Story Time at Clatter Ridge Farm

Two bluebirds are nesting in a bluebird box outside our dining room window. We might as well set a place for them at the table, as we spend much of our evening meal discussing their comings and goings. After a day spent taking care of our animals, it’s oddly relaxing to watch another pair so diligently provide for their own.We watched as the male collected twigs for the nest the female was building. He seemed very particular, searching at length for just the right stick – small enough to fit through the opening and flexible enough to bend around the edges of the nest. He must have known what he was doing as there is very little that the female rejected. She is clearly the one in charge of all the nest building - he is merely a glorified “go-fer” (albeit a gorgeous one).The last few days, the male has been foraging for bugs while the female sits on her eggs. Bluebirds have excellent eyesight and can spot a caterpillar in tall grass 150 feet away. We grazed our sheep by the bluebird box last Fall, so the grass is very short and must make his insect hunting practically effortless.The eggs will hatch in a couple weeks and after that, they’ll both be very busy collecting enough food for their new brood. For now, though, he has a lot of free time and spends most of his day on top of the box resting, or on a branch nearby surveying his estate.I wonder, as I go about my chores, if they are watching us and remarking on our comings and goings, in the same way we comment on theirs.The female sitting on her nest might remark:“It’s so nice to see that Bobbie and Anne got all their sheep back on pasture so early - and what a lovely batch of lambs they have this Spring! I do hope they have a productive grazing season.”The male perched on the top of the box preening his brilliant blue feathers might respond:“Weather be willing! Not too much rain, and no more droughts - I think they’ll be just fine. Yes, I’m sure of it, it’s going to be a particularly splendid summer.”Where there is joy, there’s hope.Thanks for reading Clatter Ridge Farm! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clatterridgefarm.substack.com

Nothing draws people to our farmers’ market booth like a table filled with orange and yellow edible mushrooms. The brightly colored “Chicken of the Woods” fungi stops people in their tracks, and most can’t resist coming up and asking what it is. Some want to know “How do I know it’s not poisonous?” I explain that killing our customers is a very poor business model, so we only sell items we are quite sure are okay. It’s a conversation starter and even if I can’t convince them that not all mushrooms are deadly, we have a chance at least of interesting them in something a little more mundane like a dozen eggs or a scarf made from our sheep’s wool.Our last batch of Chicken of the Woods was beginning to lose its vibrant color, so last night I decided to find a replacement. The sun was low on the horizon, but I knew if I hurried, I could at least go check out a log just below the ridgeline that always produces a nice crop in early fall. Just about the time I got to the log, though, and heard the rustling of dry leaves and snapping of twigs around the corner, I realized, belatedly, that there were two significant flaws to my plan. The first was that we haven’t had a good soaking rain in weeks so the log I was checking out was too dry - I needed to look along the shaded edges of the brook where the logs would still be damp. The second realization was that in my hurry to get out the door, I’d forgotten my bear spray and that the sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs was definitely heading my way.I climbed up on the log hoping that, if I was about to meet a bear, that the additional three feet of height might make me look slightly less edible. I waited and much to my relief a flock of wild turkeys came into view. They were southbound and I had been headed north, each of us following the path along the talus slope below the ridge line.I have a foraging map stored in some recess of my brain, and I imagine the turkeys do as well. I usually know where different mushrooms fruit at various times of the year - I also know the pattern of the animals I prefer to avoid. I stay out of the swampy areas in the spring so as to avoid the bears eating skunk cabbage and I avoid the young hemlock grove so as to not disturb the deer that bed down there at dusk. I’m sure the turkeys know where all the acorns can be found this time of year -and when daylight begins to fade, they start foraging their way up the ridge line where the added elevation enables them to easily access and roost in the tops of the trees below them. I’m sure they also know how best to avoid bears and coyotes, and somewhere in their brain, they were trying to recall if they’d ever encountered a human staring at them while standing on a log in the fading daylight and if it posed any danger.“No, you’re good” I said out loud, hopping off the log– “I’ll go this way - you go that way.” I turned downhill and headed to the brook where I did, in fact, find an enormous chicken of the woods and made it home with plenty of light.I left the turkeys happily scratching up the leaf litter and swallowing their acorns whole. I made a mental note to look for chanterelles in that spot next summer as the disturbance in the soil often encourages the mycelium to fruit. On some level, I’m sure the turkeys were updating their database to include me as well. Pretty much a non-entity, neither good nor bad - just momentarily in the way.Thanks for reading Clatter Ridge Farm! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clatterridgefarm.substack.com

