Stories from the Farm

A Slice of (Farm) Life

As part of the Floating Bridge Food and Farms Cooperative, we are launching a series of workshops and classes.   This Slice of Life series is designed to offer something for everyone. There are basic demonstrations for people wanting to add adventure to their summer and classes targeted for individuals and families who want to bring more […]

Moving Parts

Celsius and Farenheit, along with mom Amelia moved out to pasture to join the other pigs this week Not only are the animals on the move this week as they always are, but the farmers are too. With Laura and Mari off to a family graduation (of part-time farmer nephew Noah), the rest of the […]

Connections

It is said that Uncle Halvdan understood the language of crows and thus knew when a fox threatened the hen house. This is the type of deeply embedded complex knowledge we as mid career transplants to farming lack. Still, hosting cousins from Norway and dear friends from Chicago this week has plugged us into appreciating […]

Plants Rule the World

Chervil stole 40 or so hours from us this Spring and the last two as well. We give it time rather than acreage.  Central Vermont is an epicenter for the invasive Wild Chervil   which has a root shaped like a carrot.  It has aggressively spread along roadsides and into valuable hay land and pastures. […]

Ramona and the Rains

The beauty of piglets came back to us this week.  After a changing of the guard in the winter of 2013 and a year of raising three beautiful breeding gilts (young female pigs) from the Whalen’s Green Mountain Heritage Farm in Chelsea, Ramona Quimby was the first to deliver a beautiful litter of piglets. She […]

Bless our Pico Forever

When Laura, Mari and her brothers helped their Dad, Erling (who celebrates his 97th birthday today!) resolve all the items from the family home Connie and Erling had built 50 years earlier, one item everyone treasured was a small pressed edelweiss flower in a simple frame. The flower its namesake song touched the hearts of […]

New Beginnings

Spring and its new beginnings are blooming at the farm.   This past week has seen several new beginnings including: potatoes, tomatoes, peas and the first carrots in the ground!  Glance into the near hoophouse (that just a few weeks ago housed goats and hens) to enjoy the site of tomatoes happily in the ground! […]

Oh, Our Little Friends

This week that phrase is being uttered around the farm both sincerely and sarcastically. Tuesday morning Andrew was greeted by some major gaps in the hoophouse plantings. An entire 10 ft section of Rouge d’Hiver lettuce plants had been harvested to the ground. This wasn’t the work of some eager colleagues, but rather, “our little […]

How to Clean Your Milk Jar

One of the great things about shopping at the farm is you can RETURN your jars for REUSE!   Jars, lids, plastic containers, egg cartons, etc. are reused by the farm and we will sanitize them before we put your next batch of milk, pickles, soup, etc in them, but please do return them CLEAN. […]

A new twist on the basics

Last night we stole the hens away from their perches in the hoop house. Placed into their mobile hen wagon they resettled and we drove them up to the front yard. It is too early to place the animals on pasture, we’ll set back the grass wherever they go. Yet the Excel-based crop plan tells […]