Chicken Tractors

Six chicken tractors loaded with 60 free range broilers, 40 barred rock layers and 15 Narrangansett turkeys headed out of their brooders and into the pastures today, they will follow the lambs in the pasture rotation. Another 25 turkeys will enter the brooder next week and will follow along behind this group in about 2 weeks.

Bread Oven

Construction on Sterling's own bread oven began with an idea between Heidi Wilson and several students and is now approaching completion. The oven was built with the help of Peter Schuemann (Bread and Puppet)and many students, used lumber harvested from the Sterling woodlot and milled on Sterling's sawmill, a crosscut saw was used to create the arch for the doors, and clay was mined from a nearby source. The next step is to begin firing the oven with small twig fires and the first loaf of bread is on the near horizon. Small grains are being grown in our garden, rye, wheat and oats, and will be harvested with scythes and milled by hand. This writer cannot wait for the first pizza night!

Farm update

The farm has been busy, compost bins have been constructed to manage the chicken manure and stall bedding, our gilts have been routed out to the woods and, along with delicious natural forage, are being fed whey from Ploughgate Creamery. An herb bed has been built to make healing salves and natural anthelmitics for the animals; lavendar and comfrey have been established guarded by marigolds.

Lamb Management

We hope to raise 1000 pounds of grass-fed lamb for the kitchen for the coming school year; here, students learn the processes associated with lamb management--dewormer, CD&T shots, hoof trimming, and weighing for biweekly weight gain.

First Cultivation of Potatoes

While we seem to be stuck in the same weather pattern as last year, daily rain and lots of it, our storage crops are thriving. Here, as part of the Agriculture Power Systems course, we are cultivating our potatoes using a horse-drawn two row cultivator--this is tricky since one wrong step by the horses or one misjudgement by the driver operating the foot treadle can cause lots of damage to the young plants. Students gain confidence working the machine outside the garden area then proceed to working over the plants.