Two Spruce Farm: welcome pete + welcome lambs + welcome 1941 Case VC & farmhack

Greetings everyone,

Today: spring weather. To be able to work outside in the sun again is great (Plus the peepers were out in earnest last night!). A slew of other happenings preceded the recent shift, most notably the birth of the long-awaited mule foal Pete. Pete was discovered Friday morning in Lady's box stall, healthy, bright, new and fuzzy. We have been watching him gain energy and rambunctiousness, venturing outside yesterday for the first time and prancing around like he owned the place. Ample photos of the jet black pistol below.

The first two lambs have joined the farm as well having alerted Daniel, slumbering in the haymow because it was so warm, to their presence early yesterday AM. The 1941 Case VC for this weekend's Farmhack arrived yesterday also. It was all certain farmers could do to keep from starting the conversion before the actual event.

Also, a hotbed update: it has been about a month (March 12) since we started the hotbed and in the last few days we've noticed drop in temperature (from about 120 F to 100 F) so we turned a portion of the pile and added some fresh manure. We'll see if those actions will be enough to cause a rise in the temperature again, and if not, we'll just build another one of similar size. It's been working really great for us; with four layers of remay and a layer of plastic over the bed at night the temp stays around 50 even when its below freezing outside. Today we are seeding basil, bok choi, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, endive, ground cherries, head lettuce, kale, kohlrabi, napa cabbage, radicchio, romanesco broccoli and shallots to add to our cache of flats on the hotbed.

Daniel and I drove Connie and Polly singly together (sounds like an oxymoron but each of us was driving a horse in the same area) on Saturday to skid logs for firewood. Though we are by no means experienced teamsters yet, we do appear to be learning some concepts and driving is getting more comfortable each time we go out. The diversity of equipment these animals pull increases in the summer, and I am constantly walking around the farm seeing cultivators, plows, hay tedders and rakes, etc and thinking about how fun it will be to learn to work those implements with the horses.

One last bit: farmer/ The Dirty Life author Kristin Kimball visited Donn and Maryrose last week, it was great to talk with her about Essex Farm and farming in general. The very impressive Essex Farm does a full-diet CSA (vegetables, meat, milk, flour etc; a complete diet) for over 200 families with the help of horses in Essex, NY (across the lake from Burlington). Kristen chronicles the birth of Essex in The Dirty Life and all your cool farmer friends (not just me and Daniel) highly recommend it. Your library totally has it. What, are you reading the Hunger Games? This is more interesting, I promise.

That's it, I think, except that the Farmhack is this weekend (you should come, also if you're coming you should RSVP). Check out the project description on the Farmhack website if you're somehow on the fence about not coming. Or perhaps the photos below will convince you.

Two Spruce for you, Bruce.