Tag: Draft Horses

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Ken in the Bale throwing event at the Farm Olympics

Above is a youtube video that was filmed at Orchard Hill Farm last weekend by our son, Grayden, and his friend Ivan.  Grayden and our apprentices were brain storming earlier in the season on promoting farming as a good way to get fit and dreamed up a competition day   with various events…somehow it actually managed to come to pass. T-shirts were designed for the occasion with the “Farm Fit”  logo.  It was a fun weekend, but I think more fun for the city slickers who came than for our tired farm team here!  Grayden says that next time he will try and schedule it in the off season so that more farmers will actually attend!

Bill with Mater and Buttons Cultivating before Planting the Cover Crop for Next Year's Hoop House

We have been busy planting cover crops for the 2013 garden areas. Our garlic has been drying for a month and today we took it down and bagged it for future use. We are also reorganizing the middle barn to make room for the lumber that Ken is finally having time to saw. The motor for the new saw mill is now fixed and the sawing has begun!  Yesterday, Michelle and I bent over the tops of our onions to get them ready for pulling and curing next week. The crop looks good. We were also very pleased to see that the squash and pumpkins are producing a good crop.  This year we tried a new method of preparation and planted directly into a rye cover crop that had been cut off just as the heads were coming out instead of ploughing in the rye…as a result I was watching them very closely and getting worried that they weren’t setting enough fruit…I decided that I should just leave them alone to grow and was pleasantly surprised to see that left on their own they did fine!

CSA member Bette Conners with her Bouquet

Our cut-your-own flowers have been a big hit and I wish I had pictures of all the lovely bouquets that CSA members have taken home with them. I’ve planted several succession plantings of zinnias, snap dragons and calendula to keep the flowers coming longer and an pleased with the results. Over the years I have tried to select flowers that grow well here and produce good cut flowers for our CSA members. Gradually I feel like I am succeeding in growing a better “cut flower garden.”

Michelle and Bill Reorganizing Lumber Storage
Stemming the Cured Garlic

 

 

 

 

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Eric and Anne Nordell's Weed Free Garden

Ken and I went on a field trip the end of last week organized by the Ecological Farmers of Ontario. We are very grateful to our apprentices and working shares who were here to gather together a lovely array of produce for Saturday’s pick-up. We saw a number of other farms and visited the Rodale Institute for their field day. One of the farms we visited was Eric and Anne Nordell’s in Pennsylvania. They are a model farm for weed control with the use of draft horses. It is interesting for us to be able to leave the farm to see other farms during the growing season.

This time of year we have lots of produce coming in and we welcome recipes from our CSA members. Colleen Burns has supplied us with a Cold Cucumber Soup recipe that she has been enjoying.

Cold Cucumber Soup

3 T. Butter or marg.

1 cup chopped onions

4 large garlic cloves – minced

3 cups chicken or veggie broth

4 cups seeded diced, unpeeled cucumber (2 medium)

1 cup swiss chard or spinach

1 cup sliced, peeled potatoes

1/2 tsp. salt or to taste

1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 T lemon

1 cup table cream

In a large saucepan heat butter and saute onions and garlic until soft. Add broth cucumber, spinach, potatoes, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Simmer covered until potatoes are tender (10 min.) Tansfer mixture in batches to blender or food processor to puree (Blender makes soup smoother)

Transfer to large bowl. Stir in cream. Let soup cool. Then chill overnight or for several hours. Serve in chilled bowls. Can garnish with thin slices of cucumber.

 

 

 

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Wheat Harvest at Orchard Hill Farm

Harvest time is coming early this year with the warm spring and hot weather that we have been experiencing. Usually we don’t harvest wheat and oats until later in the summer, but our wheat is all off and the straw is in the barn. The oats are half harvested, one of our fiels isn’t ready yet. Our old combine has held together so far, but Ken says there is a vibration that is starting to concern him…fingers crossed that it all holds together for another season. We are selling our old thrashing machine today so we can’t use that as our fall back position.

