WANTED: One Friendly Rooster

WANTED: One friendly rooster, preferably a barred rock but a desperate woman can’t be fussy.  Must be friendly.
I was reading Tish’s blog this morning when I realized I was smiling…again. The entry I read this morning showed photos of her critters. All of my animals are pet. I don’t even have a rooster.  The last [...]

#11

#11.

Bouncing Back

I’m feeling more like my real self, the person who loves farming, teaching and being close to the soil. For months I’ve felt like farming was sucking the life blood from my veins. It certainly drained my heart.  On top of the third consecutive shitty growing year (I grow and harvest year round so it’s [...]

Chickens

It feels a little bit like a farm here today. We processed 22 eight week old Cornish rock chickens today. We set up, did the deed and dumped the offal in about two hours. The birds came from Welp. We are exceptionally pleased with the quality. We’d have had 100% success if it weren’t for [...]

Late Blight

I found late blight on tomatoes in the greenhouse this morning.
DAMMIT!

Open Farm Day

Open Farm Day in Maine is tomorrow, Sunday, July 26.   Last year I said I’d do it this year.  This year I’m saying I’ll do it next year.  Even if we have another horrible summer I’ll be ready for visitors next year thanks to the new greenhouse and tractor.

I’m becoming hard hearted

I’m becoming a bit more hard hearted each year that I farm.  There was a time when I was going to be a veterinarian and save all the animals from dying. When I learned how horrendous those adorable raccoons are on poultry I agreed to hold the flashlight while Steve shot them.  I got working [...]

A Working Dog Goes Down

58*, cloudy, 80% humidity = damp and cold.  There’s a bear trap across the street from the home the bear broke into last week.  Maybe the end is in sight. It wasn’t here last night.  That’s the third night in a row.
Scooter’s down. He’s the son half of our mother/son pair of American Working Farmcollies.  [...]

Memo to Bear and Moose

Attention wandering bears:
You’ve become a huge pain in my ass so it’s time to set some ground rules.

The back porch is not a playground.
50 lb bags of chicken food, not a toy.  If you were going to break the bags open and strew one around you should have at eaten it.
25 lb bags of fish [...]

On to farming

A bear was here,
the cat is gone,
farming sucks,
life goes on.
I can’t imagine why nobody has  offered to pay me to write poetry.
I forgot about a bucket of molasses under an upside down stack of bushel baskets on the porch.  A bear found it, rolled it off the porch thankfully, opened it and had [...]

The Cat

Tiger (Yup, I named him) has been the perfect gentleman while he’s been here.  Until this morning that is.  This morning started out like the past three mornings. I let him out, pet him, make sure his crate is clean, feed and water him.  Then I go about business and he follows me around or [...]

A nuisance bear?

I need the animal control officer!  Oh wait…that’s me.  Sorry, I don’t handle wildlife calls.
We have a bear and I suspect he’s going to be a nuisance.  While working in the garden Monday I thought I saw bear tracks in soupy mud but convinced myself it wasn’t really.  We haven’t seen a bear here in [...]

An Unclaimed Cat

Nobody seems to be missing him.  I hate to take him to PAWS but if he isn’t claimed by Friday that’s where he’ll be.  He’s not neutered, has double paws and has been declawed.

Ducks

I have ducks that need new homes.  And I need electronet to stop them from wandering off to hide nests in places I never see.  Scooter was hunting rodents in tall grass the other day and came upon a nest.  From the sounds of them, both Scoot and duck were startled.  Simone and Garfunkle’s parents [...]

A Tough Growing Season

Crops in crisis.  I’m at the end of the article.  Many of the farmers who were interviewed are fellow farmers’ market vendors or friends.  We’re struggling.  June was horrible and the first week of July isn’t going to be better.
I didn’t go to market this week but I will next.  I’ll have beets/greens from the [...]

A New Hoophouse!

I bought a 1600 sq ft hoophouse this afternoon.  When I called about it a few days ago I missed it by a couple of hours.  The seller kept my name and number just in case and fortunately for me, just in case happened.  It will be delivered in a few hours! This brings our [...]

Honest Scrap

Thanks to CeeCee for giving me the Honest Scrap Award!  It’s a great day to stay out of the heat, humidity, black flies, mosquitoes, horse flies and moose flies, and do this instead.  I tag anyone who hasn’t done this yet and wants to do it now.

The Honest Scrap award only has a couple guidelines. [...]

Fresh From GH1

Broccoli.  The heads we picked this evening are 8″ across.  The broc and cucumbers shown here were grown in the unheated greenhouse.  They were planted in April.

Still a baby at 4″.

To Do

I’m back to being the sole farmer so I’m trying to get organized.  There are things I want this year – a packing shed, refrigeration, another unheated greenhouse.  If I stay organized and focused I’ll have them all by the end of the year.
Red has not yet been finished.
Water Greenhouses
Move stuff to seedling house for [...]

The phone is ringing off the hook…

….with people asking, “Is it true?”
Yes, it’s true.  Domtar is reopening the Woodland mill on June 22.  Steve is going back to work tomorrow.  Some are already back.  He’s in the middle of a project at his interim job and doesn’t want to leave it unfinished.  Let the chaos begin – the man thrives on [...]