Geese, Guests and Goodness Gracious

FARM

Duck Duck Goose

June in Driveway Puddle

Mallory the Mallard

Did you know that a group of ducks is called a badelynge, bunch, brace, flock, paddling, raft or team? It is also called a dover of ducks.   I like the last best.  We have a dover of Muscovy ducks taking over the farm.   A brood hatched last year and it looks like there will be more if we don’t curtail their population explosion.  I found a clutch of eggs last week.  The sensible thing to do is to destroy the nest.  The softie in me can’t do it.  So in a few days, if my calculations are right, we will once again be overtaken with ducks.    The farm has one mallard duck named Mallory who has been hanging out with the goose June. June’s mate was hit by a snowplow last winter and it's been difficult finding a male goose.  Last week we bought a male goose.  June ignored him and he ran away.  She preferred the mallard to the male goose.  June has been fickle lately, preferring our livestock guardian dog Smith as company, so I bought another duck for the mallard. The duck Emmaline (who looks like an Indian Runner but smaller) won’t have anything to do with the mallard so she lives in the pasture with the Pekin ducks and the broiler chickens.  The Pekins are scheduled for slaughter this week which will leave Emma without duck pals.  Perhaps we should keep one Pekin as her companion?  I am spending too much time meddling in poultry partnerships.

June and Smith

Muscovy sitting on eggs

Clutch of Duck Eggs in Tree Hollow

Good Guests; Ghastly Guests

Our schedule is so hectic that we seldom get a chance to get off the farm and see the world.  We are fortunate because the bed and breakfast, farm stay and Fable bring the world to us.  We’ve had the pleasure of meeting people from varied backgrounds, cultures, religions. Most guests have been interesting, fun and a joy to host.  And then there is the occasional “guest from hell.” Sometimes a guest is irritable, demanding and unpleasant and even when we bend over backwards to please them, nothing makes them happy. Recently we had a new kind of guest from hell.  They didn’t want to have anything to do with the farm, left breakfast untouched and drove away without saying goodbye. In a follow up conversation, I was lambasted with complaints about the farm, room and food, in particular, they wanted bacon for breakfast and I served them sausage because we were out of bacon until the next pig is slaughtered.  He advised that I should have bought bacon from the supermarket in anticipation that a guest would want bacon and put it in the freezer.  When I explained that the food we serve is grown and raised on the farm and I was not going to serve factory animal crap to my guests, his response was that we should serve what the guests want not what we want.  I didn’t say, but I wanted to say, “You are the wrong type of guests for us.”  I am so used to guests and customers who really care about the food they eat and where it comes from that I forget that there is a huge population that doesn’t give a hoot about what they eat.  And as crazy as it seems, they don’t associate bacon with a pig.   So the guest from hell was a learning lesson for us.   We attract guests who are interested in the farm, care about their food and how it is raised and care about their health. How do we vet and discourage the guest who eats Ding Dongs and thinks bacon comes from Price Chopper?

Sometimes guests leave behind socks, sweaters or books but this is the best leave behind: a message written on the Farmhand Cabin chalkboard. 

Frank, Silvia and Max's Good Guest Message

 

Newcomer

This handsome boy will service the ewes this fall.  The breed we use for a ram is different every year.  We look for a ram that will produce good meat quality lambs and he fits all the criteria.  Looking forward to his offspring next year.

Roy the Ram

Tom wrote an article about farmers markets in The New Franklin Register this month. The subject is that farmers markets are good for the customers but not necessarily for farmers. 

Page 6 T he New Franklin Register Summer 2014

By Tom and Denise Warren

We have been selling

our grass-fed meats

and eggs for twenty years

at three regional farmers’

markets. During that time,

especially over the past

three years, there has been

an explosion of interest in

buying local foods, mostly

due to a new awareness of

the importance of knowing

how our food is raised, harvested

and sold.

Ten years ago, there

were three farmers’ markets

in our region: Cooperstown,

Pakatakan and

Oneonta. These centralized

markets attracted customers

from several surrounding

counties and provided

strong, consistent revenue

for the participating farmers.

Today, every town

and hamlet is determined

to host a farmers’ market.

In Delaware and Otsego

counties, there are currently

twenty-one. In fact,

the number of farmers’

markets in New York has

increased from 235 in 2000

to 521 as of August 2012,

according to the New York

State Department of Agriculture

and Markets.

The good news is that

there is growing interest in

local foods, and it is handy

for the customer to have

“round the bend” access to

farm fresh food.

But maybe not such

good news for the farmers.

The number of customers

in our region who seek

farm-fresh food at farmers’

markets is growing, but

slowly, and the number of

markets is outpacing the

customer base. The relatively

small number of dedicated

customers is now

divided between a larger

and growing number of

farmers’ markets.

New York City is home

to 148 farmers’ markets.

That’s about 56,000 people

for every market. In Delaware

and Otsego counties,

there are 5,200 people for

every farmers’ market.

While there is no direct

data to support this theory,

we believe that a greater

percentage of people in

New York City shop year

round at farmers’ markets

than do locally.

