New name, same farm...and the fair

When we started this blog, we were trying to decide what to call our farm.  We often refer to our dogs as 'salty dogs' after they go swimming in our salty river (all the time!) so we settled on the Salty Dog Farm.  I set out to start the blog and found that there was another Salty Dog Farm....and they were in Maine!  I noticed that they hadn't posted anything in a while, and so we decided to stick with the name anyway.  I did know that just because they weren't blogging didn't mean they weren't still farming -- I just figured our paths wouldn't cross.

Well -- this weekend was the Maine Organic Farm and Garden Association Common Ground Country Fair.  This event is HUGE -- about 20,000 people visit each day, and it lasts for 3 days.

When we were looking through the program ahead of time to figure out what talks to go see, we noticed....Salty Dog Farm.  They were at the farmer's market at the fair.  So, we're changing our tune.

We are now Reachwood Farm.  Really, it should have been this way from the start.  The land we're living on is called Reachwood Forest so it seems fitting we should be Reachwood Farm.  We are new to the farming thing, and we don't want to ruffle any feathers along the way.

With regard to the fair -- whoa.  It was so nice to visit the fair with a new focus on things.  We talked to experienced beekeepers, root cellar builders, farmers, and many more folks that have information to pass along and share.  I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'm really looking forward to winter.  We have one season under our belts, we have learned a TON, and we have so many plans that we want to research and flesh out over the winter.  We've already started our winter projects list, and it is way more than we can possibly do in the winter, but at least we won't get bored. :)

A momentous occasion

We've been working with our chainsaws for some time now, and we've been trying to accomplish the drop start since day 1.

This happened today. These videos speak for themselves. :)

Our badass ranking just went up a couple levels.

PS -- could my wife be cuter in her suspenders!??! :)

A post about veggies....finally!

Given that growing food is one of the purposes of us moving up here and doing all of this farming, we should probably have a post about said food at some point.  No time like the present.  

We were itching to get things going this spring, and we started a bunch of seedlings inside....way too early.  We planted some things in the ground as soon as we thought we were out of the frost danger -- we were wrong.  We lost a lot of our seedlings to a late frost, but now we know.  Luckily, we had a lot of extra seeds, so we were able to start over.  Tragically, we lost all our melons, and we had already given away our extras at a seedling swap.  This means no melons for us this year. :(  

In early/mid/late/all of June, we were beginning to get really discouraged.  All of our seedlings in the ground were a couple inches tall, and then they just stopped growing.  We were beginning to wonder if we were going to get any food this year.  I mean, it was practically July, and we weren't even really eating greens out of our garden.  We were getting more and more frustrated as all our friends from the Seacoast were struggling to keep up with their early crops -- turns out being two hours north makes a difference....go figure.  

Needless to say, things have changed, and now we're struggling to keep up.  

This is how things looked on July 22 -- things are getting bigger!

Also July 22 -- turnips planted around salad greens.  The greens have since bolted, and turnips are enormous.  We're trying to get them all before it's too late.

This is a medium sized turnip -- luckily, the variety we have is still really good when they're huge.  We're trying to get to them before they get huge, but it is hard.  Any tips for preserving turnips?

This is Aug. 7 -- perhaps the most amazingly noticeable thing is the bean teepee.  It is great!  We are going to plant many more of them next year just because they're so beautiful...and we like beans a lot.

Beets are one of my favorite veggies, and Anna waited to pick any while I was away in Ann Arbor.  I was totally expecting a mediocre beet since it was so big, but this thing was DELICIOUS! Like with the turnips, it has been hard to get to them before they're huge.  A root cellar is in our plan for the fall/winter.

Our cukes are totally out of control, it is amazing.  The ones on the right are silver slicers, and they are so so so so good.  The skin is not tough at all, and they are sweet and delicious...even when oversized.  The ones on the left are pickling cukes....and the dill tells you that's exactly what's about to happen to these cukes.

We're trying brining for the first time this year.  We have a 3 gallon crock, and we're a little over a week into it at this point.  We added dill, garlic, and some horseradish leaves as we read that is supposed to help keep them crunchy.  We grew everything going into this crock. :)

When brining pickles, you just add a brine solution (salt water) to the cukes and let it sit for a few weeks.  This is a real fermentation of cukes rather than pickling them with vinegar.  

