October 31, 2009

Day Light savings time is ended. Standard Time, the “real time” based upon the sun’s highest noontime point, is back in effect. And although we get the hour back that we gave away last spring, it seems the very opposite…

The trees are speeding through their colours and are shedding their leaves to the ground, to re nourish their roots come next spring. Orion floats high in the sky, and the mornings are bearing sunlit frost…winter is coming. I can feel it. I can know it.

Here at the farm, there seems to be an unusually large population of wooly bear caterpillars this fall. I see them every where – in the stable, the hay barn, in the fields and lettuce garden, on the porch, driveway, and walks – so many that I need to walk with my attentions directed to the ground to avoid stepping on any. The other evening Kath reminded me that with so many, it will be a cold winter. The farmer’s lore says that if there are a lot of wooly caterpillars, and especially if their middle brown band is “short”, bordered by wide black bands, the winter will be a tough one.

And there are other signs of a cold winter coming….

The horses are telling me that it will be cold. All three are quickly growing thick coats, which they started back in the warm months of August. Zippy, whose coat is normally thin, is the thickest I have ever seen it in the years since he’s been here. Louie’s coat has gotten very dense and his mane is growing out, and Patrick already looks like a huge, unkempt wooly sheep!

Even Snoopie is fuzzy these days. It looks as if she’s put on weight, but it really is the thickening layers of fine hair building up on her body that makes her look fattened up.

The older chickens have finished their molt a bit earlier this year, and they have grown in thick layers of insulating feathers.

And then there are the bees. They are storming the sugar water feeders that I have set out, making every drop important. I have been refilling the feeders one, two, and sometimes three times a day when I am home. With very little natural nectar available at this time of year, they are taking the sugar water back to the hives and turning it into honey reserves for the winter. The bees innately know that the days for foraging are coming to an end, and that they need to make the most of these shortening autumn days to prepare for the coming winter.

The technological world has pretty much taken a stand and spun out “rational” data to disprove the farmer’s tales. I can understand the transparent fallacy of events like Groundhog Day, which is too farfetched, and theatrically staged for an insatiable media, but I still cannot necessarily discount all of nature’s foreshadowing. Nature seems to have ways to prepare for the seasons and take care of her self, and I feel comfortable trusting her on this one. And let’s face it, that even with Doppler radar and computer forecast models, man is still left to guess at the future, and nature’s odds of being right about the future have always been just as good, if not better. The signs that mother nature is showing me here on the farm are telling me that it’s going to be a cold winter and that I need to begin splitting the firewood…I’m listening.

October 25, 2009

I thought that I would ramble on a bit.

I was always taught to write in a manner that led with an introduction to a subject, then the body of the theme, ending with a conclusion that basically wrapped all the thoughts up into s few well worded sentences. Right now, I don’t feel quite like following form – and for most of us that is hard to do. We’ve been taught since childhood to follow forms. The result is that we have unsuspectingly standardized ourselves. Socially, it creates for us a safe, predictable way of living, and it keeps most of us on a one way street. Standardizing the population makes it easy for us to be grouped, led, and most importantly, marketed. We easily fit into “a one size fits all” box for easy handling and shipping. Maybe it’s why we’ve become such good Wal-Mart and Target shoppers. Pay less and live better, whatever that means. How’s that working for the people who make all that stuff that we love to throw out?

I normally don’t go to the big box stores. Once in a while I have to, because these corporations have bought out, or run every mom and pop in the area out of business, leaving me no other choices. But the real reason that I rarely go into one is that I don’t need too much stuff…have less and live better.

On to something else now…The other night Kath and I went to see a 40th anniversary concert performed by one of my favorite bands, Renaissance. Sitting in the audience, I really felt my age…it seemed everyone there had grayed hair. A year ago, Kath and I had gone to another concert, this one by Death Cab For Cutie…and there too I really felt my age. Most in the audience of kids had color highlights in their hair, piercings, etc, and when ever someone bumped me, he/she apologized with “I’m sorry sir! Are you ok sir?”

Maybe I am getting older – but not old. As I have aged, I have come to a change. I have realized that up until a few years ago I was a sort of gatherer. I went out into the world everyday to gather things for myself and my family to provide for our own well being. I was not necessarily selfish, but bent instinctively to hoard away reserves. Lately, the gathering instinct is weakening, and the giving urge is strengthening. It’s a good change. I feel better. If that is what getting older is, I am liking it.

That’s my ramble…I guess I should get back to farming.