A great benefit of small

town farmers’ markets is

that a market creates a

community, a space for

people to gather and socialize.

It creates an opportunity

for added income

for small-scale or part-time

farmers. But can this scattering

of farmers’ markets

support the full time farmer,

and will these markets

survive as more participating

farmers realize that he/

she is not getting a reasonable

return on his/her investment

of time and money?

Small farmers’ markets

tend to host only a handful

of farmer-vendors, while

larger, centralized markets

can support twenty to thirty

vendors.

There is also an environmental

cost. If a farmer

travels twenty or thirty

miles to a market to sell just

$200 to $300 of product, it

becomes a carbon intensive

endeavor.

An informal survey

conducted at the farmers’

markets in which we participate

indicates that vendors

have to sell at twice

as many markets as they

did five years ago, just to

maintain the same level of

revenue. And vendors’ expenses

are high, including

transportation, labor, market

fees, market materials

and signage. All the while,

the farmers’ incomes are

shrinking.

So, while the growing

number of farmers’ markets

may be good for communities

and customers, it may

not be best for farmers.

 

FABLE

Fable has been full with Saturday night dinners, Sunday brunches and private dinners and breakfasts.  Thank you so much for filling our kitchen with your praise, laughter and good companionship. We are having fun seeing familiar faces and meeting new people.  

Strawberries

It's strawberry season and we can't get enough. We are making strawberry margarita jam, strawberry balsamic jam, strawberry scones, strawberry short cake.... At Fable's dinner last week, we made Sorrel Strawberry Sorbet. Amazing.

 

Sorrel-Strawberry Sorbet

Makes 1 quart.

For super-smooth sorbet, churn this recipe in an ice cream maker. For a treat just as refreshing but studded with icy crystals, simply stick the mixture in your freezer. Freeze this sorbet in ice pop forms instead for children.

Ingredients:

1 quart fresh (or frozen) strawberries, hulled

2/3 cup raw sugar

1/4 cup finely chopped sorrel

Instructions: 

In a mixing bowl, stir together the strawberries and sugar. Cover and set aside for an hour. Purée strawberries with their juices and the sorrel in a blender, then press the mixture through a sieve to remove seeds and large pieces of sorrel. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for an hour. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Or pop the mixture into a shallow, freezer-safe pan and freeze it. Scrape with a fork to break up ice crystals every half-hour to an hour until it is fully frozen, about 4 to 6 hours

Looking forward to seeing you at the farmers markets, farm store, at Fable for dinner or brunch or enjoying your summer out and about the countryside.

Tom, Denise, Shane

The White Cedar Bee Tree

April Farm and Fable Musings

First Sign of Spring on the Farm

The serviceberry tree, also know as juneberry or shadbush or shadblow, is the first sign of spring on the farm.  The tree grows along the stonewall adjacent to the horse barn.  It is called the serviceberry because the tree blooms when the ground is soft enough for persons who died during the winter to be buried and is a showy canopy of blossoms during burial services.  It is also called shadbush or shadlow because the tree flowers when the shad is running in the rivers.  The berries taste like honey and can be used for jams, jellies and pies but I rarely pick the berries before the birds get them.  Bird enthusiasts often plant the serviceberry tree to attract birds to their property.

A Lamb in Another Lamb's Clothing

Lambing season has begun.  Ten to twenty lambs are born everyday on the West Kortright Church Road pasture.  When look in on the flock every morning and evening, we have to match ewes with lambs and tag the lambs with the ewes' tag number - yellow tags for females and green tags for males.  Sometimes lambs are lying in a jumble basking in the sun so we have to stir up the pile and observe which lambs seek out which ewes.  When we arrived at the WKC pasture a few days ago, a lamb was outside of the electric fence (god knows how it got through the fence) trying to get back to her mom.  We put her back over the fence and she ran to her mom. She must have been separated from her mom for a long time because her mom refused to take her back. The ewe stomped and snorted and nosed the lamb away.  We scooped up the lamb and continued to search the pasture for more lambs.  In the road end near the pond, was a ewe with a dead lamb next to her.  The lamb never made it out of the amniotic sac.   By the end of the morning, we had ten lambs, a ewe without a lamb and an orphan lamb.  An orphan lamb is called a bummer lamb.  I am not sure where the term originates but it is a real bummer to bottle feed a lamb three times a day for 12 weeks.  Sometimes a ewe will accept a lamb that is not hers under the right conditions. The trick is to make the lamb smell like the ewe who lost her lamb.  We made a coat for the bummer lamb.  We skinned the dead lamb and made a hole for the tail and plastered it to the bummer lamb and put the lamb in with the ewe.  She smelled the lamb with the lamb coat for a long time. We waited anxiously to see if it would nurse.  Success!  Once the lamb nurses, its poop smells like the ewe and she will accept it.  Two days later, the coat is off the lamb and the lamb is happily with her adopted mom. 

