Brian Boucheron Stuff and Also Things

Transitional Species

Well. I find myself missing the above pictured critters, as well as the goats, oxen, yaks, and farm folk. I left the farm mid-August, in order to get home and take care of some pressing matters. I guess things were getting pretty routine by that point anyway, and it made me itch to get home and start doing something… finding some land, developing some freelance work, learning some newly-important life skills, working on some different farms. I’m not sure what I’ll have to blabber about on the blog now, but you should be warned that some of it will probably be 1000% more nerdy than before. We’ll see.

Right after I got home, Rachel and I zipped off to Maine to laze about for a week at her parents’ place. That certainly delayed my settling-in phase here in Rochester, but made for a great transition between two very different worlds. I still get up fairly early, but I am creeping later and later each day, and I stay up too late. I’ll have to work on that, as I enjoy getting up at six and having the quiet morning to myself. Also, it is odd to have too much free time and too little hard labor. I’ve contacted some local farms and hopefully will find a place I can visit and work at between my job and freelance and other pursuits… the garden just doesn’t cut it.

We happened to be in Maine on my birthday, and Rachel & her sister made me a yummy farm-themed cake. They managed to cover all the important animals from the farm, except the yaks. There was even a team of appropriately colored oxen, munching on the coconut and frosting “grass”. I managed to milk the birthday event for almost a full week… eating too much, drinking vast quantities of yummy beer, and lazing about reading books and taking naps. Whee!

But now it’s back to reality-land. First on the to-do list was to set up an office here at Rachel’s place, which I guess is now “our place”. Having done that I am now ready to dive into some freelance work, and have indeed already talked to the bike shop and started some materials for next year’s Tour de New York (the first, I suppose). Soon I will return to my prior job part-time as well, and also try to work in some internships, with any luck. So maybe there will soon be more variety here, instead of all these tiresome pictures of farm animals! Who knows!

Status Report

I suppose a little bit has happened since our last chat. There have been a lot of harvests, a lot of markets, and a lot of weeding. Blech. We’ve finally moved on from just greens, with some beets and carrots and squash now showing up on our market tables. That feels nice. I’m not sick of salads, but will enjoy the added variety nonetheless.

We’ve also blown through all of our garlic scapes in the past few weeks. What a lovely product. Waste product is more like it, as we would cut them off even if nobody were willing to buy them. But people do, and as they should because it’s quite the nice delicate garlic taste right when everybody’s garlic braids are running out from the previous season. Soon we will start harvesting fresh garlic for the CSA, and then I’ll get to see how we harvest and dry the rest, and perhaps even try my hand at making some braids.

I had visitors, many weeks ago. My parents came out for a few days in their Vanagon… and they dragged Rachel along for the ride. In fact, they will be doing the very same thing next weekend on their way to Vermont for some crazy Volkswagen meet-up they seem to be attending yearly.

We went on a tour of the Berkshire Brewing Company while they were in town. It was quite the nice tour, with an ample amount of free tastings and an entertaining tour guide… rather in depth and fun.

I think the folks had a good time here at the farm. They brought plenty of beer and crackers and cheese and Rachel and I helped them consume it whilst playing Pitch around the wee table in their camper. Mom hopefully got enough pampering in, bringing fixings for dinner and breakfast and also some cookies and the like.

We also went out to a flea market, which was not quite a bust, but close. We showed up late due to poor directions, and it was a semi-cloudy-rainy day anyways, so people were packing up and heading home. I got a good camera tripod though, so that’s good. And afterwards there happened to be a good brewpub on the way home, so we stopped there for a late lunch. You can perhaps see a theme developing here.

This past weekend I went to the Northeastern Permaculture Convergence in Holyoke. I haven’t got the brain capacity right now to explain what permaculture is… perhaps someday. But it’s somewhat involved in designing agricultural systems, if you will. Anyways, it was an interesting weekend, and I’m still processing things in my head. I met Dave from Rochester there, who has a blog I’ve been reading for a while now. So that made it pretty worthwhile. We didn’t talk a ton, but he seemed great and will no doubt be a valuable resource upon my return. He has some connections within organizations I’m interested in, and also is tinkering with his own permaculture garden/yard which I hope to view someday.

