothing was going right and that I had failed at everything I had tried.  My marriage was in a downward spiral.  It felt like I was drowning in my to-do list.  I couldn't get ahead no matter how hard I tried, how much I scrimped, what I did cut the budget or scrounge out some extra time.  I had been in a pretty rough spot since the summer of 2014.

For 2015 I decided I wasn't going to take on anything new.  I took some time to regroup, review all of the activities I had tried, those that were successful, those that failed, what I wanted to do going forward, what I absolutely didn't want to try again and what I could accomplish completely on my own.

I faced difficult questions from my friends and family - 

• Why are you so dead set on having a farm?
• A farm is hard work and you aren't getting any younger?
• You know that having animals means you can't leave for the weekend?
• You haven't been successful so far, why are you even still considering this?

Through all the negativity, there is still a lot of positive.  I tried.  A lot of people can't even say that.  My husband called them learning experiences, expensive ones at that.  But I have learned A LOT over the course of nine years.  I learned how to do a few things REALLY well.  I also learned a lot about how to not to do other things.

2016 will be the year I re-invest myself into this farm.  Little man is old enough that he can help a little more and not need to be entertained every minute of every day.  I am determined to be here when he gets off the school bus.  I have a couple years to make that dream come to fruition.

I revisited a post from January of last year - 

Growing Magazine had one sentence that justified my lists this month: 

Setting goals before each season is the only way to know at the end of the year whether you succeeded.

The three things I will be focused on are vegetables, chickens and Christmas trees.  So the lists have begun - like this one of the current inventory of vegetable seed.  Orders will be placed this weekend for the ones I need to get going again.  Yesterday, another package arrived for the poultry venture.

Baby steps. 

Picking up the pieces, moving forward and re-setting priority number one!

The unforeseen, abrupt, loss of an income HURTS A LOT, especially in the spring on a small farm.  You start looking for more ways to cut already tight budgets and find ways to bring in any little bit of income to carry you through and keep the utilities on.  Farmers market, which was supposed to be on hold for this year, was added back to the mix.  Unfortunately, we hadn’t planned on a market garden this year so vegetable starts wouldn’t be available for sale.  Butchering hadn’t been done so we didn’t have any rabbit meat for sale.  Jams and jellies were still in their juice stage in the freezer.  We reached out to our neighbors and through some bartering and collaboration, little man’s father has managed to make a table at market work.

Chicken being chased by a toddler
with a camera

At the beginning of June I tried to do what I had done last year, bake four to six pies, four loaves of yeast bread and several desserts each market day.  I would come home from my off farm job and little man would ask me to play but I would be too busy baking to play.  He would ask to help so I would let him add pre-measured ingredients and mix when it was appropriate.  Baking took much longer than it had in the past.  Then when I moved on to the next recipe, he would ask to play again.  We would stop for dinner then go put the animals to bed, put little man and his father to bed then I would stay up baking more for market.  Since it was spring/early summer, the following night I would be transplanting from the greenhouse into the garden or the flower beds and he would help wherever he could, but then he would ask to play again, and again the answer would be, ‘As soon as I am done doing…’  The following night I would be baking again for market.  The following night would be spent cleaning out the rabbits and chickens housing, again little man would get his shovel and do what he could to help.  It breaks your heart when you have to tell your little one that you can’t play because you have to try and make a living. 

After too many times seeing that beautiful boy walk away with THAT look of total and complete disappointment, I decided that I was done with working full-time and trying to keep up with farmers market too.  I wasn’t going to miss another whole summer of playing and watching little man grow, all the while arguing with his father about distribution of chores/responsibilities and who was going to get to use the tiny work space portion of the kitchen first, just to try and eek out what little our local farmers market was going to gain for us.  Little man is far too important!  I wasn’t going to do it again this summer.

