Learning & Persistence

I am an avid follower of farm newsletters. Many of our farmer friends and neighbors write to chronicle their adventures, and some of them are published authors. We also have friends around the country and into Canada, some small farms with local followers and others with large nationwide audiences. 

As we settle into August I notice a trend across my newsletters. Akin, perhaps, to asking a marathon runner for an interview at mile 20. 

So here’s my interview:

Farm Children

Our farm hosted a wonderful gathering of children and families for the past two weeks. Our fearless leader Madeline, who teaches kindergarten with Gregg at Lakeside School, takes on an energetic group of 5-6 year olds each week during the summer. Throughout the summer she rotates between our friends at Sugar House Creamery and Mace Chasm Farm and this year we were thrilled to host. 

We cleaned and nested in our hoop barn where we store hay and pigs have shelter during the coldest months of the year. Racey and I both loved the flurry of activity every morning and afternoon as cars and families explored our farm to drop off and fetch their children. 

During the day I often found myself listening to the distant sounds of the farm: bird calls, tractor sounds, pig grunts and now the unmistakable buzz of 6 year old humans. Plowing paths through tall pastures, exploring dry streambeds only to find them rushing after a summer storm, and of course there were the ducklings.

Our two weeks of hosting have ended and Racey and I find ourselves wondering what it would look like to cultivate more children activities on the farm? Those are dreams of wintertime planning. 

Persistence

With some new grain delivery systems in place this year we have been entertaining a few young and brave racoons. You may have seen the video of two racoons who found their way into what we call the “chicken grain cube,” and this week Lewis and I found a young racoon in the bottom of what used to be a half full cube of grain. Probably searching for what used to be an all you can eat buffet, this little guy fell in, ate what scraps were there and then was stuck. Probably very thirsty and hungry they wobbled into the weeds after we tipped the cube over.

Some of us humans have had to summon a raccoon-like persistence this week. A few weeks ago our trusty printer scale broke. This tool registers every package of chicken in our processing facility. Just like at the deli counter, we put in which product it is, put the package on the scale and it spits out a neatly printed sticker with the proper item name and weight. The scale not only easily prints our stickers but it also counts each product so we can pull the data for our inventory management.

Our old scale broke and we had to count packages and label them with pre-printed labels. This week we accidentally ran out of our labels and had to get creative again with counting and printing. So if you notice labels without weights or black and white labels please forgive our inconsistencies and instead admire our persistence!

Duck Update

We had a huge rainstorm this week and sure enough it was good weather for ducks, as the saying goes, at least until their duckling feathers were soaked and they got cold. Once Lovett and I saw them shivering we ushered them out of the pouring rain and back into the chick brooder to dry off and get warm. They sure are getting big!