We're going nuts

Ginny and I attended a fascinating training seminar in Ithaca this month that focused on growing nuts from nut trees. The two presenters were established nut growers who talked excitedly for two hours about chestnuts, hazelnuts (“filberts” if you prefer), walnuts, hickory nuts, and acorns. 

So now we have a bunch of chestnut and hazelnut seedlings on order. We’ll plant them and hope they grow up without first becoming deer food. If all goes well we will be harvesting in “only” 7-10 years. 

In the meantime, we can do some gathering of wild nuts and acorns that are already dropping from trees scattered about Kettle Ridge Farm. I suspect it will turn into a race to see who gets to them first: us, or the squirrels.

"So how did KettleFest go?"

I have been asked that question many times since our inaugural KettleFest took place exactly one month ago. Perhaps I am not the best person to judge, since I was running around most of the day and not really able to stop and partake in the activities. But I am happy to report that everyone we’ve spoken to has said they enjoyed it. Here is a sampling of the post-event responses we received via email.

“What a FABULOUS event…Perfect day, super spot, kind folks.”

“We loved it all!”

“It was relaxing and peaceful, with a wonderful mix of young families and adults with no satellites.”

“The music was great, and I really appreciated seeing people hanging around and listening to the musicians.”

“I found it amusing for me, but I really wanted to see the chicken races in the chunnel – we saw it and were delighted, along with all the others who were watching.”

“We had a great time at KettleFest! Music was quite entertaining and vendors were friendly and happy to be participating in the event.”

“Thanks for putting on this event – we very much so enjoyed it. I think there was just the right amount of booths, displays, vendors, and activities.”

“We thoroughly enjoyed KettleFest. Seems to me you thought of everything! Food vendors were yummy…Craft booths also were top notch and varied…Musical bands we heard were great…So glad we attended.”

“The workshops I attended were great. Chef Jeff’s cooking class was the highlight of the day for me.”

“It was a great family event and we will look forward to future KettleFests!”

My excuse for not blogging

It’s been several months since posting an entry to this blog, so I have forced myself to come up with a believable excuse. Why not blame the invasive plants found on Kettle Ridge Farm?

Most days have found me spending a couple of hours or more out in the woods attempting to thin out our non-native invasives: honeysuckle, multi-flora rose, Japanese barberry, oriental bittersweet, and buckthorn. Time I could have spent writing.

The worst invader: Swallowwort. Also known as dog-swallowing vine.

Swallowwort seems to be everywhere on the lightly-shaded portions of our property. Some sections are carpeted with the weed and may have already swallowed a few dogs. This perennial plant grows fast, has deep roots, and is very resilient. Deer do not eat it. Its many seed pods develop in late summer and operate just like milkweed. Each pod opens to release dozens of seeds attached to their own little umbrellas to be carried off by the wind. Swallowwort seeks bushes and small trees: the higher the vine climbs, the further its seeds will travel.

Speaking of milkweed, have you seen any monarch butterflies this year? We’ve spotted very few around Kettle Ridge Farm. The disappearance of the monarch is apparently a nationwide phenomenon. Swallowwort worsens the situation as monarch butterflies are apt to confuse it for a milkweed and lay their eggs on the plant. Larvae on a swallowwort plant will not survive.

I choose not to spray Roundup or other herbicides in an Agent Orange-like attack on our invasive plants. Roundup (glyphosate) will destroy just about any plant it comes in contact with, which means that a foliar spray application will inevitably kill a lot of good plants along with the bad. It probably has other bad effects on the environment too.

Not to mention that the stuff is darn expensive.

The approach I follow is called cut-stump treatment. I will cut the stalk or trunk of the offending plant and paint a little glyphosate on the exposed surface. Desirable plants are spared, and the amount of glyphosate required is miniscule compared to foliar treatments.

Obviously, cutting the stalks of tens of thousands of swallowwort plants takes a considerable amount of time. That is why is makes a good excuse for not doing other things I could be doing, like writing. But here it is in mid-October and the swallowwort have died back for the season.

So I will either have to pick up the pace of my writing, or find another excuse.

Officially open on Log Cabin Rd.

We held our “official” ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday at the new farmstead on Log Cabin Road. The weather was bright and warm–perfect after many days of torrential downpours.

During the previous week we had delivered flyers inviting our new neighbors to an open house prior to the ribbon cutting. We suspected they might be curious about the new farming enterprise in the neighborhood, and this would be a good opportunity to show them what we are up to and allay any concerns they might have. Many of them came, along with several of our old friends, and it turned out to be a grand time.

Ginny commented afterwards on how much she enjoyed meeting and talking with the neighbors. I guess so! She missed the ribbon cutting taking place up at the sugarhouse because she was so involved with her new friends down on the flats.

That was okay with me. Chris and I handled the official duties, first posing with a chainsaw, and then using the traditional scissors. We thank the Victor Chamber of Commerce and the offices of NYS Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb and State Senator Rich Funke for attending the ceremony and offering their words of encouragement.

We’re excited about operating our farm in Victor. We believe Kettle Ridge Farm can be a positive contributor in the way of agri-tourism and we’re very appreciative of the community support we receive.

Chunnel Love

I had never heard of a “chunnel” before receiving an email from Chris’s future mother-in-law Barb. She knew that we had been losing chickens to hawks, and she had just run across something on the internet describing a chicken tunnel, or chunnel. Might this be a good idea for protecting chickens, she wondered?

Why yes, it was a great idea for protecting chickens, while still giving them the freedom to be outdoors during the day. A chunnel is simply a tube made out of wire fencing that chickens can travel through, but cannot escape. And predators can’t get in, at least in theory.

I quickly set to work designing my chunnel. Turns out there a lots of different chunnel designs on the internet, but none seemed to meet my criteria: simple to build, able to be moved around, and cheap. So I came up with my own design.

I purchased 100 feet of welded wire fencing, five feet in width. I would unroll 50 inches and snip through the wires, and then do it again, and again, until I ran out of fencing. I let the natural curve of the rolled fence form the sides and top of the chunnel, so I ended up with a bunch of 5-foot long chunnel sections that could be stuck into the ground end to end.

To make the sections sturdier, and give them more mobility, I zip-tied two 24-inch pieces of pvc pipe cross-wise on the bottom of each chunnel piece. I could line the sections up straight, or give them some bend.

Within a couple of hours I had our chickens out in their new 100-foot long chunnel. (Not quite true: It took me several days to design and build a framed box attaching the chunnel to the chicken coop that would accommodate their chicken door along with access to the space underneath the coop where the chickens like to hang out on hot days.)

I’m pretty sure our feathered friends enjoy their chunnel and feel secure in it. When we walk through the yard, they all come flying through the chunnel to greet us. It is actually fairly humorous.

And it gave me another idea: chicken chunnel races. We have KettleFest coming up on September 26, and so we’ll have an event where the kids can select their chickens and root for them as they run from one end of the chunnel to the other. It should be a gas.