Now I come home in the evening and do at least one chore/job/task, which most of the time, includes some portion of something that little man can help with.  Then there is play time.  Sometimes it is fifteen minutes while making dinner, sometimes it is an hour and a half while the excavation of a new garage and parking facility are planned underneath the pine tree for the a pickup truck carrying blocks and a horse trailer carrying cows and rocks.  Often it involves running around with bare feet, pausing only to scratch a sow behind the ears, upsetting the chickens as they have to get out of the way of a racing toddler in the backyard.

2014's first harvest of
yellow beans from the garden

The worries are far from gone as little man’s father remains unemployed, but, the freezer is full and the garden is providing every day.  Now we have fifty meat birds ready to go into the freezer, I wasn’t able to buy the fingers for the chicken plucker we are building AND the one we borrowed needs fingers too…

Taking a step back and restoring focus

This summer on the farm passed in a blur as I tried to balance working off-farm part-time, spending quality time with my Little man, and attempting to secure sufficient income to put fuel in the tank and food on the table for the winter.  Heated arguments ensued - the word 'quit' came up several times in those less than calm, collected, discussions about who didn't do what and why we were 'never' going to be successful.

We agreed on one thing only - Little man comes first no matter whatever we decide to do.

Labor Day brought with it a garden that had all but succumbed to the weeds.  We collected a few wonderful meals worth of fried green tomatoes, but didn't get back out soon enough to put up any green tomato relish.  The club size zucchini went soft as they lay neglected after they were one of the few things that managed to survive the weed pressure.  Onion sets, peppers, spaghetti squash were all lost to rot under the weight of the falling weeds.  The herb garden did well, although the basil crop was severely stunted by lack of attention to weeds therein as well.  Tomatoes that didn't get transplanted out of the green house fell out the sides when the roof was removed and a few precious fruits were harvested, but most went to the chickens and the pig.

Farmers market went well with fresh baked and value added items taking the lead and fresh vegetables and produce from around the farm and that of our neighbor coming in a close second.  Unfortunately by the time I came home from my off-farm job, spent some time with Little man and then set-in to bake for the following day's market, it was well into the morning before I got any sleep.  It felt like weeks passed with my brain in a fog.  I was too tired to play outside with an eager toddler - the decision had to be made soon.  September brought with it hard fought glimmers of hope that we might be able to make this work - Little man, I can only hope would hardly remember this summer of rushed, crazy, pressure.

The following week I got a message from a colleague who told me that she might be moving on to pursue a different career opportunity.  Decision time had dropped out of the sky like an anvil onto the roadrunner.  I was beat-up, over-tired, feeling like I was neglecting my child, knew that I was neglecting myself, and having a difficult time trying to figure out which way was up.  Last year's propane bill hadn't been paid, we were behind in every utility and car payment and I was looking at trying to come up with thousands of dollars for taxes and propane and tires for vehicles before snow flew, let alone any other projects that had to get done before it got too cold.  Through all the sleep deprivation and fear, there remained the faint flicker of hope that all this summer's hard work was finally putting up some concrete numbers.  If we can just improve on those numbers - I might be able to work a little harder or go without another 30 minutes of sleep each night... 

I would love nothing more than to work on the farm and make it a sustainable venture.   Unfortunately heat for the house is a necessity in Northwestern Vermont.  I want to be at the end of the driveway to see my son get off the school bus each day.  It takes a community to raise a child and for the past couple of years we haven't had that community as we strove to build our farm venture.  Debts long ago incurred refused to be neglected.  Little man's father works at the base of the mountain requiring snow tires sooner rather than later and if I don't get my oil changed and tires put on my vehicle soon, then my car won't leave the driveway if the weather turns.

It was one of the most arduous decisions of my adult life,

I went back to work full-time.

I am determined to continue, albeit on a much smaller scale, farming on this piece of land to which I have become a caretaker.  The pig will be bred this fall and rabbits will continue to be a part of the farm.  We are in the process of scaling back to between four and six does which will keep us in rabbit as a good source of protein and have a few extra for family and friends.  Gardens will be relocated to make them easier to tend in closer proximity to the house so when I can carve out five minutes, it can be a productive five minutes.  The green house will be used to start plants again this spring, but I will only be planting enough for personal use plus ten percent for loss.  Focus will be shifted back to the Christmas trees ensuring that they get the appropriate attention this year so we can have some saleable trees next year.  Chickens and eggs will remain a staple product and perhaps I can consider adding one or two value added items to the online farmers market.

