Spread Thin...

We are hustling in a lot of directions all at once right now, trying to get ready for what promises to be a very busy year for Old School Farm.

Well, we did such a good job of setting up our gravity feed sap line from twelve sugar maples on the hill above the house, that we have not been able to keep up with the flow rate.   Currently there are over 200 gallons of sap in food grade drums waiting to be cooked down in our antique cast iron cauldron.

So far we have produced about 6 quarts of "kettle" syrup and expect to make quite a bit more.  Keep in mind it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.  So we have really only cooked down about 60 gallons of sap so far!  Next year we will be setting up a large stainless steel evaporator pan so we can spread the sap out over a much larger surface area and cook it down much faster.  We need to cook down as much as we can as fast as we can now, for if it sits too long it begins to ferment!  Here is a short video clip showing the sap flowing into our kettle via the syphon/gravity feed line:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXCULWIwGM&feature=youtu.be


Our chickens are averaging close to an egg a day and we are giving them away as fast as we can.  So far finding regular customers for our free range organic eggs has proved challenging.  We hope some area restaurants soon begin ordering, as we distributed some samples recently.  Our flock is now up to 27 birds since we acquired some speckled sussex hens from a farmer friend.

Our barn will soon be wired with electricity and plumbed with water - we are finalizing our contractor selections now.   A small food prep. area will then take shape in one corner of the barn near the earthen oven. We will be prepping food for our Family Farm Getaways and summer workshops for area summer campers from this location.

Twenty five more fruit trees are arriving in mid-April, and the boys and their dad along with Dave have been hard at work installing a virtually invisible deer fencing system for this new 1/2 acre orchard area.  Watch the video clip here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5iE7im4b54

Al and his sons Owen and Coleman recently took a 1.25 hour drive north to Binghampton to visit their friend Mary Thomas - now 95.  As you may recall, Mary was one of four children who grew up in the Walter homestead that the Benners now own.  It was a great visit - Mary treated the Benners to lunch in the dining room

of her very nice retirement community, and then Al and the boys enjoyed a swim in the indoor pool.   Thanks Mary for a great time!   Note: Unfortunately the box of German chocolates that was sent along for Al's wife Deena was pilfered by the two youngsters, who proceeded to eat the entire box the next afternoon.

Back to the farm...    Seeds are sprouting under the high pressure sodium grow light.  The hay/farm tour wagon that Dave has been
working on for several days now is nearing completion, with the hemlock decking going down.  All that remains to do is to build the sides.  This is one heavy duty wagon!  Owen and Coleman can't stop talking about all their plans for a haunted hay ride come fall...

Cold weather and frozen ground have kept us from erecting our 100' x 28' high tunnel (greenhouse) -  a grant from the USDA.  We expect to be focusing on this work in the coming weeks.

Our four ewes all appear to be very pregnant.  We are anticipating the births of several lambs sometime this month - it's very exciting!   Congratulations to our young and very friendly ram, Uncas for making good use of all his free time this past fall!







Thanks to our neighbors Jim and Pat Sanders for all the firewood we have been getting from their property and for the four bluebird nesting boxes that Jim so kindly set up for us on our fence posts around the garden.  These are essentially predator-proof, as they are installed above an electric fence.

Bee update:  This winter was very hard on bees for some reason, with many area bee keepers losing large percentages of their hives.  Fortunately one of our two hives pulled through and we hope to re-colonize the other hive later this spring.

We  have an awful lot going on, but spring is in the air and it is all very exciting.  We even have a new sign for the farm - made by local artist, Joe Kluck.  Joe has also put some of his artwork on consignment at Old School Farm for guests to enjoy (and possibly purchase).  You can see some of Joe's art here: http://joekluck.blogspot.com/
Joe will also be on hand May 19th at the farm for the first Family Farm Getaway to offer a beginner's painter workshop.  Sign up here for the workshop: http://www.oldschoolfarm.com/family-farm-getaways.html

Old School Farm will have a booth at www.PhillyFarmFest.org to promote our farm workshops and to display raised bed systems from www.BackyardFarmers.com  Stop by and say  hello if you happen to be at the show - it's at the Philadelphia Convention Center on Sunday, April 14th from 11 - 4.

