Holiday time at the Farm...

Things slow down at the farm during the winter.  The activities and projects  that can be undertaken during more favorable weather conditions are now limited.  It's a good time to focus on keeping warm and planning your agenda, seed selections/planting arrangement, pasture rotations,and budget for the coming year.  It's also a good time to catch up on those nagging deficiencies around the house that were put off during warmer months - the door that locks on it's own, the old kitchen cabinet that sticks, and that pesky pull cord light that isn't functioning.

There was one very pressing issue that finally got addressed just before Christmas - the chimney flue that had cracks in it.  This was of concern since we are now heating the entire house with the old Kalamazoo #23  wood/coal burning furnace in the basement (we are only using wood).
As creosote builds up over time in the flue, it can migrate into these cracks in the terracotta liner and possibly start a chimney fire.

It was decided that the most cost-effective and best way to remedy this problem was to insert a new stainless steel liner (sleeve) into the existing flue.   How to do this?   The chimney is close to 35' off the ground, and on steep angle at one corner of the mansard roof - quite dangerous to access with a ladder.   As it turns out we had a local tree professional out to remove some dead limbs that were hanging over our new barn, so we decided to see if Bob Myers (from Hawley) would be willing to use his 50' hydraulic bucket lift for lowering the liner into place.  Bob was game, and it all worked out great.   Thanks so much Bob!  We even hooked in the old wood burning cook stove in the kitchen.  Our first test fire yielded some awesome blueberry pancakes, but also a lot of smoke in the kitchen - we need to address some cracks in the Old Wyoming stove made by the Pittston Stove Company near Scranton.

The sheep are now receiving a larger ration of grain to keep their body fat up, and also regular bales of first cut hay.  Dave built a really nice hay feeder, and grain feeding trough.  We have also found a use for our old worn out kale and brussel sprout plants - the sheep love to eat them, and they even but heads over them!

We've also found that the pulp left over from the juicing of beets, carrots, kale, apples and oranges is a favorite of the sheep and the chickens - a great use of an otherwise worthless by-product.  At $35 for a 50 lb bag of organic sheep feed and close to $30 for chicken feed, this is a cost-saving and healthy addition to their diet.

The chickens are now laying fewer eggs - about 1 every three days.  This is due to the lower light levels and the seasonal molt some of the birds are experiencing.  We could force higher output by adding a light in the coop during periods of darkness, but we have instead opted to let the birds maintain strength and vitality during these cold months and letting nature dictate output.

Some good news - Al recently spied the brook trout he and the boys had stocked in the new pond last spring - we thought she had become dinner for a hungry heron, but happily we were mistaken.

Even though hunting season is over, the boys still enjoy seeing what passes by our game camera out in the woods.  We have here a link to our video showing a pack of coyotes that were seen up in our newly forming upper pasture area.  We certainly hope our electric fence stays well charged and our flashing predator eye lights keep doing the job for protecting our sheep.

We recently finalized our logo - many thanks to graphic artist, Charlie Layton for his excellent artwork in bringing Al's concept to reality.  We also have a website -  just click the logo here to take a look. It's a work in progress, but it will provide even more insight into the reasons for the farm and what we plan on offering moving forward.  Our first family farm tour/workshop that will feature learning how to build and cook in an earthen cob oven is set for Sunday, May 19th, with our opening Friday Pizza night is slated for Friday the 31st of May.  Check our website for more details as they unfold.  We hope you can pay us a visit in person come spring - we're even planning on constructing a traditional Lene Lenape Indian sweat lodge on the property.

Lastly, we part with a humorous photo of our "invisible" Christmas tree that was dragged out of the woods by the boys and was so void of branches, it is hard to see any green aside from the wall behind the tree !  Thankfully at Christmas time six year old boys don't seem to mind :)

Enjoy this special time of year with your family...

Your Friends at Old School Farm

Note:  If you enjoy snow boarding, click here to see a link of
"Farmer Dave" doing a 360 at the farm!

Below are some additional farm photos for your enjoyment...

Owen uncorks a fastball at Dad.

Giant "Grax" beet with our eggs & potatoes 

Syphoning Hard Cider 

Checkmate?

Sheppards tending their flock

Turkeys venture out during snow storm

Dave makes final connections to cook stove

Owen writes his name in the slush forming on pond

Brussels still going strong

Coleman Benner after conquering the "half pipe" jump

"Happy Thoughts" - The caption on the bottom of our "Old Wyoming" 1920's kitchen stove plates

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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.