New Calves!

So we now have 2 baby calves from the beef cattle. After a lot of discussion of names, we have finally settled on Leche (for the male calf of Lukey - he's very white) and Maya (for Lucy's baby girl). Now wait you say, all the beef cows have names that start with "L". This is true. but Maya was born on Micah's 2nd birthday, so in honor of that, we gave Maya an "M" name. They are both really sweet, and I hiked up last week to check on the cows and visited with them. The cows have been making lots of noise - not just because of the new calves, but because our neighbor Brian Young has cows too, and at the moment they're right across the fence from our cows. So I will hear all this ruckus and I'll hike all the way up the hill to see what's going on, and it just that our cows are nose-to-nose talking with the cows from next door.

In the meantime, we've been having some crazy weather. I keep waking up to huge wind and thunderstorms in the middle of the night. Katie and I went out for burgers and beer on Saturday but decided to wait a couple minutes when this storm pulled in! Also on Saturday I ushered at a play for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It was great - it's called Brokeology. Plus as I handed out programs I saw two faces that looked familiar - turned out it was Amy who I went to build Habitat houses with in Georgia my freshman year and her fiance Ben!


Everything on the farm is doing really well. we hit the halfway point of the apprenticeship and celebrated with a big dinner with cider from the orchard, sauteed escarole, baked fennel and spanakopita. Meanwhile, Gabriella has started making salads (apparently, this has been her specialty the last couple of years). Sometimes they have unusual combinations (this wa s adessert actually: lemon balm, mint and marshmallows. pretty tasty). other times they just feature a mix of the veggies we have on the farm. Tonight she made the salad all by herself. We had green beans, baby lettuce and sun gold cherry tomatoes. yum!

Back Sides of Cows

July 14 is the birth of so many wonderful beings – it’s Bastille day, the day when the French Revolution began. It’s my friend Celia’s birthday. And today, Lukey’s first calf was born. He is so much bigger than Charlie was! And he can already run around fast. This released a whole slew of name suggestions. Geoff, who found the calf, suggested Larry or Lawrence. Katie suggested Louie, so he would come with his own song “Louie, Louie…Ohhh”. Don is a fan of Lebron (because he’s fast, like Lebron James). I suggested Leche, because he super white and because he’ll be drinking his mom’s milk as long as he wants. Gabriella suggested Lucky, Leo, and Lord Lallolar. We kept throwing them out, “Lance”, “Loren”, “Lowell”. We’ll keep throwing them out until we find one that fits…or until we decide which of these everyone likes more.

This afternoon, we hiked back up to the hill pasture to elastrate the new calf. We walked the whole paddock until we found the calf curled up by the water tub and the fence and then the three of us got closer. He ran. I grabbed a back leg with my left hand but didn’t get enough of a grip. We sighed. We followed him as he joined back up with the other three cows, until he was between Lukey, me and Don. Don tackled him, I grabbed his two back legs, and Katie held down his chest. All the cows gathered around, licking him and mooing and breathing at us while Don tried to find the balls (they hadn’t descended yet, so it took some searching). It was pretty terrifying for these huge 1200 pound cows to be sniffing you and trying to get back to their calf. So Don holds the testicles in one hand. In the other hand, he holds a set of special pliers that stretch the rubber band open (they look a lot like a much larger version of bird banding pliers…if that helps explain this to anyone…maybe not). Then he gently lets the rubber band off the pliers and onto the testicles. This restricts blood flow, so they slowly sort of wither up and are gradually reabsorbed into the body. This way, the calf will grow up as a steer, not as a bull.
You can see on Charlie that the testicles are already shrinking. It was amazing to see how much all the beef cows worked together to protect the new calf - it wasn't just his mom Lukey. That's why we can leave them in the top pasture - they're better at protecting their calves from coyotes than our dairy cow Chloe.

more fun with lil

Before I could let Lilly leave last week, of course I had to do a bit to document her time on the farm. She was not afraid to jump right on in with the pigs, weed with us, pick up chickens and scratch Chloe in her favorite spot behind her ears.



This weekend I was on farm duty so it's been a good time to use some of our ever-abundant milk supply to learn to make dairy products. Today I made butter. You take a pint of cream (a pound...as Geoff reminds me "a pint's a pound the world around") and blend it in the food processor for about 2 mintes. You pour it through a piece of cheesecloth to drain the whey off and then add a teaspoon of salt. Next you wash it with cold water while you press it on a wooden cutting board. you keep folding and pressing it until the water runs clear. This is how you get the remaining whey out of it. You can totally eat it without doing that step, but if you keep the whey in it, it doesn't keep as long. the salt also helps it keep better.

Last weekend, Don made Paneer (an Indian yogurt cheese), so I used it on Friday to make saag paneer. All week we had a big debate over what that dish is called (it's sauteed spinich with freed paneer). I voted for Saag paneer, Katie voted for palak paneer. we bet a pint of ice cream on it. we consulted a cookbook, which listed palak paneer, and then another which listed saag paneer. Finally, we asked a farm member who lived in India for a long time, who explained that saag paneer is made with spinach, palak paneer is a more general term for any green (it could be spinach, but it could also be collards or chard). so, after all the excitement I made the dish and I think we'll just split a pint of ice cream.

The farm is EXPLODING! we've been harvesting bucketfuls of zucchini and yellow squash and in the last week the cukes have finally hit. The sunflower huts and bean teepees that Gabriella helped plant as a childrens garden are growing up and filling out and our farm looks lush and green! I spotted purple Islander peppers that are ripe and on my hike up to the hill pasture to visit the beef cows, I noticed that Lukey had some mucus hanging out her backside…maybe we will get another calf after all!

Fourth of July!

Lilly came to visit this weekend! We managed to do some farm work, walk in a parade, watch the fireworks, visit another farm, hula hoop, and watch soccer.

She got in Thursday night and worked with us Friday morning until we left to walk in the Williamstown Parade. We didn't throw any snap peas or candy, but we did chant "2-4-6-8 how we like to cultivate" while we walked with the banners. Friday night we went to the fireworks in North Adams with Michael, his roommate Josh and his friend Lisa.

Then Saturday after work we went over to Ellen's. Ellen was an apprentice here at Caretaker last year and she just started her own farm this year in New Lebanon, about a half hour away. She's selling at a farmers' market and she has 17 CSA members so far. So she had a party for her 21st birthday complete with farm tours (she had AMAZING broccoli and collards), CSA members naming her chickens ("drumstick" was my favorite, although Pizza was a close runner up). Lilly found a fellow economist to talk to and finally at the end of the night Ellen busted out the hula hoops.


Sunday we got in some much needed relaxation, heading to two different coffee shops, reading the paper, watching Michael's soccer game and hitting up the dairy queen before coming home to try mint oreo ice cream that Katie made with Chloe milk!

My farm has a website which at some time might even include some of the pictures I take, if Don deems them worthwhile. Check it out at www.caretakerfarm.org.