In the event you haven’t noticed, things have been a little quiet here over the last three weeks. It was winter break at the Farm School. No chores, no chopping wood, no crop planning – just an empty farmhouse, an ocean of snow and the promise of a fully functioning wood-fired boiler upon our return. A number of the Farm School students have spent these past three weeks making prosciutto and sipping Prosecco in Tuscany. But Dina and I have been at home in the Boston settling quite comfortably in... Read the Rest →
Let me be clear – there won’t be any Mary Oliver poems in this story. In fact, as you may have surmised from the above photo, things got a little, well . . . nuts on the farm this week. And if you scroll down any further, you’re going to read about – and see pictures of – five bull calves having a very bad day. We have made an effort to spare you the worst but read on at your own risk. Wednesday morning’s class was supposed to be... Read the Rest →
This was a tough week on the farm: our hens’ once plump-red combs are specked with telltale black spots of frostbite, we’ve coaxed more smoke than heat from our fussy wood-fired boiler, and facing day-after-day of lukewarm showers in a 50-degree farmhouse has made the depth of winter feel inescapable. I also had the genius idea of hauling our welding machine across the shop, and in the process transformed myself into a 90-year-old man by spraining my back. The damn welder is as unwieldy as a cardboard box filled with... Read the Rest →
This week: overnight lows of 7 degrees; daytime highs barely past freezing. This is prime weather for sitting in a warm room and thinking about our biggest crop—one that’s already in the ground and percolating under 5 inches of snow: Grass. You may think “rancher” when you drive by a field of cattle, but what you are really driving by is a grass farm. Come spring, when pastures break out in a lime-green five o’clock shadow, all animal-management orbits around strategic grazing schedules: they need to eat, but the grass... Read the Rest →
Things you’ll need: Helmet with ear and eye protection Chaps (preferably with Kevlar mesh lining, which is designed to bind up the chain in the unfortunate event you touch your leg with a spinning saw. Yeouch.) Steel-toed boots and chainsaw gloves (padded with Kevlar) are also a good idea. Supervision by someone who has done this before. Nothing you’ll read here or anywhere can replace the guidance of an experienced logger. You can kill yourself an astonishing number of ways with a chainsaw, gravity and even a small tree. Step... Read the Rest →
Parents – You love them deeply and pray at the same time that you never become anything like them. I should assure Kate (Dina’s mom and Plough & Stars soap fairy) that this sentiment doesn’t come to mind because she’s currently visiting us. Rather, it’s spurred by the following quote from Clarence Beck, the son of a Dust Bowl farmer, who was interviewed in Ken Burns’ most recent documentary: “God, what do I have to do to have money and not be a farmer? I don’t care whether it is being... Read the Rest →
[Erik is on his two-week holiday break from Farm School, so in addition to decorating our Christmas tree - and lighting our menorah, grandma dear - we've been involved an urban animal-husbandry dilemma. He returns to school on January 6.] This all started when we nearly killed the whole flock two weeks ago. Erik and I were driving home after five days away at the Young Farmers Conference in New York and we had the following conversation about our six backyard hens: Erik: “You checked their water before you left,... Read the Rest →
Before farm school, I ran a food pantry in South Boston that mainly serviced two nearby housing projects. Every two weeks, we distributed 10,000 pounds of food to nearly 1,000 people struggling to make ends meet. But for each person who regarded the pantry as a temporary stopgap measure, there were 20 others who were locked in a more structural poverty and for whom trips to pantries were as routine as trips to the grocery store. Though I felt of service, I couldn’t shake the feeling that our efforts were... Read the Rest →
Erik and I spent the better part of this week sitting on our butts – all in service of becoming smarter, more successful farmers. We were lucky enough snag two scholarships to the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture’s Young Farmers Conference in Pocantico Hills, NY – a three-day whirlwind of workshops ranging from BioChar to soil science to Field Songs to Slow Tools to cover crops. Our heads are full to the brim and I’m only now starting to sift through the information dump. Here are some of my... Read the Rest →
In July, I wrote about taking our four beloved Buff Orpintons to the butcher. And from that post, it’s probably clear that I can be a bit sentimental about killing animals. That cold morning I remember searching their eyes for clues: did they feel betrayed? And even though it wasn’t me who slit their throats, did I have the right to determine their premature fate? In the absence of definitive answers, we’ve plodded ahead holding close to these questions and the hope that we’d eventually find comfort in our role... Read the Rest →
