Farm Week: August 19-23, 2013

The week on the farm chugged along like normal this week, after a rocky start in which I chose to mow a whole field full of chest-high ragweed (achoo! covered in yellow dust!). We feel almost caught up on the weeds these days, and we're on time transplanting and direct-seeding more greens for the fall. The boxes lately have been heavy but not quite as full. The only green we've been able to harvest consistently is the old stand-by, kale. The chard is recovering from some weedy weeks and heavy picking, and we haven't had salad mix in weeks because of the weeks of bad weather and fieldwork backups. Next week though, we should be back to bagging up salad mix. In the meantime, we've starting harvesting our potatoes for the shares, and we harvested our entire onion storage crop and stacked them up in the barn. We've also been harvesting fennel for the past few weeks, and the wonderful anise smell just brings my right back to Tuscany, where I spent a few afternoons harvesting seeds from dried wild fennel.

The biggest event this week was the inevitable but still momentous chopping off of all of my hair. For years, I'd been telling myself that long hair was easier to take care of than short hair, because you could always just pull it back. But one day last week, I woke up and just knew in my gut that it was time to cut all of my hair off again. No more long hairs on my pillow and tangled up in my brush! Hair that air dries in minutes! Fits in a hat and stays off my neck at the same time! I'm still getting used to it, but I definitely don't regret it.

Last weekend, I took the trip down to Red Hook, NY to stock up on some brewing supplies. I bought the ingredients for two beers: an IPA using our homegrown hops, and a faux-sour peach ale using beaches from a loaded tree on the farm. I harvested a whole grocery bag full of hops that I'll dry in my trailer before brewing with them tomorrow afternoon. The beautiful weather also means that besides homebrewing adventures, my weekends are full of outdoor activities this month. Two weekends ago, it was a hike up the neighboring mountain to a lake, where I paddled around, read a book, and ate wildblueberries off the shore. Last weekend, I went on a 3-hour hilly bike ride through a few of the neighboring towns and farming valleys. Tomorrow, I plan on hiking a small piece of the Appalachian Trail, which passes through town here. Never a shortage of fun!

Thinking about: comfort, flexibility, self-discipline

Reading: Colm Toibin's Brooklyn, Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller's Live from New York, Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook, James Beard's Beard on Pasta

Eating: Chicken and zucchini soup over sourdough croutons, sharp cheddar and green apples, fresh popcorn and homebrewed ginger saison

Farm Week: May 13-18, 2013

Another week of extreme temperature changes, from an overnight frost at the beginning of the week, to high seventies and sunny on Thursday. Last weekend brought some rain and some dramatic fog and winds to the valley, but we had a great weekend nonetheless. We stewed up a mean old rooster into jerk chicken stew, sat around a bonfire, and I even brewed up some beer. Unfortunately, the mad temperature swings this week made a consistent fermentation temperature impossible - hopefully the beer didn't suffer too much!

The chicks turned two weeks old, and are hale and feisty as ever. They're getting close to full feathers, at which point they'll leave the brooder for the great outdoors! We also ordered our next batch of chicks - this time fifty instead of twenty-five! We have two outdoor "chicken tractors" at our disposal, so we'll be able to get a nice rhythm going this summer with batches of chicks coming in every three weeks. That means that eventually we'll have batches going out every three weeks, which will be the harder part.

We opened up our largest block of field yet this week, preparing for a large wave of transplanting and direct seeding. The first step in that process was mowing the cover crop, which Dan accomplishes by driving his bush hog backwards over it, his reasoning being that with such a tall crop, the wheel tracks would leave a large portion of the rye intact. After Dan C. mowed, we hooked up the chisel plow and I did my first big plowing job. The nice thing about plowing up a large field is that you can drive more in figure-eights or loops instead of doing lots of tight little turnarounds after each pass. I had a great time, and it was oddly relaxing. The next day's task of rototilling that same swath was not as relaxing, however. The machine itself is louder, and is much more sensitive to rocky soil -  it was much slower, bumpier, and louder than plowing. I didn't have to worry so much about straight lines (as when rototilling and punching beds), the purpose being to mix the remains of the rye into the soil for a faster digestion.

Thinking about: pork possibilities, blooming, organic matter

Eating: jerk chicken and sweet potato stew, homemade meatballs and risotto

Reading: Dave Eggers' A Hologram for the King, Kelly Klober's Dirt Hog

Farm Week: April 8-12, 2013

Week two started in sun (and sunburn!) before reverting back to a frigid rain, but not before we had time to plow and till a few fields! We direct-seeded our carrots and spring turnips, got the peas in the ground, and transplanted some head lettuce and brassicas: kale, chard, cabbage, and bak choi. The continued greenhouse work of seated seeding was contrasted with the very physical rumble of the tractors and the flexibility and agility demanded by efficient hand transplanting, leaving us very sore the next morning.

