Farm News (the blog) | Hatchtown Farm

My Favorite!

This is absolutely my most favorite piece of eqiuipment ever…even more favorite than the food processor or the KitchenAid mixer!! I don’t know why we didn’t get it years ago…maybe we were younger and our backs were stronger. But then one day a couple of years ago, our backs started screaming and we listened. And this wonderous thing came to live here. Usually it just sits quietly in the barn…but when we need it — OMG! It makes short work of many heavy bales!

My favorite thing...how did we ever live without it!

We’ve started picking up the hay we bought last fall. This is the best quality hay we’ll be getting and usually we time it this way so that the lactating ewes would be eating well as they’re making milk for their lambs. Also, the lambs would start out eating this hay and they really love it. The little ones start imitating their moms when they’re just a couple of days old — it’s so cute! They’re not really getting any nutrition from the hay but they’re practicing.

Jim is listening to a podcast as I listen to the sweet "heavy metal" sounds of the hay conveyor...my favorite!

A nice load of 2nd cutting hay.

If It’s Monday, It Must Be Snowing!

When I finished my last post, I made a mental note that there would be no more talk about the weather…no more weather reports or incessant whining. Well, that was two days ago and I can’t help myself! We have once again been dumped on — another Monday snow storm! — and this time it’s caused the cooking class I’d enrolled in to be cancelled. ARGH!!! My friend, Heather H, and I were going to go learn how to make something super yummy in the kitchen at Micucci’s Italian Grocery in Portland. We didn’t sign up for a January or February class because we were afraid of bad weather and it happened anyway! You have to laugh!

More of the Same

Just in case we might forget what it’s like to be without, we’ve been getting reminders…a few hours here and there without power over the last couple of days. Thankfully, the outages have been during daylight hours so at least its easier to be productive. Have spent some time catching up on sheep records and other paperwork. And the temps have been warm enough that there’s been some melting.

With the melting comes some very slick conditions. Even the YakTrax don’t help! Water covers the ice below and it’s really dangerous. The driveway on the side of the studio is just such a place. Today the truck slid down the driveway about 6 feet — by itself!! Jim and I were in the house when the dogs ran to the door and started barking wildly. I looked up to see the truck coming to a stop! Jim thought I was kidding until he saw it had moved from where he’d parked it. Crazy bizarre and a little scary!

Serious Storm

Many thousands of people in Maine are still without power. We feel so sorry for them…its terribly cold…and we know all too well how miserable it is. Snow continues in the form of showers off and on all day. I don’t know how much snow we got in this last storm but does it matter? More shovelling, more snowblowing, more tractoring. One of our great old apple trees was pruned by the storm. Seeing these old trees losing limbs is sad. We don’t know what kind of apple it is but it’s a wonderful keeper. I use them for sauce that goes into the freezer and for pies.

We’re heartbroken that one of the ancient sugar maples in front of the house will most likely have to be taken down this year. It’s slowly been falling apart — a limb or two coming down with each major storm over the past few years. We’ve been trying to keep it going with strategic pruning but this winter’s storms have taken a toll on the venerable old tree. It was planted here a very long time ago…house was built in 1829. I wonder how many buckets of sap it’s given up over the years.

Two Dead Mice

Hera (our female kitten) caught a mouse in the house — ICK! but at least we know she’s a good hunter and will help keep the rodent population down around here. I hate to think that there are mice in the house but I seriously doubt that there’s any way to keep them out — especially at this time of year.

mousing is exhausting work for a little kittie

Last year we were catless and religiously set traps in the cellar (we’re convinced that they come through the holes in the stone foundation of this old house) and we were pretty successful with that program but a very odd thing happened. We started finding just little bits of mouse in the traps…something bigger and carnivorous was making a meal out of the mice we were trapping. Yikes! I stopped checking traps…not wanting to meet whatever it was that was eating the mice. It just gave me the creeps. OK, call me a weanie…but it’s just creepy! But getting back to TWO dead mice — Later in the day, Jim was fooling with my laptop when he noticed some slimey goo on his hand. He was sitting there looking at it with this totally grossed out look on his face like “yuck! where did that come from!?” I was cautioning him (strongly) not to go near my keyboard and moving quickly toward the kitchen for a towel. But where did the slime come from??? The mouse! Not the one Hera caught — the one on the mouse pad. It has “padded” sides — supposed to keep your hand comfy I guess — but the padding is actually gel under the rubbery skin of the mouse and it had sprung a leak. Yuck! I wonder what that stuff is — silicone? Nasty! We washed up and ordered a new mouse…