Old Man Winter flexes his muscles

The air is filled with blowing snow today as I look out toward the woodlot. Right now we've got about 10" of new snow, but it's being blown around so much, it is tough to say for sure. Old Man Winter has surely settled in for a while. The kids love the new snow, but I know it just makes my work harder, oh well.

We just turned the corner on the shortest days of the year. For the next six months our days will be getting longer. I know some people can't stand the short days here in the northern climates. I guess I'm kind of like an old grizzly bear, I just like to fatten up and wait it out.

I'm checking out the generator, just in case the power goes out for a long period of time. (Looking good is always important to the Farmer, here is proof) :-)



When the first days of spring come, we'll be out, collecting sap and making Maple Syrup again this year. If the weather allows, we're prepared to make 25-30 gallons of syrup. The sugar wood is all stacked away and waiting the warm sun of March.

The goats spend most of their days in the barn now, just going out to pasture when the weather is good. They like the sun, especially in the winter. The does are doing well and appear to be progressing quite well. I hope to have 6 does with kids this Spring. We've always just kept the milk for ourselves, but I hope to become a little more commercial in the next couple of years.

Here's hoping that this holiday season finds your family healthy and safe. Best wishes for a Happy New Year. Check back soon. I hope to spend these cold nights posting some neat stories and pictures that you might find interesting.

Goodbye and Good buy?

Yesterday we said goodbye to a nice old yankee gentleman. My Great Uncle "Bud" Wagg passed away on Thanksgiving evening, at the age of 89 years old. A WWII veteran, Bud landed on the beaches of Normandy, during the second wave of the D-day attack. I knew Uncle Bud to always be smiling and as such a great guy. Along with my grandmother, June Wheeler, now 90 years old, Bud and June were cast from the same great New England pioneer stock. We will miss him greatly.

On a lighter note, we recently celebrated Gideon's first deer, a button buck, killed with one perfectly placed shot. A quick kill, and hopefully the beginning of a love for hunting and for the outdoors. As his Dad and the "Hunter", I couldn't be prouder.


Well, just when I thought I was busy, we've done it again. We bought the farm! Here are a couple of "before" shots. I think there is a lot of potential here that we'll discover through the next couple of years.


You may ask "How old is the house?", well that is a good question. I'll call it an 1840's bungalow, rebuilt several times, with a touch of Craftsman styling. Now really the Bungalow style dates only to the 1920's, so I think that what we've got here is a classic New England home. Dating to no particular time, but before anyone can remember, and with hints of several styles. There was a house near here in 1854, but the current structure looks like a later reconstruction effort. It appears that the Attorney that owned it in the mid 1970's did some big changes, but there have been none since 1978. Before we rip too much, we're trying to study the whole house including talking to owners that lived here in the 1960's. We intend to restore this great old house to make it more energy efficient and to add some modern conveniences.

What you really can't see from the pictures is the land on which the house sits. At around 25 Acres, more or less, as the deed states, I think that by cutting a field to the west of the house we'll get a view of Maine's western foothills and beyond. That will have to wait for now.

Fall descends on Juniper Hill Farm

The last few nights have brought the first real frost to our gardens here at the farm. The carrots are dug and packed in damp sawdust in the basement, only the brussel sprouts are left in the garden. Overall the growing season was a success, but the tomatoes were cut short by a return of the "blight" from last year. We'll try our tomatoes in a different garden next year.

With the wood stacked neatly into the cellar, we are now using the wood boiler to heat the house and the domestic hot water. The recent trend for many country families has been the outdoor wood boiler. While it keeps the wood, the mess and, of course the fire, out of the house, it also seems somewhat inefficient to my way of thinking. All the "lost" heat in an outdoor boiler goes into wide open space, while our indoor boiler "looses" its heat inside the house, right where we want it. We have an old Memco boiler, but its in good shape, and it works almost as well with or without power. I like to hear the quiet hum of the electric circulator, without the roar of the oil burner. We'll heat our 2200 sq. ft house on six cord of wood, with the domestic hot water as a "free" extra.



The latest building project here at the farm is the addition of our first greenhouse. It is built from 20 recycled window sashes from our church that may date back to the 1830's. The door and vent window are roadside finds that have been put to good use. We may try some winter greens if its not too late to get them started, otherwise the greenhouse will be ready for next spring. You may notice a few young turkeys walking past the greenhouse, we've had as many as 40 birds foraging for acorns in the back woods. Its nice to see a new wild food source here in Maine, although I expect the coyotes like them better than most people do.

More progress in at camp

After several weeks taking care of things here on the farm, we got back to the County to install the metal roofing on our new camp. The tarps that we had put on in August were still holding up fine, but we wanted to put on the steel roofing before winter. We bought the roofing from an Amish shop in Fort Fairfield run by the Miller family. Sam & Norman have a real nice shop there right on Route 1A. The roofing was of the highest quality and the price was good.

We had a large crowd at camp this weekend. Our friends Scott & Terri came to help with the roofing and their son Brian came down from UMaine at Fort Kent to spend the weekend with us. My brother Lincoln and his three boys came up as well. If you noticed, Linc has an identical camp to ours on the same lot. Its sort of a joint venture with our own space. We had also had a moose hunting party set up in their own camper in the backyard. We all had fun.



