Blog
Searching for Spring
February 3, 2023
In case you are like me and start looking for (or fabricating) signs of spring almost as soon as winter begins, here is some proof that it really is out there, somewhere on the horizon.
Last week our brook was completely free of ice and the skunk cabbage along its banks was happily poking up through the mud. Spring, though, is always a ruthless tease and I know when we go outside to take care of the animals this morning, it’ll be dishearteningly cold. But after this arctic setback, the brook wi
Fussy Fungi
January 27, 2023
We need to cut all the logs we want to use for growing mushrooms - and we need to do it soon! The logs have to be from live trees, cut in the wintertime while the trees are still dormant. During the fall, trees stockpile the nutrients they’ll require come spring, and once a tree begins to wake up, it quickly starts drawing down on those reserves. Our mushrooms depend on the nutrients to thrive, so it’s important to harvest the logs when they have the highest level possible. Equally important is
Our Better Selves
January 19, 2023
Last week a bear ransacked our beehive, killing all the bees and eating all the brood and honey. It broke my heart, and though I tell myself they wouldn’t have fared any better in the wild, I still feel totally responsible.
I’m not sure how an electric fence, could ever be much of a deterrent for an animal that makes a living ransacking beehives and getting stung thousands of times in return. It seems like the shock of the fence wouldn’t be much different than getting stung. I know
Artificially Intelligent
January 13, 2023
With the launching of “ChatGPT” (an artificially intelligent chatbot), A.I. has been in the news and on the minds of many people the last few weeks. As best I can tell, ChatGPT is to online problem solving what google is to online searching. Clearly, for better and for worse, a new day has dawned.
To most people “A.I.” means artificial intelligence and brings to mind super computers, robotic humans and a futuristic dystopia. To many pig farmers though, A.I. stands
Mushroom Farming
January 6, 2023
Not unlike a couple of vegetable farmers pouring over seed catalogs and dreaming of summer, Anne and I have been making our annual mushroom plan. We picked the types of mushrooms we want to grow, selected the various strains of each and ordered the bags of spawn we’ll need for inoculating next month.
As we do every year, we’ll replace 100 of our 700 active shiitake logs and retire the older, less productive ones. We picked a new strain to try this year. It is supposed to produce well during t
The Hurricane of 1938
December 30, 2022
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A massive hurricane in September 1938 blasted its way through our farm, and left scars still visible today. Most of the trees on our ridge were snapped off at ground level. The oak trees, though, quickly resprouted, as oaks are prone to do. Now, 84 years later, some have regrown into enormous trees once again, but this time with multiple trunks. When we built our house, we wound our driveway between several such trees, as we didn’t have the heart to take them down.
The hurricane came without
The Sun Stands Still
December 23, 2022
Years ago, we built two stone cairns on our ridge that mark where the sun sets on the summer solstice to the north, and the winter solstice to the south. The distance between them represents the span the sun travels on the horizon as it sets each night throughout the year. The change in location from one night to the next is imperceptible, but in aggregate it becomes substantial. On the summer solstice, the sun sets in the center of our dining room window, and 6 months later it’s just shy of the
Winter's First Snow
December 16, 2022
If it were up to me, the first snow of the winter would be a national holiday. I’d be quite content to spend the whole day just wandering. A fresh pallet of snow which fell last night provided an instant story board of every animal that’s come along. It’s as if someone turned on the lights and we can finally see what’s been going on all around us.
The trail cameras we set up near our pastures are wonderful, but they only provide a tiny glimpse of the whole picture. We put the cameras up where I
Bedtime for the Bears
December 8, 2022
And just like that, the holidays are upon us! In case we had any doubts before, we spent all last weekend at Hill-Stead’s “Holiday Boutique”.
It seems like the shorter the days become, the longer our to do list grows. We spend hours every day hauling hay, breaking ice on water troughs, draining hoses, feeding our wood furnace, and keeping an eye out for predators.
It’s an ongoing battle, especially this time of year, to keep our animals safe from coyotes and bears. Most of our coyote kills hap
Red Sky At Night
December 2, 2022
This time of year, we catch the sunrise while doing morning chores and the sunset during afternoon chores. It’s a bit like having a pair of bucolic bookends at either end of our day.
The adage “red sky at night sailor’s delight, red sky in the morning sailors take warning,” often comes to mind. The original version of that saying refers to shepherds not sailors. “Red sky at night shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning shepherds take warning”
During the day, the sun’s rays, which include
