Hurricane Farm

There is so much to do that sometimes we don't take time to notice how large some of our animals are getting, especially as they transtition from little babies.  Remember those hogs that we used to till up our gardens, orchard, and bramble patch?  We brought them to Farm Day in Scotland, too.

Well, they've grown substantially and we won't be bringing them around for fun any more!

Additionally, we have been working on our new pasture.  It is pretty large, about 7-8 acres in all.  We'll be using the back 2/3 for now and maybe more later.  I spent yesterday brush-hogging the areas where I plan to erect the field fencing, and then I set in some nice cedar posts.  I plan to finish the cedar corner posts and then strech the fence today and tomorrow.  We'll be using metal t-posts between the end/corner posts to allow us to move the fence if we need to easily enough.  Our neighbor has been generous enough to let us use the field/pasture free-of-charge for a couple of years.  We'll be bringing our cattle down there next week at the latest, I hope. 

It's amazing, but we have more than doubled the size of our grazing area in the course of a couple of days.

I drove the tractor down to the field last night so it would be wating for me this morning (it's fun to drive on the roads!).  We took a few photos of the field before the fencing is up and we'll post them later on.

Well, it threatened to rain all day, but only spritzed a little bit here and there for a couple of minutes.  So, my work crew (see photo 1) and I got lots accomplished on the new chicken coop/shed.

We managed to get the end rafters up and we hung the ridge pole.  We had to make a quick stop back to the lumber yard in the midst of the work day as we realized our math was a little fuzzy.  But, one new 2 x 8 x 12 later and we were back in business!  I've been reading a little about building and learned that I need to hang a little of the ridge pole over (I did 8") in order to have a nice overhang that will also serve as a sort of a drip edge.  I'll hang (ladder-style) some more rafters off the front and back to make that overhang.  Stay tuned as we finish up the roof!  If all goes well, I'll be enrolling in Door-Making 101 sometime next week.  (I already have the windows--nice recycled/reclaimed 6 pane wooden sashes.)

Those weather folks keep telling us rain, rain, rain, but today ended up a great almost-summer day.  Not too hot, not too humid, and not much rain!

It's been raining on and off for almost three weeks now here in Southern New England.  The forcast calls for rain and thunder storms for the next 7 days.  This is good for some of our garden but detrimental to tomatoes, peppers, and people who don't like mud.  In fact, the hay fields all around us in towns throughout Eastern Connecticut have been left to their own devices--almost looking abandoned--due to the constant wet.  No one has been able to cut their hay for weeks.  The first cutting traditionally takes place on Memorial Day Weekend here in CT, but it was raining back then, too!  Hopefully the rain will let up for a few days at least soon!

The rain does not seem to bother the large livestock, however.  Here you can see the two Jerseys and Aloysius involved in some sort of race with one of our Black Spanish turkeys.  The turkey seems to be winning this one.

The rain has also slowed down my building of our meat chicken coop/shed.  Here is a photo from a couple of weeks ago.  Liev helped me erect a wall.  Now, during breaks in the rain, and with a little help from my Dad yesterday, we have all four walls up, framed, and covered with siding.  I hope to put up some rafters today if it stays only overcast and does not begin to rain.

Despite all the rain, mud, humidity, and dirty floors that come with living in what seems to have turned into a tropical rainforest environment, good things do come in the end:

Here is shot of our booth at the Coventry Farmers' Market.  We'll see you there once again this Sunday.  We will be offeirng some chicken this week, so come early if interested!

You've got to love the old-school chalkboard!  You can see our maple syrup display "tree" off to the left as well.  When this photo was taken, we were already sold out of eggs, kale, and spinach.  Everything moves so fast at this market!  Lots of customers!

Take a look also at our new "Connecticut Grown" tent, courtesy in part from the State of Connecticut's Department of Agriculture.

Aside from my work at the farm and being a 7th grade Language Arts teacher, I also enjoy playing music.  This past weekend I was able to jam with some friends who I've known musically for many years.  We got a chance to put together some tunes and I sat in for their show in New Haven.  We were able to practice twice in our barn where I have a small jam area set up inside of my workshop.  At the show we played a variety of covers from the Grateful Dead, the Funky Meters, Bob Marley, and even a Phish tune as well as some of the band's original tunes.  My dad came down for the night to watch the kids so Erica and I had a night of music on our own.  Thanks Dad!  I had a blast and hope to do it again sometime soon. 