We will be shoring up our existing ventures and getting ourselves out of debt.  No more livestock, new projects or new ventures will be added until we have gotten each of the existing enterprises to sustain themselves or each other with no additional inputs required from off farm income.  The search will begin for a sustainable heating option for the house so that our reliance on propane can be limited.  Solar options for electricity and water will be researched and accumulation of free or bartered components will begin for all of the above projects.

It was not an easy decision, but it is the smartest option for us at this time.  We will take the coming year to be better prepared, to hole in and get all of our outstanding debt taken care of and to think through all of my grand ideas and put numbers and time lines to each.  The decision to take up any of the grand ideas will be subject to intense scrutiny and if starting the next project will in any way cause detriment to our existing ventures it will be shelved or tossed completely.  I still hope to someday add a lactating animal or three to the farm along with fiber animals and the value added products associated with them, but not right now.

The blog will continue to share the details of the farm as it continues on its much smaller scale, but will also include things like meal-planning and weatherization.  Our pig is still in search of a boyfriend for the holidays and the rabbit shed has rafters but is still missing a roof.  Little man is better for the time we are spending together as it is certainly better quality then it was quantity.

I hope you will stay with us as we step back, reign in the craziness and start again with some valuable lessons learned under our belts.

Bags

When faced with a challenge, the answer used to be - run to [insert name of big box store here] and pick up [insert solution to challenge here].  Nowadays I approach these challenges much differently.  Lack of cash flow has something to do with it; it is more the overwhelming desire to stop accumulating stuff.  This, of course, does not apply to Little man who deserves to be showered with toys.

Little man's stuffed animals no longer fit in the toy box with the other hard plastic or wood toys.  Piled too high on the living room chair, even the weight of Little man on the floor adjacent would cause the pile to shift and tumble about.  He thought this was the greatest - my toys are jumping off the chair to play with me...  It doesn't take Mom too long to get tired of picking up the same toys ten or more times per day.  Instead of running to the store, I looked in the attic and barn for another toy box or other storage solution; to no avail.  I remembered seeing in all those home decorating magazines, stuffed toy hammocks.  A quick search of the Internet yielded several knit and crochet patterns.  Back upstairs to where the yarn is stored and one week later, crocheted in 15 or 20 minutes segments each day, the toy hammock was born.  Salvaged removable plastic hooks unearthed from the storage drawer and stuffed toy storage was born.

The second project was actually contrived two years ago when I was pregnant with Little man and had very little to do while on bed-rest.  Through one of the loads of laundry went an inexpensivecheap recyclable grocery bag.  Unfortunately the 99 cent bag stood little chance against the hot water and spin cycle and what emerged from the machine 40 minutes later barely resembled a fish-net.  I grabbed the yarn and a search of the Internet provided several patterns for reusable bags.  Some I liked, some were far too small, and some were just poorly constructed.  I chose one and set out with my hook and thread.  What emerged was a great bag; it didn't resemble the photo in the pattern at all.  While I use it from time to time, the poor kids at the grocery store have no idea how to pack it, so it is reserved for small trips when I am the one packing the bag.

My most recent sack pattern came from a crochet magazine and the resulting bag is great.  It is big and roomy; it was however meant to be made with thread and not yarn.  The stretch is a little much and any kind of weight puts the contents of the bag at my knee level - I am 5'7".  I will try the bag again with just thread and then perhaps with a combination of yarn and thread.  The search will continue for the perfect replacement for the 99 cent reusable grocery bag; in the meantime, I think I found something that will work nicely.

Ideally I would like to start making something that can be sold at farmers market, but sugaring season has arrived, the incubator has been started, rabbits have been bred, and warmer weather is on the way.

