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....

Late blight, plague, smallpox

In that context, late blight doesn't sound so bad. But when we first identified late blight in our tomatoes, I wanted to throw up my hands and scream at the weather gods who conspired to create this wet, cold, fungus-brewing summer. I found the first signs of late blight (the cause of the Irish potato famine, to put its seriousness in perspective) the day after I finished trellising all our tomatoes. So I probably spread it to every one of our plants. We're infected beyond control at this point. We're still spraying copper, but it feels a bit like spitting at a house on fire to try to put it out. Every day there are more plants showing signs. So we keep pulling plants, and revising our tomato hopes - from quantities sufficient for supplying the CSA and canning a year's worth, down to just enough that Abrahm gets to eat some fresh. He's been talking about growing (and eating) tomatoes since last winter.

It's August already, and it's just starting to feel like summer. We had such a nice stretch of weather recently that we almost forgot the 17 inches of rain we've had this summer. Until yesterday, when we got another inch of rain in 20 minutes! At least we needed some rain - just not that much, that fast. It's raining again now, and again foiling our attempts to get the garden under some semblance of control. We resorted to mowing down big areas of the garden, to keep the weeds from dropping seed. It's not a good sign when it's satisfying to mow the garden rather than weed it!

The pigs seem to be thriving despite the wet summer. We haven't had to worry about making a wallow for them; most of their pen serves that purpose. Our turkey numbers have dwindled dramatically (14 down to 3), thanks in part to a hungry, and now probably obese, fox. We resorted to getting a late batch of meat chickens as a quicker-to-raise source of protein. They're growing well, and as soon as they have a few more feathers, we'll put them out in the garden in a portable pen so they can eat their way through the weeds.

The Turners have been here to hay our field, in our hay-for-firewood swap. Firewood? Yes, we're surrounded by a jillion cords of wood, but most of them are vertical still. And we're realizing that it's going to be a while until we have any hay-eating critters, so this is still our barter. We'd like to make our own hay, but that's also a ways off. We're missing the key elements of hay machinery and time.

In people news (I'm not sure what this indicates, that I report on vegetables and animals first)... Abrahm ran his first race last weekend, the one-mile kids' race at the Blueberry Festival. Ben ran with him, and reported that he (Abrahm) chattered about the machinery seen (real and imagined) over the whole course. He wanted to stop only once, when the course ran along the river, as he wanted to go explore in the water. The best Abrahm quote of the last week, while he was on his excavator, trying to dig a root out of his sand pile: "This excavator can't get the root out. It's doing its best. The thumb is a powerful tool, but it's just not up to the job." Where does he come up with this stuff? He is learning to use a camera with our old one. Not surprisingly, he wanted to take pictures of the hay bales.

Samuel continues to eat, grow, sleep, and charm us with his delightfully wordless communication. We're thankful for his mellow personality, willingness to sleep, and easy-going ways that balance out the intensity of his older brother. We see Samuel start to look adoringly at Abrahm and his antics, and it's not too hard to imagine the mischief they will get into together in not too many months!

Speaking of Samuel, he is now awake, so I'd better wrap this up.

Leslie

Busy

There's so more succinct way to describe our life right now. Running the farm with a 3 year old and 2 month old (and no daycare anymore) is just a recipe for running in too many directions at once. Overall, it's going as well as (or better than) I expected. Life has been helped immensely by improvement in the weather. It still rains frequently, but not with the extremes of June and early July. I believe we ended up with 14.4 inches of rain in just over 6 weeks. Over the last few weeks we've had a window of better weather that has let us be in the garden more. Some areas we just tilled under and started over. Those that we didn't, we're trying to catch up on weeding. The garden is looking surprisingly good, especially if you don't know that a large area that was supposed to be our corn patch looks like lawn since we mowed down the weeds!

Samuel is growing exponentially, it seems, and is 2 months old tomorrow. He has recently started sleeping through the night. He had been on a 11-1-3-5am wake-up routine which got tiresome quickly. So we decided that Ben would take Samuel down to my aunt and uncle's house, which was conveniently vacant during their vacation. We'd feed him at his first wake-up, and then let him get himself through the rest. We expected major crying with this plan, but he must have known the jig was up, and he started sleeping from 6:30pm to about 5am. Hurray!