I started my tractor education this week! After some basic practice driving a tractor around and (attempting to) back up a trailer, I got in some practice on my first three implements: the spin spreader, the chisel plow, and the rototiller. Spreading a custom blend organic nutrients is the first step toward preparing a field for planting in the spring, and it is a low-stress, high-dust introduction to the tractor. After emptying eight fifty-pound bags of nutrients into the cone of the spreader, I donned my protective eyewear (sunglasses), facemask, and earmuffs and headed out to the field. Then off comes the spreader and on goes the chisel plow. A much more intuitive tool, the chisel plow is dragged through the field at a depth of about eighteen inches in order to aerate and loosen the soil without inverting the soil profile too much. This trip to the field involved a little more coordination; it took a few passes before I got the timing down to lower the plow right where the row started and lift right when it ended. A chisel plow also shows you how mistaken you were about driving in a straight line. The third and most complicated implement we tackled this week was the rototiller. Far from your garden variety walk-behind model, this rototiller is over five feet wide, and when dragged behind a tractor at the right speed with the right power will make a bed so smooth and fluffy you just want to lie right down in it yourself. Running the rototiller can be a slightly nerve-racking experience. For one, besides lowering and raising at exactly the right time, you also have to stay in as straight a line as possible while also lining up in a precise way with your last row so as not to leave any untilled spaces or create ridges by tilling too close. As if you weren't concentrating hard enough already, each and every rock you pass over with the machine makes a clank so big you're sure that this time you've broken the thing. I tilled and "punched out" (drove over to create a bed and a tire track/path) six beds, and the whole time my face was frozen in a look of "yikes that wasn't a straight line at all what was that sound I'm not very good at this at all did I just break this thing?" When I was done, it turns out that the beds didn't look so bad after all, and the good news is that I'll only get better with practice.

In other news, fellow apprentice Dan C. and I put in an order on Friday for twenty-five Freedom Ranger chicks to be delivered in the first week of May. We plan on raising them for meat, both for our own consumption and to sell to any CSA members that are interested. Mostly, we're doing it for the learning experience, and if the first batch goes well, we might scale up production for future batches through the rest of the season. So look out for future blog posts on baby chicks in the brooder, chicken tractors, and adventures in chicken slaughter!

Thinking about: horsepower, routines, reciprocation, projects

Eating: sweet potato and black bean tacos; pasta salad with green beans, olives, hard-boiled eggs, potatoes and dijon-mayo; roasted beets, potatoes, carrots, and onions over refried borlotti beans

Reading: Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, Augusten Burroughs' A Wolf at the Table, Mark Shepard's Restoration Agriculture

Farm Week: April 1-5, 2013

My 2013 farm season has started with a cold front of frigid nights and mornings, combatted with a never-ending rotation of layers and plenty of greenhouse work. The heated greenhouse is full of trays in all states of germination - the earliest of spring greens, plus onions and their relatives ready for transplanting, and tomatoes getting a hot head start. Outdoors, the winter rye is waking up on the untilled fields, the chickens are starting to lay more eggs, and the peepers are signaling spring by the end of the week.

The week was mostly an introduction to Chubby Bunny Farm, which is a fitting way to start the "Farm Week" series here on the blog. Chubby Bunny Farm is located in the small hamlet of Falls Village in far northwestern Connecticut. Dan and Tracy are in their twelfth year running the business, and their tenth year on this land. The farm sits in a valley on the south side of Canaan Mountain, with 12 out of 50 acres currently in production. This year, the farm will provide over 250 weekly CSA shares starting the first week of June and running through the end of October. Besides the 12 acres cultivated for row crops, the farm includes a 60' heated greenhouse for starting transplants, and 60' and 100' hoop houses for season extension and some heat-loving crops in season. While the vegetable operation is the bulk of the business, the farm also houses a small laying flock, a family cow, and a few feeder pigs each summer. The tilling and some cultivation is handled by a pair of tractors of about 50 horsepower each, but all of the seeding, transplanting, most cultivation, and harvesting is done by hand. This year, I am one of four full-season apprentices living and working on the farm; besides all of our hands-on learning opportunities, Dan is very open about the finances of the farm and the reasoning behind his farming decisions. We'll also be participating in the Western Connecticut CRAFT program, which includes visits to plenty of nearby farms.

I also spent the week getting situated in my new living arrangements! We apprentices are living for the season in decommissioned campers on the edge of the farm. We each have our own camper, complete with a little mini kitchen, and we share an outhouse, utility sink and an outdoor shower between us. We're constantly making little improvements, like constructing a covering over the sink, laying out a stone floor outside the tub, cutting a path to the neighboring stream, or digging a fire pit. Right now, we're relying on space heaters, sleeping bags, and layers for warmth, but as the weather warms up we'll eventually be grateful for our placement in the coolest part of the farm. We have mostly no cell service in the valley, and our internet is limited to the twice weekly overlap of hours of the local public library and our free time, so there will be plenty of time for reading, writing, and reflection.

Thinking about: flannel, thrift, imminent spring, leafy greens

Eating: fresh, delicious, rich eggs; spiced chickpeas and carrots with fresh ginger; seeded rye and gorgonzola cremificata

Reading: Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture