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!

Snowfarmer, Cultivator, Sledding

Asa and Mama posing next to their snow farmer!



Here is a recent purchase for the Farm: a Williams Tool System. It is a large metal frame with tine weeders. It also came with cultivating knives, hilling discs and gauge wheels. It has a 3 pt hitch to attach to the back of our tractor. This tool will allow us to significantly cut down on our hand weeding. The tines allow for blind cultivating of crops after seeding and just before the seeds come up. Some crops can even be cultivated with the tines after the plants are up: pumpkins, potatoes, corn, etc. We bought this from a vegetable farmer up in North Troy, VT.

Asa sledding down the hill behind the house. He really enjoys this fun activity, even when he wipes out!

Local Food Everyday!

Who needs to go to the store (wasting time and fuel) when you can eat from your local landscape - courtesy of your own agricultural labors, or your local farmer(s).


Just about every time we sit down to a meal, we are thankful that we eat a diversity of local food from our farm. We really are fortunate to have 2 chest freezers full of our 100% grassfed beef and lamb, pasture-raised pork and chicken, vegetables, berries and chicken stock.


100% grassfed hamburger, potatoes, squash, pickles, and raw milk


We have plenty of root vegetables to eat during the winter - most stored in our old farmhouse root cellar: potatoes, carrots, celery root, beets, brussel sprouts, parsnips, and turnips.


Root vegetables from the root cellar and pantry


In our pantry on the first floor of the house we have canned tomatoes, pickles, berry and tomato jams, garlic, onions, squash, pumpkin.


Fruit Cobbler from summer fruit


We also make and smoke some link sausages during the winter, and I have a Ham aging down in the root cellar that will be 2 yr old Prosciutto this spring! Of course we have our farm fresh eggs year round.


Smoked sausage made from our pork and beef!


The only items we pick up from the local general store (Jericho Center Country Store - oldest continuously operating general store in the great State of Vermont, having just celebrated 200 years as a general store!) is milk and fruit. Well .... also some Vermont beer and ice cream on occasion. Though my brother-in-law Brian is a homebrew meister and usually keeps me supplied with the local brew!

So if someone tells you that you cannot eat local foods year round - tell them Bullpuckey! It is easily done, better for you, and affordable.

Winter Fun

Here are some photos of the family playing in the snow outback of the homestead.

This was about 3 weeks ago. After a big January thaw - we have no snow!

Asa and a horsedrawn cultivator outback in the woods -

we may have to pull this out and put it to work on the farm!

Asa skiing on his grandmas old wooden skis at 2.5 years old. What, your kid isn't skiing yet?? Good skate technique I might add.

Winter on schedule!

We received about 15 inches of new snow this week. Snow this time of year is about right for Vermont. Last year we didn't get any real snow until mid February and we got hit with 31 inches in 6 hours!

For most of the pigs its the first snow of their lives. For our sows its their 3rd or 4th. They don't seem to excited about it, but the market pigs sure enjoy playing in it, running around, scratching themselves on the trees and rocks in their pasture. Just think of the joy that those confinement raised pigs never experience.

market pigs playing in the new snow!

Sows eating some bread.

The laying hens don't venture too far out into the snow. They must have an aversion to white. If the snow becomes dirty they walk out onto it. They do like to eat the clean snow though.

Busy Summer!

Sorry for the lack of posting to the farm journal - its been a crazy, busy summer!

Here are some photos of various happenings on the farm during the summer.

Hosting a Pastured Poultry Workshop

Christa and I hosted a pasture walk workshop on our pastured poultry operation. We also walked around and showed folks, the pasture-raised pigs, lamb, laying hens, and vegetable operation. We had over 40 folks show up from all over the state.

Jenn Colby of the University of Vermont Center for Sustainable Agriculture, did all the hard work of putting anouncements and flyers together, and providing some great snacks on a hot and humid evening. The center and the Womens Agriculture Network hosted this pasture walk.

Those assembled got to see our outdoor setup and chick barns for raising birds on pasture for the first 2 weeks, then our day range system of letting the birds roam free instead of keeping them in pasture pens. At 8 and 9 weeks we process the birds. Our pasture-raised chickens come packaged with great flavor!

We had been to many of these great pasture walks in the past and came away with a lot of new ideas. It was great to be able to return the favor to the Vermont farming community. I hope they learned something useful.

Vermont Heating Fuel

Asa sits on a 2 cord pile of green firewood delivered by Clifford Lumber in Hinesburg, Vermont. This pile will be stacked to air dry, then unstacked during the winter and put into the woodstove to keep us warm. We go through 3 to 4 cords of wood during the winter. We also have backup heat from an oil furnace that also heats water, but the woodstove is the primary heater of the house.

Nothing like homegrown fuel to keep you warm on those cold winter chore days!

Beautiful Broccoli!

Christa has grown some beautiful broccoli this year! The heads are huge - almost the size of a dinner plate!! The taste is incredibly sweet. The secret....composted chicken manure that we spread on the fields from the chicken hoophouse this spring. Another benefit of a diversified farm!

Using Old Farm Implements

I chained up an old horse drawn spring tooth harrow to do some weeding the other day. Its only about 3 feet wide which means alot of passes to pull up weeds. I have another harrow just like it that I plan on joining together with this one.

