News and blog

January 1st.  New Years' resolutions (kind of)

It's a sunny and modestly warm day and I will be able to finish planting the garlic as the ground still retains it's late fall workability.  Post holes will be dug to complete those for the first 5 hoop houses, a general clean up, inspection of the cabbage heads and other crops in the fields, fixing the loose felt on the roof of the chicken coop, residential work (including the front door) are all on the schedule for the light of today.  Later I will work on a painting I plan to submit at the end of the month as part of my Arts Fest application.  Accounting also.  I can't proceed with 2012 without knowing what exactly happened in 2011. 

As for resolutions- easy.  I will try to do everything that I had planned on doing in 2011 but failed.  The wood fired oven, a small cheese cave, cultivation of mushrooms,  raise chickens, and ducks and have some good help.   New resolutions which really are this years' goals are to bring the gross business reciepts up to $80,000 by increasing crops by 400% (sounds like alot but with season extenders, irrigation and additional livestock sales it is very realistic), starting catalog sales, and so on.   I think the biggest problem will be manpower.  I am going to look to Penn State and my CSA members for help though- something that I have not pursued in earnest.  I also expect to have a long term intern starting in April- going through November and to have two ten week interns during the summer months.   A cabin has to be built to accomodate the interns which will be a time-line challenge.   The residence must be pulled together with working electricity and plumbing so that I can live there, and perhaps one other in the second bedroom.  Another time related challenge.  Cash flow will continue to be an issue but with the review of last years' flow (and cash problems) and the creation of some new income streams, I think it will be less of a problem.   My personal energy and outlook will be a challenge. Serious setbacks could put me into a downward spiral of depression and end the entire project.  Not a likely scenario.  A business partner would be a huge help as would a personal one.  For the moment, I am more positive than I have been recently and honestly, the entire forecast for success is a very delicate balance and could turn on a dime to failure.  I do still think of shutting down the CSA, and moving to Kentucky and I may have to but that projection doesn't feel right.  Still there is no contract so a trip to the attorneys once again seems inevitable.  How can you run a business without a contract with the land owner? 

The 55 hen chicks are doing quite well and I can't wait to get them out of my apartment.  I have lost two which is an acceptable rate of mortality.   I will be recieving 75 broilers on the 13th of January and by then, I hope to have the temporary pens set up in the first floor of the residence.   The temporary chick pens will be on the kitchen side and my temporary workshop will be adjacent.  The old wood burning furnace from the 1850's brick house which had originally be slated for a hoop house will be moved in to provide heat.   Insulation will have to be completed for the entire building.   The next phase (February) will be to get the new coop built.  The old coop will be remodeled to accomodate the hens.   The new coop will get a concrete floor with a drain, and insulated walls.  The structure will be raised first, then a wood burning stove installed so the floor can be poured.  All done in the comforts of freezing weather. 

Monday January 9

I'm waiting for my usual breakfast of fried onions & potatoes with the occasional egg, (and a dose of ketchup).   It is sunny outside and the month has been quite mild thus far.  I trapped the opposum that was killing the chickens and living in the comforts of the residence and killed it humanely.  A land lease has been worked out with the land owner and though it will be expensive it will be less disruptive to remain here than move the entire operation to another location over the winter.  The budget for 2012 is done and is based on the actual figures of 2011, includes a membership increase of 15 and the addition of chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, and eggs.  Together, they will contribute 22,500 gross to the totals with a net of about 17,500 once all the expenses are deducted.  Catalog and outside sales (arts, crafts, furniture, etc) will be increased from last year's $3,000 to $10,000.  I am already busy designing, painting, sculpting and so on.   The priority however, beginning with this week are the hoop houses.   I stopped working on all farm projects about two weeks ago (I was away for a week), as I believed the business would be moving.  I also needed to stop farming- to have a mental break.  I can get three hoop houses completed this week. That is the goal.   As usual there are many other important projects so the days will be full speed ahead very shortly.  Distributions will begin on January 20th (tentatively), and I meet with an intern candidate this Saturday.   In short, the approach to this year will be quite different than the past three.  The hoops give me a jump on the growing season.  I am going to actively pursue help and work through the winter blues instead of succumbing to them.  This is the "quantum leap" year. The year where half the debt gets payed off, we grow enough crops, and raise birds and rabbits successfully.  We get the mushroom project going, are prepared for the Farm Tour, and hold the social dinners for the CSA members.  There is a great deal of construction to do.  I will have to see how much help I can get. 

Saturday, January 28  It's official: change

It has been a warm and muddy month thus far.  I am almost out of my doldrums and have gotten back into the swing of things with work on the hoop houses (for February plantings) along with completion of insulation of the residence first floor along with the plumbing line runs to the bathroom toilet, sink and bathtub.   An old furnace will be brought in to provide heat and front door will be built- custom oak with an insulated interior layer, a keyhole window and carved irises sweeping up from the exterior kickplate.  It goes with me when I make a future departure.   Finally solved the mystery behind the chick die off.  Probably the local feed.  Switched to a medicated feed.  The remaining seven (of 55) hen chicks have finally percked up and are acting normally now.   Chicks and a workshop will be temporarily housed on the ground floor of the residence.  100 meat birds arrive on the 16th of February.

As for the workshop: Ceramic tiles, T-shirts, cedar window planters, garden ornaments, and fine stone sculpted lamps for the high end market will be made to supplement the farm income.  An absolute necessity to get product sold over the next 4 months or I will be financially short again.  Making excellent progress thus far.  First up: a pair of Minoan Bull pots with horned handles.   Very unique, I expect to sell the first pair or two quickly.  The craft work will have to be concentrated from now through April. After that, naturally, the farm work takes precedence.  I will have to make a quick trip to Kentucky in March and may take a week off in May and travel overseas if I can get a replacement passport on time.   A very speculative idea but it could be a good mental break and since the CSA is year round, I might just do this once every four months- not fly overseas but get out of here, hiring an experienced house sitter to cover the chores.

New Help: I will know in a week if I can purchase the two Percheron draft horses I've been negotiating on for a few weeks now.  The owners just have to check if some friends of theirs want them or not.  If  not, they will be mine.  What beautiful beings!  Not too large, actually small sized for draft horses, they are docile, very well behaved and easy to command.   I must say that I am in love with Betsy and Alta (two new girlfriends if I am so lucky...).  They will make the plowing and planting of five times the crops that were put in last year (as long as I get the irrigation system in).  They will be worth ten interns without exagration and no insubordination!  They will spend  the spring here, and much of the summer on a neighboring farm, helping with the haying, etc.  It is an excellent arrangement.  For $1,000 I get the horses, full harness gear and a sit down plow (the long wood tongue needs to be replaced).   A small stables will have to be built and fencing extended, pastures upgraded.  If they are offered, I will be taking them around the Ides of March in order to get the prep work done.   Only have to hold my breath and cross my fingers for a week! 

Thursday, December 1, 2011

The point of this blog has always been to provide a format to record my experiences as a young farmer and the many thoughts that go along with that experience that others might find interesting.  My thinking has been that at times, other farmers who come here to read about my farming travails and explorations might benefit or share their ideas, or learn- something along these lines.  I have used this blog as an open book of rough ideas and experiences- unstilled and raw.  I write them quickly and oftentimes at the end of a long day or during a break when I think I have something reasonable to say.  As with any experience, farming is multi-faceted and there are many factors in the success or failure of an enterprise- whether they come from the realm of a personal, or family event, or a climactic one, or financial.  All of these rough writings will find their way into a book in about 5 years, and in order to complete the process which begins with these entries, research is added, themes are found and examples pulled from these writings and an editor makes the assemble possible- and coherent!

I am going to change the rules now as I will begin recording sensitive material which I don't want floating all over the ethosphere.  I will be pursuing some business ideas that could turn into something great or.... could just fizzle out as many do.  I have a few up my sleave and now is the time to pursue them as I feel I have completed my internship.   I will be making a single entry each month.  So this entry is it for the month of December. The remaining entries will be by subscription only and willl be free to the current CSA members of Howard's End Farm and to farmers, former interns, and to most of those following this blog.  Those in this category who would like to subscribe just send me an email or tell me at the CSA pickup that you would like to recieve the "writings" and I will say ok and each time I make an entry, an email will go out to the "group".   If I don't know you, you will need to introduce yourself and tell me who you are, about your farm, etc. by a hand-written letter.  Believe it or not but it takes time to do this- and as this year progresses, there will be a greater emphasis on research.  If you are not a farmer or a student studying agriculture or some other related subject, you will also need to send me $1.  That will be the cost of subscription for a year.  Please also include why you want to subscribe.  Mail your letter to: Howard's End Farm  345 Hidden Valley Lane, Howard, Pa.  In 2012, I expect to start including images of some of the projects, concerns that I am writing about.

Sunday, December 11

Our coldest night thus far and because I forgot to keep a trickle of water coming out of the faucet (the pipes are not completely insulated), the water lines have frozen.  Hopefully the manifold didn't crack, but it probably did which means it will have to be replaced.  In the meantime, I haul water by the bucket ful and get busy on completing the insulation.  It's a sunny day and the 55 hen chicks that arrived Friday are happy little campers and carry on an incessant chirp zipping about in the big galvanized livestock waterer I've got them in. Their accomodations will be upgraded either tonight or tomorrow to a much larger, 30 square foot square plus pen with plastic liner and peat for flooring.   These chicks are my future egg layers and will join the other remaining 8 near the end of May.   They will remain in the apartment for the first four weeks of their life before being moved to the new hen house which I plan to complete by the end of the month or beginning of the next- I will probably have to work under halogen lights in the dark to complete the task as my work roster is very full.

Today I will transplant the 30 or so globe artichoke seedlings that I have into their permanent places in one of the rows of hoop house #9.  I am going to start seedlings for lavender, tarragon, basil and more artichokes immediately since they will be able to go out so much sooner than usual with the hoops.  There is a great crop of young dill out there which I have cover with straw and row cover.  I may transplant it into pots however in bring it indoors since I do not expect it could survive the winter in its' current exposed bed.  Firewood has to be cut today, potatoes dug, garlic planted, top rail and ribs added to hoop house #1 and squash moved to a more secure location to get it safe from whatever is dining on it.

I went to a paty last night at O's and the dress theme was 80's off ice party which made for some very amusing dress.  I came as my scruffy self though I had managed to wear a clean shirt.  There was a beer drinking game which involved getting ping pong balls into cups, a number of people who spoke French so I got to practice a bit and be embarrased at the attempt.  When I decided that it was time for me to depart- around 9:30, B grabbed me and told me there was someone who was interested in farming.... I finally got out at 11, many conversations later feeling that I had talked too much but there was always someone asking me another question...  It helps to know that you are appreciated.  All the hard times melt away with that appreciation and cheering on.

December 17.

The last two distributions- todays' and next Tuesdays will be cancelled.  I am simply worn out and the CSA is temporarily bereft of funds until I can get to New York and do some work for clients there.  Finally broke down and bought a new, though inexspensive, chainsaw.  The old one doesn't care to start in the cold.  It works well and I have already cut posts for two more hoop houses and cleared another section of brush and scrub trees out of what will be a lightly forested area with walnuts and meadow where the chicken and rabbit tractors will be run. 

Howard's End Farm grossed just over $45,000 for 2011.  Now comes the hard part.  Breaking down that number into every last cent recieved and spent.  The receiving will be easy actually.  It will be the spending that will tell me what changes I need to make.  Full details will be available for those subscribing (see beginning of this month for details).   Some of the essential changes which will have to be implemented for the 2012 season in order to double the gross income are as follows:

1. Get the irrigation system set up and installed. Without this improvement I may as well call it a day.  This includes installing an 8,000 gallon reservoir and all the piping, drip tape, etc. 

2. Mulch as many crops as possible.  Try the new degradable mulch? Use pigs and goats to pre weed and till.  Free food for them and free tilling and root clearing for us. A proven workable method.   I will try the degradable mulch this year but will also use plastic mulch.  With the mulches and drip tape, we can plant a crop and spend much less time weeding and watering which will doom any commercial operation due to their gross inefficiency.

3.  Get as much compost/soil work done over the winter as possible.   With the erection of the hoop houses,  all of that warmed soil will be a song to prep.  10 hoop houses gives us 1/4 acre under cover.

4.  Get the 10 hoop houses built by March; half by the end of December, the other half by March if not sooner.  Earlier and later crops.  The hoop houses should increase total crop production by 50%!

5.  Raise chickens.  I finally know what I've been doing wrong.  They are very sensitive to temperature and if you don't regulate it very carefully, they get stressed and die.  We will raise 75 chickens a month.  It won't be enough but we will be able to manage this number.  We will have to get the hen house built. 

6. Raise ducks, rabbits,geese and pigs. All can be raised in tractors or moveable electric pens and on grass.  Very little grain is needed.  For the pigs, we will plant mangels in the fields they will be tilling and feed them spent barley from a local brewery and slops from restaurants (free).   Mostly they will eat off the pasture.

7. Build a cabinet for interns. It will be of straw or cordwood or wattle and daub or a combination of these. The floor will be of hammered clay (cement added).  I'll get used but servicable windows from Kentucky (recycled) and make a nice door. Maybe the walls will be surfaced with saw mill bark lumber. They will cost close to nothing, be very comfortable and melt into the surrounds.

8. Increase market sales by 300%.  Sounds like alot but they were rather low ($2,700).  An increase over the previous year but we should be able to do $9,000 this year even with the increase in the CSA membership to 100. 

9. Introduce online catalog sales.  In the works now with the kickstarter gifts that have to be produced and delivered.  Ceramics, painted furniture,   wood cut note cards, T-shirts,  garden architecture and sculpture, jewelry and value added products are all planned.  I will also be applying to the arts fest for a booth using some of these products.  It will be interesting to see what happens.

10.  Initiate Gourmet dinner series.  Once a month, a member or Howard's End will host a themed gourmet dinner for CSA members.   Themed could mean, Italian, French, Mid-Eastern or other regional cooking or Macrobiotic or some other theme.  We need to socially connect the food to the members and introduce the members to one another.

Thursday, December 22.

There are days when I am tied to the idea that I can't go out and  shovel mud in the wet or do construction in the residence or relieve the truck of it's two cubic yards of compost which awaits its assignment under the tarp keeping the rear tires in a state of unrelaxed compression.  I am stuck in mental mud so I sort through the bank account one month at a time re-recording that which the bank has for me to my system of divisions.  Money spent on gas, produce, building materials, market fees.  Monies debited for seeds and seedlings, monies removed for insufficient monies.   I'm always late with the accounting reports to members because I hate doing it (never say always...) and when I go to the bank's website I am nervous because I expect the news to be bad.  A nervous shudder flips like a mini jolt of lightning the instant before I click the login button.  I must have done it a dozen times today and each time it was the same.  I am nearly done with the recording of monies spent and there is going to be some good news.  First, I don't have to give up and walk away from this insanity because  the whole "vision" is an absurd failure.  It isn't. In fact it is showing rays of real potential.  I just need to find a way to hang on.  My phobia arrises when the bank account has drifted downward, creeping inexorably towards the mouth of Hades.  The financial accounts zip up, around and down like an old wooden roller coaster and I creek along the way, unable to get off the ride because I haven't yet decided that I can.   During times like these that most business entreprenuers have the pleasure of taking such a ride, it's always good to have a passenger along with you.  Some one to remind you of what is really happening and to cheer you over the rough bumps.  Match.com doesn't provide this service, and I intend to send in a complaint or at least a strong suggestion that they do.  I know I am misguided in this thinking- if there was such as service one might possibly find it under "Cheer.com".   We've just passed the winter solstice and the days don't seem all that short.  I seem shorter, especially due to the depth of the mud which seems to be on the rise.   Mud doesn't really bother me but the truck sure hates it.  Dressing to the nines in rubber- booties, pants (always a very fashionable USDA regulated yellow), rain slicker and one of the caps the shrimp fishermen sport makes me feel like a real farmer.  A REAL farmer.

November!  The rains have finally stopped and we will have pleasant weather this first week.  I can get beds prepared, crops covered and move hoop houses along. The first distribution of local grass fed beef has been successfully made with a small side of beef.   Tomorrow I will order 100 or so chickens- straight run (random sex), keeping the chicks to become hens for laying and the roosters for meat in late February.  Picked up 300 lbs or more of butternut, acorn and pumpkin squashes from Henry.  They will be stored in the basement of the residence on shelving at 50 degrees or thereabouts and should last the three months or less it will take the CSA members to consume them.  Most are butternut.  The undeniable favorite of sqaushes.  I picked up 250 pounds a couple of days ago for FASTA the pasta people.  All squash will be carefully washed and dried to reduce the chance of mold. 

With the sunshine and warm high-fifties weather, I am upbeat.  I can get through this month's bills, have the truck fully repaired, pay off some of the debt owed to the summer interns, and get to Kentucky to finally get my brother's roof completed along with the staircase (nightime work).  Would love to get the clapboards on the front of his house done as well.   I'll ask some workshares to stop in while I'm away to check in on the birds.

