Sunday, December 23, 2012

Coburn Farm Gothic



Coburn Farm Varsity Sledding Team

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Eight or ten eggs today, one and nearly 1 ¾ gallons of milk.
Had an exciting start to the day. As I was trying to drink my early morning tea we both heard an ominous rumbling. It turned out to be a chimney fire. No flames were coming out the chimney but plenty of black smoke, and the fire was suddenly going crazy. We weren’t sure why it decided to burn as the fire was quite low. Sally threw the burning wood out into the snow and we shook a whole box of baking soda on the fire. Sally kept spraying it with water but it kept roaring in the chimney for about 20 minutes.
Yesterday morning Sally started to do the last fifteen minutes of her long-running manure project, only to discover that there were two heavy rubber barn mats buried under another ten inches or so of manure. They had been left behind and forgotten after DD Marcia’s horse Peter left. With the rubber bottom, this was of course the heaviest, wettest manure yet and nearly caused her to break down. They were completely impossible for one person to move but she managed to remove the overburden so that DS Martin, who was expected later on, could help. Just as she finished and crawled out of the barn, exhausted and filthy, Martin arrived with an invitation to the Franklin County Fiddlers group in which Roshan and Shireen play. She said that nothing else on God’s green earth would have gotten her out of the house.
Meanwhile I cooked a satisfying dinner of beef short ribs and rice, with homemade sauerkraut. It was well received.
The performance was at a local venue. Skye Theatre, which is about 20 minutes away. We had never been there and were most impressed both with it and with the performance. It turned out to be a benefit for the Sandy Hook music department and they made $1700.00.
Today Martin came again and helped move the barn mats, which weigh over a hundred pounds apiece. We are going to really appreciate them in the grain room and the milking parlor. Then Sally was able to finish up her project, putting in two bales of shavings and a bale of hay. Then the sheep came in and seemed to really like it.
Martin split wood and did various other things. He brought me an interesting new chair for my computer. It’s a chair you sort of sit on with a knee brace and is wonderfully comfortable. It doesn’t really look like a chair and neither Sally nor I could figure out what it was at first.
Twenty-one degrees this morning and blowing in an unpleasant manner. Even Sally was hard put to it to find anything positive to say about the weather.

Monday, December 24, 2012 Christmas Eve
Five eggs today and a gallon and a half of milk. We were lucky to get even that because Fern locked her knees and rolled her eyes and refused to walk on to her nice new mat. We encouraged her for quite awhile before she consented to come for some grain. As I milked, she kept edging back end way off to the side so her feet would be on the old wooden floor. She looked quite funny, poor little cow.
It was quite cold and dangerously icy. Our various visitors were definitely worried about the ice.


We tidied the house, wrapped packages and put up some more decorations. Sally made a pumpkin pie from one of our Winter Luxury pumpkins (this will be the first time we get to try one as a pie because the first one we tried, Sally left in the Aga overnight!). This one looks fine though. She also started the batter for Saffron Rolls for Christmas morning.
I made a Yugoslavian eggplant and red bell pepper sauce called Akvar. It was very successful and we both loved it. We had some on our dinner which was sirloin steaks and baked potatoes.




Thursday, December 27, 2012

Four eggs today, a gallon and a half of milk.
Christmas Day and the day after (Boxing Day) passed in a blur of activity. There was lots of wonderful food and socializing with the family.
Today was Fern’s third day of having to stand on the new mat. Third time is the charm with cows and sure enough she went in with just a little pulling.
The big storm that has been pummeling the Midwest and East Coast hit during the night. There were forty mile an hour gusts and light powdery snow which was very slippery on top of the ice on our driveway. However the temperature was only in the low twenties. The animals all seemed warm and cozy in the barn.
Martin and his family stayed at their place at the lake. On their way home they stopped in for turkey sandwiches. We sent along leftovers for their dinner.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Six eggs, just a little over a gallon and a half of milk.
Last night we were sitting and chatting when we heard a strange noise outside making us think of prowlers, only no prowler could have gotten in through that snow. It turned out to be Ted Flagg plowing our driveway. Afterwards he came in and chatted awhile as he always does. It’s always nice to catch up on local news.
Now that Christmas has passed, Sally was able to get working on her weaving which she greatly enjoyed. She’s making a lightweight blanket. I worked on baffling editing problems.
Always wonderful to get to chat with DS John who calls each Friday. He said his boys are back from Tasmania but he hasn’t gotten to chat with them. We are hoping to soon see pictures of their future farm.
Sally caught a rooster who had been trapped in the milking room. He was already nervous before he met his fate. He was a fine large rooster. She also made the leftover turkey into soup, including some of our frozen zucchini mix from last summer.

