Margaret, in her skunk removal gear, inspects the skunk we trapped and prepare to release.

We are under siege. First it was the groundhogs. We tried traps. And we got one. But “Big Mama” and at least a couple lil’ ones remained on the loose. They were smarter than the traps. I can’t say the same about the squirrels and the skunk. The groundhogs made a play for our peas, so we electrified the garden. They made a move on the sweet peas Margaret had planted under the grape arbor, and then sat on the rocks mocking us as we inspected the damage. We threw down the gauntlet. Or smoke bomb, actually. Under the cover of night, we surrounded the two burrow entrances we knew about, and like something out of the roadrunner and coyote (you can guess which one we are), lit the fuse, dropped the giant firecracker in the hole, and covered it with a rock and dirt as the sulfur and charcoal smoke seeped up out of the ground. Was that it? Could it have been that easy? Time would tell.

The next evening, less than 24 hours later, with the chickens going bonkers in their yard, we discovered not one, but two skunks trying to get access to the chicken yard through broken boards and old wire fence that we’d put up more for chicken containment than predator prevention. Just as one found a gap in the defense, I threw a big rock and with surprising accuracy, plugged the hole, right as the skunk pulled back. We brought the traps that had been surrounding the groundhog holes up to the barn, baited them with leftover pizza and organic peanut butter (nothing but the best for our skunks), and waited.

By the next morning, this morning, we have trapped one, but the other is still on the loose. What to do? We call Mr. Sparks of Sparks Ark and critter removal. His price for removing a skunk? $105 (normal price is $85, but +$20 for extra travel). So this one, plus the other that is still skunking around… more than $200. Is it worth the risk of getting skunked?

Well, we decide to take the risk, and we’ve lived to smell another day. Our attack: Margaret sneaks up on the trap, throws a tarp over it, and I carry it out, secure it in the trailer, drive a few miles away and over a river, and successfully release our black and white friend. I come home and re-bait the trap, hoping to capture the second skunk and put an end to the siege.

As I write, there is a skunk in the trap under the barn, and when I last looked, two more were sniffing around the cage. Oh, and this afternoon, Margaret saw a groundhog wander up from the orchard, check out the sweet peas, and munch around under the swing set. The battle continues.

Skunk bait: leftover pizza and organic peanut butter

Farming groundhogs, removal, skunks, trapping

El Diablo (top right) comes out to welcome the new laying flock of Buff Minorcas (bottom)

Our new Buff Minorca pullets left the barn yesterday morning to begin their assimilation into the established flock of one and two year old hens. Our chicken yard is temporarily closed off and split in two by a chicken wire divider fence, so the two flocks can live side by side and get acclimated to one another before we integrate the new birds. In a couple of weeks, once the Minorcas are closer in size to the older birds, we’ll open up the fence and the two flocks will, for the most part without incident, become one big happy flock.

In the meantime, the established flock will live on the coop / barn side of the yard, and the new layers will live in the outer half, with a dog crate that we close up at night for shelter and protection. Typically, training the young chickens to go into the crate is a tedious task — several nights of luring them with grain and, if all else fails, catching the birds and physically placing them in the crate. Finally, after several nights, they figure it out and go in by themselves. These Buff Minorcas figured out the system with astonishing speed–on the first night! I set up their crate at yesterday at dusk and within 15-20 minutes they were settled in for the night.

You can read more about our laying flock management in the previous post “Chicken or Egg? Chicken”.

Farming, poultry Buff Minorcas, chickens, laying flock

Beatrice and Charlotte decide that they want to live in the new duck house, too.

We jammed a lot into the three day weekend — so much so that it took us until Wednesday to post something about it. It’s a remarkable feeling to look back now over the weekend and revel in our accomplishment. Here’s a quick recap:

Saturday was a day of doors. I got the new duck house facade built with a drop down door/ramp. I got the garden gate hinged and working (we’d been propping it up with a stick). And I got a door on El Diablo’s dog house in the chicken yard. (He can make it up the 8 foot high chicken ramp, but in the summer prefers to hang out in the dog house. The door will keep him safe, and muffle the crowing in the morning.)