All day saturday the wind blew steady and the temperature topped out at about 45 degrees. Not great weather to put on steel roofing, but we pushed through and got it done, thanks to the many helpful hands. By Sunday afternoon camp was a little quieter, except for our family and the moose hunters. We put in our camp windows and went for a nce ride on the ATV's. We saw five moose, including a beautiful bull. I wonder if he made it through the week?




The weekend in New Sweden was a nice distraction to the rush and pressure of our regular life. Call me crazy, but I really like it up north.

Back at the farm, breeding season is underway. I usually let the buck run with the does from mid September until the first of November. This takes the guess work out of whether or not the girls are bred. I'm holding back one of my milking does, to be bred in mid November. This should limit the time that we are without fresh milk this winter. I'm trying to limit myself to five does for the spring kidding. I usually feel overwhelmed each fall if I have too many head. It seems that I'll find good homes for a couple of young does. That will be good.

Angela & I are in the process of expanding our holdings again. This is a big leap, I hope it works. All I'll say now is it will be a lot of work, and I hope a lot of satisfaction. Just a hint, its a 1840's home on about 30 acres with a view of the White Mountains. Maybe it's just a way to test myself? I hope we're up to it. We'll post pictures for sure. Maybe we'll call it Oak Hill Farm, sounds good. Take care for now.

OK Back to Work

Well after resting for one, maybe two days, it was back to work for the Wheeler family. While my numb hands were still bothering me from so much building, I went back to milking the goats and doing all the other things that were needed bein' done. We finished the second cut of hay and split some more firewood with the splitter.

After being in beautiful Aroostook county for a eight days, I've been feeling a little "treebound" around our home lately. The wide open sky at the camp simply cannot be beat. We can see the early morning sun as it rises over New Brunswick, Canada and we can see the sun as it sets in the evening. At home, the trees that have been spared my wrath have grown well over the last 16 years and are now stealing the sky that I want to see. I do however have the cure, I'll simply gas up the Husky and start dropping next year's firewood. I hope to tackle about another two acres, I know a big task, but I want more field, I want a view of the eastern sky, and that is what we'll soon have. I am really a tree hugger in a way, I love to hug a big arm load of dry oak firewood and throw it into our indoor wood boiler on a cold winter evening.

Building season for the Farmer

Hello followers. The hot dry summer days seem to have given way to a rainy weather pattern. The fields and gardens were getting very dry, but now there is renewed life with the recent rain. The second cut of hay is all baled and packed away in the barn. We, I mean the Gatherer, has canned green beans, made pickles, blackberry jam along with freezing corn and many other garden items. The squash and pumpkins seem to be ready and most are picked and are stored away for later. We have had some of our new potatoes, a poor crop to say the least, along with some carrots. Overall we have largely avoided the grocery store this summer, except when we run out of peanut butter or toilet paper.

As you may have read in my last post, we were preparing for a building trip to Aroostook County, well it happened. In the middle of August, the Farmer, Gatherer and our four little farm hands headed North for a week of relaxation and oh yea, building our new camp.
Slowly at first, then a little quicker, the camp begun to take shape. With beautiful weather and a spectacular view, we worked from dawn until dusk, and sometimes later.


Everyone helped, when they could, but the Farmer really had to push to keep going. Hey this isn't a blog about the Builder, what do you expect? Well, let's go forward eight days, and look what we built. What a marathon build. The camp is a well built 12'x16' closed building, plus an 8'x12' covered porch, including a 12'x12' loft. We hauled about 8000 pounds of lumber north with our truck and trailer and left it there hooked together with about 5000 pneumatic nails. Tired, sunburned and unshaven, we made the 6 hour trip "down state", back to home and the farm. On the next day we rested.

Through the Mill

"This is the story about being through the mill, well my brother and I have been and always will, we gave up guitar playing and riding the range, to go to work in the sawmill for a change." (the late Charlie Ryan)



Unlike Charlie Ryan's 1955 song (B side of "Hot Rod Lincoln") I've never worked for a paycheck in my father's sawmill. From my earliest memories, I was crawling over the mill, climbing on piles of logs and sawed lumber. My grandfather Ervin Wheeler bought the mill, in the 1950's and ran it for many years after that time. My dad, Stanley ran the mill, as a commercial enterprise from 1972 until 1979. He added a slab chipper, a board sorting chain and a multitude of conveyors. Many of the features that dad added are now gone, but the mill still saws true.

This summer we are sawing lumber for a couple of farm building projects, an addition to the sugar house and a roadside produce stand, and for our camp in Aroostook County. This day we are finishing up the last of our logs, now we just have to put it on sticks to dry in the mill yard. I've taken the controls of the mill as of late. I want to know how to make the mill work down the road when I may help our children saw the lumber for their own houses. What a great tool this is as we try so hard to be self-sufficient.


Stanley & Gideon (2nd and 4th generation mill hands) wait for the next board.

