The first half of May brought a variety of weather, from beautiful sunshine-y spring days to hours of steady rain. We welcomed it all! It was also a couple big week for us in terms of our farm plans and goals for the year. Here’s a few snippets from the last couple weeks…
Flowers in Bloom!
We had a limited supply of fresh-cut bouquets for sale in the farm stand when tulips and daffodils were in bloom. While they have mostly gone by now, we will have more bouquets for sale sporadically over the next couple of months until the official flower season starts in late July, at which point we’ll have bouquets for sale on a weekly basis.
Celebrating Mom
Mother’s Day in our family is like most other days on the farm. We spend it getting projects checked off the to-do list, with an emphasis on the ones that my mother really wants accomplish. This year I was able to give her a bonus gift too (well, kind of).
My big Christmas present for her didn’t arrive in time for Christmas, and it just so happened to show up a few days before Mother’s Day. I managed to keep the gift a secret since last November, and finally was able to unveil it to her 6 months later. She’s always wanted a “ladies tractor,” because she doesn’t particularly enjoy using the larger John Deere’s that we own, and her wish finally came true. Now she has her very own International Harvester Cub that she can use for garden work. Keep an eye out for Big Nance cruising up and down Tuttle Road on her new whip!
In the company of Mother Nature
Every night just after dusk I do a chicken check to make sure that there are no stragglers left outside of the coops. After the trauma of loosing so many birds to cannibalism last month, I am taking extra precautions to ensure a high survival rate going forward. Every night I am in the company of Whippoorwills, who continuously call out for minutes on end. Most nights, the sound gives me an ominous feeling, but I’m trying to embrace it as a warm spring evening tune.
Here are a few cool facts about Whippoorwills:
They are crepuscular animals, meaning that they are active during dawn and dusk. During full moons, they will stay active the entire night.
They are named after the sound that their call makes, and they can produce up to 1,088 calls in a row.
They are often associated with sad or tragic events in literature because of the tone of their call.
Egg laying is synchronized with the lunar cycle, so that the parents can hunt for large amounts of food when nighttime visibility is high.
The mother will abandon the nest about 8 days after chicks hatch so that she can lay more eggs elsewhere. At this point the father takes over rearing the chicks until they can fly independently.
The Beefies
The beef cows said goodbye to their winter home in the woods and moved back out on pasture for the rest of the grazing season. We are all happy about that!!
The beefies pose for portraits while my Uncle Greg sketches.
As is typical every year, the excitement over this newfound pasture freedom spurred a wave of spring fever, and one morning I got a call from the town’s animal control officer letting me know that three cows were walking through a neighborhood across town and he thought they might be mine. Of course they were. So I drove the 2.5 miles to where they were gallivanting and then walked back to the farm with them through the woods. It’s always an adventure with these rascals!
Veggies are growing!
One of my best friends, Julia, is growing veggies on the farm this year to sell in the stand. Last week she stopped by to put the first few seedlings in the ground. There is always a sense of magic and awe that comes from planting, knowing that these tiny little seeds will one day grow into individual plants, each with unique colors, textures, and flavors.
The G.O.A.T.S
The goats (most especially the babies!) just bring us endless amounts of joy, and we are so grateful for their antics and companionship. They too are getting daily doses of grazing in green pastures.
Because the sight is just so picturesque, here’s a whole montage of photos that I like to call “Goats on Grass.”
Goats, as with most animals, each have very individual personality traits. Once you pick up on those traits, they tend to be very predictable. Beauty, for example, is the most stubborn goat at Maplebrook Farm. She does what she wants, and if you try to get her to do otherwise, she will collapse on the ground and refuse to get up. She will then start to roll over on her back like she’s having a temper tantrum. This continues until I get fed up waiting for her and walk off, at which point she will immediately stand up and continue with whichever activity she preferred in the first place.
Speaking of predictable, as you may know if you’ve met the two newest baby goats on the farm, Buddy is not the brightest goat in the bunch. Here is a case in point:
Every bottle feeding he struggles to properly place his mouth on the nipple. The willpower is there, just not the follow-through. During this particular feeding, he somehow got his leg hooked over Bronco’s back and didn’t care to move it until his bottle was empty.
For the final dose of cute in this blog, here’s a video of Bronco trying to drink water for the first time.