Sunday, November 6   Moving Plans

Since a yearly contract is not forthcoming from the landowner at 345 Hidden
Valley Lane, I will have to move the operation.  A month to month, undefined lease which is only defined by the handing over of a check won't do.  Too much risk to not know what can and can't be done and I'm certain that when I arrange a farm dinner or some other gathering I will be told that I cannot.  Winter is the best time to make a move since crops and insane work schedules have abated somewhat (though I still have more than I can handle to do),  so I have started looking.  I will not be moving to Kentucky.  I have a strong allegiance to the CSA and its' members and to suddenly cancel the operation would be an affront to them (and three years of very hard labor), and an added financial burden (all of their accounts would be refunded).  I can't consider this option.  I may make the move to Kentucky in a few years and if I do, I will have my debts greatly reduced and perhaps have someone to take over the business.   So, I will probably move to Huntingdon county.  Land prices are reasonable and it is a bit further south and about the same distance to State College as I am now.   I may even be able to farm on one of the market vendor's farms as they have an unused "back 40" but that would entail building a cottage so it's just an opening volley I think.  Ideally I am looking for a rent with a option to buy.  Rent for 5 years, grow the business and save enough to put down 50% towards the purchase price.  I'll start talking to realtors tomorrow, put out some ads today and send off some emails to some farmers I know in the area.  I would prefer to move in a year but this winter might be better.  Once again, without a contract, it will probably be a constant hassle to be here, notwithstanding all of the work that will go into the place.  The owner feels that I should be held responsible to the financial agreements made- i.e. continuing to pay the mortgage on the buildings on the property.  Those agreements (which I currently adhere to) were made with the underlying condition that I would be living here and have a relationship with the family.  That is gone.  We weren't married but this is a divorce never the less.  I've spent 6 years working on this place and I don't think the effort is appreciated at all.  Well, I'll take the rap.  Time to go.  This winter or next.

I have sixty 4 day old chicks living with me in the apartment at least until tomorrow while I clean the coop and build an insulated door.  I should have 75 except that the mail carrier left them outside next to the door in the 50 degree weather when I specifically left instructions to put them inside so of course a number perished.  They must have close to 95 degrees for the first week of their lives and as they grow that temperature is reduced by 5 degrees each week. I don't like raising chicks through the dead of winter but there aren't any predators so it's just a question of heat. 

One potato, two potato, three potato, four!   Five potato, six potato seven potato more!

It's amazing what pops into your head when you're digging potatoes.  I was getting more rock that potato but at least my technique for missing them has been on the upswing and all of the rock is making a good road base just where it is needed.  This is slow and inefficient work but for next year, these rows in the "triangle" bed area will be 5 feet wide and almost 24 inches deep with a very heavy dressing of compost. 

For a few times last year and once this year thus far, Howard's End has supplied fresh ingredients to Fasta to make various pastas and raviolis.  While I was digging those two potatos, three potatoes, four I had the idea that we should collaborate moreso on a regular monthly basis with Fasta.  I had mentioned this to Bob who runs the company (when he's not playing rugby) a few months ago.  He was very upbeat about the idea but later I became a bit nervous about the cost H. E. would incur so I  dropped pursuit of the idea.  Now, perhaps it might be time to reconsider.   A ravioli a month and perhaps even a pasta a month especially during the cold months of the year would help greatly with the income stream especially if the raviolis in particular were unique.  How about a fennel and artichoke ravioli for instance- we will grow both next year.  There is also a caramelized pear and fennel ravioli and a smoke trout and fennel ravioli (actually it was salmon- I'm just speculating).  That chef who has the "F word" show- Ramsey does a duck ravioli with Jerusalem artichoke sauce on u-tube.  The list goes on.   By the way, I pulled all of these ideas off the web so I'm not exactly giving out trade secrets here...  Unique ravioli and pasta offerings to the CSA members every month would be a great addition for the CSA menu and ultimately would help Fasta as well.  It's just a question of working out the details and making certain that Howard's End can pay for Fasta's services with an inkind exchanges of herbs, eggs, various meats and produce. 

Had a nice chat with the property owner and I think H.E. won't have to relocate at least for 2012 which is a relief.  Now I will have to learn how the rest of that potato song goes as I have at least three or four hundred more feet of potatoes to dig.  I may have to create some new lines.  I mean really, shouldn't you be doing something more constructive than reading this????By the way-F.Y.I.  secret messages encoded in every paragraph! 

Monday Evening, Late

Waiting to pull the yogurt so it can by strained overnight removing most of the whey with the result that it thickens.  The flavor, creaminess, etc also becomes more concentrated.   Greek yogurt.  Just spent the last hour and a half cleaning and packing leeks, chioggia beets and turnips.  Still have scones to make but may wait until I awake which will be 4:30 am or so.  Five six packs of scones and two pizzas to make followed by harvesting of a few fennel and the mustard greens.  Should have plenty of time.

This afternoon I was in Mackeyville, and stopped by Aquilla's place to talk about one of his steers for butchering in early January.  For whatever reason, a conversation with Aquilla always seems to take a somewhat circitous route with a parry here and there.  There I am negotiating to purchase a whole steer which is going to cost me around $1,000 and I have no idea how I'm going to raise the money so I'm asking him if I can put $500 down when I pick it up with the second payment due net thirty.   From him there is no such thing as a straight answer but a quip about leaving town which I throw back at him later on.  Credit is tight and all the farmers know it.  Faith is on the lean side nowadays but we'll make a deal and I'll find a way to put together the funds.  I ask him if he might like to raise some pigs for me since I'm not permitted?  Nope. 

November 9  Sunny and Warm

The truck will survive another year and my estimate of around a thousand for repairs is very close.  As of yesterday I've been crunching numbers and working a plan for 2012.  Looks like I will be working with a budget of about $77,000.  Still no salary to speak of for me but I will be able to pay down some of the debt and get a number of essential projects completed such as the hoop houses (12), the chicken operation (includes ducks, geese, and rabbits),and an irrigation system for the entire operation.  I will not be able to hire a farm supervisor to assist me but will have to rely on interns again- only two this time, with experience for ten weeks from June until mid August.  Wwoofers will have to fill the gaps and I will build two platform tents for them to live in.  I will have to do as much winter/early spring field preparation as I can to make up for the lack of a partner.  The triangle field has been double-dug, composted and its' square footage doubled.  The raised beds now average 5 feet in width which is the maximum.  If December can be mild enough so that the ground doesn't freeze, I can get another large section completed.  With 4 hoop houses completed (I am presuming the failure of the kickstarter campaign), I can expect to have an acre ready for or planted with spring crops.  I will be able to plant 900 garlic cloves which is better by 300 than I had expected.  Completion of the scrub forest clearing and installation of the fencing will give me a running start as well.  That leaves the catalog set up, construction of the new hen house and chicken tractors and work on the residence to fill out the winter.  With a rebuilt Gravely walk-behind, we will have the upper hand on the weed situation.  I've made a good deal with Fasta tentatively- we will sit down and do a month by month plan shortly. 

Friday, November 11

It's a pleasure to drive the truck once again.  Despite its' lack of heat or air conditioning (actually it has both- hot in the summer and freezing in the winter), it's a marvel when the power steering and brakes actually work.  When I arrived to pick it up the young lady at the counter noted that with only a few more parts and subsequent repairs I should have the equivalent of a new truck.  Since I haven't managed to save five or ten thousand dollars which is what a decent truck would run, I think that an annual bill between eight and fifteen hundred dollars isn't all that bad.  If I cost average the miles and what it costs to maintain the vehicle it comes at around ten cents a mile.  The insurance is a whopping $266 a year.  I was offered a 4 x 4 vehicle with rear dual axles and 205,000 miles on the odometer in much nicer shape than mine for $3,500.  It got 9-10 mpg whereas mine gets nearly 20.  I will spend around $2,600 in gas in 2012 if gas runs around $3.60 on average.  The other vehicle would cost me $2,600 more in gas and with two hundred thousand miles it will have some issues that will cost a grand- so I'll stay put with my F-150.  After all it deserves some loyalty.  It has hauled enough lumber to build three homes not to mention the number of moves, loads of compost, and on.   Once I replace the engine, I'll get my winter heat and summer conditioning back too.  The odometer is just shy of 200,000 and I do have that Thanksgiving trip coming up.

Wednesday, November 16

Spent yesterday at the final Tuesday Farmer's Market.  It rained just as it had the previous year but was reasonably warm.   Had planned to attend a gathering at the municipal building centered around sustainable living, etc. but only managed to drop off two loafs of artisinal bread and a couple of jars of quince marmalade before leaving.  I was exhausted, unshaven and disheveled.  Got the chickens secured, finished reading a book, and watched a DVD before giving up.   Checked emails and much to my amazement a total stranger had donated $1,000!  That increased the pledges to $1,600 and by 5 this morning I had worked up a plan which I think might just work. I had completely given up on the idea- just too many other tasks to attend to- six weeks of double digging and setting hoop house posts, chickens, money problems-  I had decided that the design work and sale of a few antiques would get me through the next couple of months somehow.   Once I put my mind to kickstarter this morning especially with such a pledge creating the pyschological push, I realized that I knew alot of people who hadn't been contacted and as with most big projects that look daunting (we're talking about $3,400 in the next 12 days with Thanksgiving looming- a big distraction), I realized that I could break the problem into three parts. The first part we've accomplished- $1,600 so that's great.  The second $1,700 requires (in my mind) about 32 people to make an average contribution of $50 which is reasonable based on the first monies raised.   It took me about a half hour to come up with a list of 28 and I think most will contribute.  The final $1,700 is tricky- but by adding CSA memberships to the reward list (which will start May 1st) of either $200 or $400, I would only need 6-8 people to sign up.  I already know of 2 and I think I can cajole (sweetly) the current 90 members to help find a few more.  I even know of a couple of previous members who might rejoin since we are doing things differently now. 

Friday, November 18

In a few months there will be a curtain of green all along the window wall of the carraige house apartment.  Ginger, figs, orang, lemon and lime tree, lavender and rosemary are all shoulder to shoulder on the plastic shelving that we had used for seedling germination now do their duty indoors.  Despite my failings to have a single hoop house as yet complete, the hoop house beds show signs of emerging life and as the sun lazily expired low over the mountain, I set out a couple of row covers and a ground hooped plastic cover.  Spinach, shunkiyo, and swiss chard are looking good.  Finished harvesting the two 50 ft leek beds except for a sole shoot here and there, and piled up mounds of compost which will be spread and worked into the soil this weekend and later.  Two cubic yards of compost is just enough to dress about 200 feet of raised bed which will be expanded to a 5 ft girth.  Still there are over three hundred feet of potatoes to dig. I'm afraid I will lose many to rot but at least the beds will have been double dug with the "green" manure (weed) cover turned in growing wider with each completion. Broccoli raab and a mix of greens comprised of spinach, purple mizuna and lettuces will be harvested and offered for the "Thanksgiving" distribution along with sweet potatoes, and a sage/pepper fettucini FASTA has made for us.   I'm on the hunt for venison so that we can offer a venison/something ravioli in December. 

November 20- Sunday.

This morning, following a solid hour of washing the ton of dirty dishes that were scattered everywhere, and emptying the large cooking pot that I was using to wash clothes in, I put my heavy duty work shoes on and was promptly stung by a wasp.  It was like stepping on a needle and the first thought that came to mind was a scorpion bite.  My father had told me that during WWII when they were posted in North Africa (flying B-24 bombers), they always had to shake out their shoes in the morning because of the scorpions that would crawl into them.  I was relieved to find a wasp, and unlike a yellow jacket sting, it didn't cause my foot to swell.

November 21

Almost always on harvest days there are root crops that have to be cleaned.  Usually we just put them in a large basin and let a hose run for awhile.  It helps but dirt still clings to the roots so all have to be hand scrubbed. This takes a long time.  The only option is to build a large machine that slowly and gently agitate the roots dislodging the dirt.  You might think of using a washing machine but with the amount of sediment, small rock and mud coming off, I doubt the washer would last.  There's another option.  Always great to have a machine around that doesn't cost an arm and a leg but can serve multiple functions.  A cement mixer is such a machine.  It mixes cement, naturally, but is also great for adding amendments to your seedling soils for example.  And, with one addition, it can also clean your root vegetables.  I can think of two options- find a large heavy duty plastic bucket that will fit snugly into the mixer and drill 3/4 inch holes all over it so that the water and dirt, etc will run out.  The better option (I think) would be to build a slatted bucket out of oak or some other hardwood (maybe s softwood would work but might not hold up well over time) with a solid bottom, using 1 or 1 1/2 inch slats for the sides spaced about 3/4 of inch apart.  use copper strips with copper nails to bind all the slats together or a very heavy polyethylene plastic as your strapping.  You would have to secure the sides to the base- I would rabbet a groove around the base and screw them in from the bottom with pre-drilled holes.  Better even to cut u slots out and fit them into the base that way.  You might want to double up the base- two thicknesses of 3/4 thick wood rotated 180 degress so the grain of each is 90 degrees off the other.  All edges of the slats on the inside have to be rounded so as not to bruise the vegetables.   You will want to have a clamp on the mixer to hold a hose there so you can have a constant flow of water.  You might also want to make a lid (maybe out of heavy galvanized fencing or wood) so when you tilt the mixer to remove mud, etc, your produce won't spill out as well. When you're done, just pull the bucket out et voila!  I'll give you an update on any improvements to this idea- I imagine there will be some.

Tuesday, November 22

Made the distribution of turkeys, broccoli raab, sweet potatoes, leeks and other goodies in the chill of a light rain wearing a light two buttoned (top two) marroon canvas coat that left me soaked by 2:45 pm when I departed for one final delivery and the bank with just enough money to deposit so that I could pay a couple of overdue bills, send my sister a $100 (so she could make an interview in Paris) and head to Kentucky where, aside from completing the roof on my brother's house (a job which has lingered over the past two years), I can wash all of my clothes in a washing machine rather than by hand which I have been doing for the past couple of months.   I'm caught in thoughts about the other CSA's and their farmer stewards and how everyone agrees just how bad this year was.  A piece of one of my back molars came off a couple of days ago into my hand while I was chewing something and it drew me to the problem of farming again as did a discussion surrounding the care of the elderly and what happens to the assets of a family member when he/she (read parent) goes into a nursing facility- if a Remainder Charitable Trust hasn't been established 5 years previous to entry, medicaid back charges the estate at the time of his/her passing.  That's the gist of it, anyway.  So a farmer breaks his/her back all of his/her life only to give up the property in order to satisfy the $225 a day (aand up) that nursing care entails.  I don't think the Amish have this problem- they take care of their own.  I presume so but will ask.   How do they keep their farms together- do they?  I was recently having an interesting conversation with one of my CSA couples in regards to my current predicament and what I might do.  They mentioned that they were very interested in establishing/running a CSA and in this idea were talking to another family about sharing a farm.  They were wondering if I were interested in exporing possibilities.  Maybe I should find out how kibbutzes are run, and seek out other community land owned possibilities.  Currently, my idea is to purchase a piece of land (20 acres minimum- bigger would be better) and create a non-profit corporation, foundation or trust that would then be owned by those who worked it.  That would afford continuity but how much security?  A mom- pop business is susceptible to all kinds of upsets.  Most CSA's are smallish operations- sole proprietorships with a small core of dedicated workers.   There are a handful in the state that provide for 300 plus members but they are still small businesses with a gross of no more than a couple of million at best.  I am convinced that as long as a farm is flying solo- and most of us are, it is as vulnerable as a bird separated from its' flock.  It may survive for awhile but will eventually succumb to predation, bad weather, bad luck or pure exhaustion not to mention the loneliness of its' predicament.   For this reason, I'm going to explore ways that CSA's in the area might work together.  I think there are more ways than might be immediately obvious. 

The greatest violinists, baseball players and other athletes, scientists and many other professionals at the top of their game all have something in common.   They have mentors and/or coaches.  Someone to look over their shoulder and give them advice and encouragement.   Farmers need mentors and coaches as well. They also need to share information and experiences amongst themselves and with researchers whenever possible.  There should be direct links between farmers in the field and those ag researchers in the university setting.  This is the first reason for creating a CSA/organic farmer umbrella organization.   As a start, the members could simply come to one another's farm and comment on the operation- asking questions, and making commentary.  Problems that are encountered could be shared and solved by a greater body than just the lone one.  An ongoing discourse between professors, graduate students and doctoral researchers could be established and would be ongoing.  The farmers could go to the researchers if they are stumped and vice versa- new ideas could be tried out on a commercial scale. 

A second reason- seed collection and preservation, and seed purchasing would be more efficient (for some but not all purchases) if the farms joined together to not only purchase their seed but perhaps other equipement as well.  The larger the discount (irrigation supplies, mulches, green house materials, etc) are almost always far less expensive in larger quantities as is shipping.  There are certain materials that most farms use every year.  The savings might amount to only a few hundred or a thousand dollars but every dollar saved is a step up. 

Third-  sharing of produce.  I believe strongly in diversity- "super diversity"- I think monoculture results in an acute loss of soil fertility whether it is organic or not.  We are have preferences- one farmer might want to grow mostly berry crops, another something else- with occasional crop failures suffered by all, perhaps there is a way to share crops.  If I am raising ducks or pigs for example, it might be more efficient to raise extra for the other CSA's while they raise in excess other crops and then we trade.  A rotating system could be set up for each season.  

Fourth- Publicity.  Coordination of membership drives, advertising, and general news to raise the visibility of CSA's in the region.  Sharing of costs and perhaps memberships where one CSA might be more suitable to particular members than others. 

Fifth-  One of the advantages of being represented by an at large corporate umbrella is that the farms may be able to secure federal or state loans or grants that might not otherwise be available to a single farmer.  Fund raising for health insurance benefits might be another possibility.  

Sixth- Better coordination over pricing of produce or CSA memberships and other related products.  Packaging would be less expensive if bought in bulk.   

Seventh- Initiation of a central Pa farmer's kickstarter online business model which would raise money for initiatives, increase public awareness and coordinate multiple projects.  In my opinion, the current "kickstarter" models are ill suited for regional needs.  They are nationally oriented, city centered and tend to focus on ideas which are not necessarity green- mostly "chic" and trendy.  A long shot, but we should give it a try.