Dog days of Summer - Farmer reflects

Farmer takes a knee on way to the office.
With the long days of summer I find myself outside more and at the computer a lot less. That is the best I suppose, there are so many things that have to be done around here. The gardens are doing quite well it seems. After a few days of vacation away from the farm, the weeds were making a good showing. But with a few hours of care, the Gatherer has got the weeds taken care of for now. Now that the vegetables are catching all the sun, the weeds don't stand a chance from here on out. The peas are all gone by, for a couple of weeks now I guess. Its time to till them in and ready the patch for another crop.

Our June strawberries were a treat for the first time this year. Just enough here for cereal and eating fresh. With one early morning picking at a local strawberry farm, we have got enough for a few batches of jam. We're trying to add more fruits here on our little farm each year. Last year we added blackberries, a couple of apple trees and the strawberries.

We had some hard showers tonight and we got 1.5 inches of rain in about 4 hours. It was needed as the garden and lawns were looking dry. Mother Nature is really smiling on us here in Maine this summer, we've had some real nice weather. The corn is shooting up in all this heat, and the cucumbers are beginning to bear their fruit.

The potatoe bugs have found the new potatoe patch in "Ike's Field",at the old homestead, and so have the deer. I'll try the potatoes there again next year, and I'll fence them in if I have to. The old farm has a lot more potential for agriculture. There are about 5 acres of empty fields that need to be plowed and seeded. Dad has always kept them "bush hogged", but they should be growing a crop, something we can use.

"Back 20" at Juniper Hill Farm



I've started clearing about another acre of woods here at Juniper Hill to make more fields and maybe a real orchard. Oh how I would love to have a big farm with acres of fertile fields. But our twenty acres is home to us and our kids, so we'll improve our ground right here. My family has worked the old homestead since about 1820, we've always made do with what we had and worked hard to make it better. I'm real proud that our home and land are paid for, in full, and except for the yearly property taxes, its really a true blessing.

"Tell me a story Daddy"

As I close my eyes I see the narrow dirt road lined with weathered old sugar maples, the worn wheel tracks with grass pushing up in the middle. I see a pair of stonewalls that begin at the edge of the woods and lead the way to the north, to the old homestead. The old homestead, bought when land was nearly free, or so it seems, and kept through the generations. The old house is in need of repair, it has been for some time. The dark damp cellar with rock foundation just big enough to keep the produce through the cold winters. The white clapboards, now more paint than wood, but still holding out the rain, or most of it. I see on the lawn a little girl, waiting there for daddy to come back from town. So small, but such a big part of the growing family.



The main house, not big by any standards, but big enough for a warm living room, a couple of small bedrooms, and a parlor that we never use. The ell is my favorite place with the enamel cook stove throwing heat throughout the kitchen, keeping the family warm. One step out of the kitchen into the cold shed, a good place for the "two holer". A few more steps and the smell of hay tickles my nose. The barn, post and beam of course, holds the winter hay and the livestock which provide for our family. The milk cow, and her young calf, some sheep and a pig. Just enough, but not too many for what the land can provide. I look into the blue sky and I see lightening rods point high from the tops of every roof. A neighbors fire was lesson enough to make the sale when the dealer stopped by, nearly three generations ago now. The house is not big, its not fancy, but it surely is home. Great-grampa replaced the roof back in the 40's, maybe a little pension money, maybe the sale of a prized bull, but he found a way. Dad kept the old place looking good, but there is more to do.



A short walk behind the house and I see the old shed, weathered and gray. I see the vegetable garden, no chemicals used here. We didn't know it was organic, but it was always that way. I see the hayfield with raspberry bushes pushing on it from all sides. Beyond the field I see the old pasture, then down the hill to the meadow. I hear the groan of an bullfrog in the watering hole, I see the barn swallows dip and dive at their evening meal. I stand there for a long time.

The old tom cat rubs past my leg, he's looking for a cup of warm milk for supper. The cow hears me enter the barn, she's ready for the evening milking. I do the chores, alone tonight, talking to the animals, listening to them eat their hay. The barn becomes quiet, the swallows fly in through the broken window and into their nests for the night. I wait there, looking out the back barn door. A doe and her fawn steps into the field, their field. All this is too much for one man to own. I'm just the caretaker really, just for a short time, then maybe my son, maybe my daughter will take over the old home place. Either way, I've taught them well, they know that this place is their home.

Summer begins

Tomorrow is the longest day of the year, what a treat. Let's hope it is a day that is worth all the hype. As summer is about to begin, I begin to think about all the things around here that must be done before the changing of the next season. Firewood to finish, haying to get done and gardens to tend and harvest. Summer is usually the busiest time of the year here on the farm and off the farm. The hottest days are often filled with haying and then a quick trip to the lake. We all know that within two months the lake will be cooling off and we'll be thinking once again about school, local country fairs and Fall.


Isaac loves the water and is always ready for a trip. On those days when we are just too busy to leave the farm we take a quick dip in the brook in the back woods. No matter the extent of the summer heat, the cool brook will always do the trick. No hot car ride, no waiting, just a short walk and into the brook for a refreshing dip.