I guess there were around 100 other people at the convergence. I didn’t talk to many of them. I’m antisocial, and suck at events such as this. But I did meet a lot of nice folks, and picked a few brains. Mainly I enjoyed touring some farms, gardens, and nurseries. Of course I didn’t write down the scores of cool plants I saw, but I feel like I’m not at that stage yet, and have the names of some books to obtain that should point out the highlights at least.

So, it feels good to be back at the farm. Things were a little weird when I got back, with the oxen getting out of their pasture once again, apparently a problem all weekend. That’s pretty frustrating. And there are many animals that need moving in the morning, which I don’t entirely look forward to. But. Being away made me appreciate many more things about this place, so I shall not complain.

Misty Morning

It has been rather warm and moist here lately. I woke up today (Sunday, my “day off”) at around five, with the sun peeking in the hayloft doors (which are now permanently open to ventilate the goat butt barn scent). I’m not sure what compelled me to bound out of bed and take pictures. Perhaps my lack of doing so for the past two weeks. Or perhaps because the sun had a particular hazy, diffuse quality that I knew would be gone pretty quickly.

So off I went. It was my first t-shirt-only morning… plus muck boots, dress pants, suspenders, and my camera bag. I guess I got some ok shots.

Anyways, the point of all this was that it is rather pretty here, I’ve found. Yesterday after the market I took some detours on my bike ride back. Various dirt roads deep into dark dark woods smelling slightly acidic and decayed. Some were shortcuts between more civilized roads. Some went beyond my means of locomotion, with steep descents that I didn’t feel like tackling in the opposite direction.

There were lots of hills.

It was all quiet and beautiful, with woods and cows and barns and fields and streams and gardens and an old round brick schoolhouse and a beehive on somebody’s porch roof (bearproofing, I suppose) and hills and valleys and misty bits and clotheslines and nice views and nice smells. I will have to do more exploring, at more photogenic times of day and with my camera on board.

All this mist and haze is, unfortunately, because it is durn hot here. Only low nineties really, but it doesn’t feel nice. We went from steady rain and a flood warning Thursday night and Friday morning (when I got soaked through my “rain suit” while moving the sheep) to the nineties on Saturday, and through the next few days it seems. Last night was quite interesting, clear skies overhead and clouds with silent lightning off in the distance (I guess you may call it heat lightning, but it’s really just a normal storm you can’t hear due to distance or refraction of sound waves (says the internets), so let us just call it lightning, ok?).

In wildlife news, I saw a black bear a few nights ago, with two cubs close behind. They were basically at the tree line you can see in the pictures above… which is rather too close to where we have the boy sheep currently. They freaked out a bit. Doggie inspection revealed no bears in the woods shortly after I spotted them, so maybe they were just passing through for a dip in the stream (something that has crossed my mind recently).

Derek found the guinea hen’s nest, with something like twenty eggs piled up in there. A few were placed underneath the broody chicken hen in the coop, so we’ll see if anything hatches. I guess most people will remove the eggs and store them until the hen is ready to sit for a while… because they don’t start sitting until they’ve got them all out. I guess that makes sense. I’ve taken to liking the guineas, even though they’re obnoxiously loud. They don’t eat the crops and keep me from getting ticks. They can stay for now.

Visitor From Another World

Ack! It’s already Wednesday night and I haven’t written about last week or this past weekend even! Even now, at nine o’clock, I feel bad because my typing is probably keeping Adam up, and really I would enjoy sleeping very much. We’ve shifted our schedule around, so now I’m getting up at five thirty, eating breakfast and attempting to slowly start the day, and then out and working by seven. I guess that’s not crazy early. It feels it though, especially when you have to milk in the evening and aren’t really done working until eight thirty. I’ve taken to making lunch a quick sandwich, so that I can sneak off and catch a little nap before we get back to work.

