Aged tommes (Tomme Collins) ready for sale

We had extra curds during the tomme makes and made large cheeses (ordinary tommes weigh about 2 pounds). These ripen out at a much later date than the smaller ones; these will be ready for farmer's market this weekend.

Burlington Farmers' Market this Saturday May 10th

Finally! The first market of the year is this Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. We will have a full product line of specialty meats and farmhouse cheeses, and look forward to sampling our favorite prepared food vendors' wares again. I'll definitely take some photos. This is a new farm name sign including our place of origin (a requirement this season), and a reference to this blog for customers and tourists looking for more information.

The dairy heifer barn

Due to an inadequate flash on my nifty point-and-click I can only take photos of youngstock that come out into the sunlight, like this girl here. That's a feedcart on the right, a big mixer that combines dry hay, corn, alfalfa and minerals to balance their diet. The content is different for each stage in their life. You can see a pile of this in front of the animals all the time; it is put down fresh once each day.

Blue cheese at 2 weeks old

As you can see, the rind is just starting to form on these cheeses, which are two weeks old today. Since we didn't make any cheese this week, I maintained rinds (by brushing off the poofy molds) and inspected batches for signs of excess moisture - one of the biggest culprits for a batch of cheese going bad this time of year.

Dan is driving tractor all day.

Chores on the dairy are done at 4:00 a.m. and again at 4:00 p.m. Dan does the milking duties for both, as well as manage herd health and bedding animals (that's covering where they lay with sawdust). He does too many other things to list at once. In addition, he is currently driving tractor in between milkings and until dark.

The push is on to get the corn in the ground.

This is a field at our Carter Hill property in Highgate Center. It should be planted by tomorrow evening. We have temporarily suspended cheesemaking on the farm until planting is completed.

The best laid plans...an egg story.

"It's almost time to let the laying hens out on pasture, the grass is greening up and they have started to lay small pullet eggs - about 2 dozen each day. I've been checking the prices at specialty markets in Burlington all winter and free-range local eggs were very near or just over $5 a dozen, so the chickens will be paying for themselves this year with a profit besides, at least that's the plan. Isn't that always my plan?

To my surprise, there were a lot of roosters in my flock. I purchased the "brown egg layer" assortment (100 birds of multiple breeds) from McMurray Hatchery as day-old chicks last November. Fast forward to April, and there was so much doodle-dooin' going on that my husband Dan decided to nix my idea of making some money back by raising the roosters for sale as meat birds, and terminated them - saying something about the ruckus being 'on his nerves'.

At least the hatchery refunded me $11 for the oversight, I guess someone was sorting too fast or tipping them in the wrong box at the chick-sexing station that day."

I wrote the previous portion of this column two weeks ago. Since then, two hens have fallen prey to a fisher cat/polecat/marten or pekan (Abenaki). Whatever you call it, I saw the fuzzy chicken-eating varmint crossing the road in front of their pasture in broad daylight after an attack.

Two more hens died from suffocation while confined to their coop at night, even with four times the room they need and open upper windows - this step to prevent additional losses has ironically proved as deadly as predation.

Egg production has dropped like a rock. I gathered only six yesterday. Between the ravens flying away with eggs laid in the grass and the fisher cat it's been a real pill to have birds outdoors this year.

I've tried to be a good steward and defend my flock. Catch-em-alive traps baited with canned cat food have caught: calico cats. I started keeping a loaded pistol handy but the ravens seem to sense that I'm packing, and have stopped circling the pen, at least when I am watching.

The situation as it stands: two species of predators have outsmarted me, and my chickens are too traumatized to lay any eggs. How much worse will it get before I see a return on my investment?

It's amazing how much information I found on Google by typing in, "What's killing my chickens?" No comfort at all in knowing I'm not alone; for the most part pens are made for keeping birds in, not predators out. Going out to the pasture at dusk every night to push groggy chickens up the ramp and into the coop puts a cramp on leaving the farm; no matter where we go now, we have to be back by dark.

In spite of the best-laid plans, I'll have little or no eggs for sale when farmers' market starts this weekend.

Fresh Coat of Paint

Only 25 weeks of use each year, yet it takes a toll on our farmers' market signs. The frames are damaged from weather and the chalkboards worn down. In this photo the chalkboard portion has already been resurfaced.

New Colors

We changed the coloring of our signage, favoring brighter colors for the larger signs and stark white on black for the smaller ones.