Amanda, Eli, Elizabeth and Bill - Garlic Harvesters

The garlic was also harvested earlier than usual this week. It came out of the field as a bumper crop!  We dug it all in one afternoon Ken and Bill ploughed it out with Gena and Buttons, two of our Suffolk Punch horses, and a walking plough. Then we gathered it up and tied two bunches of ten together on either end of a length of twine, loaded it onto a wagon that the horses pulled up to the barn and it is all nicely hanging to dry.

We have been irrigating the garden  because of  the dry weather and are thankful that we have a pond and equipment to do so. It does add to the work load and it isn’t the same as rain, but it helps keep the garden growing! We are hoping for rain soon to help our hay and pasture fields to grow.

Cauliflower, Fennel, Eggplant and Lettuce CSA offering
Wagon Full of Garlic Waiting to be Hung Up to Dry
CSA Share Baskets Being Collected

The CSA pick-ups keep rolling around twice a week and we are harvesting beautiful produce to give to our CSA members. Our early carrots have been the most disappointing, because of the wire worm damage early in the spring. We are hoping that the later plantings will come along better. The taste of the carrots that we have harvested is very good despite the lower yield. Because of the wire worm we have decided to move our garden plot for the 2013 season to a different location. We had the area where we thought we were going to have the garden all ploughed in the spring and thought we were going to avoid summer ploughing in the hot dry weather. Now we are in the midst of ploughing the new area and it is hard on the horses and the teamsters. The ground is so hard that it is difficult to keep a plough in the ground. The apprentices are also working at preparing other plots for our 2013 potatoes, squash and new asparagus planting. Each of them have a field that they are responsible for and are doing all the tillage with the draft horses to prepare the ground. Some of the cover crops have been planted and the other fields are almost ready to be seeded.

We are happy that Princess,the belgian mare we had for sale will be going to Edencrest, another CSA farm in Ontario north west of Barrie. Mater is still for sale.

It’s Pesto time with fresh garlic and basil! Here is a recipe from Our Mothers’ Kitchens by Anita Stewart that I use:

PESTO

3 garlic cloves

2 cups packed leaves

1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

3/4 cup olive oil

In blender or food processor process garlic, basil, pine nuts, salt and pepper until finely chopped. With machine still running, gradually pour in oil and puree. Scrape into freezer container. Seal and freeze for up to 6 months. Makes 1 cup.

 

 

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Mabel

We are really into summer on the farm!  It looks like we will need to do another round of irrigation this week. Our first field of wheat is ready to come off and then we will have straw to bail. The garden is growing well with some tasty summer squash, cauliflower and broccoli being harvested. We are watching our garlic closely to make sure we don’t let it get over mature. Our strawberry season was short and sweet. We were pleased that so many strawberries escaped being frozen after our hot March and then -7 degrees C  nights in April!  We have another round of brassica transplants to go out this week and a succession planting of carrots and beets for the fall. My plan is to plant and then irrigate.

Amanda Building Pasture Fence for Mabel

We are getting another pasture fenced for Mabel, our Jersey cow. She has grown up in  the last two years and is ready to calve in August. We got her when she was two days old in May of 2010. Last Thursday she ducked under the top wire of the electric fence when Elias was moving her water barrel out of her patture and had taken down the lower fence.

Elizabeth Burying the Electric Fence Wire

Usually she is very friendly and quite happy to come to us for some attention, but she was having too much fun when she was out, playing tag with us, and it took a while before Ken was finally able to get hold of her halter!  Today Elizabeth and Amanda are fencing off the front pasture beside our chicken pasture so that Mabel will have some more good grazing. Next year the chickens will be in that pasture and Mabel can have the pasture where they are.  There are so many jobs to do all the time that, although fencing the front pasture for Mabel has been on the “list” for some time, it has only just now floated to the top.