Cukes in brine -- they float.

So we weighted them with this handy weight.  You can use a plate with a bottle on top, but I like the ease of getting the weight out of the crock since it has the hole in the middle.  Now, we watch and wait...and skim the scum off the top.  Brining produces yeast on the surface of the solution since it is exposed to the air.  The pickles aren't exposed, so there's no yeast on them.

That glorious bean teepee has us swimming in beans.  So, we're making dilly beans.  Aren't they so gorgeous?

Dilly beans -- ready for consumption!

These next few pics are all from today's harvest.  It is so rewarding and wonderful to go out to the garden and pick dinner.  It does make for some interesting meals as we figure out what to do with what we've got.  Today, we're stuffing oversized zucchinis with tomatoes, onions, garlic, kale, chard, and quinoa.  We're saving the beets and turnips for something else.

Have I mentioned I love beets?  They are so beautiful. There's a turnip in there, too. :)

And, yes, we finally have tomatoes!  We have a critter partaking in a lot of our heirlooms, but we still have plenty ourselves.  They are so tasty and a good reward for the person who goes out for the night's harvest.

Zukes and cukes!  Yeah, we have a lot of these.  I think we each eat about 5 cukes a day, not to mention the pickles, not to mention the dogs eating a lot of cukes too.

Totally unrelated to things we've grown (except we did grow the horseradish on the left), but we dove for these by our house.  I'd never had an oyster before, and they weren't too bad.  We'll only be having them when the ducks/chickens need the calcium from the shells.  It's a service we're willing to do for them.

Life is good, and things are growing.  We have a lot more preserving to do, and it is going to be great. Love the summer, love the bounty.

The coop is finally finished inside and out!

It's been a while since our last post, but that's not for lack of things going on at the SDF. We've been so busy with the summer season upon us, and we love it!  We have many blog posts in the works, so stay tuned.  For today....more updates to the Flocktagon -- formerly known as the Chicktagon.  As in the past, I'll keep this post mostly pictures since they tell more, and are easier for you all to get through.

While we've had the Flocktagon built for a while now, there have been a couple things that needed to be done on the inside that have just been hanging over our heads -- namely, insulating the ceiling, adding a more permanent roost for the chickens, and installing nest boxes for our ladies. We purposely left nest boxes out for a while since this is supposed to keep them from thinking the nest boxes are a good spot for sleeping.

We'll start with the insulating.  We didn't think this was such an urgent thing since we were a ways off from winter, but while doing the insulation, we were amazed at how much cooler the insulated panels were than the non-insulated panels (well, duh...).....and I was getting really tired of the insulation/wood pile under the cedar tree.

Insulation/scrap wood pile under the cedar tree (most of the wood is behind the insulation).  Olive isn't part of the supply pile, but she's often found under the cedar tree keeping tabs on the local red squirrel population.

Here's the uninsulated ceiling.  We really like the way this looks, so maybe that has something to do with our lack of motivation to insulate it as well....but the comfort of our ladies won out in the end.

When we went in to start working, we found this pile up happening.  That's our little girl, Sheila on the left, then Freckles (she's ridiculously friendly), and Nina is stretching it out. 

We've been trying to handle them as much as we can so that if we need to for injury or illness sake, they won't be difficult to work with.  It's a rough job, but someone's got to do it.

I can't believe I'm even showing this disaster.  This was our first attempt -- craptastical.  We learned a lot, and we were able to reuse a lot of the boards on the future attempts.

Looking much better -- still not perfect, but we're still in serious training here.  This was the end of day 2 -- after the first day's attempt (see above), we had to call it quits and recover with a cocktail on the deck.

The chop-saw sometimes becomes your makeshift DJ booth while rocking out.  This was the final day, on the final panel -- morale was much higher this day.  Side note -- much of that scrap wood will be our kindling for our wood stoves this year. Stacking functions.

While I was busy rocking out on the chop saw, Anna had the joyful job of cutting up and installing the insulation.  We went with a rock based insulation -- no fiberglass to contend with, and it isn't ruined if it gets wet (not that it would in our fortress of a coop).

Insulation installation station.  Like a boss.  

Lookin' good!  This is our last panel, and we couldn't be more pleased.  Pretty sure the flock was pleased as well -- they were tired of being forced to be outside.  They're just like children...you tell them they can't come inside, and all they want to do is come inside...typical.

