I’m starting to think we planted too many potatoes.

Dark Red Norlands. Magic Molly fingerlings. Kennebecs. French fingerlings. Katahdins.  German butterballs. Banana fingerlings. Caribous.

After about three hours of hard labor, we’ve easily gained 300 pounds — in potatoes. I wish I could say we got everything harvested but in reality, we’ve only made it through about a quarter of what we planted in the spring. The fields are a lot messier than we’d hoped but the yield has been good — Jeff’s holding a Caribou potato we dug today.

Luckily, sales have been going well at the stand, despite the erratic hours we’re able to have it open. (If we aren’t open, please leave a note, there are note cards and a Sharpie inside the stand. We’ll call you, or put together your order for pickup next time you’re in the area.)

And, Jeff was home to help dig potatoes today, which was nice because we seldom are in the fields at the same time. It gave us a chance to talk about what we should do differently next year, like investing in more equipment that’ll save us all of the hand-hilling, weeding and digging. (Yes, you read that right, we planted, hilled and dug almost all by hand this year — approximately a mile of rows total.)

Now, it’s time to roast a chicken I raised this year (it’s been too hot to roast a chicken until now!) and a mix of potatoes. That was a long day.

I’ve heard that some people take weekends off and do fun things. My interpretation of fun things might be a little different, though.

Yesterday — Saturday — Bethy and I spent about two hours digging potatoes. That was after I worked on the pumpkin prison yard: electric fence up top, bird netting below to, we hope, keep most of the deer and turkeys out.

Jeff and I were able to work on the saphouse Friday to get it ready for the public — he built a door and did some finish trim, and with the help of our capable neighbors we installed the door before Jeff left to work for the whole weekend.

The door folds back down to cover the entrance to the saphouse, which was an idea I had that I thought would look cool. I think it turned out great.

Back to potatoes. Bethy and I dug a 100-foot row of reds, which are looking quite nice. Once I get them cleaned up, we’ll put them out the saphouse-turned-farmstand.

I managed to get the homemade (probably temporary) sign out by the road, with a flag bracket installed for our open flag by the road, too, though it’s a little hard to see in the photo below. And, picked some blueberries. And went grocery shopping. And weeded our own gardens of stuff (stay tuned for Two Rock Ridge hot sauce!). And made some signs for inside the stand, which I haven’t taken pictures of yet. All in all, a very productive weekend.

Blueberries!

A new variety of black hot peppers we are trying this year.

Wait! It’s not what you think. I’m all kinds of motivated on the farm. Stand by for an update on that.

What I mean by “lost my motivation” is literal. My car — formerly owned by my father-in-law — lost its transmission. She wasn’t the prettiest girl at the ball but she got me where I needed to go. The sentimental attachment aspect isn’t so easy. But, she’s done.

It’s been a mixed blessing, really. I’ve been working my regular job from home more, which also means I’m spending my “breaks” in the gardens and with the animals, which I normally only can do on the weekends.

Some of these photos are from weekends, just full disclosure here. But, clearly things are growing well. Which makes me happy. And very dirty most of the time.

That last photo on the bottom right is our sap house/farm stand. It still needs to be shingled but I managed to get the batts installed early this morning — before the full sun hits it — on three sides.

I also find myself unable to walk by a raised bed without pulling at least a weed or two. This morning, that turned into a 30-gallon trash barrel of weeds, which I fed to the piggies. But, I think my pumpkins will be much happier now.

And, Bethy and I working on a farm logo today, so I’m pretty excited about that. Really, I just offered her suggestions and she’s designing it so nothing to show off so far.

I’m exhausted.

Friday, we discovered that turkeys had been having a really great time in our biggest pumpkin patch. And by a really great time, I mean they were eating all the seeds they could find as well as digging up sprouted plants and rolling in the dirt. So what used to look like lovely rows of future pumpkins were turned into a mess:

First, we thought we would put up fence. Until we started adding up the number of fence posts we would require for 500 feet of fencing. Then, we decided to go with our original thought — floating row cover. Except we were having the most difficult time finding anywhere with the amount we needed in stock.

Jeff to the rescue. He contacted a friend, whose father works at Paris Farmers’ Union. Turns out they had plenty in stock, so off to Lewiston we went first thing Saturday morning.

Now, Saturday was very windy. Row cover is very light. We got two rows done and had to call it a day before we lost our minds. And the row cover.

I started in again with the row cover on Sunday. Jeff was assisting his brother with some brush removal, so I was on my own. Overall, I think I did pretty well. Even with Penelope helping.

Then, in the afternoon, we moved the meat chickens into the tractor. Part of the reason we did so was this regular occurrence:

So, we hook up the tractor to the, uh, tractor to move it into position next to the barn.

Then, just 30 individual trips later, all of the chickens were outside in the tractor. Chomping worms.

As anyone who plants a garden knows, spring and early summer as buuuuuuuusy. Now imagine your cute little 10-by-10 garden, times 50 — that’s us this year. Here is one of five large gardens we have in (excluding the 14 raised beds that also are planted).

