Peep Show

More new arrivals on the farm. 300 of them, to be exact.

The meat chickens came today. As you can see by the photos, they come in boxes in the mail. The postmaster in Kinsman called a few minutes after 7AM to say they were down there and driving him crazy! We ran right down to pick them up.

There were 2 boxes, each box divided into quarters; they are crowded but that helps them stay warm enough. The peeps are shipped the day they hatch; the chicks are still digesting their yolk sacs which provide them enough nourishment to survive for 72 hours. Luckily for us, we live close enough to the hatchery that our chicks arrive the next day, so are usually in good shape.

We had their new home already warmed up. The brooder is a hood-shaped affair that we’ve seen called an Ohio brooder or a hover brooder; it’s up off the ground a few inches so the chicks can run under if they’re cold and run back out when they’re warm enough. We have it hung from the ceiling on chains so it can be raised easily. You can’t believe how fast the little chicks grow!

The big circle around the brooder contains the peeps. We like the circle set-up because if the peeps get too cold from a draft or frightened by a shadow (meat chickens are very fussy!) they will all run to a corner, pile up on top of each other and smother the ones on the bottom. With a circular brooder there are no corners to hide in.

The waterers are automatic; they’re actually sitting up on a silverware divider with a piece of screen over top so the chicks can hop up, hang on, and get a drink out of the dish.

As you can see, they get right to the eating and drinking, which is a good thing. They’re busy skittering around, chirping loudly if they don’t like something and were very quiet and content under their brooder when I checked on them before bed last night.

New Arrivals

It's springtime so you expect new arrivals on the farm. After all, spring is a season for rebirth.

In a grass-based operation like ours, we want our animals to be born in the spring when the weather is more predictable, the ground is warmer and the grass is lush. This does require planning and careful management. It also makes for a very busy season!

Our first arrivals were not born here though. We've been having trouble with coyotes attacking our sheep the past few years and Aaron and a neighbor who also raises sheep have been looking at guard animals to protect the ewes from predators.

After quite a lot of research, consultation with the vet and numerous phone calls we acquired these two.

On the right is the baby donkey; she's about 9 months old. On the left is the mother donkey; she's 6 years old and is expecting another baby, we think.

The female donkeys or jennys as they're called, are supposed to be better at protecting a herd of sheep than a male (jack). We've been gradually introducing them to grass; donkeys, like horses, will overeat and founder. They're in with some sheep we're going to butcher; Aaron was reluctant to mix them with the ewes in case it upset the ewes which are very close to their due dates.

So our first arrivals are here. If you have any ideas for names, we're open to suggestions!

Easter Cheese

Another Easter food tradition in my family is “cirak” or Easter cheese. This traditional Czechoslovakian Easter delicacy is not really a cheese at all but rather an egg-y, custard-y essential part of most Eastern European tables.

My grandmother, who came from Slovakia as a young woman of about 20 years, always made this to serve with ham and kielbasa at Easter-time. Somehow it fell to me to keep up this tradition, long after both my parents and grandparents are gone.

Cirak is sliced thinly and served cold on sandwiches or with a slice of ham. It doesn’t taste anything like cheese—a surprise to my husband—but the few times I haven’t made it, my brothers have questioned why not.

We still follow another Slovak tradition of having our food baskets blessed at church on Saturday morning before Easter. Baskets are lined with cloth and packed with the foods that will be served for breakfast on Sunday morning or the Easter dinner. These usually include ham or lamb, paska (a traditional Easter bread made with raisins) and dyed eggs. You can read more about the tradition here. It’s a lovely custom that fewer and fewer people participate in; when we take our baskets to church now we linger and remember those members of our parish family who came so regularly and are now no longer with us.

My cirak will be especially delicious made with the eggs that are so golden now that the hens can get outside to eat some grass and look for bugs. Whatever your traditions are, we wish for many blessings on your family.

Cooking a Ham Roast

I’ve had so many questions about how to cook a ham I thought I’d put some information together. First a disclaimer: while I am fairly experienced cook I certainly have no training or expertise; I often still rely on the Betty Crocker cookbook I got as a wedding gift for cooking times and temperatures for meat.