Abrahm continues his fascination with all things mechanical. Recently he told me, while pointing to various parts of the engine of a scale-model tractor, that "there are connections between gas tank and the throttle, and between the gas tank and the engine." How does he put this stuff together? He spends hours each day playing with his fleet of machinery (one set for inside, another for outside). Those machines that he doesn't actually have, he imagines. So you might hear him narrating a building project with references to his Hitachi excavator, Caterpillar dozer, Komatsu excavator, Yanmar excavator, and Caterpillar excavator. Though he might have bought or sold more by now.

I'll let the photos say the rest. One of these days I need to do a photo retrospective too, to capture the months that elapsed when we fell off the blog wagon.

Leslie

Will the rain stop?

We're now up to 11.6 inches of rain in 18 days. There's no way to capture in photos the extent of sogginess in the garden (or anywhere else, for that matter). The crops that were well established by the time the rain started seem to be okay, but all the later plantings are gone. We're not quite sure how we'll fill our CSA members' weekly shares.

We've invested in a tiller, with the assumption that at some point (maybe next year) it will be dry enough to actually get it in the field. The photo comparison shows our BCS tiller next to a fairly standard-sized tiller that we had borrowed before we found the BCS. Despite its size, it's very maneuverable, and it can take other attachments.

Abrahm has been perusing heavy machinery brochures, perhaps in hopes of finding us something with which to establish better drainage in the garden. (See photo...)

The boys are both sleeping, and I probably should too.

Toad Drowner

I must give credit to Ivan Doig for that description of a rainy spell, but it was too perfect to pass up as the summary of our last few weeks. I think we've topped 6 inches of rain in the last 2 weeks. We're getting a bit water-weary, and each time it starts to rain again, Abrahm asks, "Why is it raining again?....Eventually, it will stop raining!" And we think, again and again, "I don't know why it's still raining, and I'm glad you continue to be optimistic that it will stop." Perhaps our next building project should be an ark, rather than garden shed, pig house, greenhouse, or any of the other of the current short-list of projects we're contemplating.

Vegetable shares have been beautiful and bountiful, despite the rain. All the leafy greens are enjoying this cool wet weather, and we have collard greens big enough to use as umbrellas. If only there were a way to weed without actually having to set foot in the garden. We're hoping that it dries soon enough that the roots and fruits aren't stunted or rotted.

In non-vegetable news, Samuel weighed in at 11lb, 9 oz today, and has gained more than 1 lb/week these last few weeks. He's quickly losing the brand-new newborn look. Abrahm continues to thrive as big brother. He is starting to take on the big-brother-as-entertainer role. He helps with harvest days, albeit with decidedly Abrahm-devised methods (eg harvesting the radishes with his backhoe). He went strawberry picking with Grandma and Paka today, and managed to get at least a few berries into the boxes instead of his belly.

That's it for now, as I should go take a walk (or mudslide) through the garden to see how things are faring.

Leslie

Back home

Back from where, you might be asking? The hospital, again. One week after we came home after Samuel's birth, I ended up back in the hospital for three days with a nasty bout of mastitis. Once again, we were thankful that Arlene willingly and capably held home and farm together in our absence. We are happy to be home together again. I am slowly regaining my strength, and trying to find ways to be useful without exerting myself too much.

This week is our first week of vegetable shares for our CSA shareholders. Ben, Arlene, and Abrahm harvested and packed shares this morning despite more than 2.5 inches of rain in the last couple days. We're ready for some warm dry weather. It doesn't seem quite right to be using the woodstove in mid-June!

brothers

Hello,

We started this post a few days back, and the photos disappeared. Somehow between Samuel feedings, a planting marathon in the garden, and a somewhat needier big brother, we've not gotten back to it until now. The photo of Abrahm on the loader is documentation of the very real need for special time dedicated to big brother. Ben had a skid steer part to pick up at the dealer, and he and Abrahm checked out (and climbed on) every piece of equipment possible!

The summary of life right now, as quoted to me by my Aunt Tini: "The days are long and the years are short." I might amend that to include, "the nights are even longer", as Samuel sleeps better during the day than at night. Nonetheless, we're doing okay, and are continually thankful for Ben's mom being here for help with children, cooking, and garden. Thank you Arlene!

