Silver Spangled Hamburgs

The Massachusetts chickens are settling in nicely! Many thanks to my Aunt Priscilla for giving me these beautiful birds. They belonged to my Uncle Joe, and are over ten years old.

One week ago, I grabbed them one by one, stuffed them in boxes, and drove them four hours to this strange, cold place. Uncle Joe's custom-made feeder is the only reminder they have of their old home.

I can see why Uncle Joe kept the Silver Spangled Hamburgs around, even though the hens have stopped laying. Since the relocation, they have been calm and friendly. They are also graceful and pretty.

The group consists of two hens, and one rooster with incredible spurs.

Over the partition live my four non-laying Cuckoo Marans hens, or my "Stewing Hens" as I refer to them when I swipe my credit card at the feed store. Such sweet and dopey survivors; in the absence of dining companions, it is easy to procrastinate.

I am proud to say that my Marans have been friendly and welcoming to the Hamburgs. This afternoon, I left the coop partition open and everyone was circulating peacefully.

A photo from last winter:

Two approaches to Merrymeeting Bay

Yesterday would have been a great day to get the garlic in. Instead I took the boat out on the Cathance River. It was a beautiful, sunny November 1st and the tide was running in, so I was paddling against a current as I approached Merrymeeting Bay. I got as far as the transmission lines before my instinct for self-preservation overruled. Saw some light chop upstream on the way back to Bowdoinham.

Warm and dry, and with time to kill before the pasture walk at Crystal Springs Farm, I drove the drive I always do to get fleeting looks at Merrymeeting Bay: Route 24. This time with a kayak strapped on top, my attention was a little different. I remembered seeing duck hunters putting in one time on the Foreside Road. So I parked down there and tried the Muddy River approach.

Check this out:


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The wind was really refreshing. Reminiscent of March in MA when it is time to fly kites. However it is actually freaking NOVEMBER in ME and were there a mishap, no one would miss me for days, so I turned around before I got to the Bay.

Then I went to to the Maine Grass Farmers Network Fall Pasture Walk at Crystal Springs Community Farm, and met Tom Settlemire. The Northeast Katahdin Hair Sheep Project, and the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust will have to be a topic of another post.

Pleasant Pond

Finally! Only today, after nearly 5 years here, did I finally get a kayak onto Upper Pleasant Pond. I have snowshoed on the pond, and have launched from/landed on it in a seaplane piloted by Paul Harvey. Today was my first boating excursion. A lovely fall day: 60 degrees, sunny, with foliage still brilliant. I discovered that lily pads have their own kind of fall color.

I purposefully paddled south, toward Route 197, because I have heard that it is a good birding place. One Bald Eagle and one Great Blue Heron obliged. Lots of ducks flew up, but I have no idea what kind, and was not carrying binoculars.

Nothing but rave reviews for the 12' LLB Calypso! On and off the Forester all by myself! Very responsive and maneuverable, yet tracks like a kayak costing many times the price!

October 2009

Taking a vay-kay day from the Elder Care Contingency Reserve. Elders have been fine lately, so I can do it.

Had a blast at the Common Ground Fair. Amy came up on Friday; Esme and Karen followed us to Unity in the Prius on Saturday morning as I drove and yakked with Amy, while foolishly choosing to follow the "Shortest Distance" route directed by Gertrude (the GPS.) We caught the early sheepdog demo, a "Co-existing with Predators" presentation by the Coyote Project, and a talk by Linda Cortright, editor of Wild Fibers magazine. Appreciated Will Bonsall's talk about legumes. Purchased yarn, seed garlic, dulse, sausages and quail eggs.

Ate deep-fried shiitake mushrooms, "Give Peas a Chance" soup, great potstickers, and an eye-opening Peekytoe crab roll. Coffee was available at the fair for the first time this year. I think I enjoyed my decaf all the more because it felt so illicit!

