Chores part 1

Every day, pre breakfast at 7 am and post work at 4:30 pm we have a lovely part of our day. The first week I was here, I was on horses/chickens and pigs. There was a lot of grooming, feeding and egg collecting. The next week I was milking and taking care of our beef herd which is the most intense chore and I was really glad when it was over. After that I had sheep which involved moving their pasture in the morning and playing with them at night. This past week and this current one (due to the rotation switching and having new partners to work with) I have house chores which means cooking breakfast every morning and cleaning the house in the evening.

Chores aren't really that bad, though they all have their perks. Except cows, which drains your soul of energy between milking in the morning (I have it down to 30 minutes! woo hoo!) and moving their fence at night. The horses, chickens and pigs are fun since they're quick and there's nothing like seeing pigs eat. Sheep is great since it's a breeze in the morning and the evening involves simply petting them so they're used to humans. Number 60 bit my leg one day but I've forgiven her since she's the friendliest. House chores are kind of a pain since it's a bit stressful to cook breakfast for 15 people every morning but it's really nice not to have to go outside and to sip coffee and keep warm so early.

Black Radish Man

This is Black Radish Man. He likes to remind you to eat your radish juice. Sadly, he's getting old and wrinkled as Black Radish men don't have very long life spans. Eat your black radishes!

Driving Horses

Probably one of the coolest things we've learning so far is how to harness, hitch, and drive a team of horses. We spent two days in Brattleboro, VT working with Jay and his eight horses. I was really glad to have ridden before since it is quite complicated and Jay has high standards for his horses and for us.

We started off each pretending to be a 'horse' with our eyes closed and bailing twine hooked over our thumbs. The twine was held by our partner who was standing behind us and we walked around a series of chairs, tables and a wood stove (the scariest when your eyes are closed and you can feel it getting hotter). It was really neat to see how a horse might feel and how little pressure you needed to get your point across to turn left or right.

We then got out the lines (not called reins) and looped them around a post to practice gathering them up and our hand position.

Only after that could we go down and get the horses. We led them through figure eights around buckets until they were bored and we were dizzy. The point was to practice asking them to move slowly and take one step at a time, and for us to learn how to keep them behaved and communicate with them.

Jay and his wife served us a wonderful lunch from their farm and took us out for a drive in the afternoon.

We also practiced walking behind them steering which was incredibly hard.

The next day, in the middle of a storm, we took them out driving which was awesome. The wood stove came in handy for frozen fingers and we spent the afternoon practicing harnessing. All told, it was fascinating and incredible to have learned so much in two days!

And perhaps the best part... Jess the six month old foal:

Black Birch

No presentation on Black Birch is complete without some Birch Beer (high fructose corn syrup included!)

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.