Tag: Draft horse

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Transplanting head lettuce and Pac Choi into hoop house
Cultivating the garden with four Suffolk Punches

Welcome to Ryan, our fourth apprentice, who arrived at the beginning of the week.  Monday morning we woke to the sound of flapping plastic and realized that our fourth hoop house, that we had just covered with plastic, had come loose in the wind and ripped off during the night!  What a disappointment.   While Ken and Andy were busy getting ground worked up to plant the early seeds in the outside garden and the oat ground ready to plant, the other apprentices retro fitted the hoop house for plastic reassembly. They put a bottom board down and used U-Bolts to attach it to the hoops then moved one of the ends in by one hoop width. Now we can have enough plastic to re-attach it to the ends and use battens to wrap the side plastic and screw them to  the wooden bottom boards.  Our CSA members can think of  all this effort when they eat their first mesclun – grown in the hoop house.

This week we also took one of our big pigs to be butchered and made into sausage to sell to CSA members. The hens are cranking out about 70 eggs a day so if anyone wants to make the pilgrimage to the farm they can stock up on eggs and sausage for Easter.

We also managed to get the early garden planted and covered with row cover and three of our four oat fields worked up and planted. Now all we need is some warm weather!

On Thursday, we started our three day April Draft Horse Workshop. Participants from Ontario and Quebec as well as three of our new apprentices took the course together. To begin they do some line exercises driving “George the Trike”. Caesar takes on a supervisory job during the workshops and especially enjoys accompanying on the wagon rides.  So life continues to be full and busy here at Orchard Hill. As we gear up for the season ahead.

Driving George the trike
Ryan Hanging up the Trace
Shannon Driving Gwen
Richard Driving Gena

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Ken Plowing

Spring plowing has begun again. Ken and our Suffolk Punch draft horses got a false start in March before the last snow storm and freeze up. Now they are back at it and getting ready to plant oats as soon as possible. We will also be planting the early CSA garden as soon as we can work up our early garden area.  We did manage to plant one of our hoop houses this week to have greens for our first CSA pick-ups.

Lisa Unloading Oat Seed
Grahame Servicing Mower
Andy Plowing

Our full season apprentices have arrived. Andy, from New Zealand, has returned to fill our Senior Apprentice position. It has already been a great help to have a trained teamster to work with the draft horses. He has jumped right in doing some of the spring plowing. Lisa, from Maryland, and Grahame, from B.C., have come to become teamsters and hone their farming skills. We feel privileged to work with such fine young people as we pass on what we have learned over the past 30 plus years farming and look forward to working with them this season.

Arthur Ford Public School Planting Bean Seed

Earlier this week we had a grade two class from Arthur Ford Public School in London come to the farm for a field trip. One of the students is a CSA member and we agreed for the class to come. They enjoyed a wagon ride, egg collecting and bean planting. Normally we are too busy to host school field trips, but we squeezed it in early and were fortunate to have good weather. I am hopeful that it will stir a horticultural bent in some of the students…

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Morning Emergence of Free Range Hens From Chicken Coop

The Laying Hens are very happy to have the land free of snow! They are laying again with the longer day length and we have eggs for sale at the farm. (Available in the breezeway of the house if we aren’t around.)

Big Pigs that Escaped!

Last week our two big “composting pigs” escaped! We had just mucked out the horse stalls and put the manure in one of our three composting areas. Two “Free Range” hens had made there way into the pen and we left the door open so they could get out. What we didn’t realize was that the door to the pen next door, where the pigs were, wasn’t nailed shut! While we were eating lunch and I was anticipating my afternoon nap with pleasure I looked out the window and saw two 500 lb. pigs rooting around in the horse paddock! Ken and I spent the next 1 1/2 hours chasing pigs before we got them back into their pens. They were out in the woods, in with Mable and finding nuts and grass roots to chew on – having a grand time!

Hoophouse Conversion to Greenhouse

On a good note we have our retrofitted hoophouse/greenhouse up and running with a wood stove installed. The little plants are looking happy. I have more sweet potatoes getting ready to send out shoots that we can plant as slips. Leeks, onions, and early lettuce and Pak Choi growing.

The end of February I visited our daughter, Ellen, in Portland, Oregon and enjoyed attending her graduation from a Chef’s Studio. She has written a blog http://pommeroyale.com/where she writes about her experience and adds recipes. I hope she can post some good ideas for using our produce when the CSA season begins. I also brought back a recipe book written by Robert Renolds, the chef she studied with, From a Breton Garden. I plan to share some of the recipes from it over the season as well.

