Brian Boucheron Stuff and Also Things

Five Layer

Today was a five layer day. Shirt, thermal, hoodie, jacket, rain coat. It has turned back into spring here, after a few weeks of too-soon summertime. Forties and rain all day long, which will be good for whatever we’ve gotten in the ground so far (carrots, beets, spinach, spicy mesclun mix, other things I’ve forgotten) and especially for the pasture, which I’m excited to see green up and get lush and yummy looking (for a ruminant anyways). I envision it sucking up all this rain and preparing to burst forth at the slightest hint of sunshine.

Pasture means we don’t have to feed hay twice a day, making chores slightly quicker. For the past few weeks, chores have basically involved bringing hay to all the animals (goats, yaks, oxen, sheep) and making sure they have sufficient water. This happens around seven in the morning and five in the evening. I’ve been getting the hang of milking the goats as well, so I’m sure us interns will add that to our routine pretty soon. It’s still new enough to be a fun task, but already the cleanup portion of milking is a chore.

I’ve been lax in my photo-taking lately, thus this boring and unadorned post. I hope to rectify this soon with some panoramic shots I’m fiddling with. Some other day though, as it is now well past my farmer bedtime. The rain just picked up a bit, and that is my cue to fall asleep while listening to the gutters gurgle.

Beat

It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday night, and I’m already considering going to bed. This is sad not only because it’s so early, but also because I did relatively little today. Morning and evening chores, and that’s about it. I suppose I also rode my bike into town for the first time, but that’s not work really.

It was, sadly enough, a challenge though. Two and a half miles to Ashfield proper, quite a bit of that is hill, and I am definitely out of shape. I’m thinking it will become a good Sunday routine: write letters all morning, ride to town and mail them, pick up some beer, eat a slice of pizza, zip down the other side of the hill at dangerous speeds. By the end of the summer perhaps I’ll be used to living in an area with actual elevation changes!

Speaking of out of shape… last week we put the boys to work for the first time this spring. By “we” I mean “Derek”, because there’s no way I’ll be driving the team anytime soon, if ever. They were especially spunky this first time out, and there was lots of yelling and wrassling and I almost had to make a call to see if my car insurance covers oxen damage. Luckily they stopped inches short of my bumper, but you quickly realize that if they don’t want to do something, such as stop or go or turn or not gore you, there’s really not much you can do about it. But they eventually got down to it and dragged an old tractor tire around, filled with rocks. They got tired pretty quick, but they’ll be whipped into shape soon enough.

We also walked the yaks last week. That was quite the hoot. It’s almost a good thing they’re so skittish and want to run away from you, because I wouldn’t want them running at me. Walking the yaks is much like walking a dog, only bigger and with horns. Once you manage to grab one in its pen, you just clip on a leash and hold on tight. They were pretty spunky too, as it was also their first time out after the long winter. After a little while they settled down and would walk by your side and heel pretty well without pulling at the leash. I wish I had photos of that, but alas, I don’t have a personal photographer around to take flattering pictures of me in my new habitat.

Moving In

I moved into the barn yesterday, despite nighttime temperatures that are still dipping into the mid thirties. I couldn’t resist the draw of having my own space, and of not sleeping on the living room couch with the family hound dog every night. It is currently forty degrees out though, and I’m huddled up in my tent writing this. The tent smells like camping should smell, and for now it’s a pretty novel experience and fun to sleep in. I’m sure that will wear off. I was plenty warm last night though, and the animals in the barn quiet down at night, although right now they’re making quite the racket. I’m so tired once it gets dark that I don’t think I’d notice either way. It’s amazing how natural it is to sync up with the daylight hours when you remove most of the artificial lighting and electronic stimulants in your life.

The past week has seen a variety of activities. A lot more planting in the greenhouse. All the beds up both sides are planted with spinach and salad mixes. The center is now packed with tables full of seedlings, with more on the way as soon as we scrounge up more table space (read: doors on sawhorses). Apparently we’ll be doing weekly-or-so succession plantings of greens and such, so I’m really interested in seeing how that is planned out and planted in order to keep our CSA members’ bags full every week. The garden at home has lacked such a plan in the past, unfortunately.

We also cut down some dead ash trees for greenhouse fuel. We go through quite a bit of wood at night, especially since the greenhouse doesn’t have its second insulating plastic layer installed. I ran a chainsaw for the first time, not cutting down the trees but chopping the eight foot sections down into stove-sized pieces. And then it was chopping time of course. It had been a while, but the ash split really easily and we quickly had enough chopped to last us a few days.

Last weekend I didn’t know what to do with the slow days, so I ended up puttering in the greenhouse. I’m glad I did, because I got the beds fluffed up and dried out so we could plant earlier… but this weekend I’m definitely more comfortable with just taking a break. I’m looking forward to warm days off when I can go explore the area on my bike. I hear there are waterfalls and wading pools nearby!

