From Here to There
Last year the journey started on March 18th. Our shearer came to shear the sheep and we opened the farm to the public so they could see what we do. Then in February some of the wool went to a fiber mill in Vermont. Junction Fiber Mill in White River Junction, Vermont is a woman owned mill. I dropped off 15 pounds of raw fleece from our sheep and in the course of a month(Which is a crazy fast turn around time) these ladies turned 15 lbs of fiber into roughly 10 lbs of gorgeous soft 3 ply yarn. Each [...]
Rendering Fat
I love cooking and baking, and one of my favorite oils to cook in are animal fats. Previously I've only rendered pork fat into lard. But this year, after processing the chicken carcasses into broth I had a lot of beautiful fat that had to be skimmed off before canning the broth. I didn't want that to go to waste so I scooped it off and set it aside in the freezer. When I had 4 lambs processed this fall, I asked the butcher to save any fat trimmings for me to render down as well. Rendering fat is super [...]
Raising Chickens – 2022
This year we raised the most chicken we've ever done, 120 birds in 3 batches, and we processed them all on farm with the help of some very good friends. Sean and Naomi made it possible to slaughter and process all the birds on our property. With their expertise, and good company we spent three days, 8 am to 4:30-5 pm processing birds. It's a long day, and tiresome work but much more bearable thanks to them. We now have whole birds, breasts, legs(thighs and drumsticks), tenders, and wings available for sale at Aunt Clare's Self serve farm stand in [...]
A Sad Wednesday Morning
6 years farming > one wednesday morning Farming in New England has many hardships, some are unique to New England and some are the same ones found across the world. We’ve been very lucky in the past six years of having livestock. We’ve lost chickens here and there to the occasional fox or hawk, due to our own negligence, but we have never lost a sheep to a predator. Something I was very proud of. To me it showed that we could live side by side coyotes and bears without having to fear for our sheep. In late summer [...]
Saying “Yes”
This year at the beginning of 2022 my New Year's Resolution for the farm was to have a year of “yes”. To me this meant that if an opportunity came my way I would do it, ready or not I’d say yes. The first “yes” came in the beginning of March. While scrolling through facebook someone on a sheep page mentioned the YCP with the application form for shepherds. Curious, I read through it and learned that the YCP, Youth Conservation Program, connects kids 9-18 with farmers of heritage sheep. In April the farmers are given a list of essays [...]
Planting in the snow
Once January comes around I find my self quite impatient to get started on the veggie and flower gardens. The garden is buried in snow, the temperature hasn't been above freezing in the past 10 days and I'm eager to see something green. A few years ago I stumbled upon a facebook group called "Winter Sowers". Trudi, the original winter sower, developed this unique and easy way of starting seeds. I've never been good at starting seeds indoors. Between lighting issues, lack of space for all the individual pots, water spills, and children that love to help to the point [...]