Before the days of indoor plumbing many farm families relied on a bath in the brook during the summer months. There is nothing like the the cool fresh water of a fast moving brook to wash away the dirt and sweat of hard summer work. No pool to clean, no dress code and no travel time, what a great spot. Yes there are a few mosquitoes and maybe an occasional leech, but its all good. So go have some summer fun, we are.

Welcome rain

With most of our garden planted, the warm rain falling today is a welcome sight. The pond was drying up and the soil was powdery dry. Our hay will also get enough water to continue to grow, awaiting our next cutting, hopefully in the next week or so. I've started cutting the small back field, a little each day, and I feed in green to the goats and lambs. The goats give more milk when they are eating the best green feeds.

For those who might carry clippings and brush to their goats or other livestock, caution is important. Any black cherry (and possibly other fruit trees with pitted fruits) leaves, whether fresh or wilted must not be fed to livestock. At best you'll have a very sick herd, but more likely you'll have dead animals. I buried one goat and three nice lambs a few years ago from black cherry poisoning. You can read in any good livestock book about this problem. But I'm always surprised how few people have heard about this hidden toxin in our pastures. We also take the time to walk the pastures after a summer wind storm, in case a cherry limb may have broken off a fence line tree. My dad lost a real nice riding horse back in the 70's, killed by black cherry leaves, so we are evermore careful.

The growing season arrives

Well, from the frequency of posts lately, you can tell that the growing season is upon us here at Juniper Hill Farm. The long warm days find us preparing the gardens, tending to the early crops and beginning our haying as well.

In the last few years we have planted and tended several gardens, some here on our farm and some at the old homestead located just a half mile away. We have cleared several small fertile plots, but we have found our growing family needs more garden space, and I can't seem to clear the woods fast enough. With the help of our compost from the goats, hens and pigs, our gardens have been doing quite well. We have always found that a garden right near the house will get more attention than one off in the back field. If we get at the weeds at the right time, our crops will outgrow the weeds and they will control the garden and its nutrients. It seems that some part-time gardeners are proud of how many rows of corn they planted, with no comment on how much crop they gathered.

The hay field is growing slowly now, in need of a good rain. The fields are dry and ready for cutting, but we would like the hay to get a little more height before we go full speed ahead. I did cut a little patch last week and made 70 bales of nice early first crop. It is always nice to have a small run to check out all the haying equipment. Most everything went well, now we'll watch the weather.

The animals are all doing well and getting into their summer routine. I spent two days helping to finish the new pasture at the homestead, four strands of barbed wire and one electric. The old pasture was in need of repair and we have now enclosed the enlarged watering hole. No lugging water this year. We now have three beef animals in the pasture, enjoying the abundance of sweet grass. Our extended family seems to have a growing appetite. The fields at the old homestead are helping to grow our beef that feeds the whole clan.

In my spare time I've been cutting pine logs for a couple of upcoming building projects. We want a small roadside stand for selling some farm produce and I need some more lumber to finish the woodshed that I started last winter. We'll also be building a small camp in Aroostook County this summer. Whenever we feel like life is getting too hectic here in central Maine, we go "Up North". The laid back lifestyle and the "big sky" of potato country is such a joy for the whole family. The small camper is getting tight and it's time to build. We'll surely post pictures.

Well, I guess its time to get back to more productive work. I hope this rambling is interesting, if not to all, but to some. I've never kept a journal much, but maybe this counts. Keep in touch.

Sad day for the Hens - Farmer locks and loads

Well, not but a few weeks after my post about "free range hens" and "free range dogs", we have been hit hard. Our hens had been ranging around our farm for a few weeks, and on Saturday, after a brief trip to the lake with the kids, and our two dogs, we returned home to seven dead hens strewn about the farmyard and pasture. Whatever it was that killed the birds, it wasn't too hungry, most of the birds had no visible sign of trauma. The three layers and rooster that survived are now locked up for the forseeable future, too bad.

Now what do we do? Do we turn the other cheek? Do we "hate the sin, but love the sinner"? HELL NO, we get out the guns and go hunting. I may be out on a limb here, but this is my blog and I'm the Hunter, the Provider, and if anyone is killing anything around here, it's ME. If any dog is unlucky enough to be "wandering through" our pasture in the near future, it better have its will up to date. I did take a few hours to visit all my neighbors and let them know that I've got an itchy trigger finger. If their little pooch decides to come back for dessert, he won't be going home.

Now calm down PETA, ASPCA and all you other liberal groups. I believe in "innocent until proven guilty" and all those other rights that we have. But we are people, citizens of the United States. Dogs, foxes, bob cats and the like have the right to exist because we let them, and for no other reason. So steer clear Rover if you know what is good for you or my gun and hot lead will be your reward.

April Showers

The April sun is heating the soil in the garden as the seedlings are growing on the kitchen windowsill. The peppers are growing very slowly, as always, and the tomatoes have gotten their "true" leaf today. The peas have been in for about a week, probably none too early considering the warm weather we've had here lately. The onions, spinach, lettuce and swiss chard were planted just a day ago. I do the heavy working of the soil, adding compost, and running the tiller, while the Gatherer does most of the tedious planting.

