The Harsh Realities of Farming

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and as November turns into December, we have a lot to be thankful for here at Old School Farm.  Our Farm Manager, Dave Campeau has had a major impact on our small, bio-diverse start-up operation, contributing not only his physical labor day in and day out, but also his diverse knowledge base, creativity, problem solving, and willingness to learn new skills and techniques.  Thanks Dave - we look forward to a very exciting 2013.

Thanksgiving is turkey time and at OSF it was no different.  Our bronze breasted hybrid meat birds were plump from organic grain and free -ranging in the orchard and we have harvested and processed eight of these so far.

Hard to believe Dad let him wear that sweater for this job.

Owen and Coleman helped dad grind some of the meat in an old-fashioned hand crank grinder and then Christin (Dave's girlfriend from Germany who was visiting), Dave, and Al made several types of sausage from the meat with an old sausage stuffer/fruit press that Al acquired on e-bay.  The favorite variety so far has been the spinach/feta combination, with apple/currant/maple coming a close second.

We also had some serious problems and setbacks with our turkeys.  Not only did we lose two 30 lb bronze breasted birds and our only remaining bourbon red tom right in the pen due to pecking/cannibalism, but we also lost our prized and elegant Spanish Black tom to a predator early one morning.

The bird roosted up in a tree, but we think then decided to come back inside our orchard area to the ground before first light - something took him out - we found him half eaten under our elderberry patch.  Now we are left with only one heritage breed male turkey for breeding purposes - our Royal Palm. (update just before publishing - we just lost him as well - seems a virus has struck...  No breeding for spring unless it has already been done :)

As the temperatures drop we are really going through the wood.  Thankfully our neighbors Jim and Pat Sanders have a lot of dry locust logs they aren't using and this will be a big help for us in getting through the winter - we have about 2.5 cords in stock now, but we need about 6.

The chickens are doing very well, but one Buff Orpington hen keeps getting out of the fence somehow.  One night we didn't realize this and we found her the next morning in the woods just outside the fence sitting on an egg in the leaves!   We have since clipped her wing feathers, but to our chagrin she is still getting out - always the same bird.   We now need to look at a couple of the large shrubs and small trees near the fence line, as we think she is getting up in these and then getting over the fence.

The first week after Thanksgiving marks the start of the deer hunting season, and in what has become a four year tradition, Al's friends Rocco and Jerry were up for 3 days to try and get a deer for the farm freezer.  Unfortunately Rocco didn't connect on an 8 point buck at the top of the hill.  There are still a few days to go in the season, so Al will be out this coming week in an attempt to obtain venison for the family (the boys love it)

Team Coyote:  Rob, Owen & Sophia

A new tradition may have been initiated over Thanksgiving weekend when Al's brother Rob, his wife Erin and daughters visited.  Since Al's wife Deena, and  parents Dave and Sue were also present, he decided to divide everyone up into teams of three for the "Old School Farm Challenge"   This scavenger hunt/quiz of sorts took place indoors and out, and consisted of finding hidden objects, identifying things on the farm, and answering a series of farming/outdoor-related questions.   It turned out to be a lot of fun.  Congratulations to Team Coyote - Uncle Rob, Owen and Sophia for their big win!

Checking for clues during the "challenge" - note jug of hard
cider brewing in other room in background

In closing we would like to again put in a plug for a community and entertainment venue that opened in Honesdale this past June - The Cooperage.   On the friday after Thanksgiving the Benner family enjoyed  an amazing concert by Los Villalobos brothers from Mexico.  The three brothers who are classically trained violin virtuosos,  were accompanied by a band, and played a wide range of music, putting out some amazing sounds.  They have even played Carnegie Hall!    You can sample some of their music here.  They really are spectacular.

Below we have a lot of additional interesting photos and information this time around, so please
enjoy them.  See you in December!  -  We hope to have a cool "old school" logo for the farm to show  you by then.  We also hope to have our date nailed down for our first of several workshop/farm tours that will start next May.  I know some of you have been sending us your feedback and comments, but for some reason we are not seeing them...seems like google needs to take a look at their blogger program.

Al's dad, Dave harvested 60 lbs! of Napoli super sweet carrots
 from one of the 36" x 36" drip irrigated rooftop beds

Be well...

The folks at Old School Farm

A boy and his grain bucket

Scavenger hunt find in drain pipe

Boys with Enterprise fruit press/sausage stuffer

Seeding the newly cleared upper pasture with Winter Rye

Spreading straw on slopes to prevent erosion (this turned into a straw fight)

Coleman with giant storage beets - red & golden - super sweet!  
All our root crops are now safely stowed away in our springhouse.

