Taft Hill Farm: Part 1

Taft Hill farm house

A hilltop view worth sweet coin-operated binoculars

The barn

     Ten o'clock Sunday morning found us pulling into the driveway of Taft Hill Farm in West Townshend, VT. Robert welcomed us to their farm and introduced us to his wife, Kathy, to Jamie and Dan, their season-long WWOOFers, and Alex, a weekend volunteer. After a brief overview of the operations and expectations, we dove into our first day of work. Randy set off with Robert and Dan to pick up a woodstove for the WWOOFer apartment, while Holly, Jamie, and Alex worked on cleaning out some of the chicken coops.
There are seven different poultry coops on the farm, which are necessary for Taft Hill's chicken breeding program. All chickens are descended from some combination of the red junglefowl, green junglefowl, and grey junglefowl of Southeast Asia. Taft Hill has been creating New Heritage breeds by going back to these feral ancestors of modern chickens with the intention of breeding a more intelligent, hardier bird. After we finished with the coops, Randy, Robert, and Dan returned with the new stove. Before we could begin finagling the 400 lb stove up the narrow stairs, a horse trailer arrived from Tregellys Fiber Farm in Hawley MA to pick up a llama named Critter. Critter was an ornery critter, and Tregellys had agreed to take him off Robert and Kathy's hands. We barely knew the llama, but Dan and Jamie seemed as though they would miss his familiar face, even though it had attempted to bite them. Two interns on a neighboring farm, Brian and Naz, showed up to help with the llama relocation, and were soon roped into helping move the colossal stove. Jamie and Dan were excited for the new stove; apparently we had missed some chilly evenings in the apartment (though our previous evenings in the yurt were probably colder).

The epic WWOOFer apartment

We were also glad to have the new stove, and were luxuriating in the fully furnished WWOOFer apartment where we had our own bedroom, a lovely common area with couches and skylights, and a full kitchen. Once the stove was in place, it was time for lunch. On the weekends Kathy always made a delicious lunch for the crew, and today it was a hearty vegetable soup. Kathy and Robert's son Luc joined us for lunch. After work Randy accompanied Robert to check on his new Randall Lineback heifer, who was staying at Meadow's Bee Farm, where Brian and Naz were working.

The legendary Randall Lineback heifer

Randall Linebacks are a rare heritage breed, one of the few remaining all-purpose cattle breeds, good for milk, meat, and draft. Jonny and Shelley at Coggeshall Farm Museum had mentioned that they would love to have this versatile breed, although the rarity and cost were prohibitive. Robert is hoping to ultimately build up his own small herd of Randalls on his farm, and he is starting with this heifer. The heifer was not used to interacting with humans, and there was to be much debate over the upcoming weeks on how best to integrate her into a working dairy.

Bandaging baby emu

Malachite in the barn aviary

     Over the next few days we got to know the Taft Hill animals a bit better. There are four rather skittish mineature horses (one of the more useless farm animals), two mineature donkeys (also without a clear purpose), and four emus with one surviving emu chick. The emus resembled Jim Henson creations with slightly less personality. "Baby emu" as he was called, had gotten a nasty cut about a week before we arrived, and every other day we had to clean his wound and change the bandage. He was not a fan of this procedure, and it often resulted in the person who had to hold him getting pooped or puked on. In addition to the emus, there were five sheep and one elderly llama, Lamorna, who was over 100 in llama years. A favorite morning activity was watching her eagerly scarf down any offered banana peels. There was also one peacock named Malachite, who used to have a few peahens, but they were killed by predators. Other poultry included a pair of Muscovey ducks with 8 ducklings, and about 100 chickens. As with every large flock of chickens, a few personalities stood out and deserved naming; these names included Gandalf and Lord Wellington. With so many chickens integral to the breeding program, any ill chicken was given special treatment, which included seclusion and daily vitamin C and garlic supplements.

