“You ready to go out and get the fox?”

“Sure.”

I was going out with a Gamo .177 Whisper Air Rifle (hold the laughs, it’s pretty powerful and could probably take out a fox <30 yards with a muzzle velocity of 1000 fps).  I’m not yet safety-trained on real weapons, so I’m trying to hold off on that until I’m more familiar (e.g., .22 rifles, shotguns, etc).  Jackson was holstering a Gamo Target Pistol (also a .177 air gun, but with significantly less muzzle velocity–on the order of 400 fps).  We’ve used the target pistol for dispatching our domestic rabbits when it comes time to butcher them.

Most importantly, we mixed up some hot chocolate in a thermos and took that out with us as well.

About 30 minutes after 6 o’clock, we thought we saw the fox run across the front of the back field.  He never stopped and was well out of range in any case.  About quarter ’til 7, Jackson and I spot a rabbit hopping along about 40 yards out from the treehouse.  I figured we were about to give up for the morning, so it was worth at least getting a little reward for our efforts.  I took a shot with the air rifle.  Missed.  The rabbit disappeared (so far as I could tell).

“There he is”, Jackson said.

One of the good things about air rifles, and especially so about the one I have which has a “silencer”, is that often times the game doesn’t really get too scared by the sound.  They move a bit, then settle back down.  We took this opportunity to climb down from the treehouse to get closer.  At about 20 yards, I still couldn’t see it but Jackson kept saying “He’s right there.”  I was taking his word for it.  Finally I saw it.  I crouched down, raised the rifle and pulled the trigger.  He plopped over on his side.

We got over to him and he was twitching a bit (not uncommon for small arms/small game hunting).  Jackson was interested in finishing him off, so I helped him put the air pistol to the rabbit’s head and he pulled the trigger.  Jackson’s first kill. He was very proud of getting his “first” rabbit.

I dressed the rabbit, while saving his pelt for tanning later.  He’s in the fridge and we’ll probably eat him in the next couple days.  Rabbit really is a delicious meat (try brining for 24 hours then slow cooking in a crock pot for 6-8 hours) and we’re not about to shoot something just for the fun of it.  We can’t really feel bad about decreasing the rabbit population around here.  They basically treated our garden as an all-you-can-eat buffet this summer, and they’re certainly not endangered.

Still, that fox better watch out because we’re not done just yet.

I like the early morning chill.  Yesterday, it seemed the house never did properly warm up during the day, so this morning we started a small fire in the woodstove to bring the temp up in the morning.

Our latest excitement/stress is that we’ve got a fox problem.  He’s taken several of our chickens, including our favorite rooster over the last couple weeks.  I saw him run by the coop and around the garden this morning at 6 AM.  I’m working on some “solutions” and will post more here is there are any updates.

Fast forward a bit…this weekend was the scheduled check of our honeybees.  The honey “supers” weren’t all full, but two frames were full enough to be pulled out.  Normally, we’d want to wait until all the frames were “capped” (where the honeycomb is drawn out all the way, the cells are full of honey and a cap of wax is closing the tops of the cells), but we were obviously very interested in tasting the first of our honey.  We processed the two frames very simply: I scraped the honey and wax out of the fames into a bowl and ran it through a sieve to separate the honey from the wax.  We got 1 quart and 1 half-pint, which we gave to our neighbor who has bad allergies (local honey is supposed to prime your defenses against local allergens).  All told, we netted about 3 pounds of honey.  Very tasty indeed.

Also, we’ve posted some updated pictures of our animals (pigs, goat, sheep, geese, etc) at our Flickr page.  Check it out.

The garden is amazing, all of the things that failed last year (beans, corn, squash) are thriving.  It looks like the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant will produce amazing amounts, and even our potatoes are doing well.  We began harvesting greens for salads the last week of May and yesterday Mike mowed down the greens section as it was just too weedy.  But, for a good solid month and a half, we had daily salads.  We will start some lettuce and other green seeds and transplant them for a fall crop later this month.