Fast forward to October. The long-awaited, Nose-to-Tail Pork Processing Workshop was everything I had hoped for, and more. I'm still processing my notes and recipes. Three Days of Hog Heaven. Many, many thanks to instructors Eric Rector and Clayton Carter! Thanks also to MOFGA for organizing, and to all the workshop participants!

What does it say about modern life that, I am so ignorant that I have to sign up a year in advance for a course on such an essential, cooperative, human activity as pork processing?

So cold so early! Getting my knit on with some nice Pygora fiber.

Washout

It rains and rains. I can't really complain. I work indoors; it's not been hot, and I prefer this to a drought. Had I prepared better last fall I would have had more raised bed space, and drainage would not be such an issue.

This year is not for tomatoes. And to think I had grand eggplant plans! I do have garlic, onions, shallots, podding radishes, peas and favas, and lots of happy slugs. And enough dried '08 chiles to hold me over.

You may have heard about my woodchuck hunting exploits. After 6 weeks in Hunter Safety class with a bunch of twelve-year-old boys, I finally obtained Madre's .22, and shot one little woodchuck from this year's litter. Compared to birds and fish, this herbivore mammal had a very high ratio of entrails to meat. I feel terrible about shooting her, and even worse that I wasted her flesh. (I fell asleep during the braising part of a rillettes recipe; the pan boiled dry.)

Often, things don't work out how we would like.

This is the last year for the Cuckoo Marans flock. I was hoping to get 4-5 years out of them, but in their third year, they have essentially stopped laying. Time to think about poule au vin.

Small Farm Field Day, Fiber Frolic

It's 3:10am. I am only aware that Handsome Dan is crowing because I am already awake. May as well get some events down.

Garlic is going strong; shallots, onions, and potatoes are in; peas and favas were planted late. This has turned out to be a tricky year for transplants for me. Mice got some, and I ruined a bunch by trying to harden them off too early; after acquiring replacements from a variety of sources I finally got a few in on Sunday, 6/7.

The workshops at the MOFGA Small Farm Field Day were exceptional this year. I got a chance to work on my milking technique at Grace Keown's Dairy Goat Demo, and learned about "What to Do When the Vet's Not There" from Dr. Beth McEvoy, Assistant State Veterinarian. After a talk on Homestead Metalworking by Alan Clemence, Gabe Clark of the Maine Grass Farmer's Network demonstrated a method for re-seeding pastures using a No-till Drill.

At lunch on Saturday I met Julie, a very cool gal from Vermont who is interested in draft-horse-powered farming, and is looking to relocate to Maine. Of course I am always ready to proselytize for rural Maine, so after recommending certain towns and scribbling a map on a back of an envelope, I invited her to stop by Richmond on her way home the next day.

A local RE agent pounced on Julie at the breakfast place in Richmond before I even got there. After breakfast, I showed her around a bit, and introduced her to the Visellis. On Joe's recommendation she checked out a foreclosure up the road -- interesting, but more disaster than Julie is looking for. Last weekend Julie was back in Maine, checking out a bunch of properties recommended by the Realtor. I suggested that she also take a drive through Bowdoin and Bowdoinham, and my oh my did she ever find a good one on the River Road! I do hope this one works out; no need to dwell on it unless the deal makes progress!

While driving Julie around to take in the splendor of Locally Known's laser-leveled fields, the fleeting, oblique vistas of Merrymeeting Bay, and the deceptively good condition of Route 24 in June, I explained that the farmland on either side of Merrymeeting Bay is very unique and very much worth protecting from development. A lot of land in Maine is pretty marginal for farming. This is not the Central Valley of CA, after all. If we want local food, we should protect the best farmland we have close by.

When I lived in California I was mystified as to why tourists seemed to enjoy sitting in a traffic jam on Route 29 through the Napa valley, just to gaze at dusty vineyards. Well, this is not a grape-growing region, but I am just as excited about the farmland on either side of Merrymeeting Bay -- and there is no traffic! Maybe I should start a tour bus company that drives people up Route 128 from Woolwich through the Dresden Farmlands, then down Route 24 back to Topsham. We could cover Greek Revival architecture in Richmond, with a final stop at Bisson Farm, for a raw-milk tasting.