Lamorna

     The next few days were spent gathering fallen leaves for chicken and sheep bedding, and mulching and putting the garden to bed. Any herbs or seeds that remained in the garden we collected to dry for use or replanting next year. On Tuesday we were all sitting around after dinner discussing the upcoming Harvest Festival when all the windows in the house rattled for a few seconds. We found it odd, but didn't really think about it. Then Luc looked it up online, and we had just felt a 4.0 earthquake that originated in Maine. There have been a lot of firsts on this trip, and this was the first time either of us had felt an earthquake. That was also the first night we had to put the close the animals up for the evening by ourselves. The chickens were easy, but the sheep, being skittish, were a bit tricky. You had to shake food at them so they would come into their stall, and then get past them to close the door without scaring them out. It took us a while to realize the matriarch was especially nervous around new men. Four tries and about an hour later, we discovered that if Holly shook the food inside, and Randy hid around the side of the barn, then once they were all in Holly could give the signal for Randy to sneak down and close the outside door.

Three of the sheep

Collecting (and eating) more apples

     Thursday we had our second opportunity to gather apple drops at a nearby orchard to press for cider at the Harvest Festival. It was Jamie, Dan, and ourselves in the pickup truck, with Jamie's parents following us (they were visiting from Texas and wanted to join in this traditional New England autumn activity). After taking more than one wrong turn, and making our way up a mountain on a winding, three-season dirt road, we arrived at the orchard. Green Mountain Orchards charges non-profits $40 for a truckload of drops, and with the sheer quantity of apples on the ground, we were able to fill the pickup in about an hour. Although we were surrounded by countless apples, we weren't quite as excited to eat our fill since we were still recovering from the last apple-cidering binge, but we did anyway. The ride home was even more exciting as Dan fought to control a squirrelly pickup overfilled with apples as it careened down the mountain. The smell of our burning breaks was thick around us when we finally made it to the valley.

West Townshend Country Store

     That night we were able to utilize our recently acquired pizza-making skills. Taft Hill Farm also had a cobb pizza oven, but theirs was down the hill next to the West Townshend Country Store. Robert and Kathy have been quite active in their community effort to save the West Townshend Post Office, which was faced with closure. Everyone came together to fight this, and now the community non-profit rents the space for $5 a month from a generous benefactor. The community also runs a thrift store above the post office, and is in the process of figuring out what they want the remaining space to look like. The pizza oven brings a festive spirit to this community space, and all of the proceeds from the pizza go towards continuing to create and maintain this important town landmark. Although there is pizza every Friday night, on this Thursday the oven was fired up for an end-of-the-season farmer's market vendor meeting and dinner. Brian and Naz came down for pizza too, and after the meeting was over and everything was cleaned up we went back to Meadow's Bee farm to hang out. We had a few beers, and they introduced us to two of their favorite pasttimes; hatchet throwing and the game Stump. To set up a game of Stump, the stump used as the hatchet throwing target was placed face-up, and every player chooses their nail, and hammers it barely into the stump. The goal was to hammer down everyone else's nail before yours is hammered in, but if your nail pops out (from not getting it started well enough), you loose. There's just one hammer, so you go in a circle, getting one chance to hammer one person's nail in. We held our own, but Brian or Naz usually won.
     In the middle of a game, we heard an odd screeching sound. At first we weren't sure what to make of it, but Brian ran and grabbed his .22, and told us to hop in the pickup. We went up to the chicken coop, and sure enough, a raccoon was in there getting his chicken dinner. Brian expertly dispatched the coon. Unfortunately the coon's intended meal also had to be put out of its misery due to intense neck trauma. Being the not-wasteful individuals that we are, we decided to process the chicken on the spot, illuminated by the pickup truck headlights. We even skinned the coon so Brian could someday have a coonskin cap. While a big pot of water was coming to a boil for chicken-plucking, Holly and Naz successfully disrobed the raccoon. Holly was pleased to realize that skinning a raccoon is rather like skinning anything else, and everyone was impressed with her skills. Amidst our macabre endeavor and surrounded by strewn about gore, Leigh, the owner of the farm, pulled up. This was our first introduction to her, and the four of us must've looked like insomniac taxidermists. Luckily, she was impressed with our gutsy handling of the situation and we got off on the right foot. The incident finally wrapped up around 2 a.m., and we collapsed in a dead sleep, looking forward to Friday's pizza night.

