Long nights and Zymurgy

    I am sitting here writing this newest blog and listening to the sound of mixed precipitation falling on the roof. It's been almost three full weeks since I returned to work full time and the shortness of the days has really impeded progress on the farm. Ethan and I managed to string one course of hardware cloth around the bottom of the chicken run and I hope to do another course this weekend. I have managed to turn the top layer of the compost over and the only thing left standing in the garden plots is the spent raspberry canes. The light of day has become a very precious thing and I am trying to squeeze every bit of production out of those short sunlit hours. Last weekend I sacrificed some production on the farm to break a three year hiatus of brewing with my brother. We made three different styles of stout and as we boiled wort run off from grain and added hops I remembered how much I love zymurgy. Zymurgy is the study of the process of fermentation and it can be as  simple or complex as the brewer makes it. I love the whole brewing process, the smell of sugars being washed from freshly milled grains, the aroma of hops as they are poured into the brew kettle and the challenge of the boil as we attempt to arrive at our desired specific gravity. Last weekend was successful on many levels and although we were a bit rusty we quickly knocked off the cobwebs and had a very good brew session. Monks often used the dark and long days of winter to create some of the world's best known beer styles and it felt as if we were once again following in some very old footsteps.
     Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and even though I'm not working the day will be spent with family and friends instead of working on the farm. There is a part of me which feels like I'm squandering the daylight hours but I have reminded myself that this is a day for celebrating what we've been blessed with and giving thanks for and sharing those blessings. There are farm chores that will need to be done but those are easy tasks and won't take much time. I have been leaving lights on over the rabbit hutches to simulate summer daylight so the does will be more inclined to mate with our buck. In an attempt to defy the long nights of the season tomorrow I'll breed the first of the does and the remaining does will be bred this weekend. Hanging hardware cloth and breeding rabbits will be almost all that's done on the farm this week but there will be one more thing to do. Once again zymurgy is involved and I'll have Kathy pick up five gallons of late season cider from Woodstock Orchards; I may be partial to this orchard since I worked there years ago. I'm a true New Englander and in the typical style of our region I won't be making typical hard cider but New England style hard cider. We have to deal with cold winters here in the northeast so we like to have a bit more warmth to our cider. I'll be adding five pounds of brown sugar to the cider which will add, in typical New England style, about four to five percent more alcohol to the cider. There probably won't be much more that I can accomplish this weekend.
     I've spent a great deal of time reading about the lifestyle of farms of yesterday and we have been modeling our farm to match those times. Kathy and I believe that this simpler lifestyle is a more healthy one, both physically and mentally. Today's farms are places of constant, even frantic places of busyness with little consideration for the animals, land or people that live and work on them. The short days and long nights have been supplanted by electric lights, crazy fertilizing practices and round the clock agriculture. Tractors with lights allow for all night harvesting and intensive breeding and growing practices sacrifice quality for quantity. When I look at our twenty-four hour, seven day a week culture and see how quickly appreciation for the slower, smaller things of life are lost I find that I'm happy with some long nights mixed with a bit of zymurgy.

Last Harvests

   Since I last wrote we have lost the hour of  evening daylight that daylight savings time gave to us and the nights start much earlier now. I have gone back to work full time and so the farm chores have been relegated to the weekends. I have found that the loss of that evening hour has affected me more than I thought it would. The pressure to get the outside projects finished has just soared and the limited daylight and much cooler temperatures has just moved those projects to the top of the list. Last weekend I harvested the remaining habenaro peppers and put them in a brining solution. Today I packed the peppers in canning jars filled with olive oil and checked one more thing off the to do list. All the posts have been set and the door has been hung for the chicken run, now all we need to do is install the fencing. Yesterday I prepared the area for planting sun chokes and today the chokes went into the ground. It was warmer than I expected it to be and so the planting was easy and it was a pleasure to once again have garden soil on my hands. I planted the tubers exactly as my friend told me I should and thought about next years harvest of a new addition to the garden. The thought made me smile and I smiled even more as I checked another item off my list. I accomplished most of what I intended to do this weekend and now all the garden plots have been spread with rabbit manure and all the dead stalks and canes have been cut down for composting or removal.
    The full beaver moon has come and gone and we've only had a few really chilly days. The anticipated cold snap has yet to come and so the last of garden crops is hanging on. Kale, that wonderful and healthy green is hardy and I've seen it growing in several inches of snow, is still hanging on in the garden. There have been green worms munching on our last crop and I removed several of them today. The weather men are predicting a touch of the polar vortex will come at the end of the week and I hope it will end the lives of my little green poachers. I had written in my last post that I was ready for the growing season to be over and also to finish the last of my outside projects, this has not changed but I'm still hoping to nibble some of our kale. I have sold almost all the current litter of rabbits and so am really leaning toward a winter breeding of the does. This decision means that Issac will have to sire the next litters and I'll have to gear up for another outside project, mainly keeping the new born kits from freezing during their first few days of life.
    As I write this post I can see the leaves blowing from yard to yard and I can also see that most of the leaves are off the trees. Autumn is more than half done and winter is just six weeks away and although I have been talking about what I've been doing outside I know that those things are coming to an end. I am anticipating the coming change and have picked up two carboys from my brother for fermenting cider. I will order the yeast for inoculating the cider next weekend and the weekend after that have a carboy filled with freshly pressed cider from Woodstock Orchards. We will also begin looking into a cheese making kit in the next week or two which is a very exciting prospect for me as I love cheese. These are all inside activities and I'm really looking forward to starting them  because it's another phase of farming we haven't really tried yet. I don't mind the cold, in fact I love deer hunting or checking traps on the crisp falling mornings, so it's not why I'm ready to move our projects in doors. I'm ready to move inside because I'm looking forward sharing our  new experiences with our friends, so as I look out the window and see the long shadows of a shorter day I'm excited for the changes brought on by the season of  last harvests.