My Friends the Toads

Wow, it's been a long time, hasn't it? My apologies to the few people who read this blog! Indeed, there has been plenty to do at the farm lately and the long days have been keeping me outside later and later. Although every day here is basically different, many days fall more or less into this nice little routine:

- 6:30-8:00: Wake up and do the morning chores. These include giving feed & water to the broiler chickens/hens/pigs/ducks, letting the chickens/hens/ducks outside, moving the cows, putting new bedding down, etc.
- 8:00-8:30: Water the garden, pick strawberries, miscellaneous weeding
- 8:30-10:00: Coffee, breakfast, read
- 10:00-12:00: Check on the animals again, spend more time working in the garden or doing anything else that needs to be done
- 12:00-2:00: Siesta; Hour-long nap, lunch
- 2:00-3:00: Check on the animals again, collect the eggs, tea
- 3:00-8:30: Listen to NPR while working in the garden, check on animals again, and feed pigs around 7:00
- 8:30-9:15: Dinner, wash dishes
- 9:15-9:30: Close up all the animals and make sure they have enough water
- 9:30-10:45: Tea, shower (if needed), read or watch a movie
- 10:45-11:00: Get ready for bed
- 11:00-11:30: Internet
- 11:30-6:30: Sleep

So, as you can see, there's not too much time for updating the blog, especially since I usually take at least an hour to do so. I promise I'll do better, though.

As far as things at the farm go, a lot has gone on since my last post. We have three different sets of broiler chickens right now with baby turkeys probably coming tomorrow. Our first chicken day went fine, although Lyn couldn't be there due to a family emergency out in Nevada (Everything is fine now. Her brother has recovered well.) There's another chicken day this Friday (June 12), so mark your calendars.

The pigs have gotten a lot bigger, and got out once about a month ago when I left the gate unlocked. We were driving up the lane, returning from an evening with some friends, and saw eight sets of eyes reflecting back at us in the middle of the lane. We had to corral them back into their pen in the dark, which luckily went pretty smoothly but could have been a nightmare.

The bees have been going a little crazy. We have had at least three swarms so far this spring. They usually do this when conditions are getting too crowded in the hive, and this is pretty much how they reproduce in a broader sense, as a new hive is created in the process. When this happens, a large portion of the bees will leave the hive with a new queen. They'll congregate somewhere not far from the original hive, and then take off once they decide where their new home is. We managed to capture one of the swarms into a hive, where they decided to stay. So instead of one hive, we now have two. Unfortunately, we have a lot less bees in general as two other swarms decided not to stay and buzzed off over the horizon, so there might not be much honey for us this autumn.

We had a fox attack on the hens after we had just moved them to a new location further out in the field. I had turned off the electric fence while a thunderstorm was passing through (otherwise the lightning could short the fence out), and right after the storm, before I had turned it back on, the foxes came through and killed about 5-10 hens. They didn't even eat all of them, leaving about five dead ones just lying there. Foxes are beautiful, intelligent animals. They're native predators crucial to the ecosystem, and they've been here long before chickens and farms were introduced by European settlers -- but from a farmer's perspective it's hard to appreciate them when they kill chickens for fun. There's only about twenty hens left now, and we intend to move them up on the hill where we can keep a closer eye on them and where they will be far from the sinkhole where the foxes live.

The heifers are doing fine, but remain mischievous as ever. When i was moving them a few weeks ago, they plowed through the fence and went out in the hayfield, where they remained for at least a good hour before Patty and I managed to entice them back in. On top of that, they also managed to open up two of the hose valves in the very last paddock where they were staying. We didn't discover this until they drained the spring that provides our water, and we had to briefly switch to well water while the spring refilled itself. The other day they also chewed through one of the small pieces of hose that feeds into to their water troughs, creating a small leak that shot up 10 feet or so into the air, treating the cows to a nice mist on a hot day. Luckily I discovered it before they drained the spring once again. Cows are curious animals, and if they ever have the chance to chew on, stomp on, or push something over, you can bet they will.