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Back for Another Log
Hooking Up to a Log

We have enjoyed having another  Logging Workshop today. Ken has been demonstrating how to safely skid logs from the woodlot to a snowy field. Gwen and Buttons two of our Suffolk Punch draft horses are behaving very well.  We will cut up and split many of the logs for firewood later in the spring for next winter.  Some of the better logs we will  saw into lumber to be used for various projects around the farm.

Sunflower Oil for Winter Fuel

Ken has also been experimenting this winter with sunflower oil to run diesel motors. He has added a bit of gasoline to the sunflower oil (see jar on the right).  It keeps the sunflower oil from jelling up at cold temperatures (see far 0n left) and makes it so it will burn directly in a diesel motor without having to be first heated up or  made into bio-diesel.  Making bio-diesel is a complicated business and has some byproducts that are difficult  to dispose of easily. Using our draft horses makes sense for many jobs around the farm, however we still use the tractor for front end loader work and to run a Power Take Off for our baler and bush hog.   Ken is trying to figure out if he could grow an oil producing crop that would provide enough fuel to run the tractor  and perhaps a diesel generator for some electrical needs.

I walked down the farm today with a potential apprentice and was happy to see that the irrigation pond is almost full to over flowing.  Our CSA garden fields are becoming visible as the snow melts and I can feel my blood starting to stir as I anticipate the spring and the coming season.  We will soon be starting our early transplants. Most of our seeds have arrived and I am feeling rested up and ready to go again.  I enjoy having an occupation that is so closely linked to the natural word, where the work slows down during the dark time of the year and picks up again as the days lengthen out and my energy returns. We still have some spaces in our CSA for the 2011 season. We have a steady trickle of applications coming in and in March, when people are ready to think about spring again, I will contact all our past CSA members to remind them that it is time to save their spot!

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We have decided not to have a “mini”  farm market on December 11. With the colder weather and shorter days the chickens’ egg production has dropped off and the outdoor produce is frozen.  Thanks to everyone who came out and in October and November. We were happy to be able to sell our egg surplus and the garden produce that kept on giving.  It was a gentler end to the season and Caesar certainly was happy  to see everyone.  We would be happy to sell flour and  eggs here at the farm in the “off” season. Just contact us ahead of time to make sure we are home and the flour is ground and the chickens are laying.

We are moving ahead with our greenhouse renovations.  Hopefully, all the warmer weather isn’t behind us and we will be able to get the cement work done soon.  We are waiting rather impatiently to rent a back hoe for digging a big hole to bury rocks in for a passive solar heat storage.  It will keep us busy for some time. Everyone always asks what we do in our “off” season and it seems that this is our big project for this winter.

Our three older Suffolk Punch mares Jasmin, Gena and Gwen have all been “checked in foal”.  We hope to breed the two younger mares Buttons and Sassy in the spring. Gena is due the end of June and Jasmin and Gwen are due the end of July. It will be fun to have some young draft horses around the farm again.  We had Chester hooked up with Gwen recently and they went very well together all things considered. Perhaps we will be able to work Chester when the mares are on maternity leave next summer.

We hope that everyone has a Happy Solstice/Christmas Season and extend our best wishes for the New Year.

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Weeding Fall/Winter Greens
Free Range Chickens

Since the end of our CSA season our little free range hens have continued to lay like crazy. We decided last week to open our farm gates again for egg sales every other Saturday.

The following Saturdays we will be open from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm : November 13, November 27 and December 11.

Along with the eggs we will have for sale our own freshly ground whole wheat flour (from wheat we grew here on the farm with real draft horse power) and regular and sweet potatoes as well as whatever greens and garden produce that we can harvest.  Our unheated greenhouses provide tasty greens that have real flavour!

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Buttons and Gwen at IPM in St. Thomas, Ontario

Ken has spent the week at the International Plowing match in St. Thomas.  It is taking place only about 5 km from the farm and seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.  He has been plowing with Buttons and Gwen.  Elwyn McGuire has also been plowing at the match with our older team Jasmin and Gena.  Our apprentices have been a great help with the horses as well.  Friday is the last day of the the four day plowing competition and then it will be back to the real farm work for everyone. It has been a lot of fun and a good chance to show everyone our calm, steady Suffolk horses.  Suffolks are a rare breed and it is unusual for them to be out in public.  We have been happy to see some of our CSA members who have stopped by to visit at the match!