Until next time, soak up that early spring sunshine and keep those seedlings moist...and enjoy the rest of the photos below...

Your Friends at Old School Farm

Watercress transplanted into spring pond

Boys at Cooperage with Mike - guitar & vocals for Great Party Band

Coleman in "jail" for candy thievery 

Great Party Band at the Cooperage

A quart of "Old School" Kettle Syrup

Al's friend Frank in from Chicago for a visit

Gravity sap line to 55 gallon drums.  Six year old with maul.

Fresh sap - what could be better

A boy on his favorite moss covered boulder

Coyote scat with deer hair

Being six

One of four of Jim's Bluebird houses

A boy-size bonfire kept the little fellas entertained for two hours burning up scrap wood

The Sap Man, or is that Grizzly Adams?...

Who Says a Farm isn't Busy in March?

Signs of spring abound - from this honey bee on our truck bed, to it staying lighter much later, to the flat of leek seeds recently planted, spring is definitely in the air.   And boy are we busy...on all fronts.  

Our plans for this year are ambitious.  For starters we will be getting our pizza and bread oven up and running this spring.  To do this legally, a plan for a food prep. area in the barn was recently submitted to the PA Dept. of Agriculture.   This summer we will be hosting campers from local summer camps for adventure get aways and cooking classes.  We will also be offering "Family Farm Getaways" and "Friday Pizza Nights" beginning in May. Learn more about these and other events on our website:  http://www.OldSchoolFarm.com   Marketing efforts are now taking place to promote these various events.  Please feel free to spread the word to those people you think might be interested.

Sap was coming in a constant stream on warmer days

Other activities keeping us VERY busy include the gravity fed maple syrup production set-up.  We have about fifteen trees contributing about a gallon of sap each per day when conditions are right.
The fire pit needs to be continuously stoked and we just picked up three more fifty gallon food grade barrels, as our old olive barrel/rain barrel developed leaks at the outlet valve.

Dave is re-building the John Deere "running gear" chassis and will soon be adding an oak frame and hemlock flooring and rails.  Hay bales will function as seats for this "old school" wagon for farm tours and haunted hay rides (the boys are incredibly excited about these).
We also continue to search for the proper front end loader/bucket for the old Ferguson tractor we recently acquired.

Did our ram Uncas do his job?   Dave thinks so, as our ewes seem plumper than normal under all that fur and also appear to be consuming more grain even though it is warming.  We remain hopeful for lambs in late spring.  We are also searching for two or three milk goats so we can start making ice cream, cheese, and yogurt as part of our experiential farm model for visitors.

A big project that is staring us in the face right now is the installation of our 100' x 28' high tunnel (greenhouse) that we received a grant for from the USDA.  This will go down in our garden area and will require a lot of time and effort to install.  We hope to attract a few helpers with a wood fired pizza party !

We need to put up a deer fence around another small 25 tree orchard we will be planting in April. The bare root fruit trees arrive from Michigan with their roots covered in damp sphagnum moss.  Twenty five holes must be dug by hand in this rocky upper pasture (fewer spring frosts up here on higher ground) and the fence must be up prior to planting.

We also need to get some steering and brake work done to our '66 Ford so she can pass inspection and become road legal, as we have quite a few pick ups to be making this spring.

A flat of leeks are the first to get planted

There is a lot more going on including planting a lot of seed starts under our sodium grow light in the basement, but we'll sign off now and wish everyone a happy spring equinox a week early and hope you are enjoying the milder days and longer hours of daylight.

Be well ...

Your Friends at Old School Farm

Sodium grow light for seedlings in basement

The compost pile from the chicken coop is expanding

Junk run (to bottom of drive) - "free scrap metal" sign should save a run to the dump

Keep the "Farm Boss" saw sharp or the house gets cold fast (Kalamazoo wood stove in background)

The fire pit at night with maple sap steaming in kettle above (too dark to see)

Planning, Sugaring, Expanding the flocks

It may seem like a slow time of the year on a farm, but this is not the case.  Sure, aside from obtaining more firewood, tapping trees, and building portable structures, some of the physical demands have been reduced a bit, but the amount of planning, marketing, equipment sourcing and budgeting going on is at an an all time high.

