June 30, 2004
This is way too much
It is amazing what you can do on the internet these days. Now you can be the first kid on your block with an Old Shaw Farm t-shirt with our very own logo on it.
Just go to our shop at Cafe Press. We get a buck or two for each shirt you order (Cafe Press gets the rest (since they do all the work)), so be sure to get several thousand.
[Disclaimer: I have never used Cafe Press before, so I have no idea if these t-shirts are any good or not. Maryellen says she got some Cafe Press merchandise once and it was pretty decent stuff. If someone does actually order one, let me know what you think.]
June 29, 2004
Be a real patriot this week!
Eat red, white, and blue (well, ok, purple) new potatoes from Old Shaw Farm.
This batch is an order we picked for the Kingdom County Market in St. Johnsbury this morning. So they will be there this week. But we will have plenty more at the Danville Market on Wednesday, and the Mad River Market this weekend.
[When Susannah realized my little flag waving marketing strategy as we were picking taters last Friday, she gave me this killer look, that said, "You vegetable whore! It is so sad that you rail against politicans for hiding behind the flag, but you yourself would stoop to flag waving just to sell a few taters." And she is right. But we are willing to do almost anything around here to sell the veggies. I am not above outright begging if it comes to that some day.]
June 27, 2004
Big time, part II
Our Saturday market now has its very own website. If you look closely at the rotating pictures on the front page, and you know exactly where and when to look, you can sort of see Maryellen and Wavo dishing out veggies at our stand. I guess the site is still being put together, but it looks great so far.
June 26, 2004
Climbing to the top
This will not surprise Susannah, Tommi, Mark, or anyone who has worked here. Try typing "salad turnips" into Google and check out the second entry. We should start advertising as the world headquarters of all things salad turnip.
June 25, 2004
Bee shelter
So the sad news about the bees is that my first hive died. Butch, the man who sold me the baby hive, said it was probably mites. With all the chaos when Waverly came, I hadn't done my fall bee chores properly. They made it through the winter, but didn't have enough health left to rebuild in the spring, so they dwindled down and died out at the end of April. On the up side, that solved the problem of having to move the bees out of the barn.
I debated about getting another hive. Obviously, I can't work the bees while I'm taking care of Waverly, so that limits the amount of time I have to take care of them. But I felt like I learned so much last year, and it's good for the farm to have the bees around to pollinate. Plus, the bees are cool. So I decided to go for it.
For Mother's Day, Peter built this awesome bee shelter. (The roof isn't quite done yet.)
On Monday, I got another nucleus (baby) hive from Butch. A nuc is 5 frames -- half a box -- of bees, brood (bee babies), and a queen. I moved the bees from the nuc box, which is the box on the left in the photo above, into the brood box on Wednesday afternoon. The bees were so wonderful and gentle. I think this is going to be a good hive.
June 24, 2004
Melon babies!
The melons are coming along beautifully. They're still far from pickable, but they're sizing up great. We've already got a few like this one, which is bigger than a softball, smaller than a bowling ball.
June 23, 2004
Big time
This is getting to be such a mega-corporate affair around here that we needed to do some promo photos today. The co-op in St. Johnsbury wanted a picture of us for their wall because they are posting photos of all the local farmers they buy from.
I don't know if we will use this one or not.
June 20, 2004
Happy Father's Day
Today is Father's Day so we did whatever I wanted to do today. I took the day off (mostly) from farming (which was much needed -- my last day off was Mother's Day and I was starting to get burnt out). I got an awesome shirt from Wavo, we went out to breakfast and I ate too much, then we hiked up Spruce Mountain with our friends Mark and Tam and their dog Uther.
There is a fire tower at the top of Spruce Mountain, and I am afraid of heights.
It took everything I had to get to the top, and still when I got up there I needed a hug from Mark.
But we had fun. And I like being a father.
Happy Father's Day everyone!!!!
Market time
It started out rainy at market on Saturday, and we thought we might be doomed. Here are Maryellen and Wavo shooting the breeze with our friends Cornelia and Josh, who stopped by the market to say, "Hi". Note the lack of customers.