Sunday, the girls and I painted the duck house, and then I took out my newly tuned and sharpened chainsaw (that lasted about 20 minutes) and cut up all the limbs and branches we’d had taken down from the big oak behind the house. In the afternoon, our dear sweet girl Charlotte saved a mouse’s life.

Monday, we brought the ducks out of their box in the barn and introduced them to their new house and yard. We put the goats on the hill underneath the oak to clear out some of the bramble that had been taking over, and to expose the groundhog hole. We then turned to mowing and planting, and somehow got the entire back 2 acres mowed (thank you garden tractor!) and managed to plant our tomatoes and a few other things in the garden.

For photographic recap of the weekend, check out our page on Facebook.

The real revelation of the weekend, and I think we’ll be writing more about this in the days to come, was the discovery that we have, after 4 years of doing nothing but letting it sit, beautiful, amazing compost.

Our homemade sifter and delicious compost.

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Farming, Goats, cute kids compost, ducks, Goats, weekend, work

Our duck house, waiting for repairs, and ducks.

A lot of people ask how we make a living as farmers. The answer is, we don’t. We farm or homestead as a lifestyle choice, to live closer to the source of our food supply, to live as sustainably as possible, to reduce our impact on the environment, to provide our girls with an educational and life experience that will teach them to appreciate the important things, at least as we see them.

We make our living in other ways, off the farm. Margaret writes, and I am the Director of the Aurora Photos photo agency. It’s a full-time-and-then-some job. Five days a week, I carpool into Portland from the farm, leaving usually a little before 8am and getting home around 6pm. Farming, for me takes place between the hours of 5am and 7:30am, and sometimes a little bit between 6-7pm. It’s not a lot of time, and in the spring, when there are projects galore, it is difficult to get anything beyond daily chores done until the weekend.

And so, the duck house (formerly our neighbor “Dumpster” Bill’s generator shed), which needs a new front door and ramp, has been sitting derelict and duckless (as the ducks outgrew their brooding box, and duck stink grew in the house, and now grows in the barn). Hopefully this weekend – a 3 day weekend! – will give me the time to get that door fixed, and get the ducks in. It’s the top priority this weekend – I don’t think the ducks, or our noses, can take another week of confinement and stink.

Agriculture, Farming duck house, Farming, part-time farming, work

A pile of rocks we’ve pulled from the garden, which after this weekend will become our new fire pit.

We’ve got some farm helpers from away here on the farm this week — our friends Shari and Erica have come from Michigan for a little farm vacation. They came two years ago when Bea was born and were a huge help with the new baby and the new baby goats. In fact, there’s a beautiful photograph of Erica holding one of the kids from that year in the introduction to Living With Goats. With Shari and Erica’s help, we’re hoping to get a lot done over the next couple of days… here’s our list:

• weed asparagus and raspberry canes
• plant carrots, beets, turnips and leeks
• put down garden paths
• make rhubarb jam
• build cages for new pear trees
• trellis peas
• make cheese
• trim hooves
• mow lawn
• plant cosmos and nasturtiums
• build fire pit
• make sausage
• build bee frames
• move growing chicks into barn
• AND if weather permitting, light bonfire.

Wish us luck.

Farming chores, farm helpers, to do list

Charlotte and Bea help Julie and Chris cover their garden plot with newspaper and straw.

Spring weekends are never quite long enough–by Monday morning, we’ve begun as many new projects as we’ve completed, and we wish we could keep riding the momentum of two solid days, all of us together, on the farm. Our weekend began with the first flavors of the garden: Saturday breakfast of poached eggs on homemade toast with lightly sautéed asparagus and a drizzle of mustard whisked with olive oil. It was a fortifying meal for a rainy day with a big project at hand–after tending the saplings in buckets packed with wet sawdust for a week, we finally put in the latest additions to the orchard! In addition to our ten (eleven?) established apple trees, we now have two new heirloom apples, three pears, and four high bush blueberries.  In an effort to extend the growing season of the farm, the new apples are winter producers, Frostbite and Black Oxford, and the pears will fruit in succession: Seckel in summer, Bosc in autumn, and Sheldon in winter. The Sheldon is especially exciting because it’s a good keeper, and is said to taste even better after mellowing in the root cellar for a couple of months. We chose heavy producers for the blueberries, to round out our existing patch of wild and high bush plants: Elliot, Bluecrop, and Earliblue.