Stimulating Activities

I have been reprimanded for not posting enough, and for not taking enough pictures of baby animals. One of those “problems” is easy to remedy. As you may be noticing, this post is awash in photographs of cute baby sheep and goats and even a bad puppy. Enjoy!

As far as writing more, I suppose I’ll have to just write about the minute doings of my current life. I guess maybe that’s interesting. Today, I drove a tractor. A tractor with a bucket thingy and separate pedals for forward and reverse, and separate left and right brakes. It seems like a really good idea to me, to have four pedals available for maximizing your messing up potential.

I used the tractor to do two things: After we mucked out all the stalls this morning, I had to scrape the bedding away from the barn and scoop it into the big steamy pile of cow goo. I feel like the bucket control lever could have a much more intuitive interface (perhaps a scroll wheel or a trackpad?) but I managed to get the hang of it just fine. In the afternoon I had to take water up to the oxen, who are out on pasture finally (they were very happy to be out of the barn, and I wish I had shot video of the terrifying sight of a 1600 pound oxen jumping and bucking with glee whilst stumbling down the hillside towards the tiny yet apparently effective portable electric fencing). This involves filling a basin and toting it up the hill in the tractor’s bucket, whilst not spilling too much. I got it all the way up the hill, and dropped it as I was setting it down inside the fence. Round two was more successful, with the boys receiving not only fifteen gallons of water, but also their surprisingly heavy mineral block for licking upon.

It only took two days for me to get zapped by the aforementioned fencing. It felt similar to when I plugged in my Lite-Brite incorrectly (read: while squeezing the prongs together to fit it in the outlet), only this time no thoughts of turning into a robot crossed my mind, and I find that terribly disappointing.

Arrival

Sorry for the delay… I arrived on the farm Tuesday and have been rather busy since. I just got a chance to set up the internets last night. I also haven’t taken a ton of photos yet, I feel like a tourist boob whipping out my camera at every single interesting thing. I’ve certainly missed a lot of cute baby photo-ops thus far (cute animal babies, that is). Just yesterday there was some feeding of a newborn lamb in the house next to the fire. It was the only one of five to survive, so a sad morning, but happy that this one pulled through and got up on its wobbly too-big legs and is now back in the barn nursing.

The area is beautiful, even when it’s all melty and muddy. Last night we got a dusting of snow, so it’s back to a lovely winter white, if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally, I’m rather done with winter and am looking forward to seeing this place put on some fuzzy green pantaloons. We were working in the greenhouse yesterday, and will do so again today. It was one-hundred degrees in there when we opened the doors… rather nice to work in short sleeves and sweat a bit, although my back is sore from preparing the beds for planting greens.

We have to feed the fire in the greenhouse a couple of times a night, and my shifts are gradually getting later and later as I am less and less the new guy. I hope the nights warm up soon, so we can all get uninterrupted sleep again. Even with the slumbertime chores I’m finding it pretty easy to get up around six or so. That might be because things wind down here around ten and I find it hard to stay up much later than that. Certainly is a schedule shift, and I’m struggling to figure out how to separate free-time from work-time and how to relax and also get other personal projects done. Today we’re taking a wee break before going out to work. Everybody is gone but Adam (the other intern) and I.

OK, it’s almost the top of the hour, time to check on the soon-to-be-mother sheep and get down to work. Expect more bland stories and flaccid insight in the weeks to come!

Gone Farmin’

As most of you know, I have left the lovely village of Rochester for a few months, in order to more fully scratch an itch I’ve been having regarding food and agriculture and ecology and so on. I’ll be working on a wee family farm in Ashfield, Massachusetts until mid-October. I am fully prepared for this to be a slightly different work experience than my previous job as a chair-sloucher and mouse-pusher, and am looking forward to that. I hope to experience 110% more sunshine, 80% more animal dander, and 1254% more plant matter than in previous years.

In order to more gently ease into the great outdoors, I went to Mendon Ponds park on Sunday with some of my most special Rochester friends. We experienced “nature” by walking through its well-groomed paths and feeding the ferociously wild Chickadees out of our bare hands. No doubt these skills will come in handy when dealing with the various domesticated fowl on the farm.

I’m currently at my parent’s house in Floyd, eating some niblets in preparation for more travel. I’ve got about three hours of driving left, hopefully with a stop in the middle to check out Troy and its curious inhabitants. I’m not sure what to expect upon arrival at Sangha Farm this afternoon. I visited them of course, and it seemed really great. I’m just bracing for it to be a big change of pace in so many ways. But, I’m excited and ready to get down to it. Keep an eye out for a plentitude of photos and more blathering… soon!