Every week our work is framed by our CSA harvest for our Tuesday and Saturday pick-ups, however around the edges of that we do manage to keep up with other farm tasks. Finishing cutting up the fire wood for next winter is still on the list and every other week we do manage to do a sweep of in the garden – cultivating with our Suffolk Punch draft horses and then weeding and hoeing by hand. Ken also is planning to finish the cold room that has been under construction for some time. It will allow us more harvest flexibility and hopefully result in better quality produce for our CSA members. We now need to find and install a cooling unit, add some weather stripping and move the building into place. Ken finally had time to saw some of his lumber last week and then the new motor on the saw mill broke down! Understandably, he was very frustrated. The motor is at the repair shop and we are awaiting its return.

On the horse front we ended up buying back two Suffolks, Suzzie and Sonny,  that we sold five years ago along with, Sandy, a five year old mare out of our old stallion, Rufus, and Suzie. Sandy is untrained, but Ken is enjoying having two horses back that he trained himself. It’s nice to have more Suffolks on the farm again. After loosing three horses last year it is taking us a while to sort everything out. We also bought Queen, a lovely old belgian mare that we leased last summer. We are happy to have  Queen back on the farm to help out. We have Mater and Princess for sale because we don’t need quite so many horses. (See the horses for sale page of our website for pictures.) They are both good work horses and we hope they can find good homes. Our two foals from last year, Wendel and Eli, are “growing up” in the south pasture.

Grandma Martha Holding Della

In the back of my mind I am still remembering holding little Della Jane when I was in Portland for her birth. It’s too bad I can’t be in two places at once! We hope that Della can come for visits when she is older so we can get to know her and share our farm. Ken is of course hoping that she will take after him and be horse crazy and grow up to be an organic horse farmer! He has been collecting horse toys for several years…

Bill back from Cultivating with Buttons and Queen
Elias Seeding Head Lettuce Transplants
New Cold Room
Cultivating and Hoeing Onions and Leeks

 

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Caesar, Bill van Zanten, Ken Laing, Amanda Lushinger, Elizabeth Hammond, Paul Papadatos

Now it seems like the new year on the farm has really begun with the arrival of our apprentice team for the season.  We have a new group this year and they have arrived with a welcome burst of  enthusiastic  energy. The whole crew took a turn driving our Suffolk Punch draft horses, Gwen and Gena, as they ploughed a round in the potato plot, yesterday, with oversight from Ken and Caesar.  The apprentice team and I also spent the better part of the day wrestling with row cover for the early garden planting.  Row cover seems like one the necessary evils of organic farming. We are using it this time of year just to keep the soil warmer where we have tucked in the early garden seeds and it does make quite a difference in the early garden growth.

Ploughing Under the Rye for the Potato Ground

Bill van Zanten actually arrived  a week earlier than planned because the weather was so warm and we were over whelmed with all the early spring work to be done.  He helped us get our hoop houses ready to go and worked in the greenhouse and with the early planting. We aren’t sure what the weather is going to do from here on out. We have left the strawberries covered hoping that it will protect them from the extremely cold nights we have just had.  However, we don’t want them to start growing under the mulch because that is also hard on them, so we will have to uncover them soon  and hope for the best. Our early peas, spinach, carrots, beets, radishes and mesclun are planted out doors. One of our hoop houses is planted to spinach and we are going to plant more of our hoop houses later this week. It is a challenge to time it so it will all be ready at the right time to go with our perennials of rhubarb and asparagus and then  be able to dovetail with the outdoor plantings so that we have a continuous supply of produce once we start the CSA pickups.

First Log Sawed !

Ken’s new sawmill did arrive. Unfortunately, he hasn’t had time to do much more than try it out, because all the fields are calling to him.  We are expecting to have some windows of time to do some sawing a little later after the oats are planted. The earlier you plant oats the better they do.  We  are hoping to get them planted before the end of March, but we are still waiting for our new seed to arrive. The early spring has everyone feeling like they are behind before we even get started!

