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.