Juicing our kale, carrots, and beets with apples and tangerines- incredible stuff -
we'll feed the leftover fibrous mash to the chickens

Our kale has survived the low 20's so far and is still growing

Clowning around w/ "Uncle Jim"

Brussels can last well into December or even later in zone 5

Treasure map found in cob oven

New spring loaded mineral feeder built by Dave in sheep shelter

Turkey identification -  part of the "Farm Challenge"

"Massaged" Kale Salad with olive oil, currants, apple and shredded carrots

Dave up in an ash tree that came down in last  years' hurricane.
It was later determined that the tree was too dangerous to work
    in as it was "spring loaded" by other bent smaller trees beneath it.

One of our hardest woods - Hop Hornbeam that was crowding a larger ash
 being thinned out for fire wood

We pot up & bring in our herb plants for fresh herbs all winter long

Thanksgiving day bikers pass through the farm (note recently turned section of pasture for growing grain feedstocks for poultry in the future)

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Getting Ready for Winter...

Wood is now needed - in quantity.  With the old Kalamazoo cast iron stove running pretty much daily now, it has become evident that our wood stocks are not nearly sufficient.  The chains have been sharpened and the Stihl "Farm Boss" saw has been called into service.

The first turn of the old road bed - now much easier to navigate

In order to have enough wood from our 35 or so acres of secondary growth maple/ash forest, we required better access to more of our property.   Earlier in the year Dave and Al had worked on improving and clearing out the old farm road that heads to the upper reaches of the property, but the handwork done w/ shovels and chainsaws was insufficient for gaining reliable access for the '66 Ford pickup "Hoss".    Sure we could get up there, but without power brakes or power steering, a spotter was required to walk w/ the truck, and even still it was at best a white knuckle experience.

To improve our old road bed, we turned to a local excavator, Bill Pykus.  Bill came highly recommended by our neighbors Jim and Pat Sanders, and we were certainly not disappointed by the job Bill did with his dozer.

A portion of the re-claimed upper pasture- 350 year old sugar maple in center

Not only is the road now much easier to navigate, but we also asked Bill if he could reclaim the 4 or 5 acres up top that had once been nice level pasture but had since filled in with invasive Autumn Olive and shrub Honeysuckle.  The area is now cleared and ready for seeding of a cover crop come early spring.  Bill even carefully skirted our 350 year old sugar maple, while opening up the two fields surrounding it and it really looks great.

We hope to top the surrounding old stone walls with electric fence next spring and "ram" pump some water from the nearby falls, so we can graze some goats, sheep and/or Highland cattle up there come next season.  We'll also tow up a moveable shelter or two that work so well for protection from sun, wind and rain.  Dave has become an expert at constructing these.   We may also plant some more apple and pear trees up here to hedge our bets with late spring frosts - lower down we struggle to get fruit each year.

Our bees did not produce as much honey as we would have liked with the short season this year (we did not get them until early June and have harvested no honey to date).  We are now supplementing them with cakes of sugar formed in pans and then transferred into an empty "medium" honey chamber.  The bees do have some honey reserves, but we felt it necessary to supplement to ensure they winter over.

Sugar cake inserted into bee hive - this will supplement their own honey

The garden is being "brought in".  Potatoes, beets and carrots are now all safely stored away in the old springhouse where it stays damp and cool but does not freeze.  We will continue to harvest kale and brussel sprouts well into December.  Our loan application with the USDA was approved this past summer and come April we will be setting up a large 100' long walk in high tunnel (hoop house) over a few of our beds for crop season extension.  This is a good thing when you farm in zone 5 in a frosty river valley!

Finally, the earthen oven was test fired and it performs perfectly.  The newspaper that separated the sand cone (that formed the open oven area inside) from the cob dome above is almost all burned off, and we are even starting to get that seasoned look on the dome and fire bricks at the opening.   It takes a little doing to get the fires going, but once they take, they really burn.  It will be quite a while until the entire structure is dried enough to make fires with intense heat - we first need the cob dome to cure slowly - super-heating could crack it.

We'll be heading up for some family events at the farm and at Elk Mountain ski area over Thanksgiving and we'll be back in touch soon thereafter with an update.  

We wish everyone a very Happy & Healthy Thanksgiving season !