October 15, 2009

Last week an owner of a tree company gave me a section of a hollowed log with a cluster of honey bees hanging tenuously inside. It seems his crew was taking down the tree when they cut into what they thought was a hornets nest. They sprayed it down with wasp and hornet spray and when all the bee activity ceased, they opened up the cavity to see the remains of a honey bee colony. The bees that came to me were maybe a thousand of what maybe had been a population of 10-20 thousand.

I took the hollowed section, bees and all, home and transferred them into a hive body containing a frame of comb donated by Bill, the area’s beekeeper’s mentor, and a few frames that I had around the house. Later I searched for the queen which I thought the odds of finding were zero, considering the colony had been sprayed down. I did not find her then, but until three days later during another inspection. I was really surprised to see her!

The problem now is this. The bees have no reserves of honey, and most likely the cluster will not be big enough to protect and warm the queen through the winter. In all likelihood, as it stands, the colony will not make it. At this point my plan is to keep feeding the bees sugar water for them to make honey, and maybe steal a frame or two of extra honey from another hive if their reserves are enough, to give to this new colony. With a little luck, that might work. The other option is to join this colony with another hive. To do that I will need to kill one of the queens, ‘cause there cannot be two. That involves playing God. No matter what I decide, their chances are better now than what they would have been.

October 14, 2009

I’m not quite sure why, but every time Snoopie and I go out to do errands, people tend to look at us a bit funny, and some even point at us. I mean, doesn’t any one else take their goat to the store, to get gas, etc.? Doesn’t any one else’s goat eat pennies from the coffee holder?

October 5, 2009

Sunday was the first distribution of the fall season CSA. I harvested mixes of baby lettuce and mild greens, radishes, and chard. I also gave everyone a bell pepper as my plants from summer are still yielding. Coming on are spinach and cabbage for weeks the ahead. Although not part of the fall CSA yield, I am still picking eggplant, sweet corn, jalapeños, and lima beans from what is left over from my summer garden. Its not a lot, but enough for Kath and I to enjoy. And to my surprise, I have been harvesting a handful of Heritage red raspberries every few days this week!

The eight chickens that we got in late April and raised from one day old chicks are just beginning to lay their first eggs. As it is with any beginning chicken, the first eggs are small, approximately half the size of a grade A. Over the next few weeks, the chickens will gradually lay normal sized eggs, and get into the 26 hour egg laying rhythm, although the colder months of winter will temporarily slow them down. Our older chickens – one is going on 7 years – are starting to molt, and have slowed their egg laying down considerably. Most likely they will resume laying more consistently next spring.

Keeping a flock naturally is a lot different than running an “egg farm”. There the chickens have been bred for peak production, are kept in cages, and at first molt, become chicken fingers. They are kept under artificial light to keep them laying, fed special foods, and given medicines to keep them from passing diseases through the crowded buildings.

I will gladly accept the egg laying inconsistencies to watch my flock free range, and live longer lives…

A week ago, I opened up my hives and checked to see if there was enough honey to “take off” for myself in return for all my bee stings. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. I was a bit disappointed, but it’s the way it goes. This year was not the best for honey production. Some beekeepers did rather well, but most saw a big drop off in reserves from previous years. Most blame it on the rain.

Honey bees don’t leave the hive when it rains, which means two things – they are not bringing in pollen and nectar, and they are eating “from the hive” – two negatives. Also the rain washes out the pollen from the flowers and sometimes the nectar, lessening availability for the bees. It makes it hard for the bees to supply enough food for the brood, let alone reserves for the winter, and any extra for the beekeeper. So hard, that a few area beekeepers have lost colonies due to starvation.

So I am counting my blessings. My colonies seem to have enough honey stored for the upcoming winter, and are healthy. I am continuing to feed them just to make sure. Still, there is no guarantee. Winning and losing is all part of the game.

I think that I have made this post long enough, so will stop here. I’ve got a lot of work to do today too, so I had better get along! More on the farm later!

September 28, 2009

This weekend has been solemn around here. Nittany, one of our cats, passed away peacefully Saturday afternoon.

Nittany was one of two cats that we had throughout our kids growing up years. The other cat was Sara, who came first, and passed away two years ago from what we suspect was ingesting rat poison used by a neighbor in his tool shed, on one of her escapes from the house. Along the way, we took on a third cat, Odie, who was a stray and shared four years with us before disappearing.

Kath brought Sara home from the Acme grocery store– a young girl was giving away a weaned litter of orange tabbies outside the exit doors to any takers. Kath was a taker! I named Sara originally as short for Syracuse, a favorite college basketball team. After about six months, we thought it would be best if Sara had a playmate, and the whole family headed to the animal shelter in Cape May to pick out a buddy.

