Catching Up on Howell Farm Stuff, etc.

I've been derelict in my duties. I said I'd talk about Howell Farm activities and it's been a while.

Tomorrow is the second of the Maple Sugaring days, last Saturday being the first. Back at the beginning of February was the "official" tree tapping day for the maple sugaring season, though I'm sure with as mild a winter as it's been, some of those trees got holes poked in 'em before that. So now begins the official cooking-down of the sap into syrup.

Of course, up in New England maple sugaring is an art form and some farms have elaborate set ups of tubing that feeds the sap right from the trees downhill into the storage tanks and self-stirring vats in the sugar house. But Howell Farm just has a metal pan about 2 feet wide, 4 feet long and maybe 4 or 5 inches high that sets over an outdoor wood fire. The sap is stored in milk cans, which are emptied into a special can with a little plastic tube fit into the side at the bottom that feeds the sap into the pan as needed, and someone tends the fire and stirs and skims the sap. It takes 40 gallons of sugar maple sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, even more for other maples and non-maples, like birches and some other trees. So this is not a quick process. When the sap reaches a certain temperature - 200-something; can't remember exactly - then it's taken out of the outdoor pan and brought into the house to finish on the stove. It's not practical to do the whole cooking-down process in the house because it causes too much steam. Most of the syrup is bottled, though some is also made into maple candy and other maple-y goodies. The children's activity last week was maple brittle and this week it will be maple cookies.

Coming up next week on March 10th is the program now named "Meet the Horse Doctor, Dentist, and Shoer." This used to be two separate programs, one for the vet and dentist and the other for the farrier (the guy who trims and shoes the horses). The horse doctor, or veterinarian, will listen to the horses' hearts and bellies. What? Their bellies!? Yup, it's good for a horse to have some gurgling in its gut. If it's too quiet, that could mean a problem. He may also give vaccinations or give worming medicine to the horses at that time.

The dentist is fun, if a little creepy, to watch. He feels the horse's teeth to see if there are any sharp points that might cut the inside of the horse's cheek and make it hard or painful for him to eat. Yes, he puts his hand into the horse's mouth to do this. And he says he doesn't get bit very often. But don't try this at home, folks. If he finds any sharp points, he gets a big, flat file like one a carpenter might use and files down the points.

The horse shoer will pull off any shoes the horses might already be wearing, then he trims their hooves (like fingernails), and also trims the sole and frog (the frog is the center of the sole that acts like a shock absorber), kinda like trimming the dead skin off of calluses. Then if the horse needs to wear shoes for his work, the shoer will get the right size shoe, hammer the shoe into the correct shape if necessary, then nail the shoe onto the hooves.

Did you know: Horses' front feet are round; their back feet are oval.

"Work Horse Rides and Blacksmithing" will be on March 17th. Some of the horses, the gentlest ones, will get a break from field work that day and will get to carry kids on their backs. They still have to wear their harnesses, but carrying a 50 lb. child around is a lot easier than hauling a plow through the ground. And the kids get to feel what it was like for a farm kid way back when, when a kid might have to ride one of the horses to fetch lunch or a drink of water or a certain tool for Dad while he worked in a field that was far from the house. But, no, they don't get to steer or anything like that. Someone, hopefully an adult (yes, of COURSE it will be an adult. Silly!) will lead each horse up and down one of the farm lanes so each kid gets a 5-minute-or-so ride. The blacksmith will be making various little doo-dads from iron, maybe some S-hooks to hang things on, or spoons or forks, or he might be punching kids' names into little pony shoes for souvenirs.

The corn maze this year will be a barn owl. Don't try this if you're claustrophobic.

Check out howellfarm.org for more info and photos. Unfortunately, I'm on the computer withOUT the pictures in it, or else I'd include some.

Also, while I'm talking farm, I need to mention Greenwoodhill Farm, up in Andover, NY. It's a privately owned park that also takes overnight guests. Like me and DH, Jim and Dana, the owners, are also former Howell Farm volunteers. They have chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, and horses (in fact, they have Barney, a retired Howell Farm horse). And during the summer, they have boarded a neighbor's alpacas, so I expect they'll have them this year too. You can find them at greenwoodhillfarm.com.

Howell Farm

In 1984, Howell Living History Farm had its grand opening. It had been donated to Mercer Co., New Jersey, 10 years earlier, with the stipulation by its last owner, Inez Howell, widow of NJ Congressman Charles Howell, that it be used as an educational facility. So the county went through its governmental red tape and hoop-de-doo and turned the farm into a county park. It's operated as an 1890-1910 working farm, with work horses and oxen providing much of the power. Actually, oxen weren't used so much in New Jersey at that time, but a program to train interns to use them was put into place at the farm. Pete Watson was hired, though I'm a bit fuzzy on whether he came on as intern trainer. You see, Pete had gone into the Peace Corps some years before, and being an English major, naturally he was trained to work with oxen. You see the connection, don't you? Oh, well, anyway, Pete was trained right here in Tennessee by Ben Ellingson out near Nashville. He later went to Africa (I don't know which particular countries) and trained farmers over there to use oxen for field work, rather than using hand tools. So when he came to Howell Farm, he put his oxen expertise to work. Here's a picture of the yoke of oxen the farm had when I started volunteering there in 1994, Lyon and Giant.

Giant, the black one, is an Angus steer. Normally, Angus steers are destined for a trip to the slaughterhouse at about 15-18 months old. But the year Giant was born (sometime between 1984 and 1994), there was a football game between the New York Giants (who play in New Jersey, of course - ??) and the Denver Broncos. The governors of NJ and CO made a friendly bet - if the Giants won, Colorado would pay with a steak dinner. I don't know what NJ would have payed if the Broncos had won. A pair of cement shoes, maybe?? Well, after the Giants won (hence the name), the guv of CO sent a whole steer, fer goodness sakes. Rather than treat his cronies in the State House to steaks, the NJ guv did the right thing and gave him to Howell Farm. After they got a teammate for him - that's Lyon, the red and white one, a Hereford steer - they were trained to work together. Those things on their faces are to keep them from grazing when they're working. Here are Frank and Jesse; they were the farm's oxen in 2002.

They are Milking Devons and were trained in New England, where there are a lot more oxen still doing farm work than in NJ.

More later.