It doesn’t look super-impressive in this photo but that’s partially because we had just hilled the potatoes so they’re looking a little small. Trust me, they aren’t small.

We’ve also got three pigs this year in addition to 30 meat birds (see previous post for the fluffy cuteness they’ve outgrown now), and my faithful old ladies — 10 laying hens. Jeff has had to adjust his pig call to “Pig, Pig, Pig” to account for the extra porker but for everyone else, the girls’ names are Natalie Porkman, Kevin Bacon and John Ham. This is from the day we brought them home; they’ve grown since then.

For now, the mad rush to get everything in the ground has slowed but there’s plenty of maintenance to do still. We will be moving the meat birds out of the barn and into the chicken tractor soon (just finished building it), and there are always weeds to pull, plants to inspect for insect damage, turkeys to scare out of the gardens, groundhogs to harass, eggs to collect, animals to feed and sunshine to enjoy.

Admittedly, the headline is for the attention. But also true — my meat birds arrived today. And they are cute. Everyone (except Emily) is captivated by how tiny and fluffy they are.

This is technically the third year of meat birds for us. Our first year ended in a bloody massacre on Father’s Day that we have pinned on an ermine or weasel. The poor half-grown bodies of my meat birds were left inside the pen, mostly intact.

We had seen the varmint around from time to time, as well as foxes and coyotes. But the weasel seemed the most probable suspect. Haven’t seen it since.

Back to fluffy little chicks! Last year was quite successful, if I do say so myself. I raised 21 birds of the original 24 to a hearty size. As a matter of fact, there’s one roasting in the oven right now. Most of them we kept for our own consumption but we did share with family — I use our niece’s barn next door to get them started and my sisters-in-law are great about checking in on them when I’m at work, so it only seems fair.

This year, I ordered 30 birds. I’m hoping they all make it but am realistic and know I’ll probably lose some. For now, enjoy this video of the babies running around and getting used to their new space.

You’re welcome for getting that song stuck in your head. I hope it also involves Chris Farley and Patrick Swayzy and if you don’t know what I’m talking about — immediately Google “SNL Chippendale skit” — if you’re an adult. You’re welcome, again.

Where was I? Right, the weekend. Well, Jeff’s been actually working at his paying job all weekend so we can have nice things like health insurance and food. So, it’s been up to me to work on a bunch of projects on my own. I admit I did have some help from the kids from time to time — like Bethy and her boyfriend, who checked the potatoes we planted last weekend to see if any had been exposed by the seemingly never-ending rain and then covered them back up.

And what did I do? Well, let me get my list. (Seriously, I am list-writer.)

Before Jeff left for work, he built a bunch of raised beds to put behind the house. (We already have seven in front of the house, in addition to a huge herb and flower garden and excluding all of the fields.). And, he kindly left a pile of dirt and a pile of compost near them for me to shovel into them. And shovel I did — with the help of Bethy’s boyfriend who managed to get them about half full in no time. After the three beds were filled, Bethy helped me plant our specialty (read:expensive) seed potatoes in them.

There are four left, which I loaded up into the pickup one at at time and brought over to the house. Because they aren’t leveled, or in the exact spot we want, those remain stacked neatly in the driveway. Each bed is four-by-eight feet — not so easy for my 5-foot, 2-inch self to manhandle, but I did it.

I also located some seed that’s been hanging around for a while and planted that — garlic and peas.

In the raised beds out front went the peas. And I cleaned out another four beds to be planted later. And built a compost bin out of pallets. And raked out the spot where I am hoping to plant my asparagus slightly in front of the drip line of the house.

Did I mention I put up more than 100 feet of fence? That’s for the groundhog/jerk that ate almost everything I planted in those raised beds last year. Except my strawberries — the birds ate those.

But, by far, I am most proud of myself for fixing the solar-powered electric fence. We installed it in the new pig pen but couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working properly. You could touch it and wouldn’t even get the slightest tingle — not what you want in an electric fence. After a little research, I was able to get it work as it should. Luckily, I didn’t have to touch it to test it, as Jeff has a voltage tester, and the pigs don’t arrive until next weekend.

I did some other stuff that needed to be done as well, like taking the trash to the transfer station, entertaining our teenagers with my wit, feeding the chickens, grocery shopping, washing countless loads of laundry (and putting them in the dryer because someone — cough, Jeff, cough — broke my clothesline and it’s too high for me to fix) and finally, burning out our push lawnmower.

That wasn’t really my fault, though. I noticed the grass was getting pretty tall out on what we call the island in the field. The island is a few trees, a lot of rocks piled up over the years for generations before us, and a little grass. That grass was tall. And apparently slightly damp. The lawnmower didn’t like it much. I tried to take it easy. The lawnmower didn’t care. It stalled. I cleaned out the grass underneath and tried to start it again. All I got was a feeble half effort and some smoke. I left it where is was and walked away. Jeff laughed a lot when I told him what happened. Not sure why…he’s the one who will deal with it when he gets home!

Finally, a tolerable weekend. So what if it’s Mother’s Day? We are planting potatoes!

Since we knew the girls would all come visit today, we decided to make good use of the available help and put them to work out in the field — after a tasty breakfast of French toast by Emily, followed by coffee brought by Anna.

