And the roof came tumbling down

Two weeks ago after we finished putting away the sugaring equipment we started emptying out the sugar house. The plan is to tear down the old sugar shack conserving as many materials as possible, and to build a fiber processing building on the same spot. The fiber building will be larger, and will provide space for washing, dyeing, and carding wool as well as space for workshops and a farm store. A new sugar house will be built behind the fiber building and back toward the cow lane.

Our daughter Kim was visiting with her 4 children...and friend Keith. We carried the sugaring equipment to the first bay in the barn beginning with the buckets, and ending with the evaporator.

We made piles. A pile of all kinds of metal stuff, piles of boards, piles of things to give away, and a pile for the dump. Dan came by and picked out the steel, which he can use in his blacksmith shop or to build things. Steve picked a few things they could use out of the dump pile, and Lee took some metal and copper pipe.

First the side supports and back shed came off. We wondered if the building would still stand, as these were put on to stabilize it's leaning to the side years ago. It seemed stable enough.
Then Kim, Kieth, and James tackled the roof removing the metal panels one by one and stacking them back by the fence. The chimney from the arch came down, too rusty to keep. Strapping came off and 2x4's and old boards. Kalyn and James helped Mary Ann and I to remove nails from the better boards stacking them back by the fence. We filled a 3 pound coffee can with nails over the 3 days that we worked.


Mary Ann cut down the 2 mostly dead trees to the east, and cut a hole in the west wall to protect the water hydrant from damage when the building fell. We cut holes near the top left corner through which we put a big chain, which was fastened to straps with hooks on the end, and attached to the frame of the truck. We made sure all the children and animals were safe while Marty slowly drove the truck forward in low gear and boom....the building came down with a crash. The roof was sitting on the ground still intact. It would have been easier to dismantle the roof here had we known it would hold up.


Jim came over for half a day and cut down the poplar trees where the tree house used to be. The trees would would have shaded the solar panels that will generate hot water for washing wool and a radiant floor. Jim made the trees fall right where we wanted them and efficiently cut them into manageable pieces. Mark came and spent a day with Mary Ann splitting them by hand with a maul. We have a pile of 3-4 cords of wood to use as firewood and sap wood.

Gary was driving by and stopped in to offer his time and equipment for crushing the roof and hauling it away. The offer was attractive, and later in the week in about 3 hours the whole thing was gone.



Now we are moving the iris, clematis, strawberries to new homes. We have moved "stuff" like the crooked fence, the cap for the truck, and the forecart out of the way in preparation for the "digger" to stake the footprint and dig for the foundation beginning next week.

We plan to keep you posted...stay tuned.

Maine Maple Sunday 2010

We had a crazy sap season this year. In past years we have tapped trees early March and started boiling around the 15th. We know it is time for sap to run when there are nights below freezing and days in the high 30's or up into the 40's. This year we tapped over 200 trees around the first of March and by the 15th we had several gallons of syrup made. We probably missed some good sap runs in February. By March 21st, the first day of spring, we had made 12 batches with a little over a gallon per batch. Then we had over a week of warm days and warm nights...sap did not run at all.

The Sun Journal did a super article on the front page of the Saturday edition of the paper "From Sugar to Sheep". They also sent out a videographer to put a short clip online. To see it go to sunjournal.com/sumnerfarm. Some readers got the impression that this was our last year to do maple syrup, but if you read carefully to the end you see that this is the last year for our old sugar house (once a chicken coop), which is coming down soon to build a fiber processing building. Next year we will have the same evaporator in a smaller sugar house back closer to the southwest field. The article also talked about our growing flock of sheep including a picture of Willow, a triplet and one of Venus, our littlest lamb just 12 days old.

We heard that quite a few maple farms had actually pulled taps and were planning to boil water on Maine Maple Sunday. In preparation for the day we went out to collect sap on Saturday only to find ice in the buckets. The sap had run...and the day was so cold it had frozen. We took the buckets into the kitchen to thaw overnight. When people started to arrive early Sunday (before we planned to be open) we were still thawing the lines with a hair dryer and had not yet started a fire in the evaporator. "Come back later" Mary Ann said....

