Down on the Farm

Coyotes

We heard the coyotes last night. They were awesome, eerie, almost human. I could believe we had a coven of witches up there in the farm field. I woke Peter up to listen.

On top of the world

Today's astronomy pic of the day is pretty cool.

Looking good!

Peter has done some amazing work this year up on the farm field. It looks fabulous!!!

Tom thumb lettuce.

Squash patch featuring candy roaster.

This is where the spring and early summer crops were. Now beautiful and clean, limed and sown to a pea/oat mix for the winter.

Sun gold tomatoes in the hothouse are still going strong.

Wild harvest

Rose hips.

Blackberries. Mmmmmm.

Juniper berries. Gin anyone?

It is a marathon, not a sprint

One of the things I like about farming is that there is a lot of hard physical labor. I know that sounds funny, but I have always been happiest when I get to work hard physically as well as mentally. I have never really liked sitting at a desk all day. I am more the type who enjoyed playing football in high school, and who decided to be an art major in college at least in part so that I could spend my evenings welding huge metal sculptures or banging lumps of clay, rather than sitting in a library behind a stack of books.

Having said all that, we are now getting to the point in the season when growers start getting tired. The farmer I worked for last summer, who can work harder and longer than anyone I have ever known, used to talk about the aches and pains catching up to him at this time of year. One of the other farmers at market yesterday was unusally cranky and he looked tired. Another farm hand talked about how her boss was getting burned out and was starting to look forward to the end of the season.

For me, the thing that is hard is that nothing gets time to heal. Since early April I have been working more or less every day. Some days, like the three days a week I work my day job, are lighter than others. On those days I usually only work a few hours in the morning and few hours in the evening. Even then, that means I work a good 4-6 hours on my "off" days. And the other four days a week, it can be 12-14 hours days.

So when I tweaked my knee last week, or cut my hand a while ago, or banged my toe the other day, or strained my wrist early in the season, it is not like I get three or four days to let whatever ails me straighten itself out.

Take the cut on my hand for example -- I banged my knuckle pretty good fixing our set of disc harrows. It started to bleed pretty bad and probably could have used one stitch. But I was up in the field and had stuff to do. As a result, I simply wrapped it in a rag and worked for a few hours. When I got back to the house, it didn't look so good. So I spent some time getting it all cleaned out and bandaged up nicely.

First thing the next morning I was loading water and seedlings into the truck to transplant out some lettuce and turnips before it got too hot. In doing so, I got my hand wet. It then occurred to me that I was about to spend two hours handling wet seedlings in muddy soil, and that my nice bandage job probably wouldn't last the morning. I tried wearing a work glove, but that quickly proved futile. So every night for about a week or so I had to carefully clean and re-bandage this cut. It eventually healed, but it took longer than it might have otherwise, and it slowed me down a little in the interim because I was always trying to keep it minimally clean as I worked.

When you add the cut on the hand, to the tweaked knee, and to the strained wrist, and to the this and the that, at this time of year I am starting to feel a little worn out. I noticed it yesterday when I was working up in the field after market -- I was simply moving a lot more slowly than I was in May.

Fortunately, I will get to catch up on my rest and heal up after the baby gets here.

Bee fiasco

The bees are truly amazing creatures.

About a month ago, I had a major bee fiasco. When the bees were too hot, I had put another super on to give them a little more air. A super is like another box you put on top, like an addition on their house. Anyway, I didn't really have all the pieces. Each super takes nine or ten frames, like hanging file folders of beeswax comb for the bees to put their babies, store honey, etc. I only had five frames, but the bees were hot, so I figured I'd just put it on as is, then order more frames, and put them in later.

But when I opened it up to do that a few weeks later, the bees had already built tons of comb of their own. If I was ever to have a chance of managing the hive, I couldn't leave what they'd built. Also, technically I think you need to have the comb on frames, so the bee inspector can inspect. So I cut out all the comb they'd built.

Obviously, the bees were not pleased!! How would you like it if someone ripped open your house, then threw your babies and your winter stores out into the yard! I got stung a few times, which I richly deserved. Peter got worried about me in my delicate condition getting stung too much and getting all stressed out so he insisted on finishing the job for me, and he really doesn't like bees.

Anyway, it was so sad and stressful, and I felt so bad for what I had done to the poor bees, that we ended up just leaving all the comb the bees had built on the table by their hive where it fell.

I called my neighbor Libby who said actually just to leave it there, and the bees would come put the honey back in their home. She told me to check periodically for robber bees or yellow jackets, which I did, but it rained for about a week after that, so I think that kept the robbers away.

Anyway, the bees totally cleaned up my mess!!