For some reason, that trip still is pretty vivid and detailed in my memory. We had no idea where the shelter was, and it took forever to find it. It was at the end of a crumbly asphalt lane that ended at the Cape May canal. The shelter building was old and in poor, but sufficient, repair. Cats and dogs were in all kinds of cages and outside sheds and makeshift shelters...I was having a bit of trouble taking it all in, and while the kids and Kath went to look at the kittens, I took a walk out to the canal and watched the boats until I was called in to see the cat they had picked out. There he was - a ball of grey fur that we came to call Nittany, after a certain college that I had graduated from.

(If you have come to think that I name all the animals, you are mistaken. Odie was really Ude, named by my wife after her college, University of Delaware. Kath also named Snoopie, and other animals we’ve had and have! And our daughter named our dog Nana, and also several chickens. Allen named his duck... )

Both Sara and Nittany were “inside cats”, or house cats. Both were very different in personality. Sara didn’t like to be petted – one or two strokes and then she’d bite! Nittany liked to be petted – for hours at a time. Sara liked wet food; Nittany liked dry. Sara bonded with Kath; Nittany bonded with Steph. Sara was over active; Nittany was content to sleep all day (and night). Sara would play with toys; Nittany could not be bothered most times. Sara would sit on the window sill watching birds; Nittany would sleep on the couch. Sara was skin and bones; Nittany was what you might call plunp. Sara didn’t like the in-laws, especially a certain aunt; Nittany couldn’t be bothered to have an opinion. Both extremes are what made them special.

Losing Nittany this weekend was as if an era had passed away with him – the kids growing up. Now both are off to college and beginning new lives in new places. It brings back the memory of when I went away from home; I left behind my childhood dog, Sarge, who also passed away along with my childhood, but who is still a part of me today in daily memory. Just as I had Sarge, Kath grew up with a big lab named Rufus, who never left her heart, no matter how many animals and pets came after.
Like Sarge and Rufus were to Kath and I, these cats were just as much or more a part of my kids childhoods as their friends, soccer, karate, and high school plays. They were that extra brother and sister that they could always count on to be there, waiting, and listening...and they will be missed very much. They shared a very important time in our kids lives.

Sara and Nittany … we love you, and always will.

September 20, 2009

My daughter asked me why I didn’t post anything on my blog last week, as she was coming to expect one every Sunday or Monday. I guess I have been going through writer’s block - or maybe writer’s confusion. I seem to think about too many things that I’d like to share so that I can’t really grasp any one of those ideas fully enough to make good. And then when I do come up with something it sounds great in my head, but not so great on paper. Lately, every post that I have tried to write I have set aside for one or both of these reasons.

Maybe my reasons are a symptom of the things that are going on. I am working to get the fall CSA up and running between rainstorms. And we’ve adopted Zippy which I wrote about previously. Zippy hasn’t been acting right so we have been working with the farrier and now the vet to find what’s wrong. The vet was able to diagnose that Zips tore a tendon that attaches the splint bone to the cannon bone – not a serious thing, but painful to the horse until it heals. So I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and spending extra time at the stable.

Then there are my kids – both away at college. No real problems there, but still, they are my kids and will always be on my mind.

Add my day job to that, the rest of the farm and all the animals, crops, and bees, my blog, sometimes volunteering, and my duties as a Quaker co-clerk

So I am pretty busy which makes it very hard sometimes to relax enough to settle down and let things come to me…This hit home the other night while I was taking Snoops for a walk along the outer fence lines. Every so often I take her out there to eat the weeds, sumac, and mulberry sprouts that I can’t get with the mower. As we slowly moved along the fence row, stopping more than walking, I could hear all the cars and trucks going by on the highway that parallels the fence no less than forty feet away. Suddenly, it sounded like my life – rush after rush, faster and faster. And of late, fast and faster has not been fast enough.

The realization stopped me in my tracks. And I just watched Snoopy, just taking her evening one leaf at a time. A few yards away Louie was content, swaying that huge head of his left and right, rhythmically pulling on leaves of grass, without any apparent sign of anxiety. Beyond Louie, the chickens were gathering near their shed readying to roost for the night…and everything fell quiet, despite the traffic going by. The moment was almost like Quaker Meeting. There, in the small clapboard meeting house with its open door and windows, it is always silent, no matter how much noise the world is making.

I need more moments like those. Moments to just know that I breathe. Moments that will bring me back to ground and teach me that more than anything else I am a living being, and not an economic gear in the world engine.

I need to enjoy the quiet more often…and spend more time away from “time”.