Timber Framing part 2

Boring machine? Not boring: awesome.

Chiseling? Also awesome.

Our beam is starting to look like a beam, complete with a half finished tenon, three mortises and hopefully correct measurements.

Timber Framing pt 1

We're building a timber frame shed for our saw mill (ironically using the saw to mill the timber for it's own building... it's like a meta-shed). Upon hearing this news, I wanted to reply that I had built stairs for Savoy and timber framing would be no problem what-so-ever.

Instead of power tools and the measure once, cut five times mentality that I'm used to, we're doing as much of it by hand that we can. If we had time, we would probably turn the logs into post and beams by hand as well.

The saw mill is equally awesome and terrifying. Timber frame days are quite cool and while perhaps not completely focused on farming, it's nice to know how to do all this for when I buy a farm with a broken down barn.

Manure part 2

While parasites in farm animals are quite a headache, there are luckily a few ways to manage them. Besides rotating pastures, de-worming and keeping healthy flocks and herds, animals themselves create what we like to call a 'zone of repugnancy' around their own manure (you'll notice this if you ever drive by a field that has been grazed and there are lots of tufts of beautiful grass that have been left behind). Naturally, many jokes have ensued since it's an amusing topic.

To counteract these 'zones', we harrow them which is basically dragging a huge metal rake across the whole pasture to spread everything out. Strangely, my lacrosse stick is from a company named Harrow.

Harrowing is incredibly fun and we got a chance to do it both on the tractor and with our team of horses, April and Ruby. Theo and I helped Olivier harness them and attach the driving seats. Riding behind horses is akin to being on a roller coaster and harrowing a sloped field with them is as good as a trip to Six Flags (without the dippin dots, cotton candy and 64 oz. sodas).

After the horses were done for the day and back in the barn, we took the tractor out to finish. Earlier in the day we turned two manure piles and added the contents of the chicken coop to the newer one. I'm getting quite good at the tractor as long as it involves driving it in straight lines and doing fun things with the bucket.

Manure!

Yes, folks. This is what I'm doing with my Penn education.

We spent an afternoon at a neighboring farm spreading compost from his oxen (enormous creatures! not at all what Oregon Trail prepared me for. these would never drown in a river) in exchange for all the blueberries we can eat come this summer.

America!

How pastoral: sitting around after a long day of harvest eating apple pie (you'll have to turn your head but it's decorated like Hobbes). The real story? We made pie early in the evening when we still had energy and baked in it in the bread oven. By 8:30 we were all exhausted, laying on the couches and wondering how much longer we had to stay up. Five minutes post-pie and we're crawling into bed, ready for chores in the morning.

Tacos!

Tacos! For lunch!

We're in the middle of our gloomy last harvest day. There's nothing quite like hacking cabbage stems apart in a 70 degree downpour in late October. Sadly today is Nate, our head grower's, last harvest before he leaves us for a new farm near Amherst. We're making the best of it by cleaning out the lower barn all afternoon and having lots of fun in the mud.

Friday Night Lights

After one weekend spent in Athol, I was prepared for the lack of nightlife and another evening spent on the farm. Luckily, inspiration struck in the form of the Athol High School football game. Go Red Raiders! We pulled out a win against the Red Hawks (hometown unclear) and didn't win the 50/50 raffle while drinking hot apple cider. Can't wait for the next home game!