First Week

Today is the end of the first week on the new farm. I love it there. I am having a great time and actually learning how to farm. We spent most of the week seeding trays and transplanting to larger containers. Also, we have been assembling some new greenhouses.

I am so much happier at this farm. I enjoy the work pace and load, we work 8:30-5 and are generally busy but not hectic. I don't have the head to write now so I will write again soon.

Well, I finished at the last farm and am going to be starting on the new farm tomorrow. My experience at the last one ended on a good note and I am excited to be starting at the new one. Caitlin and I used the weekend to move into the new farm, we are living in a camper there. I will write more about the new place later when I can include some pictures.

This entry is going to be about my last experience on the old farm. I spent the last week researching and then building a mobile chicken coop. There was one at the farm, however it was not very user friendly (for chickens and people). Some of the problems were that people could not enter the space, if food or water was placed inside they would get covered with chicken shit, the nesting boxes were higher than the perches and would not hold nesting material, and it was difficult to move.

So I designed this new mobile coop that is a compilation of other people’s designs:


The idea is that one would move this coop every few days within a fenced in area. Then move accomplished several objectives. First it stresses the land under the coop much less than leaving it in place. Most of the chicken muck accumulates under the roost, so rather than cleaning out the coop, one just moves the coop to a cleaner spot. This also helps to more evenly fertilize the chicken yard. Also the chickens spend much of their time in the shade (under the coop) scratching and generally destroying the land, so moving the coop more evenly distributes the scratching and trampling. In fact, pasturing the chickens on a piece of land is quite healthy for the area if they are moved at appropriate intervals.

As you can see in the picture there are wheels on the back. To move this you just put a dolly under the front and then use the rope tied to the frame to pull the coop. Caitlin and I move it about 100ft with little effort. The food is hung and the water elevated so it stays clean and dry, being protected from weather and cloacae. With the last coop there was nowhere to shelter the food. The roost is not over the food, water, or nesting boxes, which helps keep them all clean. The nesting boxes are lower than the roosts which means the chickens are less likely to roost in them and subsequently less likely to crap on the eggs. Finally, the new coop is people friendly too. We can walk in it to do whatever needs doing.

All in all, I learned quite a bit from this project. Throughout my time on the farm I became invested in learning about pasture chicken management practices, this project was the culmination of all the research I did. I felt accomplished and appreciated through this project, which was a very nice way to end the time at that farm. And the most exciting thing about this was that I made it from 95% scrap material.

At the new farm there is no internet service so I will try to go to a library by next weekend to write again.


Here's your fun extra, a video of the piglets waking up:

Next stop "The White House"

I have been very busy recently; in fact I have been feeling a lot like White House Press Secretary Dana Perino. I have spent the last week shoveling about a ton of shit. Not just one type of shit mind you, but chicken and cow. This might not sound like lots of fun to most of you, but don’t knock it until you try it. Really, this has surprisingly been one of the most rewarding jobs here so far. There is a clear beginning and end to this job, which leads to a clear sense of accomplishment, not to mention improving the animal welfare. Also it is very strenuous hard labor, which I enjoy immensely. There is nothing greater than passing out at the end of the day from copious amounts of physical exertion.

The Barn 3/4 Mucked


The other day after spending about 4 straight hours shoveling (actually pitch-forking) I put on my sandals and sat in front of the green house drinking a beer as the sun set. It was totally awesome! I mean really, SANDALS. I thought for sure this year was going to be the one where spring never came, it really seemed that way. But here it is, I guess Jesus must have seen his shadow on Easter, or is it that he didn’t? Anyway, I am so glad spring still exists.

I have not been keeping you all as informed about the farm as I was originally intending, so here is the low down. Caitlin and I are officially done with our hours for the month. However, there is still so much to accomplish that the farm has agreed to pay us hourly to continue for the rest of the month. So far we have we have organized the greenhouse, planted most of the transplants, hooked up the drip-tape system, mucked the barn (the pitch-forking mentioned above), organized the barn, designed a mobile pasture system for the chickens (but have not built it yet), filtered all the Maple syrup, and created a spreadsheet for recording crop info. It has been a fulfilling month.