Then the Fiber Frolic on Sunday: I was on a mission to get me another Cashmere Goat pelt. Yvonne from Black Locust Farm was there, and I felt up all the pelts. None were of the caliber of the one I sent home with Dmitri, so Yvonne offered that I stop by the farm sometime to look at more. I also petted all kinds of Pygora and Pycazz goats, and some agreeable sheep, but not the llamas or alpacas, who don't like to be pawed by random people at fairs. One of the cashmere exhibitors let me hold a tiny goat triplet. Yes, someday I do want this kind of kid.

I am not really a dog person, but for the second year in a row I attended David Kennard's Border Collie demonstration at the Frolic. It is fascinating what they do, the shepherd, dog, sheep and goats. The dogs move a flock around an open space using their EYES. They respond obediently to 40 auditory commands, all whistles and calls. David Kennard explains what he is doing, with wit and humor, and throws goats in the mix to make things interesting.

Next opportunity to see David Kennard and his dogs in action will be the Common Ground Fair. Show up to one of the early demos, when the sheep will be rested, and really spirited.

Rainy May

These last few days have been THE sweet spot of spring for me. Last chance to drive around and see my favorite trees naked; tiny leaves coming in all chartreuse and reddish; lawns and fields fully greened up and loaded with dandelions. The Bobolinks have arrived to complete the perfect RWB/Tree swallow/Bobolink sonic trio. A couple of male RTH's spotted in the last few days; no Orioles yet.

Of course it rains quite a bit and that presents a problem for people who neglected to do much soil prep last fall. This is the time of year where timing is so, so important. Seed potatoes are chitting in the kitchen. Onion sets, shallots, fava and pea seeds are ready to go. However, I am stymied by garden soil that is the consistency of uncooked brownie batter.

On May 3rd I dared to loosen up a potato area and the two new raised beds with the broadfork. This past weekend, I stared at the muddy clay and decided that my best bet was to mulch the heck out of it, to avoid ceding it to weeds. The plan is to transplant my tomatoes and chiles into the mulched area later, and make hills of compost for squash and cukes. Though I haven't yet gotten the chance to dig at all, I had a grand time yesterday dismantling a couple of round bales and hauling rotten hay around.

The garlic looks great. I hit it with seaweed/fish and mulched it too. My strategy for the potatoes and favas and everything else I should be doing right now is to wait and hope that things dry out enough in time.

Woodchucks live under my house. They cavort openly in the yard, even up on the terrace. I am fortunate to know people who are qualified and eager to help me with this problem. This spring, three separate hunting parties have convened in my kitchen during brunch hours, without getting even a glimpse of a woodchuck. Brunch is fun, yet somehow woodchucks sense the danger. Does this mean when I finally borrow Madre's .22 that they will just stay away?

Started tomatoes, eggplant and chiles very late this year. The coop is clean; egg production is WAY down from last year; Handsome Dan continues to behave like a gentleman.

Perrin and Sharon and Dmitri arrive today, hooray!

Six months ago, or six months from now

It's March. It's snowy. I'm getting tired of Facebook.

Just found this picture on my desktop from haying time, six months ago now. It is really past time to order seeds.

Handsome Dan speaks

Dan the Barred Rock cockerel at 8 weeks, back in October:


Today at 16 weeks, having grown some nice hackle and saddle feathers. Still working on the tail, though:



This morning I heard him crow for the first time.

'09 Garlic is in

I am trying a configuration of 20' long, 2 1/2' wide beds in the newly tilled area. Prepped the easternmost one for garlic last weekend with compost and amendments per Steve Solomon's COF recipe. The following varieties went in yesterday, all home-grown:


Species Allium sativuum; Subspecies ophioscorodon (hardneck)

Brown Rose
Chesnok Red
Lavigna

Species Allium sativuum; Subspecies sativuum (softneck)

Kettle River Giant
Inchelium Red

Species Allium ampeloprasum (technically a leek)

Elephant

Alberta

Alberta the cat of Richmond, ME died Saturday, October 11th at Androscoggin Animal Hospital in Topsham.

