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.
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.
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.
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
It's harvest time again at Old School Farm. The Benner family and Dave Campeau are picking vegetables as fast as they can, but can barely keep up. The fertile soil of the Dyberry river valley has again produced a bountiful harvest of delicious and nutritious produce.
Favorites on our list this year include the "Dragon's Tongue" bush bean - a cream colored bean with purple stripes. These plants are very prolific and continue to bear very large, flat beans for several weeks. We are steaming, sauteing, freezing, selling, and giving them away as fast as we can! We also have an abundance of purple tomatillas that are prized for salsa or can be eaten fresh as they are quite sweet.
Oh, so sweet tomatillas
Our Cherokee Purple, German Johnson, and Snow White heirloom tomatoes have withstood the tomato blight that plagued our region to produce rather large quantities of flavorful fruit. We also have two varieties of roma type sauce tomatoes and are cooking down and freezing sauce for pizzas and pasta.
Our Carmen, Lipstick, and Jimmy Nardello sweet red peppers are starting to come in heavy right now - one taste and you are hooked.
Sweet Red Peppers and boys with Garter Snakes
What is perhaps most exciting in the garden these days are the 300 or so asparagus plants we trenched in back in early May. These plants must really like our sandy and silty river bottom soil, as they continue to explode with growth, with many plants exhibiting upwards of twelve shoots in just the first season! We expect to even be able to make a small harvest next spring - unheard of in asparagus growing, where it typically takes 2 - 3 years to to be able to do any cutting of shoots.
It's not all rosy in the garden...We continue to struggle with production from the alum family - onions, garlic, and leeks have really been disappointing for us for two years now and we continue to try and dial in on exactly what the issue is, but we believe it to be something to do with our soil chemistry. Our parsnips were also a complete failure even after two plantings.
The sheep are thriving. We have now moved them into their 5th pasture area on the far side of the road. This is easily done by "leap frogging" additional sections of electric netting to form a new enclosure adjacent to where they were grazing and then letting them in. Then the moveable shelter is easily towed to it's new location with tow straps attached to our pick up.
The boys and Dad have finally come up with names for three of the four lambs. We decided to go with Lenni Lenape names in honor of the first occupants of our land. The ewe lamb names are: Opala (bald eagle - these circle our river valley- the name also means: helper, success) and Nesca (short for Nescalenk or black face - she has a black face). Our ram was named Uncas by Owen. Uncas was a lead character in "Last of the Mohicans" book by James Fenimore Cooper. Cooperstown is just a couple of hours to the north. The nearly full grown lambs' names will be registered with the Canadian Sheep Breeder's Assn. later this week.
Al & Coleman dance on the clay/sand/straw mixture
The earthen domed oven for bread and pizza is really coming along. Here are some photos and a video clip that show the progress. Dave constructed the base from field stone on site that came from collapsed farm walls, and the top of this base has now been lined with wine bottles and chinked with the earthen cob mix to produce an insulating surface on which we will soon lay a layer of sand and then firebricks for the cooking surface. The cob mix is made by working a 3:1 sand to clay mix with straw and water with your feet until it is uniformly mixed. This was fun (for a while :) ) for the boys...
Wine bottles with clay/sand/straw mix ("cob") to insulate oven
Oven base will now dry before fire bricks are added
Owen in Orchard with Elderberry stand behind him
We also have a rapidly expanding patch of wild Elderberries in our orchard area where the turkeys range. Every morning when they come out of the coop they run strait for the patch, scavenging ripe berries that fall to the ground. Both these plants have high levels of anti-oxidants. Autumn Olive can be used to make fruit leather (we made this once) and Elderberries are prized as a healing and wellness ingredient in elixirs, tonics and wine. We are now experimenting by growing a cultivated variety that will produce larger fruit.
Owen and Coleman spent the first week of September at the farm with Dad and some of
their escapades are captured here for your enjoyment as well.
6 Year old chef - Coleman cooks dinner for himself and his brother - really.
Monarch caterpillar - they only eat Milkweed
Until next time, enjoy the great outdoors and some fresh, locally grown produce - nothing is better this time of year...
If you plan to visit the Honesdale area, be sure to check out the new music, food, and cultural venue on main street - it's really great: http://thecooperageproject.org/
