Check out the latest news from Essex Farm in this note from Kristin Kimball:
“The light seems stronger this week. It’s warmer. The forecast is a little ominous – snow coming? – but what I feel in my bones is surely spring. I also see it on the to-do list. We have about ten more minutes of frozen lull in which to get tools in order and machines serviced and plans laid before the curtain goes up and it’s show time. The first spring-like work this year will be lambing, which should start around the end of next week. I pulled the lambing bag out of storage yesterday to check supplies – stomach tubing, lamb jackets, elastrator, check! – and Scott just popped his head into the house to say he was going out to the East Barn to make lambing jugs, which are the small, temporary pens we use to bond mamas well with their babies. I’m excited to get going. There is no better soundtrack for the return of light than the bleat of a newborn lamb.
Mark and I are in the midst of that annual mid-winter debate. To sugar or not to sugar? The argument for sugaring is pure pleasure: good fun work, and a fabulous product that lights up the endorphin receptors all year long. The argument against is practical: the economics just don’t pencil out. We can’t pay our staff to make syrup the way we do it, with horses and buckets, over a wood fire, without losing money. One option is to make a modest amount of syrup as a family, and retail it at the farm stand. I took a walk in the sugarbush while thinking about it, and it was snow-quiet and inviting. I checked the trails for downed trees, just in case. There is some clearing to do, if we are going to move forward…” (Continue reading this Essex Farm Note.)
Related articles
- Essex Farm: Winter Wonder (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
- Essex Farm: Calving (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
- Essex Farm: Glad to be Here (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
Leave a Reply