Broiler versus Layer Chick

Chickens for eating are called broilers and chickens for eggs are called laying hens or layers. Both sets of chicks are five weeks old. The broilers are ready to harvest at eight weeks and the layers will be ready to lay eggs at 20 weeks.   A layer chick is called a poulet until she starts to lay eggs.

The chicks will be moved out of their heat box and onto pasture this week.  Metal portable shelters (they look like small Quonset huts) are used to keep them dry, out of the sun and safe from hawks. However, the big move to pasture presents risks.  If it is too cold or too wet, the chicks pile in the shelters and die. Hawks are their biggest threat - they often swoop into the huts and pick off chicks one by one. The dogs provide some protection from predator hawks. The broilers will be harvested on the farm in a few weeks and they will be available fresh at the May farmers markets.  Fresh chickens will be at the markets and in our farm store every week until mid October.   The profit from broilers, even at $4.50 lb, is very slim due to large piling and predator losses and the labor that goes into raising chickens.

Bunnies in a Box

Each of the breeding does has a litter. The youngest litter is two weeks old.  A first-time doe had 11 babies but the kindling box was too small so she threw out five of them. Unfortunately, she did it in the middle of the night so they did not survive.  The oldest bunnies are four weeks old. They are active in their cages, hopping in and out the kindling box and eating pellets and grass. 

Goats on Pasture

After a long winter of hay and baleage, the goats travel to the back pasture for the first of the season's grass.  They graze non-stop for the first few hours and then collapse with drowsiness from the weight of the grass digesting in their rumens and the feel of the sun on their backs. They wait at the fence at the end of day and are ready to go back to the dairy barn for milking. Electric netting powered by solar batteries is moved from pasture to pasture with the goats and sheep. 

Two years ago we decided not to disbud (remove the horns) from the dairy goats.  We changed our minds after a few mishaps with horns and milk stands, fencing and our faces.  These sisters use their horns advantageously and butt all the other goats away from the choice spots of grazing and the water tank.

Farm Dogs

The new Maremma puppies Louis and Clark have lost their puppy look but not their puppiness.  Louis is guarding the dairy barn and Clark is giving Ty the new border collie an approving sniff.  Ty's training started a month ago with simple commands of lie down and there (stay). He is keen on sheep and goats and he does a simple job every day such as moving the goats to the pasture which enables him to feel comfortable with the goats and sheep and build confidence as a working dog.  He is smart and willing dog; he has already learned how to keep a good distance behind the goats and lie down on command. If the dogs get too close to the goats they turn on them and butt them. If this happens too early or too frequently in their training, it could make a border collie forever apprehensive of working with goats.  Ty has a crouch rather than a full lie down which is fine for his work.  Ty begins his formal training with Elizabeth Phillips very soon.  Ty is not a high strung border collie. He is intense when he is working but knows how to relax. 

"That'll do Ty"

Farm Store

The movie Food Inc has been making the rounds and recently aired on HBO.  As a result, the store has been a buzz of activity from people buying our grass fed meats and organic goat milk. The farm store is stocked with pork, lamb, beef and rabbits. The eggs are plentiful and the goats are producing tons of creamy milk.  The raw milk takes on the color and taste of what the goats are eating.  Dandelions and spring grass are the mainstay of the goats' diets so the milk is sweet with a delicate, grassy, tangy taste and colored a soft, buttery yellow.

Fable

The last winter supper is May 8th at 5 pm.  The three-course menu is wilted dandelion salad with fresh eggs and smoked bacon, spring chicken and vegetable pot pie with cheddar chive crust and for dessert - farmer’s pound cake with season’s first maple syrup. The cost is $28.  Fable's Saturday dining and Sunday brunch begins Memorial Day weekend.  The farm stay/bed and breakfast also opens the same weekend so we are working diligently to get the the renovations completed.  I was at a tourism meeting the other day and one of the participants suggested we call the farm stay/bed and breakfast "Stable".  What do you think? We are squeezing in the renovations between regular chores and planting the gardens. 

Gardens

I am hand spading the kitchen garden because the rototiller does not dredge up the big rocks. I am convinced that in the process of turning over the soil, I am loosening the dirt so the rocks can spring forth.  We have been gardening in the same plot for twenty years so why am I pulling out three-foot rocks with a crowbar?  Where are all those rocks coming from?  The garlic is up from last year and all of the perennial herbs survived.  The biggest survival surprise was the tarragon. It never makes it through a Catskill winter.  The bees in the cedar tree in the front yard also survived the winter although they are using a different entrance to the 150 year old tree.  The tree has housed bees since we moved here 25 years ago. While it is not the same hive, there must be a very big honeycomb in the heart of the tree.

Farmers Markets

We hope you survived the winter with minor complaints.  We would love to see you soon at the farmers markets or at the farm. The Callicoon Farmers market begins Sunday May 2.  The Pakatakan Farmers market begins Saturday May 15th and the opening of the Oneonta  Farmers Market is Saturday May 22nd.  Support family farms, eat healthier food and shop at farmers markets this season!

Tom, Denise, Katey, Shane and Susannah (she's back!)