But then the sun came out, and the shoppers mysteriously materialized. Here is Maryellen at the end of market.
Note the lack of vegetables left. Plus, Waverly got to spend some time hanging out with her pal Tamara.
All in all, a good day.
June 18, 2004
I wonder if they eat a lot of veggies?
I saw a moose this morning. I went up to the field about 4:30 a.m. to do some work, and something registered with my eyes before my brain could process it -- a huge brown shape about 100 yards away from me, off in the hay fields. I stared at it for a minute, as it stared at me, and finally I realized it was a moose. Not a bull moose, but more likely a yearling, as the yearlings are on the move this time of year looking for new homes.
It must have either not liked the smell of me imagine that!) or the looks of me, because after a minute or two it sauntered off back into the woods. I just hope he or she doesn't like lettuce.
June 14, 2004
Field "work"
So we enter the part of the season where most of the annual plantings are done, and now we are doing field work -- trellising field tomatoes, weeding, watering, keeping up with our weekly plantings. That is in addition to our 2 harvests and markets each week.
Our friend Mark has come up from Brooklyn for a couple of weeks to work on the farm, and he is literally working his butt off. Although, if you look closely in this picture, you will see that while he and I are fooling around with the camera, Susannah, over his shoulder and down at the other end of the field, is the only one doing any actual work.
June 13, 2004
Posting, one, two, three . . .
It has been a busy spring, so I haven't been posting much. But I am bringing the camera out into the field today, so we will see what we can find. We have some golf ball sized melon fruits, some new potatoes and snap peas that are flowering, and we should have honest to goodness real broccoli ready to harvest for market this coming week.
The big picture farm update around here is your classic good news/bad news situation. The good news is that we are way ahead of where we were last year in terms of production, markets, infrastructure, and efficency. The bad news is that we still have an awful long way to go, and an awful lot to learn. Already I can see how we could improve a lot of things for next year. But I suppose that will be the case every year.
In the meantime, it is one of those beautiful Vermont days up here -- sunny, 80 degrees, dry. So I guess it is time to get to work!
June 11, 2004
June 08, 2004
Grandma's birdhouses
Waverly's grandmother made these!! I love them!!! My mom did it on a whim so we could put them in our farmstand, but they turned out really beautifully. They have all kinds of details, like the church has flowerbeds painted on the sides and a door that works.
If any blog readers out there want one, they're $23 plus actual shipping costs. Email me if you are interested. Supplies are very limited so get em while the getting's good!!
June 05, 2004
Market photos
Getting ready for market.
Red turnips washed and ready to be packed.
Waverly waking up after sleeping on the way to market.
Our stand and our neighbors.
Our vegetables.
June 02, 2004
Jay W's Guest Post
My friend from Minnesota, Jay, was in Vermont helping his folks move from Barre to Burlington. Her stopped by last week with his Dad. It was great to see him and to meet his awesome Dad!!! This is his guest post:
I came to Peacham for Waverly's blue eyes. That was reward enough!
But also because everyone needs connections.
According to my mother, our ancestor, Simeon(?) Walker, was an original European settler of Peacham. He and others reportedly walked from their then-home in Connecticut to Peacham one spring in late 1700s and commenced to clear land they had purchased. When fall blew in, they returned to Conn. as they had nothing to sustain them through the winter. So in the spring, they walked back to Peacham and repeated the cycle for 4 years until enough land was cleared and leantos built that they could move their families there and hope to survive the winter.
Two hundred years later, my uncle gave up dairy farming on the hill in Cabot that overlooks the Cabot Coop Creamery on one side and the reservoir on the other. (My grandpa was a founder of the Cabot Coop). I moved from Vt to Minnesota for college and later a career in legal services, where I met Maryellen.
So it was cool to learn of the new stewards at Old Shaw Farm and I had to visit and see my friends and touch the soil that had drawn my family to beautiful and, we hope, again bountiful, Peacham.
Shalom, Salaam, Peace .... Jay Wilkinson