The garden acts as a great stress reliever when things get a little crazy. It's just about my favorite place to be, and listening to NPR at the same time makes it all the more enjoyable. I just harvested some great looking beets from the greenhouse and we've been eating beautiful chard, lettuce, and other greens from the greenhouse for about a month or so now. My radishes didn't do too well, thanks to all the wet weather and lots of stress from flea beetles, but it looks like some of them will be good enough to add to our salads. Right now is the prime of strawberry season and I'm picking about a quart a day now that the sun has come out. Methinks some strawberry shortcake is in order.

The organic management of the garden ensures that there's always a good variety of insects to be found (both friends and enemies), but they are not the only creatures that call the garden home. I was working in the garden this morning, removing hay and straw from a bed I prepared last month to get it ready to plant some more spinach. As I picked up one clump of straw, I saw something stirring in the sooty-colored compost underneath. As I was reaching down to see what it was, a toad suddenly hopped out of the compost right next to my hand, startling me pretty good. Of course, anyone who knows me well knows that I love amphibians, so rather than shrieking I smiled at this most welcome guest. I've actually been seeing quite a lot of toads lately, some out in the pasture, but most of them in and around the garden. After hopping once or twice to a safer distance, the toad stayed completely still, nervous to make a move in front of this towering, fearsome creature standing over it. As I glanced over to the potatoes growing nearby, I suddenly had an idea.

There are these fat little orange beetles with black stripes that regularly attack my six rows of potatoes. They're called Colorado Potato Beetles, and if let to their own devices, will lay countless clusters of bright orange eggs on the underside of the potato leaves. Their fat, grubby, red-orange larvae are ravenous. Once they hatch out, they immediately set to work on eating the potato leaves which have protected them. They can completely defoliate the potato plants in a very short time, prematurely killing the plant.

So every day, I go through the potato plants in the morning and pick off the potato beetles. Although I don't enjoy killing them, I'm not about to let them go and eat my potato plants, so I usually give them a quick and merciful death with the heel of my boot. It just seems like such a waste to stomp on them, though. I've tried feeding them to the chickens, but their orange color seems to make the chickens wary of eating them. So with this toad sitting in front of me apparently not in a hurry to get anywhere, I got the idea to bring some to the toad and see if it might eat them. Of course, when I actually want to find them, that's when I can barely find any at all. But I did find a couple adults and about four larvae. When I went back to the toad, I couldn't find him. The sooty-colored toad was so well camoflauged against the dark compost I could hardly see him (dropped one in front of the toad and dashed over to watch from a distance that wouldn't make the toad nervous. Sure enough, after a little while, the toad saw the grub, turned toward it, and gobbled it up. I repeated this process until there were none left. Both toad and gardener were very satisfied (as far as I could tell). It was getting sunny out, and with the toad now excavated from it's moist, shaded nook under the straw, I picked it up and placed it carefully in the shaded mulch -- under my potato plants.

Farming is hard.

Don't let anyone ever tell you that farming is easy and relaxing. It's not. Yesterday 39 of our fattest (nearly 5 pound) chickens died due to overheating. I didn't give them enough ventilation during the night. Although the outside temperature was only in the 50s, the heat lamps for the baby chicks and the body heat generated by 100+ chickens caused it to heat up real good in there. It's a pretty shitty feeling to be the one responsible for that. Everyone makes mistakes, but in farming even one small mistake can be a real disaster.

