This week, the farm's young chickens, raised as chicks in a coal-fired brooder starting in March, are starting to lay their first eggs. These first eggs are small, but they will soon get bigger. Young hens are often called pullets, and these first small eggs are called pullet eggs.
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Most of the hay cut at Howell Farm gets baled using a baling machine and then stored as square bales (actually rectangular) in the barn.
But every year some of the hay is also collected loose on a wagon, as it would have been 100 years ago. Last Wednesday, Farmer Rob and the Howell Farm interns partook in the annual tradition of stacking hay on a wagon as it came off the hayloader—an escalator-like contraption, pulled by draft horses, that picks up the hay from the ground and lifts it onto the back of the wagon, to then be dispersed evenly by a worker waiting with a pitchfork. Intern Alex reports that “It’s definitely tougher than baling hay.” The hay comes off the loader so fast that it’s often necessary to stop the horses to allow the man or woman with a pitchfork time to catch up. The process of making hay starts a few days before collection. On the previous Saturday, the hay was cut, and then it was raked on both Tuesday and Wednesday, creating straight rows that make loading easier. Moving the hay around also helps it dry. One wagon worth of loose hay was collected, enough to feed the oxen for a few months this winter. Farmer Rob reports that it is “pretty nice hay.” The last part of the process will take place this Saturday, when the hay is lifted into the top of the ox barn using a giant claw on a pulley, with the hoisting rope pulled by either the oxen or some draft horses. A report from Farmer Rob on recent sauerkraut making activities:
Cabbage is shredded and packed in quart jars with one tablespoon of salt per jar. Other optional ingredients like carrots and juniper berries can be added, too. The cabbage is bruised to release liquid by pounding and pressing with a wooden pestle. The jars are covered with lids, but not too tightly, so that the carbon dioxide gas given off by the lactobacillus bacteria can escape. After a few days to a week of vigorous fermentation, the lids can be tightened. It is best that the jars be kept in a tub or other container that does not react with salt during this phase, as some brine will escape. The salt and exclusion of air provide an an environment that favors the lactobacillus bacteria. The bacteria consume sugar and give off lactic acid which pickles the cabbage. Lactic acid fermentation is very trendy, and very traditional. Sauerkraut has long been recognized as a winter source of vitamin C, and more recently is getting recognition for being a probiotic, providing organisms that are beneficial to our guts. Sauerkraut is German for "sour cabbage". During WWI, sauerkraut was dubbed "Liberty Cabbage", and during WWII, "Victory Cabbage" when Germany and things German were not in favor. After a good bit of waiting around for them to ripen, the oats were harvested yesterday with the farm's combine. Farmer Jeremy said he was impressed with the quality of the oats, though the quantity was slightly below what he expected.
If the weather stays cool next week (cool, at least by August standards), the farmers might start plowing the recently harvested oat field with the draft horses. This would be an earlier start to fall plowing than usual. As Farmer Ian remarked at the farmer's meeting this morning, "We might even have fit horses by the plowing match." The farm is abuzz with activity today as we set up for the Mercer County 4H Fair. Hope to see you there:
Saturday, Aug. 2, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 3, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Parking and admission is free. Suggested donation of a canned good to support Rutgers Against Hunger. The Howell Farm interns received some ox cart driving lessons this morning from Farmer Rob. The task: dumping brush and then moving firewood around the farm in preparation for fueling a steam engine at this weekend's 4H Fair.
A recipe for the wineberry shrub Farmer Rob made last week. Just substitute the wineberries for the raspberries:
http://www.grouprecipes.com/46665/colonial-raspberry-shrub-drink.html If you look in the other direction off Howell Farm's bridge, you can still see pools of water holding on against the summer. But in this direction Dry Run Creek now lives up to its name.
At the weekly farmer's meeting, Farmer Ian reported that he spotted the first huge fly of the year harassing an ox, the kind of fly that bites hard and seems to track the draft animals wherever they go. Around the farm, these flies are known as "bombers."
While small flies can be a nuisance to the draft horses, the bombers can cause dangerous agitation. That's why during the summer the horses are outfitted in fly nets and are sprayed with Skin So Soft. The interns have been harvesting wineberries, an invasive plant somewhat similar to raspberries and blackberries, that is now fruiting.
Farmer Rob is using some of them to make a wineberry, vinegar and sugar drink that is sweet and sour. The Furrow will report back soon on how it tastes. |
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The Furrow is the online newsletter of The Friends of Howell Living History Farm. We will be updating this site about once a week with crop reports and other insights into life on a horse-drawn living history farm. Archives
June 2015
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THE FURROW: The online newsletter of Howell Living History Farm |
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