The fruit trees and bushes are looking a little sad, not enough rain, so we are having to water.  We got just enough raspberries and blueberries this year to eat as we pick, hopefully in years to come we will get enough to preserve as well.

The cows are great, we moved their pasture and they seem to like being closer.  We will be having a sweet Belted Galloway bull come and stay with us for a month or so to breed our girls.  The two CVM rams and our goat are in the paddock behind the barn.  In September they will all go to the butcher for meat and pelts.  Our four ewes are great and the little ram lamb is getting big.  The pigs are flourishing with all of the garden leftovers and the rabbits will be bred soon.  Our goose hatched two eggs (one gosling died, it’s stomach wall had not fully closed).  The surviving gosling is so cute and follows it parents everywhere.  We did have a duck sitting on eggs, but something must have disturbed her nest, as the eggs are all gone.  One chicken hatched a few rouge chicks, and we rehabed a rooster that was attacked by the fox.  Our turkey poults are getting big and next week we will move them to an outside run.  We will also be getting a shipment of broiler chicks and roosters to raise for meat.  We will be trying a new technique with the meat chicks, raising them on the grass, so hopefully they will be less gross.  If this doesn’t work, then no more broiler chicks for us.

We have been having lots of gatherings at the farm.  The food is amazing and it is so nice to be able to share in the bounties of our harvest with friends and family.

Enjoy your summer and remember to eat as much local food as you can with the people you love the most!

We got our angora and deer pelts back from the tannery.  They are very lovely, the angora in particular.  In fact, it is so lovely, and the goat meat has been so surprisingly good that our male wether Clem will be joining the two rams this September in the freezer.  We also got all of our fiber from the mill, the roving from the ewes is lovely, and as nice as the mohair rug yarn is from the goat, it is nothing in comparison to the pelt.  So, we may even see if we can set up an arrangement with a local angora goat farmer to take two animals off of their farm each year to be raised for meat and pelts, more like we do with our meat sheep than our fiber sheep.

Hopefully now that life is settling back into a regular rhythm, we will be back to posting regularly.  But, seeing that it is summer, and we will be pretty busy with the garden and livestock, we will do our best.

Enjoy the season!

On our farm, we have a perimeter fence (48″ field fence with a strand of electric fence running around) around the entire “back-yard” which is about 11 acres and includes the ponds, barn, all of the livestock, pasture, and garden.  The cows are contained in the back half of this area, in a roughly L-shaped pasture of about five acres which includes a small pond and stream.

All of the chickens, ducks, geese, sheep, and the goat free-range in our “back-yard”, meaning that we get frequent visitors right up to our back door, namely the chickens and Clem our goat.  It also means that when we are outside, we tend to have a bit of a “posse” wherever we go.  It consists of the following animals: Zsaka, our eight-year old vizsla, Marty, our three-year old cat (who really thinks he is a dog and goes EVERYWHERE with us, even more than Zsaka sometimes), Macs, our thirteen-year old cat and very first pet, Clem, our angora goat wether, and Clementine, one of our Leicester Longwool sheep.  We also often have two speckled Sussex hens with us, especially if we have food.  We give them occasional treats, but not so many as to make them spoiled and pushy.

Today the kids and I were sitting on one of our favorite large rocks in the small stand of trees next to the coop and the previously listed animals were all with us.  Clem, Marty, Zsaka, and Clementine were laying down on the rock, the kids were climbing and collecting sticks, and the chickens were looking for bugs.  It felt so surreal, like something out of a Disney movie.  I hope to have many more days like this, with my children and animals all peacefully co-existing and quietly sharing space together and in harmony with nature.

Here are a few of the things we have been working on:

Livestock-We completed a yearly calendar of tasks and expenses for each type of animal we raise here on the farm.  Mike integrated it into a Filemaker database to keep us on top of things for all of the animals.  It is so nice to have offloaded all of that info and now we have an easy to follow schedule for care and budgeting purposes.