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- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:carthage, maine

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Saturday, December 15, 2012

   Six eggs today; one and three fourths gallons of milk.

   While I was milking this morning, Sally and Willie went around the North Field checking the fence as Sally could see it was down.  They had a good time.

   We finally got our birdfeeder going with the chickadees coming in.  We put out some suet and they were all excited.  So far we see only chickadees.

   We’ve been having fun reading the Fedco Trees catalogue.  We’ve picked out a new rose called “Harrison’s Yellow” which is supposed to be hardy in Maine.  We want it along the top of a rock wall which is becoming increasingly unstable (after 150 years or so) to keep kids away from it, besides looking pretty.  We also want a mulberry or a crabapple near the barn to feed the chickens.

  

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Fern gave about a gallon and a hald and I found four egs.

Sally was her usual whirling dervish of activity.She has now excavated the pit stall down to terra firma for about 4’ into the room necessitating a great leap sown into the place. AN amazing steaming heap is being built up out in front of the barn.

She also made a very fine pie called Winter Pie that is half apple and half dried fruits such as pineapple and apricot.

I made some slight progress on my editing.

The sky is heavy with snow. We are to expect a foot tonight.

Good news from Mitra Here is her account of loading her pigs. One of her customers, Rafael, borrowed a trailer and hauled them s with his truck:

Yesterday: Roshan and I built a fine chute.  I guess these past 4 months of yelling "BACK BACK BACK!" as I come through the gate with their food has them well trained to stay away from the gate.  It took a LOOOOONG time for one of them to finally cross the threshhold out of the gate to inspect "goodies" in the chute.  There he drank a gallon of milk  before testing out the ramp.  He went into the trailer and started snuffling in the fresh hay.  He was making happy noises.  The other two have yet to step over the threshhold.  I suspect they will when I'm not watching.  Tomorrow is the big day.  Raphael is planning to arrive around noon.  I hope they're on board by then.  He will hook up the trailer to his truck and drive us to West Gardiner.

Later:

Raphael has a very big truck that doesn't have the extra step I need to get myself up into that passenger seat.  I decided I'd drive my van and he could follow me with the trailer. I also realized that when we were done, he could go home without having to go out of his way to drop me off. 

We got there and unloaded the pigs "almost" without incident.  The last pig to get on the trailer was also the last to get off and when he did, he decided to make a run for it by trying to squeeze past the trailer and run into the driveway.  Raphael managed to stop him thank goodness.  Then he thought he might try to escape by going under the trailer but  his shoulders were too big! Between us we got the pig going the right direction, into the building and down a long isle and into the pen where his two siblings were getting agitated waiting for him.  There were at least 20 other pigs there in the various pens making lots of noise.  We seemed to be the last to arrive.

I had brought a tub and a carboy of water which I set up in their pen.  They were thirsty and appreciative.  I said goodbye and goodnight and we left.

Having woken at 4:00 a.m. due to anxiety about today, I am beat!  I'm off to bed early tonight.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Got at least a dozen eggs, we found a new nest.  There were five frozen in the new nest.   Less than a gallon and a half of milk.

   Lots of snow this morning, it snowed all night and all day.  We had to brush off the bird feeder and the little birds were very happy to see their food again.   We had hoped to see DS Mark but the weather deterred him.  So we ate delicious lamb chops without him.

  We put some molasses on the cows’ feed because they were being persnickety, and they did indeed then eat their hay up.  Sally hopes to be able to put the sheep back in their own stall soon and there will be fewer problems with them.   This was the first day the animals hardly went out at all.

 No sign of heat from Fern today but she is a 23 day cycler so we don’t expect to see heat signs till tomorrow or the next day.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

A little over a gallon and a half of milk; seven eggs.  

 On Tuesday Fern was in heat by  evening.  We notified the tech and he came this morning right after milking.  He said she was in good condition for breeding.  For a bull I chose Alexander, an A2 bull.   She should calve in  September if she settles.

