Our First Livestock Arrives

 Our newest additions arrived at the end of April, 50 Rhode Island Red chicks and 6 Cayuga ducklings! They came packed in this little box via the U.S. postal service, all of them were safe and sound. We are so excited about having them on the farm. The chicks will be in a movable "chicken tractor" once they are old enough to tolerate the lower temps. The "tractor" will be moved every day within a fenced area and then the whole fence will be moved every few days to ensure they always have fresh pasture and lots of new bugs to eat. They will be laying beautiful brown eggs starting this fall which we hope to offer in our farm stand. 

The ducks will be our garden helpers! The love to forage for slugs and other garden pests. This breed originated on Cayuga Lake New York and is therefore hearty for this area. They are a quite and docile breed which will lay approx. 150 eggs per year. We are not sure how many males and females we have yet since they came to us as a straight run (not sexed from the hatchery), but we hope to also offer duck eggs in our farm stand at some point. Duck eggs are slightly larger than chicken eggs and are sought after by bakers for the excellent results they produce. 

Here they are checking out their new home under the brooder lamp. They will stay here for the next 4 weeks or so until it is safe the put them on pasture.

So cute!

 And here, less than two weeks later are the ducklings on their first outing into the yard. They were so much fun! They pretty much think everyone is a duck and easily followed the kids where ever they went. They nibbled on grass and dandelions and had a blast in the little bucket of water we set out for them!

Sorry no updated chick photo's yet but they also are growing fast and already have wing and tail feathers growing in! We will try to post updated pics as they grow.

Growing Update

The growing has begun in the high tunnels! We have cukes and tomatoes already planted and will be adding peppers and eggplant soon. You can see our soon to be farm stand off in the background, it needs quite a makeover but will be so cute when finished!

 We had some very frosty nights as you can see from this photo of Mt. Washington bright white and covered with snow. It was such a contrast from the greenery and blooming flowers down here in the valley.

Planting Onions

 Onions went in the ground today. We started some by seed earlier in the year but they don't seem to be doing well so we are planting sets. One row of white, one of red, and one of yellow. We are excited and hopeful that these will do well. We are also going to try and plant some of the seedlings to see which does better.

After all that hard work planting onions we ended the day with a beautiful sun set!

St. Patricks Day at Grand View Farm

 What a crazy winter we are having this year! March 17th when we are usually buried in snow, we are enjoying an early spring! The crocus' are out and so are the...

 ...bees!!!

Our birthday boy, Mr. St. Patrick himself with the bees, we had to add this one just for the record books! It was in the 70's and is predicted to be the same all week!  Instead of making maple syrup today, it looks like we are making honey!

And what were the bees in such a "buzz" about so early in the season? 

The silver maples had just blossomed! This huge tree is just in front of the hives, as soon as you got close to it you actually could hear it buzzing! It was an amazing sound!!! Something we have never witnessed before!

The high tunnels got a dose manure and soil amendments today too. They are now ready for spring planting!

Sugaring Season!

This is our first year making maple syrup to sell! Last year we had about 25 taps and this year we have about 150!  We streamlined the operation by using tubing and tanks and it has made a big difference! 

Here are some pics of the process:

Tubing going up.

Monitoring the mainline...

 

The first taps going in! We taped on February 13th this year! Amazingly early for NH, it was sooooo warm we couldn't pass up the early sap run. It has been a very warm season and unfortunately makes it a short one too!

We also put up some buckets, sugaring is not the same without those metal buckets hanging on the trees!

The first drop!

Here is a photo of last years "sugar house" and "evaporator"...

 

 ... and here is this years "sugar house"... yes we are moving up in the world... still not a real sugar house but better than last year!!!

 

 This years evaporator has improved too! We purchased this one on Craigs List from a man who moving south and was selling all his supplies.

 A couple of photo's of our set up, sap is pumped from a holding tank outside into this pre-heating pot. Then the sap makes it's way through the copper tubing and into the pan. By the time it gets there it is steaming hot and prevents us from losing the boil in the pan.

Our sugar tent house filled with steam!

 

 Checking the temp!

 

You can really see the difference of color in the sap here. The sap on the left almost done!

The first syrup going into the jars!

We love these glass jugs! They will be for sale in our farm stand this summer or you can contact us using the "for sale" page to purchase them before we open.