Farm and Soap Updates — Vermont

Vermont has been in the news lately and not for a great reason. Our county has seen worse flooding than during hurricane Irene and many towns and farms have been hard hit. We are fortunate enough to be a hillside farm, so while we have seen minor washouts and truly impressive volumes of moving water, our animals, plants and home are safe. Here's what is normally a small creek on the farm. Even though we've escaped the worst of the flooding, we are dealing with saturated soil in our pastures, which means making mud pits is a real danger. It can...

Here's what the farm looked like on April 27th this year: Of course it was all melted by around noon the next day! In northern Vermont it's a good rule of thumb to keep your snow tires on from Halloween to Mother's Day, lest you incur the wrath of the spring snow storm. There's a saying about snow that its "poor man's fertilizer". Turns out this isn't just an old farmer's tale. All precipitation brings nitrates out of the atmosphere and on to the soil, the advantage of snow is that this fertilizer is "slow release" gradually soaking into the...

Parts of Vermont saw a LOT of rain this Halloween night, including around 3.5 inches here at Fat Chance Farm. Cows and chickens are safely on high ground (while the ducks and geese are enjoying all the new puddles) and everyone is fed and watered but it looks like all the vehicles will be staying home today. Road crews are already hard at work but there will be several culverts to replace and a whole lot of filling to do. Road gravel has flowed into our and our neighbor's pastures. We may be "mining" it for other projects! Removing the...