And, we managed to get four rows (130 feet each) of potatoes in the ground! We still have a bunch more to go but it was a great start.

We used the blue Ford (which I am now referring to as Harrison Ford) and what Jeff calls a “horse hoe” to lay out our rows and to cover the potatoes.

Surveying the rows.

Bethy and Jeff putting in rows with the horse hoe and tractor “Harrision Ford.”

Changing up the horse hoe to cover the potatoes.

We learned we don’t want to keep doing that. It’s quite labor intensive (thanks, Bethy, for taking one for the team!) and really hard to make a straight row because it is literal manpower holding the horse hoe when it hits a rock or clump of sod. Doesn’t matter how strong you are, that hoe is going sideways. So as I write this blog post, Jeff is shopping for new equipment online and grilling burgers for dinner.

Cutting the seed potatoes.

The rows are maybe not so straight but will do.

Emily, our not-outdoorsy girl, helping.

Today, we managed to get in our early potatoes, the ol’ standby Dark Red Norlands, as well as a new variety called Caribou that was developed at the University of Maine. Pretty cool. As mentioned earlier, we still have several varieties left to plant, but the plan is to do that after we figure out a more efficient way to create straight rows.

But, it was a great afternoon of planting with the girls, which is all this Mom could hope for on Mother’s Day.

Those are words I thought I would never utter. But, looooooook at it!

Also, I have a confession. I’ve never driven a tractor before.

But I am going to learn. We’ve been looking for a tractor I can operate for a while (read: smaller) and this one kind of fell in our laps. I had seen it on my way to work for more than a year and thought, that’s a cute little tractor.

Then, Jeff got more information about it (independent of my prior observation) and we knew it was the tractor for us.

It’s a 1952 Ford 8N. It’s gas, not diesel. And it was refurbished by students at Lincoln Academy in Newcastle (Maine). How cool is that? We are still collecting information about its origins and will post that when it is verified. And, we hope, some pictures of it when it was acquired by the school.

When the delivery guy from the dealership pulled in, he got out of his truck and immediately said, “Ford 8N, I used to have one of those. Loved it.”

He told me he used to cut and bale hay all day with his 8N and it only burned 5 gallons of gas. Good news in times like these when the price of gas is shooting up weekly.

We know it will need a few things, like a battery. My new friend Dana from the tractor dealership and I pushed the tractor off the trailer (Jeff was at work, not ‘supervising’) and into its temporary parking spot when it wouldn’t start. But, Jeff drove it the day before; and, in fact, Dana was able to jump start it and drive it up onto the trailer so we know we aren’t looking at any major issues.

Currently, it has a trailer hitch over the PTO but we have the parts to install so I will be able to use a variety of three-point implements. And, we are keeping the modified hitch and hardware, because then I can tow a trailer when it comes time to harvest the pumpkins we are planting for our oldest daughter’s wedding in October.

The idea here is that I will be more comfortable handing this smaller, gas-powered tractor while Jeff is at work. And that the other ladies of the family will be able to use it, too.

Plus, looooooooooook at it!

Whew! It was a short and speedy sap season around Two Rock Ridge! We only collected sap for a week (a week!) but still walked away with a gallon of sticky-sweet yumminess.

As sometimes happens, our goals were a little higher than we were able to climb — we fully intended to have the new boiler fabricated (it’s still just an old oil tank sitting outside) and installed in the finished sap house (which still needs a door and shingles more than a month later). So, we settled for making enough sap to get ourselves through until next year.

We used a very small wood stove as our boiler again this year, with two sap pans on top and valves to refill (or empty) the pans as needed. The setup looks like this:

Boiling also was a little slower this year because it was my first year boiling alone. Jeff was at work and we had sap that needed to be taken care of, so he gave me a quick tutorial on how to run the wood stove and what to watch for as the sap boils down.

I would love to say I was hugely successful and he was very jealous of my skills, but, alas, that would be a lie. I boiled for hoooooooours one day and only managed to get about a quart of almost-finished syrup. But, it was a sunny day and I didn’t have much else to do so I brought out a book and a beer and spent some quality time in the sap house.

Jeff was home the next day, and I was — you guess it — at work. So he took over and had much better luck after he made a few adjustments to the boiler system.

Did I mention it was also incredibly cold and windy on the days we were boiling and that the sap house doesn’t have a door? I did? Right, sorry.

Back to making syrup. We took what I boiled down and what Jeff boiled down and finished it off in a turkey fryer outside. I must say that worked a whole lot better than finishing the syrup inside the house like we have done in past years. While the house smelled great, the steam made everything slightly sticky.

One the syrup was, well, syrup, I put it all in sterilized Mason jelly jars and water-bath can them for good measure.

Anyway, it wasn’t the greatest sap season for us, but it really was still a fun time.

Here’s a super-weird video of a simmer (not a boil). Wish I could tell you what the ruckus in the background is, but I can’t, because I don’t know. However, Jeff tells me it is the metal being heated by the fire, which is probably correct. The phone shooting the video was very close to the pan.