In other music news, some students at school who have a "garage band" of sorts have challenged some of us teachers to a "battle of the bands."  This will take place this Wednesday just before the students are dismissed to the buses.  It is a twist on the more classic "students vs. teachers soccer match."  The "teacher band" put togther three tunes and we hope to fair well.  Though I am a self-proclaimed "Music Pacifist" I will be partaking in this "battle" as I climb behind my drum kit.  Wish us the best...

Here, at long last, is a photo of our new grain bin, also known as a silo.  It holds 4.5 tons of grain and we order it 3 tons at a time.  The mill makes it per our specifications and this shipment of feed (that we are feeding to our poultry and hogs) should last us until the end of the summer.

It's pretty tall.  Just over two stories, I'd say.  It towers over our barn.  I was nervous that it might start tilting with the weight of the feed in there, but it still looks level and even.  They come to deliver it in a tractor trailer truck (all 18 wheels were there!).  Too bad that the kids were at school.  Liev would have absolutely LOVED seeing such a large truck in our driveway.

We just uploaded a slew of photos, so here are some from a while back.

Recall that our first shipment of bees did not fare too well in transit.  In fact, the majority of them were dead on arrival.  We installed them into the hive anyways at the advice of the supplier who agreed to send out a replacement shipment.

Below you can see how few bees there were when I opened up the hive two weeks after the first shipment came.  You can see that there are some bees on each side of the first frame and then none anywhere else to be found.  There should be 5-6 frames covered with busy little bees working hard at the process of making more bees, who will then work hard at the process of making more bees, who will then...

Yes, I do look a little over-zealous with the smoker, and yes, I am wearing the bee helmet with the face protection, but it was my first time poking around in there and I am proud to pronounce that I did not find myself on the receiving end of any defensive stingers.

Here is the other side of the first frame. 

The next series of frames were empty.  There should have been bees all over the place in there.

Here are some shots of the new shipment of bees.  Last time there were 3-4 inched of dead bees on the bottom.  This time, only a few did not make it through shipping.  That is a healthy looking crate of bees.

Look closely at the last photo.  That is not an escapee.  In fact, that is a bee who grabbed on when the shipment was mailed and remained there the whole time!  What a go-getter!  Even the bees work hard here at Hurricane Farm.

Since the shipment arrived and I installed it, I have been back to remove the shipping cage and the queen mailing cage.  Let me tell you that it was pretty nerve-wracking messing around in there with the thousands of bees at work.  I still did not get stung, but I don't plan on bothering them again for some time.  When I opened it the last time bees were busy building comb on more than half of the frames.  Great work guys!

As CSA pick-up approaches, we decided to see where our meat chickens are at size-wise.  We prepared two of them, one of the larger sized ones and one of the smaller sized one this weekend. 

We are looking at meat birds in the 5-6 pound range on average dressed, and there are still two weeks to go before we prepare them all.  We used the plucking machine that I built last fall and it worked WONDERFULLY. 

At first, it seemed to have no power, just like it did with the over-sized turkeys.  I was pretty frustrated.  However, I noticed that the belt was slipping--perhaps it was a bit stretched out while it over-wintered in the barn.  (How many hyphenized-words can I use in this post?)

I loosened the motor (the hefty 3/4 horse-power motor that I had upgraded to last Fall) and added a shim to tighten up the belt, Mickey-Mouse-style.  Oh boy, did it work!  This will save us probably about 10 minutes per bird at least!  It took less than a minute, and I think less than 30 seconds for the machine to do its work...WOW!

We have some photos and they will be up soon.  I especially like the one of us hauling it around the farm in the back of the small wagon attached to the Farmall.

It was an exciting weekend as we found ourselves at another Phish concert (woo hoo!) but also in that the Coventry Farmers' Market opened its season on Sunday.  We were lucky enough to be chosen as one of the few new member farms.  We are also one of two people selling beef and the only farm selling pork, chicken, and turkey.  This will be a great incentive for expanding our farming and meat production.  (New field fencing project begins in a few short days!)