Your Friends at Old School Farm

Frank Dean with 1 day old Owen Benner at the hospital -2006 

A note from Al Benner:   I would like to dedicate this blog post to a very good friend of mine who passed away a few days ago.  His name was Frank Dean and he was 100 years old.  Frank grew up on a farm in southern Georgia and during his long life, held every job imaginable, working well into his 80's.  He was only educated through the 5th grade, but what he didn't posses in formal schooling he made up for in a deep understanding of the world and mankind.  Frank lived on his own since his wife passed away thirty years ago, he was the current block captain for his neighborhood in West Philadelphia, and he still drove a car.  He got up every morning with a positive attitude and when it was time to celebrate, he would have no problem cracking a cold can of Schaefer beer.

Frank was a sage - his words of wisdom and positive outlook on life will remain with me always.  I am so proud to have been his friend for ten years and I miss him and his infectious laugh deeply.  I know he is smiling down on Old School Farm - he was an "old school" kind of guy - a real class act.   We love you and miss you Frank - the world needs more guys like you.

Foraging, Freezer Filling, and Fun

Life on the farm can be interesting to say the least - you never know what is coming next. You need to be ready for almost anything - at any time.

The past three weeks found us shifting gears from collecting acorns and wild mushrooms, to healing a sick sheep, to watching boys gather eggs and roast peppers.  We were even gladly interrupted one evening by our kindly neighbor and bow hunter, Jim Sanders, who dropped us off a deer he harvested on a neighboring property.  Al even gets attacked by one of his own roosters... (he's now in the freezer)  A bio-diverse farm - it is quite the experience for sure!

Since our last update, the earthen oven has really come a long way - it now has just one thick insulating layer of cob to go.  Dave built a beautiful arched opening, and we hope to fire the oven up in the coming weeks for a test run.

The bees are doing well, but one of the two hives in particular was not able to produce enough honey for food for the winter, so we will be supplementing with large sugar cakes inside the tops of the hives. Bees do not go dormant and will even venture outside when the temps move over fifty degrees.

Opala, one of our yearling Icelandic lambs became ill recently from a heavy parasite load and required treatment.  Watch this very interesting video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1tFPB9Q6UQ&feature=youtu.be


The boys were busy helping Al & Dave build a second sheep shelter for spring.  They really enjoyed working a full size hammer and driving the large nails home to secure the hemlock siding.  When they needed a break for some sustenance, a batch of freshly made Kale Chips was waiting for them in the kitchen.

Here's how to do it:  Simply coat de-ribbed kale leaves with olive oil, some salt and pepper and bake until crunchy somewhere between 250 and 325 for 10 - 15 minutes - turning once is best.
Keep an eye on these as they are best when dark green and crunchy - try to keep them from turning brown.  They are outstanding!    

Along w/ brussel sprouts and root crops, kale is the one vegetable that keeps on giving long after the first frost.  Another outstanding way to use up that extra kale and get some serious nutrition at the same time is to make a "massaged" kale salad.   Just de-vein some kale leaves ("dinosaur" kale works best) and rubbed them down well with a generous dowsing of olive oil and some salt an pepper.  Then add fresh or dried fruit, nuts, shredded carrots, or anything you can think of.  We are particularly fond of dried currants.  Tahini also works as dressing.

As the October chill begins to set in each night, we have been forced to make a decision regarding heating the old farmhouse - stay on as oil addicts with our oil burner, or get the old Kalamazoo convection wood/coal furnace in the basement back in action.   We have chosen the latter.

The old furnace works like a champ and heats the house thoroughly very quickly.  There are warm spots since the heat radiates through only one central floor grate, but all in all it does a great job.  With close to 40 acres of woodlot, we are pleased to be using our own resource to heat the home.  Now Dave and Al will be doing a lot of chainsawing and hand splitting of fallen timber to stock up for winter.

Speaking of trees, Al and his dad,Dave recently cleaned out the hollow side of the 300 - 400 year old sugar maple up near the waterfalls.  The old giant had been struck by lightening years ago and a large limb and section of the tree had collapsed about five years ago, opening a depression of sorts where rotten wood, soil and debris were accumulating.  This has since been cleared out to allow the cavity to air dry and prevent further rotting.

We close with a link to what having a family farm is all about - kids really enjoying themselves and discovering so many new and interesting things each and every day...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQbOifhiU88&feature=g-upl

Enjoy some more photos below from the first half of October at Old School Farm...  and feel free to pass on our blog if you are enjoying it - thanks !

Quercus macrocarpa - Mossy Cup Oak -
Delicious for Acorn muffins.