Fable Farm

Neighboring church

The Poop Temple

Upon arriving at Fable Farm in Barnard, VT we were greeted by Jonny and Jessie who gave us a tour of the farmhouse, which, along with their satellite fields, makes up the farm they co-own with Christopher and Brooke, Jonny's brother and sister-in-law. As we passed through the farm house into the back field, it seemed that we entered a whimsical agrarian wonderland. A giant striped tent contributed a playful circus feel, while nearby paper lanterns hung expectantly over a home-made stage waiting to illuminate performers.  A large outdoor kitchen with plenty of provisions and a gas stove allayed our fears of having to start a cookfire before every meal. Next our eyes were drawn to the "mama" apple tree, a huge ancient apple tree that had been there for generations, decorated with prayer flags, chalk boards, swings, and a hammock. On our way to the yurt we would be staying in, we strolled through the extensive garden where innumerable five-foot-high reddish-purple amaranth stalks gave way to a vast array of herbs, beans, tomatoes, and tomatillos.

Games by candlelight included "AC/DC: An Electric Circuit Game"

     Our yurtic accomodations were quite spacious, able to sleep up to 8 interns. Since it was so late in the season we shared it with only one other person, Carlo, and he left shortly after we arrived. Though our late-season visit granted us more privacy, the uninsulated, screened-in yurt was ill-equipped for the chilly Vermont October. Two other interns, Nico and Ida, had been at Fable Farm for most of the season, and had their own tipi a short distance from the yurt, and Mattie, another long-term intern, had a tent nearby.
     The next morning we were greeted by Chris, Jonny's brother, who introduced us to the herb spilanthes. Spilanthes is a little-known medicinal herb that is also called the "toothache herb" because eating one flower head will numb the mouth for up to twenty minutes. It also has antibacterial, antifungal, and immune-supporting properties. For anyone who hasn't tried it, it is an intense experience. The unsettling amount of tingling and the increased saliva production had us exchanging worried glances, but we trusted Chris and rode it out. Soon we were popping spilanthes regularly.

     With our natural mouthwash still buzzing, we hopped in the truck with Chris and his dog Selena to go to one of their 3 leased fields to gather beans. There we met Ida and Nico, who had came with Jonny, Justin, a previous WWOOFer who now had his own farm but still worked with Fable, and other friends who came to help with the harvest. We had never seen beans grown on that scale before; they had enough dry beans for themselves and their interns to eat all year, with bushels and bushels leftover. They also had an astounding variety of types of beans, each one more beautiful than the next. They had huge fat black beans that looked like deep purple pearls, white and black Calypso beans that looked like yin-yangs, Tiger's Eye beans that looked like they should be on necklaces, and burgundy and white beans fit for a wedding centerpiece. Holly was continually amazed at their beauty, and decided that beans were one of her favorite crops. After 5 hours of 6-8 people picking, we had 3 pickup truck loads full of dried bean plants. We were blown away by the work schedule; after we returned to the farmhouse around 2 we were done for the day!

The Worthy Burger

      Wednesday dawned gray and drizzly, so Chris, Ida, Nico, Carlo and ourselves sat under the circus tent separating garlic for planting. Little did we know that this rain was just the beginning of what was to be a rainy two weeks at Fable Farm. After finishing the garlic around noon, we had the rest of the day off! We decided to take this opportunity to check out the nearby town of South Royalton, and on the way dropped Carlo off at his next farm. South Royalton was about 20 minutes away, and had everything we could ask for; a co-op with an extensive bulk section, a thrift store with a fill-a-bag-for-a-dollar deal, and a library with a friendly British librarian and a strong internet connection. We also checked out the Worthy Burger, an establishment recommended by everyone at Fable Farm (and not just because Fable is one of the Worthy's vegetable suppliers). Although we rarely eat out, we could not resist the grass-fed burger topped with kimchi, pesto mayonnaise, and spicy ketchup, with a side of french fries cooked in beef tallow.

Pickup cornucopia

     That night we were invited to a presidential debate-watching party hosted by friends of Fable Farm. We made a tomato pie to bring, and enjoyed a delicious pot luck spread. It's hard to top the food at a farmer shindig.