There's been a lot going on since my last post. I'm tired and will start getting up earlier tomorrow, so I'm going to make this ultra-condensed to keep things short. Here's what's new, in chronological order as best as I can remember:

- We now have heifers again!
- Apprentice organic inspection with Lyn
- Left the gate open and pigs got out, had to round them up back into the pen in the dark
- Farm tour for water conservation conference -- went very well, but was a pain to clean everything to prepare for it
- It Doesn't look like there is any real chance of another frost. The garden is really taking off. Here's what's planted (in the greenhouse): spinach, onions, beans, cucumbers, chard, beets, romaine lettuce, mescalin mix, carrots, kale; (in flats): red/yellow pear tomatoes, sweet basil, basil, eggplant, chamomile, crafter's gourds, canteen gourds, luffa, brussel sprouts, leeks, chard, mescalin mix, red cabbage, tomatillos (outside): peas, onions, shallots, red romaine lettuce, outredgeous lettuce, romaine lettuce, scallions, pacman broccoli, cauliflower, purple mizuna, hon tsai tsai, leeks, garlic, Yukon Gold potatoes, Kennebec potatoes, chamomile, spinach, red cabbage, Chinese cabbage, collards, white dream radishes, white dream radishes, Chinese winter radishes

-Adam

Pigs and barn swallows have arrived!

After a somewhat rainy and dreary week cooped up inside a conference center hearing about various regulations relating to organic certification, I feel I earned the gorgeous weekend we had. The sky was blue, the weather was warm (even hot), and the sun was shining strong! Lyn and I spent some time Saturday morning at the local Penn's Creek stream cleanup hosted by Penn's Valley Conservation Association (PVCA). It was a great chance to both help keep the stream clean and look for all sorts of stream critters at the same time. It was nice to see my first snake (garter snake) and frog (green frog?) of the year. We then took a nice drive around George's Valley, which I had never seen before. As we were driving around, Lyn made a great observation: You can buy a really nice farm almost anywhere, but you can't get the community that you have in the Brush Valley / Penn's Valley area. The juxtaposition of the Amish, conventional, and "alternative" communities and their integration as a whole just makes it a really amazing place. She's got a point. How could you not love it here?

On the chicken front, today I opened up the door and gave the chickens (they've finally lost their chick fuzz) access to pasture for the first time. It's always fun to watch their reaction to being let out for the first time. At first, none of them go out but cautiously edge closer and closer and wait for another chicken to be the first one to go out. Eventually one is brave enough to venture a few steps outside, and soon enough a whole bunch of them are out there lounging around, munching on grass, and enjoying the life of a pastured chicken. It's good stuff. Of course, we still will put them in at night to keep them from getting too chilled and to keep the foxes from having a nice chicken dinner. At the end of the day, they were all still inside. Not a brave soul amongst them! Well, when I put all their food out there tomorrow they'll change their tune I think.

The highlight of the weekend was getting the pigs, though. We drove over to Jonas's Farm to pick them up. Jonas is an Amish (dairy?) farmer, but he's got a pack of little pigs together running amuck in his barn. So Jonas and his teenage daughter went in there and rounded them up to catch some of the little ones one-by-one. I jumped on in to help, too, but I never did catch one myself (although I got plenty filthy trying). They're quick little devils. Add a little grease into the mixture and we would've been there all day! 

So Jonas rounded us up eight little pigs, we loaded them up on the trailer, and brought them to their new home. They're a nice assortment of different colors, and not an entirely pink one amongst them. We unloaded them into the brand new pig pen we just built for them next to the hoop barn. It was hard work digging out all that gravel from part of the hoop barn, so they better appreciate it! I don't know how they like the setup, but I do know they are loving the grass. They were so thrilled to be on fresh grass that they started chomping away at it right away when we first let them in there. They weren't even interested in the grain we had for them. These are true pastured pigs through and through. They're still a little wild from being with so many other pigs, so they haven't really gotten used to me yet. I'm confident I can win them over, though. I had last year's pigs so tame I would go in to their pen in the afternoon and scratch their backs and give them belly rubs. They don't call me the Pig Whisperer for nothing.