Monday, November 28   Angels and Demons in Kentucky

Sometimes it's hard to know where to start so breakfast is always a good option.  I'm going through my mother's papers gathering all the essentials about her life that I can possibly find.  I haven't been here since last year and whenever I spoke to her on the phone, she seemed fine if not a little forgetful.  My brother would always report that she was about the same so all seemed well.  Clay, her 92 year old boyfriend is well (mom is 84) and sharp.  Without him, she would be lost in confusion.  My mom is in an advanced state of dementia and has trouble verbalizing her thoughts.  She can still dress and feed herself fortunately and get around with some difficulty but can't manage her affairs. Fortunately, Clay signs her checks and sends off her bills and her basic needs are constant for the moment.  Changes are coming soon though.  My brother and I have been "notified" by Clays' family that they intend to remove him from this relationship because they feel it is affecting his health and is abusive to him.  They seem to have forgotten that my mom and Clay love one another and though I do agree that changes must be made, I strongly disagree with their rational which is baseless.  What does this have to do with farming?  Everything, actually.  My mom owns 50 acres where my brother farms and besides the house she lives in, it is her other primary asset.  If my mom is put into a nursing home, medicaid will fund the first 90 days or so and then the estate will be charged once she moves on into a higher dimension.   Our primary concern is for her comfort so we will do our best to keep her in her home (my brother will assist and my sister possibly as well if we can get her here from Europe) for as long as possible while we take measures to hopefully protect the farm from being sold in order to pay for her care.   A good reason to incorporate a farm is to keep it from such a fate and the second fate of being passed down to siblings  and in the process endlessly divided until only small parcels remain.  My grandfathers' farm once was close to 900 acres when I was young.  Now, only 50 acres remain, the rest being sold off to other farms (not a bad thing necessarily), or cut up for building lots.  "Our" 50 acres has one of the original homesteads on it- a ruin which I have be gradually resurrecting - a high Georgian home built around 1810 by John Allen or his son.

Tuesday, November 29

Met with an attorney this morning and feel far more secure.  Need to gather more information in the next couple of days and set meetings with some local home care providers, find the deed to the farm, and other important papers so that an LLC can be established among other things. We aren't out of the woods yet but the attorney seems to feel we might be able to manage.  In the meantime, a day spent finishing the staircase and installing windows and doors in my brother's house will move that project along.  We have to try somehow to get the first floor pulled together in 2012.  I will have to plan visits at least four times in 2012 which means having a farm "manager" in place.   The demons have retreated a little. 

Angels...                    Despite my very late push to alert every one I could think of, the kickstarter campaign succeeded!  The funds will make it possible to get the hoop houses built and survive the winter.  As I now have orders for wood cut notecards, T-shirts, ceramic tiles and plates, cedar window boxes to fill, the creation of a catalog is soon to come.   There are also some real business options to pursue which will take time but might prove to be very beneficial.   It means research and business plans but I now have access to brokers who will help me finesse my concepts before connecting the concept to the investors.    I will add a facebook site to the CSA to strengthen the social profile of the business.  Despite the many negatives of this year, its' summary is positive.  Hard for me to fathom but the CSA income doubled, and the members are happy.  We have added many more products and continue to do so.   We will be far more prepared for the 2012 season which translates into much earlier crops, more value-addeds and better cash flow.  This auspicious beginning will result in the doubling of the gross proceeds again.   If I can keep the family situation on a par, avoid burnout and skip the winter blues by keeping busy, then I have a chance.  I have had two long season intern inquiries thus far via ATTRA which is a very good sign.   

Wednesday, October 5

Following a week of a grey and chilled rain, the sun has reappeared and rumor has it itmay be around for a week accompanied by rising and warming temperatures.  Kickstarter is not yet launched due to the Amazon maze of accounting requests with tiny deposits made into the business account for verification.  I imagine it will be done and launched this week.  I imagine.

During this past week in between harvest and other outdoor chores, I retreated in doors to knock the chill off and catch up on the accounting which always seems to be in a state of near completion or falling behind.  Glass half empty or half full I guess.  During this duty, I did take the time to tabulate the incomes for the months through September and with some reasonable calculations for the final three of this year, I determined that the gross income for Howard's End would come in around $40,000 which is a disappointment if I look at what I had hoped for- $60,000 or more but on the other hand, with the abysmal weather patterns we have suffered and poor luck with the interns (3 of 4 unsatisfactory), we have managed to pay our bills (mostly) and have harvested about three times as much as we did last year.  We sold around 6-700 chickens last year whereas this year we have sold none (to date) due to predation and disease which wiped out the first 250.  With poor assistance at hand, I had no choice but to abandon the program for this season.  We will rebuild and electrify over the winter and into the early spring for next year and add Pekin ducks which I have learned can be raised on foraging alone (or almost).  Geese are grass eaters so I will try a few of those as well. As for next year, with the addition of chickens, ducks, etc, hoop houses as season extenders,  the addition of a commercial kitchen and subsequent value added products, and arts/crafts catalog we can get our gross into the $80,000 range without a struggle, especially if we can increase our crop production by 30%.   The more hoop houses we build (with a goal of 12 currently) the more control we will have over our crops in relation to the weather.  Irrigation is still a grave concern which will have to be in place by May.  Without it, we may as well pack up and go do something else.  Finally, I plan to hire a full time assistant/partner.  Without full time assistance- experienced, I can't continue.  One farmer with interns doesn't work.  Two farmers will. We will limit the interns to two and screen them very carefully and pay them in relation to their work and experience.  In all fairness to the interns, with two full time farmers in place, they will recieve a better education and overall planning will be more regulated as opposed to the "crisis management on the verge of constant exhaustion" sort.  We are coming to the close of our third year and I personally feel that I am emerging from my own internship.  I have a much better overall view of this business now and don't have the deep boned exhaustion that I was experiencing at this time last year.  Hopefully I will avoid it this time around.

October 12

Thinking alot about grass fed beef these days.  Currently in negotiations to set up the first distribution and friendly chats with one  of the local Amish butchers and the owner of the steer are ongoing as I sort out all of the logistics.  Reading up on the number and kinds of cuts that can be expected.  Also researching raising beef especially the costs- fencing and winter feed primarily.  Probably won't be able to do it on this farm but I do have friends who have 8 acres of pasture that might be available but unfenced.  The next step will be to chat with a number of farmers who have cattle to get the low down on the whole story... what I can expect.  What I'm thinking, currently, is to have a half dozen head at most so that the membership can have a grass fed beef distribution every two months or so. 

At some point in the future, it is most likely that Howard's End will have to move off it's current location.  The family isn't particularly enamored with it's presence and without a current lease- just a kind of unwritten presumed agreement- it's state is somewhat tenous.  I think at some point there will be a written agreement and as soon as I have had the chance to sit down with a real estate/contract lawyer I expect to learn my current rights and those of the owner.  If I have to move I will hope to move to a nearby location so the CSA can continue.  Moving a farm business is very costly and whenever a move is made or when a new farmer is negotiating a land lease there are many considerations to be made especially if you plan to raise produce organically, include livestock, maintain a commercial kitchen, grow fruits and berries, improve the soil and so on.  Farmers make huge labor investments in the land.  A long term lease is a must and a thorough and clear understand between the farmer and land owner is an absolute must.  Here are some considerations that I think should be included in a  farmer/owner contract (or at least in the negotiations):             (to be continued)

October 20

In order to make tomato jam you first have to peel the tomatoes and remove the seeds.  You do this by dropping them into boiling water for around 15-30 seconds depending on how ripe they are then scooping them out without scalding yourself and into an ice water bath.  I've got some ice in the bowl, but just let the water run.  Peeling is quick and instead of coring, I just stick a finger in and pop out the seeds.   I'm ready for a break so I think I'll go dig potatoes.

Finally got kickstarter going this past Tuesday and am just sending out emails.  Might make a big sign to hang at market (today) and will print out flyers.  It will be fun whether we are successful or not.  In the meantime, hoop house work and fall/winter planting is now a daily affair.

October 21

Another world will end profecy passes by and we're all still here. Rats!  A break from the heavy work load would have been welcome!  In between dozens of email messages being sent out to everyone I can think of to let them know of kickstarter, I'm making a tomato/basil jam, I  have a full harvest schedule to keep and if there's time the quince/lemon marmalade needs to  be done as well.  Have to run to town to pick up a couple of packages of goat sausage and other supplies such as parchment paper, pectin, and organic flour & sugar.  Got the T-shirt design worked out fairly quickly last night which was a relief.  Got about 50 feet of a new raised bed dug but had to quit due to the rain and the heaviness of the soil- we picked up an inch and a half of ran last week and have had an inch this week.  No sunshine to help everaporation of the moisture.  Just gray.  Planting is going fairly well though in between the deluges.  I'll have to focus on the existing hoop beds and that construction. Framing is nearly complete for three hoops so instead of digging heavy wet clay, I'll finish these first three completing their cover and plant out their beds which are only partially done at this point.  I've decided to publish a small pamphlet on this method of hoop house construction which I've devised presuming that it will hold up well in the worst weather with instruction/commentary on the clay ovens I plan to build to heat  them (bake bread and heat the hoops at the same time!).

October 24

the forecast for rain has held off with periods of calm and sun.  A perfect time to harvest. 
Started the morning around 5:30 with accounting work continued from the evening before.  Three more distributions to sort and record and then I can tally up.  Again, I was a full two months behind.  A very busy evening coming with many orders for scones, pizzas along with a jam and a marmade to make.  The members are placing full orders which always makes me happy.  Already nearly a dozen orders for fennel and many orders for sunchokes- I provided three recipes in the distribution email and that seems to have made the difference.  In order to maintain sanity (most of the time), I visit the Bellefonte library to pick up BBC murder mysteries and other series (I recommend "Foyle's War" and "Monarch of the Glen" and the Poirot series with David Suchet), along with cook books and the odd book to read (currently I'm reading "Moonlighting with Einstein" which is about the science of memory).  I am learning to cook. I bake bread regularly and dig for recipes.  I've just discovered a loadstone in "The Four Star Kitchen" which has many great duck recipes (for next year), deserts (medicine to counter the winter blues) and good all arounds using chicken, vegetables and so on.  I've been learning that the more fluent I am with what I am growing- i.e. what one does with it, the easier I can sell it.  Helps to develop costumer loyalty too.  I'm having a whole wheat pancake for lunch before returning to the field to harvest salad crops.

Fall has proven to be a very difficult time thus far.  My moods follow the weather- up with the sun and down with the rainy greys.  It's hard not to slip into periods of depression.  The stress of the entire season is a strong memory that doesn't fade quickly and with a very tenuous and uncertain financial future all the positive thinking can end up on quicksand quickly stipping into the mire.  I have solutions to the challenges but can they be implemented quickly enough?  Will Kickstarter work?  At this point I have to accept that it may not but I will do everything I can to bring success to it.  Money is a huge problem but solvable but I will need some luck.  I am developing new income streams and have other options but the current situation is very serious.  The truck continues to be a problem and probably needs at least $700 worth of work and I do need cash continue building the hoops.  I can't repeat last year. I must be able to grow more crops, and spend far less buying from other local growers.  I need to produce more and have reliable workers.  There simply won't be room for insubordinates in 2012.  I need to manage much better.  We need livestock to fill the gaps.  I need to feel financially secure.  I don't mind the long hours but killing myself and not being able to pay the bills is a place I can no longer be.

Sunday Evening  October 30

As the milk slowly heats and makes its' journey towards become the first batch of "Greek" yogurt, I'm poring over the orders for Tuesday, in particular those for the local grass fed beef.  I am gauranteed not to have enough sirloins but the hamburger will hold up and I think the soup bones will too.  It took awhile for the process of steer to table to reveal itself.  I ended up with half a side and paid for 240 pounds dress weight.  Once the side was cut up I ended up with about 160 pounds, just over half of it in hamburger (88 lbs) with the rest in short ribs, t-bones, sirloin, pot and chuck roast.  Once I had it safely stored in the refrigerator and had lowered the temperature to its' lowest setting I ran off to Wegman's to price their organic grass fed beef.  The place was packed as they were having a big Halloween to do for kids but I managed to squeeze myself past the gorilla, the whitch and her cauldron and numerous other frightening scenarios.  They had hamburger, happily which I duly noted ($5.15 lb) and then there was rib eye and strip steak and some other cuts which I couldn't relate to the tally the butcher had given me.  At some point I will have to go over one of those diagrams of a side of beef cut up in three-d.  Maybe next Halloween.

I burned the tomato/basil jam later that night as I tried to reduce it down a bit. Charred tomato jam.  A halloween treat.  The pepper plants froze.  I was picking peppers in the snows of Saturday.  Three bushels- one bushel diced and frozen for winter and spring pizzas, one bushel of the very large for stuffing duty (sausage, cheese, etc) and one for everday.  Picked the Marvel of Venice beans that I had left on the vine for seed. When the pods are dried and dehydrated, I will open them and collect the seed.  The fennel lives on. i'm going to cover the bulbs with a heavy mulch of staw and give it a plastic cover to see how long I can keep it going.  The other hope is that with a heavy mulch, I might be able to keep the roots alive through the winter.  I discovered that when the bulb is cut, new shoots appear for more fennel bulbs.  I will be saving seed from those plants that have bolted.  I have Brandywine and Striped German tomatoes, Turkish Eggplant and squash all happily rotting.  As the fruit rots, it activates the seed.  Once the fruit is a rotted mess, the seed is removed and left to dry and then stored.  I have seed for three sweet peppers and two hots as well. 

The potatoes are being dug.  The results are poor because they weren't hilled soon enough so there are only spuds at the base.   The red Norlands are a bright pink however and the beds are full of worms!  So they were worth it.  The beds are being widened and dressed with more compost.  Where the potatoes where this year, there will be leeks next year except instead of two rows of 50 feet, there will be 6 and they will be planted much earlier.  This will permit a continuous harvest well into the spring of the following year.  As for garlic which was a disaster this year (I planted an unkown variety), I will plant 600 garlic cloves which will produce 600 bulbs of which half will be sold and the remaining 300 divided to make a planting of around 1500.   I would plant more if I wasn't so broke.  It's a reasonable start.  I calculated that for a CSA of 100 families a planting of about 7,000 cloves would be about right if you wanted to keep everyone in garlic through the year.  That's only 6 bulbs of garlic per family per month.  The milk is approaching 150 F.  Once it gets to 185, I will put it in a cold water bath and bring the temp down to 115-110.  The yogurt culture is gently stirred in, the oven is set on warm for a few minutes and  the pot is covered, set in the oven and left overnight.   By morning it will be yogurt.  That's when the fun begins.  It will go into fabric and into the cheese press so that all of the whey is removed (a few hours later).  It should lose about half of its' mass in the process.  Et voila, Greek yogurt.  That's the theory.  We'll see.  Found an Amish farmer who sells Jersey cow milk.  Jersey milk is different from Holstein milk.  High solids content and yellower in color.  Planning on getting a few gallons to make Gouda cheese and perhaps a blue (Stilton or Gorgonzola) with some this winter.  Winter is a good time to make cheese if your cheese cave isn't up and running but you happen to have a basement.  I will make a "temporary" cheese cave environment and use a heater to keep the temp at 50 - 52.  I also plan to force the chicory that I've planted for Belgian endive.  I may even be able to start Oyster mushrooms.  I am going to start 50 hens and 50 meat birds so that we will have predator free chicken by February and a enough hens giving eggs by May.  The coldest weather arrives in January and by then the chicks will have their feathers at 8 weeks old.  On warm days I will put them in the heated hoops so they can get some greens.

November is the month to set all of the posts for the hoop houses that aren't yet up.  Then it won't matter whether the ground is frozen or not. I will be able to raise them.  I'll have to set the oven foundation pads in them at the same time- for those that I plan to heat.  Black raspberry and red raspberry bushes will be transplanted in early November and globe artichokes will be planted, heavily mulched and covered in hoop house beds in a bid to get them through the winter. I'll start more artichokes in December and put the figs and ginger in the hot house (sun pit) to get them through the winter.  I hope to prepare and compost a few hundred feet of beds which will have to be covered with plastic mulch, weed block or row cover to eliminate any chance of erosion. 

I'm negotiating for a Gravely walk behind- actually two of them for $275.  One works the second is for parts.  They come with a plow.  If I can manage the expense we will finally begin to get an upper hand on the weeds.  I will be very busy these cold months.  The 2012 festival for the arts artisan's application deadline is January 31 and I plan to apply.  My application will include a very large painted screen as a backdrop, a table, a lamp (sculpted stone with free form shade) and ceramic tiles, pots, plates and bowls all of which will be in the new catalog.  Woodcut notecards will be there too. And T-shirts.  I don't think the kickstarter campaign will succeed but at least it will have launched the catalog and get me back into art work. 

September 13, 2011

     I don't know where to start.  Last week's rainfall gave us 6 inches.   The bush beans started to rot and many of the tomatoes expired.  In fact, the tomatoes and cucumbers expired throughout the region except for a lucky spot here and there.   Most of the crops are doing well and more are coming in which is a fine turnaround for a very difficult season up to this point.  Between hoop houses, row covers and mulches, we should have a strong season through the end of November when the farming fall ends and the winter season begins.  In my mind anyway.  My truck broke down today.  A few hours before market as I was picking up local corn, apples and eggs to supplement our own production.  The starter again.  I like this truck.  Respectfully as it has 190,000 plus miles on it and many of them have been a haul of compost, or building materials, furniture, machinery- even chickens.  

