Winter on the Farm

Greetings bosom buddies!

I'm terribly sorry about the lengthy gap in time between farm-updates, but I'm afraid the winter here has been a little less than scintillating... We played lots of cards, watched some Psych, Foyle's War and Jeeves & Wooster; Made a few trips to the Twin Cities and to Chicago; attended a weekly class in Stillwater on G.K. Chesterton taught by none other than Dr. Loome himself -- but all in all, there has been very little to blog about until recently.

One slightly noteworthy occurrence was when a big doe spent the afternoon meandering about the barnyard a few weeks ago.

But to tell you the truth, this winter has been interminable. Indeed, 'it was cold, it was gray, and it felt like it was going to last me the rest of my life...' Perhaps we should have moved North one state at a time, experiencing slightly longer, harsher winters over the course of a few years, and finally settling into the never ending, Hoth-like madness that is winter in Northern Wisconsin. That being said, the last two weeks we finally started to see thawing and even got a few days in the lower 50's. 

Over the last two weeks we had two adventures, one blissful and the other quite wretched. Let us begin with the latter, so as to end on a happier note.

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We haven't been the only ones on the farm itching to get out of doors and to soak up a little sunshine; our chicks try to flee the coop every chance they get. However, we have neither fencing nor a guardian dog in place to protect them so we've been keeping them locked up for the time being. 

Last Thursday morning was too beautiful though and Stephanie gave in to temptation and let them out. She set up her computer at the kitchen window and was going to keep an eye on our little flock. After all I was going to be heading out to stack a load of wood we'd been given by a friend of Don and Arlene's (Steph's maternal grandparents) and would be relatively close at hand. 

When I left the house to attend to the wood something was amiss: the chickens were making a frightful ruckus. Our barn yard is still mostly covered bulging ice, so I couldn't sprint altogether, but I ran as best I could. Stephanie screamed that there were dogs. I ran faster. I cursed that I didn't have the shotgun loaded and in my hand. I wondered what sort of carnage I was about to encounter.

As I rounded the garage and the coop came into view most of the chickens were wildly fluttering back into the relative safety of the coop. One of our prized layers, the Buff Orpingtons, was in the mouth of the attacking canine and a smaller hen lay already mortally wounded in the tall grass. There were three dogs on the scene. Two were large labs, but for whatever reason they stood back and observed rather than enter the fray--lucky for us. The third dog, presently molesting one of our most productive hen, was a smaller though rather rotund bird dog of some type. As I raced past the fleeing hens and roosters toward the assailant I drew back my mighty right leg and punted the little bastard (sorry) a good 10 feet across the yard. The blow, delivered with my steel toed boot, caused him to release the hen and he limped off into the corn field to rejoin his cowardly mates. 

Steph showed up moments later (without the gun sadly) and we assessed the damage. We'd only lost one bird, though we weren't sure the Buff would make it. One rooster had cleverly escorted a handful of hens to safety on the far side of the building -- that was a relief. The surviving flock was highly agitated though, and took a number of hours to settle down. 

We learned our lesson and will be babysitting the flock whenever we let them out until our safety measures are in place. We're pretty much set on getting our dog as soon as we get back from a trip to La Crosse and Chicago next weekend.

The occasion was both infuriating and vexing -- I don't know that anything in life is more mystifying than wanton and frivolous destruction of life. We would be sad if a coyote or bird of pray took one of the chickens, but at least there would be a point: hunger -- I can relate to that. But killing for killing's sake, there's a touch of the diabolical in that.

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On a far, far happier note we spent much of our free time over the last two weeks at Don and Arlene's stringing lines for their maple syrup operation.

As I've noted before, it was through their generosity (along with that of our good friend Charlie Eldredge) that the house stayed heated this winter. We must have taken a good 10 cords of wood out of their forest this past fall and winter. So, finding a small way to repay them was both warranted and welcomed!

I'd spent a good deal of time in their woods but never during the action of the sap season, so seeing it all in action was rather exciting!

 I'll outline briefly how it works:

Their sugar bush (the traditional name for a syrup farm) has a total of 2,800 taps, with most trees having between 1 and 3 taps, a few having as many as 5. The number of taps depends on the size and health of the tree.

To get the sap from the trees and into their boiling shed they use a network of long plastic tubes. There are four or five permanent main lines in their forest onto which there connect dozens of smaller lines strung from tree to tree. These smaller lines have to be taken down each spring after the sap run and then strung again the following winter. This latter task was ours. After the lines are strung and hooked onto the trees, new taps have to be drilled and the taps hammered into the tree. There were a few teams of volunteers there on Saturday getting this done too.

Most of the lines work just on gravity, thanks to the hilly layout of the sugar bush, but there are vacuums in some places to help out as well as on the main lines to get the sap up to the shed.

Each of the four days that we worked, Arlene spent the morning rinsing the tubes out one last time and then heating them so that they could stretch the necessary distance between the trees. Stretching is key as it keeps the lines straight and allows gravity to do its part. In total, Don and Arlene must have at least a hundred lines, which Arlene keeps organized with masterful detail.

Arlene and I Planning Our Morning Route

Generally we would show up around 10am so it was warm enough to string, get our snow gear on and figure out a game plan. Then we'd load up the snowmobile and sled and head out into the woods. Three of the four days a  really nice neighbor named Reed was there helping out too, so we were able to have two teams stringing at the same time to speed up the process: Steph and I and Don and Reed.  If the lines get too cold they don't stretch and end up breaking repeatedly, so we could only take a handful of lines out at a time, which meant lots of fun trips in the snowmobile.

Starting a new line

The stringing always got easier as the temperature went up and the sun got stronger. And by the end of the fourth day (last Saturday) we were rather adroit at putting just enough pressure on to get the requisite stretch without breaking anything. For mending purposes Steph got to carry a Power Puff Girls backpack with snips, a blow torch, extra tubing, tube connectors, and other odds and ends . Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the cool backpack, Steph somehow eluded the camera whenever wearing it...

A 'one tapper' at the end of a line

I'd driven Don and Arlene's snowmobile once before, and apparently that was a full enough resume to appointed the chief snowmobile driver for the week. The snowmobile seats two, and then there's a place for one person to stand on the back of the slay. So we'd whip around the woods, me driving and experiencing a welcome surge in testosterone, Steph holding on tight to me and navigating us through the winding forest paths, and Don standing on the back of the slay like a Nordic god, letting out youthful cries of delighted excitement. The one time all four of us rode back in together, Reed got to ride in the sled with the blankets that we used to keep the tubing warm.

Assembling another load of warm tubing

Ready to head back into the woods

One of the fun parts of the line stringing was getting to hang out with Don and Arlene's awesome dog Buster. Bust is a big goofy mutt that is unwaveringly loyal and loves running through the woods. Whenever we'd drive out to the woods or back in for more lines or for lunch Buster would race the snowmobile and usually win. 

Buster atop his snowy perch

The best part of stringing though was getting to spend lots of quality time with Don and Arlene. Each day Arlene made a big old fashioned lunch that we all sat down to together. There was much conversation about spring and summer; about the garden and berry picking and small town festivals; about ice cream and day trips to specialty shops. 

We are both delighted to have great jobs working from home, but the long winter has proven to be a bit monotonous and the change of pace and the wonderful company was welcomed, nay, treasured.