Take some time to relax

It doesn’t take too long to become overwhelmed when you are trying to take care of an infant, keep up family commitments, run a fledgling farm, working off the farm, volunteering for your local first responders, catch up on overdue required trainings for the first responder certification, become more involved in the farmers market, etc.  Such was the case for the past couple of weeks, hence the absence of blog posts.

While I share many of the trials and tribulations of the happenings on the farm, there is so much more that goes on in our lives that I don’t share.  All of us have family politics, money issues, relationship problems, and other general happenings of life which no one needs to know about.  Life managed to get the best of me over the past couple of weeks.  In between a family visit to CT and trying to keep up with all that goes on here, I landed myself in the hospital.  My body didn’t do so well carrying little man and I have yet to fully recover.  Pushing myself too hard for too long without sufficient sleep elicited a bout of stomach upset, chest pain, difficulty breathing and lightheadedness.  Thankfully it was just an exacerbation of my normal; there was nothing new wrong with me.

Barely recovered, I traveled the six hours back north with little man, appreciating every single degree drop in dew point and temperature, as the farm grew ever closer.  We took a week off from farmers market as DH and I discussed our abilities to continue developing the farm and my working only part time.  That was one of the smartest things we have done all summer.  The stresses of ensuring there was food on the table and diapers for the little man had taken its toll.  I was moving through the day in a robotic fashion completing the required tasks; I wasn’t living or experiencing all the beauty around me, relishing in the bounty of the garden or enjoying the lightning bugs anymore. 

Taking the week off from the market and spending a full, uninterrupted day at the farm was what the doctor ordered.  The three-hour nap on Saturday helped too.  Evening found us at the lake; DH, little man, my stepdaughter and I played together in the water then visited for a while with my aunt and uncle.  Sunday was spent at the local agricultural fair, which included my stepdaughter winning the pedal powered tractor pull in her age group.  Sick pigs, sick rabbits, household pets who have fleas, vehicle and equipment failures have all been weighing heavy on my mind.  What this weekend reminded me was that it will still be there when I get back – remember to take some time for you.

Update

Lest someone think that the absence of blog posts the past week means lack of work or progress, rest assured it hasn't been all swimming in the lake and reading the latest Nora Roberts novel.

The heat has taken its toll on our rabbit venture.  We lost nine in total from loose stools associated with the richness of their diet accompanied by the heat.  I have finally learned how to intervene and have managed to successfully save two pregnant does and one small rabbit who had started to get sick.  Quick intervention and one week later are still with us and back on solid food again.  Procurement and installation of an industrial strength farm fan has drastically improved air circulation; I am not looking forward to the electric bill.  Fly controls have been installed, although they are not nearly strong enough to control our rising fly population.  We remove all of the pine shavings and waste once a week with removal of piles of manure occurring each day - they remain a problem and research is being done on other control measures. 

Across the driveway the piggles are thriving in their 1/2 acre divided pasture.  Since arriving in May they have only worked on clearing/tilling only half of their pasture.  Before August 1st we will open the second side of their space and allow them to start on fresh grass and roots along with a notoriously wet section of ground.  If August proves to be as hot or hotter than July, they will be very happy improving the soggy section into a full fledged swail.  They continue to eat like queens with most of the scraps from farmers market production going their way.  This week that included the leftover filling from both strawberry and peanut butter whoopie pies, hulls from the strawberries, cannoli filling and a bunch of lettuce that we couldn't consume before it started to get soggy.  Commercial feed continues to be a staple in their diet since the summer has been so dry, the beets/mangles  and corn that we are growing for them are coming very slow.

Chickens have been a popular product here on the farm.  We sold most of the pullets that we incubated for our own production and had to order some pullets from a commercial hatchery.  They arrived around the first of July and will soon be ready to go out to the small chicken tractor while the roosters who remain in the large tractor finish off to roaster weight.  Our layers have decided, right in the middle of our highest egg demand, to slow down on their production.  Five or six eggs per day is sufficient for the baking I do for farmers market, but our garbage men are a little disappointed that we have not been able to consistently supply them with their regular demand.