Born in 1990 in Bronx, NY, Alberta was adopted from the 96th Street Animal Shelter in Manhattan in 1991. She began her hunting career in a small apartment on Mott Street, where she innovated a technique of trapping the American Cockroach in human footwear. Traveling widely by car, train, boat and plane, Alberta fiercely defended territories in Vashon Island, WA, Berkeley, CA, and Richmond, ME.

Her hunting prowess, proven in urban, suburban, and rural environments, brought her many rodent trophies, including the House Mouse, Deer Mouse, and Field Mouse or Meadow Vole. She also enjoyed bird-watching.

Alberta was a great lap cat, and a true party-animal who loved being the center of human attention. She is survived by her companion-human, Sandra York, and the other cat, Edith.

CABIN FOUR!!!!

The BOW weekend was a blast. Very fun, educational, and I met a bunch of amazing women. The best things I learned at "Finishing School" were the trucker's hitch, and that I actually can sweat a pipe. Couldn't start the chain saw by myself, though.

Picture above is from my first time ever firing a .22 rifle. We tried skeet shooting later. I will need a lot more practice at that.

Let's hope that the BOW weekend doesn't conflict with the Common Ground Fair next year.

http://www.mainebow.com/id61.html

Agricultural Processing

Finally got a chance to do some harvesting and processing this weekend. First I made sauce from the Banana, Speckled Roman, Amish, and Hog Heart paste tomatoes. A bunch of Principe Borgheses got in there as well. I think Hog Heart is my favorite variety, but I would grow them all again. Four quarts in the freezer.

I brought two Hubbard squash up. They are nice specimens, but not enormous. There are some great big leeks and kale and parsley still. Weeds are completely out of control, to the point where I think I will have to call Tony to till up a different garden spot for garlic planting this fall.

The chile bed did very well despite the encroaching pasture. I harvested a bunch of Hot Paper Lantern, Limon, Red Rocket, Matchbox, Fish and Czech Black peppers, pictured. As of mid-September there are plenty of green fruits still out there. As an experiment I yanked a few of the pepper plants, roots and all, and hung them upside down under the ell porch roof. Maybe I will get more ripe chiles before frost this way. If not, at least I maintain my weirdo reputation in the neighborhood.

In addition to drying chiles I thought I'd try to make a batch of hot sauce. Lacto-fermented, of course! I chopped up a mixture and packed them in a jar with sea salt and a drizzle of kimchi juice to get things started. Since I don't expect that the types of chiles I grew, with the intent of making ristras, to have enough moisture content on their own to make a brine, I topped the jar off with water, then crammed a ziploc bag full of water in the mouth of the jar to weigh them down.

Terry Johnson cut the fields late this year, understandably due to the rains. I was surprised at how eager I was, beyond any practical reason, to see the pasture mowed.

Garlic over goats

Much as I predicted when I began it as an experiment, this blog is becoming repetitive. There will be a Garlic Harvest entry every July. That is how it should be. This year, the garlic was ready about a week before I expected it. That is not all the excitement I have to share today, however!

Harvest on Lila's birthday, plant on Max's birthday...even though the party's not until Thursday, I found the garlic ready to go yesterday. So, instead of touring goat farms on Open Farm Day I dug the garlic in a soft, cool rain. Heavier rain fell last night and we are in for a wet week, so I guess I was just in time.

Last year I hosed the garlic off and dried it in the sun for a few hours. Since then I have read that I should not do that. This year I strung up the bulbs in the tractor shed with the dirt still clinging to them. After they cure for a bit, I will strip off the outer leaves and hang them in attractive bunches from the banister in the upstairs hall, like normal people do. Like I will do every year as long as I am still breathing.