Poultry-Complete mucking of the coop (it’s hard to clean out frozen chicken poop) now that the spring thaw has started.  Ducks and geese are starting to go broody and lay eggs.  Turkeys poults have been ordered for the first week of June.  We cut back on the chickens’ feed as we were getting too many eggs.  Plus, green shoots are starting to pop up and we prefer our poultry free range than gorge on grain.  We may try to do some specific breedings come June with the chickens to develop a nice meat bird.  We are thinking a Dark Cornish-RI Red cross might be very nice.

Rabbits-They were moved back outside to their “warm weather” accommodations.  They will only be bred once this year, around July, so they can enjoy the spring and summer.  I have almost finished my rabbit pelt quilt. By the end of the weekend, it will likely be done.  I have been hand stitching the pelts and have decided to use a nice thin denim for backing and cotton batting.

Bees-Still in “hybernation” but in the next month once temps are warmer we will rotate their hive and hopefully add some honey supers.

Goat-Took Flora to the butcher (we’ll be posting separately about that later).  Her hide has been sent to the tanner.  Poor girl, but this was the right decision in our minds.  Clem is enjoying following the sheep and getting some extra attention from us.  Shearing is schedule for April 2nd.  His fleece (and that of the sheep) will be sent to Still River Mill in Ashford, CT to be processed into roving.  Last fall’s fleece has been cleaned, dried, and stored for future projects.

Sheep-In hopes that the girls are bred, we made a small paddock up by the house for them to have their lambs.  Once we see signs that they are nearing delivery (namely full udders) we will put them in their paddock.  We want to make sure they have a very clean space that has nice lush grass.  They are due between May 15 and June 15, so wish us luck!  We are also getting a four-year old CVM Ewe from a local farm and member of my fiber group.  They are downsizing (kids all in college, mom and dad want to do more than just feed animals all day) so it is the perfect situation.  They also participate in the USDA Scrapie program we joined this fall, so their sheep will have the same “status” as ours.  CVM are known for their exceedingly soft fleece and good carcass quality.  It should be a nice compliment to our girls.  Like the goat, they will be shorn in a few weeks and the fleece sent off for processing.

Cows-Enjoying the sunshine.  We hope to do AI with the two mommas later this summer.  The calves are almost as tall as their mothers and look nice and healthy.

Pigs-Coming June 2010! We’re aiming to get a pair. Our farm will once again feel complete when we bring them over.

Garden/Orchard-We are in the midst of making yearly calendars for these as well, including tasks and expenses.  We ordered some seeds, plan to buy transplants from a local nursery, and are planning for a scaled down garden this year.  We trimmed back our fruit trees, they will need fertilizing and mulching, but then are set for the year.  Mike started to compost the garden and hopefully he will till and de-rock in the next few weeks.

Our flock currently stands at about 40 hens and roosters.  Five came with us during the move, five are from a friend, and the rest are chicks we either got from the hatchery or hatched here on the farm.  We are very happy with our flock, we have four great roosters (you want around a 1:8-1:10 ratio) and are currently getting about 18 eggs/day from our hens.  Our chickens free range and we feed them an all natural vegetable feed with no antibiotics.  We also give them leftovers from the house since we are currently pig-less.  We use a little more than one and a half 50lb bags of feed per week (each chicken consumes roughly 1/4 lb per day, plus we let the 11 ducks and 4 geese eat a little as well).  Each bag of feed is roughly $12, so we spend about $18/week to feed our flock.  Right now we are getting about 8-10 dozen eggs per week, which if you do the math comes to about $1.90/dozen eggs in feed costs, which is way better than the price you pay for all natural free-range eggs in the local grocery.  Plus, there is NOTHING better than eggs that have been laid that day.  We sell several dozen/week to friends and eat the rest.

Here are some of the dishes we made with eggs this week:

• Hard Boiled Eggs and Egg Salad
• Ham and Swiss Quiche
• American Sponge Cake
• Cookies (three kinds that we cooked a few and froze the rest)
• Challah Bread
• Beignets
• Omelets
• Fried Eggs with Bacon and Home Fries
• Kasha Buckwheat

If you can, find a local farm and purchase some eggs.  When chickens are happy and have access to the outside, fresh air, water, and healthy grain they make the worlds best eggs.