Dave Benner with 1/2 of a "Chicken of the woods" mushroom -
These can weigh up to 25 lbs and are incredible sauteed - especially in scrambled eggs.

Dave adding an insulating layer of clay/sand/straw
mix to earthen oven.

Al with giant golden storage beet - the greens are even delicious

Als' friend Adrian takes a crack at splitting some ash

After just one bottle of some serious hard cider "truth serum" -
provided by a local farm

Too many roosters and bad behavior helped make
this decision easier for Al.

Our moss patio overlooking the pasture

The warm glow inside the old No. 23 Kalamazoo...

Foodies, Farmers and Fracktivists

Coleman weighs peppers on Mom's "Old School" scale

September was a blur - it came and went faster than any month so far this year here at the farm. We have been incredibly busy harvesting produce and eating, selling, canning, freezing and giving it away.

This has been a great experience for Owen and Coleman as they have been involved with picking vegetables that they then were able to sell on the street corner to neighbors back in Philadelphia. The profits were split up between the farm, the boys, and a charity of the boys' choosing.

Boys learn important life lessons by growing food

Anyone have numb fingers yet?

Three of our more unique crops have been transformed into some very tasty appetizers and specialty foods.  Jalapeno peppers became Jalapeno Poppers stuffed with a mix of cheeses - these disappear as soon as they come out of the oven, and so far have only lasted a couple of days in the freezer :)

Carmen sweet red peppers starting to roast

We also made several batches of tomatillo salsa using our purple tomatillos, fresh pineapple or mango, cilantro, organic cane crystals, onion, and jalapenos of course.  It is pretty amazing.

Perhaps the most irresistible food we have been making are the fire roasted sweet red peppers made over coals on an open fire.  They are jarred in their own juices and a bit of salt and apple cider vinegar. We would never even consider selling a jar of these!   This is candy for the boys.


Wild Food Update:

Butternuts - A delicious, native nut tree

Last fall Al, Dave and the boys gathered a bushel or two of butternuts from a wild tree on the property that decided to produce nuts heavily.  These were stored by hanging them in mesh "baskets" in the basement.  They are stored w/ the husks on to better preserve them.  We recently cracked a few and the flavor was superior to black walnuts.  We will be adding these to the last batch of zucchini bread for sure.

Buff Orpingtons- this heritage breed goes broody & will often sit on eggs until they hatch

EGGS !     Our flock of hens has finally matured enough to start laying eggs - we are only averaging three small eggs per day at the moment, but that should be up to 18 or so by springtime.

The earthen cob oven takes shape

We can almost smell the bread...  The bread and pizza oven is really taking shape nicely.  It is very time consuming to thoroughly blend 3 parts sand and 1 part clay with your feet, but as you can see the hard work is really starting to pay off.  We have about eight inches more to go with insulating layers of the clay/sand mixed with straw for insulation to go.  We hope to start to fire the oven later this month.  Watch our latest video for the cob oven here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMhXZwusbK0&feature=youtu.be

Fracktivist   Finally, a couple of weeks ago, Al Benner attended the Shale Gas Outrage protest march in Center City Philadelphia.  Close to two thousand people turned out along with some well known speakers to help create more awareness about all the health hazards associated with the dangerous "fracking" process.  This method extracts methane gas from the shale layer a mile deep below our aquifers in the northern half of Pennsylvania.  120,000 wells are planned by the industry.  3,000 wells are in and many failures have already occurred.  More Pennsylvanians get their water from wells than any other state.

Fracking is a threat to Old School Farm since the farm relies on pure water for all it's animals and crops.  At the moment the Delaware River Basin Commission has a tentative moratorium on drilling within the Delaware River Watershed where the farm is located.  This could change at any time.

You can see the overview of the demonstration here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HNJhJDc2do
Be sure to let your officials know you care about clean air and water for Pennsylvanians and all Americans.  The oil and gas industry is on a major campaign right now to convince Americans that this process is perfectly safe when it is not.

Until next time-  enjoy this beautiful time of year and the great outdoors... and some more photos from the farm:

Your Friends at Old School Farm

Our sheep enjoying native grasses, milkweed and golden rod.  

Heritage Breed Turkeys - Spanish Black, Bourbon Reds, and Royal Palm 

Our one and only celery plant! - we need to plant more next year.

Dave discusses oven with neighbors Pat & Jim Sanders

Al working on the cob oven

Our neighbor Gail and her son w/ a bag of produce

A warm late September day and the bees were VERY busy