Chris and Selena picking chard

     Thursday was CSA pick-up day, so it was harvest, harvest, harvest. We were amazed at the sheer quantity of vegetables that Fable grows, it is by far the biggest produce operation we've seen, which is necessary for their 100 member CSA. We focused on picking the chard, kale, and Brussels sprouts, and then helped wash some of the other produce. While everyone else finished harvesting the last of the vegetables, we made lunch for the group. After lunch we got the space ready for the CSA pickup, by cleaning up the yard, putting flowers on the tables, and setting up tables and dishes for the potluck. Every Thursday Fable Farm has a now well-known community gathering centered around their CSA pickup, complete with live music, fires, and good food.

CSA pickup party

    By the time we arrived at Fable the season was winding down, so our days weren't as hectic as they had been earlier in the summer. On Friday we harvested most of the last field of onions with Chis, Ida, and Nico. We ended up getting about 150 lbs worth of good onions, despite the rain-induced rot.
     Though the work hours were minimal, our time off was mostly spent reading under blankets, as the yurt was uninsulated and lacked electricity. We got through The Hobbit (which we read together in anticipation of the new movie), and played a few of the board games Randy had picked up at the thrift store.

     The yurt had no electricity, and the whole farm had no internet so after making and eating our dinner in the outdoor kitchen (which did have electricity) we usually went to bed, getting on an 8-8:30 bedtime schedule. During the day the yurt and the kitchen were usually warm, but after the sun went down we were ready to be warm under our stack of blankets.
     With the whole weekend at our disposal we indulged in leisurely reading, game playing, and going back to South Royalton. On Sunday we had planned on attending the church next door to the farm, but found that the Universalist church was only active in July and August. Instead we decided to enjoy a cup of tea at the Barnard General Store. The Barnard General Store has been continuously operating for 180 years, but this spring the owners had to close the doors because of the economy. The town has rallied around the store (which, along with the post office, town hall, volunteer fire department, church, and library, make up the entire town), and is attempting to earn the $500,000 they need to buy the store, refurbish it, and keep it running. For now, volunteers staff the store every morning, selling donated coffee, tea, and baked goods as a long-term fundraiser.

Taking down tomatoes

     The next week we continued with our end-of-the season tasks, taking down the tomato trellises and plants. We saved more tomatoes than we could possibly use, a basket each of reddish and green ones. We also harvested two bushels of tomatillos, and took down the pea trellises. For a rainy day activity we processed a mountain of dried tulsi, or holy basil, which can be used for medicinal tea. After two hours of sifting the fragrant herb, our hands smelled delicious.

     With a blood drive taking place in the next town over, it was the perfect opportunity to add Vermont to the list of states we've bestowed our blood upon (this list is surprisingly similar to the list of states we've eaten free pizza in). Unfortunately Holly's iron count was .5 too low, so she just sat and read while Randy donated.

     Wednesday dawned chilly and drizzly, but the CSA needed potatoes and someone had to dig them. We both love digging potatoes, and on a warm, sunny day, the quantity would not make a difference. But, on this gray, wet day, the acre and a half spread out before us was a bit daunting. Fortunately we only needed to dig a fraction of the field to fulfill the CSA needs, but with only a pitchfork and our hands, gathering 160 lbs covered the 6 of us in mud and took us the rest of the day.  With temperatures dropping, the local animal population boosted its caloric intake with the food stores of our kitchen. We were surprised at what racoons are capable of opening, their ungraceful nocturnal visits often left the kitchen a mess, and we all lost a few chocolate bars to the midnight bandits.

Holly and Ida making a delicious bisqueous

     On Thursday we harvested the rest of the vegetables for the CSA, and also picked all of the peppers, eggplant, squash, and less hardy veggies because of an imminent frost threat. That night was a pizza night for the CSA pickup. Fable Farm constructed a pizza oven as a means to bring the community together, and  often offered their CSA members unique artisan pies along with the music and comradery found every week. This week's menu featured delicacies such as the Hot Potato Pie (hot sauce, potatoes, tomatillos, garlic), the Irish Pie (pesto, potato, leek, garlic), the Squash Pie (pesto, squash, leeks, kale, goat cheese), and the Nightshade Pie (red sauce, tomatillos, eggplant, peppers), which were all exceptionally delicious. Fable Farm had devised a finely tuned pizza-making process, and we hopped in on the assembly line. Our crash course in pizza production greatly improved our dough-rolling and sauce-applying skills. Randy also got a chance to try his hand at cooking pies the cobb oven. After all the orders were filled (over 40) the kitchen crew was able to create pizzas to their heart's content and we gladly supplemented our diet for the next several days with the surplus pies. The gathering continued well after dark, and was bolstered with Jessie's delicious kombucha, a few rounds of hard cider, and some spirited fiddle playing.

