Our two full season apprentice, Nora and Jesse, have arrived for the 2010 season. We are happy to have the much needed help and are excited to have the bunkhouse ready for occupancy!

Hello there, my name is Nora and I am a new full season apprentice on the ‘Hill. I am from Rockville, Maryland originally, and pretend to be Canadian when I get the chance. I have worked on and off organic CSA farms since 2005, in far out places such as Michigan, Maryland, New York and Ontario. Halfway through last season, which I spent at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project, a great mission-based non-profit farm in the Hudson Valley, it dawned on me that I really and truly wanted to farm for a living, and I needed to learn how to farm with horses. Maciej, a friend of mine and former apprentice, said Orchard Hill was just the horse’s feathers, and so here I am! I’m still trying to hone in on what my farming dream is, but I think it contains these adjectives and nouns: cooperative, draft power, friends, grains, direct, family, justice, beans, democracy, seeds, and songs. I’m looking for ways to farm during the day, and to help build more just and beautiful community-based food systems at night. Thanks in advance for welcoming me into yours!

Hello, my name is Jesse and I am currently an apprentice at Orchard Hill Farm. Originally, I am from Sarnia (Chemical Valley) and am, to be frank, enjoying my time away. Although I have no previous farming experience, I have come quick to realize I’ve chosen (and been chosen) to be part of a farm that is nearly wise itself.

This week Sheri Fleischauer arrived for the month of April. We look forward to getting to know Sheri and perhaps finding some time to for her to teach us some of her basket making skills.  She is from another Ontario organic farm and has already proven to be a great addition to the crew here.

The bunkhouse stairs are built and installed! They are made from wood from the family woodlot. The beauty of real wood is always impressive. Ken has worked hard to take the rough lumber and turn it into a work of art. He is now working on the upstairs bedroom floor. We hope to have it ready for the first apprentices when they arrive on March 24th and it looks like we will make the grade. Devan Penny, a former apprentice, came for a short visit and got right in on the action fitting the doorjamb of walnut with Ken!

The chickens are really enjoying the warm weather. Around 20 chickens have wintered over and are starting to lay eggs again. We have ordered another 30 ready to lay pullets to arrive in mid-May. The plan is to fence the field that is just north of the house and have it be our chicken pasture. We’ll see if we have better luck with that.

The greenhouse is up and running with the wood stove in place. The first transplants have been started. I always enjoy greenhouse work in the early spring. Applications keep arriving daily. We still have some shares available for the 2010 season.
An application can be downloaded from the CSA page of this website.

After the spring-like weather a week ago it seems winter has returned! The horses don’t mind because the snow and frozen ground make their paddock much cleaner than the mucky muddy mess we have had some yeas in February. I don’t really mind either, because Ken is itching to start his spring plowing and the winter conditions help keep him focused on the bunkhouse wood working. I am very pleased to report that the stairs are now in place and we are ready to start work on the floor for the upstairs bedroom. The beams look lovely with their final sanding and oiling. We are very hopeful that the bunkhouse will be ready for the apprentices when they arrive the end of March.

Around the edges of the bunkhouse work we will be starting up the greenhouse for the early spring transplants. Lots of garden planning has taken place and we are excited about the coming year’s growing season. CSA garden applications keep arriving daily with the mail. We still have some space available and welcome local folks to join for the season.

Yesterday we had another successful logging workshop here at Orchard Hill Farm. Ken worked hard getting ready the last couple of weeks felling trees to pull out of the woodlot on the big day and getting all the horses shod for the winter conditions. Our son, Grayden, came home for the weekend to help supervise the participants and demonstrated that he hasn’t forgotten his teamster skills while living in the big city of Toronto.

One of our youngest participants ever, 12 year old Chris Collinson, took to driving like a duck to water.

Now it’s time for us to get back to work on the bunkhouse in order to have it finished for our apprentices when they arrive the end of March. Ken has a set of stairs to build and Martha will be doing the finishing work sanding and oiling the woodwork, painting the dry wall and washing down the clay walls.

Everyone asks us what we do in the winter…One of our January tasks is to make wheel hoes to take to the Guelph Organic Conference to sell at our booth where we advertise our Apprenticeship program and our Draft Horse Workshops.

