Farming starts with a "G"

Christa on a new (0ld) farm tractor: the Allis Chalmers G cultivating tractor. Only about 30,000 of these were built for market gardens from mid 1940s to mid 1950s. These are great tractors with the tools mounted on the "belly" of the beast. In the photo is a basket weeder on a tool bar which is ground driven and has bent hoops that turn up the soil between the plants. You can add other tools such as a seeder, disc hillers, and of cultivating shovels. This G has a manual lift seen just to the left of Christa's head. You pull down on the lever to lift up the belly mounted tool, either to fine tune the depth you want it to work at, or to get it out of the way when heading out of the field.

This is a gas powered tractor that we may one day convert to run on electric. We liberated this tractor and a nice mix of implements (seeders, cultivating shovels, plow, disc hillers) from Canada last fall. The other G we found about 15 miles away - it resides at a farm we are leasing a few miles down the road.

Here is a shot of the "G" heading down the field. You can see the narrow tires straddling the seed bed, and the disturbed soil thrown up by the basket weeder. The hoophouse on the right is where we overwinter our laying flock and you can see the material they leave us after their tenure. We apply this composted manure to the fields and disc it in. Other manure that is not so composted goes onto our compost pile.

Christa working hard again, pitching some well composted donkey manure onto our small garden plot at home.

The other day we saw what looked like pools of oil on the ground in front of the house where we park our car and truck. But it didn't quite look like or smell like oil, so we dipped a finger and tasted the liguid and found it to be Vermont Maple Syrup! Just then around the corner comes our boy Asa with gallon jug in hand, syrup all over his face and shirt. We explained to him why this was not ok (the spilling of a fine Vermont product which cost $35 a gallon).

For punishment we made Asa train our apple tree limbs to become more horizontal (just kidding).

Sugarin Time!

The Bryan Sugarhouse in Jeffersonville, Vermont. Lisa & Beckner Bryan operate a 20,000+ tap sugarbush on a beautiful farm.

Interior of the sugarhouse with boiling pans and evaporator.

Another interior shot of sugarhouse. Beckner about to give Asa a sample of this years crop of maple syrup.

One of the many 50 gal drums of Maple Syrup made from the Bryan Farm. They wholesale most of their syrup.

Asa checking out the ATV with tracks. He likes any kind of farm equipment.

Three turkeys bid us goodbye after our visit to the sugarhouse. Thanks Lisa, Beckner, Lucien and Merritt!