Hurricane Farm

The days are getting shorter.  So much in fact that we had to carve our annual Halloween pumpkins by lamplight at 3:00 in the afternoon!  Overcast conditions coupled with Standard Daylight Time makes for some early evenings.

The kids and I worked hard to open up and empty out the squash while Erica was at the smokehouse picking up the latest round of bacon and ham.  The kids were especially attentive to the separation of the meat from the seeds.  They love roasted pumpkin seeds.  Amost as much as the hogs love the rest of the pumpkins!

We grew many different types of pumpkins this year, including a unique heirloom "Cinderella" variety.  The sugar pumpkin that Violet is working on in the above photo earned me an "I told you so" upon Erica's return.  It seems that we were saving all the sugar pumpkins for pies.  Violet had mentioned something about not carving those...ooops. 

The pumpkin scrapers that the kids are using above were given to them for Christmas by their Aunt Julie.  I had no idea where they were but Violet and Liev found them on their first attempt.  Maybe I'll get the two of them to organize my sock drawer.

We carved a few on our own, and then when Erica returned the fancy carving began.  Erica has made some elaborate carvings in the past, including a sweet "PHISH" logo (google it, it looked just like that!), a pumpkin that sported our name, HURRICANE FARM, and a scary witch this year.

The kids have their own carving tools and they did an excellent job on their very own Jack-O-Lantern designs.

They worked for hours on about 10 or so pumpkins.  I think that they have me licked on this.  The one that I carved pales in comparison to the masterpieces the rest of the family created.  Spooky!  Scary!  Funny!  Check out Liev's with the four square eyes (bottom right below).  The witch on a broomstick is in the top right.

And there they are, hard at work keeping evil spirits at bay, welcoming wayward trick-or-treaters, and serving as the sole beacon of light in the ever-increasing darkness of Standard Daylight Time.

Last weekend we started to put the roof together for our sugar shack.  It will ultimately be an open-walled pole structure to house our maple syrup evaporator.  We'll be able to make much more syrup once we're able to get a roof overhead the whole operation.  No more standing around in the cold drizzle!

The first task in getting up the roof was to set the ridge pole over the center of the framing.  I got the longest 2 x 8 available, but I still wish it was a few feet longer so I could have an nice overhang on the end.  I have an idea as to how to make an overhang in a slightly different way, so it will still probably work out.

Next we had to measure out the angles for the rafters.  I personally do not enjoy doing math, so we measured out the first rafter while holding it in place.  We got the perfect angle on the second try.  Not too bad.  This rafter became the "cookie cutter" by which we measured and cut all the others.

Measuring out the first rafter was a two person job.  Luckily, we have enough ladders.

As a side note, the weather is starting to become hat-weather...Nice.  My favorite time of the year!

A cluster of turkeys watches our progress from the background, while their constant gobbling urges Erica further up the ladder.

The first rafter is measured and set.  We ended up completing 1/2 of the rafters.  Today the plan is to finish up the roof and get ready to put on some covering and make a cupola from which the steam from the evaporation process will escape later in the week.

Did you know?  Rafters make great race-car ramps!

The frost has hit and the squash is done.  Sadness creeps into the picture as one looks around at the dying plants.  The sqash was commanding the garden mere days ago, but its leaves are now turning a sickly dark color.  The frost sneaks in and kills quickly, just as quickly as the early morning sun whisks it away.

While we are short some squash patches, we have gained some pig areas.  The hogs have been moved into the garden and will be rotated throughout in order to clean, till, and manure the spaces that will hold next Spring and Summer's crops. 

Even though the entire garden is fenced in, we set up some movable hog panels (16 foot long rigid fence sections) to encourage the pigs to keep to a specific area as they work.  We have many crops remaining that do not need the help of the pigs at this time.  They might like the strawberry patch or the kale rows, but we do too!  Pigs keep out, please...

We'll let them work their wonders in the squash patch, then move them through the corn and other crop areas in the coming weeks.

Did I mention that they work for free?

It is come upon the end of the season for our borrowed field down the road.  The cattle did a wonderful job clearing out the overgrown field and we have high hopes for superior hay next season.  I'll be brush-hogging the remaining saplings and whatever else may be left.

To that end, we spent an afternoon moving Fuzzy back up to the field behind our barn.

Liev decided that he would be responsible for the rope.  The trailer is a bit high off the ground, so we end up roping the cattle to help coax them aboard.  We use the rope as a sort of leash and aboard they climb.

Erica decided that she, too, would be a "wrangler."  We're lucky to have neighbors that allow us use of this 5+ acre field.  We plan to fence in a second pasture next Spring as well as put in a large pumpkin patch (right where the truck is parked just behind the cowgirl in the photo).

And here we are backing the trailer up in order to unload our passenger, Fuzzy.  It was hard to tell whether he was pleased to be back at the farm or if he missed his summer home. 