Here are two bees pulling out the last of the honey. This comb had all been capped honey -- all the cells had wax caps on them when I pulled it out -- for storage purposes. They uncapped it all and moved it back into the hive. The beige cells in the background were bee babies.

This is an undertaker bee. It may be hard to tell from the photos, but this is a worker bee dragging out a much bigger drone that was killed in the fiasco.

Anyone want all that beautiful white honeycomb for candles or something?

I still feel really bad about managing the bees so badly, and now I've REALLY hurt their chances of surviving the winter. Still, I can't believe how amazing bees really are. I promised the bees I'd do better next year!!

Also, after the whole bee fiasco I said to Peter, "I owe you one, big time." He just looked at me for a minute and then said, "Yup."

Buried treasure

We have a huge, huge hydrangea bush in what is now becoming woods.

Alice and my mom also found an old peony plant back there, and Winnie found a dogwood under the grapevines.

These are blooming on the North side of the house now. I don't know if they are precious or worth saving, but they sure are beautiful.

There's a ton more treasure where these came from, though sorely in need of some love and affection. I suppose that the silver lining to not having been able to get the flower gardens into shape this year has been finding this kind of stuff!!

Brrrrrr

I just got back in the house after watering the tomatoes in the hoophouse and harvesting a few melons. It was 42 degrees on our porch at 5:30 this morning!

I guess fall is here, whether we are ready or not.

Time for some breakfast and warm coffee.

Summer's last hurrah

The last couple of days have been glorious, hot, late summer days.

It may be early to be saying it, but I know from living here and in Minnesota that change comes early up at these latitudes. Yesterday it was 90 degrees and humid -- tomorrow and Sunday it is supposed to be clear with highs only in the 60s, and lows in the 40s. And next week is supposed to be cooler as well.

It may get warm again. But it makes me glad that the other day after market, I went for a splunk in our little stream, and then lay down on the bank, under the cedar trees, and watched the clouds go by for about 20 minutes, as a gentle breeze blew.

Even though we have a lot to do around here, you need to grab a little summer while you can.

Hey everybody, take the day off today and go for a swim!!

Stocking up

Sarah and Chris came over Sunday, and our plan to can a few pickles turned into a three night preservation extravaganza!! Aunt Maureen's pickles, oven dried tomatoes, Chinese pickled turnips (Chris's invention), and Gourmet tomato orange marmalade. It was wicked fun!!!

Thanks Sarah and Chris!!

p.s. Sarah was my college roommate, and Chris is her husband. I am totally psyched because they have a summer place just up the road!!!

If you can't stand the heat . . .

Here are some pictures of Maryellen barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, living on a farm. She thought her brother Pete especially would appreciate these.

What a difference a day makes

The air has dried out, and things have cooled off a notch. Our three+ week spell of hot and humid has broken a bit. It was 52 degrees when I woke up. I had to wear a fleece when I stepped out to do some chores early this morning. Then later it got up to a very pleasant low to mid 80s, sunny, and dry. Perfect. Sometimes I forget how beautiful it is around here, but then a day like today can't help but remind me.

Farmer Dad

Big Mike (my Dad) blew into town for a short visit.

After some chillin' on the porch, he headed up to the fields and disced some ground for us.

Thanks Farmer Dad!

Lois Guest Blog

As Maryellen mentioned, our niece Lois came to visit last week. This morning I received an email from her with the following guest blog entry. Take it away Lois:

Things to do in Vermont when you're eleven months old:

Curtis' Barbecue
...in Putney, Vermont. Mom and dad broke their vegan fast to eat fresh hot
meat. They didn't share with me but I didn't care. There was plenty of
other good stuff to distract my young mind. I met Curtis, and his pet pig,
and while my folks ate at the picnic table I sat on a toy John Deere and
rolled around while watching big kids, and big dogs, romp on the lawn
beneath the basketball hoop. I didn't even get a chance to check out the
swing set. I cried hot bitter tears when it was time to leave.

Basketville
...a few miles down the road from Curtis'. After a few minutes of my
continued hot bitter tears mom and dad opted for another break and began
to rethink their driving-intensive plans for their vacation (Peacham to
Shelburne? Peacham to Montreal? Get real! I have four teeth coming in
simultaneously!). Basketville is a horrific tourist trap filled with
wicked cool baskets, including our new basket for laundry which also
accomodates big and tall babies. Don't leave before you spot the wicker
bike and the wicker stegosaurus.

