Howell Farm's evaporator in full steam.

On Tuesday, March 2, Danielle Houghton finished and bottled our first batch of maple syrup. 5 gallons of syrup was made from 120 gallons of sap, collected over three weeks time.

This first run syrup is now for sale in our gift shop.Boiling sap travels the channels in the evaporator, becoming syrup once it reaches the end of the track.

Buckets hang from Sugar Maples along The Ridge

See Howell Farm's Calendar of Events to learn when the farm will be offering programs about maple sugaring. www.howellfarm.com/calendar

Howell Farm has two main sugar bushes:  one is referred to as The Ridge, while the other is simply called The Sugar Bush. The Sugar Bush. The "sugar shack" where maple sap is cooked, can be seen in backgroundThe Ridge has the best sun exposure and is always tapped first. The Sugar Bush will be tapped by visiting school children during our Maple Sugaring program.

The first recorded sap flow for this year was Tuesday, February 9 however it was not enough to collect.

Last Friday (January 15) Howell Farm staff found a window of weather to cut and harvest ice before the warm temperatures prohibited all ice traffic. An estimated 3 ton of ice was harvested off of Belle Mountain Pond where the ice was a good four to five inches thick; all in about four hours time.

On the ice were quite a few young helpers: Garrett Houghton (pictured on thumbnail) of five years of age learned the art of 'piking' ice, along with other young siblings. After the harvest the 6,000 pounds of ice were stored in our historic reproduction ice house and insulated with a blanket of dry saw dust.Garret Houghton of NJ and Lisa Schofield of NY 'piking' ice.

Ice was an absolute neccessity for those farming at the turn-of-the-19th century. Refrigeration depended on it. On January 30 we hope to have enough ice on the farm's own pond to take visitors out and harvest this winter crop. That Saturday the living history farm will be open to the public where they too can help harvest ice for our stores or learn about ice and old fashioned farming

     

It is almost Thanksgiving and the corn is nearly all picked.  The crib is getting full due to the plentiful and large ears that grew during this well-watered season.  In addition to the ears, we will be bringing in more stalks to chop to make bedding for the animals.

The next big harvest is going to have to be firewood, as the sheds are quite empty.  We’ll need a lot more for winter cooking and for boiling the maple sap to make syrup.

The recent abundance of rain has had a range of effects on the farm's crops. Although the deluge of moisture has slowed down our hay and straw production, according to Farmer Jeremy, the benefits have far outweighed the bad. The horse and sheep pastures are green at a time of year when they are typically quite the opposite, decreasing the animals dependence on hay. Our corn, pumpkins and potatoes have also enjoyed the extra moisture and are growing "like weeds", and, of course, one can't forget the benefits of a well filled stream for cooling down young visitors on hot and humid days.

We had good sunny weather for the July 11 wheat harvest when Farmer Jeremy harvested two-thirds of the wheat with the reaper-binder and Farmer Rob harvested the spelt with the John Deere 42 combine. It rained hard the night after the wheat was cut, so the shocks got wet.  The shocks were broken open and the sheaves flipped a few times to get them dry during the following week when they were loaded onto wagons.

The week after the public program, the balance of the wheat was harvested with the combine.

The corn has been responding to the warmer weather in July and growing fairly well.  It would like it hotter, but us farmers don’t mind the temperatures in the 80s for getting our work done. -Farmer Rob

Some of our corn crop has not sprouted properly due to the excessive moisture.  This will have to be replanted as soon as the muddy field dries.  We also hope to plant our corn maze early next week IF that field dries enough to plow.

Haying started earlier this year than most due to a week of beautiful drying weather starting May 18. We were able to cut several fields of hay at a young tender stage which made nice hay for the sheep, which prefer more leafy rather than stemmy hay. The trade off with cutting early is that the yield of dry matter is lower, but the sheep waste less hay when it is tender.

After some rains, we cut some more hay and straw May 29 to dry over the weekend. The wheat straw was from a field planted by the ALHFAM Farm School in September 2008 which was not needed for grain. We are able to cut the wheat before grain forms in the head so that we do not attract mice to the stored straw. The straw is dried in the sun like hay, then baled for storage in the barns. We were able to bale two of three fields by working late Monday evening. The third field got rained upon Tuesday morning and has not been able to dry due to rain the rest of this week. This hay will be chopped and blown back onto the field, as it is ruined for use as feed.

Farmer Ian planted three acres of field corn today using a John Deere 2-row corn planter pulled by workhorses Chester and Jack. The field was planted in 38” rows with 9” spacing between seeds. Seed for the planter came from ears saved from last year’s crop. Kernels were removed from the ears (shelled) by visitors who came to the field to help shell corn and fill the seed boxes of the planter. It took about four hours to plant the field – a job that took a bit longer than it would normally, due to the time Ian spent introducing visitors to his horses and to circa-1900 planting techniques.