Ken was inspired to build his first stirrup wheel hoe after hearing Eric Eberhardt give a talk about how he cultivated his rather large garden with such a wheel hoe. When that first stirrup wheel hoe proved to be such an effective and easy to use weeder in our own CSA garden Ken decided other people might be interested to purchase a similar tool. The wooden parts are harvested from ash trees in our family woodlot. Ash is very strong, but springy hardwood that has been traditionally used for handles. The wheel employed is a bicycle wheel. The large wheel rolls easily and no tire and tube are needed, because there is no significant load to carry and pneumatic tires eventually go flat and need repairs. Most of our horse equipment rolls along fine on steel wheels. The stirrup is constructed from recycled band sawmill blades and makes a very tough but thin weeding blade. Painting is such an environmentally unfriendly process that we have opted to give the whole machine a coat of boiled linseed oil made from flaxseed to protect the steel and wood.

Another January job is to map out the garden and order seeds. Some of you may remember the picture a year ago of Caesar as a puppy sitting on my lap while we ordered seeds. This year he was too big to sit on my lap, but he still helped.

One of our early winter jobs is always to mulch the strawberries so they over winter well. The mulch keeps the ground from freezing and thawing so the shallow roots of the strawberry plants don’t get broken off. It also holds the plants back a bit in the spring. If they grow and bloom too early the blossoms often get frozen by a late frost, hence no fruit. We usually wait to uncover the plants until it is so warm that they have started to grow under the mulch (that we don’t want either)…then the mulch goes between the rows to keep the weeds down and keep the berries clean of mud when it rains. It also makes the ground softer for kneeling on. We have put electric fence around the strawberry bed to keep the deer from grazing on the strawberry leaves. In the past few years they have developed a taste for strawberries. We are hoping the fence will be enough of a deterrent to keep them out.

We now have four new little pigs to help with the composting of the horse manure. They started off their lives in a hedge row at an organic farm and are a bit wild. Michelle has been trying to decide on names and has chosen “Dot” for the spotted one. Ken has amended it to .com.

Ken has begun training Buttons and I got some action shots this afternoon. She is coming along well. Whinnie, one of our young mares, was sold earlier this week to a young couple who have a CSA in Eastern Ontario and have just bought a farm. Whinnie will be teamed up with Jazz, who is a daughter of Jethro Tull, our first Suffolk stallion. He is also Whinnie’s grandsire. We hope they will make a good team and are thrilled to have another CSA horse farm in Ontario with Suffolks.

Ken and I went down to the 2010 CSA garden plot this morning a remeasured the area to ensure that I have the proper row lengths for garden planning and ordering seeds. The area has been prepared with compost and is seeded down to rye. The rye has come up well and will give good cover to prevent erosion over the winter months. Previous to this the field was in Christmas trees for many years. This is the first time in 20 years that we haven’t sold Christmas Trees. It seems a bit strange, but it is nice to have our December back to do some other things. Have a Happy Holiday Season.

Hurray for the bunkhouse! The scaffolding is finally down and gives a good view. We are pleased that the exterior is finished before winter. Yea no more tarps. The final white wash helps to fill in any small cracks in the plaster to protect it from the weather. We will continue to work on the inside to have it ready for the arrival of our spring interns. In the mean time Michelle is using it for her Fall/Early Winter pick-ups. It gives her a pick-up area that won’t freeze.

Ken was finally able to plant rye in one of our clay fields yesterday. So the fall planting is done. Getting it in between the rains was quite a challenge. The previous bit of sunshine also enabled me to clean up our CSA flower and herb beds by the house.

For those of you who have an abundance of squash remember that any pumpkin recipe can be equally good or sometimes better made with squash. Don’t forget to check the index for recipes that have already been posted. I will post one here that Ken enjoys. It comes from my More with Less cook book and is like pumpkin pie, but does away with the crust.

Pumpkin (or squash) Custard

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Combine in mixing bowl:
1 1/2 c. cooked, strained pumpkin
2/3 c. brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c. scalded milk
1 T. cornstarch
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/4 t. each ground cloves and nutmeg
Pour into buttered baking dish. Bake 45 minutes.