I remember seeing a bumper sticker sometime in the mid-eighties that read “Split wood, not atoms.” Even though I was some twenty years from trying to heat a 160 year old, seven bedroom farmhouse with wood, I realized the sentiment to be a bit naive. I can guarantee the person driving around with that bumper sticker had never actually tried to functionally use split wood in place of a modern energy source. Certainly he was not running his car on wood!

We experienced our first winter at Rosemary Farm in 2008 – the coldest winter in nearly 27 years. The house is equipped with a forced air oil furnace. We went into fall with home heating oil at over four dollars a gallon. We also had an old open fireplace in which we installed a wood-burning insert. The house is drafty, and not well insulated, and we found even shutting it down to a few rooms, keeping the overall heat no more than 55 degrees and living in front of the fireplace (which we continually stuffed with wood), we still spent a small fortune in heating oil. It was cozy enough in front of that fireplace – cozy enough to get married in front of, but we needed a better solution for the years to come.

Cozy Fireplace

“I’ve got it! Let’s get one of those outdoor wood-burning furnaces. We have lots of trees on the property. I’ll just cut them up and we can heat for free.”

Back to the guy with the bumper sticker… Do you know how much wood you need to split to heat a house for a year? I’m at about ten cords so far and the winter is only half over. You may ask “didn’t you know or find out how much wood you’d need BEFORE installing such a unit?” The answer is yes and no. I was aware, though I thought it would be a little less, but I couldn’t really imagine how much wood that was – and how I was going to get it.

So as summer turned to fall – 2009 – we had a wood-burning furnace installed behind our house with fifty feet of underground insulated pipe to carry hot water to a heat exchanger installed in our furnace. I began to cut the pile of wood left by the loggers down near the brook. I was sure this would take no time at all and last at least half t chainsaw he winter.  I attacked the pile with gusto and my 18″ Poulan chainsaw, a homeowners model left here by the previous tenants.

Wood Pile next to tractor

First things first.  I had to dig the logs, some up to twenty feet long, out of the pile of mud the loggers had bulldozed them into.  I used the forks on the front of my tractor and stacked up four or five logs to get started – no problem.

Two and a half hours later I had cut one ten foot log into five smaller logs.  I had spent a majority of that time messing with the chainsaw and sharpening the chain.  Oh yes, you must sharpen chains on chainsaws especially when cutting through tree trunks coat in mud – mud contains rocks and rock beats metal.  I learned about sharpening chains after buying several new chains each time they dulled.  Figuring there had to be a better (cheaper) way I bought a file and hit the Internet.  It’s not that hard, but filing each one of the teeth on the chain takes a little time.

But two and a half hours for probably a days worth of firewood (we haven’t even got to splitting the blocks yet) did not seem efficient.  Perhaps a professional, or at least someone who has done this before could help.  But hiring someone on the cheap to do farm chores is a whole other story.  Suffice to say after another half a day fight the woodpile beast the conclusion was “we’re going to need a bigger saw.”

Off to the farm machinery store…

“You could get away with the Rancher model, but you’ll find you’ll want something bigger with the amount of wood you have to cut.”  That’s what our friendly, ex-Brooklyn tractor salesman told me.  And to his credit he had been right about the tractor he sold me.  ”So which model will I need?” Translation – How much will this cost me?  For your information, a professional model Husqvarna 357 XP retails for over $750.  He gave me a small price break and though in an extra chain, some chain oil and a file.  Oh yes – you still have to sharpen them!

It still wasn’t like a knife through butter, but I was able to knock through the logs at a reasonable clip.  The fact that they had been bulldozed into a mud pile was a problem, but another lesson learned.  Now, onto splitting the cut logs.  Splitting can be done with an axe and several wedges or with a wood splitter – a wedge force down into the wood by a hydraulic engine. I was lucky enough to borrow one from a neighbor that fit the back of a tractor.  Of course it didn’t fit the back of MY tractor without two hundred dollars worth of mounting iron and hydraulic hose.

I spent a couple hours a day stacking, cutting, splitting and hauling wood to our wood stove.  I figure all told, four or five days worth of work.  And that pile, maybe seven cords (128 square feet of wood per cord) lasted just barely to Christmas.

Wood Furnace

Rosemary Farm has many wood acres – in the mountains.  Unless you’re doing significant logging, it turns out it’s cheaper to buy logs by the truckload than to get them off the side of a mountain.  We had a load delivered near to the stove.  That relieved me of the burden of digging out, stacking and eventually hauling the logs to the stove.  I still had to cut and chop them.  A three-week cold spell of nights below zero relieved me of my 3 1/2 cords quickly.

It’s warmed up a bit now – in the thirties by day and I just had a tri-axle load delivered, about 7 1/2 cords.  Ordering such a load is not like ordering a cheeseburger, it takes a week or so of arranging.  If something goes wrong – and it usually does – maybe two or more weeks.  I tried to plan ahead but still ended up cutting down several small trees behind the Maple Barn. (Don’t worry tree lovers; they were slated to fall anyway.)