In the barn, most of the young bottle fed goats and lambs are nearly weaned. They all will take drink of warm milk when it is offered, but they are eating hay and grain very well now. Our young doe, Elizabeth, had a single buckling Wednesday morning while we were all there to watch. What a wonderfully natural event after months of waiting. We'll let the little fellow drink from his mom and I'll milk the rest out each morning and night. It is sometimes a challenge to train a new milker, but Elizabeth seems to be learning quite quickly.

In the poultry side of things here, we have a new rooster in the hen house. He's a real pretty fellow from a neighbor's farm where he was just one of too many roosters. In our farmyard he is the boss now, waking us each morning and rounding the hens up each evening. If he gets too big for his britches I've got just the recipe for him. Our new laying chicks have arrived and are taking up space on the seedling stand in the kitchen. They like a warm place, but they begin to smell, so they won't be in the house for long. This year we've got a dozen Black Sexlinks, a cross between the Rhode Island Red and the Plymouth Rock. This a new breed for us, but isn't it fun to try new things?

Maple Sugar Season Photos

2010 was our first year with our new 2x4 W.F. Mason evaporator. Made right here in Maine, with real Maine craftsmanship.



The "local inspector" checks out the brick job on the new arch.


The sugar house is nearly set up and ready for the sap to start to run.



One our first boils, the little unit sure makes steam. We had a lot or fun this year and we are hoping for better sap seasons in the years to come.

Earning their keep

Several times a year here on the farm we have to decide which animals are good producers and which are not. With the hens, the best egg layers will avoid my axe, while the hens who are caught eating eggs will be first in line for Sunday dinner. Ugly roosters have long ago found their way to the supper table, with no remorse from the Farmer or the Gatherer. It's just a simple fact, on a farm we all need to earn our keep.

While it is true that we can afford to keep some "pets", the whole subsistence farm system works better if we have healthy and productive animals. If we find that a doe goat has given birth to a single kid, has given less than a good amount of milk, and fails to be bred back, it may be time to cull that animal. Now to most people the term "cull" is a dark and secretive word. I have imagined that a goat vanishes some night on the farm, where did she go? Did some wild dogs drag her off? Was she sold to some unsuspecting neighbor? No, she was culled. Very simply put, culling around here means that the animal probably became a meal for our family. I believe that an animal that is a poor producer should not be sold but should be put to their highest and best use, and that may mean slaughtering. I clearly don't mean to say that sick animals would be turned into food, but just those who, for some reason or another cannot earn their keep.

From our kids earliest days have tried to truthful with them about where our food comes from. With the vegetables that we grow or the apples that we pick there is a clear connection between the garden or the orchard and the table. While the idea of having some "meat for supper" is an American tradition, most families don't want to know where their Black Angus came from. Not us, we like to know that our beef was raised on our grass, drank clean water from our pond and was carefully prepared for our consumption. We have taught our kids that God put animals on this earth to be our helpers, maybe to haul a plow, maybe to provide us with milk, and yes sometimes to provide us with meat. You will be amazed how your kids will accept this fact of nature if you are honest and compassionate about your animals giving their life to sustain ours.

Out like a Lamb

The warmer days of Spring are upon as as we say goodbye to March. The frogs are now in full chorus and the buds are leaping from their hard shells. The animals on the farm will eat their breakfast and lay in the warm sun as they wait for the green grass that is beginning to take over the pasture. Easter is but a few days away when the long eared fellow will make his rounds.

We will clean the sugarhouse this weekend and wait for next year to take another shot at making some more sweet maple syrup. The firewood pile in the basement has shrunk to nearly nothing, but April here, hooray.

I'll be breaking out the rototiller in a few days to have our first peas in by April 15th. We'll start some spinach and early lettuce very soon as well. The pepper seedling trays have been sprouting on top of the furnace and will be moving to the sunny corner of the kitchen in a day or two.

It seems that we have to sort of change gears to take on the tasks of each season. Always looking ahead, preparing now so we don't miss the opportunity to take best advantage of the short growing season.

Rainy day

The rain is falling hard today here on the farm. Only a little of our manure has been spread for the upcoming growing season. The field is still too wet to get on with the spreader. We like to have these steady rains to help wash the nutrients into the ground. We just don't need quite this much at one time.

A few sap buckets remain on the trees. We should have got them down this weekend, but "The Farmer" got a bum hip, probably from overdoing it at our baseball clinic. I'm feeling better now, I think I have got to get some herbs or something for my aging bones.

Maine Maple Sunday passed without ever going into our sugar house yesterday. We did visit a friend's operation, maybe we'll be open next year. Look for it.

Rain is expected for tomorrow, then maybe warm and sunny through til Easter. That would be real nice. The grass will be getting green soon. April is but a few hours away. Take Care.

Frogs are singing

The frogs in the pasture pond are waking up for the season. The lonely "peep-peep" of a single pond dweller could be heard last night as I came back from the barn. This spring has been somewhat typical in a strange sort of way. We've had days in the high 60's, in mid March after a mild February. The kids launched their raft in the pond and were nearly swimming yesterday. We've raked most of the lawns and there is not any snow to be found here in Bowdoin. This morning we awoke to a dusting of snow and a biting wind out of the northwest. The Canadian air still has some frost left in it to blow us back into winter. I guess this is what the weather has always been in Maine, unpredicatble at best.