   DS Mark came about two o’clock.  We had a nice lunch ready for him of a meatloaf and vegetables.  He brought two fine loaves from Standard Bakery in Portland.  He made some very helpful adjustments on my computer that were highly appreciated.  He admired Willie who had just had a nice bath.  He also taught me some exercises to improve my posture and lung capacity.  He had to go back to Portland later in the afternoon.

  While Sally was cleaning the sheep pen she found our lost shepherd’s crook which has been gone at least a year.  In the afternoon she called her son Rafe in Alaska.  He said he had been watching his dogs leaping and barking at the trees and he realized that a flock of grouse were feeding among the branches.   So he took his .22 pistol and managed to get two of them for dinner.

Friday, December 21, 2012

   Every nest we could find had two or even three eggs in it, for a total of 14.  A little over a gallon and a half of milk.

  It snowed last night and about midmorning it changed to rain.  After awhile it rained very hard and started to blow as well.  Now we have frozen ground, snow and slush, and it’s still raining.  The animals are all snug in the barn though.  All except our beautiful cat Tamworth who decided to stay in the barn yesterday evening and then come in later, and was evidentially taken by the dog or coyote that has been coming around.   We all loveTamworth and hope he returns, but so far he hasn’t.  Willie will miss him a lot, they were great friends.

  We had company for lunch so spent a lot of time cooking.  Sally had hoped to finish the barn project but didn’t quite make it  The pile outside the barn where she  unloads the manure is now as high as my head.  She did manage to defrost the freezer today since some of Mitra’s pork will be coming here.

   I talked to DS John who has been talking to his sons in Tasmania.  They bought a 200-acre property there which they hope to make into a farm.   They hadn’t had much time to go over the property before this visit and are pleased to see how much fertile bottom land they have.

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Saturday, December 08, 2012

Saturday, December 08, 2012
No eggs, a gallon and over a half of milk. While I was busy milking, Sally stapled plastic over the window where the chick had got stuck the other day. Then she had fun pitching hay down into the feeder while missing the ram that was standing in it. She has been working on keeping the area very free of cow poops so at least the sheep have clean feet while standing on their breakfast.
It was overcast and drizzly most of the day. Sally made a cake out of some over ripe bananas. She had a good time studying about six of my cookbooks looking for the perfect banana cake recipe. Then she and Willie walked over to her field and all around it. She brought me some fluffy reindeer with which I hope to repair a Christmas wreath.
DD Martin arrived about four o’clock. He had been hunting over in Sally’s field with Milo and saw a grouse but didn’t get a shot. He said there was an active beaver down at the end of the field. Sally is looking forward to going to look for it.
We had a nice dinner of reheated black beans and chili rellenos that Sally made. I had found some nice shiny Poblano peppers at the store last Tuesday. Martin did a lot of repairs while here and brought us some treats for our breakfast from The Bread Shack in Auburn.