Like a glove!  It may not be professional grade, but we're pretty happy with the outcome

YAY! We're almost done!

The finished ceiling.  Mighty fine if I do say so myself.  

Next, we wanted to add a more permanent roost.  We had a temporary roost for the chickens but they have been quickly outgrowing that makeshift roost....and one may have fallen over in the middle of the night.  Whether or not chickens were involved in the roost collapse remains a mystery, but let's just say that no one wants anything to do with that roost anymore...despite our repairs.

The new and improved roost -- it is easier for them to roost on round surfaces, so why not use a log?
Stacking functions.

The ladies enjoying their new roost.  It has been fun to watch them figure out how to get up there.  As they get bigger, it will get easier, but for now sometimes they make it just by one little toe.  PS -- check out Sheila's pantaloons...amazing and adorable (she's on the far left showing you her booty).

The ducks are pretty pleased with the new roost as well.  You can clearly see who's male and who's female here....they're all getting along fairly well so far.  Keep your fingers crossed. Here, I think they're watching the chickens on the roost to see if they're going to fall on them in the middle of the night.

The next big task for the inside of the coop is to install nest boxes and hang the feeders/waterers.  We needed nest boxes on the floor for the ducks, and raised up for the chickens.  I'm thinking nest box apartment complex. Done and done.

We were all business this day, so the only photo we have is of the end product.  It took us a couple hours, so we can't complain.  The bedding will get trampled down as the ladies come and go.

Last task -- hanging the feeders lessens the chances that the birds will perch on them and poop in them. The nest boxes double as a platform for holding the chicken watering receptacle.  Stacking functions. The ducks make a REALLY big mess of their water, and we don't want the sensitive chickens to get sick from it....unlikely, but better safe than sorry.  The orange bucket is the duck waterer -- they like to stick their entire bill in the water to clean our their noses, and the chickens don't like this waterer, so it is an easy way to separate the two waterers.

Last but certainly not least -- it is a really good thing we were about to install nest boxes.  The day before we did it...this happened.  Go Fern!  She's our only mature female, and she's a duck (on the left in the picture 3 above -- the duck without the green head).

Go Fern, go!  We are so excited.  We have fresh eggs...er, egg.  I also love that the shell is slightly green tinted. It was delicious and nutritious...the yolk was a beautiful deep yellow.  Hopefully she'll find the nest boxes for her future egg laying endeavors.

Chicks part deux

Now that they're about a month old, I figured we should finally post something about our new chickens.  We lost our first batch of chickens to what we believe was a fox, and we're ready to look to the future of new, healthy chickens!

We ordered 8 new chickens from My Pet Chicken, and we decided to get all new varieties so as to start fresh.  The chickens arrived on a Tuesday at about noon (less than 24 hrs after they left the hatchery), and two of them were dead when we picked them up.  One of them didn't look too hot, and it died over night.  Then, a fourth one died on Thursday.  This hatchery refunds you for losses, but this was ridiculous...especially considering how quickly they arrived!  The woman on the phone was very nice, and they refunded our losses and paid for shipping us new chickens.  Because of order minimums, we ordered 8 more chickens -- these also arrived less than 24 hrs after leaving the hatchery.....and two of them were dead on arrival.  W.T.F.  According to the website and the customer service people, they only see deaths about 1% of the time -- hmmmm.

Despite our rough start, we have 10 happy healthy chickens....

Here's a group of 5 on the day they arrived. :)

They're a bit older now, though...

This is Freckles, a Barred Rock -- named by our nephew. :)

This is Nina, another Barred Rock.

Sheila -- she's a White Cochin.  She is the runt of the bunch, but she makes up for it with attitude. She has feathers on her feet and has stolen our hearts.

This is Chewy, aka Fluffy Butt, aka Miss Featherbottom, aka Dr. Featherbottom, Esq. She's a Light Brahma and obviously also has feathers on her feet.

This is Sal, a Speckled Sussex.  So beautiful as adults.

This is Amy, another Speckled Sussex.  She runs in circles....yeah.

This babe needs a name.  She's a Speckled Sussex as well.

This is Louis, another Speckled Sussex.  She was exploring from day 1.

This is Maren, a Silver Cuckoo Maran.  Her eggs could be dark chocolate brown!