The main exciting news is about the Lavignas. Though I have yet to conduct taste tests this year, Lavigna is again the outstanding variety in terms of size, beauty and vigor. I have left several in the bed to ripen bulbils; I plan to propagate Lavigna as my main hardneck variety.

But the news! ONE of the Lavignas is a freak!! Since it did not send up a scape, I thought it was damaged, and considered harvesting it early. Really what it was doing was forming topsets like a walking onion! One of the topsets is sprouting already. I have left the plant in the ground for now, and look forward to propagating both ends of it! Was this just a fluke, or is there such thing as topsetting garlic?

This year was my first year trying softneck varieties, and they all seemed to do great. My first taste was Kettle River Giant, which I was pleased to find nice and hot, both raw and cooked in some scrambled eggs.

June things

Late May in Richmond smelled wonderful. Short pasture, no obvious flowers, maybe some trees blooming that would torture allergy sufferers, but whatever was going on, it more than made up for the skunks of February and April.

To walk into late June pasture is like inhaling atomized clover honey. The vetch is waist-high, mixed with red clover, Dutch white clover, and daisies. These fantastic daisies seem to favor the ground that I have disturbed since moving here. Thunderstorms roll through at almost perfect watering intervals. I finally cleaned the chicken coop last weekend.

I have already harvested some garlic scapes. The tomatoes are all jungley, and Glacier is setting fruit. My one Purple Tomatillo plant is magnificent, and is attracting all the Three-Lined Potato Beetles in the vicinity. The Negreta favas are already beset with aphids and chocolate spot, but somehow seem to be doing better than the Broad Windsor favas did at this point. Enough cucumber and squash seedlings survived the slug pressure in th North bed, along with one sunflower plant.

My one concern is that I may have planted my hot peppers out too early. I set them out about a month ago, and still the plants look stunted. There were a few nights that dipped into the 40s in late May and early June. Fortunately I gave a couple of the seedlings from this batch to my friend Anne, who is raising them in her sunroom. If they do well there and not here, I will know that the cold spring nights were the problem.

Turkey, doors, seedlings, frost, chickens, deer, woodchuck.

It was a cold, rainy weekend and I did not get a thing done outside. I did put up some recent pictures, though. http://www.pleasantpondfarm.com/08lateApril.html

Mary E. York

Friday, April 18, 2008

FARMINGTON - Mary Elizabeth York, 95, of Wilton, died Tuesday, April 15, at the Sandy River Center for Health Care and Rehabilitation.

She was born Nov. 2, 1912, in Wilton, in the house on Main Street which she called home for all of her 95 years of life. Her father, Albert Isaiah York, M.D., delivered her. Her mother, Maude Feader York, was in the second class of nurses to graduate from the Central Maine General Hospital School of Nursing. There were two in the class.

She grew up in a time of many changes, from the horse and buggy era to the present with all its marvels. She graduated from Wilton Academy as valedictorian of her class in 1930. She graduated from Bates College in 1934, with a degree in English and languages and subsequently taught at the high school level for all of her working life.

She held positions at Flagstaff High School, Weld High School, Wilton Academy and Jay High School, teaching English, Latin, French and then guidance. She coached girls field hockey at Wilton Academy with consistently winning teams despite playing against larger and private schools.

To aid her teaching career, she took advanced courses at the University of Southern California, Auburn University in Alabama, Indiana University and the University of Maine, where she received her master's degree. Some of these courses required traveling, including a trip to pre-Castro Cuba. She visited every state with the exception of Alaska, most of the National Parks and made trips to Western Europe, the British Isles (England, Scotland and Wales), and Hawaii. She attended the Passion Play at Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps and kissed the Blarney Stone in Ireland.