Monday, September 19

The truck has broken down four times now and currently resides at LMR Tire where I hope they can get it sorted out this time.  I have back and forth numerous times on my 15 year old 21 speed Schwinn bike that has two speeds working and a rusty chain that just jammed between gears on this morning's journey back to the farm.  What hair that remains on my head (mostly the sides- I have good aerodynamics along the top which is hairless) is beginning to spike out and until I get off the bike and get my hat back on to tame it, looks like the kind of chrome ornamentation you would find on a 50's Thunderbird as it approaches its' silvering. Fortunately I got the bicycle running.  Whomever invented wd-30 I congratulate you!  I followed up with some chainsaw oil that I had hanging about and slowly got it to turn as I went around and around in the drive about 20 times last Monday after we had given up on the delivery attempt.  The first tow driver insisted that it was a dead battery.  I have now learned not to take tow drivers too seriously.  Upon arrival at LMR, I announced "it's a dead battery" and without testing it we all (mechanics and myself- looking over their shoulder) looked up the battery size in the book and eh voila! They had one in the shop.  Ten minutes later it was installed and I was so sure we could make the delivery, I called Samson on my 5 year old but mostly still working  (except when the buttons don't sometimes but you just keep hitting them and eventually they do), cell phone and announced that in fact we could make it and to get everything out of storage and ready for lift-off!  Two minutes later, when the key still made only a clicking sound when you turned it on, and feeling rather un-triumphant and exasperated, I asked John at LMR if I could send an email out  to the members on his computer.  In the meantime the corn, eggs, zucchini and apples are slowly warming up in the back of the truck with the sunshine streaming in.  Now, when the truck first broke down I was at Mackeyille produce picking up local "chemical free" corn and apples.  The Tow arrived ( I have Triple A Plus by the way, and that entitles you to three tows a year and a hundred miles max each tow), and he determined that it was in fact a very dead battery once he had popped some chewing tobacco in his grin, he suggested that we could get it going without a tow.  He would hook his chain onto the trailer pin  on the rear bumper of my truck and give my a pull and I would start it in reverse .  Mind you that there was exactly 6 feet between the vehicles.  I don't know about you but I don't like going in reverse under normal circumstances.  It is a big truck and can be difficult to see where you're going.  You crane your neck this way and that, and the truck weaves this way and that....  How I managed to roll start it and then hit the breaks without hitting him or having my bumper yanked off is still something of a miracle to me but there you are.   Meanwhile,  back at LMR, I now own two perfectly good batteries and am presented with a bill of $159 and change so I whip out my checkbook which has maybe $6 in the account and write a check.  Nothing has changed except that the produce is a bit warmer now, (the eggs were in  a cooler) so instead of leaving the truck there for repairs, it is roll started once again and off I go back to the farm to ask Samson to put everything away again, stare at my navel and ponder my (and the truck's) future.    Wednesday, about noon.  It's repaired!  I'm on my bike, screaming down Jacksonville road (imagine "La Tour de Jackson") with my trusty big red cap on my head (the one with the black smear from roofing on it) and here comes a huge tractor behind me hauling a combine or something that large with the driver propped high up like the Pope in his pope mobile, and so I go faster because there's no way he's going to pass me because he's taking up both lanes, and there's a car coming in the other direction and I fell like a mouse that gonna get squished.  My hat, oppurtunist that it is, decides to take flight at that crucial moment and flips and twirls as airborn hats do right onto the front of that tractors' "Poope mobile" part and the driver is laughing probably because now it's a bald man with hair streamers coming out the side of his head looking somewhat like a manic "Puck" on wheels.  Three seconds later, there's a place where I can get off.  I did get my hat back and though it was as flat as a pancake, when I put it on my fluffed remains of hair, everything (in my imagination that is) returned to a state of quasi normal.   The next breakdown was an uneventful repeat of the first and on Friday,  when I hopped into the cab thinking "all's well that ends well" and started down the service station's drive there was a very back sound coming from the engine.  Sounded like the mechanics had had a picknic while working on the engine and left all of their cutlery there as there was a great rattling sound emanating from the front of the truck.  An important note here.  These are good mechanics at LMR.  They've worked on this tuck for years and usually everything works out just fine.  Back up the drive I went, in reverse.  John, the head mechanic, just groaned.  He ssid, I had a guy in here a couple of weeks ago who was selling a truck for $1,200 and I thought of you.  Well, let me tell you, I know all about "mot d'escalier" syndrome.  These are the thoughts that you get after the fact just a little too late to be of any help.  We made it to market on Saturday with the battery light on (roll started it- starter died again) and roll started to get it going again.  In the parking lot at Giant Food store it died while idling.   Let me tell you how to wash clothes without a washing machine.  What you need is bright sunny day, a large tub and lots of fresh spring running water.  Then you pretend that you're stomping grapes....

Wednesday, September 21   A quantum leap

September marks the 31st month of operations for Howard's End and I finally am beginning to feel that I know what we're doing here and how to go about doing it.  It's as if the fog of speculation and calculation is beginning to clear and a sense of intuition and knowing is settling in.  It is time to incorporate and find a full time managing partner who will take part in the direction, running and overseeing of the operation.  There has also been too much to do for a single "head farmer" and though the interns are integral they simply don't have the experience to be left with the kind of responsibilities that experienced managers have.  Granted, this new position won't pay except for a profit sharing agreement but room, board and a salary shall come with time as they normally would if one were to start farming on one's own turf.  A board of directors will be helpful with the decision making process and as time progresses and the farm grows into more and more directions, it will help with the management and over all decisions in regards to the long term view. 

Here's what we need to accomplish between now and next spring: 1. Get the hoop houses built with the help of the kickstarter program.  The kickstarter program will be launched later today. 2. Get the irrigation reservoir and system installed.  Still not done.  Not enough financing available and no mini excavators available to rent.  3. Set up a catalog of artisinal works of art and spend the winter producing them.  This will help ease the cash flow problem.  Selling $6,000 worth of antiques (wholesale) will also ease this problem.  4.  Continue with the value added products and get the commercial kitchen completed by next spring.  Value addeds, (Jams, cheeses, pizzas, pastas, breads, etc) can add $10,000 in income to the business and fill gaps over the winter season when crops are at their low point.  5. Purchase an industrial grade tiller/plow with attachments.  This will cost upwards of $5,000 with attachments but it will reduce our beds labor by 60 to 75% and make it possible to get other tasks done.  6.  Upgrade the accomodations so that there can be two farm managers and two interns living on the farm.  Another winter project already under way.  7.  Secure a lease or if necessary, find another property to rent within a year.  Negotiations under way.

It's a long and "big" list and as a result there will be no down time this winter.  That's ok.  It think it is doable and if accomplished we can jump up the farms' income to around 80-90,000 next year. 

September 28

Raining again.  Got to New York and back in 24 hours early Sunday to early Monday and had just enough time to get the harvesting done, pick up supplies, make pizzas, ricotta cheese and scones.  Driving around without brakes.  Hydraulics gone.  Off to the service station again.  Fortunately, with a clutch, downshifting, use of the emergency brake and driving slowly has made it possible to get the distribution taken care of.

Fired Samson last Thursday.  Samson decided that he didn't want to hoe on Thursday morning.  He avoided hoeing on Wednesday and excused himself to go make ratatouille sauce which he started but didn't finish and didn't refrigerate so that was a loss.  A good worker but how good can you be if you have a generally gruff attitude toward those you work with?  I think he's going to ccntinue to have a tough time through life but I did see some improvement in his attitude.  Writing lyrics that I hope might be turned into a song-  we'll see.  Launched kickstarter today which also effectively launches the "arts and crafts" division of Howard's End.  A new task for evening and rainy day work. 

August 1  Heat, Chickens, Rabbits, and Fall plantings.

A family member mentioned to another family member who told my better half (and she is by a long shot) that if I shoot rabbits I would be in violation of a few laws and subsequently the preserve here could lose its license.  I do think this is a bit of a stretch but I will comply except of course when I come across rabbits who are not in the preserve (i.e. on my better half's property) and who are violating the crops.  Since we are such a non-communicative and litigious society, it would behoove me to be aware of all laws pertaining to uh, everything having to do with farming, property, etiquette, etc. etc.  The paperwork already grows due to the new food laws and if sprouts are a danger to society, I reckon  I must be in violation of something just by being here.

Got the chicken doors reattached, the yard cleaned up and am moving the chicks into larger quarters.  The weed wacker has broken again (pull cord) but I think I can fix it. The place is moving towards a more orderly state which is long overdue but crops are the priority here.  Placing a seed order this morning which will ship later today as long as I get it in before 11:30.  Trying some cold tolerant varieties which we will start and grow in the hoop houses.  Among the seeds ordered are two varieties of self polinating peppers, a French sweet melon, eggplant, pole beans, sweet and spicy radishes from northern China and cressida which is a rapid growing (ready in ten days) cress.  Many fall crops should go in around mid-August.  If I can rent the excavator this week the reservoir will go in asap.  I won't have the money to get the entire irrigation system in right away (nor the time) but we can have almost all beds irrigated with the hoop house beds a priority.  I hope to get two or three hoops set up today with the drip tape and the first 100 feet of carrots finished.  I've decided to set a second 100 carrot bed next to the first with a parsnips abutting that one so that I can set a mini hoop over all three.  We have Begium endive started (it starts as chicory root then becomes endive when you force it) and many of our other seedling starts are doing well.  Either they are doing well or they are doing nothing.   Amanda and I attached three 7 foot lengths of an open weave blue poly cloth to the porch end of the residence in order to give the seedlings a better place to grow than the porch where they are now.  It looks very nice.  There are long lenths of twine holding the rods in place staked in the grass. I should be the first to trip over one of them since I put them there.   Oh and FYI haven't shot any rabbits yet.  These past few weeks they have become quite scarce.  Probably the heat. 

August 5

I should be in the fields today prepping beds and planting but instead I'm at the kitchen table slogging through the distributions and calculating everyone's order.  Have to catch up with the accounting once and for all. It's the part of the business I like the least and yet it's probably one of the most essential aspects of it.  After all, there's no way of knowing exactly how much of what you're selling if you don't do it.  So it will be done in the next day or so.  Samson and his girlfriend Hannah stopped by this past Wednesday to come see the farm and determine if he wanted to intern here or not for the fall and possibly winter season.  By the end of the "tour", a hearty lunch, and a couple hours of volunteer work (they planted beets and carrots) he had decided that he would like to come around mid-August.   Both he and Amanda had worked at Genesis Farm the previous season and so it was a great surprise and joy for Amanda when he emailed inquiring about a position here.   She had strongly recommended him to me.  

We've made a bit more progress on the kickstarter.com proposal namely the design of the all important T-Shirt.  I'm a bit weary of putting money into T-shirts but will have to only if the campaign is successful.  In the meantime, it has been fun to put together the design.  The face of course will feature the "twisted carrot" and the back will have "Vegetables dance the "ratatouille" at Howard's End CSA Farm on it with silhouettes of two vegetables dancing.   We need to find someone to shoot and edit a 5 minute (or less) video to go with our proposal. 

The enourmous willow tree that has been slowly dying for many years gave up it's main truck in the storm of this Monday past and ended up making the road impassable.  I ran my heavy duty chainsaw over to David at his small engine repair shop and begged him to fix it right away as I had no access to the farm except by foot.  Loading the truck for the Tuesday market was a garden cart affair and we managed a path under the tree through high weeds and poison ivy.  By this morning I had managed to cut enough away to get the truck through.  Since I've got a portable saw mill, I'm going to get a few plank benches out of the wood which has a two foot diameter in places.  

August 8

This blog is going to change somewhat.  The point of this blog has been and is to record the creation of an enterprise that can provide a reliable source of produce and other related wholesome products to a local population successfully.  I write this blog with as much honesty as I can and thus far I have done so without censorship (notice the consistent lack of editing).  I am trying to write about real experiences and mental "think throughs" meaning that sometimes I work out problems or ideas on this blog.  That can produce problems at times.  The rabbits for instance.  I would like to offer wild rabbits to the CSA members because wild rabbits have a great nutritional footprint, they don't cost us anything to raise (we do have to kill them and dress them however and get them to the members) and they taste really good.  It's illegal however.  I can't sell you a wild rabbit and there's a season for small game. I can shoot them if they are creating crop damage (they are)  and I can dispose of them but according to the law, I must inform the game warden first that I have shot one and then the warden is supposed to tell me what I can or cannot do with it. This information may be obvious to some (but not others) and what might be an obvious soil aberration (nothing to do with rabbits) might escape your attention (or mine).  In fact, the more I learn, the less I feel I know.  Honestly.   I have also written about personal relationships, finances and other issues which some (or all?) readers might find to be too personal, or offensive or insensitive to post online.  The point of this blog is to keep an honest record of this "new farm" process because I hope that someday, I can write a book (in 2 to 3 years if all goes well- don't hold your breath!) using this blog as a template, and back up its' chronology with extensive research to fill out and back up or refute what is being said here.   From now on, however,  I am going to censor the more sensitive subject matter and keep that in a separate off line file.   This will reduce or eliminate any liability I might be creating by posting it here.  I doubt you will notice much of a difference at all.  In fact, it will probably improve because it will be more informative (technical) and any personal rants, peeves or desires to pursue illegal pursuits will all be left out only to be discovered much later when the book comes out.  By then, there will probably be no interest whatsoever anyway.  Instead of reading this blog, why not go out and do some gardening? 

August 10

Nous sommes Delphine et Johanna, nous sommes venu de France jusqu'en Pennsylvanie en tant que Woofers dans la ferme de Mr Hoffman pour deux semaines. Nous avons ete tres bien accueillie dans cette ferme, nos deus semaines se sont bien passees, le travail est varie et interessant. Il y a beaucoup de travail a faire donc nous n'avons pas eu le temps de nous ennuyer! La ferme est tres simpa, apres les travaux, le resultat sera vraiment joli. Nous sommes tres contente d'avoir passee deux semaines ici, nous aurions aimee rester plus longtemps. Mr Hoffman a ete tres gentil avec nous et nous le remercions pour sont accueil et pour nous avoir permis d'ameliorer notre langue en anglais. Nous ne regrettons pas du tout d'etre venu ici, c'etait une tres bonne experience!

August 11 12:45 pm

Our two French woofers ( Delphine and Johanna) are probably just now arriving at their homes in Brest, France having started their return journey 25 hours ago.  They spent 17 days here and of those days, worked 14 days for 4 hours each morning.  They helped with the harvesting, truck loading and unloading, did alot of weeding and watering.  They also helped prepare some of the pesto and humus we made and enjoyed some of our French "Bondon" cheese that we made with the local milk.  I wanted to figure out if it is worth having Wwoofers about so I checked on the cost of keeping them.  Food cost $120.00 and misc. costs, $40 for a total of $160 in exchange for a total of 108 hours of unskilled labor (2 @ 54).  We enjoyed their company and had the added bonus of learning some French (and they a bit of English) while they were here.  I have invited them back if ever they are in the states again as friends.

It is a lovely day in the mid 70's sunny with a bit of a breeze.  Valerie was in the fields for a couple of hours this morning and helped Amanda plant fennel and savoy cabbage while I dressed beds with compost and tilled. By the end of the day we have given about 250 feet of beds heavy dresses of compost with a thorough tilling.  Two rows of potatoes, one of Savoy cabbage and a row of beets are added to the row of potatoes done earlier. This is the primary planting time for the fall season so the schedule is intense with seed starting and field planting.

August 12  Harvest day

Once again Valerie helps in the morning and then Amanda and I spend the entire day harvesting basil, eggplant (Turkish, Uovo, Madagascar, and Thai long), tomatoes, radish and turnip greens, young leeks, sunflower sprouts, fennel, a few varietie of zucchini and cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers and leave the herbs and Bush Baby squash for the morning.  We take a lunch break and feast on one of the French Charentais melons that we've picked.  Later, when we return to the field, Jeremy and his assistant Jack is there working on the Penn State bee station.  They are pleased with how their bees are doing and I ask if he might have time to take a look at mine.  Up we go onto the roof and as I watch, Jeremy takes apart the hive pulling out sections of the comb and remark that the bees look very good and that in a month we might check for honey that we may be able to harvest.  Following dinner, Amanda makes another batch of ratatouille, while I work on a new display board for the market tent that we will hang in the back and list all that we have to sell. This is Amanda's last day.

August 14  sunday

Market goes well and we record $190 in sales.  Over 600 hundred people attend and I make a note to improve our market stand for next week.   We can start averaging  $250 a week in market sales and distribute to our CSA which approaches 100 members.  Progress.  Samson arrived and we spend the afternoon talking over fall plans and the future of the CSA, bees, beer and other subjects.  He is an artist as well and his first artistic assignment will be designing labels for all of the beers we will be making.  I am uncertain as to the exact state of the yarrow beer as it does smell alcoholic and not bad so we decide to continue and see if it can be brought to completion.  It will be raining today and aside from a few outdoor tasks, I will spend time completing the long overdue accounting, get the kickstarter together except for the video part, work on the new display board for the market and make ratatouille sauce and elderberry jam in the kitchen.  A pleasant day.  I am feeling better and more hopeful though we still have major challenges of all kinds but with a new schedule and my new attitude which both accepts the fact that all that must be done each week is not the end all if it doesn't happen is simply standard operating proceedure for farming in general.  No point in having my knickers in a twist all the time.  I actually slept well last night. With the new default schedule, Saturday after market is off as is Sunday (which means no set work schedule even if I do work) and Thursday is reserved for construction.  I think Samson is anxious to get started.  Rain tomorrow so we'll work and harvest in the rain.