For starters, after months of deliberation and hundreds of used tractors viewed online, it was finally time to pull the trigger and make a decision on a multi-purpose farm tractor.  In the end we didn't have to go far, as we found a 1959 Massey Ferguson T035 tractor at a good price right here in Honesdale.  The tractor has a live PTO (power  take off) and 3 point hitch on the back so that mowers and other attachments can be hooked up and powered by the tractor.  We are also presently sourcing a front end bucket loader that we can take on and off as needed to lift and haul loads or turn compost, etc.  We think our old tractor certainly has an "old school" feel.

We also purchased an old "running gear" wagon frame from local farmer and talk radio farming personality, Dave Williams. For this Dave Campeau will fashion an oak flatbed, bench seats and sidewalls to form a wagon that will be used to move guests around the farm and for hauling hay and other bulky materials.  Another addition to our small collection of farm equipment is an old John Deere corn/seed planter that gets pulled behind the tractor.

We have a lot of plans on the books right now for when the weather warms - for starters, a privy up on the hillside so that guests can have a complete "old school" experience when visiting the farm this spring and summer (superior in every way to a porta-potty.  We are also currently planning a cold frame, and an additional shelter for some dairy goats we will be bringing to the farm.


Old School Farm will have a booth this April at the Philly Farm & Food Fest on Sunday, April 14th - www.PhillyFarmFest.org  We will be there to promote our upcoming Family Farm Getaways, sell some homemade wood-fired bread, and to get the word out regarding our sister company that provides and installs backyard family food gardens -  www.BackyardFarmers.com

The boys and mom, Deena were up over President's Day weekend to visit their cousins at nearby Elk Mountain.  Some sledding fun, a bit of snowmobiling on Dave's snowmobile, and tapping sugar maple trees for sap added to the excitement for the boys.

Maple sugaring season is upon us, and we have a gravity feed line tied into 15  trees up behind the barn.  This sap line drains into our rain barrel (a reclaimed olive barrel) up near the hen house, and then drains down from there to our massive cast iron caldron suspended over our fire pit.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to cook down to make just one gallon of syrup.  Soon after set up it got so cold that our tap lines and bucket taps froze, so we now await warmer temps to get things flowing - and cooking.

Watch a funny video of the boys getting their sap here:  http://youtu.be/vqE-lgSj940

Nesting boxes are almost complete for our laying hens and female turkeys.  We expect these heritage breeds to go "broody" soon and sit on eggs so we can proliferate our flocks.  It take about 28 days of nest sitting - quite a commitment, but Al had success with a Buff Orpington hen hatching out 8 chicks a couple of years back, so we remain optimistic.  The best news is that even though we lost our tom turkeys to predation and disease back in November, we just confirmed that mating season began in September, so we are pretty confident that our girl's eggs have already been fertilized.

As for our sheep, they are thriving even in this very cold weather.  Elska, the largest ewe is still calling the shots and continues to butt heads (literally with our still smaller and younger ram, Uncas.  We certainly hope Uncas did his "work" this past fall and that we in fact have four pregnant ewes ready to lamb come late spring - it's hard to tell at this point w/ the shaggy winter coats.

During mid-February Al and Dave journeyed to State College for the 22nd annual PASA (PA sustainable Agriculture conference) - www.pasafarming.org held at the Penn Stater conference center.  Over 2,000 people were in attendance to select from over 100 workshops/seminars to learn the latest sustainable agriculture practices.  Some excellent food and a great time was had by all.   If you are interested in where your food comes from, bettering how we produce it, and would like to meet some really great people, then you might want to consider joining PASA. Keynote speaker, Ben Hewitt, an author and farmer raising two young boys on a farm in Vermont was pretty incredible:  http://benhewitt.net/   - he's a great read.