Delivering Wood

Unloading Wood

I’m hoping, barring any more really cold spells, this load will last us through the rest of the winter.  I figure that will make about 18 full cords.  A lot of timber, but still less than a quarter of what we would have spent on heating oil. What about the cost of my time? Considering a gym membership  in the city runs over a hundred dollars a month, and I’m in the best shape I’ve been in since high school – I figure I’m saving money there too!

Chucking Wood

Yesterday morning I had to lay to rest one more of our farms beloved creatures. It has once again brought me squarely face to face with the downside of dealing with a lot of livestock – deadstock. I am not at all trying to be funny. It is something a neighbor warned us about early on in our adventure here at the farm and it resonates with each passing. The issue was brought to our attention in reference to the practical problems in dealing with a death since at the time we were burying a neighbors pony for him using our tractor. But there is also the emotional side of being faced with death so often. Most of us are not. And when we are personally touched it often a singular life changing loss. But with so many creatures passing through our lives now we have found we need to learn to quickly accept and move on – as there are so many alive here still counting on us. This doesn’t mean we do not feel the loss – we simply try to replace it with the memory of life. And so in that spirt, I wish to share with you the memory of some of the friends we said goodbye to through the last seasons.
Grandpa Bunny (Cinnamon) came to us from a neighborhood boy preparing to go off to college. The boy had had the bunny since he was eight. I don’t think anyone imagined the would have this problem. Ten years old is very old for a bunny, but Grandpa Bunny (as we dubbed him) seemed in fine health and the boy did not want to put him down. We had a lone bunny, Easter, a Brooklyn rescue and we wanted a friend for her. So it worked out great – especially for Grandpa whose last six months were spent lustfully with his new friend Easter. He passed peacefully in his sleep the other night.
Byron and Emmett came to us from Brooklyn as caged birds.
Byron	Emmett
Byron, a small bantam roster, became the head of our flock and was a proud and noble leader. Yes I just described a chicken as proud and noble. That is because of all I learned from Byron. Most of the chickens in this country spend their lives in cages smaller than shoe-boxes – never to see the light of day. Because of that, people claim roosters are mostly unnecessary except for making new chickens. But in a free range flock roosters are the caretakers, providers and protectors. Byron was the perfect example and even though he was raised in a cage in Brooklyn he took handedly to his new responsibilities. Byron would collect food for the hens, round them up, make sure they were in at night and ultimately, he protected them with his life. Emmett was his second in command and he too helped in the duties above. One late afternoon in late fall Byron and Emmet defended the flock from a wandering predator. Byron fought to the death. Emmett got away but ultimately died from internal wounds. The rest of the flock was safe – including the two proud roosters Byron and Emmet raised from chicks who have now take over the jobs of their fallen leaders. We lost a couple of other hens to predators this past summer – one of the downfalls of a free range flock. But believe us when we boast to having the happiest chickens on earth. Death is a risk worth taking while living life to the fullest.
By far the hardest loss for me was that of Tigress, my beloved friend of thirteen years.
	I have had Tigress and her sister Nikki since they were kittens. She slept with me, worked with me and rode my shoulder around the many houses I’ve had in the past thirteen years. She was a wonderful companion, always there for me and a cherished member of our farm. We lost her to cancer this year. We had to put her down – one of the hardest choices I had to make. You are sorely missed Tigress.
But life is a circle. And whether you believe it random or designed, life will fill in the empty spaces. During Tigress’s last months with the disease, we found a kitten in the barn while throwing hay. She was no more than a week old and fit in the palm of your hand. We took her in and she and Tigress became friends. Cosmo now carries on Tigress’s duty of staving off mice with Nikki.
After the tragic incident with Byron and Emmett and we gathered up eggs from right before and after their deaths and decided to try to incubating them. That is a tale unto itself.
	Suffice to say we have fifteen tiny chickens in our bathtub – six of whom look suspiciously like Byron – or Emmett. We shall see.
And I hear today that Sean Cassey Animal Rescure, from whence our Brooklyn creatures hailed, has a big white bunny that is desperately in need of a home. Looks like Easter Bunny is going to be getting a new friend too!

About eight months ago you couldn’t get a gallon of gas for five bucks in many parts of the country.  But the other night we got a deal.

When the aforementioned price of gas went up so did everything else dependent on gas – including the price of hay.  What the hay – you say?  Well this forced up the price of feeding a horse in an already struggling economy.  So what do you do when you can no longer feed Trigger…

I was sick that evening, but the truth be told I really didn’t want to go to the auction in Onadila.  That is, the horse auction.   My wife said she was only going to get some cheap tack.  Of course I knew the risks.  We had gone from no horses to five horses in as many months.  Still I really didn’t want to see this auction.  I’ve seen to many crimeless victims.