August 16

I shot out of the driveway this morning, thrilled that I would be on time to set up at market having explained and demonstrated to Samson how to start and operate the tiller and when I've got the tent and tables set up realize that I've left a third of the produce in front of the carraige house.  I spend the afternoon working up a thorough market check list so as to avoid doing that again.  The distribution goes relatively well, nevertheless and I have time to plan a very busy week.  On my return Samson has tilled the "Upper Salamander East" beds, having laid down compost on them and clearing away the heaps of pulled weeds that had been left by our French wwoofers.  The Savoy cabbage has been planted and the chickens fed.  Not bad for a first day on his own.  Upon my return we chat about future goals and I lay out a grand plan to jump the farm from a gross income of  $60,000 for this year (accessible if we have a strong fall season) to nearly $100,000 next year.  It will take determination and luck- the kind of luck that you might gain if you plan well and work hard.  It will have to be one strong day of accomplishment followed by a strong week, then month and I have to believe it's possible.  I will plan it that way.  We will calculate how much of each crop needs to go in, what kind of earnings we might expect (taking an average), and what contingencies to plan.  Value addeds, the kickstarter plan and the new catalog will all play an important part if we are to succeed.  I will also have to produce a few sculptures and sell a significant antique or two in order to put this plan into effect.  This goal is current and short term- the next day, week, month, and six month period all have their parts.  How odd to be planning for major crop income so late in the season into the cold months!  succeeding here will bring us early spring success and buoy us into the the summer, drought or no drought, rainy and cold spring or not as we will have the hoops.

Last night we checked the Yarrow beer brew expecting it to be a throw out since I never observed any yeast action though yeast was added twice.  It was delicious and had a very high alcohol contact (which we both felt when we sampled it) so tomorrow we wash and sterilize bottles so that they can be filled with this primary fermentation and some sugar and capped for the secondary fermentation.  I think then it will be a question of waiting two or three weeks (will have to test) before we celebrate our success (I'm an optimist).  In the meantime, we are going to start a more traditional beer- some kind of simple malt.  Since we will be working so hard for so long I think learning how to successfully brew as many beers as possible during this period will be essential to the success of our goals.  We will need to drink to our successess- if Amanda were here she would bring up the Peruvian "Pacho Mama" and the importance of blessing her (a kind of local spiritual Gaia I think) with whatever kind of alcoholic vehicle that is locally available.  Now, I'm not talking about a drunken frenzy at all but the joy of creation.  Creating food, creating good drink.  They go together.  They also bring together people and as we will be producing about 50 bottles of beer per good batch I do imagine that we will have to have friends over to help us celebrate our many successes to come.

Saturday, August 20

A Tomatillo jam will follow the elderberry/ginger jam.  Hot pepper jam will be up next followed by an apple/mint jelly.  Pickles (using whey) is on the schedule for next week. Pouring concrete under the chicken coop starts tomorrow.  The rats keep knocking off our young chicks- 11 this past Monday when they ate a new hole through the door jamb and one this evening and last when they ate through the window screening.  A sudden rainstorm chilled two yesterday and despite our efforts to revive them (they were alive) they both perished from the chill.   Our chicken operation is on hold until we can resolve all problems- the raccoons and mink are no longer a problem- only the rats remain.  We will entomb the rats in concrete.   Samson has convinced me that we should do our own silk screening and he's right.  I can build a four color screening station (retail 1,400 and up) for a $150 or less.   We can design, print and sell the T-shirts on demand for far less than what we will pay a commercial printer.  We both look forward to the rainy day task.  Tomorrow is normally a day off but we haven't finished this weeks' planting schedule so we'll get that done.  Samson has many organizational ideas (as Amanda did) and the organization and storage of all seed stock will be done tomorrow as well.  I have an antique 9 drawer deal kitchen bin which will be a nice place to store seeds.  All I have to do is remember where I put it.  We did about $100 at market today- didn't have any value addeds to sell but in addition did a good CSA distribution.  Almost got the new signage completed and hung it up anyway.  It's bright, playful and with the new chalkboard that we'll hang next weekend, and with matching Howard's End T-shirts (hand dyed and painted is the plan ), we should begin to look sharp.  Or funny.  I'm think I'm going to dash off a free form rooster on the front of the T-shirt (don't want to attempt the "double helix" carrots) in bright red on a bright yellow background maybe with a splash (spatter?)of black here and there.   We will complete this round of planting next week and then start spending half our time building hoops.  I will also have to do that sculpture and put the French armoire up for sale.  One of our CSA members suggested that we open a facebook page to help promote the kickstarter campaign.  It has been delayed a few days until we can get the still images included.

Wednesday, August 24 

Samson and I are falling into a routine.  Mondays we harvest, work on crop maintenance and do miscellaneous chores.  Tuesday, is market day for me- following the mornings' market prep rush and my departure for State College, Samson remains and does bed preparation, plants seeds for future transplanting, weeding and other tasks.  Wednesday we plant all day which entails hoeing off or hand weeding beds or between beds, double digging on occasion to increase soil depth and always adding compost to the beds we are working with along with the occasional lime and sand depending on the crop.  Sometimes a load of manure is worked in but on most occasions it's a sterile Penn State compost.  We use about 2 cubic yards in the ten hours that we spend on these Wednesdays and usually manage to complete about 250 feet of sowing.  Today we planted Tokyo turnips, sugar snap peas (the first bed of 6 or so), red choi, black seeded Simpson lettuce, and three rows of spinach.  A couple additional beds were nearly prepped and will be completed tomorrow morning seeing red scarlet turnips, more snap peas, and broccoli raab.  Thurdays is construction day, so following chores (watering of new beds) and completion of the seeding schedule, we will be doing hoop house construction all day in the lower fields.  On the job list will be the setting of the main hoop house posts and installation of trusses and top rails on hoop #4.  There will be a total of 7 hoop houses in this lower field.  We will be staking out #'s 8, 9 and 10 and setting posts for #'s 6 and 7.  Clean up and weed removal will be a must.  A photo of the area will be posted on the kickstarter campaign once we've got the area looking more organized.  Fridays, we're back to crop maintenance and harvesting and Saturdays it's back to market.  Saturday afternoon-evening we unload and do as little as possible. Sundays is the designated day off which means doing non-field work.  Two Sundays ago it was a day of accounting.  This Sunday it will probably be ceramics or work on the residence with some jam, pesto or humus making thrown in.  No, this Sunday, I promised Samson we would be making that oatmeal stout beer that we learned how to do when we visited Olivier and Beth this past Sunday.   We really could use 8 days a week.

Friday, August 26

The morning is a slow start due to insufficient sleep- I no longer seem to be able to get a "good nights' rest"- I'm out on the field around 8:30.  Samson is already picking beans and wants to know "where I've been".  I harvest swiss chard, fennel, zucchini, cucmbers, okra and spray the zucchini plants with pyrethrum to hopefully kill the hoards of stink bugs that are laying waste the plants.. A couple of zucchini in another patch are half chewed by the in house groundhog and I remind myself to set the have-a-hearrt trap.  (I won't have a heart if I trap him- he has laid waste to many crops).  On to the leeks which are gradually thinned as they grow thicker- a lovely crop of  symetrical woven leaves that remind me of palm fronds.  Last to be harvested as the sun disappears in the matter of minute or two into the forest and over the mountain is the French sorrel which is scattered about in clumps around the original planted site having gone to seed and scattered itself about.  It is beautiful stuff it's leaves the same as the wild lambs' quarters but extended and enlarged ten fold with a freshness of light transparency in the sunset.  The middle of the day was less successful with the tiller breaking down at least twice- the second time an unrepairable mess of cables not to be remedied until tommorrow afternoon following market and a parts search in the Home Depot.  A new spring and a couple of cable clips should restore the Troy-Built.  The lawnmower sheared off the main bolt that anchors and spins the blade- banged up and bent and lost a wheel sometime back.  The weed wacker- a Husqvarna and my third- the first two were Troy Built and were junk- the second returned as the cord always jammed- this Husqvarna is also trouble and runs very rough and may be at its' end of days.  Better get that scythe sharpened up!  The intense heat doesn't help and the bee sting I got in my left hand just below the thumb has swollen and aches.  The " Marvel of Venice" Italian broad pole beans are producing better  which is a gladdening site.  What a delicious bean without the hint of fiber. The elderberry/ginger jam is almost ready.  Needs a bit more pectin.  Still a bit runny.  Valerie says it tastes like fig and I agree. Can't wait to pass it out to members. Will have to wait until Tuesday.  It's 9:30 pm and I've got a few scones to make to cover tomorrow's orders and should send out the distribution as well.  Sometimes this whole idea seems impossible but I continue.  Continue. 

July 2

A hot day. 88 in the shade. Market day and we start just after 6 am and by 3 pm I am home and so exhausted (working until 9 the night before), that I take a nap and never really recover enough to get back out into the fields. Instead, I help Valerie in the kitchen just a little pitting cherries and study up on vegetable varieties and planting, making notes.  M, Valerie's daughter has upgraded our on line ordering system using Google docs and it looks great.  In between naps I work out a field by field watering plan using the early morning and late evening hours for the task.  Every bed gets watering by hose or drip irrigation every third day except for newly seeded beds which are watered everyday until they germinate. Next will be making little metal signs out of aluminum to be attached to poles so that all rows are notated.  Eventually we'll assemble a large field map that, covered in a plastic cover, will be marked with grease pencil to keep the beds' planting updated. The planting continues though I don't yet know what J and K accomplished today.  Amanda is back home for a few days.  J and K have tommorrow off to go to Knoebels amusement park with family.  I will be in the fields from 6 am until 2 pm to beat some of the heat (88 degrees expected) and then will take the afternoon off to see a movie with Valerie, get a new cell phone to replace the antique that I've been using and get ice cream.  We're going to see Woody Allen's new film "Midnight in Paris".  I once sold an antique chinese style chair from the 20's to his production company for use in one of his films but never saw it. Maybe it still waits for its moment under the spotlight.  Tonight I've got to get the accounting underway.  Can't collect any money without getting it done and must have it done by Monday at latest.  I'll have to pass on any fireworks.  Looking to purchase 16 Toulouse goslings from Hoffman Hatchery (no relation as yet discovered) for $144.  Better get to that accounting.

July 11, 11:40 pm  On Interns, WWOOFing, bee stings and insurance.

Should be in bed at this point as I've got to be up by six but it is very hot and I feel like having some ice cream with a banana.  It's raspberry with chocolate chips. Just finished the scones, yogurt and riccotta cheese orders for tomorrow.  We enrolled ourselves as a farm for WWOOFers and await the first WOOFee. Woof! Stands for World Wide Organization for Organic Farms or something to that effect.  Probably affiliated in a secret "Masons" way with the Westminster Kennel Club as well.   While I was tending to my market duties this past Saturday up on North Atherton, K got stung by a bee.  More specifically, a vespid.  A yellow jacket which flew up her pants leg and stung her.  It was reported to me at first that Amanda dutifully carried her down the field.  Later, that was changed to dragged down the field and that on the way, K managed to bump her head on a rock.  Say what???  Well, anyway, K is allergic in a serious kind of way, but she didn't want to go to the hospital and when Valerie was called, Valerie emphatically insisted that Jonathan take her to the hospital immediately by which J calmly replied that well, she was still conscious and was using her inhaler....  Anyway, by the time they got to the hospital, K's upper torso was numb and she was having serious trouble breathing.  By the time I got there K and J were happily downing a vegan lunch of mashed potatoes, yellow corn, strawberries and other fruits and some other pleasant looking things on their very colorful trays in their emergency cubicle.  K had a few wires hooked up to her and was leisurely relaxed on the gurney which looked more like a pool lounge chair at this point.  I was certainly glad she was allright with her IV plugged in and her post chest x-ray composure which was anticipating release.  The moral? We didn't have any medical information on our interns and hadm't asked for any.  We had not asked them to sign a release either.   Nor do we have an umbrella policy that would protect us from lawsuit if someone, while on the property became injured.  I don't know if a bee sting would be a liability against us ( or would "Act of God" cover that?) or not.  I recieved my new commercial general liability insurance papers today and immediately put in a call to the agent to find out if we need to put such coverage on this policy or on Valerie's homeowners.  We will know sometime in the next couple of days.  In the meantime, we'll collect the medical info from our intern friends and have everyone sign a release who comes out to work on the farm.  I'll ask our lawyer CSA member if she might advise that we take other actions.  K is ok, thank goodness.   It's midnight, I've finished my ice cream so I'm going to bed.

July 14, Bastille Day

If a dog barks all night, one doesn't sleep.  Then it's hard to get out of bed in the morning.  Then there's a second dog who's barking really loud because he's a lonely, hungry English setter and he missed you.  Rather, he misses his breakfast.  Ugh.  Well, Valerie and I got the menu for our farm dinner done last night and I then costed out the whole shebang.  Since we will need to buy more plates, glasses, etc. etc. and have put together a really nice shebang, we are going to have to move the date forward into August so that we don't have cash flow problems.  I really do need to pick up those extra fifty 4 week old fat little chickens that a friend has offered me to rebuild my decimated flock ($150) and I want to purchase some goslings(16 @ $9 for $144).  Toulouse geese are nice to have around.  They are big and bossy and will add a bit of "je ne sais quoi" to the ambience of this place. I can't wait to be chased by a gaggle.   I got my weed wacker back so there are plenty of cut greens to go around for all takers.  I'm mowing down large swathes of very tall weeds and sometimes hit a wasps nest which rests near the ground.   Where's K when I need her?  Fortunately I haven't been stung yet.  The 10,000 rpm blades must confuse the vespids or I've just been plain lucky.  Spied some ripe tomatoes on some vines.  Amanda started a few hundred seedlings yesterday for the fall and I have trays and trays of sprouting potato seed to plant along with another round of beans, yellow carrots and parsley which the rabbits just love.  Elmer Fud is going to pick up some .22 ammo today and site in the gun and mentally prepare to shoot 5 tomorrow.  He's been sort of putting it off.  After all, he's retired a few years now from his Hollywood work. How to hunt a rabbit:  walk along a road and wait for one to hop out in front of you.  It will stop, thinking that you can't see it.  A classic mistake! 

Saturday, July 16

When was the last time it rained?  I don't remember. On return from market, I unload, grab the canvas chair and sit in the shade to think about what the hell I'm doing.  My back has been in spasm for the past couple of days- usually a message that things aren't resting emotionally (or financially well in my head).   A few cuts with the hoe one morning a few days ago and bang! it seized up.  Very debilitating.  Better now and I've decided to change my schedule.  Working non-stop and after awhile you find yourself moving in slow motion.  You just can't help it.  Just that there's no longer a beginning and a end to anything.  Not the day, not the week, not the month, not the season. This season ends, another begins. Then another and another.  All a struggle to get together enough money to pay the bills while worrying if you can repeat the processs next month.  What if it never rains again?  Bad thinking. My black and white American shorthair cat of 18 years (plus or minus as he was a stray), "Felix" died the day before yesterday.  He had feline aids from defending his territory once too many times and had dropped 4 pounds and developed a malignant tumor.  The Vet was really busy so we sat in the waiting room and I cupped his head in my hands and scratched him under the chin and behind the ears.  He kept looking up at me, eye to eye and purred.  I had him put to sleep and I cried.  The vet staff ushered me out a side door.  I buried him in a place of honor on the hill.  He used to jump up on my shoulders and loved to just sit there (and dig his claws into me with pleasure) while I hoed or did some other work.  He would wait in the drive to be picked up (we would stop the car and he would dutifully jump in, sit on my lap and look out the window as we drove up to the house.   To really show his appreciation he would lick me on the cheek then follow with a bite on the nose.  He ran the househould of cats and would decide who stayed and who went (i.e. other strays).  A vocal cat he let you know when he wanted to go out or come in.  When I lived in upstate New York, sometimes he would disappear for a few days and then return smelling of cheep booze and cigarette smoke but ultimately he chose to stay with me and loved the move to Pennsylvania.  I would feel better now if only he was on my shoulders digging in his claws and purring with a personal satisfaction of being on top of the world.

I'm going to start scheduling some time away from the fields so that I can feel fresh when I'm there.  Otherwise, it'll just be an endless sleepwalk.  To aleviate the financial concerns a bit and buy some more time I'm going to start executing some of my design work (I'll start with a pair of sculptural lamps which will have a carved stone body, sit on a cherry base and have free form rice paper shades) and restore a 18th century French armoire to sell. I'll start with the lamps.  They should sell well in New York and to do the design work I think will make the farming a little easier.  I could also hire myself out as a handy-man (which I already do for some clients back in New York) but I really don't care to do that work even though it pays very well.  I've aways known I'd get back to the design work.  This seems a good time.  On the other hand, I firmed up a deal today with Fasta (pasta makers) that will bring a special pasta or ravioli for the CSA members each month.  Howard's End will provide the supplies (herbs, vegetables, meats, etc) and Fasta will do the assembly.  We are going to be very creative.  I think this collaboration will be very good for both companies.  Howard's End will formalize it's fledgling herb operation so that Fasta will have the exchange benefit or fresh herbs and other produce throughout the year and we get the custom pasta. 

July 22.  100 plus degrees. 