On Mothers’ Day, we had the treat of picking out a few new plants (Charlotte saved her allowance to buy Margaret a geranium for the front porch), and helping our friends Julie, Chris, and Ada in their garden. Julie and Chris are in the process of looking for land to farm, and one of the most exciting developments at Ten Apple this year is being able to offer them a plot to experiment with in our orchard as they start their farm journey. We all celebrated our hard work with a Sunday supper that included volunteer mustard greens that reseeded themselves from last year and rhubarb cobbler.

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Poached egg with asparagus on toast

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Farming, Food, Garden apple trees, asparagus, farm, Food, pea shoots, pear trees, poached egg, saplings

Our crop mob at work: Trusty farm sitters (and weeders) Matt and Kelsey, and Harry Johnson in the background attacking dandelions.

It was a beautiful weekend — almost all of which we spent in the garden, planting the majority of things that we were hoping to get in. We couldn’t have done it without the amazing help we got from a handful of volunteers, who, in exchange for a lunch of fresh bread and fresh chevre (and the promise of potatoes in the fall), lent us their backs, their muscle and their sweat. The highlight of Saturday was Harry and Matt pulling a huge boulder from the garden… I just hope they don’t require that rock’s weight in potatoes as payment. It would take our entire crop.

In any case, it’s days like this that remind you of the blessings that farming brings into our lives, in friendship, community, good hard labor, and the promise of its reward.

Bea, just in from the sprinkler, inspects the boulder

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Agriculture, Farming, Garden

Charlotte does her patriotic duty and plants peas on (the day before) Patriots’ Day

After a couple days of rain (and snow!), the weather cleared enough for us to finally spend a little time in the garden yesterday. Margaret had already cleared a couple rows for onions and shallots, but today’s purpose was peas. Today is Patriots’ Day in New England, and as described in this article by MOFGA Executive Director, Russell Libby it is traditionally the day that many Maine farmers and gardeners use to plant their peas. In doing so, they’re sure to have peas by the Fourth of July. (Of course, depending on the variety, you could have them even sooner.)

We planted 3 short rows to start, with plans to stagger plantings later to ensure peas all through the summer and hopefully fall, as well. We had some shell peas and snow peas leftover from last year that we finished off (about a row and a half’s worth), and for the rest we planted Sugar Ann Snap Peas that we ordered from John Scheeper’s Kitchen Garden Seeds. Before the skies opened up again in the late afternoon, we also got our shallots in, including an experiment, trying to replant a handful of last year’s harvest that were still hanging around in the kitchen. Stay tuned to find out if they come up.

Agriculture, Farming, Garden

A sad sight to behold: one of our empty sap buckets

This time of year, I always get a bit jealous driving past houses with 4, or 5, or more sugar maples tapped in their yards. I love maple syrup (I mean, who doesn’t?) and even more, I love making maple syrup. It’s one of those miracles of nature, as far as I’m concerned, and marvel that anyone was able to figure out that you could take this clear watery liquid that would drip from a certain tree, collect enough of it, boil it down and get a golden sugary treat. Growing up in Hallowell (historic house #31), we had 4 or 5 maples on our property that we tapped each year, and I have fond memories of starting the sap boiling on an outdoor hearth, and then bringing it inside once it started to turn a light caramel brown to finish it on the stove. Then there was that infamous year, when we left the sap boiling on the stove over night. It boiled out, and the pot fused to our glass-top stove, filling the house with black smoke and summoning the Hallowell fire department.

We have one lone sugar maple growing on Ten Apple Farm, and a couple of other aging non-sugar maples. We’ve tapped them every year and have consistently been able to make enough for our own annual consumption and a little bit to share with family and friends. It takes between 36-40 gallons of sap to boil down to one gallon of syrup, and that’s usually about what we are able to make from our trees. In fact, just last week, we finished off the last pint jar of 2009’s syrup crop, just in time for the new syrup we looked forward to making this year.

