Fox on the run!

For the past couple months I have noticed quite a few feather piles around the farm.  It kinda looks like a chicken might of crashed landed. Feathers are strewn about for 5-6 feet...yet no chicken is found.  Joel has been awakened to the sound of something grabbing chickens in the night, and has gotten out of bed many times to try and stop whatever has been grabbing the birds...


In the spirit of good husbandry I feel it is important to not only learn how to raise healthy food animals, but also how to properly protect them.  It is your job to protect your property, your investment as well as control pests not only in the garden, but in the barn as well.  I understand we all have to eat, but we all don't have to eat MY EGG LAYERS!

So it's early...we just unhooked the hay bailer from the big filthy orange machine and I'm holding coffee in one hand and a tool bag in the other walking towards Joel who's sipping coffee in the cockpit of big filthy.  As I round the front of her ready to hop aboard for the ride up to the back garden I look across the farm and spot a fox standing on the roof of Joel's shed feasting his eye's on the flock of egg layers below; kinda like me staring into a meat cooler at the butcher's shop.  He was picking out the "best cut" if you know what I'm saying....Without wondering how a fox got on top of the shed to begin with I quickly dropped the tools and coffee and ran for the rifle...Now, a lot of farmers will tell you to have a heart...I have a rifle...It's much easier to hit a fox at 100 yards with a rifle than a heart...but before the tears start...He vanished like a paycheck on Friday...the game begins.

The New Organic Grower

Pretty psyched!   I received a copy of The New Organic Grower in the mail last night...Another book by Eliot Coleman; who I really enjoy.  He's got a great style and teaches you through text and illustration.  If you remember I read Four Season Harvest by him last winter  I really benefited from that book, but Joel told me I would have benefited even more by reading this book first before I read Four Season Harvest.  It dives deeper into the fundamentals and the other books build upon this one.  I have already started reading it and can tell that Joel is right....again.

House progress.

Putting all my energy into the house for the rest of the summer...now that the gardens are out of the way, pretty much, I have some spare time.  Lately, between work and the farm I have been limited on time, but I have been scraping and caulking and looking to start slapping on some primer...We hope to get it listed by the end of the year.  *fingers crossed*


We have been taking weekend drives through the areas of Monroe, ME and Winterport, ME looking at farms that are on the market. Summer time drives through these two places are therapeutic..if you could only bottle up the smells and sounds you would make millions....These two areas are my favorite places right now.  I also have my eye on maybe something in the Lamoine, ME area.  I have dreamed about a coastal farm for a long time...hmmm..we'll see where the chips land.

La Roma!

Gorgeous morning!  The birds were out and the temp was down making things less muggy.  The air was crisp and full of summer smells; it was lovely.  I planted La Roma tomatoes all morning.  Joel has a truck load of tomato seedlings to put in consisting of every variety known to man as far as I can tell...PILES of them...all in trays and laid out on the ground; because we are behind they have been in the trays a little longer than normal and are starting to look a little pekid- so the race is on!