After the weekend, we loaded him back up again and Erica took the long trip to deliver him to be harvested.  I think it is great that our children, and the children who visit the farm, are aware of the sources of their foods.  What could be more natural than a connection to the very essence of life that sustains us all?

Hurricane Farm in Scotland, CT is currently offering a Holiday Meat CSA. 

Many people inquired about and have been on a waitlist for our Summer Meat-Based CSA.  We are now pleased to be able to expand our CSA to a second season and we welcome new members.

Members have the opportunity to get fresh meats straight from the farm.

Here are a few shots of some veggies fresh from the garden.  The frost is still only threatening, so we're sure to have a few more meals on the table right from the garden.

A little veg.  A little dip.  Yummy.

Once the frost comes, there will still be plenty of colder crops left, like the kale below.  We have three kale patches, though we recently turned out the new piglets into one of them.  They like fresh veggies just as much as we do!

There are still plenty of squash to bring in.  We have some heirloom varieties of winter squash that are weighing in at over 30 pounds!  They are much too large for the basket below...My favorite, though, is butternut.

And of course, let's not forget the homemade stuffed pizza!

Who loves the rain?

The sunflowers are still hanging in there, but we're sure to have a frost soon.  It's amazing what you can notice when you take a moment to look closely at the swirling, buzzing, busy workers that surround you on an early Autumn day. 

The bumblebees are busy, grabbing that last bit of pollen to store away as part of their winter rations.  Will they survive the winter--if it comes without mercy--to see another Spring?  Or will their stores give out in early March, just as the winter season begins to yield to the earliest of Spring flowers?

First he lands on the flower and feels his way around, slowly becoming accustomed to and aware of every inch of his landing zone.

Check out the pollen covering this little guy in the photo above!  He works until his entire body is laden with the riches of the flower and then makes his triumphant return from whence he came.

Watch closely as they take off...stumbling at first as they become acclimated to their new, heavier selves.  Slowly, though, their courage builds and their balance is restored.  Off they zip to their hidden hive.

Watch next time you manage to notice one...they work at once slowly and quickly.  Amazing!

Look at the photo below, just above the flowers on the right-hand side.  There, quick!  Off he flies to his sanctuary--perhaps in the hollow of a tree, perhaps into a hole and under the dry earth, perhaps nestled within the walls of an old barn.

This past Tuesday an small film crew arrived to shoot footage for an independent documentary at our farm.  They are working on a film about the state of farming here in Connecticut.  This film will be a companion piece to their earlier documentary, "The Farmer's Voice."  We'll try to post any footage that makes it way back to us before the film is complete. 

During the filming, several folks came by to be interviewed.  This included one of our CSA customers, a woman from across town who allows the use of her sugarbush during the maple sap run, and another farmer from the other side of town who lives on one of the original farms in the town of Scotland.

We had a great time showing the crew around, answering questions, and eating freshly picked watermelon!  All the kids on the road came over to sample the sweet melon after Violet and Liev picked it on camera.

Plans are in the works for additional visits to shoot footage during maple sugaring season as well as in the late Spring when all the new livestock "arrives" at the farm.

A local Connecticut restaurant, Zest, has some wonderful dishes on the way prepared with local ingredients including ribs grass-fed, dry aged beef.  If you are in Northeastern CT, stop by their 1750's farmhouse restaurant and try the taste and flavor of local foods!

http://www.zestofct.com/

One of our customers recently tried some of our Heritage pork and offers this recipe:  "Slap Ya Mama Heritage Pork Chops."

Please follow the link to their Food Blog and, perhaps, try it out yourself!

http://acoupleinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2009/08/slap-yo-mama-heritage-pork-chops.html

Just a quick reminder to those out there who are planning to get their Thanksgiving turkey from us here at the farm...It is time to put in your order.  We still have some conventional white turkeys this year, and we have a variety of heritage breed turkeys as well.  Our heritage breeds include Narragansett, Black Spanish, Blue Slate, and Bourbon Red.

Our turkeys are raised on grass and are fed all natural vegetarian feed.  The heritage turkeys spend most of their time in the fields or the woods, foraging for bugs, grubs, and seeds.

Please call us or see us at the Coventry Farmers' Market on Sundays to reserve yours today!

Lots of folks have been asking about our (their) turkeys.  It must be coming to that time of year when summer starts to end, fall is almost here, and thoughts of Thanksgiving start emerging from deep within.

This year we decided to raise more heritage breeds and scale back on the conventional giant whites.  This decision was in part due to customer demand, but also due to the ability of the heritage turkeys to free-range.  The giant whites are allowed pasture space, yet they seldom wander far.  The heritage turkeys, on the other hand, roam far and wide throughout the farmyard.  They even find their way atop the farmhouse, from time to time.