Another arrival at the farm that was warmly welcomed was that of the barn swallows! Every summer the barn swallows come back and take over the hoop barn, swooping all over the place catching lots of insects for us. You can always tell summer is nearly here when the barn swallows come back. Truth be told, I actually haven't seen them yet myself, but Lyn did. She said they looked like they were scoping the place out. They don't seem to be there now, but you can bet they'll be back soon and with lots of friends, too. It's a good thing, because they need strength in numbers to push out the house sparrows from the hoop barn. For those who aren't aware, house sparrows (aka English sparrows) are horribly invasive and found just about everywhere. They are always outcompeting the small native birds here like the bluebirds, house wrens, and barn swallows. But when outnumbered by barn swallows, the house sparrows will usually concede defeat and move over to one of their many other gathering places at the farm. 

As far as the garden goes, there's a lot more going on now that the weather is warming up. There are flowers everywhere: dozens of daffodils, tons of tulips, and lots of others. They really make the place look fantastic. Also, I planted these birdhouse gourds in the hoop greenhouse nearly a month ago, and had just about given up on them for good when I saw these giant sprouts poking up today. It was so sudden. In the morning there was no sign of any sort of life there, and then I check back in the evening and almost all the seeds had sprouted with leaves bigger than my thumbnail! It was a wonderful surprise. 

Everything else that was planted is doing great, and some of the mescaline is getting pretty sizable so that we might have some in our salads next week. I planted three different varieties of radishes yesterday and a whole row of beets. One of the radish varieties is a purple heirloom type and the beets are heirlooms as well -- a very dark red variety called Beet's Blood. To be honest I don't even know what to do with turnips and beets once I grow them, but I'm sure I'll figure something out. There's still a whole bunch more I want to plant tomorrow: bush beans (in the greenhouse), broccoli, two different types of asian greens, scallions, more peas, and chamomile. The chamomile is supposed to do a good job of keeping cabbage worms away, so I want to try it out and see how it works. The only thing is apparently chamomile comes back like crazy every year, so I'll have to do a good job of keeping it under control.

Well, it's getting late and tomorrow is sure to be just as action packed as these last two days were. It's supposed to get up to 90 degrees tomorrow! Pretty amazing considering the danger of frost hasn't even passed yet. I love spring -- you just never know what you're going to get from one week to the next.

-Adam

The State of the Garden Address

So with spring in full gear now, the garden is once again starting to take shape. It's exciting to be here in the spring, because usually I come later in the season when everything in the garden is already planted or ready to harvest. Now I'll have the opportunity to plant just about everything and see it all grow from the beginning. The garden is more or less under my command this time, so it will be a lot of fun orchestrating it all. I've already begun scheming to get rid of all the grass in between the various beds and turn the whole area into one massive garden. It will be a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

By the way, I have to admit I'm a little biased against non-edible plants like flowers, so really whenever I mention the garden I'm really only talking about vegetables and herbs. Granted, flowers are beautiful, great for the bees, and really liven the place up, but -- they just don't get me excited like veggies do. They have their place, and in time I expect I'll become more enthusiastic about them, but that time is not yet now. 

So anyway, here's what we've got planted outside right now (excluding perennials):

- 1 bed of onions (3 varieties)

- shallots (sharing the onion bed)

- 2 beds of peas (2 varieties)

- 2 beds of garlic

The garlic is doing great, but we didn't really plant enough of it. So I might try to plant some more soon and see how they do. It will be an experiment. Everything else seems to have germinated, too. I had almost lost hope for the peas until I noticed some germinating today, so it looks like they are okay, too. Macha, the resident puppy, and her corgi friend tore into the beds pretty bad chasing each other around, so there should be an interesting pattern emerging once enough of them germinate.

