Tag: Heavy Horse

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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.

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August Draft Horse Workshop
Our August three day Draft Horse Workshop has just been successfully completed. We had another great group of individuals come to the farm for three days to learn about driving draft horses. Nora assisted Ken with teaching the workshop while the rest of us cooked meals and got the Saturday pick-up ready. We were very grateful to the working shares who came out and pitched in to help us get the pick-up ready. We also managed to get our oat straw into the barn. We have never had a year when it has been so difficult to get straw dry!

The garden is exploding with produce and our hoop house tomatoes are coming into full swing just as our out door tomatoes are beginning. It is a big improvement over the near corp failure in our tomatoes last season. It just reminds us how every year is different. Fall raspberries are about to begin. We hope to be able to start picking next week.

Tomato and Fresh Basil Soup from Vegetarian Cooking, by Linda Farser

Serves 4-6

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 pounds ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
about 3 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomato paste
2 tablespoons shredded fresh basil
2/3 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper
whole basil leaves, to garnish

Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan until foaming. Add the onion and cook gently for about 5 minutes, stirring, until the onion is softened but not brown.

Stir in the chopped tomatoes and garlic, then add the stock, white wine and sun-dried tomato paste, with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, half-cover the pan and simmer gently for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep the tomatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Add the cream and heat through, stirring. Do not allow the soup to approach the boiling point. Check the consistency and add more stock if necessary, then season with salt and pepper. Pour into heated bowls and garnish with basil. Serve at once.

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Elaiza on left and Jessica on right
We had a fair-well party for Elaiza the night before she flew back to Germany. Elaiza came as part of her Walforf school grade nine curriculum to work on our farm for three months. She was a great help in growing the produce for the CSA and worked well with the horses. An exceptional young women who fit in well. She and Jessica are good friends and shared a room in the bunkhouse. Jessica is an organic agriculture student from Quebec who has been here since the end of May and will be leaving the end of this month. She brought with her a keen interest in organic agriculture and a desire to learn as much as she can while she is here to apply to her future farming career. We have certainly been blessed with a group of wonderful young people again this season to help us run the farm for yet another year.

Our CSA working shares helped us harvest a beautiful crop of garlic last Tuesday and Thursday. It is now hanging to dry. Everything continues to grow well in the garden. Heat and moisture are welcome and we are expecting a bumper corp of potatoes and tomatoes. The melons, cucumber and squash are growing well too. We hope the Downy Mildew won’t kill the plants before they can produce a good crop. Ken was able to combine our early Harvard wheat last week between the rains. We now need some dry weather so we can bale up the straw.

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Another week as flown by! I took some time this morning to take some CSA garden shots.

CSA garden in July
The Summer squash has started and yesterday we harvested our first summer cabbage. It’s very mild and good in cabbage salad! Most of you know how to use summer squash, but we do have some past recipes on the blog from previous years. I haven’t transferred them all to the new recipe section of this website, but if you type in a vegetable name in our “Search this site” box the old entries will come up. We have some summer squash, beet and lots of other vegetable recipes. We are always happy to post new recipe ideas. Please email your favorites and I will post them! Many people have asked what to do with kohlrabi and fennel and ideas other than chopping them up in salad or adding them to stir fry are welcome!

The new Suffolk stallion, Chester, is settling in. He has been driven single, but we are waiting to introduce him to the herd until after the mares have been bred. So far none of our mares have been interested… Our first cut hay is all baled and we hope to get in all mowed away tomorrow morning. So our horses won’t go hungry this winter.

The egg production has been gradually increasing with the new fence. We still aren’t able to keep up with the demand from our CSA members. However, we do still have lots of sausage and freshly ground whole wheat flour available for sale.

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CSA member Avery and toad in pcik-up room
We have had a very good strawberry season this year and many CSA members have taken advantage of our Pick-your-own strawberry option. Three full weeks of berries is about as good as it gets with regular season strawberries.

We are happy to have CSA members signing up to help with the harvest and the washing of produce for our pick-ups. The gardens are in good shape. It is always a relief to have the majority of the crops seeded, transplanted and mulched. We have taken off the row cover from the squash, corn, melons and early plantings and the pathways in the garden that we seeded down are growing. The garden looks its best in early July when the majority of the crops are still growing well. We got a bit of rain yesterday, but plan to start irrigating later this week and hope to finish our second cut hay. (That is if the weather forecast is correct…)

Chester, the stallion we bought a half share in, arrived yesterday. Ken is doing a bit of work with him in the round pen before he tries hooking him up to the stone boat. Jazz our new mare is adjusting to being here, however we don’t trust her in the barn with children. WE ASK THAT PARENTS KEEP THEIR CHILDREN OUT OF THE BARN. We would rather be safe than sorry. The horses we raise here become accustom to people from the time they are foals, however new horses are not so trustworthy.