Jonny cooking pizzas

Holly ended up running the press

     On Friday, after quick clean-up from the night before, we left with Ida and Nico to help make cider. A late frost had decimated the area's apple crop, but a local orchard escaped and had plenty to spare. A neighbor took advantage of their cheap "drops", $90/truckload, to make his annual cider. We arrived there just as they were finishing up, so after gathering a few bags of apples we followed him back to his giant, 100 year old cider press. After a few sticky hours, a team of us turned a pickup bed full of apples into 150 gallons of apple cider. At first we didn't think there was anything more delicious than fresh apple cider, but a week later when our stash was running low and starting to turn, we learned that slightly fermented apple cider is even more delicious.

                                                                  An Apple's Journey

Nico trying the potato digger

     We awoke the next morning after a 22 degree night, our coldest one yet, and set out on a few pre-departure errands. With our food stores replenished and our library books returned, we headed over to the Potato ShinDig. To help bring in their potato harvest, Fable Farm organized a community work party with hot soup and hot cider. The main feature of the event was a fancy new potato digger, designed to be towed behind a tractor and fling spuds out of the ground and into the waiting arms of the awestruck volunteers. Needless to say, it broke during the first row. A plow was hooked up in its place, and worked quite well to turn over the earth and expose the potatoes. It was a long day, but in the end 2 pickup loads of potatoes were harvested. Unfortunately we had to say our goodbyes and leave early to get all packed up for our departure the next morning.
     Wherever we end up in the future we hope to find a community as healthy, happy, and supportive as as Fable Farm's.

Every farm needs a handy gestation tabulator

                                                                                                      

In case you had any doubts that we are indeed farmers

Vermont Grand View Farm

The Grand View

Fiber studio

     The fall foliage was just starting to wake up and shake off its green when we headed up to Chelsea, VT to help out at Vermont Grand View Farm, a farm bed and breakfast with a focus on fiber-producing livestock. We arrived around 5pm and were given a brief farm tour by Kim, before setting up our tent. Their farm consists of a spacious hoophouse, a vegetable and herb garden, a barn from the early 1800s, several pastures, and a fiber studio. They hold retreats, classes, workshops, and children's camps in their studio, and offer a fiber CSA. Their fiber comes from about a dozen Romney sheep, two llamas, and one German angora rabbit. Other critters on the farm include chickens, pigs, Tess, the border collie, and  two glitch-in-the-matrix-esque identical barn kittens whose purrs resemble a jug-band washboard cadence.
     We ended our first day with Kim's scrumptious tomato pie (see the recipe here), and enjoyed getting to know her and Luke, her son. As we settled into our tent-nest that night, the two barn kittens curiously pounced on us through the tent fabric, startling Randy with a well executed swat to the head. After our feline friends turned in for the night, we learned that camping in Vermont in September can be a chilly affair, and woke up to a crisp frost validating our chattering teeth.

Tara and her charge

      With some hot cereal and tea in our bellies, we set out to feed and water all the animals for our first chores of the morning. First came the chickens, about 12 hens and a new rooster who had who had successfully completed his first crow that morning. They were all housed in a very impressive mobile chicken coop that was constructed by Chuck, Kim's husband and co-farmer, and the two previous WWOOFers. Next up were the dozen or so sheep and their two llama guardians. Llamas possess a wonderful natural instinct to herd and protect flocks of sheep. Kim had told us the story of when all the lambs were a few weeks old and Tara the llama would entertain herself by gathering them all up and moving the miniature flock around the pasture, dispersing and re-collecting them for hours. Then we checked on the two male sheep, Bob the wether and the ram. We found an unpleasant surprise waiting for us in the males' water bucket. Chuck and Kim had been trying various methods to catch a troublesome rodent; and apparently have-a-heart and poison are not as effective a as a good ol' fashioned bucket of water, as we found the culprit suspended in the males' water. It was obvious why the two barn kittens had not dispatched the rat, seeing as it was half their size. After the undulants were taken care of, we fed the angora rabbit. The German angora is the only type of angora rabbit that does not shed, so they have to clip her once a year, a process the rabbit does not mind. Last on our list was the four pigs, Luke's annual moneymaking endeavor.