With the peas and onions I figured I'd try something different and do keyhole beds. Keyhole beds are U-shaped beds with only a small space in the middle where one can stand and reach everything. I learned about them from my permaculture design course as a way to maximize garden space. Although our garden is quite huge and we don't really need to worry much about space, I figure it will be good practice if I ever end up doing some urban permaculture. I thought the beds turned out pretty great, but I made a big mistake: I matched up two arch-nemeses next to each other. Apparently, when I was looking into companion planting this afternoon, almost every source I found noted that onions and peas do not do well together and should not be planted near each other. Oops. I guess we'll see how they turn out. Lyn doesn't think it will make much of a difference, but I'm still annoyed. I think I might try to sneak some carrots in between the two and see if the carrots can negotiate a peaceful settlement between the two. 

In the little hoop greenhouse we already have onions and spinach which have been planted a while ago. The onions are getting there and the spinach we've been harvesting on and off for the past couple months. I've also recently planted beets, bush beans, bright lights chard, carrots, lettuce, mixed mescaline, and cucumbers. Everything except the cucumbers have germinated. Sadly, it's not quite hot enough for them yet, which is pretty much what I had expected but I hoped I could will them to grow. I guess I'll try again in a couple of weeks when it's warmed up a little more.

I also have a few flats sitting in the greenhouse which have 

got a whole assortment of different things germinating: broccoli raab, leeks, romaine lettuce, "out-red-geous" lettuce, and chard (I think there might be some more things that I'm forgetting). There's also a flat each of bottle/birdhouse gourds and Brussels sprouts which I only planted about a week ago and expect will be germinating soon.

I'm had planned on planting cabbage and spinach outside tomorrow, but the bed was a little wetter than I expected so I will let it dry out a bit and plant them tomorrow. The more things I plant outside, the more excited I get. I can't wait until the danger of frost has finally passed (in about a month). That's when things will really start taking off.

This morning I went a little crazy ordering lots of different seeds. I was like a kid in a candy shop looking through that seed catalog. The heritage breeds were especially tempting because they were so unusual looking. All told, I ordered about a dozen different seed packets, most of them either odd-looking, heritage breeds or both. It's going to be an interesting looking garden this summer overflowing with more veggies than we know what to do with. I think I'll be needing that extra garden space after all!

-Adam

Over the Moon Farm in the 21st century!

The stars have aligned and the gods are smiling, for the days of painfully slow dial-up are gone (and will not be missed) here at Over the Moon Farm. We finally have high-speed internet in the way of a satellite hook-up. Can I get a 'Hallelujah!'? As a celebration of this momentous achievement, I'm starting a blog of the goings-on, happenings, hoopla, and shenanigans here at the farm.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Over the Moon Farm, a brief introduction seems to be in order, no? Over the Moon Farm is a small-scale diversified organic farm nestled within the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania (specifically, in Rebersburg in Brush Valley). The farm is owned and run by the ever-industrious and dynamic Lyn Garling. Patty, her partner, also lives at the farm and assists

 with its operation. As for me, I started interning here back in the summer of '06. Much like the ubiquitous burdock or multiflora rose, I just keep coming back.

Being a diversified farm, there's not really one particular thing that we "do" here, but rather lots of small enterprises that fit together into the overall framework of sustainable and ecological farming (as well as contributing to the increasingly vibrant local economy). For our modest income generation we raise pastured chickens, turkeys, hens (eggs), and pigs with a combination of fresh pasture and organically-fed grains. We also source local grass-fed beeves, board heifers (and make hay) on certified organic pastures, and have some cowardly ducks running around keeping us engaged in a constant Easter egg hunt. For personal use we also have a sizable vegetable garden that supplies us with all the vegetables we need and far more zucchini then we ever want. Honeybees, if we can manage to entice them to stay here long enough (and not swarm off to some other location), provide us with delicious honey and

 prodigious pollination in exchange for a never-ending supply of flowers scattered about.

So that's basically what we do here. This blog is both designed to be an account of the current events and projects that keep the farm functioning as well as a forum for my thoughts and observations about all things related to my life here at the farm. If I get too off-topic with what's on my mind, I'll redirect such posts to my long-neglected personal blog, Unconventional Thinking. Let's hope this blog fares better. 

-Adam