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Skidding out Logs with Gena and Gwen

Ken has spent a good part of the last month felling trees and skidding logs out of the woodlot with our Suffolk Punch horses. He was ideally waiting for some nice snow cover for the log skidding. The logs get very dirty when they are pulled out in the mud. Today, on our Sunday farm walk/talk, he was saying that he should probably get a power washer to clean up the logs before cutting them or he will have a lot of dull blades in a hurry when he starts sawing. I was delighted with the idea, because we could also use it to wash the garden soil off of the carrots and other root vegetables. We purchased a “root washer” last year, but I have been very disappointed with it. It does a lovely job of washing peppers, tomatoes and zucchini, but in my opinion they don’t usually need much washing anyway. However, with the really dirty roots we had to pre-wash them for them to come out clean. I’m ready to try a power washer!

Walnut Logs Ready for Sawing

Ken’s farmer blood is starting to boil with all the warm dry weather in the forecast and he is ready to start spring plowing so he can plant some early oats. The earlier they get in the ground the better. It is unusual for us to be able to plant before the end of March, but it looks like this year it should be possible. The frost is out of the ground and it is starting to dry up! The good thing about doing so much logging is that the draft horses have kept in shape and should be ready to go with the plowing. It is hard on horses when they are out of shape and the weather warms up quickly. We have three new horses to work with this spring and it will be good for Ken to begin working with them before the apprentices arrive at the end of the month.

Molly, Jonathan, Martha, Ken, Bill and Jolianne

On the weekend we were delighted to have two of our past apprentices, Jonathan Bruderlien and Joilanne Demers, come to the farm for a stop over with their new team of draft horses, Molly and Bill. They are CSA farming in Quebec and have purchased their first team. Ken helped them hitch for the first time and they even did some plowing. It is very gratifying for us to have helped train this fine young couple who are pursuing sustainable farming with horses and we wish them every success.

 

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Michelle and Mosquito
Ken Installing New Fan and Wood Stove

It’s time to start planting our early transplants for the CSA garden in the new greenhouse! Michelle Jory was down for a visit earlier this week and helped get the seed trays ready in between playing with Caesar and the cats, Mosquito and Courgette.  Wednesday morning our daughter, Ellen, was here visiting from Oregon and she and I popped in the first seeds of the season.  That meant we had to get busy and install the wood stove and the new fan to blow the hot air down into our rock storage on sunny days. Ken will be spending a lot of time monitoring the temperature of the rocks! We’ll keep you posted on how much less wood we use this year over last season when the new greenhouse was under construction and we had to use one of our hoop houses to start the plants…

Ken is itching to get back to felling the remaining trees on his list and skidding them out with his Suffolk Punch horses.  He is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his new saw mill. It is sad to cut down so many walnut trees, but the lumber will be very beautiful.

Ken is the President of Elgin National Farmers Union for this year. The NFU is hosting a screening of a new farm film, To Make a Farm in Aylmer, Monday, March 12 at 7:30 at the Old Town Hall (above the library), 38 John Street South. It is about some young farmers in Grey County, Ontario with urban backgrounds, who have bought farms and started farming. Some of them have come through the CRAFT apprentice network that we are part of. Scroll down to see previews:

http://tomakeafarm.ca/

I also include an animated video about genetically modified alfalfa:

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Leaving the barn yard with straw to mulch the strawberries.

When we come round to mulching strawberries for the CSA it really feels like we have come full circle in the farm year. We were discussing today whether it was the last job of the previous season or the first job of the new season. I guess that this year it is the first job of the new season since it is January 3rd. It’s hard to believe that three days ago we were planting garlic! The weather is so changeable. However, I am happy for the draft horses to have the snow to exercise in.  What a mess the winter has been so far with all the mud!

Driving to the field.

We hitched up two of our Suffolk Punch horses, Sassy and Gwen and loaded up the straw to take down to the field to mulch the strawberries with. We were waiting for the ground to freeze before we did this job, but we weren’t expecting to have so much snow over night. It was hard to see where the strawberry rows were! Caesar enjoyed coming along especially if he got to ride on the sleigh.