Sunday, December 09, 2012
1 2/3 gallons milk and 3 eggs.
We all had a productive day. Martin got the truck going and took a big load to the dump, hurrah. He and his friends the Schifrin’s sawed up an ash tree that had fallen across the access road up by his camp. They sawed it up for firewood. He also split wood for us.
Sally and Willie worked on fixing the electric fence again in the North Field. The sheep had pulled it all apart and it was off a lot of stakes. Most parts of the sheep are immune to electric fencing, being insulated by their wool so they get caught in it a lot. Sally then walked the rest of the fence and had fun saying hello to the cows who came down to check on Willie. They don’t care for dogs in the pasture.
Martin returned to Biddeford after lunch. Sally pursued her project in the barn. She put down some grain to encourage the hens to go scratch around in there and loosen the pack.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Just 1 ½ gallon today from Fern. Three eggs.
It was 26 to 32F all day with some icy drizzle but no wind so not as miserable as it might have been. The animals spent most of the day outside when not eating hay. Sally put up Christmas lights all around the house. We wen t together to her place across the river and tramped around in the crunchy snow until we found a nice little spruce tree to cut. I hope I will be able to remember what I did with the clever arrangement I had last year for standing it up in water.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
We now have about a 3” snow cover with a crusty surface. Today was sunny and I took a stroll around the lawn. Near my little ornamental pond I noticed tracks of a fairly large canid of some sort. I am not aware of any stray dogs in the neighborhood. This animal made a circuit of the pond, where it stopped to drink from the unfrozen edge. Sally joined me and we followed the tracks along most of the perimeter fence. We couldn’t find out where it came into or left the yard but we think it had been here before because the tracks from the main lawn down to the goldfish pond were so direct and purposeful, like it knew where the water was. Sally said she had seen similar tracks outside the fence a few days before. We think it might have been a coyote. We lost two cats this fall and wonder if it might have been responsible. We hope the sheep are all right.
Sally is trying a new invention for keeping the sheep out of the hay ring. She wound a hose around it eight or ten inches below the top rung, tied tightly to the struts so as to make it difficult for them to jump in. One did jump in right away but it seems to be slowing them down anyhow. Besides that she cleans up the cow poops as soon as she sees them so that the sheep at least have clean feet. Also she’s trying to finish cleaning out the sheep room so we can get them back in there where they are safer. Right now they are spending their nights with the cows in the beefer pen where the door is always open
We got Christmas lights up and the tree in. It’s a spruce about four feet tall.
DD Marcia in California has found a new source of Jersey milk. Her health food store has started carrying fresh local milk in glass bottles which is “vat pasteurized” at 140F. She says it is delicious.
Three eggs and about one and two-thirds gallons of milk.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Today Fern gave a gallon and a half of milk. We got ten eggs. Chickens must think it’s spring already.
No more strange tracks that we could see but there wasn’t any fresh snow either. The sheep are fine. Sally is closer to being ready to let them back into their room.
My two granddaughters Roshann and Shireen both got highest honors in their high school’s first quarter reports.
Very pretty weather today, fairly warm, over 20. The ground was quite icy though. The cows and sheep are still getting a lot of grazing.
Sally made a shepherd’s pie out of some smoked salmon that she had made and brought from Alaska. It was just sautéed vegetables and salmon with a creamed sauce and biscuit crust. Awesome.
We had to go to town and buy four bags of grain for a total cost of sixty dollars. The chickens better appreciate it. They are eating so much more feed that it makes you realize how many bugs they were eating before things froze.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Six eggs, one and a half gallons of milk.
One of the young rams is starting to give us the hairy eyeball. He was stamping his feet and leaning his weight backward so as to charge, but didn’t.
They’re all still going out to pasture every day and seem to be finding things to eat. There isn’t much snow on the fields.
We went to Weld to mail packages and buy cheese. The TV was on in the General Store and we saw the first reports of the school shooting in Connecticut. Now the nation is in mourning.
DD Marcia in CA went mushrooming with her neighbor who in an avid mushroom hunter and Marcia found some rare mushrooms that are much valued by her neighbor. Her neighbor is a fiber artist specializing in felting and values these mushrooms for their incredible red dye. Marcia sent us a picture of some edible mushrooms that she picked.
Pictured also are some bears that are frequently seen near DD Sally’s house in Haines AK. The mother in the picture is wearing a tracking collar. She is very old with her front teeth completely worn away. This is her fourth set of triplets. Nearly all her previous babies have been shot; one of these cubs was illegally shot shortly after the picture was taken.
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- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Carthage Maine

Friday, December 07, 2012

Oops..

We got four eggs and one and three fourths gallons of milk.

When I got to the barn Agnes the head sheep had pushed her head through into the wire Sally put in the hay ring and got stuck.  Sally rescued her and then took her wire away.. Sally is experimenting with inventions to keep the sheep from squeezing into the hay ring, messing up the hay, getting stuck and having to be rescued.

   It was very cold in the morning but not windy so Sally and Willie were able to go for a nice walk around the fields.  They  came back through the barn and  were able to catch an annoying rooster so she chopped his head off.  She has a nice new machete which is extremely heavy and very sharp.  I have a knife sharpening attachment for my Kitchen Aid which works very well to keep it sharp..

  DS Bret called from Fairbanks. He looks at the weather online a lot and had noticed a huge cyclone bearing down on the Philippines so he immediately notified his brother John inAdelaide.  John’s wife Lou called her family because it was coming exactly over their place inCebu.   It is considered to be a very dangerous storm with winds over 140 mph.

   There has been a mouse that Willie, my Westie, has desperately been trying to catch for two days.  Today Sally saw where it was hiding out and set a trap.  Pretty soon Willie noticed the sound of the trap snapping and was thrilled to be in at the kill.

   Sally made a cocoanut cream pie which was a success.  As usual I worked on my revisions.  I believe the weather is starting to warm up.

Monday, December 03, 2012

During Sunday night we had rain and sleet and in the morning it was quite icy..  Mitra said that at her place every surface was encased in ice. Mitra had her heart was in her mouth when she saw the cow Nellie creeping out to her hay bale.  The ducks were funny; they couldn’t stand up on the ice either and kept falling down on their fluffy bottoms.

