Our New Logo!

Now that we have one growing season under our belt, we decided we needed to be a little more official. Enter our new logo:

A local Pittsburgh graphic designer Melissa Ott designed the logo and we think she nailed it. We'll be rolling it out just in time for the new season. We're also working on a new website that will be chock full o' awesomeness -- farm trials and tribulations, recipes, photos, etc. With Kristie back to working full time, Brett busy with the farm, and an infant at home, it may take us awhile, but we'll have it up and running one day!

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There's a rule....

In the military and many law enforcement organizations there is a rule that if you are going to carry / use non-lethal weapons like mace or stun guns or tasers, you need to have them used on you so that you know what the capabilities and limitations of the weapon system are.  Well we have electric fence up at the farm and as our facebook fans know, we had an issue with some electrified poultry netting (located inside a 4-strand poly-woven electric fence with a beefy energizer on it) failing and allowing a predator to kill one of our hens.

So there I was yesterday in the mud and freezing rain trying to figure out why our portable-solar fence energizer (a solar charged battery with a grounding wire and a 'hot' wire attached to the fence) couldn't fully energize the poultry netting.  The cows were there in the general vicinity on the off chance I had some treats on me and also seemed interested in what I was doing with the netting.  I had been out there for a few hours and had already checked each fence pole to ensure that the wire of the fence wasn't touching the metal spike on each pole and had tried daisy chaining another grounding rod to the system and had tried just about everything I could think of.  Plenty of juice was coming out of the energizer it just wasn't electrifying the fence and that is usually a case of poor grounding rods, or too much drain caused by wet grass and weeds.  I was holding the tester in one hand and the alligator clip in the other and was trying to get the fence close enough to attach the hot cable to.  So I switched the tester to the hand I was holding the hot alligator clip in (you see where this is going don't you) and turned to reach for the fence with my now free hand.  As I did so there was a ZAAAAP!!! that seemed to originate in my chest and a bright flash as the probe of the wet tester being held in my wet hand must have touched the metal part of the alligator clip.  The cows were like "HOLY SHIT! We're getting outta here.  This dudes crazy." I think the pop and flash scared them as much as it scared me.  It had felt like I got punched in the chest with a broom handle and had grabbed a hot iron with my right hand at the same time.  I was all like: "Friggin outstanding. I just stopped my heart with that shock." And actually wondered if there was some way I could do a self-chest compression to re-start my heart.  Well, needless to say the world didn't go dark and I didn't get eaten by rogue raccoons but I can tell you that rain, mud, cold whipping winds, are not the ideal conditions for working on any sort of electric fencing.  Jeeze, imagine if that had been the horse fence.  Dang sucka!  I got the poultry netting up to just about 2000v which is the minimum range for being effective and called it a day.  Will have to look at fixes cause we can't have that fence failing every time it rains.  I'll contact the manufacturer to ensure it wasn't operator error before I publicly trash their product.

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We have Interns!!

All good organic farms have interns right? 

We had a problem in that I was spending an awful lot of time last year mowing the two pastures that we don't currently grow on and also trying to collect enough of that cut grass to use as mulch and compost for our production fields.  If only there was some way I get someone to collect all that grass for me and package it up ready to be put into a compost pile. So's I went onto the interwebs and asked if there was anyone who might be willing to fill this position at the farm.  

Turns out the universe was smiling on us that day and Carrie G., who had two young little steers who needed more room to roam, found us.  On the left is Skid and the right is Tucker.  Skid is like the leader of the two but Tucker is younger and is supposed to grow up to be bigger than Skid so we'll see how long Skid lasts trying to gulp down his paycheck (a lil scoop of sweet corn/oats mi everyday) then going over and "helping" Tucker finish his.  Their job on the farm is pasture management and 'compost production' and so far they've been doing a great job.  I call them interns because we didn't pay for them, Carrie G. donated them to us as pets on the condition that we never eat them. Which is not a problem, if you've been assigned to a team and you have a name it's kinna hard to eat you.  We're pleased to welcome them to the team and look forward to working and growing along with them!

Skid and Tucker

River: Little soul, big world. Eat, sleep, and eat. Many souls. Mal: Cattle on the ship three weeks, she don't go near 'em. Suddenly we're on Jianying, and she's got a driving need to commune with the beasts? River: They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see sky, and they remember what they are. Mal: Is it bad that what she said made perfect sense to me? 

                                                                                                      --"Firefly" Safe (2002)

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Welcome to the unit. Grab your hive, we're going to the field.

There was a saying in the Army that rang true more often than not, (even before 9/11).  "Welcome to the unit.  Grab your ruck. We're deploying to Iraq / Afghanistan / the field."  And so it was with the bees.  They show up and not 24 hours from when they had left their home in Georgia, they were deployed to their new homes in our fields.

I believe the statement that if the bees and other insect pollinators were wiped out then humans would have precious few months before the food crops that we relied on would be in trouble.  I also believe that the 'Colony Collapse Disorder' is a very real threat and is due in large part to BigAg's pesticide and errant genetic breeding programs for both bees and plants.  I also feel that you can never really have enough pollinators on a primarily open pollinated vegetable farm.  Soooooooo...back in early March I ordered two packages of bees.  A package is basically 3-15k worker bees and a queen from one of the southern states (where it is warm over the winter and where the bees have a steady food source so that they are not famished when they get to where ever they are going up north).  Each package can be used to populate one empty hive.  Here is a pic of what a package of bees looks like when you pick it up.

The stuff on top of the package is just gravel that I was going to use inside the hive (in their feeders to keep them from drowning) and the spray bottle is the sugar syrup mixture that I use instead of the smoker to keep them calm/preoccupied right before I'm going to do something they might not like. Liiiiike:

Dumping them out of their Bee Transport Vehicle into a strange new home. I'm wearing the ACUs because the pockets are handy as well as the light color and the velcro around the wrists and neck are good at keeping 

curious bees from crawling into places you don't want them.  PLUS they're handy for tucking the insect screen into (the stuff around my head).  And basically I have a functional bee suit at no cost.

So anyways, you take the bee package, squirt them a few times with the sugar syrup, remove the queen cage from the package and secure it into the new hive then dump the bees around them.

And voilà!

The bees are busy setting up shop and preparing themselves for a busy season of pollinating our crops and fruit trees.  

Welcome to the team lil buzzers!!

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