Blog
Tributaries
March 4, 2022
When it rains, the western face of our traprock ridge collects all the rain drops as they seep through the talus slope and run under the rocky debris. The rainwater joins the groundwater and flows wherever it can through fractured layers of basalt. At the base of the ridge, the underground springs aggregate and flow until an easier route guides them gently out of the ground through a myriad of seeps and springs. The newly liberated water in turn feeds tiny tributaries which meander in and out
A Symphony of Sap
February 25, 2022
When we open up the sugar house in the morning, there’s often just the sound of the frozen ground crunching beneath our feet, the singing of a few early morning birds, and perhaps an intermittent drip of sap dropping into an empty sap bucket. As the day progresses, though, the trees warm up and the sap begins to flow. The warmer it gets, the faster it flows, and by mid-day the trees surrounding our sugar house are a symphony of drops dripping and splashing into the buckets as the taps flow in
Old Friends
February 18, 2022
After my dad passed away, two of his friends clearly felt an obligation to keep an eye on me and my various endeavors.
“Uncle” John had been an engineer with my father at Hamilton Standard, and a lifelong friend. He made a point of stopping by to monitor Anne’s and my home building progress - which admittedly took forever. We only worked on our house nights, weekends, and in between other building projects, so progress was indeed pretty slow. Not infrequently we’d find notes stuck to the front
It's Sugar Time!
February 11, 2022
Our Sugar Maples came out of hibernation yesterday and the sap is running strong. Oh, happy day!
We tapped our trees, cleaned out the sugar house, and replaced the rusted-out chimney on the evaporator.
Valentine’s Day has always been our official “tap by” day, but the last few years the sap started flowing in January. The sugaring season will last about 6 weeks, either until the nighttime temperatures stop freezing, or the trees begin to bud.
Say what you want my pessimistic friends, but the
Mastodons and Ice Cream Cones
February 4, 2022
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When we were kids my cousin and I spent hours sifting through leaves looking for arrowheads. As an adult I remembered those hours fondly and considered the whole endeavor adorably naïve. That was until, without even looking, I found a projectile point just lying on the ground by our barn.
When I showed it to the state archeologist, he said it was 4-6 thousand years old. He also allowed as how our ridge top property was in fact a perfect place to find spear points and arrowheads considering
Watering Holes
January 28, 2022
Every morning we break up the ice in the animal’s water troughs, and if we’re lucky, it’s a pretty easy task. If enough animals share the same trough, one of them is usually drinking and creating enough movement that the surface doesn’t freeze very hard. However, when it does freeze solid, it’s impossible to break up so we set up another trough and leave the 400-pound ice cube in the pasture until spring.
Getting water to the animals below the ridge has become even simpler. A couple years ago,
Any Excuse Will Do
January 21, 2022
It happens every year.
Just about the time I know I should be preparing year end paperwork and sending in our tax return - the deer start shedding their antlers.
Unlike our sheep whose horns continue to grow throughout their life, male deer drop and regrow their antlers every year. It seems like a terribly inefficient system, and I have yet to hear an explanation as to why they do this other than – “they just do”.
We have lots of deer, and at least a half dozen bucks among them, that consider
Keeping Warm
January 14, 2022
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These frigid temperatures are very stressful for livestock farmers! I constantly worry how our animals are coping with this arctic blast, even though I never worry about the deer, wild turkeys, or any of our forest dwelling neighbors. I just assume they know what they’re doing as they’ve been doing it for thousands of years. They, in fact, have far less protection than our wooly sheep and chubby pigs but intuitively I know they are fine. Nature, over the eons, has a way of sorting this all out.
Of Birds and Bees
January 7, 2022
A few days ago, Anne and I watched as a hundred or more Canada Geese flew over us in a completely disheveled and disorganized formation. They passed over the cornfields in the Meadows, so they clearly weren’t in search of food. They passed over the river, which still hadn’t iced over - so they weren’t looking for open water. They were heading north, following the Metacomet Ridge and as they flew over our farm, they just kept going (so they clearly weren’t looking for the fine companionship of pi
It's Gonna Be Great!
December 31, 2021
Farmers may talk a cynical game, but the truth is, if we weren’t eternal optimists, we would have all given up years ago. As we happily show 2021 the door, I just know 2022 is destined to be “totally awesome”.
During the summer of 2020 we had an epic drought – the likes of which no one in New England had ever seen before, followed by the summer of 2021 which was the wettest on record. So, I figure how can 2022 be anything less than perfect? Right?
Because of the drought
