February 16th

Summer CSA Information:

We are adding back in an Earle Farm pickup this year.  Tom and Ruth have generously allowed/encouraged us to add a pickup back at their farm.  Please see the pickup options and details below as well as on our website.  We need a minimum of 10 to sign up at Earle Farm so tell your friends! 

February 16th,
Last weekend I treated myself to a weekend long tracking workshop called Wild Camp, "Tracking Deep Dive".  It was run by Andrews Nelson and her tracking partner Danielle. Based at Merrifield Farm, no longer in full farm operations but a well-known fixture in the Cornish and surrounding area and just on the other side of Hosac Mountain from us.   It was an interesting collection of people, several of them moms in a play group I've been part of for the last few years (including Danielle), one of my neighbors, a close neighbor of Merrifield Farm, and a few other new faces to me from further away.   In total there were 8 of us participants and after a brief time inside for some introductory discussions, we split into two groups and spent the next 5 or 6 hours exploring the woods.   My group followed the snowmobile trails stopping to examine any interesting tracks, and talking through the many possibilities of what animal made them.  The recently fallen deep snow made definitive identification difficult. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that often tracking remains a mystery, best solved by many hours of experience, getting to know the local animal population intimately, and the best action is to follow out a track until some identifying behavior might be observed.    We saw lots of squirrel tracks, one set in particular ending in a comical crystal-clear whole-body print of snow smushed against a tree.  After a quiet lunch sitting in the snow, we abandoned the snowmobile path and went off trail following an intriguing set of tracks that all we could tell for certain were likely made by a group of larger mammals.   The tracks meandered along the westerly side of an increasingly steeper hill, one set occasionally diverging from the others, only to rejoin several hundred feet later.  The deep snow and previous night's winds made distinguishing features (at least to me) invisible, but I found myself happy to be climbing, taking in the occasional views across a narrow valley up to the man cleared and snowy white top of Hosac.  It was a beautiful day to be in the woods, the fresh snow sparkling and the trees casting long shadows.  As the afternoon light changed to evening light, we abandoned the track, climbed to the summit of the hill we were nearest. We then changed courses pointing ourselves down and towards the farm, picking our way through the deep snow until we re-joined the trail.  There we came across the tracks of the other group who had clearly had their own set of adventures during the day.   When we re-convened the next day, we learned the other group had potentially answered the mystery of our track's identity. They had been on a less windblown section of the same set of tracks and discovered more clear evidence of coyote prints, and even a spot in the woods where it seemed some play behaviors could be observed.  Andrews' deep familiarity with the animals near her farm prompted a discussion about the potential reason for the coyotes traveling up the hill we climbed; often feeding on mice and smaller game, perhaps they were checking on the health of the deer population higher up to see if winter had yet made any of the animals weak enough for the pack to consider attempting to take one for food.  The next day after another fresh snowstorm we stayed closer to the farm learning more specific details of each animal's footprints such as toe numbers, relative print size, and gait behaviors.  Inside learning was interspersed with some outdoor play, where we watched a dog change gait and then followed along with his footprints in the snow.  We made mystery human track scenes in pairs for each other, again showing me just how difficult it is to recreate a scene based on footprints alone.   I left the weekend with a great appreciation for our woods, and for the multi-faceted knowledge being an experienced tracker requires.  Although at this point in my busy life I don't feel like I have the patience to follow out tracks or do lengthy woods "sits" to observe passing animals, I felt the experience expanded and strengthened my natural curiosity of the subject.   I've been on a winter reading binge consuming a number of good books with animals as their focus.  "The Tiger", "Coyote America", "A World on the Wing", and "How to Tame a Fox" to name a few.  I've also found myself trying to move more quietly and now watching the dog move out ahead of me in the snow and following along seeing if I can identify when a walk turns to a trot and so on....
If anyone wants to learn more or try a "Wild Camp" adventure go HERE to learn more....

Farm News:

Solar: The solar project is on pause.  With federal grant funding and tax credit uncertainty we are waiting to make a decision on this project.  The grant award allows us two years to begin construction on this project.  
Fence: We are considering investing in permanent deer fencing for our garden. We have to this point been relying on a 3D fencing strategy for the deer where there are two sets of electric lines for the deer, the outermost line baited with apple scent.  The idea is that deer have bad depth perception, so they are deterred by depth of the fence not the height.  They also learn not to walk through the lines by touching the bait caps first with their noses if at all, as with their insulated hooves they are notoriously hard to shock.  This fence has been about 90% effective for the deer but comes with a number of headaches, like regularly refreshing the bait scent, checking the strength of the electric current through the fence, and weekly weed whacking under the lowest line to prevent grounding.  We also have had a number of severe thunderstorms come through in the middle of the night and always wrestling with unplugging the fence charger or not.  This past summer our charger even unplugged got fried by a massive lightning strike and melted an electric outlet in the barn.  In addition, this fence does not prevent the invasion of other critters.  In the last couple of years, we have had a very persistent family of geese that walk from the pond to the garden to graze in the evenings.  Although the dogs are excellent deterrents the geese quickly learn what hours of the day it is safe to graze and two years ago in one evening ate and destroyed about 200ft of young cabbage plants.  In response last year we added a non-electrified stretch of flexi net along the pond side, and this was effective once staked down every 10ft to prevent the geese from walking through and under the netted lines.  Kyle and I are starting to feel like this is a cumbersome amount of non-permanent fencing that is sucking up a significant amount of valuable time each week to properly maintain, not to mention the yearly not insignificant purchases involved in upkeep with the overall keep you up in the middle of the night knowledge that it's not 100% effective  So, we are getting quotes for a permanent solution and talking through the farm economics of the purchase. It feels like the next logical BIG investment/improvement for our farm. Stay tuned! 

Fun Note: Spinach is alive and well in the tunnel and tasting so good! Pretty amazing despite these long cold stretches.