I heard it was supposed to be a good year for maple sugaring this year, but so far for us that hasn’t been the case. We had two weeks of unseasonably warm weather at the end of February and beginning of March, and I think the sap started running a good week or so before we normally would get our taps in. Maple sap needs warm days, but sub-freezing nights in order to run effectively, and the temps just weren’t getting that low at night. We got a couple days of pretty good runs, mostly full sap buckets, and then all of a sudden, nothing. For almost a week, barely a drip. We were panicking. Would we actually have to buy maple syrup this year? Thankfully the past few days the night time temps have dropped back down and the buckets on the north side of the tree have started filling again. All may not be lost, and hopefully, we may get our gallon or so of syrup once again.

Whether you tap your own trees, buy from a local sugar shack, or get your syrup from the store, this light pudding from Julie Jordan’s Cabbagetown Cafe Cookbook is one of our favorite uses for maple syrup, especially when overflowing sap buckets have us feeling flush.

Leche Clema

2 cups milk (goat’s or cow’s)

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup maple syrup

2 eggs, separated

1 cup heavy cream, whipped

*

Mix the milk, flour and maple syrup in a medium-size put, and simmer until the mixture is like a thin pudding, about 15 minutes. Stir constantly to prevent lumps from forming.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks. Beat in a little of the milk mixture, then add back to the main mixture.

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold in.

Chill thoroughly, and serve topped with whipped cream.

Farming, Food, Recipes maple syrup, pudding, recipe, spring, trees

This year, the Araucanas are out, Buff Minorcas are in.

Each February we gather around our Murray McMurray catalog and marvel over their remarkable variety of chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and other fowl. Actually, we like browsing the catalog any month, but February is typically when we get down to business and place our spring and summer poultry order. Before I reveal this year’s chicken choices (poultry picks?), a word about the Ten Apple laying flock management plan.

We keep a laying flock of 20-24 birds. Our first flock included 12 chickens (11 hens and one rooster, an Australorp named Larry) of several different breeds: Buff Orpingtons, Araucanas, Australorps, Plymouth Barred Rocks, and Rhode Island Reds. We decided that we would keep the layers for two years and then process the spent hens for soup and stew. Each year we replace half of the flock (the mature birds) with 12 new birds. After that first year of various breeds we decided that each spring we would choose one breed for the year and get 12 chickens of a different variety than the year before. That way we would always know which half of the flock would go the way of the stock pot and which half would stick around for another year. To our initial flock we added 12 black and white Plymouth Barred Rocks. The next year, we thought, so long as we’re alternating breeds, let’s also alternate the color of the eggs that they lay so we can see exactly how productive each half of the flock is being–and get a nice rainbow in our egg basket. When we said goodbye to the Orpingtons, Australorps and Reds, we said hello to 12 colorful-egg-laying Araucanas. Last year, we replaced our aging Barred Rocks (who are brown egg layers) with a dozen brown egg-laying Australorps, who I remembered being particularly good layers. They have proven that to be true. So far this week we’ve had daily egg counts of 14,  15, and 13 eggs from our  flock of 12 Australorps and 7 Araucanas–not bad for gloomy late winter. This fall we’ll process the Araucanas, but first, this spring we’ll say hello to 12 day-old Buff Minorcas, who will eventually lay white eggs.

So without further ado… the 2010 Ten Apple Farm Poultry Order:

12 Buff Minorcas (plus a straight run of 13 Buff Orpingtons that we’re going to brood for some new friends in Unity)

Murray McMurray’s BBQ Special (a mix of 25 Cornish Cross Rock and Cornish Roasters)

15 Rouen Ducks

6 Broad Breasted Bronze Turkeys (we get our turkeys from the Ames Farm Center in North Yarmouth, because the minimum order from the hatchery is 25–way more turkeys than we need!)

Farming, poultry chickens, chicks, ducks, eggs, poultry, turkeys