Whenever one of our pigs touches the electric fence, and lets out an impressive heart rendering squeal, Anne and I, in perfect unison, cheerfully proclaim “fence works!”.Our friends look at us in horror, and I guess it probably does seem a bit callous, but anyone who has spent an afternoon trying to retrieve a wayward pig understands our enthusiasm. A little zap on the nose seems like a very small price to pay, to remind the little wanderers which side of the fence is theirs.Pigs, in general, are hard on fences. Their constant rooting of rocks and dirt, shovels debris on top of the bottom wire, shorting out the electrical charge and rendering the fence basically useless.When it’s just adult pigs in the paddock, we can raise the lowest wire to keep it out of the dirt. But if there are piglets around, and we raise the bottom wire too high, the piglets can slip underneath it- which they happily do for no other reason than that they can, and that it clearly annoys me.Since we always have piglets around, I spend an inordinate amount of time, each day, trying to keep the fence suitably electrified.Sometimes a short is obvious, like a fallen tree or an uprooted stump, but more often I need to retrace the pig’s steps, following the fence line, looking for uprooted rocks, a broken insulator or a snapped wire.Yesterday, I had to hop over a stream where 5 inches of rain, from Hurricane “Henri” had buried the bottom wire in storm related debris. Hopping over the stream was easy enough, but I slid on the muddy bank, into the fence. I grabbed the metal post, as I slid by, which indeed kept me from falling, but completed the circuit just the same.It’s true the shock really wasn’t that bad, but I still bellowed out in pain, and I swear in the distance, I heard one of the piglets enthusiastically yell “fence works!!!”Thanks for reading Clatter Ridge Farm! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clatterridgefarm.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clatterridgefarm.substack.com

I've been arguing with a chicken for months. She’s insisted on laying her eggs underneath our back porch and my days of happily crawling under the porch to retrieve those eggs are over, so we put an end to that. Anne and I blocked her access by covering the opening with poultry netting, and perhaps predictably she started laying eggs under the front porch. We covered up those openings as well, so she started laying eggs in an old kindling box on top of the porch - the dogs chased her out of there. Next, she went to the herb garden on the side of the house, then to the flower garden, then into the tall grass by the pond. She has been nothing if not persistent. Time and time again she'd find a new spot and eventually I'd discover it. Our early morning commuter routes often passed, mine out to the barn to do chores, hers off to some forbidden place to lay an egg. I would take note of what direction she was heading so I could go back later to retrieve it. The absurdity of it all was entertaining but in the end there are way too many other things I should be doing, to spend my time tailing a chicken. I finally declared defeat several weeks ago. I told Anne that when I had the chance, I'd catch the hen and put her in the new coop where her free ranging activities would be severely curtailed. Just announcing it made me feel better, though I think a part of me admired her stubbornness, and I never actually got around to doing it. Today when I got home, she greeted me with 10 little chicks in tow, all happily strutting across the front lawn. How she managed to pull off sitting on the eggs for 21 days without me or the dogs (or the fox, coyote, possum, skunk or black snake) finding her is beyond me. But she did, and she seems very pleased with herself.I suspect she brought all the chicks out into the open because she was hungry and she knew, that despite our differences, I'd provide. As much as she wanted a free meal, she was spectacularly protective, attacking me whenever I got too close. Anne and I did manage to catch her and her brood and lock them in the barn with a pile of food and plenty of water, which I hope for now she appreciates more than her freedom. As soon as her brood is old enough to live safely on their own, I'll open the door and she can do as she pleases. In fact, I've already made a small opening for her in the poultry netting under the porch. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clatterridgefarm.substack.com