Grocery stores
The food coops up here are amazing. All kinds of new colors and flavors,
beer bottles with photocopied labels, huge bins of crazy grains and
produce, and nice nice people. We had such a great time in the Brattleboro
Coop on our way up that we stopped in on our way home a week later. The
lady in produce not only remembered me, she greeted me by name! Then she
called out to her coworkers "It's Lois, the baby I told you about!" I was
so flattered that I threw up and crapped my pants.

My Uncle Pete
Oh my god I have such a crush on my Uncle Pete. He looks just like my dad,
but different, and oh my god I have such a crush on my Uncle Pete. My
attention span is tiny yet I could watch him drive that tractor all day
long. Oh my god. You should go see my Uncle Pete.

The dog chapel
So we are driving around the countryside, but we're not far from town so
it's not even all that pretty, and mom and dad are obviously struggling to
be patient with each other as we double back and drive in circles, and
then suddenly here we are in dog heaven! Toy
dogs and art dogs and even real dogs. Pete and Maryellen had given me
Sally Goes To The Mountains for Christmas and it's my favorite, but I had
no idea that that world was real. And near St Johnsbury. Go, but don't ask
my mom and dad for directions.

Pirates of the Caribbean
They say Johnny Depp based his character on Keith Richards, and sure, yes,
I can see it. But Keith Richards doesn't have that levity, and I detected
a big dollop of Dudley Moore as Arthur in there too. I treid explaining
that to everyone sitting around us but they were too busy glaring at my
mom and dad and Aunt Maryellen.

River Run
A diner where the bacon is 3D, the pancakes don't need syrup, and
everything on the menu is good. A big girl at the next table was playing
with a plastic horse, and the waitress sat down with us and talked to me
for five minutes while all of the other tables waited. My kind of place.

Blueberries

Eventually, mom and
dad figured out that fresh blueberries made anything, even car seats,
tolerable for their baby girl.

The new phone book is here!

We are somebody.

In the mail today we received the 2003 NOFA organic farm directory, and there we are: Old Shaw Farm, Peter and Maryellen Griffin.

Wow. It even lists this website. Welcome to all the new visitors!!

For sale at the Farm

Maryellen has actually had some inquiries about stuff we are selling on the porch. She said that I should list what we are selling here on the site.

If I was better at my HTML code, I could do this in a more professional manner. But I am not very good at coding stuff, so here goes.

Cantaloupe

Charentais
Delicious 51
Minnesota Midget
Prescott Fond Blanc
Sweetie #6

Watermelon

Golden Midget Watermelon
Moon and Stars
Orangelo
Sangria

Tomatoes

Sungold Cherry
Peacevine Cherry
Heirloom
non-Heirloom beefsteak

And here is a description of the different varieties:

Cantaloupes

Charentais: From France, where these melons are extremely popular. Very sweet and tasty orange flesh. One of our favorites!

Delicious 51: Bigger, standard orange fleshed cantaloupe.

Minnesota Midget: Very small, baseball sized, orange flesh, heirloom cantaloupe. Should turn yellow when ripe.

Prescott Fond Blanc: A French heirloom orange flesh, cantaloupe variety. One of the ugliest, yet best tasting, melons in the world.

Sweetie #6: Orange and green flesh. Very, very sweet.

Watermelon

Golden Midget: Yellow skin, red flesh, heirloom watermelon.

Moon and Stars: Another heirloom variety, splashed with yellow moons and star shapes. Dark pink flesh with a slight citrus taste.

Orangelo: A heirloom variety that has bright orange flesh. It is normal for these melons to have some cracking of the flesh on the inside.

Sangria: Red flesh, very sweet. A good standard watermelon.

Tomatoes

Sungold Cherry: Orange. Simply the best tasting cherry tomato on the planet.

Peacevine Cherry: Red. Grape-like. Very tasty.

Heirlooms: We mostly have Brandywine and Rose de Berne, both red-pink and very tomatoey. We have Pruden's Purple, but something is not right with them, and we will not have many.

non-Heirloom beefsteak: We grow Buffalo tomatoes, which are about baseball size and one of best regular tomatoes out there.

Note: We don't have everything on the list at all times. For example, we will almost always have Sungold cherry tomatoes, but the Moon and Stars watermelons have not come in at all yet. Plus, I am willing to bet that we will get cleaned out of melons tomorrow at market, so there may not be much tomorrow afternoon.

Plus, in another 4 weeks or so, we will have more winter squash than you can shake a stick at. (I have never really understood that expression, but, barring a tornado or something, we will have a lot of squash).

If you are thinking of coming by and want something in particular, call us at 592-3349.

Weather

We always used to tease my Mom because she is very into the weather. She said it ran on her side of the family. It seems I have picked up the torch.

For about the past two weeks, it has been very humid and "unsettled" with lots of thunderstorms and isolated downpours, followed by periods of steamy sun. Basically, it has been very hot and muggy.

