busy times

It has been a long time coming. But like many things in farming, this requires patience. Chickens aren't ready overnight; and orchards must take shape on paper first.

The trees for Reindeer Rock arrived in early May, but we were already busy preparing much before. When snow was still on the ground (true here until April 23) trees were felled, bucked up, and the logs were rolled down the hill (leading to the creation of a fine game called "Birch Log Bowling Golf"). Holes for the trees were measured, staked, examined, re-staked, argued over, and re-staked again.

The excavator came the same day that Kelly and Jack almost rolled off the hill, and the same day the compost was delivered after a harrowing hour-long ordeal with the

dump truck stuck on the steep and windy part of the driveway. Two days with the excavator yielded 18 of the 20 holes needed, some preliminary stone terrace work, and a backyard that might be described in New Hampshire as being "flattish". It also taught some lessons (such that digging a hole in the ground in which to bury rocks was largely a losing proposition).

Finally, the trees arrived. 8 apples, 6 peaches, 3 plums, 2 cherries, 2 pawpaws, 2 chinese chestnuts, and a nectarine. We spent the next two weekends with wheelbarrows and shovels, mixing rock phosphate, lime, our compost and Ideal compost into the bare soil. Trees got mulched. We spent another weekend doing more stone

work, evening grade (less of that was me; yet I got plenty of stone work to manage on top of a full time farm job). Michael sowed wildflower seed and mulched it with straw, I watered from 8 to 9pm every other evening, and finally, the orchard is done. Mostly. For now. Of course, we have not yet fenced it, but that will come soon enough.

In the meantime, came the chickens. When I got to the Post office to let them know I was expecting chicks, I could already hear them peeping. They were moved around the house, from the upstairs bedroom (with Jack whimpering at the door to be let in) to the basement (where their breath over 3 weeks started mildewing the walls). Finally, the chicken tractor was complete and I took a nauseating 50 minute drive with 50 chicks in two cardboard boxes down to the farm. They took to their new home immediately, ever eager to get to a new patch of grass and even more eager for their morning grain. Kristin and Sarah and neighbors Steve, Linda and Patti cared for them on weekends so I could avoid the 50-minute drive. Then Michael, MK and Andrew and I processed them on Sunday. A last minute gift of a laying hen cull from Tom and Susie is boiling on the stove now, and the livers are soaking in milk in preparation for a pate, made with liver and onions and butter and eggs and cream, good Jersey & Devin cream, raw and so thick when I pulled it from the fridge it would not pour even when turned upside down.