The earliest settlers, of hardy stock, were always at the mercy of Mother Nature. Sheltered by rudimentary houses and eating only what they could grow, collect or kill, they were acutely aware of their environment at all times. How we have changed, with insulated houses, central heat and warm motor cars, we seem to have it easy. I think we all should get a little closer to the land, to gather what it offers, to grow when the season is right.

Farmer becomes Midwife?

Well, after a rather uneventful kidding season here this year, I was able to lend a hand recently to some new goat enthusiasts. The first time Mom, a great looking Nubian doe, was in labor for nearly 12 hours before I got the call for advice. My experience told me, as it did them, that it might be time to help the new mom a little.

After some "pen side" talk, we decided that we should determine the position of the kid, because she was making no progress and was getting very tired. After a short manual exam I figured the little kid was transverse, or laying across the birth canal. This just doesn't work in any setting, so more help was needed. Now the books say just simply push the baby back in and turn it to the proper position. This is sometimes easier said than done. Imagine shoving your hand down a slimy rabbit hole and into a mix of legs, ears and noses. After a few tense seconds I found a rear leg, just one, and I gave an easy pull. That was the key, I had done it, and just like that, the little doe kid was born. Tired at first, then moving a little, she was alive and out. A big sigh of relief for all.

With one baby out, the way was cleared for the other two little bucks to make their entrance into the new world. Not as hard as the first, but each just as wonderful. Needless to say, the new mother was exhausted. We offered her a drink of warm water which she gladly accepted. We took care of getting the kids cleaned up some and then placed them by the mother's head so she could help clean them off, which she did. With my work done, I washed my hands and rode off into the night. Ready to lend a hand again at the next call for help.

Sap has runned out?

Mother Nature has proven again that she is in fact in charge. While many places in southern New England have been hit hard with snow this winter, in Maine we seem to have dodged the bullet and are in the middle of a real warm spell. Here in Bowdoin we have very little snow cover, except in the dark softwood forests on north facing hills. In contrast to the winter of 2007-08, on April first that year many places around here had almost three feet of snow still on the ground. As a Land Surveyor, I find that my slow season is linked very closely with the heavy snow cover. Maybe its just my dislike for shovelling snow all day long!

As you may have guessed, with every blessing there is a curse. It seems that with the limited snow and mild winter, the maple sugar season may go down as a pretty poor one in this area. It seems that the maples in the deepest woods have run well as of late, but the trees out in the open have already begun to bud out. We have produced 12 1/2 gallons of syrup this season, not bad for our small production, but only half of our goal. We are holding out for another cold spell but we are doubtful. On the bright side, we have almost half our wood left for the sugar house, which will be very dry for next season.

Let's hope for some April showers to bless our fields and gardens for the upcoming growing season.

New buck is in town

Just a few days after celebrating the life of our current herd "sire", we have brought home a new addition to our farm, a purebred registered Nubian buckling. Weighing in at only 10 pounds, the little guy will have to do some serious growing before he takes over the breeding privileges. The new Nubian buck will hopefully improve our herd through some great genetics and we will be back into pure Nubian stock. Not to worry for "Bucky", this fall he'll still be the "go to guy".

Father of 8 and counting

Our handsome Alpine Buck, aptly named "Bucky" has been pleased with his work. The does here at Juniper Hill Farm have given him eight kids so far, with more to come. The proud father of six strapping young bucks and two beautiful does is looking forward to laying around his bachelor pen this summer and gaining his energy for the fall breeding season. Bucky also had the opportunity to travel a bit last fall, with a month spent visiting some of his old flames. I think he may have also had some other girlfriends on the side. Come to think of it, maybe I should call him Tiger.

Looking to the sky

I see a story idea from some late night inspiration that I got last evening as I looked skyward. Perched high in the starry sky was the Big Dipper, Ursa Major I believe. Pouring cold air down onto the countryside. More to come ...

Pigs come next

While the garden can provide many of our food needs, omnivores like humans need protein, the kind of protein that only some good meat can provide. (sorry, vegans, that's my humble opinion) Gardening is very rewarding for the "Gatherer" in our family, but the "Hunter" in me wants something like venison, wild bird, and of course some bacon.

For the new "hobby farmer" I believe that pigs are a good second step. If you can keep chickens alive, why not try a pig or two? If you buy a piglet that is eating grain and drinking water, you should have about 5 to 6 more months of care until it is time for the one way trip to the butcher. Actually, it's a round trip, but the pig won't enjoy the return trip that much.

We've tried many feeding methods for our pigs, some worked and some I won't try again.

"The Chinese Super Buffet Pig" - I remember as a kid, my father bringing home buckets of slop for the pigs from a local Chinese resturaunt. The pigs loved it, lo mein, soy sauce, rice and hundreds of chop sticks. Yes, hundreds of chop sticks ready and willing to be swallowed by our pigs. So as you can guess, Dad and the kids had to sort through the buckets of slop to find the countless sticks. I guess I made up my mind really early that raising a pig on chinese chop suey wasn't going to be for me.

