Catching up down on the farm

Well it's been a while since i have visited the blog but there's so much to do around the farm that there seems to be no time for the computer. Between mowing the lawn, work , gardens, animals and all the other things we do here on the farm I have lost time but luckily I have been taking pictures all along so I can bring you all up to speed on what we've been doing.

Tracey has worked her magic on our grape vines! She pruned them back so far that they looked like stumps but now they are really taking off. This picture is a couple of months old and they look even better now with several bunches of grapes hanging.

With all the drainage issues I have talked about previously, our driveway became a rutted mess. Luckily, I have a box grater on the back of my tractor that came in real handy as I scraped the driveway to smooth out some pretty significant ruts.

Two years of brush and debris went up in smoke this spring/summer when I burned the pile in our field. It's also gonna clear the way for more pasture for the horses as I keep mowing the fields with the brush hog , also on the back of the John Deere.

There are 8 new additions to the farm this year! Tracey got some new chicks from the Amish neighbor down the street so we can really get serious about our egg production. they will join the two hens that are laying for us right now. Look for Five Point Farm Eggs in a year or two! These pictures show how much they've grown in two months.

We did manage to get a vegetable garden in this year albeit a little late. It's probably about 2-3 weeks behind but we were able to move it down by the house. We've got tomatoes, corn,red,yellow and green peppers, basil and cucumbers. The garden is looking great, now we'll just to have to keep our fingers crossed that the deer don't make it they're own. Big thanks to my mom Gail for all her help with the gardens!

This one is exciting!! We might have the largest silver maple tree in New York State in our front yard! Our friends Betsy and Shnook we're visiting recently when Betsy happened to mention the NYS Big Tree Register which lists all the biggest trees in each species in our state. I looked it up on line and when I measured our tree it beat the one on the register! It is 230" around 101' tall and has a crown that is 107'x97'. I am waiting for someone from the NYS DEC to come measure it to make it official.Keep your fingers crossed!

The blueberries did pretty well this year and we were able to put some on our cereal before the deer completely took one out. Looks like they rubbed the bark right off it and it just died. It's a shame because Tracey and my mom take such great care of them. Tracey did her thing and pruned that one back so hopefully it will come back next year. Either way we still have 4 others and it's great to have your own blue berries for your cereal!

The Gardens are in great shape as usual. My wife has a green thumb and really has an eye for landscaping so the gardens look great. We've had something blooming all summer. Right now the liilies are out and some of the hostas will be next. She really does such a great job and she even found time to paint a couple vintage lawn chairs so we can relax under our huge tree and admire our yard!

The Mason bee house project is moving along. This frame just needs a roof and one more log needs holes then I will install it equidistant between our apple trees and blueberry bushes where you can see it coming up the driveway. I'll keep you posted.

And lastly, nothing says love quite like your cats leaving a present for you on your doorstep.

Thanks guys!!

Mick and Max

The upper pasture has been pretty wet but we had to let Mick and Max up there before they went crazy. You can see Max slip in the mud at the end, no worries though he does it all the time. Just a couple of 5 year olds playing in the rain.

Stilll Raining on the Farm

Well it's official, the weather man says we are .4 inches from having the wettest spring ever! And we got .75" last night! It's making it very difficult to getting things done around the house but we have been getting by.

 We have been here for 5 years and have moved our vegetable garden 3 times now. It was originally in the fields behind the house but we've decided to leave that open for extra pasture for the horses so now we've it moved down near the house so it will be an annex to our yard. i have managed to get 12 wheel barrows of manure on it and till it twice. I hope it dries out in time to plant. We're keeping it small until we're sure this is where we want it. The whole back side is surrounded by wild day lilies so it should look pretty cool.

It's lucky that we bought a commercial mower because with this weather I've had to mow at least once when i knew the yard was too wet but the Toro pro model did a pretty good job. We even got to weed some of our flower beds.

The apple blossoms have finally arrived and the horses and goat are trying to stay dry but the chickens love the worms!

Hard work is it's own reward

Satisfaction lies in the effort,
not in the attainment.
Full effort is full victory
                  -Mahatma Gandhi

April Showers

Will the rain ever stop? April  had 5.63 inches of rain which is 2.5 inches more than average. It's making it very hard to get anything done around the farm. The lawn is ready to be mowed but it's always wet and there are some extremely wet spots. Must be Murphy's law because we just got a new (to us) mower and I've been waiting to try it out. It's a 52 inch Toro commercial zero turn walk behind we got on Craig's list and it should drastically decrease mowing time for us so we can focus on other things.

All this rain has also caused some drainage problems for us  as our entire place is on a hill. The winter melt and all this rain runs down the the hill and then down our drive way softening it up and creating deep ruts. So one of the projects for this summer will be to install drain tile to help control the water run off from melt and rain.

Cool temperatures have accompanied all this rain which has slowed the blossoming of our 8 Apple trees which is a blessing in disguise because another project we are undertaking is making a bee "hotel" for mason bees to help pollinate our apple and pear trees as well as our blueberries, blackberries and grapes. Mason bees are the slightly larger and much more docile cousins of the honey bee who live in the holes left behind by wood boring insects or woodpeckers.The buds are just starting to come out on the trees we pruned this past February so hopefully i can get it done before they blossom. I will be posting more on this later.

James Thomas Fields 1817-1881

A farmer travelling with his load
picked up a horseshoe on the road,
and nailed it fast to his barn door,
that luck might down upon him pour;
that every blessing known in life
might crown his homestead and his wife,
and never any kind of harm
descend upon his growing farm.

Welcome to the farm!

Five Point Farm is what my wife Tracey and i call our 8 acres of paradise in south western NY. I have decided to start this blog to keep records some of our projects and hobbies. Although not a "real" farm now, we believe it was originally a dairy farm dating back to the 1850's. The foundation to a much larger barn can be seen around our smaller barn and we are surrounded by fields we think all were part of this original farm. Now it is home to our two Haflinger horses, one Toggenburg Goat, five chickens, two rabbits, four cats and two dogs. In the future I will be posting about some of our projects as well as some of my wife's pictures of our "spread".