That's it for now...
Leslie

A new addition to Counterpoint Farm

We welcome the newest addition to Counterpoint Farm:
Samuel David Bardo Geissinger
born May 28, weighing 8lb 13oz, 21.5"

Workin' away

Well lots has happened since the last post. We're making progress on the shed which now has power and the shop has walls with insulation. Having never run power underground or installed a service panel before made the last while quite interesting and a bit stressful at times, that part is behind me and now I just have a few outlets to install and I'll be done with the wiring for now.
It's been busy around here as usual trying to get the shed done enough to leave for Minnesota. Which is only about a week away now! Hooray!! We are all ready have a vacation. Abrahm is looking forward to meeting his new cousin, as are we, and Leslie and I are looking forward to some down time. We'll be driving out this time in hopes of saving money as well as avoiding air travel around the holidays. We'll be gone for about 3 weeks and look forward to seeing many friends and family there again.
I don't have any photos of the shed progress at this point so I'll keep it short and try to get some more here in the next few days.

Shed in the making

Well I'm not going to write a whole lot as I'm quite sure that there are very few readers at this point. I can't even remember the last time I posted on here. Here are some pictures of the shed from this past weekend. We've been making very good progress and I'm now waiting for some supplies from Hammond Lumber to do the floor in the shop area. I still need to dig a trench for the power, and run some cable so that I can wire things up for the shop. I'll be ready for bed pretty soon so I think I'll end this now. Hope you're all well. Ben

It's been a long time

We've been a bit lax in posting here, so I thought we had better fill everyone in on what's happening around here. We are still contending with new snow on very consistent basis, and to be honest we are getting a bit tired of it. We have heard that the total snow fall for this winter in Jay has been about 130". Last weekend I took a shovel around the back of the yurt so that I could dig out Abrahm's window which was entirely covered in snow all the way past the awning! Our window was not far from that either and even the windows on the south side which are quite high off the ground have snow up to about the middle . As I write this however we are having quite a good rainfall which has knocked down the snow piles somewhat. It's been fairly warm here for a while as well and so we now have the pleasure of dealing with a muddy driveway. We know spring is on the way, but it's a bit hard to imagine at this point. We're pretty ready to be done with the snow since this will also mean the end of snowmobile season. Way to many and way to loud is about all we need to say on that matter.
We have just sent out our first flier for Full Circle Farm which is the name of our place. We'll be offering a few vegetable shares in a CSA setup this year as well as pork and soap shares. We're quite excited about being able to really start farming this spring, but also a bit overwhelmed. The snow of course does not exactly help in spring preparations, but we are lucky in that we will have a bit of established garden space courtesy of our neighbors Leslie's aunt and uncle. We will be working up some more ground as soon as things are dry enough and that is also part of the pork share plan. Our pigs will be enlisted in working up an area of future garden which is quite a handy way to do it, and they are quite good at it!
Leslie is still enjoying school which she finds generally not too difficult, but still a lot of work. She has recently started to do a bit of fiddling (violin) with a friend of ours who has a couple of gigs lined up for the coming months. It is great for her to get back to playing and to have something other than farm or school to keep her creative juices flowing.
I've been in a welding training program since the beginning of February. It has been fun, but also very challenging. I had never welded anything in my life before starting this program. I've learned quite a lot already, but realize that I have much more to learn. It is nothing like woodworking, but it is quite rewarding. I'm quite close to getting my first structural certification, and after that I will move on to pipe welding, which from what I hear is more difficult. I have about six weeks left in the program and then I'm expected to head out into the field and begin work on a huge project for the company I'm working for. We will see what happens in that regard as the job site is about 2 hours away and they are expecting overtime right from the beginning. I've mostly been interested in this program so that I will be able to make repairs around here on farm machinery and the like, but we'll see. At this point I'm just hoping to learn as much as I possibly can from my instructor who is an amazing welder.
Abrahm continues to busy himself with all matter of toy machines from tractors to trains, but he is also developing a great love of books. It's great fun to sit with him and ready book after book. He's still not very interested in talking, or I should say not interested in speaking English. He often keeps up a pretty steady commentary in his own tongue. He is picking up words hear and there and also showing much more interest in mimicking sounds and words that he hears. I still find it amazing to watch him learn and experiment with new things. A good reminder that the world is truly an amazing and rich place. I forgot to mention that he has also started to help me bake bread. He has a great time wearing and apron and measuring and mixing the ingredients. He also has a great time consuming the end product!
Well I think that is all for now. We are looking forward to a trip back to Minnesota in less than a week. Which will be a wonderful chance to relax and reconnect with friends and family.