VEGETABLES NOW AVAILABLE!

The garden has started producing, and we have vegetables available.  We also have free-range eggs available on a limited basis.  Abrahm has his own flock of laying hens, and we can't keep up with their production.  Egg money goes to his piggy bank!

Call or email to place your order.

Bare feet and smoothies

We've moved from syrup season to full-fledged spring.  The grass is greening, the first seeds have sprouted in Abrahm's garden (the big garden is not yet tilled), and we've had many days warm enough to warrant bare feet and smoothies. 

We're hoping for a stretch of dry weather so that we can get the first sections of the production garden ready for planting.  Our cows are thriving on fresh pasture, we've acquired baby goats, and we're beginning to feel the oncoming mania of spring on the farm. 

We're planning to start building our house, and so we are not offering vegetable CSA shares this year; Instead, contact the farm to buy produce directly or visit http://www.westernmainemarket.com/ to buy produce through the online market for Farmington delivery.  We're still offering pork shares.

Maple Syrup

Maple syrup season has come and gone, and we've finished about 16 gallons of syrup.  We've determined that at 68 taps, our evaporator has reached its capacity.  We walk the woods and see always more prospects for more taps.  But until we can procure a bigger evaporator, we'll try to restrain our impulse to expand the sugarbush.

Some new blog features

You can now read the 2009 CSA newsletters on the blog.  And, as we move into the growing season, we'll keep a weekly list of what's available from Counterpoint Farm.

It's 2010 already...

Yes, it's been a long time since we've posted anything.  Winter is supposed to be the slow time on the farm, but it just doesn't seem very slow lately.  The combination of work (cabinetry for Ben, nursing for me), farm, and the boys fills more hours than we have available.

Ben is finishing my parents' new kitchen cabinetry, and is the primary farm maintenance person.  Given our skid steer's propensity for tire troubles (flat tires, bent rim, sheared-off bolts, to name a few), that might as well be a full time job.  Thankfully, the snow accumulations have not come anywhere close to the last few years, so that's one less time-consuming task.  Once the new kitchen is fully installed, we'll post a few photos to show off his craftsmanship.  They're really beautiful.

Updates on Abrahm: he's discovered the delights of "chapter books".  We've plowed through all the E.B.White books (Charlotte's Web, etc), 4 of the Little House on the Prairie books.  He's also discovered the intrigues of an atlas and an encyclopedia of animals.  We visit the library regularly, and stagger out the door under the weight of many, many books.  He's gotten very proficient with puzzles.  We have a few Dutch and German puzzles, which are notably harder as they don't have the typical notch and knob shapes.  Probably another reason why American kids are behind the global intellectual curve.  He also maintains his passions for machinery and farm animals.  He's also looking forward to the completion of a dogsled-building project that Uncle Will has undertaken on his behalf.  He's been practicing his gee and haw, but I'm afraid they're not going to mean much to Cooper.

Samuel is almost 8 months, and thankfully is not yet mobile, as his brother was at that age.  He's generally easy-going, and loves to eat.  He must have inherited his father's metabolism, as he never seems to get much bigger around.

The farm is at a point where we need to make decisions about how much time we're able/willing to commit to it.  To what degree do we try to earn a livable income, use the land to sustain ourselves, or keep going somewhere in between those two possibilities as we've done the last few years.  We've decided to switch to growing just for farmers' market, rather than CSA, to ease the rigidity of time constraints.  As we start to plan and build a permanent house (and the yurt becomes the wood-working shop), we need more time.  And we need to have time to be more available to the boys, and to take advantage of Maine's outdoor recreation.  If we're going to grow commercially, we also need a few years to do more intensive soil amendment and water management.  Even without the CSA, there will be few idle moments...

We're gearing up for more forestry work (for firewood and for house-building lumber), and for maple syruping.  I'll try to get a few photos into this post too.

Thar she blows, or I guess in this case he

The Unimog has arrived! As the title suggests it is quite a large fellow. Abrahm has dubbed him Otto, and is thoroughly enjoying our latest acquisition. I think Abrahm has logged by far the most seat time so far, and he is more than willing to tell anyone and everyone anything they would like to know about Otto. We have not put the truck to use much so far, but we have big plans for the near future. It is kind of hard to put the truck's size in perspective, but its tires are quite a bit taller than Abrahm and as you can see in the pictures the sides of the bed are higher than my head. Otto does need a new set of tires which of course I cannot go down to the local tire shop to procure, so I have been searching the internet for tires that will do the job and not break the bank. At the moment I am also waiting for a local eaxcavation contractor to come and help me get the loader out of the back of the truck. We have discovered that one of the benefits of having such a tall truck is that you can use it as a platform for picking apples that are too high off the ground to reach any other way. Once the loader is out of the back we'll be able to put a ladder in the back and reach even more!

We have plenty of fall projects going on around here as well. We need to set up some fence for the cows that we will be getting in early October. We were offered a few cows from the fellow that we buy grain from and after a brief inspection we were completely sold on them. They are a cross between Scotch Highland, and Black Angus. They do not have horns anymore which is just fine with us, and they are very mellow which is great since I'm sure that Abrahm will want to spend a fair amount of time right in with them. He is quite the little farmer, often reminding us about various chores that we may have forgotten, and doing what ever he can to help. All reasons that we wanted to make a life like this.

Samuel is continuing to grow and change. He is quite a happy and mellow little guy. He loves to laugh already, and is beginning to reach for things which of course also means he's sticking any item he gets a hold of in his mouth. Both he and Abrahm are enjoying another extended visit from Grandma, and I think she is having a good time even though she is either occupied full time with the boys or preserving food for us. Not exactly a restful vacation I guess.

Unimog

Well, the biggest news of the last few weeks is that we have acquired a Unimog. It's a Mercedes vehicle, used more commonly in Europe, which has features of both a truck and a tractor. It has a front and rear PTO, 3-pt hitch, dump box, front loader, 4 wheel drive, and high clearance. We're intending it to do field work, get logs out of the woods (with a Farmi winch on the back), and be a general hauler. We've realized that the skid steer is not versatile enough for our needs, so it's now for sale and the Unimog is soon to be trucked from southern Indiana to us. Ben and Abrahm took a road trip to scout out this vehicle before we decided about buying it. They did a marathon drive (40+ hours of driving over 3 days), and confirmed that it was purchase-worthy. Abrahm brought a small library and some machinery to keep him occupied, and Ben had hours of non-stop commentary to keep him awake.

More news and photos soon. The blogger site doesn't seem to be functioning right....