Our field is slightly elevated relative to the rest of the terrain around here, and it is essentially one very open 18-20 acre field. Today, when I was harvesting for market, it started to pour rain almost unlike anything I have ever seen. It rivaled the incredibly violent thunderstorms we would sometimes get when I lived in Minnesota.

So I ducked into the hoophouse and started picking tomatoes in there. But the rain was so loud against the hoophouse plastic that I couldn't even hear myself think. It was so loud it began to make me a little nervous, like maybe the whole hoophouse would come down somehow.

Just then, a chord of thunder ripped across the sky and I literally dove to the ground. Suddenly, I was very aware of just how open and flat our field was.

Needless to say, at that point I decided to drive back down to the house for a little coffee break while the storm blew over.

Open for business

Our tomatoes and melons are coming in quicker than we can pick 'em. In addition to our regular markets, we are now also selling them from our porch. We have many heirloom varieties for the best old time flavor on the planet.

We put out signs and flyers, so let people know!

[Insert sound of crickets chirping here.]

Alright, not everyone at once, now.

Melons!!!

The melons have arrived in full force -- nine different varieties of cantaloupes and watermelon. We sold all of our very first melons at market Saturday. By the way, this is my favorite melon book in the world.

Pictured is a Prescott Fond Blanc, one of the world's best tasting, but ugliest, cantaloupes. I have a feeling I will have to sample this one out aggressively at market.

Whoa!!

Some people, or some person, actually gave money to Howard Dean through the little link I put up on the left side of this page. Thank you!! And I am sure Howard thanks you!!

Now if I can only reach my goal of $1,000, I bet I can get an ambassadorship or something when Howard becomes President.

[Note to Federal Election Commission investigator: the preceding sentence was a joke.]

What's up here

Lois came to visit.

She brought her lovely parents Geoff and Sheri.

Sheri and Geoff were very good to us. They helped cheer me up (and cheer me on!) immensely. They took me to see Pirates of the Caribbean, cooked us all kinds of very wonderful and very healthy meals, did all the dishes, filled our freezer and fridge with more very wonderful and very healthy meals, and let us hold Lois as much as we could. Thank you!!!

My cousin Chris and his wife Alicia had a healthy baby boy on Wednesday. Congratulations!!!

The second set of robin babies are getting ready to fledge.

Can anyone guess what this photo depicts?

A colleague at work, noting on my ever increasing resemblance to a small planet, said that she was tempted to throw small objects at me to see if they would come into my gravitational field. (She hasn't tried it, yet.)

Champ

When my brothers and I were younger, we attended a summer camp on the New York shore of Lake Champlain called Camp Dudley. It was a fun and fairly kooky place, and we all largely had a blast.

One summer pastime there was looking for Champ (or Champy), the Lake Champlain monster. Champ is the North American version of Nessy, the Loch Ness monster, and Lake Champlain is, in fact, very narrow and deep like Loch Ness. However, I must confess that Champ always seemed like a poor, less glamorous cousin to Nessy. Nevertheless, at least once or twice a summer, some campers would claim to have seen Champ, or to have seen something in the water that could not otherwise be explained. One summer I was in one such group, when we saw about four or five bumps in an otherwise smooth lake surface that did not act like a boat wake.

Now I am older and living on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain. To the extent I have ever thought about it, I have assumed there was nothing to the Champ thing, except maybe some half-baked attempt to stir up tourism interest.

But then this morning on VPR I heard a story about some scientists who recenlty came across some sonar readings that they could not explain. This link to a Burlington Free Press article is not nearly as good as the radio story -- by the end of the radio segment, I was truly beginning to wonder if they had stumbled onto something.

Who knows? Maybe those bumps I saw years ago were the real deal.

We're still here

Just not much to report lately. Maryellen keeps getting more and more pregnant. The tomatoes and melons are really starting to come in. The weather has been "unsettled" as the Eye on the Sky guys like to say. The house still needs a lot of work. Clyde the mouse doesn't look like he has missed a meal in a while. Sally the Chipmunk gets more and more used to our presence on the porch. Fernando the Ghost must be on summer vacation. And some groundhogs are back in the hole near the barn and they are eating my seedlings again. Time to get ol' Bessy out again.

Rainy day, time to play

It is a rainy and cool day down on the farm. But Maryellen's sister Jessica came to visit, so it is a good excuse for some pictures.

Two sisters playing with the camera.

Jess, getting ready to do some plowin'!

A shout out to Scooter!

How to pose with your muddy, stinky brother-in-law.

Dancin' in the fields.

Vermont Gothic?