Luke's hogs

     After chores we did some minor landscaping and mulching. The changing of the seasons really hit home as we readied the herb and flower gardens for winter. We "put the gardens to bed" by cutting back the summer's growth and mulching. After work we were able to enjoy a lazy afternoon of reading and relaxing in the sun. That night we enjoyed a delicious hearty pea soup, and our first real interaction with Chuck. Dinner with Kim, Luke and Chuck was always fun with plenty of good stories and laughter. To top off a great day, the night was not nearly as cold as the night before, and we slept comfortably in only two layers of clothing.
     After finishing chores the following day we began the task of clearing some brush and trees to enlarge a roadside pasture. Randy enjoys taming new spaces for farming, while Holly finds value in the wildness. Using a chainsaw we felled quite a few trees, some up to 25 feet tall that will be good firewood. When the chainsaw finally ran out of gas, we switched gears and worked on scraping paint in preparation for repainting their south-facing wall. Chuck said that in Vermont it works best to repaint one wall a year and take the fifth year off. The scraping was uninterrupted except for Tess' frequent solicitation for a game of fetch. As a border collie her definition of "fetch" is bringing you a stick, and running and hiding until you throw it. She would sometimes deposit sticks as small as a piece of bark mulch at our feet, expecting a quick game. After work, Holly lounged in the sun reading while Randy went for one of his meandering jogs. While going around "the block" (a 5 mile loop), he came across a rafter of turkeys, and was surprised by a wild pheasant. He was back just in time to enjoy a delicious dinner of homemade pizza.

Relocated sheep shed, all 1000 lbs of it

     Saturday's main focus was transporting a shed from one pasture to another. They had decided to move an unused shed into the male sheep enclosure because it was doubtful whether the wethers would weather the winter weather in their existing structure. The shed was on skids, so to move it Chuck hooked it up to his trailer hitch and dragged as close as he could get it. Then we pulled and pushed it over flat boards into position. Despite the hillside origins of their ancestors, sheep often come to bad ends when they fall over and cannot get up, so it was important that the future floor of the shed was level and not slippery. To this end we dug the holes for four supporting posts. In the late afternoon four B&Bers arrived, and they took advantage of the Goodling's dinner option, enjoying the same delicious lasagna that we also had the pleasure of eating.

Tess

    Holly started feeling under the weather, probably from sharing a harmonica during a jam session with a sniffly Atreya a few weeks ago, so on Sunday, our day off, she mostly drank tea and read. That afternoon two new Romney sheep arrived from Massachusetts that Chuck and Luke had driven down to pick up.

Josie inspects the workings of a cow

     After the excitement of introducing the two newest members of their flock, Chuck took us aside and explained that Tess was facing an insurmountable illness. Her esophageal muscles were unable to convey food to her stomach, and she was slowly starving. Chuck and Kim realized that it was better for her to be put to sleep than continue to suffer. Quite understandably, they wanted to gather as a family to support each other in this difficult time, so we thanked them for their generosity, took our leave, and kept them in our thoughts and prayers.

Blacksmithin' a ferrule

     It all worked out, because Holly was still a little sick and grateful for a few days of recuperation. We headed back to Barre just in time for our 3 year anniversary. Since everyday is a exciting trip spent together, we decided to indulge in some rather quotidian activities, and were able to catch a lousy second-run movie, play some goofy mini golf, and check out an auction in Sterling. Saturday was jam-packed with downhome country living as we sped through the Barre town-wide yardsale picking up some comfy socks and a nice backpack, then headed over to the Rutland Lost Arts festival where we met Phil and Liz. Although Randy was disappointed at the lack of a cooper, we still got to see a blacksmith in action, and watched Randy's niece enjoy milking a fake cow. Then it was back to Barre for the local grocery store's Customer Appreciation Day where we missed the giant Whoopie pie eating contest, but still scarfed down some free hotdogs, chips, and ice cream.
     And so after our third time returning to Barre in 2 months, we set out to continue our Vermont leg, hoping to regain the flow of our journey.