"The Gerber Baby Food Pig" - A few years ago "The Gatherer" was volunteering at a local food bank and she came home telling of the truckloads of food that was being thrown out each day. Some of the food at the food bank was just no longer fit for human consumption. So I drove to the food bank and came home with a truckload of pig food: crackers, spaghetti sauce, pastries, fruit juice and lots of baby food. So for the next few weeks, at every feeding, I stood in the front of our small barn opening dozens of cans of food, pouring all kinds of unknown ingredients into our pig’s trough. Do you have any idea how many jars of baby food it takes to fill a five gallon bucket? I can, too many. Another down side of feeding pigs this way was all the garbage that it produced. A small mountain of filthy tin cans littered the barnyard despite my best efforts to keep them under control. Need I say more? We gave up on feeding this way, it simply took too long and made too much garbage. Most importantly, we realized that we were feeding our pigs things that we wouldn’t have wanted to eat ourselves.

These are just a couple of pig experiences that we have had, I'll add more in a future blog. Happy hogging.

Goat Pictures - They sure are cute

Feeding time for the kids. With 10 little bottle fed goats, we have to know who's had their milk and who has not. The little bucks don't like to share too well either.








Cookie & Comet see who's coming

What it's all about

Fourteen hours boiling today in the sugarhouse. The good sap runs of Friday and Saturday require a certain amount of commitment to boil the water away to make our sweet maple syrup. We had some good friends over to enjoy some pancakes and bacon with fresh hot syrup. We were glad to be able to share this fine evening with Mike on his last week here before going to the Afgan war to protect our freedom. He will do us proud I'm sure. God Bless.

Sap is running

Mother nature has blessed us with two great sap runs here in Maine. We collected 90 gallons on Friday and 110 gallons today. All together that should produce about 5 gallons of finished syrup. Looks like tomorrow could be just as good.

Late Night in the Sugar House

The sap really ran today. We raced around to beat the darkness and collected about 90 gallons of sap. This was our first really good run of the year.

Anxious to make more maple syrup

Sugaring season is taking off with a hitch and a jerk. Will it get going this weekend?

Stay tuned.

Busy season in the goat barn

The kidding season here at Juniper Hill Farm is fully underway. We have had 12 healthy kids born, starting in mid January and the latest addition coming just a few days ago. So far, 7 bucks, 5 does, not too bad. Last year we had an abundance of little does, but this year is more as expected.

The season started with a set of Quintuplets (yes that's 5) and ended with a rare single birth. The single, we call Goliath, is a buck that looked like he was a month old, at birth. Out of the sixty or so kids that have been born here in the last 5 years, he is by far the biggest I've seen. I'm glad I was there to help his mom Brownie with the delivery.

We are now bottle feeding 10 of the kids, which makes meal time a little crazy at the barn. We really like handling the kids and by bottle feeding we are fully aware who is eating good and who may not be. I'm glad to say that right now all the kids have a real good appetite. The kids are also beginning to eat second cut hay and trying a little grain if they like.

Their moms don't seem to mind the kids moving to the kid pen. It gives them a chance to eat and relax without being hounded for another meal. I milk each of the does and feed their milk back to the kids. In a couple of weeks we will begin saving some milk for our own use, which is the goal of this operation.

I'll post some more photos soon. Thanks for visiting.

Chicken first, then the egg

"What came first, the chicken or the egg?" Depends who you ask, but I know you won't have one without the other. A staple of the small family farm, a few laying hens and a feisty rooster seem to have their place in history well established. Before the days of refrigeration as we know it, fresh eggs were best collected today and used tomorrow. Every old farmhouse has at one time or another had a mother hen scratching in the dooryard with her chicks.

Some time after World War II many farmers in Maine built huge chicken houses and started their own flocks to supply the nation during it's "white meat" movement. Sweltering heat, dust in the air and a smell that would make the paint peel, are just a few of the conditions that confined birds must endure during their short life. Some of these old broiler houses still exist around the countryside today, but most now store motorcycles and classic cars and the smell of chicken manure is only a memory.

It seems that raising chickens is the gateway animal of choice for many new farm families. I've heard it said that this is partly because of the efficiency with which our laying hens can turn table scraps back into the main course, in just a matter of hours. Unlike most other small farm animals, chickens can eat and thrive on a wide range of feeds and in many different environments.

The recently fashionable poultry catch phrase is "free range". "Free range" is just letting the birds get all or part of their feed from the earth. Worms, bugs, grass and weeds are all fine food for the small flock, when the season is right. We let our hens have the run of the barnyard during the Spring, Summer and Fall, but only until they find our vegetable garden, then back into the yard until the garden is gone by. We've found that things like "free range dogs", "free range hawks" and "free range foxes" are a potential problem for our "free birds".

Here in Maine, the month of March is the time when we place our order for this year's chicks. We have usually raised about twelve to twenty meat birds (broilers)and we try to get about ten or a dozen new laying hen chicks as well. Fresh eggs and a plump chicken on the table, raised by our own labors is a great reward.

