What have we been up to?

Well for one thing, we named the farm! Thanks to our friend Ean High who suggested Evening Song Farm nearly a year ago. After much farm name brainstorming and careful fermentation, we went with the first suggestion we got, so meet Evening Song Farm, and check out our new website www.eveningsongcsa.com set up by Kara's older brother.

We have done a lot since last updating the blog, not the least of which has been taking shamlessless cute pictures of our puppy, Echo.



We also experienced out first farming bummer in our new location. Though there didn't seem to be a lot of snow on our caterpillar tunnels, Ryan took the time to clear off the snow from one of our tunnels. We intended to clear the other one the next day, but instead part of it collapsed! Bummer!


We use these to start early carrots, and then once the carrots are established we move the structure over our tomatoes to get them started early. Alas we spent a grumpy day clearing the collapsed section and then temporarily mending the broken hoops.



Now it looks fine, but when the snow melts we will have to replace the broken hoops and patch the ripped plastic.

We finally headed to Pennsylvania to retrieve the last of our belongings from the Sterling valley-- our goat, Lmno, our inoculated mushroom logs, and some other goodies. I threw a tarp and some hay in the back seat of my car, and Lmno had a goat palace in the back.



Though while I drove she was more interested in navigating.



We got a buddy goat for her. The new goat's name is Zeah ("Zee-uh"), and she is a Nigerian Dwarf goat, small with high butterfat.

Around the farm, we finally put the roof on the wash station shed, hung a door for the greenhouse, started our hotbed (with horse manure) to provide heat for our greenhouse starts, started our first round of plants for this spring, built many seeding tables, and myriad other winter tasks of season planning, marketing, and other construction needs.

Winter Update

Despite the change of work pace the winter brings for vegetables farmers, we still find ourselves occupied with work. (That is our best excuse for neglecting the blog, sorry!) Since our last photo managerie, we have worked on a few infrastructure building projects, focused on putting out a few "fires" in our old farmhouse (a leaky roof patch, a new gas line, moving a door to a new spot, patching wall, energy audit...), invested in an alternative deer fence, attended a marketing conference, ordered seeds, mapped gardens, worked on marketing plans, and enjoyed the winter. (Sorry for some of the sideways pictures, but the computer or blogspot is taxing my technological patience, just turn your head sideways a bit.)



Moving day!


Kara setting up the caterpillar tunnel hoops





Covering up our onions and leeks to overwinter





Our friends Mim and Ira came to visit and they helped us pull the plastic over our hoophouse. Thanks guys!





The toughest part is getting the large piece up and over the structure with two sets of hands, so it was great timing to have our friends drive by the farm and lend a hand. The wind wasn't too bad, and then Ryan and I set to work fastening the plastic to the greenhouse.



Triumphantly taking a break after fastening the end wall plastic. It's important to get the plastic tight and even to get the longest life out of this petroleum product.



It's funny how seemingly simple things can take a long time. Ryan's dad came to help us start our wash station roof, and it took the three of us quite some time to figure out our design and throw up this ridge piece against the barn wall to connect the roof to the barn.





Getting the beam up for the rafters.





It's difficult to see, but right when we put the beam up an awesome rainbow appeared right over our heads.


Here's a better photo of it







Meet Echo! Our little German Shepherd mix is the newest member to the farm team. His primary role will be to patrol our veggie fields for deer, groundhogs, etc... any of the unpaying vegetables customers that like to take a bite out of our living. On his free time he enjoys being ridiculously cuddly.



Kara built the stud walls for our walk in cooler. All we needed to do next is put up the insulation and install the modified air conditioner. Our friends Liz and Matthew came to visit (which was grand fun to talk farming for two days straight!) and they helped us realize that a different spot in the barn would make it much more efficient for us to move vegetables to and from the cooler. So we've taken down the studs and we're getting ready to move them to the upstairs of the barn. It's a little bummer now, but will save us a lot of back pain over the years. So, thank you to Liz! This picture was taken right before we took the cooler structure down.