The ham you bought from us is most likely a smoked ham. However, unlike the ham many of you are accustomed to from the grocery store (what my kids used to call “the pink meat”) these hams are not pre-cooked. That means you’ll need to cook it more like you would a roast not just re-heat it as you would typically do with a ham.

Roast your smoked ham uncovered in a 325° oven for about 20 minutes per pound. This recipe recommends roasting to an internal temperature of 170° and the rationale makes great sense to me, so that’s my advice. A meat thermometer is really an essential piece of kitchen equipment so if you don’t have one, now is the time to get one. You may have to make a “tent” from foil toward the end of the cooking time if the ham is getting too brown on the outside.

I don’t usually add much in the way of seasoning to ham but I am going to try the maple-spice glaze from the recipe in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since I do like a crust on the outside of the ham. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Another traditional meat for Easter dinner is a leg of lamb. While the idea of “spring” lamb is a bit of a misnomer for us as lambs are born in the spring, not butchered then, we do have lambs available for purchase and many of you may have saved a leg for a special meal.

My favorite recipe for lamb comes from the “Garlic, Garlic, Garlic” cookbook written by our friends Fred and Linda Griffith. Their support in the Cleveland area has been so valuable and they’ve been so generous that, anytime I make one of their recipes, thoughts of them are always a part of the pleasure of the meal.

A few more of our Easter food traditions are made with products we raise here on our own farm and I’ll post more of those recipes later this week.

Another Sign of Spring

If you've ever been out to the farm, you know this guy. He's the official greeter.

His name is Nemo; he's a four year-old springer spaniel who thinks everyone's as eager to see him as he is to meet them.

We worked hard with him as a puppy so that he would sit on the porch when cars pulled in. It's difficult for him but he can usually wait until you get parked, then he's all over it!

Aaron and Daniel clip both dogs very short as soon as the weather warms up a bit. Keeping them trimmed helps reduce the amount of dirt they track in the house. And with 3 kids, 2 dogs and a farmer husband, you can imagine what the laundry room floor looks like! I've always said I chose tile the color of mud for that reason alone.

The other dog is a springer too; she's an old girl who is nearly blind and quite arthritic so you'll rarely see her but she's still around. She's the one who dictates the haircut time; when it's warm enough that Sally won't be too cold without her winter coat, it's warm enough for the spring haircuts.

So here's another sign that spring is finally here. Be sure to tell Nemo how nice he looks next time you see him.

Signs of Spring

One of the first signs of spring around the farm has always been this sight. Buckets hanging on the maple trees in our yard mean the days are getting warmer.

The sap runs when nights are below freezing and days are warmer; it runs best when the temperature is above forty degrees and the sun shines.

Our middle son was "bitten" by the sugaring bug years ago; his childhood friend had an old-fashioned sugarbush on their farm and Sam loved to go there and ride the sap wagon. He's been tapping the trees on our property and making syrup on the halves with a local man since before he was big enough to lift the buckets high enough to dump them in the tank we put in the bed of the pick-up truck. In fact, his college admission essay described his syrup-making business!

This season has been a short one. The boys tapped the trees on a Saturday and by Friday had taken the buckets down. We've put them back up on these clear nights as there has been frost but we're only collecting about 40 gallons of sap which doesn't even make a gallon of syrup.

We'll hope for the weather to stay cool for a few more days but, when the trees bud, the syrup season is over. Enjoy the beutiful spring weather while it lasts!

Howland Farmers Market

Tomorrow I have a meeting of the Howland Farmers Market Steering Committee. We participated in the market last summer and met lots of great people, established some contacts and had a fairly successful season.

We’ve kept in contact with some of those customers by establishing a monthly delivery to WineStyles which is across the street from the township park where the market is held. They’ve been very accommodating there, it gets a little more foot traffic for them and I’ve gotten some great wine information from the owner, Mark Rhodes.

The steering committee will be looking at logos, branding and some other ways to move the market to a new level. The group that volunteered to take this project on is such a great, interesting group of people that I’m really looking forward to sharing information and no doubt, getting some great marketing ideas for our farm.

Hopefully we’ll come up with some exciting things for the market season which I’ll be able to share with you soon.