Amanda and I worked yesterday when it wasn't quite as oppressive as it was today.  99 degrees I think it was but we distracted ourselves from the heat by practicing French as we went about our tasks and breaking every two hours or so.  By the morning we both reported that we had slept poorly with headaches.  We spent far less time in the fields today.  I did some banking, bought supplies at Nature's Pantry, picked up a load of compost (the attendant asked me if I really wanted to do that(?) and stopped by the brewer supply (posing as a hardware store on rt. 64) to purchase a carboy, yeast and a few other essentials so that I could make Yarrow beer.  Watering in the late evening followed by the collecting of hens and then a half hour trying to shoot the raccoon which had come in and was hiding under the coop's crawl space.  I don't know if I got it or not. Trying to load, aim and shoot a 22 with a flashlight in one hand was an adventure in itself.  J and K left in the afternoon to go camping and experience the rest of their lives and as if on cue, we have Wwoofers coming tomorrow night to spend a fortnight here.  Two young ladies who happen to be French and the reason for our lessons.  On Monday, I have a young man of 27 who will visit and determine (both parties) if there is a future internship for him here.  

July 24 Les Francais arrivent

Delphine and Johanna arrived last night.  At ten this morning,  Amanda returned from her brief overnight visit to J and K's camping adventure up in Pine Creek just in time for quiche, muffins, and juice with les Francais at the market table which we set up in the drive for the breakfast.  Johanna speaks a touch of English but not enough for conversation.  Luckily, my French which I had thought was gone forever managed.  Fortunately also the easy access to a French English online dictionary.  I will prepare each day with vocabulary study so that I will be able to communicate the farm tasks.  Thus far, communication hasn't been a problem.  We took a mountain hike following breakfast and then went into town for basic provisions.  Among other items, a large box of Cheerios among them, I bought a large bag of frozen whole fish which made their day.  Our two French wwoofers are from Brest which is a coastal town in Brittany.   Prior to breakfast, I sent out an email appeal to the CSA members to add money to their account.  This month is now officially the hottest July on record and the driest since record keeping began 116 years ago.  We've had  one tenth of one inch thus far.  We need to install the irrigation system immediately and will need at least a couple of thousand to do it. 

July 27 More progress

The member response to the Sunday email in regards to our need for an irrigation system has been very heartwarming.  As one member put it, "we are all in this together" and that's the feeling I get from all of them.  I will be staking out the pipe layout today so that I can get a pipe and valve count and go over the current plan.   I hope to rent the excavator wednesday of next week.  I imagine I'll be sitting in that noisy machine for about 12 hours.  Valerie always thinks that it's "fun" and that men love to run machines.  I like the machine because it can get a great deal done.  It's hard work though.  First, make a cut 40 feet long, 10 feet deep (graded so it will be slightly deeper at the beginning and less so at the end) and 12 feet wide.  All of that shale will have to go into the road which will make a good surface.  I will also move about 20 ton up out of the excavation (this is the cheese cave site and has been excavated down about 16 feet at the deepest point) onto the forest floor above so that it can be used as fill over the cave structure once it is built.   The sides will have to be tapered to lesson slippage.  A trench will be dug to the cheese cave foundation area and drainage pipe will be laid to allow that spring to trickle into the new reservoir.  Once the reservoir is complete but before it fills, a trench will be dug and four inch pvc pipe will be laid to the center with an "L" pointing up into the reservoir like a periscope and will have a filter cap on it where the water will flow in.  I will probably have to bring clay in to fill in the piping trench in order to prevent leaking.   The it will be all trench digging.  Four feet down to get below the frost line.  An upside down and flattened y to give it a good gravity assist.  One side of the y will towards the hoop houses and the other to the "duck pond" which isn't home to out ducks at the moment but a large healthy growth of blackberries which are just coming into season.  It will come along the edge of the pond- just off the berm and there will be a tie in to the water there (at least the option) then go to the edge of the forest and follow the slope of the hill about 15 feet off the forest down to the back hoops and lower fields with smaller 2 inch piping junctions along the way to service the maze and the"triangle" field.  It will also be able to service the tilapia fish/hydroponics operation in the future if we decided to do that project. 

Evening     Quandary?

My brother called me this evening and admitted that he's having serious difficulty with his crops this summer.  The heat in Kentucky just won't bakc off from the 95 degree temperature.  He's been farming for over two decades.  I know it's a bad year if he's having a rough time.  Valerie suggests that I not install the irrigation system.  Her reasoning: I've been trying to make this farm work for three years now and I still can't pay the bills.  I reply that it's still a new farm.  When is it not a new farm?  Five years is my reply which is a non reply really since I don't know what to reply.   A new farm is one that is still in its' formative state. That I think is a good asnwer.  Perhaps then it takes a decade.   She makes a couple of points.  I need to be certain that the money I invest in irrigation will produce a system that will work.  I need to know how many gallons a minute the two springs are flowing.  My approach has been intuitive up to this point which means that I'm taking an educated guess.  I say educated because I believe that my guess is a good one.  That assumption probably won't hold up in science court.  Wendell Barry would say however that scientific measurements are helpful but if made in a laboratory not particularly relevent.  Agriculture is part of a great whole. It is harmonic. Why do we struggle?  We don't have water and we have poor soil.  We have worked the soil but we still don't have water.  Poor cash flow?  I am putting in more than I can take out.  It doesn't mean the investment is bad.  Relative to returns on many investments we are doing quite well this early on.  The enterprise has to grow a little more and once it does, a balance (income and expenditures) will arrive and then tilt to our favor.  It takes time.  With the irrigation system in within the next two weeks, it will take an additional two weeks for the plants to respond unless of course we see significant rainfall.  Doubtful...  In the meantime, I have to begin a new enterprise which is the arts and crafts catalog. At lest it is part of my overall "monastic" view.   I would rather not do this as it is more a distraction than anything else but I need the cash flow now so there you are.. and by the first of August we will submit the kickstarter.com proposal in order to raise money for the hoop houses.   If successful that will bring in $6,000 in November and December(?)  We will start the (online) catalog the first of September. In the meantime I have 30 days to start putting together the catalog items.  One a day should about do it.  I only need a sample of each example to start (I'm dreaming!).  First, however, I am going to re assemble the early 18th century French armoire and see if I can get a quick sale of $4,000 (quick sale means in the next 6 weeks).  It is quite rare and beautifully carved.  The other thing we will do is mount a CSA membership campaign(mid August).  We could use ten more members.   We might be broke but we aren't as broke as last  year.  Last year, my labor costs were higher (for the amount of labor I was getting) and enough wasn't getting done.  We are doing much better having reduced the costs to a pittance via the use of Wwoofers and the internship program(my feel good goal is to be able to hire a full time manager the year after next).  I am suffering from burn out and yet Amanda, the Wwoofers and various part time helpers/friends, etc. are so cheerful and full of energy that I find a way to keep going as well.  In fact, I am less depressed and grumpy as usual and I might venture that I am going through a gradual personality change for the better!  Ah farming, what a life!  The game isn't over and I'm not going to quit.  Starting any new business is a tough nut to crack.  Especially in dry weather!

July 29 Rain and Ravioli

It started raining mid- morning yesterday and was off and on all day.  A good steady rain most of the time which is the most helpful. I had been digging a bed in the morning and the soil was a parched mass of crumbles.   Spent the afternoon and evening making Ricotta "Impastata" and the girls boiled four chickens for deboning.  Boiled six more this morning as I had mis calculated.  It will take 10 chickens to get 20 lbs of deboned meat.  We are saving whey from the Ricotta to use for pickling and the liquid from the chicken's pots for stock.  

Did a gallons per minute calculation on the two springs up by the cheese cave.  In a drought, I calculated the minimum to be 720 gallons per 24 hours.  I've estimated that if crops are watered every third day and given a quarter inch per square foot, then without rain I would need a reservoir capacity of 6,000 gallons if I have 8,000 linear feet of beds 3 feet wide.  I miss calculated the capacity of the proposed reservoir (35,000 gallons).  A 40 by 12 by 10 is only 4800 gallons so I'm going to increase the width and or length to bring it up to 8,000 gallons.  I am also going to tie in the existing spring into this new system and will dig a 20 by 10 by 10 reservoir up there if there's time.  That will give me 2,000 more gallons and along with the 4 inch pipe capacity (1100 feet @ 1 ft a gallon) and the existing capacity of another 750 gallons, I will have a capacity of 12,000 gallons when all is said and done (there will be 2 inch and one inch pipe as well and a dozen or so 55 gallon drums in service in the hoops).  I plan to use the corrogated HDPE drainage pipe as the primary 4 inch conduit.  It runs about $65 a 100 foot coil and is half the cost of the pvc option.  The trenching across the top of the field will serve a secondary purpose as well.  In very heavy downpours, the excess water will be diverted away from the entire field and flow into the brooks which run along the forest edge and through the walnuts which separate this farm from the 50 acre "Big Field" which abuts it.

July 30 

Market breezed by with members stopping by to pick up produce and drop off checks.  We are still short of funds but have enough to get started.  Plans for a Howard's End gift Catalog are in the formative stage with a promising list of items.  The projected start date is September 1.  On the way home from market I thought of making majolica pottery pieces in the form of vegetables.  A very popular item in the late 19th century with cheap look alikes popping up every once in awhile, the real McCoy should sell well.  Strawberry tea cups with lids, a huge eggplant soup bowl, and of course our signature twisted carrot dish in the form of a long triangle should be good conversation pieces and sellers. I'll get started right away meaning today.  Also on the schedule for this afternoon/evening is to get one of the chicken gates properly installed and hook up the drip irrigation for hoop house number two so that it can be used tomorrow morning.  Ten past four.  Time to unload the truck and get started.  

June 3- Friday

Amanda, our third intern arrived yesterday and is housed in the big house while I try and get the larger of the two bedrooms on the second floor of the "residence" complete enough so that it is comfortable for the duration of her stay.  Though there is a great deal of planting and other tasks to perform, it feels good to spend a half day each day upgrading the residence and bringing it closer to completion. Once the room is in reasonable condition, with a carpeted floor, door, closets, bed, chairs, etc. then work on the bathroom and downstairs kitchen will commence with emphasis on the installation of a toilet and sink and door for the bathroom and then a clearing of a third of the ground floor for a communal kitchen/dining area.   Perhaps I'll even get a front door on- incomplete (uncarved and without stained glass and an insulated core) but operational.  I'm not certain if the barn swallows will go for the intrusion- we'll just leave it open during the day and hope it doesn't upset their comings and goings too much. 

Sunday, June 5

J and I created two more "tumuli" today- both quite large.  Many of our tumuli are chicken tumuli as we start with the burial of a chicken or multiple chicks.   We are still encountering predatory problems but are getting them in at night- the one we lost last night probably got out at 4 am and paid the consequences.   I won't allow that to happen tonight- or at any point in the future.  We had our first Sunday luncheon and meeting in the shade between vehicles in the gravel drive with lemonade, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrots,  and a couple of hummus and cucumber dips.  Worked out days off for June, July and August and discussed the work for the week to come.  J and I then went off and got a large slate chalkboard which we installed in the residence.  We will now have a central point of planning.  K and Amanda spent the day working together in the "triangle" beds weeding the Fava beans, leeks, harvesting the red lettuce heads and pulling all that had bolted, and finished with the harvesting and processing of Kohlrabi and Collard greens.   Tommorrow will start off as a morning filled with the planting of seedlings and some direct seeding before we get into bed building (Jonathan and I- he to continue on the sweet potatoe beds and I on the salamander earth figure for the artichokes which are crying out to be put in the deep earth mounds there.) and harvesting later in the day.   The repaired tiller should be back on Wednesday and will be a help to speed up tilling and planting.  I expect we will put about 2,500 feet of new raised beds into service this month.  Potatoes and corn will be next week.   Caught a small bright green snake and passed it around.  Quite friendly but glad to be on its way when I released it into some tall grass.

Monday- Harvest Day June 6

My father was a navigator-bombardier on a B-24 when the D-Day invasion occured.   He flew a total of 25 mission before retiring as a Captain at the old age of 23 to teach younger men how to fly in Ireland.   He appears on the cover of a Life Magazine which carries the caption "Navigator-Bombardiers of the 8th Army Air Force" or something like that.  I can spot him right away looking somewhat debonair in the crowd of men.    He never talked about the war and his experiences except perhaps once telling the story about how there raged a football game on the second floor of a bombed out building with a sardine can as the football and how one yound gent got carried away literally when he successfully caught a pass and flew out a window but was unharmed.   He went on to become an Air Attache and work in intelligence in various emabassies in Europe or at the Pentagon when we were stationed back to the U.S.  He never discussed the war though he had good friends in ex-German fighter pilots and his job was a silent experience for us his family members. He wore the uniform of a Colonel and smoke and drank alot.   When we were out at my grandfather's and uncle's farm in Kentucky I think he enjoyed being there.  I think he might have enjoyed farming though I'm not sure what he would think if he knew that I was now farming.   He is at peace now and I feel better too. 

June 8 

Howard's End CSA is a full service CSA.  Not only do we cater to our paying members but the local population of young bunnies and groundhogs have decided to join too.   I practically steppend on a bunny which was too busy chewing on beet greens to pay me any notice and I had to shoo it away which it acquiesced but only reluctantly.  The young groundhog was less fortunate.  it met its end, quickly.   I think we will be setting hav-a-heart traps and see if that helps.   Mowing should help the problem by removing the cover.  

June 11

Two hours of sleep last night due to friction with one of the interns and a fierce rainstorm that dumped 1 1/2 inches of rain and kept me in fear of finding dozens of dead chicks for one reason or another.   Following market and the successful sale of many pounds of broccoli among other things it is agreed that teamwork is the way to go.  Four farmhands equals two teams of two, or one of four or a threesome (when I am out picking up compost or something).  This way, there are far fewer chances for one on one confrontations.   A better social atmosphere is created and the work effort of all workers are increased with the comraderie.   No one is alone, facing a huge project that stretches for hours.  Everyone has to pitch in and a natural rhythm is established.  Time for a short nap. Then off to pick up the repaired tiller which as sat, until now, in the field since last year.  It is only useful for the final top tilling of any raised bed but that is where all the seed rests so it will be a great help and pick up the planting pace a bit. 

June 17

This weekend marks the final push to get caught up with crop plantings.  18 crops need to go into the ground.   Upon completion of this list, we will be in reasonably good shape and can change our focus over to field maintenance which is seriously lagging , harvesting and successional crop planting.  Though we are signed up for the August 6 farm tour, I'm still very apprehensive about the whole idea.  We have to make a final decision by the 24th.     Our cash flow is but a trickle and I don't expect much improvement until August.  In the meantime,  I will have to find ways to improve it.  One idea is to have a "Dinner at 8" near the end of July at the farm- under the stars.  This dining event will feature a "country-grourmet" meal for let's say, about 40 people (if I can get Valerie to agree to this number).  We would provide everything but the wine (??) including our own brewed beer (if we can get started soon enough), some liquors, an herbal gelato and some artisinal pizzas baked on site along with some main courses and a salad.  The pizzas necessitate the construction of a clay oven which can be done.  At $30 a person, I think we could net about $1,000 which would complensate us for all the produce, chickens, eggs and labor that will be demanded.   Another income source will be the local grass fed beef idea and what holds up the commencement of this project is the anticipated formation of a new local butcher in Spring Mills.  It is currently in a formative phase and I imagine won't become a reality until sometime in the fall at best.   I may have to contract the local commercial butcher if I can- I understand that they book well in advance.   A third financial cog would be the garden ornament business which I have designs for but have yet to implement.  All I really need to do here is clone myself (or better- someone larger and younger than I) so that I can get down to business right away.  In the meantime I will just have to wait until the planting and the other behind schedule jobs get some progress under their collective butts.    I do hope to have a few prototypes around and about for sale by the time the farm tour rolls around.   In the meantime,  I need to fix the lawnmower and hook up the hot water heater today so I can feel good about myself a little.

June 18  Market Day

Amanda and K accompany me to the market so that I can hop over to Greenmore Gardens CSA , talk about chickens during their "open house" and take a look at their crops.   We arrive fifteen minutes before opening bell but manage to get set up in time.   The two interns are in great spirits and end up running the show for the day while I sit back, rest and laugh at their  humorous dispositions.   By market's end we've done over $150 in business, made our distributions and head down to "Nature's Pantry" to pick up supplies for various pesto and hummus recipes we plan to make for distribution to the members this forthcoming Tuesday.   A large box of seed from Johnny's greets me at home which is a welcome sight and I take the rest of the day off once the truck is unloaded.  Just can't do anymore.  Tomorrow, Sunday will be a long day of planting and I am determined to get at least ten crops in.  J and K will both leave around noon for four days.  The hot water installation has failed for some reason.   I will probably need to hook up the pressure tank after all and consult a manual to see what else needs to be done.  I also have CSA accounting to do which I have thus far managed to avoid.   That will be a Sunday evening task.   I could sleep for a week.  

June 28 Market Day Evening.

