Field trip for farmers...

On Saturday, June 25 our group took a field trip to the Boston Suburbs to meet two suburban farming operations.

The first place we went was Sienna Farms  (http://www.sienafarms.com).  We had a chance to talk with Max and with Chris, both of whom have been involved at Maggie's Farm.  Max was very proud of (and we were greatly impressed by) the implement that lays plastic, punches holes and inserts tomato starts.

Implent to plant tomatos

We also visited Pete  & Jen's Backyard Birds (http://peteandjensbackyardbirds.com/) in Concord.  I was very impressed with the care they offer their animals, even though both of them (Pete and Jen) have full-time jobs beyond their work with these animals.  They are putting to work all the principles we are studying in a positive, community-oriented manner.  Inspiring!

Broiler tractor

Jen's rabbit breeding enterprise

The handsome daddy rabbit with the black nose.

Jen and Pete explaining the layer pasture.

They sell poultry, rabbits and pork.  We visited their pig pastures, too

Chocolate chip cookie pig...

Emma, approaching a muddy-snouted sow.

Contact!

Muddy snouts are catching!

June 20-24

Let's put the cool video first, eh?

This shot is from behind a basket weeder on a International Harvester Cub.  You can see "shovels" behind the wheels of the tractor--they dig up weeds and compressed soil.  The baskets are these spinning "hamster cage" pieces on the "belly bar"  Belly bar is the name for site for hooking up an implement under the engine of the tractor.  It is nice to have the weeding happen there because the tractor driver (me!) needs to make sure the baskets are spinning along the ground, pulling out the weeds and NOT pulling out the golden beets planted here.

Harvest and a Field Walk.

Mondays and Wednesdays are harvest days here at Maggie's Farm.  We start our work an hour earlier to take advantage of the morning coolness.  The pattern has been, for the first few weeks, get in and cut the mesclun greens and get them back to the wash-up room in the barn.  We wash the plants, not because they are especially dirty and certainly not because they contaminated with any chemicals.  We wash them to cool them down as water cools the plant more quickly than the air.  Once they are washed, we box them up for delivery.  On Mondays, we box for the CSA Market delivery which means we box same vegetables in crates with enough quantity that each of our Iggy's Bread Tuesday pick up customers will be able to choose the vegetables they would like for the week within the limit of what we have.  On Wednesdays, we package up some individual shares to be collected at Athena Healthcare in Cambridge and then we take a large selection of our veggies to the Belmont Farmer's Market.  

Brian, harvesting kale

Garlic scapes

Beets need weeding.

We also have a field walk in the vegetable beds each week.  We are looking for signs of insect pressure, ripeness and disease that might be creeping up on us.  The potato plants were attracting their fair share of insects.

Mon petit chou

Water droplet on broccoli leaf

cucumber beetle on potato plant

Colorado Potato beetle larva--so squishable!

Small fly on potato plant

Pumpkin plants sprouting up!

Last week's work--June 13-17

I may never catch up with the past few weeks in this blog, but there are some good photos to share and I'll try to get some explanations down; mostly so I'll remember them!   I've come to the realization that blogging is fun when one isn't too busy and living the life that is blog-worthy yet doesn't get blogged about is my goal!  So I'm going to give it my best shot for the next few weeks and see if I can complete what I started, my time at the Farm school.

Beautiful veggies

Our Market Sign

Tyson and Stephen in our pretend market

I had the opportunity to work with the Cole Seeder--an implement that drops seed in rows behind the tractor.

Me, on the Deere

The hopper to brush seed down to the row

The mini-plow that digs the trench for the seed

Stephen walking behind to make sure the seed is falling

Stephen checking the drop rate

Patch, showing his planting technique

Muddy but happy!

We planted our cucurbit seeds out.  Beginning in the sunshine, holes were poked and seeds were dropped and then we had a terrific thunderstorm.  At the end, we were tired, wet but satisfied that our squash, cucumber and pumpkin seeds were safely tucked into the soil

Bradley's lesson on sharpening the scythe

Brian with the first radical radishes

The peas are ready for picking... watch out for Sam!

Chicks on Pasture

Today we moved our new broiler chicks into their "tractor."  We know that chickens grow more naturally and healthfully when they get to scratch and peck the soil and eat grass and bugs.  We also know that if we let our chickens run around outside, we will lose our birds to the hawks and ferrets and other hungry predators.   So, how do we give them an outdoors life in relative safety?  Put 'em in a tractor.

Here is a photo of the tractor:


Here is a photo of Emma and Kiyoshi pulling the tractor into the first pasturing place.

And here's a little video of our Kosher King broiler chicks in their new home.

We're beginning to bring in and store the hay in the barn.  Whew, it is hot and dusty work that must be done before the next rainfall. 

first few bales

The tossers on the ground

Olivier explaining stacking technique

Olivier, admiring the stack

Other pics...

Brian, off to scythe a sepia world

tomato plants ready for their spot in the red plastic bed

First Harvest and Bees!

Harvest box, ready to fill

Stephen talking about the choy harvest

Stephen at the weigh and rinse station

Tyson, explaining wash up procedure

How exciting to have our first harvest!  We harvested a Mesclun salad, several kinds of Kale, chard and bok choy.  All of this went to the market in Belmont.

A beautiful day to harvest

Kale, in the box!

Nora, giving the mesclun a haircut!

Betsy and Sophia

Sophia, Washing the choy!

Bees with Jen!

We had a session with Jen Smith on bee hive maintenance.  She showed us how to clean the frames and put in new foundation comb.  Then she took us, half-group at a time, to the hives to see how the new bees and the old bees were doing.  All the hives our group looked at were in  need of feeding--sugar water and/or pollen patties were distributed.  We checked to see each hive had a queen and if she was laying eggs.  Also we checked to see there were brood cells with different ages of brood--newly laid eggs, capped cells, etc.   I took the chance to open up a hive--I thought I ight feel nervous about being stung, but really, I wanted to focus on taking good care of the bees so that occupied my mind.  They move like liquid gold and I felt a deep caring for them.

Jen, teaching us about new foundation

Larva uncovered as we opened the hive

Looking for the queen, for brood cells and for honey

Kiyoshi, pulling out a frame

Not much activity

Jen, concerned for the bees

Justin, cleaning up a frame

Cleaning frames and adding new foundation

Chicken Coop graduation:

Here is a snippet of the Chicken Coop graduation song:

These children are amazing.  I will miss them a lot.  We did little projects together through the year and some of them helped me with chores--weeding, winding up electro-twine, feeding lambs, etc--and they were precious!

Congrats and good luck to the children moving on!

Other fun photos for the week:

Carlen and Kiyoshi discussing the soy beans in the home garden

Red cow with the white heart!

Justin disk-shaping the South Waslaske field (I did the first half of the field
and it was amazing to get sooo much work done in so little time.  No wonder farmers love their tractors

Pride's google-eyed calf

Rebekah and Amour bonding

Pea flowers, grown by Caitlin!

PS  I've been under the weather for the past couple of weeks and now that I've got a clue what I'm dealing with, I hope to be more focused on good blogging!