Bob Martin - 2nd from left

Finally, Al had a nice visit from Bob Martin who works locally for the Army Corp of Engineers.  Because OSF recently received a USDA grant and will be installing a 100' x 28' high tunnel (greenhouse-like structure) this spring for crop  season extension, Al decided to check with Bob to make sure this structure would be acceptable in the garden area which is within the floodplain.  No problem as it is considered a temporary structure.  Bob was then kind enough to drop off a few old photos of himself in class at the old one room school house.

Olive Walter - the much loved teacher at the Pleasant Valley School

Prior to the Jadwin dam being installed to protect Honesdale from flooding, the school was located directly across the Dyberry river from us.  Bob also shared copies of some old photos of Olive Walter (above) whose family had built our house, and who was the teacher for many years.  Olive can be seen above in the background behind her students. Bob then went on to tell me how each day students would walk over to our springhouse to get drinking water and how they were also responsible for keeping the wood stove stoked during winter months.  Thanks for the great history lesson Bob !

Until next time, enjoy the photos, stay warm, and think spring !

Your Friends at Old School Farm

Turkey tracks

Hen enjoying beets from our springhouse

Pileated woodpecker work

Our old Kalamazoo Stove in Basement - 100% wood heat

Old school sugaring bucket

Windows added to back of hen house for ventilation

An unknown creature;s winter burrow - possibly a weasel 

Winter's Grip

As we move into mid-winter at the farm, routine can become a bit dull, so we find it important to  get outside and have some fun, making the best of what cold temperatures and snow have to offer.

With twin six year old boys, finding fun is quite easy, as a winter wonderland can be a paradise.  From snowball fights, to sledding,  snow angels, snowman making, skating and ice fishing, a farm in the country has a lot to offer.




Our old road bed that leads to the newly developing upper pasture provided for some fast sledding action, and a nearby farm pond offered an opportunity to skate, set up some ice fishing "tip ups" and have a big snowball fight on a warm day when the snow was packing well.

Indoors also has it's moments, especially when Farmer Dave livened things ups with some solo electric guitar that had the boys and their cousins going pretty crazy dancing to.

Planning is also important this time of the year, and we are currently designing a large cold frame for the SE side of the barn as well as a seedling growing area with special grow lights in the basement.

The Kalamazoo 23 wood stove in the basement is proving to be a real workhorse for heating the entire house, and the locust logs provided to us by our neighbors Pat & Jim Sanders have really been keeping the house nice and toasty.  We also cooked a complete meal on our "New Wyoming" wood burning kitchen cook stove - it was excellent - the fish and veggies were cooked on top and we lowered our potatoes in foil right into the coals in the burn box.

 Since we are still in the market for a used antique tractor for the spring and our pick up truck does not have a plow, our always helpful neighbor Ben Masucci has been plowing us out and keeping our driveway clear - thanks Ben!

We just ordered 1,000 feet of tubing and related connectors and spouts so that come March we can tap about 20 sugar maples that are growing on the hillside above our barn.  The sap will drip by gravity to a large catchment drum and then be heated slowly over a wood fire to evaporate. It is a 40:1 sap to syrup ratio, so we need a lot of sap to have enough syrup for the coming year!

We are also obtaining additional firewood from several maple and ash trees that came down in 2012 during the Irene hurricane.  With the snow on the ground we are able to roll and/or skid the logs to get them down the hillside - using gravity to make our job easier.

Repairs continue around the house and Dave put a permanent metal roof on our 2nd sheep shelter.

The sheep and birds are all doing extremely well.  The chickens are enjoying whole beets and are also still foraging outside beneath evergreens that are protecting the ground from snow cover.  The sheep are butting heads over spent kale and brussel sprout plants and also enjoy an occasional beet.

All in all things are going well at Old School Farm.  The seeds that we were unable to save from last year have been ordered, and our stock of potatoes, beets, and carrots in the spring house continue to hold out very well.  The small pond below the spring house still refuses to freeze and even steams a bit.  We plan on establishing watercress in there come springtime.

Wild food update:   Acorn Muffins !    These are an incredibly delicious, nutty and nutritious treat - we use 50/50 ground white oak acorn meal and whole spelt flour.  Collect some acorns next fall and find out for yourself how delectable these really are.

Until next time, enjoy the photos below from the farm, and stay WARM :)

Your Friends at Old School Farm