19 Aug Wed 2009
As the Seasons Turn
One of the great things about moving out to the farm has been the opportunity it provides to become more in tune with the natural world around us. As a native Floridian, I am still greatly fascinated by the seasons (we only had two in the sunshine state, hot and hotterJ). It has been a treat to start get to know the progression of the year in our little corner of western/central Maryland.
Late summer in particular has some really fascinating signs that I am beginning to really get in touch with. One of the big ones is what I like to call our late summer armada. Around the start of August, various swallows seem to be finishing with their child rearing duties for the season and start to turn their minds to fattening up for the fall migration. When we head out to mow the fields, we are always accompanied by an air wing of at least a dozen barn and tree swallows with the occasional purple martin thrown in for good measure. The entire time we are out mowing, the circle around the tractor, zip back and forth in front of us and even come so close that you end up ducking out of their way to avoid a collision. It is a really great show.
At the same time that this starts one of my other favorite summer shows is coming to a close. By early August most of the lightning bugs are gone for the year. I will spend the next 3 seasons missing their faerie light illumination. Their place in the insect kingdom is taken by the cicadas who really start tuning up their daytime song.
Late summer is also the time for our attention to turn to apples. With apple butter coming at the end of October, if we don’t start canning applesauce now the battle will be well and truly lost. Our usual start comes with the Summer Rambos and Ginger Golds. This year we were very pleased that it started nearly a month early with the first Transparents from our very own orchard. It won’t be to many more years before we can starting putting up gallons of Transparent, Carolina Red June and Pristine to take some of the pressure off of the early August harvest.
Now is also the time for the last big push to plant veggies for this year. Certainly we will be planting garlic and onions in another month, but those treasures will hibernate through the winter before we see them again in the spring. Now is the time for turnip, radish, late spinach and collard green. These will see us through the winter to come.
Well, enough time on the computer, there are chores that need done, fall we be on us before we know it.
May the blessings of the season be upon you.
Blue Faerie Farm
21 Jul Tue 2009
Wile E or one of his kin
So Sunday morning I am out digging some fingerlings and picking our first zucchini of the season to take to market over at Urbana. We have some real pretty cocozelle and ronde de nice coming in right now. After all of the deer we chased Saturday evening, I was on the lookout for anything else that might be out and about. Some movement caught my eye up in the neighbor's hay field behind us. While I have seen them in the region and heard of them within a few miles of us, the coyote hunting in the field took me a little by surprise. He wasn't paying me any particular attention and really was a couple hundred yards from our property line.
It’s always fun to watch nature, and this had me distracted for a good five minutes. I finally got back to work and started up the tractor. When I looked back, he was gone. Don't know if it was the machinery or there was just better hunting elsewhere. In general I kind of welcome the occasional scruffy visitor as we seem to have more than our fair share of mice and rabbits right now. Does make me think about our plan to add some turkeys next year. Maybe a little more budget for fencing...20 Jul Mon 2009
The things you can find in a potato patch
So anyway, me and Momma J (our trusty John Deere) are running through the rows with the brush hog when suddenly up pops a fawn. We have had two that have been showing up on a semi regular basis, but I was pretty sure they were bedding down in the neighbor's corn. This little guy spooks and runs around for a minute or two before figuring a way out through the brush row. Aside from feeling bad that I had enough weeds to hide a small deer in, I don't really pay this too much attention.
Later that evening, I am walking out through the field with mom and dad and here is a fawn again. I am not sure if this is the same one or not. We tried to shoo it out of the field, but instead of running away, it runs right at us. We realize we are between the fawn and the potato patch, so I guess this is the same one heading back to where it had been bedded down. It gets within five feet of us before veering off. We get it out of there after a little bit of work, getting back to within almost arms reach of it a couple of times before we can get it to move, and it heads straight for the apple orchard. This is where we really don't want deer to be hanging around or feeling at home, so we chase it out of there and finally get it headed on its way.While we are headed back over to the bean field which is where we were going in the first place, what do we see but another fawn standing there about where the first had been. I am guessing that this was the sibling of the first one. It however is somewhat smarter than its twin and heads straight out when we get close. We continue on with what we were doing only to be interrupted a few minutes later by who I can only guess was momma deer. Thankfully she spooked out fairly easily.
Deer are a continuing problem for us, but we usually don't have quite this level of face to face contact with them. We have some new anti deer stuff this year that has worked very well, but it is at a height that is appropriate for adult deer, and the kids just run right under it without ever slowing down. Thankfully they have not done any serious damage yet, but we are going to have to strengthen our defenses after this series of run-ins. The full anti-deer hedge rows are still a few years from being effective and we haven't even established anything near a full perimeter. I have never been a hunter by trade, but I have the feeling that many a freezer full of venison is in our future.08 Jun Mon 2009
What a great weekend
We had a great weekend from Friday on through. The rain finally let off for a few days and just in time. We had a group come by on Saturday evening for a farm tour, the Vocal Locals. It was really nice to be able to show folks around the farm and talk to them about what we are doing and where we are trying to go. After the tour we had a very nice potluck dinner in the back yard and then ended the evening sitting around the fire circle talking and watching the fire flies and the nearly full moon.
We also got very cool new tool on Friday, a High Wheel Cultivator. It has been put to work every day since it arrived weeding and furrowing. It has really sped up the process for us and we have managed to get quite a bit more squash in the ground and start on our backlog of beans. Finding good, practical hand tools that help us get through the work and have minimal environmental impact is really exciting. If we can catch some good weather this week, we should be able to almost get caught up with the planting schedule by Sunday (keep your fingers crossed).
The last great piece of news for us was that we got our first order from the local whole food co-op. It wasn't anything major but it was another big step along the path.
Happy Growing
Jan and Ray
Blue Faerie Farm.
26 May Tue 2009
Remembering Memorial Day
Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend. Ours was good, although they haven't been the same for us since my Grandmother passed a few years ago. We always used to go to her place in Southeastern West Virginia for a family reunion over Memorial Day Weekend. It wasn't anything fancy, just whoever from the family and friends that could be there sitting around telling stories, remembering things passed. We usually ended up going over to the local Baptist Church Homecoming potluck supper on the lawn. For a church with a congregation of 20, they put on a spread that always attracted at least 50 folks.
It was my grandparents that got me interested in farming in the first place. When I was a kid, we would spend a week of vacation up there every year. When I was 4 or 5 they bought 40 acres or so up in the mountains near all of the old family homesteads. Early on we would camp out and spend the days clearing the field and grubbing stumps. Later on, they would always have a HUGE (well for a kid from the city anyway) vegetable garden. We would plant, pull weeds, dig potatos and enjoy whatever was in season.
To this day I remember my grandad refusing to pick corn until the water was boiling. From the first ear the came off the stalk, it was a breakneck race to get them in the water. If you dropped an ear on the way back to the house, you just left it, cause there just wasn't time to stop and pick it up! I also remember the first time we loaded up a whole mess of fresh harvest that we had toiled all day to gather and put it into the car. I couldn't understand why we were going to give all of those wonderful vegetables away after we worked so hard to pick them, but it didn't take too many years for me to understand after repeated trips to older family and friends who couldn't manage to do for themselves any more.
Thinking back on the stories, the laughter, the lessons learned brings a smile to my face every time. I guess if Memorial Day is all about remembering, ours really was pretty good.