July 24, 2020
July 24, 2020
We welcomed 50 new "day old" chicks to our brooder this week. They won't start laying eggs in any quantity, until next spring, but once they do we will, hopefully, be able to keep up with our egg sales.
This heat is stressful for the pigs, so we created wallows (giant mud puddles) for them. It's the only way pigs have to cool off, so they spend a lot of the day submerging and then re emerging, covered from tail to snout with dripping mud. It looks very satisfying.
In our own effort to stay cool, we tried to purchase a "kiddie pool" for the grandkids, but the stores were all sold out. Undeterred we put plastic sheeting inside our landscape trailer and filled it with water. It works amazingly well. I like to think of it as "good ole Yankee Ingenuity"- but I am afraid it's tilted a bit more towards "you know you are a Red Neck when..."
And just as the kids lined up along the fence to watch the pigs wallow in their puddle- the pigs line up along their side of the fence to watch us in our makeshift pool. - Let's just hope they stay on their side of the fence.
We dropped all our wool off at the spinnery in Eastford this week, and now start the process of planning what to make out of it all. Some of the fleeces are very long this year and we will probably make a Lopi type yarn with it.
We started working with a fantastic weaver in Salisbury last year, (Under Mountain Weavers) so I am sure we will get lot's of yarn spun to her specifications, so she can continue to weave scarves for us. Some of the wool will go to the CT Blanket Project. We have about 100 pounds of wool to work with, so it's a lot of fun deciding what to have made.
July 18, 2020
We moved our sheep at Hill-Stead, to the the top of their pasture. We will try to keep them happily grazing up there for at least a couple weeks, in hopes that by the time we move them back down, their pastures closer to the barn will have regrown.
In the process we discovered two fence posts that had rotted completely and snapped in half. We only installed those posts, and the 300 other pressure treated posts just like them, 6 years ago. That's pretty disheartening.
In contrast, the cedar posts that my grandfather installed along our Mountain Spring Road pastures, 100 years ago, are still visible, and in a couple cases still usable...
We planted 100 cedar trees this spring, I hope they grow very quickly- and I wish I'd planted a couple hundred more!
July 10, 2020
The Shiitakes have been loving this weather, perhaps a little too much. Every 7 weeks, we systematically soak each log for 24 hours . The soaking "forces" it to fruit and produce mushrooms, but it needs those seven weeks in between soakings to rest, and regrow the mycelium inside the log. (The mycelium is the plant, the mushroom is its fruit.). When there is a lot of rain, the logs get soaked naturally and fruit on their own, and we end up with more mushrooms than we can sell. Worse than that, is it stresses out the mycelium, and shortens the life of the log. ( a well tended log can last 6-8 years). So we cover the tops of the piles of logs with tarps. Enough shelter to keep off most of the rain, but not so much that they dry out completely.
We are expecting more piglets soon, so we need to separate the sows from the rest of the pigs.
It is very hard to convince a pig to do something it doesn't want to do, and clearly they want to stay together.
The smallest piglets are learning about the electric fencing, and in the process of trying to get back to whatever side they would rather be on, they take down the fencing - with much shrieking - and all the pigs, large and small, end up back together again.
There is a Yiddish saying "Man plans, God laughs" - it could just as well be "Farmers plan- Pigs laugh"
July 4, 2020
This rain has been heavenly! It's revived the pastures and replenished the watershed, out of which our little stream flows.
The pigs again have mud to wallow in, and since, contrary to the old adage - pigs really can not sweat, they need the mud to stay cool. The chickens are thrilled (in their own chickeny kind of way) with all the insects that flourish after a good soaking rain. Ants, worms and beetles come out above ground, where they are "easy pickings" for the foraging hens. The sheep, have new growth in their pasture, which whenever given a choice, they much prefer over the old.
There is a retired Roman Catholic Priest who visits our sheep at Hill-Stead, as he has done for the past 15 years. Our beliefs diverge on a great many things, and probably could never be reconciled, so we avoid those discussions, and instead, have found common ground in our love of farming and all things "nature". While his beliefs are certainly Biblical, and mine are solidly Ecological, we both appreciate the gentle rain, and find joy in all the perks that a good soaking can bring. Whenever we part, he says "May God be with you" - and I often respond "I'm a farmer, Joe, that goes without saying"...