Here are some Narragansett and a Bronze "picking" raspberries.

In the distance are some pastured turkeys.  The whites never leave the fenced in area, while the heritage turkeys rarely stay within.

And there you have it...Your turkeys!

Sarah, our Toggenburg milk goat, is hopefully an expectant mother.

That being the case, it was time to build her a place of her own.  She was living with the sheep, able to come and go in and out of the pasture on the schedule of the cattle, but we thought that she might be better off in her own space.

I cleared out some nasty, prickly multiflora rose (invasive!), waded through a sea of poison ivy, set some posts, and stretched some fence.  We ended up with two new areas for Sarah, or any other livestock that may need to be isolated at any given time.  The areas offer some sun and grass as well as the shade of the wetland that cuts through our farm. 

Sarah has been busy clearing poison ivy, debarking Russian Olive trees (invasive!), and clearing the brush from an old stone wall that is starting to re-emerge inside her new pen.  What a great worker she is!

This is the largest ear of corn that I have ever seen!

There is indeed something to be said for heirloom seeds...

And oh the taste!

Yummy.

There are lots of new things here at the farm.  We're always keeping busy...

Work has begun on the Sugar Shack.  We decided that since we really enjoy the outside aspect of sugaring--especially on those sunny late-winter noons--that we'd build an open building.  The idea is to make a pavillion style building that is attached to the barn.  We'll have a roof to allow us to suger through the rain and snow, but we'll also be open to the air around us. 

I started this project by setting four posts into the ground just off the rear of the barn.  This is a pole building, meaning it will not have a foundation; rather, it will be secured to the ground by the corner posts.  I used some of the larger cedar logs that I had remaining from my fencing projects.

Yes, I'll have to move that pallet of bricks YET AGAIN...This will be the third time that I'll have picked those up, one by one...It is handy to have bricks around, though, so I can't complain too much.  They should be added to our official list of necessary farm items.

Next, I used some large threaded rod to secure the back posts to the barn for extra stability.  The roof of the shack will peak perpendicular to the barn and I'll also attach the ridge pole to the roof of the barn.

I had to buy an extra-long drill bit to make it all the way through the post and the barn.  I also used it to drill through the posts at the top where I mounted the beams with 12" carriage bolts.  Using bolts results in a much tighter and more secure connection.

Here is a picture of one of the beams that I constructed out of 2 x 6 dimensional lumber.  I made four beams in total.  Two 10 footers and two 12 footers.  The size of the building will be 12 x 9 when finished.  We'll have plenty of room to upgrade to a larger evaporator in a year or two. 

I have mounted the beams and am ready for the next step:  to install the ridge board and rafters.  I still need to figure out the best way to vent the chimney pipe and have to also construct a cupola which can open to allow the steam from the evaporator to escape.  Luckily, I have some great books on contruction and sugaring.

Stay tuned for more updates as the warm weather ends.  This project needs to be done before it snows!

No doubt by now everyone has heard of the blight that has been ravaging tomato patches throughout the country.  Despite our hopes of avoiding its catastrophic grasp, it made its way to our gardens this past week.

We had many things going in our favor in our attempt to be "blight free":

--we started all our own plants
--we grew only heirloom varieties, no hybrid plants
--we added nothing "off farm" to our garden (all fertilizers were from our own animals)
--we live in a valley and are usually 5-10 degrees colder, which was in our favor
--the blight hit farms around the state for over a month, and we had no signs of its presence

Alas, given the ability of the blight to travel several miles by air, ultimately we had no chance.

Here is a shot of some of the tomatoes a day before we discovered blight.

Vibrant, healthy plants full of lush tomatoes.

Two days later...

The blight starts at the bottom and quickly works it way up the plant.  It is a fungus and spreads rapidly in wet weather, which we have had plenty of this summer.

Erica's first course of action was to pull off the infected leaves and then spray the plants and fruit with natural soap mixtures.  She and the kids experimented with several different mixtures.  Here is what was left after removal and treatment.

Some close-ups of the infected leaves.

Ultimately, the decision was made to pull all the tomatoes from the vines.  Erica brought in more than 300 pounds of tomatoes and there are still some left to gather.  Heirloom tomatoes are sold at a premium, especially this year when few have made it through the blight at all.  Fetching over $3.00 a pound, many find tomatoes to be one of their more important crops. 

Rinsing the tomatoes and washing them with soap mixture helps to rid them of blight and will allow most of them to ripen off the vine.  Currently there are hundreds of pounds of tomatoes spread out on tables on the porch.

Day by day, we have to pull the tomatoes that continue to show signs of blight but we are also able to gather the ripe fruit from the table.  Hopefully, most of it will survive long enough to ripen.  Here are some examples of tomatoes that made it.