The riding lawnmower has broken and the replacement part is outside of our budget at this time.  I am getting some great exercise push mowing the four acres of lawns here on the farm and have lost eight pounds since leaving full-time employment.  Perhaps before the snow flies we will have found the Christmas trees amongst the weeds which have taken over in all three of the fields.  The lilac bush which I have been hoping to prune for the past three years was finally pruned and while farmers market continues to occupy a lot of my time, it has proven a successful venture.  We are planning on our first trip to the processor in over six weeks and have three more does scheduled to kindle this week.  Now I just need to spend some more time in the garden.

Good people at farmers market

It was an absolutely beautiful day today at the farmers market.  Temperatures were in the mid to upper seventies with a light breeze.   I baked up a storm with fresh pies, cookies, breads, and cannolis.  Fresh vegetables from our neighbor’s garden graced our table; our garden is still several weeks behind schedule between the lack of rain and our late planting.  Preserves of an unusual nature, Dandelion and elderberry jellies accompanied by radish relish - I never said I was normal folks. 

A couple of weeks into the market, we now have several regular customers.  We have met a nice couple in their early sixties who come every Tuesday and buy our day-old bread.  Our ingredients are sourced locally whenever possible and we try not to sell anything that wasn’t baked that morning or at the most the evening before market.  Sometimes we have bread that doesn’t sell the day of market and instead of having a freezer full of bread; we decided to offer it at half price the following market day.  People are thrilled to get our day-old bread and often look for that over the freshly baked stuff.  Although when we get to market and the bread is still warm to the touch, that is a fantastic selling point in and of itself.

Another woman who is a nurse at a local nursing home comes after our fresh produce.  She has lost over 115 lbs and loves the fresh fare from both our booth and other farmers at the market.   Each week we hear tales of how far she has walked and what new recipes she has found to keep the weight off and still enjoy delicious food.

Then there is the man who walks his dog through the park.  Enosburg has a leash law so he very dutifully carries the leash in one hand and walks with the dog, unrestrained in front of him.  She is a fantastic dog and rarely strays more than two or three feet from him.  He hasn’t purchased a thing from us or any other vendor at the market, but he is and his canine are a pleasure to visit with each week.

Moms with children in tow (one little boy who goes nuts over our maple glazed donuts on Saturdays), folks going to see the town band play, a lovely woman from the local assisted living facility who comes to market on Saturday always looking for cookies – the characters abound, but each is a pleasure to speak with and often they are happy to relate a new story to us.

The family dairy farm is in danger of extinction and small hobby farms are popping up, but if the few farmers present at our market is any indication, there aren't enough.  I am happy that I will be able to teach little man just a smidgen of my farming knowledge and can only hope that he will love this life half as much as we do.

Cannolis - getting better each day

 

Having lived just outside of New York City for several years I had access to some of the best restaurants and bakeries available.  Being the particular type of person I am, I often over criticize myself and my cooking, comparing it to those foods I used to eat on a regular basis.  Recipes for products at farmers market are tried, if they pass my critical palette then I allow my husband to try them.  After he tries them then I try to get one more person to try them before I allow them to go on the table for sale.  My most recent baking adventure includes cannolis. 

I am fairly confident in my pastry shells, although I know that I will no longer be substituting a red wine for a white anytime soon, but the filling is still a work in progress.  Many people know that the base for a cannoli filling is ricotta cheese.  While I have managed to get mine fairly smooth, "I" can still taste the ricotta consistency.  Last week we tried them at the market for the first time and they went over pretty well.  I was disappointed with my candied citrus zest, but DH told me that it was fine and I gave it shot anyway.

This week I will be trying chocolate chip cannolis and perhaps even some plain cannoli filling inside of a chocolate dipped cannoli shell.  We'll see how much time I have before we go to market tomorrow.