The warmth of wood

The fresh fallen snow blanketed the east field as I looked out the kitchen window this morning. Four inches of the soggy cotton clung to the firewood pile that is being worked up for next winter.

I guess firewood has been kind of way of life since my earliest memories. At an early age I remember helping my Grandfather and Father at the back of the saw rig, sawdust in my eyes and the constant ring in my ears. Working near the spinning saw was a dangerous job, but it also marked a sort of "coming-of-age" in my family. Today, chainsaws have become the primary tool in the firewood trade, but the hum of the old Farmall tractor and the song of the saw can still be heard in early fall as we work up the dry limb wood for the cook stove.

After a couple of years of burning wood that was not quite dry enough, we try to make cutting and splitting our firewood a high priority. We'll let the sun and wind of the upcoming Spring and Summer dry our wood again this year. I try to have about six cord of hardwood ready for the "people house" and about two cord of softwood ready for the sugar house.

For generations rural farm families have carefully managed their woodlots, taking what was weak or dying, and leaving the healthy growing trees. In the early days here in Maine, this natural fuel for heating the farmhouse was nearly as important as the vegetables in the garden or the hay in the meadows. A winter with little or no firewood meant hardship that cannot be imagined by us today. Often, the kind gesture of a neighbor would provide the wood needed to keep from freezing to death, but just barely.

In recent years, much like in the early years of my life, oil has become a natural resource with an uncertain future. We do have a fuel tank in our cellar, but the oil boiler has not been fired in months. The quiet energy released by my ax and our fire provides security that cannot be measured. Needless to say I have continued to value the trees in the our woodlot, their future decided by me and my saw alone.

The Gatherer

The Hunter is out tending to the herd. He passed the torch to me for my first post!

The wind and driving rain we experienced last night, not only took down a stately white pine, but revealed the remnants of last year's herb garden. Seeing the workable soil brought thoughts of cold frames and planting peas, but I was quickly reminded by a late afternoon sleet storm, that it is still February. We are however, awaiting our FedcoSeed order so we can start filling up our southside kitchen windows with seed trays and the aroma of potting soil.

Our family works throughout each day either making a piece of our own a little better or keeping up with all that we have put before us. Today we canned our first 1 1/2 gallons of Fancy Grade Maple Syrup. Due the unseasonal upcoming weather, we decided to finish our first batch on the cookstove. Supper tonight was pancakes with blueberry from the Meadow picked in August, bacon from last fall's Litchfield Fair pig (caught by our daughter in the pig scramble) and this morning's freshly finished Maple Syrup.

Maple sugar season is underway

With the warming days of late winter comes the maple sugaring season here in Maine. After years of boiling sap under the stars, we have moved inside this year and we are looking forward to having a fun and productive season. We are trying to produce 25 gallons of syrup this year if the weather allows. Our two cord of sugarwood has been cut since last summer and is awaiting the good sap runs of March. We are burning mostly pine and fir this year, hoping for some hot fires.

It takes about 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup so there is certainly some serious boiling to be done. The early settlers would boil for days in cast iron kettles over open fires to produce this sweet treat that has been sought after for generations.

Our stainless steel pans and fine filters will make our syrup look clearer than in days of old, but then again the smoke and ashes falling into the syrup must have added some good flavor.

Kidding season has arrived at Juniper Hill Farm

The barn has become busy with the arrival of our first goat kids of the season. This winter our goat herd that started at 14, has swelled to 21 with several more kids expected soon. Our small herd of dairy goats, Nubian and Alpine crosses, provide our family with fresh milk and homemade cheese, along with the enjoyment of seeing these loving creatures grow and prosper.

As you might expect, with 10 to 15 kids born here each spring, some of our young will be sold to other prospective goat keepers while we have kept a few each year to grow our herd. This year we will be producing goat's milk soap and more kinds of cheese for our own use and for sale. We have found that goats are sized right for a small farm such as our's and our children are always willing and able to help care for our herd.

I will add more photos soon so you can see the activity that happens in the barn at feeding time. It's a lot of fun. See you soon.

Juniper Hill Farm - Building a Family Farm

Welcome to the Juniper Hill Farm's first blog. Today we want to celebrate the birth of another "family farm". Not a four hundred acre spread with a weathered farmhouse and a leaning barn, but a little 20 Acre lot in Bowdoin, Maine with a place for all: man, woman, child, animal and plant alike.

In the coming weeks and months we will let you folks share in the challenges and rewards that come with "doing for ourselves" as we like to call it. You might call our farm a "subsistence" farm. Growing our own food and fuel and doing for ourselves in any way we can. If we're lucky and Mother Nature allows, maybe we have enough to share or sell, maybe enough to pay the taxes, or maybe not.

While many family farms have been lost to development pressure, many more were simply left by our ancestors, in search of a better life. Easier maybe in the cities, but certainly not better.

I believe that those families that never left the backcountry farms have a greater appreciation for family ties and the duty to continue a family tradition of hard work, faith and dedication to the land. We hope you enjoy the thoughts, as random as they may be from time to time, and we hope to hear from you soon.