We are busy, working parents with two young kids.  Sometimes we go through the drive-thru.  It is infrequent (once/twice a month) and we have rules, for example we try to only order fish or whole cuts of chicken if we order meat at all.  We avoid foods that have been ground due to concerns about contamination.  Same thing goes for restaurants in general, although, again, we are not completely dogmatic about this.  Sometimes we make alternative choices based on what would be easier, faster, most polite, whatever.  The key is moving towards and ideal even if it’s never reached (nor expected to be reachable).

We really like sweets and allow our kids to eat candy and drink soda.

GASP!  To be honest, most of the sweets we eat are things we make ourselves.  If you come to our house, you are likely to find anything from homemade root beer to homemade twinkies to homemade candy.  Several nights ago we made a chocolate cookie cake with a ganache frosting for Mike’s birthday.  I made a batch of dark chocolate covered cherries that I am hoarding in the back of the fridge and not allowing anyone else to eat.  We limit soda to special occasions; birthdays, parties, eating out, and don’t drink soda with caffeine (we usually stick to root beer or ginger ale).  We feel pretty strongly that life is for enjoying and we really enjoy yummy foods.  Our kids get plenty of veggies and other healthy stuff, so the occasional desert won’t hurt them or us.  Plus, when you are living and working on a farm, you can use the calories.  Finally, from years of personal experience (Jamie has only ever had child-related jobs; camp counselor, baby-sitter, nanny, etc.) the kids who have the biggest problems with sugar and sweets are the ones who are never allowed to have them.  Children who are allowed to have snacks and learn to moderate themselves tend to grow up with the healthiest food attitudes.  In our house, it is common to have to throw out the last cookie or piece of cake because it has gone stale.  We have a huge candy cupboard that the kids can both access. They never try to sneak candy because they don’t need to.  In fact, this next year, I think I may just make a bag of uneaten candy that I set aside and we use to decorate our holiday ginger bread houses.

We watch tv and so do our kids.  We also play Wii.

In moderation and without commercials.  We have a Netflix subscription, so we get disks in the mail and watch movies and shows online.  We go to the library once a week and the kids each pick out a movie.  We use a program on our computer that is like Tivo and we set up a weekly schedule to tape the shows that we and the kids like.  I take out the commercials from the kids shows (FYI, a half-hour show is really only 22 minutes).  For our shows, we just fast forward.  We feel that by not being tied down to watching at certain times, we have tons of flexibility and probably watch far less tv.  We have a few kids shows and a few grown-up shows we watch and maybe once a week watch a movie as a family.  We limit the amount the kids watch, some days it is none, and some days (bad weather, sick, really tired, etc.) we watch a lot.  Sometimes I feel like the kids watch too much, but that is life.  If we had a communal living situation and people around to play with and interact with at all times, I am sure they would watch almost none.  As it is, all four of us tend to be people who are very concentrated and focused and intense with whatever we are doing (working, playing, visiting with friends, cooking, etc.) and then want to just zone out for a while.  Plus, there are some really great shows and movies and we feel that our lives are more enriched having watched them.  As for the Wii, it is also something we set limits on.  Mostly Mike and Jackson play together (Lego Star Wars), but we are starting to play as a family now that Charlotte is older (Big Brain Academy).  Like with the sweets and soda, we feel that having our children get exposure to it and learning to set some limits for themselves is the best way to proceed.  Jackson will spend half an hour on the Wii and then go play his legos for an hour or more.  He is learning self-modulation which we feel is very good.

We love technology and pop culture and politics.

We have  and iPhone and iPods and keep up with the latest scandals on a myriad of websites (actually, that’s mostly Jamie).  We don’t wish to be living at another time or place.  We are happy with our modern lives and consider ourselves to be techno-pioneers.