Tools...

...for removing a stopper-with a hole for an airlock-from a fermenting vessel.

Early in the sunlight

in the farmhouse

and a visit to the Bees after the storm

It was a long trudge out to the hives...

But I am glad I went to give them an air hole. I left the rest of the snow for insulation.

Valentines Day storm

"...eyes like windows

trickling rain..."
excerpted lyrics by Cat Stevens
"upon the pain getting deeper..."

...and then it snowed again.

Processing Grains...a winter activity

Farmer Bill is having some prototypes of machines for processing grains built by Lu Yoder. A few of us got together to try them out today.

This is him adding the black bean plants to the Thresher. The plants were just pulled up. No need to separate the hulls. 

And then just exercise for a few minutes...

Remove empty hulls and repeat.

The result is beans and smaller pieces of plant that we then bring to the Winnower.

Again get on for a little more exercise while someone pours the beans in the top and watch for beans in the slot to know how fast to ride. Here he is choosing the right size screen that will bounce the beans and debris while a fan blows the lighter stuff out and the beans fall onto a slide and into the box on the side.

Black beans...ready to eat.

This Dehuller removes a harder casing on things like rice. All very exciting for smaller farms. For more check out The Ivory Silo Seed Project facebook page and this video called Grain Bikes.

From farm to table for Thanksgiving

Long Pie Pumpkin for Pie

Turkey from Copicut Farms

and lots of other yummy dishes, some grown by others

Grace's amazing Butternut Sage Galette was a hit! The sage and butternut were ours.

And how is the honey wine coming along?

Ready to Oak.

Now I have some aging in a bottle and some in oak for comparison.

What else is fermenting?

Another bushel of pears!

From Buckle Farm solely to ferment. Instead of using the press today,

we are cutting and layering them with other ingredients,

including honey,

in a 5 lb fermenting crock.

Thanks to our friends, this job is Done!

Whats fermenting?

Concord Grape projects:

Honey wine from the second concord grape wine batch bubbling again with the honey.

To be aged in Oak.

The barrel must be swelled by filling with water for a few days, like a boat, so it can hold liquid instead of float on it.

Daily Harvest from the kitchen garden(and the freezer and root cellar)

For venison stew with shitaki mushrooms root veggies and chives.

I also use these scraps from the week of cooking for a flavor packet.

and slow cook it all day for a nourishing meal after hard work. I dont publish my recipes because they are made up each time by what is available. I encourage to eat seasonally, shop at farmers markets, grow a kitchen garden and create through inspiration. For this meal I used venison hunted by my brother, macomber turnips from our fields, onions from our root cellar, dried shitaki mushrooms carrots and celery root from my farmers market, and herbs from my own kitchen garden.

Another walk in the fall

Reflecting as the trees let go,

leaves fluttering down..

showing us the way,

to say good bye with grace

to last years old junk.

Nostalgia; we reminisce, rummage, feel remorse, repress,

bemoan, burrow, brood over

the beautiful past as it dies before our eyes...

while the trees bare themselves gently, letting go as the color fades, and then sleep until they start to create new life.

In the fields late in the season

Turnips greens and other roots

and beautiful dried objects with potential for new life

Even if these still green fields bear little more.

All Hallows' Eve

Remember this?

We had to Pick it up with this.

To bring it to the city to awe the children and their parents who were Trick or Treating.

Bill grew two very large pumpkins just in compost. No artificial fertilizer was used. This one made it all the way to Cambridge where children stopped to see it everyday for a week leading up to Halloween.

Samhain(pronounced sah-win) means Summers End, was celebrated in Celtic countries the eve of October 31st to the eve of November 1st, marked the end of the Harvest season and the beginning of Winter or the "dark half of the year." 

And it is getting very dark this weekend at least in the evening.

Checking in with bees

 There are a few flowers left in the fall for bees to forage. This was earlier in October.

But they are beginning to cluster especially on the colder days.

When I took the first picture 3 bees came out of the cluster to see what was happening at their entrance.

On the same day, October 24th, the flowers seemed to have already been pollinated. But a few days later the farmer responsible for cover crops was on his tractor in a field and saw so many foraging bees that he stopped cutting to give them a chance to gather more. We are worried for their well being this winter.

Yesterday they got their new late fall entrance, but today the weather was nice and they were hanging out on the front stoop and checking it out.