Our squash harvest has provided a bounty of beautiful squash to share with our members. The mountain of squash is gradually going down in our front yard.  It is good that they store well.  An excellent website that explains about the different varieties of squash has hints on cooking and lincs to recipes is: whatscookingamerica.net/squash.htm

We expect to be digging the remainder of our potato crop next week and will have a bounty to divide up for our final weeks of the CSA.  We are really pleased with our first sweet potato crop.  We gave our first sweet potatoes on Tuesday and have quite a few more.  The fresh dug potatoes are not as sweet as the ones that have been cured. We are attempting to cure some in our greenhouses to give in the final week. We are new to growing sweet potatoes and are learning as we go.

Orchard Hill Farm CSA Fall Potluck will be held October 3rd from 2-4 pm

Bring: food to share, plates, cutlery, cups and lawn chairs.

Last pick-up dates:

Tuesday, October 5

Saturday, October 9

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Potato Digger in Action
Potatoes Ready for Picking-up

Some of you may have seen Ken working on getting our “new” old potato digger back into working order last week. One CSA member asked him, “Are you ever going to get that rust bucket working?” The answer is YES! We have pictures to prove it.  (If you double click on the photos they will enlarge.) One of my stipulations for growing the CSA was to have a potato digger and now we do! Those working shares who have helped us dig potatoes with a fork or paw around in the soil after the horse drawn potato plow went through can attest to the amount of work it is.  So, I am delighted with our “rust bucket” that works! We have a big potato crop this season and it will be well used. It is still a heavy pull for two horses, but we hope to split up the harvest between two or three digging days.

The squash and pumpkin crop is also coming in. Check out the recipe section for some squash and pumpkin recipes. Keep in mind that any pumpkin recipe can also be made with squash. Go to the search box and type in squash or pumpkin for some of the older blog recipe entries from past years.  The following is a recipe from a past entry:

Leek and Potato Soup by Jill Wilcox
Ingredients
1 lb. leeks (about 3 medium)
3 tbsp butter
1 cooking onion, chopped
1 rib celery, finely sliced
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
3c water, chicken or veg. stock
2c milk or cream
chopped chives for garnish
To make the soup
1. trim the coarse green portion of the leeks. Cut leeks in half lengthwise, leaving the bulb end intact and clean well under running water. Shake off excess moisture and slice the leeks thinly, discarding the root end when you get to it.
2. In a stock pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Cook the leeks, onion and celery about 5 minutes until soft.
3. Add the potatoes and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook about 25 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.
4. Add the milk (or cream) and return to a bare simmer. Season with salt and white pepper to taste. (You can puree the soup with an immersion blender at this stage if you wish or pass it through a food mill.)

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Orchard Hill workforce Fall 2010

Ken has been wanting to take a picture with “all our workers” for sometime and last Friday when Michelle was here he got her to take the picture. Chester didn’t make it in because he isn’t working in the field yet… This fall when his testosterone levels drop (and hopefully we have all our mares bred) we can introduce him into the herd and he can start working along side the other heavy horses.

Here’s the line up from left to right: Sassy (our new mare traded for Whinnie); Ken; Gwen (sweet Gwen who gets along with everyone); Martha; Buttons (young Mare / granddaughter of “Goldie” one of our all time favorite horses); Verena (agriculture student from France); Gena and Jasmin (our two- 13 year old – hard working well trained mares); Nora (full season apprentice from Maryland); Sam (young gelding in training); Andy (aspiring future farmer from New Zealand); Ziggy (young gelding in training); Jesse (full season apprentice from Sarnia).

On the general farm front things are in good shape. Our second cut hay is all baled without rain! Ken has almost finished his green manure fertility transfer onto future garden plots and fields that need a boost. Nora and Jesse have prepared their fields to be planted to fall grain in a couple of weeks.

The harvest for the CSA continues to roll in with what appears to be a bumper crop of tomatoes. Ken is trying to get our new used potato digger up and running before we dig the majority of our potato crop. The sweet potatoes are still small, but Andy dug a few to test and they were yummy. We hope that they size up in the next month! Raspberries are coming along well.

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Nora and Ethan harvesting herbs
Tomatoes have finally begun to roll in! The hoop house tomatoes have done really well and now the heirloom and paste tomatoes that we planted outside are ripening as well. It’s a great change from last year! We have also begun the fall raspberry harvest. Summer squash and melons have come to an end, but the winter squash and pumpkin crop looks very promising.

Gradually the garden is coming out of production and we are seeding it down to an oat cover crop to keep the weeds down and cover the ground to protect it from erosion.

We managed to get two small fields of good second cut hay into the barn this week before the rain today. Ken has also been working with Siggy and Sam and they are doing well discing in a three horse hitch. Chester has managed to breed all five our our mares and we are hoping that they catch and we have a lot of Suffolk foals in another year. Mable is growing and continues to be a big hit with our CSA members.