So I was just sitting around in my pjs drinking my last glass of Theraflu when I got the call.  I could hear her tears.  ”It was awful.  They all went for cheap.  And so many good one went to the kill buyers.”

Unless you choose to put your head in the sand you are probably aware that most unwanted horse end up at auction and the most unwanted of them end up in the back of a truck to a Canadian slaughterhouse.  Now I’m not talking about mean ornery horses that attack people.  Just everyday old trail horses and pets that spent their better years riding people around but were now just to much to feed.

“So how many are we getting?” I asked knowingly.  ”Just one.”  I’m guessing buy now you’ve already figured out how much that one cost.

He was a little colt.  Not trained.  Not gelded.  Frightened and alone, they thought he wasn’t even lead-able.  He was brought in the ring, un-haltered, next to last and was going to the kill buyer for $5 when Dawn stepped in.

“How are you getting him home?” Being it was already 10:00 PM and she was an hour away – with no trailer, I couldn’t even imagine.

But round midnight she pulled up followed by a trailer.

Did I mention we have no outdoor lights leading down to the pole barn – the only place we could keep the horse for now?

The older man who had trailered the horse for her swore up and down we couldn’t lead him.   But what choice did we have?   So we hooked up two leads to the little guy and lead him down a pitch black road by flashlight around the big yellow barn to the darkened pole barn at the bottom of the hill.  He was quite frightened but actually quite good.  We tied him to a post and gave him some hay and water.  He was ravenous.  He probably hadn’t eaten for several days.

The next morning we headed down to the barn to see what we could do with him.  He learned very fast. He let us pet him and brush him and then take him for a walk in the field.  I think he’s going to be a very good horse.

So you may not be able to get a good meal, see a movie or even get an imported beer in your local bar for five bucks today, but if you’re willing to take a chance you could still find some pretty good bargains out there – and maybe save a life in the process.

To get to Rosemary Farm, of course.  If you have a farm you’ve got to have chickens.  So off to TSC for there annual batches of baby chickens.  We started with fourteen because thats about all our bathtub can hold comfortably.  That is until our brood of hatchlings become roosters and hens. (At the rate they are growing I expect that to be no more then a month or so.) So the next big project – build a chicken coop.

After some discussion of the best and most convenient places on the farm to build a coop, we settled on the old maple barn.  A smaller out-building about the size of a three-car garage with a small upstairs.  The first job was cleaning it out.  The barn had become a trash depository as had every building on the property.  That only took a day and as far as designing and building the coop, we had some time…

Until we saved Byron!

Byron (as we named him) was a rooster a friend found in his backyard in Brooklyn.  Not knowing who else to call, he called us.  We had him call a local animal rescue to capture the chicken until we could get down there and pick him up.  Of course, my wife returned with Byron, Emily, the Weird Sisters and Bunny Tuscadero!  (A rooster, three hens and a HUGE rabbit.)

OK – we need to step it up on the coop.  Until then the chickens go in the Hobbit room – a room in back of the house that has low ceiling and a small door that comes out of a cabinet in the hallway.  The bunny went in the sun room, of course.

We picked a corner of the Maple barn that looked finished enough and decided on an eight by fourteen coop.  (That should hold the chicks too when they are ready as my wife does not “plan” on keeping all fourteen – right.)

So I quickly built this little coop from a bunch of old lumber and a battered (screenless) screen door.  I used some roofing tin from another barn we had to pull down for the ceiling.  So all we had to buy was some extra chicken wire and this is what we got.

Byron is now lord of the manor.  And in another few weeks he will have a dozen or so chicks to add to his flock.

So here I am in the Catskills with my new old farm and new tractor and no clue what to do to get things to grow!

Actually, I am getting a few clues. The first clue I got is that a shiny new tractor is no good without IMPLEMENTS. And there are lots of them! And they’re not cheap. (How do you guys make money when you need to spend a fortune on all this stuff?) And speaking of stuff, I see so many of them (implements) out and about. What are you doing with all those things? How’d you get them? And most importantly – do you still need them all? Because if they are just laying out getting rusty I can use any you want to get rid of. I have several pastures that have not been tended to in twenty years… (I think I’ll need a bottom plow, tiller, box blade and some sort of rake?) And lots of horse fences to put up. (A post hole digger would be a big help – not to mention posts. Also a round pen and gates – lots of gates.) Of course that’s just for getting things in order. Then there are all those implements for planting and harvesting.

Oh well, first things first. Got to get my stuff on.

So if you got stuff you’re looking to get rid of, even if they need fixing (I may be from the city but I am quite mechanically inclined) let me know what you got and what kind of deal we can work out. (Did I mention I already spent ALL my money on the farm and tractor and my water still isn’t working right.)

I thought farming was supposed to be the simple life?!?!