Just finished the second chicken tractor of four today and got to give the young laying hens some more room and some fresh grass! They were very happy to eat it up. This summer we will be running about 55 laying hens in these chicken tractors..or portable chicken coops. The idea is that we move them every day to a new spot with fresh grass so they are on new ground everyday. Not only does this diversify their diet and give them more chances to scratch for grubs and other insects, but they also get to eat fresh grass every day. A chicken that is allowed to feed on these sort of natural foods gains a higher tolerance to diseases and produces a much healthier egg. Studies have shown that pastured laying hens will produce an egg that is higher in Omega 3 and have a much darker and richer yoke. This is the unique seal of quality in a fresh egg that was produced by pastured hens, the dark rich yoke will hold better together than ANY egg you can buy at the supermarket, organic or not. Not only are the eggs we will be bringing to market be produced from hens on certified organic pastures but they will always be fresh. Most likely gathered that morning or within a few days before, unlike the supermarket eggs which may be organic and claim free range but have been in refrigeration for a few weeks or more already by the time they are available to the customer.

Check out our new side page with some information about pastured laying hens…

Ground is broken on our new high tunnel project! We started by running our first frost free water lines out the the fields. These lines will supply the high tunnels with water all summer and all winter for all the greens were planning on overwintering in them this year! Also they give us a lot more options in the field for crop irrigation and providing constant fresh water for the animals on pasture. With a little more site work we will be ready for the new high tunnel. We’re putting up a structure made by Rimol Greenhouses called the Nor’Easter. The name sounded comforting to us after the storms we have seen this spring, and it is rightly named so because it is build like a fortress, so we don’t have to worry about snow loads or high winds again. The ridge is peaked for shedding snow, the side and end walls roll up for ventilation and for access with equipment. Look for pictures as it goes up within the next month. Then lots of tomatoes and other happy produce growing in it this summer for Farmer’s Markets!

Meet the newest member of the Wild Miller field crew…Jenny Sunshine. Or. Jenny. Or. Jenny Cow. Or. Little miss sunshine! She’s a young Jersey cow who will be turning one year old in 6 days. She was just bred yesterday for the first time and if she settles the calf we will be milking in 9 months. We’re really excited about following in the footsteps of our agricultural for-bearers, to whom keeping a family milking cow was much more common than we are used to today. Annalisa relates it to baking bread…one of those timeless tasks of life that lay the fundamental foundations to a more sustainable existence. We are both new to dairy cows and feel that Jenny carries an aura to her that is much stronger than most barnyard animals. Like she is really a close friend, working with us and part of the family. A few nights ago, when going to give her a late night snack around 10:30, we found her in the pig pen. She had jumped the 3′ fence..seemingly on a whim. She was un-scathed and seemed contented spending some time with the little pigs. I’m sure she will continue to give us good stories to tell, so look forward to more postings of the adventures of Jenny around the farm.

Things are growing!

Breaking up the Winter Rye cover crop with Wisper to prepare for transplaning a bunch of spring greens! Another advantage of single pony powered farming, we are able to get on most soils long before they could support a tractor especially with the wet spring we have been having.

We have finally started breaking ground for spring plantings! Starting with digging up all of last years parsnips. I got about 25 pounds out of the ground of overwintered parsnips. To anyone who’s not familiar with parsnips, or maybe doesn’t care for their “woody” taste, then you may have to try a spring dug parsnip. A typically underappreciated vegetable I think, and may be my favorite. Most parsnips are dug in the fall. At this time they do have a particularly “woody” flavor and not very interesting. When they sit in the ground through a frost they get sweeter. When they sit in the ground over winter they come out very sweet! That is as long as the rodents don’t eat them up under the snow!  We saved two of the best looking parsnips to re-plant this spring and grow them out for their seed this summer.

Annalisa likes to tell the story of how our dog Nissa wants to be a farmer too. While digging holes to re-plant these parsnips, Annalisa had to leave her work for a few minutes and when she returned she found Nissa with her head in the very hole. When approached Nissa sheepishly walked away and the fluffy dirt in the bottom of Annalisa’s new hole was the giveaway that something was up. With a little excavating work, up came the stale bagel that I had just given to Nissa 5 minutes prior. Who new you could re-plant bagels too??

Nissa and her prize bagel

Goose Egg – Duck Egg – Chicken Egg

 In the same order..

Check out the page on our fresh eggs for more info.

Made a late night of it last night after a heavy run of maple sap yesterday. We have been busy the past two weeks or so, staying up late into the night boiling down some maple syrup on the home made evaporator that David is lending us for the season. We have 75 taps up and on a good day we seem to be getting around 40-70 gallons of sap. It sure makes it feel like spring time, that and the birds returning, its neat to watch nature comeing back to life! Things feel like they are coming back together a bit around here since the storm, we have managed to get the new plastic up on the hoop house and clean up the initial downfall of trees so that it starts to look like normal March again. I’ve included a few shots of the evaporator and a few more shots of Dave and I pulling out some White Pine logs from storm blowdowns with Vicky and Whisper after the wind storm. I hope to have the sawmill up and running in the next few weeks to get a bunch of lumber out of them for summer building projects. Although, there seems to be enough trees down to keep us and the horses busy pulling them out of the woods until next winter!

Wild wind storm! Hurricane force winds a few nights ago left us all without power, and dropped a lot of trees. It also blew away the plastic on our hoop house at 2 in the morning, luckily we got all of the baby plants inside by the woodstove before they were blown to smitherines. With any luck we should have her covered again by the end of the week and growing lots of assorted greens inside for early spring harvest. We were returned power just this morning and I hope everyone else has got their power back as well.

Welcome to The Wild Miller Gardens web site!  We are planning on posting some current pictures and words here from time to time of the ramblings about the farm. Check back on us when you think of it and we’ll have an idea of what’s growing, where and when we will be marketing, upcoming events,  and any other thoughts or ideas that might or might not be of interest to all of our friends and families out there.    Thanks to Mark for helping us get this project off the ground. Cheers -Joel