Time for Fence Posts

As the snow allows, I have been continuing to clear a one and a half acre pasture I started last winter. The land is cleared and now it is time for fence posts. Given the winters we have now, I get a lot of opportunity for outside work that requires bare ground or is at least much easier without snow. Today I started splitting out locusts posts from a collection of large logs set aside for the purpose two winters ago.

If you are unfamiliar with black locust, it is one of those trees that defies the norm in that it grows fast, but is a very hard wood. For all intents and purposes, it also does not rot. I’ve found logs lying in the ground for at least a decade that were completely solid and made perfectly good firewood. In fact, the older it is the harder the heart wood gets. I suspect it has a heavy duty anti-bacterial agent of some kind, since the sap from the bark will sting your eye and slivers from it burn a little.

This post is a picture series I took splitting out the first post. Just 99 more to go!

 

Our Influences

In my last post I discussed how we got our start with animals and farming and the journey from our old property to this one. In this post I will discuss the influences that we work to include in our farm business.

Natural materials: It is probably not surprising to see natural materials as an influence in a farm given that the products come from the land, and you can’t get more “natural” than that. However, we extend that beyond the products we produce to our own tools, packaging, display stands, animal housing, and feed as much as we can.

Historical reenactment: History has always been an interest of mine and as a teenager I was introduced to historical reenactment of the French & Indian War and Mountain Man eras through nearby events held at the Old Saratoga Muzzle Loading Club next door to the Saratoga National Historical Park. As an adult I explored the early history of Europe and the British Isles which tied in well with what I know of my genealogy. Through a friend I was put in touch with a reenactment group focused on the viking era. As a result of all of this, (yes, it is my fault) both Lynda and I are now thoroughly involved in viking era historical reenactment and we hope to make it a theme in our farm business.

Primitive breeds: Once we discovered primitive breeds we never looked back. We love the variety of colors, fleece types, and personalities. We also like their hardiness, their ability to do well on hay and pasture alone, and that they are repositories of genetic diversity. The primitive breeds we have kept or have now are Shetland sheep, Icelandic Sheep, Black Java Chickens, and Scottish Highland Cattle. Currently we have Shetland and Icelandic sheep. We have kept Shetlands for twenty years and have just recently added Icelandics. Both of these breeds appeal to our sense of heritage and their origins in the Shetland Isles and Iceland. In addition, their wool is among the best wool I encountered while processing many different breeds wool in our fiber mill. Given how well these breeds fit into our reenactment perspective, we decided we should have both. In time we also intend to have highland cattle again, and black javas or another interesting old chicken breed.

Community: Our experience establishing a fiber mill, and running a farm generally, impressed upon us the limitations of attempting this type of endeavor as a solo couple. With one person working full time and the other combining various employments with farming, it can be very difficult. Consequently, we are developing a working relationship with another local farm to share resources and provide mutual assistance. This is new territory for all of us, and we are working it out as we go. Their farm is Luina Greine Ferme which is Gaelic for Sunset Hill Farm.

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A Very Long Journey

A long time ago, in a town not really that far away, Lynda and I bought a house with a little bit of property. Our own place to do whatever we wanted with. Soon after there was an offer of some free older hens, the old metal shed could serve as a temporary hen house. Then Lynda took a spinning class. Then she was offered a couple of free sheep. We could use temporary fencing for the front yard. Then we went to a sheep & wool show and decided to check out the auction, and another sheep came home. Then I discovered Scotch Highland Cattle at the local highland games and a breeder just twenty five minutes away. We could make a barn yard in the woods behind the house! Which is what we did, and then I just kept building things that should have been built before we got any animals at all. Eventually the infrastructure caught up and our knowledge increased. At one point or another we had cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, and bees. During that time we also started a fiber mill processing animal fibers and our own shetland wool, with wholesale egg sales to an organic foods store. All of these endeavors were intense experiences with steep learning curves. However, in the end only the chickens and sheep remained because we just didn’t have an appropriate property to support anything more than a few laying hens and a handspinners flock.

We lived at that property for seventeen years and dreamed about a better property for most of that time. The problem with using your property as a place to try out one experiment after another is that you end up with a place that probably isn’t ready to go on the market anytime soon. An old house with several additions that were never really finished by a person learning how to work on houses as he does it, leaves you with a long list of must do’s before you try and sell. Combined with the pressure of wanting to move to another school district as our children finished elementary school left us feeling trapped. So we decided to give away what sheep we had left and simply move out by renovating a portion of a famly friends old farm house which we would then rent. With our house empty, it would be much easier to finish it and the kids would be in a better district. We made the move in the last week of August 2009, and then the effects of the 2008 economic crash reached us in October. We lost our primary income and were left with unemployment and my part time adjunct professor pay. Luckily a potential tenant appeared through word of mouth and we didn’t lose the house. The old farm house we were living in was uninsulated and had two woodstoves for heat. It was a very cold winter!

During that first winter, insulation and repairs improved the situation considerably and we made the best of it for about three years. During that time we started a new small flock of shetland sheep and kept a few chickens. As our finances improved we started looking for property and eventually found the one we live on now. It has been a very long road, we finally sold the old house, our kids have grown, and we live in a very nice old house on a piece of property with lots of potential. Our flock is around twenty animals and includes both shetland and icelandic sheep. And we still have chickens!

Tim

Came into the office

I came into the office today for quiet time to record and post the podcast.  I like being here on the weekend.  

The podcast worked fine until I tried to remember how to post it on the website.  I need to remember to put it in as code and not as an audio file.  Finally, I got it done.  

Finished a naalbound hat this week, and am working on the second.  My quality has gotten much better.  Now I just need to learn more stitches.  

I also finished some inkle weaving, and that is ok-not the neatest edges, but ok.  Next is to figure out pick ups, but that is going to take some time.  

 

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