I picked up this harrow and a few spike harrows (kind of like large nails attached to a frame) at an old farm this spring. A guy was cleaning up around an old barn and I stopped in to say hello and ask if he had any old farm machinery he wanted to part with. He did and he talked about his uncle that farmed the land with horses many years ago. Those old implements have now found new life on a new farm.

Pasture Farrowed Piglets

Three out of our four pregnant Tamworth Gilts (first pregnancy, after their first they are considered sows) farrowed (birthed) their first piglets out on pasture! They had 10, 10 and 9 respectively. All are healthy and vibrant. The other adults and boar on the same pasture are very gentle when around the piglets. Two of the gilts chose to farrow next to the two round bales I dropped in the pasture a few days ago. The third farrowed at a fence corner in the dirt. I later brought over some mulch hay.

I was concerned about the recent thunderstorms and resulting rains causing hypothermia for the piglets, but they have come through fine. They obviously stay close to their mothers for heat and they snuggle under the hay for additional protection and warmth. So far so good, we will see how many piglets are left after weaning them from their moms (in about 3 weeks).

Farm Education

Christa is teaching a group of local school kids and teachers about the "3 point hitch" on our farm tractor. She spent a good hour and a half walking the kids through the farm, looking at animals and vegetables and talking about where your food choices come from. Its never to early for farm education!

Christa gave another farm tour this week at our CSA Potluck. It was held on a lovely evening and there was a great turnout! We doubled our Summer CSA share this year and it SOLD OUT incredibly fast. All who attended got a tour of the livestock and vegetable fields and finished with a wonderful potluck meal. We served up our chicken and pork and not a speck was left at the end.

It is great to visit with the folks who support your farm. I hope they enjoyed the potluck as much as we did. We look forward to seeing more of our shareholders over the summer and for another farm potluck in the fall!

New crop of lamb and beef

About two weeks ago we picked up 66 beautiful spring lambs from a young couple in the northern part of Vermont. We visited their farm in the winter to look over the newly born lambs and to see their operation. We were impressed and decided to buy lambs from them this spring.


Here you can see Chris and his friend Tarik weighing a lamb. There is a gate at each end of the scale, one to let the lamb in, the other to let them out. We pay the farmer by the pound for the lambs.



Once we got them all weighed we tricked them into our livestock trailer with a bucket of grain. They were pretty packed in our trailer. We hoped to make just one trip, but thought better of it for the lambs comfort, unloaded some lambs and made two trips.



They took to their new home and started munching on grass right away. They look great and by fall will by nice and fat for harvesting.
















Our shipment of Devon-Angus beef yearlings arrived today. Here they are getting off the livestock trailer. There is plenty of grass out in the pastures and I am glad they are here to graze it. We could have used them about a week ago to keep ahead of the growth!

Ed's Farm

This is a photo looking south from Ed's farmstead. Ed has been here on this farm since the 1950s. Its been a dairy farm and now he raises some beef and a few horses as well as hays quite a few acres on his place and around town.

Ed holds quite a few appointed positions for the town. I don't know how long he has held them, but I bet its been a while. They include: Animal Control Officer, Fence Viewer, Inspector of Lumber/Shingles, and Weigher of Coal. The last two positions are probably obsolete as these are not in use much like they were years ago. Some Vermont towns remove these appointed positions since they are not in use. I suspect ours will when Ed feels like he can no longer serve. Ed says he is 72, but he looks and works like he is in his 50s.

His farm has a wonderful assortment of old farm machinery on it and whenever I think I might need a part or an implement I give Ed a call. That was the case a few weeks ago when I was looking for an old hay wagon to build a moveable chicken coop. So I called Ed and asked if he knew someone who might have an old one for sale. He said "Yup... me". So I hurried on over and he took me back through a maze of machinery and showed me an old wagon frame. Just the ticket. We settled on a price and just the other day I finally got over there to pick it up. The tongue was rusted up a bit so Ed and I heated and lubed it up to unfreeze it. He hitched it to the tractor and ran it around the farm turning it back and forth and finally it loosened up enough for me to drive it 6 miles down the road to the farm.

Tyler and I will be working on getting a coop built on this frame over the next few days. Then we can move their housing around the pasture instead of being locked down to one location.

We younger farmers are fortunate to have the old timers around. I like to visit with them and hear their stories. You can sure learn a lot from them just by listening. And when I visit Ed my ears are wide open.

Potato planting

Christa is sitting on the transplanter seat dropping cut seed potatoes into a furrow that is dug in the soil by a metal shoe. There are two metal wheels behind the metal shoe that close the furrow. The photo is from the back of the tractor, Christa is traveling backwards at a slow pace. the field that we prepared is about 550 feet long and it takes us 20 minutes to plant this distance with the transplanter. I planted a few rows by hand and it took me 50 minutes per row.

We are planting on some nice sandy loam soil at a farm about 2 miles south of us. We plowed and harrowed a 2 acre piece for this year. A short term rental has been signed on this plot and we are looking forward to growing crops on this soil. The folks who own the land had been vegetable farmers about 20 years ago, so they are very knowledgeable and I pick their brains often.

You can see the farm truck in the distance and the white marshmallows are wrapped round bales. The sames ones that I fed the pigs this past winter (I take the wrapping off of course).