The last time I remember, I was in the truck returning from the Saturday, Market, talking to Amanda about Dairy Queen and listening to her describe Peruvian eating traditions and their spiritual world.   Then I'm in upstate New York, exhausted as usual, working out a new budget which this time is based not on potential crops but on the value of each distribution that we've been making.  It makes more sense.  We have hit distribution number 16 for the year.  There will be a total of 40.  My estimation now, based on the distributions, time of year, emerging crops and value-addeds coming and a look back at the fall distributions, is that we will gross around $65,000.  Enough to pay the bills, remove $16,000 of the red from our books and have a little saved to get us through the 12 week break which begins mid-December and ends at the beginning of February.   With each drink, the Peruvians bless the earth and we are planning a Big Feast.  The 29th of July.  Places for 40 people.  An evening of merriment and fine country dining under the stars.   Time to firm up the menu planning.   Time to make the artisinal beer and build the artisinal clay oven for the artisinal pizzas that we will serve.  Time to get those damn artichokes into the Salamander beds.  Time for the Salamander to make its' presence known.  Time to bang the bend out of the lawn mower blade so I can cut more grass.   Time to do alot more planting. Time to start planting for the fall and time to mound up the earth around the leeks so that they will become fat and tender.   The interns are putting in longer hours.   I am told that yesterday K stood up in the field and exclaimed that she hated farming.  She kept on farming and both she, J and Amanda worked very late in the kitchen makeing Basil and Garlic Scape pestos, pizzas, and spinach hummus while M and Valerie made scone and pizza dough.  I arrived just at midnight and everyone were still in the kitchen though somewhat dazed and quiet looking.  I was a bit dazed myself having spent a ten hour day shingling a roof before driving the 5 hours to return.  Up at 7 (late!) and everyone pitches in to wrap things up and get the truck loaded.  I run off to a local market to purchase the odd vegetable, eggs and cheese from some of my amish friends to supplement what we already have.    The yogurt is no good due to a small error but we have extra so it doesn't matter.  The distribution goes well though I feel battered and jet-lagged.   The farm is coming together though and that thought will make this week a good productive week.   We will get the planting done and get some clean up and infrastructure work in too.   We will also try to get those pigs again this Friday.    Maybe build a giant See-Saw for them.  One on either end. I See this pig and Saw that one.   I'm thinking seriuosly about working up an outline for a farm radio show.    I wonder how the interns will do tommorrow.  I have a local "intern" candidate comeing to visit on Thursday.   Time to go to sleep.

One of the events that we will hold in 2012 will be entitled "The Central Pennsylvania Boules Championship" and will consist of a boule tournament naturally, a barbeque roast of our chicken, duck,and local pork and goat along with a large smatteing of vegetables.  The highlight along with the many boules courts that we will create (all over the farm- using unused bed rows and the flat area down at the residential area), will be the beer tasting.  I figure we'll make 6 different beers- an India Pale Ale, a Belgian Ale, a Chocolate Stout, and so on.  Everyone will be able to sample the beers and will get two or three bottles to drink as part of the package deal (so we won't be selling the beer at all), which might run $20-25 a person.  Maybe we could hire the Alleghany Ridge Runners to play music for a couple of hours.  I can't wait!

The Marathon Month of May

S, one of our more friendly neighbors, stopped by last night (May 2nd) with a large bag of wild and impeccable morel mushrooms.   During the conversation that followed, he casually mentioned that he had already harvested around a thousand over the past couple of weeks and figured there would be three more weeks of harvesting to come.  I'm sure my jaw dropped when he told me that.  Who deserves to find a thousand?  Could I come along on his next foray into the wilds, I asked?  He didn't say no exactly but No because people in their right mind don't pass on such information.   He said that it took him two hours to get this bag and he had to crawl on his knees and look under logs and so forth to find them.  "They charge $45 a lb at the supermarket", he explained.  I asked him if he would show me how to dress a rabbit.   He cocked his head and looked at me quizzically.  I said that I had heard they were good eating and that since he had been eating them since his youth, wouldn't he mind just showing me once?  "It's easy, he said- you make an incision, slip off the skin and with two fingers pop the guts out and you're done".  I insisted though. "It's second nature to you but I've never done it. I've never shot a rabbit but I have CSA members who would love to have some country rabbit and everybody says they're delicious so when I shoot one, can I bring one over?   He looked at me funny again and said he wouldn't show me where he got the mushrooms.  They were perfect and delicious.  There is still a bowl in the refrigerator and since all of the raised-bed building is wearing me out day in and day out, I think I will take a break and look for morels.  I actually have a good idea of where to look but I'm sure not going to tell you.

I don't even want to make an entry for this month as there's so much to do.  I would rather whine and complain but there isn't even time for that.  Basically, all beds have to be completed and those that aren't have to be double dug for the most part, amended with compost and horse or cow manure (aged) and sand (sometimes) and it has to be done by hand because the earth is a mud sponge with all of this rain we've had.  Another inch or two today. Yippee! We manage however, planting spinach (with our new Earthway Seeder J and K put together yesterday) and 300 tiny leeks by hand.  I gave J and K my "State of the Onion" speech this morning.  It made me feel better.  I've been very grumpy.  Spring has stalled and new members are slow to join though we haven't lost many.   The sun makes an occasional "guest" appearance and even the non farmers are complaining.   I apologized to K and J for being grumpy and philosophized that whatever we managed to get done would be just that and yet I stick with this pill- we've got to get it all done. All beds, all crops in, including the maze beds where such non essentials as Jerusalem Artichokes, Gooseberries, Huckleberries, Red Raspberries,Winecap mushrooms, Currents of the black, red and pink champagne shades and trellised pears will reside punctuated by the occasional rose arbor at the entry points with sculptural accents to boot.  Why, CSA member Laura, sent over some of her visiting relatives from Nova Scotia to visit and following the tour which I was happy to obligingly give since it got me out of work for a half hour showed me an e-picture of two life size ceramic pigs that were seeking a home via a PSU master's candidate.  The prospect of housing two ceramic pigs got me excited.  I called Laura right away, anxious to get the ball rolling and discuss various scenarios for their placement.  In the herb garden maybe or suspended upside down or sideways from cables in the forest for a real avant garde visual experience?  Anything to keep my mind off the impossible dailly task lists confronting us this month. 

Wednesday,  May 4

Last night it stormed an inch of rain so planting today was out of the question.  Instead, K and J set fence posts while I worked on the maze beds despite the waterlogged soil.  Following a number of chores and other odds and ends tasks, I decided that we should take a 45 minute break around lunchtime to see if we could find some morel mushrooms even though the chance of such a discovery seemed remote.  J read from his mushroom field guide that morels preferred a clay if not somewhat sandy soil, and usually showed up near dead elms and around ash in clearings I think it said- not the dense forest.  This, of course being the right time of year.  We trudged through the forest awhile and found three small mushrooms that looked like morels kind of but they were very small and their caps were not attached to the stem.  We gathered them for futher investigation.  We also found something that resembled a chicken of the woods (or is it hen of the woods?) bright orange mushrooms and took one as a sample which found its way into a second bag.  I showed them turkey tails which is very common and found a downed red oak- still alive and quite large.  A perfect candidate for shiitake mushroom plugs or a few oak beams.   We eventually made our way back to a track  and left to once again travel in some lightly forested areas.  After a while I found one, then two more.  Walking a distance further there was no sign but then a cluster appeared.  At this point we were in a meadowed area and quite secluded.   We would walk a distance and enjoy the violets which carpeted the floor of sun dappled area and run into a cluster. And then another until we would reach the perimeter where they no longer appeared anywhere.  In my mind they are Pennsylvania's (and maybe the U.S.'s ) answer to the European truffle which is always surrounded in mysterie and suspense.  When we had finally made it back to civilisation and the kitchen we had collected three and three quarter's pounds and all in the final half hour of our search.  The next day when I returned to the site (I had hoped that I could remember how to get there) it took me all of fifteen minutes to gather almost as many.  As a mushroom, they are unique and truly majestic and unmistakably identifiable- at this time of year.  There is a false morel that grows in the summer and fall.  Secondly, we had samples that our neighbor had dropped off the evening before.  I would never recommend any wild mushroom gathering  of any kind unless you had verification.  We did. I doubt that we harvest any other wild mushroom for eating.  People are very protective of their "morel sites" and this has been a perfect weather year for them- probably the best in a century I would wager.  They are very difficult to find even with ideal conditions. If you have any thoughts about coming out here and giving them a search, don't.  That would be a serious trespass.  That's how folks feel about their morels around here.

Saturday, May 7

It has dried out a bit so planting is the schedule.  Carrots, spinach, sweet peppers, bok choi, kohlrabi, red cabbage, lettuce, leeks, beets, broccoli shallots and herbs are all on this weekend's schedule.  K and J are off to the Aauw big used book sale which Valerie and I helped with many other volunteers set up this past Thursday evening.  That was a very long day and by the time 9:30 rolled around, we were walking zombies.  Dead on our feet.  It has clouded over this afternoon and there is a chance of showers in the forcast.  The first shower though is the one that Valerie's dad has to take and I'm in charge to make sure he doesn't have a mishap in the bathroom.  The Saturday market opens a week from today and I have to make certain they have my insurance info and be in compliance with the new food regulation laws. 

Monday, May 9

A beautiful day and a change in routine.  Both K and J recieved a work schedule as did I.  This will be the practice from now on.  Though we didn't stay quite on track with the day long plan, I think we were much more efficient. I got a call from someone inquiring about an internship- a local this time.  She and her husband are planning on starting a CSA in West Virginia at some point.  Valerie spent part of the afternoon going over the dept. of ag new food regulations and we are going to have to get a couple of licenses and put together a conmmercial kitchen.  I knew it was coming so I'm trying not to be down about it.  There are so many bills coming due.  I honestly don't understand why I'm not in a panic.  I actually think we'll get through them.  I'm more worried about finding the keys to my truck which are now missing close to a week.  The field work is getting done.  I am constantly tired but keep going.  Must be part of a farmer's creed somewhere.  Got the front face of the new hen house in place.  Tommorrow it will be attached to the shed roof which will give it additional stability.

Sunday, May 15

First market of the season yesterday and we get our act together to make it even though the truck is out of commission and K and J are not familiar with the last- minute- rush routine that I usually engage in.  All in all it goes well.  With a large blackboard to be installed in the residence today with a calendar adjacent, we will start scheduling all season events from the daylies to the monthlies so that  we can keep track of all that needs to be done without having to rely on my incomplete memory and sometimes whim.  Talked with J at the market and he mentioned a number of issues, one being that I often don't give he and K enough information in regards to the tasks that they are to perform.  I on the other hand, don't want to impose or babysit too much.  I think this means a bit more organization and preparation (information wise) on my part. Between today and tommorrow, we have a long list of planting tasks to perform and some bed building.  Aside from the black raspberries and redraspberry transplanting (the maze beds are coming together and are confusing) we will be putting in more peppers, leeks and red onions.  Tomatoes, eggplant, fennel and beans will see their first rounds (under mini tunnels) and all the sunchokes will go in as some of them are beginning to rot- most are fine though.  I've decided to build at least 20 (if not more) large squash mounds using weedy turf, compost and mushroom compost (used) as a base. they would then be covered with a plastic mulch and planted in a couple of weeks.  The squash and melons should grow quite well in this mix and at the end of the season we will have more soil while reducing the weed base.  We will be using a weed-wacker to periodically knock down the weed base, but where they are the most prolific, I want to dig them out and add them to large compost mounds which we will place about the fields.  Along with the weeds and their earth, we will add horse and/or cow manure, worms and some kind of cover- probably weed block or we'll just keep piling stuff on.  They will come into use next year. We already have one large one started.  The chickens who manage to get out of their penned pasture spend lots of time there scratching.  As a result, they stay away from the crops and help mix it up and fertilize it.  It's not quite ideal as I would rather the chickens stay in their couple acre yard.  I think we will have to put a couple in for their pleasure.  The sweet potatoes arrived the other day so their beds need preparation and planting by next weekend at the latest.  Dozen hops plants we put in last year (some of which I thought were dead as I saw no evidence of growth) are all going gangbusters which means we will have to get a "Maypole" up soon with ropes and pulleys, etc.  I would love to plant some more now even just another dozen.  The herbs cry out for soil and growth so somehow we need to start the herb garden now or by next weekend at latest.  We have a good start on herbs with rosemary, sage, dill, basil, wild garlic chives, and who knows what else but we need more.  Going to plant a dozen oriental poppies in the courtyard garden but they won't be providing any opiates.  The wind wrecked movable chicken pen and the hot water heater both need to be dealt with these two days as well. Glad to have the light rain which we need and who knows, maybe another crop of Morels?  

One more thing about the weeds.  Well established and adapted to their soils they are swiftly vigorous in their pursuit of growth.  They have a tremendous jump on most crops that we plant which I think more the reason to save seed and I mean for all farmers to save seed.  Not necessarily seed for all that you grow- a collaborative effort between area farmers would help all in the region and perhaps put all in a better position to deal with Monsanto and the commodity cloud that lies over most of us now.  We would be able to develope a local seed base which would be adapted for the region and which would produce more vigorous plants naturally.  Let the plants do the genetic work.  They do it so much better than a laboratory in the long run.  Too many cases of unanticipated consequences from gmo's seed. 

Monday,  May 16

Monday is harvest day but we really aren't quite there yet.  We are doing some harvesting but most of the time rushing around, preparing and planting beds.  We planted peppers, tomatoes and eggplant today.  Not the goal that I wanted to reach but ok.  It will be up to Jonathan to pick up where we left off and get caught up while we are at market tomorrow.  In the meantime, the truck now runs as I have new keys to stick in the ignition but still a flat tire.  The rim is shot and so rusted it leaks along with the tire.  The mechanics can fix the tire but not the rim.  I will send J over to the auto junk dump first thing in the morning to fetch a rim for twenty bucks or so. In the meantime, I'll have to recharge the battery in the farm truck just in case we have to use it.  I can't even think beyond getting to market; that I'm supposed to be on my way to New York tommorrow evening.  I'm making ricotta and yogurt this evening while washing and labeling the eggs from our rowdy, pen escapee chickens and discover that the refrigerator that is cooling the spinach in fact has it partially frozen.  I had turned the setting to the lowest for the mushrooms I had kept there in the past and had forgotten to reset it.  Now the spinach sits out to thaw so that I can assess the damage a little later this evening.  Next will be the local cheese cutting and pakaging and then on to making the scone dough.  Once the kitchen chores are done, I'll put a charger on the farm truck's battery and hope for the best. I hope 6 am won't be too late to get started tomorrow.

May 19  The rain in Spain is mainly on the plain....

Three and a half inches between today and yesterday but J, K and I are joking around, hauling compost and wet earth with the wheel barrow pointed backwards finding that pulling through the less than solid ground is the only way to get things done.  A wild drake mallard makes a wide landing arc near one of our domestic more "educated" hens and tries to mate as the hen plays "catch me if you can around the courtyard" before flying off to rejoin his brethren who are in a holding pattern above.  J and I are building two squash (or melon) "tumuli" a day for the living rather than the dead but the last one being the beggining of the first for tomorrow does house a hen which passed away unexpectedly last night.  I've just purchased an egg incubator and a book on that subject so as K is planting basil and tomatoes she is reciting  helpful information that she has thus far gleaned.  We've given up on the duck hens raising chicks as they spend most of their time away from the nests and eggs they've made leaving an open invitation for the racoons and crows to help themselves.  I will  have the outer maze beds which define the perimeter of the puzzle ready for sunchokes tommorrow.  We'll get some of the black raspberries in situ on the "serpent mound" which is only a ghost of what it will become and some of the reds transplanted to their final beds which meander in confusion  and give the maze its' figure.  With all the torrents of water weaving a zig zag down the hillside amidst the raised beds I'm wondering if I could make some jumping fish sculptures that would be placed strategically where these rivulets are strongest and add some whimsical fountains by allowing the waters' force to come in the back of the fish only to dramatically shoot out through the mouth. No need for any pumping here!

Sunday,  May 22

Started at 9 am this morning after a generous breakfast of the best pancakes made by Valerie and finished up at 9 pm.  K, J, Valerie, and I got fennel and huckleberries planted, bok choi thinned and transplanted and fava beans weeded and topped (took off the growing tip so they would branch out).  K and J weeded the celery and Valerie worked on the spinach beds.  I worked on the maze.  I felt like I was building a miniature panama canal with the high humidity and an endless dig and shovel routine but the beds are coming along well and we should be able to plant about a 150 feet tommorrow in sunchokes, peppers and more huckleberries.  I also built two more "tumuli" and buried "necky" one of our hens that had been attacked about a month ago and survived but with a very serious neck injury.  She had trouble eating so we hand fed her alot and put her in isolation every once in awhile to make certain she was getting enough to eat since she couldn't compete with the other birds.  We all thought she was going to make it and be the featured "frankenstein" of the flock but we were wrong.  Well she gets a whole tumuli to herself.   I think we'll plant the squash blossom squash on that mound in memory of her.  The maze beds are almost three feet high and it is exciting to see the whole thing take form.  Alot of earth moving though.  Must be over a thousand feet of beds.  I got the head of the salamander bed done and tommorrow I hope to get a body section and the left front arm done as well.  Since we are running short on time and the herbs must be lanted, I'm thinking of planting the arms and legs of the salamander with herbs and the feet  with flowers if we get to the feet that is.  We need to get four beds of beets, turnips, shungiku, and broccoli raab done tommorrow as well. It will be a tight day as the kids have to go to TOG in the afternoon.  Did our swiss chard seedlings make it?  We probably need to start more squash, sunflowers and set up a better sprout operation which is currently quite haphazard.  All young chickens come out of the coop tommorrow morning and go into either chicken tractors or large grassy pens.  A long overdue move. I have to finish the installation of the hot water heater by the time they return from TOG.  Tommorrow will be a 7 am to 11 pm with no room for hail and thunderstorms which are forcast.  A tornado with a 3/4 wide base hit the town of Joplin, Missouri (pop 150,000) today and the devastation sounds very bad.  We are so very fortunate to not be in "tornado" alley..