The blight has been traced back to seedlings shipped up from the South to large stores like the Home Depot, Lowes, and Walmart.  One can only wonder if we would be blight-free if more folks started their own seedlings or shopped in local establishments and avoided those large retailers altogether.

Now we're all lamenting the days when the biggest predator was this little guy:

This is our second late summer here at our farm and just about now it seems we have an annual invasion!  First, at night one begins to hear chirping.  It begins low, and then builds to a piercing crescendo as the twilight gives way to the summer darkness.

In the morning, when looking around on tree trunks, truck tires, sandbox lids, and swingset legs, one finds empty shells...all that remains of the night's symphony.

Here is one newly hatched cicada with two empty shells.  These were all over the tires on the trucks and most everything else near the spruce trees in the front.  They seem to emerge from dozens of holes around the base of these trees.  Look closely and you can see how the back splits open on the shell to allow the transformed bug to emerge.

We are talking about cicadas.  For about a week this time of year, hundreds of these rather large insects emerge from holes in the ground to hatch from their beetle-like shell with newly formed wings.  They climb up a few feet on whatever they can find, emerge from their shells, and fly off in an ungainly fashion only to mate and disappear underground again to repeat the cycle.

We found one cicada that had yet to hatch.  It was looking for something to climb upon.  We set it on a stick and took a series of photos as it emerged from its shell.

Eventually, with all of us crowding around watching, the bug fell off the stick.  We then put it on a railing to continue watching its emergence.

Over the course of about 30 minutes, the bug underwent its metamorphosis.  The kids were very surprised and excited to watch it up close.

Luminous at first, it slowly fades to a dull, speckled grey.  It's nice to have traditions, and we now have the late summer concerts of the cicadas here at the farm.

One of the projects that was on the slate this summer was to install gutters along the front edge of the barn.  Mainly I wanted to keep some of the water out of the pig pen, but also I wanted to try to keep the rain splashing on the barn sills to a minimum. 

We decided to run 1/2 of the legnth of the barn to start.  This would take care of the pig pen area and also it would be pretty hard to run more than 50 feet of gutter all in one direction.  Too much water would get in there and there would be overflow.

Pinning up gutters seemed like an easy task:

1. purchase gutters
2. install them on barn

Not SO simple, it turns out.  This project called for lots of pre-steps before we even got near the gutters.  One step was even involved paint (I loathe painting, anyone can tell you).  I mean, seriously, putting up gutters involves PAINT?!  What the heck...

We first had to install some trim work upon which to attach the gutters.  There was only about 1" of existing trim, not enough to provide the angle we'd need to run 50 feet.  So we tacked up some  6" pine to make a nice surface.  But, then we had to paint it.

Lucky for me, my kids love to paint!

They did such a great job that I only had to touch up areas here and there...I know where to turn ANYTIME I need any painting done.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I got more paint on my clothes than the kids did!

101 feet, 8 inches of "gutter-mount" painted and ready for the gutters...

The next step was the kids' favorite.  When I was building the new out-building, we often used the chalk-line.  They love snapping it and then reeling it back in.  We snapped a 51 foot chalk-line and proceeded to mount the gutters.  We bought these nifty little clips that simply clip into each channel of the gutter and then screw in with a power drill.  Nice and quick!  What was not nice and quick was all the sealing that had to be done to the seams between gutters, to the downspout, to the gutter end, etc...I dislike the caulking gun almost as much as the paint brush.  It especially becomes a chore on the third try at sealing it all correctly to keep it all from leaking.  Pretty soon, though, the kids will be able to handle the caulking gun, too.

The gutters are now up (ironically all the rain has gone away) and we're all ready for some dry less-wet-than-before hogs for the Fall.  Next time it rains, the gutters will whisk the water away to the edge of the barnyard where it will soak into the ground without making mud.

In order to sell meat here in Connecticut, one must visit a USDA inspected processing plant/butcher.  There are not any here in the state, believe it or not.  There is one in Rhode Island, that once one pays a membership fee, will process meats.  They do not, however, smoke any meats.  Not too useful for farmers who want bacon, ham, and the like.

So, we found a new place in Athol, MA.  It is 100 miles from our farm to theirs, but they are USDA inspected and will package our meats in individual cuts, labeled, and ready for farmers' markets.  They, also, do not have a smoker, but we found a place just southeast of Hartford that will smoke our meats.  They make a tasty kielbasa, too!  Until we have our own labels that can be approved by the USDA, the smokehouse makes up some for us. 

Not only do they do all this for us, but they offer curing WITHOUT nitrates and nitrites!  Whoo hoo!  Our customers have been pleased about this, for sure.

All in all, a good tasting product this time around!  Next time we'll be trying some of their Bratworst and maybe some other German preparations, which seems to be their specialty. 

Our grass fed beef is dry-curing as we speak, so we'll have that all packaged up in a couple of weeks.  Grass fed, all beef hotdogs, anyone?