Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.
Moving a Tad Faster
So it happens once again. The nip in the air, the first hard frost, the first fire of the season in the wood stove . Now time is a wastin’, and the cool morning starts make a body move just a tad faster. We know where we are headed.
What needs finishing is everything, because summer lulled us into comfort, seduced us with sunlight past suppertime. Now the frost slaps us awake. Remember! It’s Coming! Just as the sun disappears for over half the day, we awake. To action, October cries when September fails.
Even the birds stopping on their way south seem frantic now flitting from goldenrod to aster to burdock as they focus on a different task than raising broods. The wild turkeys seem to have time for leisure still as they stroll the field picking at this and that on their way to the orchard.
We have switched gears now that the Ford tractor is back together. The second kitchen, firewood, building projects, and barn winter preparation now take our spare moments of daylight in between milking times. Soon, the storage potatoes and garlic planting will be added to the list. That reads like a lot…here is hoping November is mild.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Quill’s Endians are members of Halcyon Grange and publish a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and generously permit us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.
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