May 25  Managing Interns

I have to go to New York for three days.  I wish I didn't but I've put it off for months now and there is unfinished work started over the winter that needs to be completed and as the pay is very good, the accounts could use the money.   I will work up a schedule for J and K for the time that I'm gone and for Theo who will be in tomorrow to put in some workshare time.  The primary scheduled jobs will be bed preparation, weeding and planting and along with the chores such as feeding the chickens and ducks and collecting eggs will fill out the days.  We will not be attending market on Saturday as I will have the truck.  Both interns have expressed the desire to have a more structured schedule and I agree.  With a large blackboard as our starting point the weeks are going to be mapped out.  We will start with a listing of tasks in order of their importance.  That already presents a problem especially if all of the tasks listed are or are of near equal importance-  everything needs to be in the ground at this point, all beds need to be completed for planting, all hoophouses need to be in place, etc. etc. So we will simply do the best we can and make choices and decide which crops can be delayed a bit longer and so on.  Thus far we haven't lost any.  I just hope I can delay the sweet potatoes until next week along with the artichokes.  I think they will be ok.  Another change I am going to make in regards to the interns is to spend more time working in tangent with them.  My tendency is to give them a task and then go off and do something on my own.  Not always but very frequently.   K asks many questions all the time so I have realized that they need more structure and oversite.   With each weeks' task list will be an outline on the proceedure of each task like you would find in an instruction manual. (hopefully a good one written by someone who's first language is English).  These changes I hope will improve my communication skills and add clarity to each work day.  J and K are both eager to learn and willing to work without constraint.  I just need to provide a little more structure and timely information. 

May 31  Wrap Up

We did not accomplish the goals that we aspired to.  60% of the fields are planted, no more. I left for New York on Friday last to complete some non-farm work (roofing, floor refinishing, antiques restoration) that I had started months before and brought in much needed extra cash for the farm.   I had delayed my departure until I felt confident that the planting and bed-prep tasks that I had given K and J would be completed and on Sunday when I spoke to K she assured me that all had been completed.  Not true.  Half done. They are scheduled to return this afternoon. Will they make it this evening or tomorrow afternoon?  My bet is on tomorrow or at best very late this evening.  It's a management problem.  My problem.  Dailly tasks need to be spelled out on a large central board and the most important of those tasks noted.  Once a task is completed, then it is checked off. Once Amanda arrives, we will all work in teams of two and the teams will be alternated. start times will be standardized and the lunch hour will be better managed.  I'm going to consult with some other farm managers to hear how they structure their workers and deal with personnel problems.   We've had a heat wave these past few days and Valerie picked the first strawberries yesterday and by today with the help of Adam- a friend of her daughter M- collected enough for about 18 pints which were quickly dispensed at the CSA pickup today.  I was surprised to find some good looking Boc Choi and to discover that much of the lettuce was going to bolt.   The sugar snap peas are climbing our home made trellis which are made by ripping 2 x 4's by 8's into half inch by 8's and with stakes cut from the same half inch stock, and horizontal rails screwed in across the tops, all that is left to complete the trellis is natural bailing twine (very cheap) which is woven horizontally and in parallel strands from one staked post to the next using bent brads as a hook.  You could simply put in screws to catch the twine instead of going to the trouble of hammering in hundreds of galvenized brads and then bending them over to make the hook with a pair of needle nose pliers.  Definitly a winter project.  It all goes up and comes down easily and the parts should be good for at least five seasons if not longer.   We will use these for some of the pole beans but will also try planting corn and then in between the corn plant pole beans to see how well that works. The greatest concern now is to get the squashes, melons, cukes, artichokes, beans, okra, remaining tomatoes and sunchokes and God knows what else in- Malabar spinach, Nasturtiums (the climbing type), Amaranth (?).  What's the use. On Thursday I am going to pick up too enormous (full size) ceramic sows (yes- pigs) for our sculpture garden (which begins in the maze).  The will start their lives here with a few coats of a linseed oil-turpentine mix to help them resist the elements (as they are unfired ?) and will each be assigned a colorful umbrella (which I will paint a la Picasso) and will be partly dressed.  The umbrellas will protect them from most of the imclement weather until we can figure out something more interesting.... but first we have to get Amanda's room together in the residence and there are ten sheets of sheetrock that need hanging... and my ears are a genetic throwback- they look like they belong to the "wild man of Borneo" with all the weird wiry white hairs coming out of them...

April 8

March stayed in the temperate zone of February for all of a handful of days.  April is up to no good as well thus far with periods of rain, a short break (so that we can get out of our wets and into some dries) then periods of rain followed by rain with a bit more rain to boot.  It reminds me of that Mony Python skit about Spam.  A guy sits down at the diner counter and would like to order something without spam in it- he doesn't like spam.  "Well,. we've got spam, spam, baked beans and spam - that's not got too much spam in it" and so on.  When Ross Perot spoke of the "giant sucking sound", wasn't he referring to the soupy, gluey mud between raised bed rows?  All I need is about 50 pounds of gear and I imagine I would experience what many GI's did during WWII or WWI for months on end.  Months.  I work for six hours, slogging earth, compost and battening down each amended raised bed with a plastic mulch cover once the drip irrigation hose is in place and go on to the next one.  Most rows are 50 feet long, some are 100.  We have nice, large healthy seedlings of lettuce greens, kholrabi, broccoli, and  red and green cabbage that need to go in by tommorrow.  The cly earth is wet and heavy with bits of rock still clinging here and there.  More fava beans and sugar snaps to plant as well.  Onion sets need to go in immediately too.  Beds are prepared for scarlet queen and tokyo white turnips, parisian market carrots, chioggia and golden beets.  those beds I expect to plant on monday.   Most of these crops will have mini hoops and and mini plastic tunnel or row cover except the fava beans and sugar snap peas.  The ducks and chickens are all over the field.  The ducks work the canals between the beds.  Currently we are the Venice of central Pennsylvania with a network of canals reminiscent of an Italian water garden.  The ducks absolutely love it, the chickens with their multitude of happy meals to be found in every clod of mud is a worm. I watched one of the smaller hens suck up a worm that must have been about 8 inches long and the thickness of my small finger in one slurp.  One.  Lately, Valerie has been bringing home spaghetti from preschool lunches (?)  which we feed to the chickens.  They love it but they love worms more.  I'm gradually setting posts to sequester the chickens to the lower forested area.  I'm guessing there's about 3 acres there for them to peruse.  Otherwise, they'll peruse our planted beds into oblivion.  Every once in awhile, when a hen helps herself to one of our seedling trays when we aren't looking I have to give it the boot in the fanny treatment.  It doesn't hurt them at all but it really seems to injure their pride somehow.   They run away as if mortally offended.  Sometimes they return a half hour later as if nothing ever happened but usually not until the next day. 

April 12

"Coming out of left field" and starting to farm at the age of 55 is hard for me to believe except that I ignored the "55" part and with my optimism and tendancy to be unrealistic (but studious and motivated ) went ahead and believed I could do it.  Put together a farm out of fields that were dirt poor literally- untilled fields for the past 40 years or longer made up of a heavy clay and rock laden skin that didn't want to yield to any effort.  Crazy.  And yet now there are earthworms everywhere and the soils- still heavy in many places, they begin to breathe.  The raised beds warm quicker as they should and let go of the excess moisture we've been getting a little quicker.  It hasn't quit raining but we are planting. We are behind but I'm getting a "pick-up" on my seed germination by germinating the seeds first before putting them in the soil.  Still, I make mistakes.  Bad ones.  I didn't clean the chicken coop thoroughly enough and as a result the 100 peeps that I got nearly two weeks ago have been reduced to 30 or 40- they had not been inoculated for coccidosis and I didn't feed them medicated feed.  Last fall I got the same barred silver cockerels and treated them the same way and they were fine.  Maybe they got a chill this time or maybe their luck ran out.  Well, obviously it was theirs and not mine.  I'm glad I've got interns coming this weekend.  Then perhaps mistakes like this won't happen.  When I see Jonas, my Amish friend, I'll see how his chicks are doing since he got the same ones from the same place. I'll ask him if I can see his set up.  One of the problems around here is the long list of projects that need to be completed and the lack of sufficient help up until now.   Valerie has been finding ways to chip in more though and her help has lifted my spirits.  We had a distribution today and those who participated ordered well.  It's a push to get the pizzas, scones, yogurt, and ricotta cheese made the night before and morning of the distribution.  Usually something gets forgotten.  This time I didn't double check the count on the chicken orders and ended up short a couple.  Got everything else done however including the new Quesa Fresco cheese which I did manage to make despite my skewed interpretation of the final few steps of the process.  For the cheese press I got it half built and having gone to bed had to get up every hour or so to put the press back together since it wasn't balanced quite right and kept falling over.  The improvised weight was a 50 pound bag of lime so instead of a crash there would be this thudding sound.  The two, two pound wheels were a bit lopsided but they looked pretty good for a first round.  To my taste, the cheese had a bland taste even with the addition of the wild onion chives.  A good texture though.  I hope to make another attempt tommorrow or Thursday eve with improvements to the press and alot of herbs added to the curd.  I hope to save the remaining chicks and when the next 100 arrive in about 2 weeks I plan to be ready for them.  I just can't afford another die off.   In the meantime,  it's planting until mid afternoon followed by plumbing work to get the hot water, bathtub,  and bathroom sink working in the carraige house for the interns (with some mosaic tiles around the tub I hope).  Planting and plumbing.  Replace the manifold as well.  Pex and copper plumbing.  No way I'll call a plumber.   Will just have to study up and get it done. I've done it before. 

April 13, 7 a.m. 

I'm not an early riser, at least not until the interns arrive.  Then I'll be up at 5:45 for a quick bowl of oatmeal, a look at the weather and dailly planning.  It's raining again but should stop later this morning.  First, feed the chickens, ducks and cats. Check to see how many of the chicks have survived.  Second, set up the extra flourescents in the carraige house, water the seedlings and chit turnips, beets, purple kohlrabi, bok choi and fennel so when the seeds germinate they can be potted or field planted right away.  Third, set posts to get the chickens out of the upper fields by tommorrow.  Fourth, go to Lowe's and purchase a hot water heater and then to Bi-Rite plumbing for a new pex manifold.   Later in the afternoon, turn another bed and get another one or two hundred feet planted and some more compost moved.  Have to find the time.  Valerie is talking about shampooing furniture and cleaning windows.  Great ideas but I simply can't.  Have to find ways to get caught up on the planting.  Money is a problem too.  So far, just enough to get by.  Well, I guess that's better than nothing. 

Friday, April 15

Chitting seeds before planting them in soil is working beautifully.  I'm using the plastic covers that are used on the standard black seed trays and lay down a sheet of paper towels then spread out the seeds followed by a second towel.  Very warm water soaks everything but not so much as to waterlog it and then a cover of saran wrap goes over the top to keep the towels and seeds from drying out.  All of the trays have been sitting up on top of the kitchen cupboards where it is a consistent 75 degrees or therabouts.  The brassicas and radishes are very quick- just a couple of days and must be planted today otherwise the roots will grow into the towels which defeats the advantage since you will likely get root breakage when you try to remove them.  The radishes I chitted in a jar (standard sprouting procedure). The artichokes which have always taken ten days or so have also sprouted so they'll go into pots immediately and kept very warm.  It is very late to start artichokes at this point because they need a period of 50 degree weather to fool them into thinking they've gone through a winter which they need (to think they did) in order to send up multiple flowers (the chokes).  As soon as they have two sturdy leaves, they are going into their field beds on the salamander.  The favas have responded quickly as well.  I think I've picked up a week's worth of field time had I planted them out there.  They will go in today as will the sugar snaps which have poked their heads out of the thin soil of the tray they are sitting in.  I started them about 2 weeks ago.   The turnips are anxious too so they will be planted today as well.  Other work:  the chicken containment fence.  Posts are dug; now to set them in a bit of concrete to firm them up.  Then I can get the fencing on- perhaps this evening.  Yesterday a rooster and a couple of hens (in collusion no doubt) discovered the trays of broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and lettuce greens on the table in hoop house #1 and had a time eating the large leaves and in the process of doing that throwing seedlings and seddling six packs all over the place.  When I discovered  this outrage they had nearly finished off all of the large leaves and made a complete wreck of the table top.  I wacked them with some electical conduit (plastic) and sent them screaching.  If you kick a chicken in the pants (but not so hard as to cause injury) they will be so offended as to stay out of what is was they were in for the rest of the day usually.  Sometimes only fifteen minutes.  Plumbing work is on the schedule for today. Started yesterday and I think all will go well.  The interns arrive tommorrow evening so we've got a bit of extra time.  The apartment is taking longer because there's so much junk in it that has to be hauled out and there's dirt worked into everything.  Had a talk with Reich's the other day about the die off.  Ten chicks remain and it couldn't be coccidosis- not warm enough.  From now on, the coop gets scrubbed with a chlorine water solution to kill any hidden pathogens.  I don't know if any of the birds will make it from this batch.  I've asked for an extra shipment of 60 for next week and offered to pay since it most likely is my fault but they are sending them for free.   The Queso Fresco cheese was a hit at least with the feedback from two members thus far.  When I was handing it out this past Tuesday I was making excuses.  It tasted bland to me. Almost tasteless.  Maybe my tongue was out of order.  I'm making the same amount tonight (4 pounds) but the wheels won't  be a thick and I've built a new cheese press that can press 16 wheels at a time if desired.  Since there will be 4 tubes and forms to make the wheels in this time, they should be uniform and flat since balancing the weight will be easier.  

Sunday, April 17  Interns

K and J, the first of four interns arrived last night after a grueling 6 hour journey through torential rain and road accidents.  60 tornadoes touched down in North Carolina so I count ourselves fortunate.  The farm is once again a lagoon with 2 inches of rain and an already saturated ground it forms into pools, streams and canals.  The ducks are the only ones happy about all of this. For them it has been one long holiday and the holiday will continue with the forecast for the next ten days projecting 6 days with some kind of precipitation.  We will have wind gusts of up to 50 miles an hour today.  Already, most of the row covered crops are no longer covered.   We will have to get the chickens fenced in today.  The grain feed sacks which I have been saving will be used for "sand bags"- using dirt instead to hold the row covers in place.  They should do a better job than the stone with more mass and flat broad surfaces.  At 10 am this morning formal work will begin.  I'll give my "State of the Onion" address to these two interns who, I suspect, despite their previous farming experience, have no idea what they are getting into.  Come to think of it, I don't really either.  All there is is a very long list of tasks that must get done by the end of this month.  The carraige house apartment where they are now housed has never been cleaner due to the spectacular effort put forth by Valerie.  We will continue with improvements with the installation of a hot water heater and a washing machine which I think will fit in the utility shed and will serve a second purpose of drying leaf lettuces.  My brother showed me how- Once your lettuces are washed, you put them in a laundry bag and into the washing machine they go to be run through the spin cycle for a couple of minutes.  That will save us alot of time and hand cranking of the salad spinners! 

April 22

K and J have almost completed their first week here.  We have been planting up a storm- and planting while it stormed.   A couple thousand onions, close to a thousand fava beans (sprouted) and about the same number in sugar snaps which had developed root systems and a two inch stem having been on hold for a couple of weeks in between the deluges and soaked beds.  Celery, and broccoli added to the veggies planted last week.  We suffered some losses due primarily to high winds whipping off the row covers and plastic mulch.  Rocks are insufficient to hold down covers in 50 mile an hour winds.  We will change them over gradually as we fill grain bags with earth to create an "earthen" sandbag.  The greenhouse continues to suffer.  Where I did not replace the ceiling ties with trusses, everything was knocked apart.  The rear of the greenhouse droops once again.  More truss construction coming soon.  25 new chicks arrived to partially replace the 92 lost to some mysterious disease. K and J spent hours vacuming, scrubbing and spraying everything with a chlorine bleach solution.  That will be the regimen from now on.  Plan to put the "face" on the new hen house tommorrow.  It will eventually look like two 17th century dutch townhouses adjacent to one another.  Inside will be two 12 foot square rooms for two flocks of hens or geese or whatever needs housing.  I look forward to building it.  Finances are improving.  Ran out of money and overdrew the account.  Sometimes orders placed at Johnny's Seeds are delayed for an appropriate shipping time and I forget to deduct the amount ordered.  I try to keep a running balance in my head, checking the bank statement on line every week or so but this doesn't really work if your funds run low.  I will open a second account and all the auto debits and delayed payments will flow from that account while the checks and dailly debit card activity will flow from the first.  We will also start to use a savings account to set aside funds for the interns' payments.   With a budget of $6,000 for the month of May I can start paying down the debt load, get the reservoir built and irrigation system installed, purchase a few pear trees and current bushes, cover some construction costs including improvements to the residence prior to the arrival of the next two interns at the end of May, pay the bills and make a quick trip to Kentucky and New York. Busy times.  

Easter Sunday

Worked over the year's budget in between the eggs and sweet roll which gave me a buzz and despite the delays with planting and the hoop house problems we are still on track to gross just over $80,000.  We won't be able to afford 4 interns but can financially handle 3.  Really out of steam today and there will be a full house of guests.  Will start tommorrow morning with a couple of hours of planting.  That is our mantra from now on.  Plant until there aren't any beds to plant in.  Make more beds and Plant.  I'm going to order a half dozen "Pink Champagne" Currants from the Raintree Nursery.  I can't wait to harvest them.  Found another Elderberry bush/tree the other day and we have Ramps!  Going to start a Newsletter or on-line magazine with local farmers writing (?) or at least contributing.  It will be a many-voiced project and we'll just see where it goes.  I am convinced that the local people need to know more about the local farming, the farmers, the food and the politics of food.  Perhaps it can have a "bulletin board" fundtion as well.  Connect everybody. The CSA's, Farmer's Markets, local farms and their communities.