Last, but certainly not least, this is DiDi.  She's a Speckled Sussex as well.

We're really happy with our new ladies, and they're starting to get really sassy.  They've been spending all day outside in the temporary (and newly reenforced) chicken pen, and they're loving it.  We spend every early evening having cocktails and chicken time -- we sit in the grass rehashing the day's work and catching bugs to feed to the chickens.  We are happy to report that they love green heads, ticks, slugs, and Japanese beetles.

We're anxious for them to grow into fully feathered adults so we can introduce them to the ducks and have all our birds living full time outside.  The introduction is sure to produce at least one blog post -- it could get interesting...

Slugs and swarms

Things have been quite busy as of late, but while Anna's making dinner, I figured I'd get something out there.

We started our seedlings for our garden inside in March/April -- perhaps a tad too early, but we were getting anxious.  Once they were big enough and the weather was warm enough (we thought), we put them in the garden.  About a week later, we had a hard frost over night and lost most of what we had planted.  We were super bummed, but we still had a bunch of seeds so we just direct sowed the plants that we lost.  Since losing our seedlings, our new plants have been under attack of a different sort...

We collected this lot an hour after a rain storm. It is definitely the most we've gotten at once, but we rarely get none.

I shake my fist at you, platter of slugs!

Lucky for us (and them) the ducks LOVE slugs.  So, every morning, we go to the garden, walk around and pick up slugs.  It's a pretty gross job, but our plants are still too small to let the ducks roam the garden freely.  We're hoping the toads and snakes will catch up to the slug population soon.  We are, however, continually amazed at the number of slugs we have.

YUM!  SLUGS!  The ducks come running at the sight of us with a jar 'o slugs.

Shifting gears a tad -- as we mentioned previously, we have two bee hives.  Anna has been doing most of the work for the bees, but I've been learning a lot too.  About a week ago, we were taking the dogs for a morning walk, and we noticed that there was a pretty constant stream of bees coming out of one of the hives.  We both instantly got nervous that they were going to swarm.

Bees swarm naturally when the hive gets too full or if there isn't enough food.  We know there is plenty of food around right now, but we weren't sure about the space issue.  Anna had checked the hives a few days prior, and there still seemed to be plenty of room. She wasn't concerned enough about space to put on more brood boxes or honey supers, but obviously the bees had other plans. When a hive decides to swarm, they start making a new queen.

How do they make a queen?

Well, all the while the bees are collecting pollen, they are increasing the number of bees in the hive.  They start feeding all babies what's called "royal jelly." Royal jelly is a super nutritious substance that the bees themselves produce. After a while, they stop feeding the babies royal jelly....unless they want her to be a queen.  The queen is always fed royal jelly until she's ready to hatch.  This super nutrient rich food allows her ovaries to develop while the other babies get other food and end up with undeveloped ovaries.

Just before the new queen is about to hatch, the old queen leaves with half the hive.  How do they decide who stays and who goes? The world may never know.

Back to our bees streaming out of the hive...after our walk, we saw it...they had swarmed.  Our bees had swarmed onto a branch high up in a pine tree.  If you're ever lucky enough to find a swarm, find a beekeeper!  This is great!  If you can collect the swarm, bam! Instant new hive.

Our ladies -- high up in a tree. :(

We didn't know what to do, and we didn't have a swarm trap to try to collect them ourselves.  First, we tried this...

Despite our best efforts, the bees stayed in the tree.

After that didn't work, we called a local beekeeper (there's a swarm hotline), and he came over to check it out.  He climbed the tree and put up a trap.  In theory, the bees will see the trap (just a box with old comb in it -- smells like honey) and think, "this is a GREAT spot to live." They will then enter the trap, and you've got 'em!  Our bees didn't get that memo.

Here, we're putting in the swarm trap.  They weren't fooled...

They were still in the tree the next morning, and after lunch, we were going to try to climb the tree.  The plan was to cut the branch out, lower it carefully, and put the bees in a new hive.  After we finished our leisurely lunch....they were gone.  Crap.

We now have a swarm trap and a few more skills.  Hopefully we can catch the next one should this happen again.  We still have two hives, one of them is just half as big as it used to be.  This is fine, but it pretty much guarantees we won't get any honey from that hive this year. :(