We had a wonderful team of helpers. One friend greeted people at the end of the driveway. She counted over 170 adults and many children who came to see our diversified farm. One of our helpers put together a bulletin board for the barn that is titled "Our Farm Family". It includes some pictures of our animals, the names of our sheep, tracing back to the first two, "Lucy and Winnie". It also includes the names and birth date of each of our 24 spring lambs this year, the six angora goats, Bubba (the horse), Nutter Butter and Mrs. Whatsit (the cats), Meg (the dog) and the chickens. No, we do not usually name the chickens.

We had helpers in the barn to answer questions about the animals and show off the new pole barn, built last fall. The 3 youngest lambs were in the barn with their mothers, and the rest of the flock was behind the barn. The lambs were not as playful as usual. It was cold in the barn!

Mary Ann was boiling sap in the sugar and made two gallons of sap, though it took her way into the evening to do it. She was talking about the process of turning sap into maple syrup as she fed the evaporator with wood all day long. She also tried to keep tabs on a table with cookies and coffee cake, but there was not time to make coffee or maple tea. At least it was warmer there.

Marty was in the shop where, at times, people were shoulder to shoulder and standing in line to buy their maple syrup, rovings, yarn, and knitted items. Another friend showed up just in time to take over the checkout stand so Marty could demonstrate needlefelting for a customer. It was toasty warm from the wood stove...another reason it was a popular place to be. One young person with angora bunnies bought lovely white roving to blend with her bunny fiber to spin into yarn for a baby that is expected in the near future. Another CSA customer signed up for our first annual Weekend Spring Fiber Gathering in April and went home with roving to spin as part of her fiber share. One of the Tuesday knitters showed up with an angora hat and a felted bag she had made. It was added to the table of knitted items to sell. The work for many knitted items were made by members of our Tuesday knitting circle with yarn from our animals. It was a contribution to the success of the day.

We do indeed have a growing fiber community.

Washing Wool

Over the past 2 weeks I have washed 50 pounds of wool in our washing machine. A young couple called us on the phone asking us to wash the wool and mohair from their animals. They were not sure how many pounds. We agreed on a price per pound, and when they brought the wool I realized what I was taking on.

The wool was very dirty. I sorted through and weighed each fleece, one box for dark wool, one for white, another for colored mohair, and another for white mohair. As I sorted I was making a judgment about what fleeces I could manage.

To wash wool I fill the washing machine with HOT, hot water...140 degrees in fact. I add liquid soap and put the wool, encased in mesh bags. NO AGITATION! Let it soak for 30 minutes. This means set the timer I keep with me as I do other things. When the time is up, drain the tub of the very grungy water, take out the wool, refill the tub with more HOT water, enter the wool again, first rinse for 30 minutes, NO AGITATION. Repeat draining, removing wool, and refill with a second wash with soap. Wait 30 minutes. Repeat draining, removing wool, and refill two more times for two rinses. Whew! The whole process takes two and one half hours of soaking not counting filling, draining and spinning. And when you are done you know bunches of dirt and lanolin have gone down the drain and the wool looks white when it looked gray to begin with.

Then the wool is spread out on racks to dry. This is when I begin to see bits of vegetation that did not get picked out of the dirty wool, and I find myself picking a bit out every time I pass the drying rack. Some of the wool dries overnight. Some of it takes several days. I know it would dry faster if the layers were not so thick, but I have limited space. I am looking forward to having a drying rack that is stacked high with screen shelves. As it is I have to wait several days for each load of wool to dry before I can do the next one.

Now I have a much better handle on what is involved with washing larger quantities of wool.
This summer we will build a fiber building that will have the capacity to wash and dry wool using solar thermal hot water. I will be glad when we are able to wash our own fleeces and the operation no longer takes over our bathroom with wall to wall wool.