She was elected delegate to national teachers' conventions in St. Louis and Miami, and was a member of the Maine Teachers' Association, the National Teachers' Association and the American Association of University Women. She joined Eastern Star in 1937, and was secretary for its local chapter for 47 years. She was a charter member of the Weld Historical Society and has been a long-time member of the Wilton Historical Society and the Wilton Congregational Church, where she taught Sunday school for high school students and served on the church committee.

She is survived by her devoted sister, Ruth E. York of Wilton; Bruce's wife, Nancy York of Mattapoisett, Mass.; grandnieces, Sandra York of Richmond and Megan York and her husband, Brad Adams, of Montclair, N.J.; great-grandnephews, Lincoln and Gibson Adams; her niece, Priscilla York Dowd and her husband, Joseph, of Mattapoisett, Mass.; grandniece, Amy Dowd of Massachusetts; and grandnephew, Dr. Peter Dowd of Wisconsin.

She was predeceased by her brother, Albert Isaiah York Jr., M.D.; and her nephew, Bruce York.

favas and tomatoes

Raised beds raised beds raised beds raised beds!

After a rainy Saturday, it was nice enough to get busy down in the clay today. Working up last year's potato patch yielded a nice hod-full of previously-missed, holdover potatoes. I mixed a slurry of fava beans and Rhizobium inoculant, and planted the whole bed to favas.

This year I am trying a medium-sized, purple variety from Territorial Seed Company called Negreta. After planting the whole bed thickly, I had some beans left over so I rinsed off the inoculant and cooked up a nice ful medames. Ah the single life! Standing over the stove, eating mashed beans, and loving it.

You may or may not know that I have been struggling with favas since I moved here. So far, it has seemed that the spring season that favas like is just too short. When the proper, summer, tomato-growing weather hits, bugs and blights move in and make the favas miserable. This is the first time I am using Rhizobium in this garden, though, so maybe they will have leg up this year.

Seeded the tomatoes to soil blocks on the heat mat and moved the peppers up to 4" pots this past week.

MRD Port Authorities beat the Rhode Island Riveters in the first bout of the '08 season last night.

Wild weekend

I am almost done with the '07 garlic. Some of it has started to sprout, but overall I would say that it has kept very well. I have not had a cold all winter.

Megan caught a ride up from NJ last weekend for a brief, but great visit. We hit Gritty's, the A1 Diner, and an art show in downtown Richmond. Then things got really wild - we visited a plant store, a nursing home, and watched a knitting video, in which Elizabeth Zimmerman expresses very strong opinions about yarn. Crazy.

There was also this soup.

Golden Delicious

Skunks have been active under and around the house since early February, a development that I choose to think of as auspicious even though I can smell skunk on my parka even after I get to work. This past weekend was beautiful, with plenty of snow left upon which to snowshoe around. Critter tracks are everywhere. I should be able to report on the specifics but by the time I go out, things are melted and vague.

Garlic and dried chiles have really kept me going this winter. For 2008 I have two beds of hard- and soft- neck garlic waiting under the snow. Eager to get farmy and convinced that certain chiles need a long time to germinate, I planted a few Limon and Hot Paper Lantern seeds in soil blocks on a heat mat in the cellar last week. I think these two are C. chinese. The other peppers I am going for are Fish, Czech Black, Matchbox, Red Rocket, and an Ancho hybrid called 211 -- waiting for early March. I assume that they are all C. annuum, but the catalogs don't say for sure. It will be educational to try to ID them. I am finding all kinds of info on the Gardenweb Hot Pepper Forum. I am also finding that the online Chile Freak world is not unlike or unrelated to BBQ culture.

Just so you don't think that I am distracted from tomatoes, these are the packets I am sitting on for April: Speckled Roman, Orange Banana, Amish Paste, Hog Heart (yes, I like the paste tomatoes.) Also Garden Peach for a novelty, Principe Borghese just in case I get it together to try drying them, and Glacier in hopes of ripening something a little earlier. I also want to squeeze in some purple tomatillos and ground cherries. All this under four fluorescent tubes?

Mike Doughty has a new album out and that makes me very happy. It is Golden Delicious.