We’ve been planting like mad for the past week, and all of this week. Onions onions onions leeks cabbage cabbage cabbage broccoli and other stuff I readily forget. We had a little frost scare a few nights ago, but it never materialized. The only vulnerable thing in the fields was the zucchini, so those got covered up for the night.

Most of the things we’re planting were started in the greenhouse last month. Radishes, beets, carrots, lettuce mixes, and a few other things are all that have been directly sown. The seeder is a mildly amusing little device that is filled with seed and run down the beds as its wheels churn and it digs a trench, meters out seed, fills the trench, and tamps it down. All of the rows I’ve done are far from straight. Nobody else does much better, actually. The only reason it matters is that it stinks when a hoe wont fit between the two rows due to somebody’s sloppy driving.

I had a visitor last weekend. Rachel came out from Rochester Thursday night via train. It was a rather nice visit, which we started out by hand-weeding a bed of mesclun mix. That took most of Friday actually. I milked Friday morning, just so my personal photographer could record the event and prove that I’m on a farm and learning things.

We’re finally settling into a semi-routine as far as moving all of the animals is concerned. We moved the chicken coop a few days ago, and for two or three days the hens weren’t really able to find their way back at night. So that was a chore… waiting until they were sleeping on a fence somewhere before grabbing them and putting them into the coop. That has finally stopped. The girl goats are being moved to new pasture every day… boy goats every few days. The sheep are finally out for almost a week at a time. The oxen are chewing on possibly five days of pasture per move, but are still being punks and getting out of their fence too often. Time to up the voltage.

Oh! I almost forgot… we got llamas last Sunday! Llamas have a funny looking name, and are funny looking creatures. Everything about them is weird and they scare me and they smell and I really really dislike them. Llamas sure do spit when agitated. And perhaps you think “Gee Brian. Getting spit on isn’t too terrible, is it?”… and I say yes. Yes it is, because this is llama spit and LLAMAS DON’T BRUSH THEIR TEETH, OK? It is a foul substance that you could only simulate by fermenting the essence of dog breath with a touch of vomit and moldy sock.

I’d have photos here of said llamas, but I really don’t feel like getting my camera all smelled up. Maybe I’ll risk it soon, just so you can see the freak show yourselves. Until then… I require slumber.

Lawnmunchers

Back when I was a youngster, I was forced to spend many hours upon a tractor, mowing acres upon acres of foolish lawn, huffing exhaust and damaging my hearing all the while (thanks parents!). As I sat on my buttocks for extended periods of time, I would often set my mind to thinking upon different fantastical technologies one could use to trim grass with less pain and more ease. Most of what I came up with was nebulously defined at best, but it usually involved laser beams.

Yes indeed. Obviously laser beams would, at the push of a button (perhaps after turning a key or some other nuclear launch button safety device), shoot out over your lawn at the specified height, neatly snipping the tips of every blade in sight, perhaps even incinerating the trimmings (if you’re the bag-em-up type). I envisioned this system as one you would install once, with the beams and mirrors placed in all the right spots to get behind every tree and down into every contour of the lawn. Ever afterwards, your juvenile life would be free of toil and full of recreation and joy.

I am now reminded of this technology every time we move the animals and their portable electric fences. They each have their own munching styles, but in general the combination of energized fences and hungry hungry animals ensures a laser-like cut of grass… every single blade right up to the fence line. When I move fence I feel like I am setting up my childhood Lazer-Mow system, defining the boundaries and coordinates within which the grass shall be trimmed to my specifications. Up and down hills, over gullies, around trees and rocks. Nothing fazes the herbivorous lawnmowing machine.

Best of all, it’s also fertilizing the soil, reseeding the pasture, generating meat or milk or wool or oxen-power, the only noise is some cute bleating or the occasional moo, and it’s much less odiferous than a tractor. It feels like a much better use of technology, to gently guide nature with some solar powered fence chargers and a roll of fence, instead of trying to dominate it completely with hundreds of pounds of iron and gasoline and hours of someone’s precious time.

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!