(Here is a photo of Phish)

 

The market opened its season with 5000 visitors!  Lots of people eager to buy local and fresh.  We have a pretty unique marketing set-up at our booth as we use wood burnings on rough cut oak boards and a large old-fashioned school-house chalkboard as signage.  We also have our demonstrative "maple tree" that shows how sap is collected.  This has two metal sap buckets hanging off as if it were still a living tree.

Here is a link to the market.  If you are in the Connecticut area, we highly recommend this market.  It is the biggest in the state and also features live music and guest lectures/informational sessions about all things garden and farm:  http://www.coventryfarmersmarket.com/

In other marketing news, we are printing up some tote bags from recycled and organic materials featuring our farm name and logo.  We will be offering these free to customers who purchase 10 items from us at the Coventry Market as well as free to all of our CSA members.  We will also be selling them for a nominal price, so if you are looking to advertise a local farm while saving bags at the grocery store, food co-op, or Salvation Army, then keep an eye out for our new Hurricane Farm Totes.

Also, grab a Coventry Farmers' Market T-Shirt when you visit next Sunday!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here and there has been little time to write.  We have loads of new photos to upload and write about, but here is a general overview of what's happening as we enter the month of June.

Our meat chickens are finishing off and we'll be preparing them for our first CSA pickup date in two weeks. 

The farmers' market season begins on Sunday and we're lucky enough to be participating in the Coventry Farmers' Market here in CT.  It is a large market with an enormous crowd.  Erica is also in charge of an informational display/lecture on backyard chickens.  We're bringing one of our coops to display and she'll be informing visitors to the marker about all things chicken!

Today Erica will be learning how to drive with a trailer.  We'll be practicing backing up a lot this afternoon, I think.

Our first bulk grain delivery is coming this week, hopefully on Friday.  We put in the order this week and they put us in line.  We have to wait for them to mix the grain to our specifications and then they will load it up into a tanker and haul it over to our silo. 

The second shipment of bees (the replacement package) arrived last week and I just removed the queen cage and the mailing crate and all looks well.  There were so many bees in there that is was a little daunting to be reaching around in the hive.  So far so good.  No stings!  They are hard at work building up the comb into which the queen will lay eggs and ultimately in which they will store excess honey supplies.

The custom order that we took for the small goat shed is complete and it's here awaiting pickup.  That was a fun building project--a little time off from coop building.

The front and rear walls of my small shed/meat chicken coop are framed and erected.  I hope to work more on it this weekend.

All of the rabbits have been bred and we're expecting litters in two weeks.

The garden is just about fully planted, and we need even more space!

We have a new bramble patch and it's planted and off to a great start.

There are blossums on the apple trees!

The corn is up a couple of inches already.

We've found some milkweed plants off to the side and are on the lookout for Monarch Butterflies.

We have secured the use of a 3-4 acre field up the road, so we'll be putting up fencing as soon as school ends for the year.  We'll then be taking our larger cattle over there for the rest of the summer months.  The younger calves are eager to get out and about, so we'll be freeing up some space for them here in our field as we transition over to the new one.  This new field provides the PERFECT opportunity for me to drive my tractor on the roads!  Watch for photos of this, I'm sure.

The tractor is working wonderfully, by the way.

The peas are plentiful!  Soon we will be rolling around in fresh peas, always Violet's favorite food.

Erica has also planted flowers along the roadside and the stone walls.

We have an herb garden constructed (out of an old stone wall the pigs helped to excavate and some reclaimed telephone poles) and it is planted with a variety of herbs and flowers.

Orders are still coming in for chicken coops.  I have a waiting list of three coops, and we're sure to sell some more this weekend at the market.

All of our turkeys are now here and looking great.  We are just about ready to let the first set out into their turkey run/yard to start chomping on grass and bugs.  Yummy!

Getting a new batch of chicks in the winter has paid off.  We're now getting dozens of eggs each day.

Erica is a master with the big tiller!  The garden has never looked so good.  She brought back a truckload of salt marsh hay from Newbury, MA when visiting with my parents a few weeks ago and it makes the best mulch!  We're thinking of bringing down a box truck full as lots of people have asked for some.

We spent some time setting up temporary fencing and moved the cattle and lambs around the farm to take advantage of the lush first grass of the spring.  They did their job!  No need to mow.