   It was above  forty this morning. It had rained a a lot during the night and all the ice was gone. The cows and sheep were happy to see their grass back and spent the day out grazing.

   We drove to Weld and bought coffee.  We also went over to Marcia’s camp to check on it and get some water which we dipped from the lake. My spring line is frozen and my tap water has a flat flavor. I am not sure I trust the lake for drinking but it will be fine for coffee and tea. We always drank it when I was a child back in the days before giardia so I know it tastes good.

   Sally made a delicious shepard’s pie out of a farm raised rooster.  It had been the main course yesterday when I roasted it in my Romertof.  These roosters are a treasure.  Their mothers take all the trouble to raise them.  We have almost no investment in them except that in the fall we have to put out feed. They totally free range  Many people complain of the toughness of their farmyard roosters, but since we have learned of the tenderizing effect of giving them a few days of chilling before cooking or freezing we have no problem.  And the flavor is superb.

   Sally worked again on cleaning the sheep room.  The sheep can’t spend the night in there until it’s done.  They stay with the cows and seem to like that.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

  Four eggs today and I found a new nest.  Sally found a new pullet egg in the chicken room.  A little over a gallon and a half. Of milk

   We were completely out of cow feed after milking today so we went in and bought feed and a rope to tie in a down tree by the river.  I also bought black oil sunflower seeds for the birds.  I’ve been reading about the millions of birds hitting the windows of tall office  buildings and I thought I would do my part to  support the bird population.

    Sally and Willie walked the electric fence on the wet fields and discovered more electric wire down in the North Field.  Next year we hope to make it a two-wire fence.

   Later on Sally took some of my frozen blackberries and made a pudding.  She also made the rest of the chicken into chicken noodle soup.

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

 Three eggs,  a good gallon and quarter of milk.  

Sally and Willie went out and fixed the electric fence again and let the animals into the Pocket Field through the far gate which they always enjoy doing.  Then she continued working on mucking out the sheep room while I worked on my revisions.  Sally dressed off another rooster.

   I cooked a delicious large piece of brisket for our dinner.  

   After doing the evening chores Sally had to go out again to put the car away.  She heard a chick desperately peeping somewhere.  She went back to the barn and found it had gotten itself wedged into a crevice.  She rescued it and gave it back to its very worried mother.

  

Thursday, December 06, 2012

It is cooling off again. It was clear and frosty this morning with bright sun all day.

Fern gave close to 2 gallons but I got only one egg.

   Sally and I and of course Willie took a walk to the river where Sally tied up another huge fallen tree. She tied it to one farther back. The roots of the fallen tree were still well anchored.  As it  lay in the river it seemed to reach nearly to the other side.

   On the way back we went to say hello to the cows and sheep.  Willie loves herding sheep and on this occasion he had a particularly good time as one ewe was in heat.   Two sheep are young rams and every time one would jump on the ewe the other would give it a body slam.  They were just running in circles around the ewe alternately jumping and ramming each other.  It was very funny; they looked like two overstuffed easy chairs having a war.

    Nancy stopped to pick up milk and introduce us to her beautiful new German shepherd.  It’s a purebred male, three years old and obviously with a wonderful personality.  We just loved him and everyone else is sure to.  He was a gift from her daughter Kelly and her family.

   Sally made a little tart that called for sheep’s milk ricotta.  She used our homemade quark cheese supplemented with cream.  For the jam layer that the recipe called for she used  DDMarcia’s delicious marmalade with some of Marcia’s very fine honey/quince sauce.

Friday, December 07, 2012

Fern gave a bit over 1.5 gallons anda I found 4 eggs/

Temperature got up to the mid 30’s with some sun.

The cows and sheep are so cute in the late afternoon when Sally assembles them for the night by putting out a little grain. She tries to see thatMilton, the steer, gets a little extra. He is quite shy and not the least pushy.

 I made feijoada for dinner, black beans and rice.        

 Sally worked again in the sheep room and killed another rooster.  She and Willie went to the river and tied in two down trees.  I worked on my corrections.

We received the sad news today that Hilda Heinrich, mother of Bernd, passed away on Wednesday afternoon. She was 90. She led a hard but very full life.

A few years ago she gave me her little flock of Spangle bantams. One wee hen is still with us.

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