Caesar enjoying the ride.
Mulching the Strawberries

On another note we have been picking fresh kale from the garden, it just gets sweeter with the frost and tastes so good as a green vegetable. Kale chips are good too.  The following recipe was given to me by two different CSA members and it is very tasty.

Kale Chips with Cashews

KALE CHIPS with Cashews

Blend together in food processor:

1  Red Pepper (I use frozen ones from the summer).

1  Cup Cashews

2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

1 Tablespoon Tamari Sauce (you can use soy sauce)

2  Cloves Garlic (crushed first)

1  Tablespoon Nutritional Yeast (optional)

1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

6  Cups of firmly packed Kale (tare bit size pieces of kale off  of the center stem and discard stem).

Massage the above mixture onto the kale.

Spread on a 2 cookie sheets and dry in a slow oven until crisp. You can even turn the oven off after it has warmed up and then turn it on again every hour just enough to warm up. You don’t want to cook the kale, just dehydrate it. I use my dehydrator, but not everyone has one.

 


 

 

 

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Ken, Bill and Grayden harnessing up Gwen, our Suffolk horse

We have finished up a good year here at Orchard Hill Farm and are anticipating a good season in 2012. Our apprentice positions for the 2012 season are filled. We interviewed for our last apprentice position this week with and on farm visit.  Another 2012 apprentice,  Bill van Zanten, came to drive horses for the morning on Wednesday.

Planting Garlic into our Oat Cover Crop

We spent today planting more garlic just for insurance for next year. The weather has been so mild and we had some extra garlic left over so we decided to pop it in.

Ken finishing the west side of the Greenhouse

The greenhouse construction is continuing and we finished putting the poly carbonate on the west wall today. We are waiting for the ground to freeze up so we can mulch the strawberries…I getting ready to order seeds and map out the gardens for the coming season. Already I am noticing the days starting to lengthen out bit by bit and am excited as I anticipate a new greenhouse to start our seedlings in.

Tamworth Pigs with their beautiful red hair

Our composting pigs are tamworth, a rare breed, and their winter coats are beautiful red hair that glistens gold in the sunlight. I couldn’t help wanting to take a picture to share.

 

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Plucking the spent laying hens for chicken soup

December is already half over and we wonder where the time goes. Our last Fall CSA pick-up was on December 3 and it finished up well. The mild fall certainly worked in our favour. I enjoyed the extended harvest of the fall crops in the garden and the ability to share the bounty with our CSA members. The greenhouse greens were a help especially on the last pick-up, but it was surprising how well even the outdoor greens were growing with the use of row cover. Once the CSA customers stop coming to the farm we don’t have much of a sale for our free range eggs and because we don’t push our hens with lights through the winter they usually stop laying when it gets cold. We decided to butcher our old hens and only winter over the hens that were new this year. It is not an easy thing to do, but whenever that time roles around I always  remember my Aunt Betty and my grandmother, who were both very practical farm women, showing me how to eviscerate a chicken when I was a young women and we had our first old hens to butcher. We do eat meat and it seems fair to me that I should be able to kill a chicken that has had a good life. Many people think nothing of buying chicken wrapped up in plastic at the supermarket and don’t consider that it has been fed antibiotics and  genetically modified grain and  lived it’s whole life indoors.  I have the chance to humanly butcher my own chickens that have been raised organically  and allowed to run around outdoors and it seems wasteful not to do just that.

Greenhouse ready for poly-carbonate plastic panels

Our greenhouse is coming along. We are now waiting for some special screws to arrive and a calm day to put on the poly-carbonate plastic sheets that will cover the roof and wall areas. I look forward to having the greenhouse to start our early transplants in.

Our Suffolk Punch Draft Horses are having a much deserved rest after all the work of the season. Unfortunately, the mild fall weather and all the rain has made their paddock a muddy mess. I will be happy when everything freezes up and we get a nice cover of snow. Mabel, the Jersey cow, has been bred three times by artificial insemination and we think that she took the last time which means we can look forward an August calf.