And for some fun:
I named this rooster John Cleese. If you do not get it look here.

Moving on

Well, I have not written for a while now. This is because I have uncertain about what was going to happen with my apprenticeship, but now I know. Caitlin and I are going to be moving to another farm to do our apprenticeship there. We will both be leaving here at the end of April and starting at the new farm May first. This has been a difficult decision to make because I committed to being here until Sept. However, this farm is not the best fit for me. I think this farm is great for a person that is looking to have some fun living on a farm for a summer. But this farm is not good for a person looking for professional training.
I was planning on sticking it out until Sept. until several people emailed to see if I wanted to work on their respective farms. So I went to talk with one of the farmers close to where I am now. They have a very professional farm that is operating at a net profit and seem to be well versed in the small-scale farming industry standards. In fact the owner, Paul, is on the VOF review comity (VOF is the organic certification organization in VT). Ultimately, Caitlin and I decided that working for the new farm would teach us how to successfully operate a farm, which our current apprenticeship does not.
I have to say that I am a bit scared to move to the new farm. For starters I do not want to trade one ill matched apprenticeship for another. Really though, more of the fear is that the work will be too hard. I feel like I have been farming in the peewee league and am now moving to the pros.
I think that this new position will definitely be much more work and more demanding. Truly this is what I want and am not getting now. So I think that even if there are large challenges at the new farm they will have a much greater reward.
Well this has been very rambley but I wanted post an update. I will write again soon and I promise to include some pictures of all the work I have been doing recently.

Sledding

I know this has nothing to do with farming, but is one of the best experiences in VT so I am including it. Here is a video from yesterday when Caitlin and I sledded Appalachian Gap. Also, my apprenticeship officially starts tomorrow.



PS This feel much faster than it looks.

Yankee Gold

We are planning on boiling sap again today. It is 8am and brilliantly sunny out, a perfect day to boil. A few days ago we got our first maple syrup. What happens is that one boils maple sap down for a very long time until it concentrates to become syrup. Some numbers; it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make about 1 gallon of syrup. We are doing it the old fashioned way (over a wood fire) so it took us 3 days to get syrup.

Some more detail. We collect the sap in a holding tank, then run it through a tube into the sugarhouse. From here we pour a few gallons into the boiling pan (larger back pan) where it evaporates. Once it cooks down a bunch we put the sweet (sort of sap/ not quite syrup) into the finishing pan (shiny front pan) where it boils until it becomes syrup. Pretty simple really.

I should mention there is a fire under the finishing pan that needs to be constantly stoked to keep the liquids boiling. Also, there is a chimney attached the furnace; we had not hooked it up as of this picture (in case you were wondering).

I would like to take this time to say that the sweet is delicious. We had our staff meeting out at the sugarhouse over glasses of sweet infused with ginger tea. I can't think of a better way to have a meeting.

Spinach!

Yesterday I learned how to plant spinach, and planted the whole green house with it. We heavily seeded the spinach because we will harvest it while still very young, so there is no need to worry about it being too crowded. After the spinach is finished we will re-till the greenhouse and plant tomatoes there.

I have been learning a good deal about farming while here, it’s great. I am reading New Organic Grower by Eliot Coleman; this is a brilliant book that I highly recommend. The farm manager calls this book one of his farming bibles, which I can see why. However we do not follow all of the practices recommended by Coleman. I asked Noah about this and he said it is because when he got here there was already equipment for another method of farming; the idea you go with what you’ve got. Also, he said that he did not learn to farm that way. If he had, we would have soil blocks. If he learned to farm with a tractor, we would have one. Noah learned to farm with the tools we own. This is not a judgment of anything, just interesting to see how different people can effectively feed their community.

The confusion from the last post has been cleared up. We now have a clear definition of our roles on the farm and the time expectations for us. C and I will focus on the gardens and have a small amount of animal responsibility. We will have about 4 hrs (combined) of animal chores. Our only other responsibility is managing the chore schedule that the animal manager creates. This means if someone cannot do their animal chores on a given day they will call us and we will find substitute or do it ourselves.

The first boil, alluded to last post, has not happened yet (too cold). But we are planning on boiling on the next above freezing day.