Tag Archives: old farm

Seeing the Veggies through the Trees (Clearing Farmland)

Big news for McCollum Orchards. This fall, we cleared eight acres of overgrown farmland. Over 30 years the property had changed from maintained orchards and farmed land to a scraggly, overgrown wooded area. The land was densely shaded. There were old, rusty trash heaps and burn piles. Beneath the tall swamp maples were rows of dead plum trees. Areas flooded where clay drain tile had broken long ago. Clearing it back to its original plane was the key to bringing the farm back to life. In order to expand production, we need more cleared land to grow vegetables, hops and fruit on.

 

Big changes in just 18 months

In October, we hired a crew recommended for agricultural land clearing. It took them a week to clear eight acres. Watching them work was fascinating. A large dozer uprooted the trees, then pushed them over to the excavator.  With its claw attachment, the excavator would lift a tree high up in the air and drop it. Repeatedly. This shook the top soil off the rootballs. (Afterward, the top soil got spread back onto the land.) The excavator would then do a maneuver where it gripped the tree in the middle, spun around and tossed it on top of the wood pile.  We are stuck with a few, strategically placed, giant piles of deadwood for now.  Whatever can’t be used for firewood will decompose. The piles also still provide the habitat that solitary bees need.

The excavator does its thing

Now, the place is starting to look like a farm again. In fact, the clearing uncovered a massive rock wall made with field boulders along the east side of the apple orchard. What we thought was a natural rise on the land is actually a manmade terrace. From the barn, the vista opens up onto the orchards and wheat field and sky. Many neighbors have stopped by to say how good it looks. Seeing the cleared land lets us visualize what the farm will look like in the future.  That’s both exciting and makes this whole endeavor very, very real!

With the land cleared, we can move ahead with the next several steps that have to be done before we can actually plant anything. First,we tested the soil on the cleared land and are waiting to find out the  composition and if we need to add any amendments.  Then, we need to clean up the stray roots and branches that were left behind and pile up the rocks that got upturned. (Ugh, what a big job.) In the spring, we will do heavy discing to loosen up the soil and smooth it out.

Taking soil cores

Next year, we expect serious weed pressure. The long dormant weed seeds have now been exposed to sunlight. We are already working on a weed management plan with Cornell Cooperative Extensionon how to best manage them next growing season.

Now, we can start to see the forest through the trees, so to speak. The land has taken shape into four main plots. We plan to farm two fields next year and the other two we will prepare for perennial plantings, like berries. We are chomping at the bit to get that beautiful soil back into production.

View of the barn, house and hops yard from the cleared field

 PS: Things that were uncovered in the land clearing: 1) two metal fire escapes 2) a V-8 Engine 3) a swing set 4) half a pick-up truck (not near the engine) 5) countless beer bottles and cans 6) a broken arrowhead 7) a doll’s head 8) a sleigh bell 9) lots of wild garlic

Pennies, Pipes and Prophecies

We are pretty sure we got a sign from the ancestors on Monday.

Raised beds made from old stone windowsills (used to be along driveway)

On Monday evening, Rich was finishing up a few raised beds in the garden. He reused some old stone windowsills as edgers. The beds will house herbs and lettuce this year. Once more acreage gets cleared, we plan to convert this garden space into a designated herb and “show-and-tell” garden.

One idea is to plant a historical ‘1883 garden.’ Last fall, while organizing some old papers, Rich found a seed purchase receipt from the farm dated April, 1883. It is fascinating to see what the family grew four generations ago. Rich had the idea to try to find the same seed varieties and plant an ‘1883 Garden’ in 2013 – for the 130th anniversary. We want to get school groups involved as a fun way to learn about farming and history.

Back to Monday night. Rich, who has a knack for finding things (which is probably why he enjoyed archaeology), swung the hoe into the soil and caught the glint of metal. He bent down and picked up a small, round, earth-caked object. He brushed off the dirt and corrosion and discovered a coin.

With a little more cleaning, he realized it was an Indian Head Penny dated 1883. Right in the place where we plan to plant the 1883 Garden! We have a saying around here, when something that we need or have been looking for suddenly appears, that ‘The House Giveth.’ But, this find takes it to a new level.

1883 Indian Head Penny found in the garden


When we are so busy with hard work that is also so new to us, and a future that is largely unknown to us, we cannot help but want a little sign that we are on the right track. This was one of those moments that makes you marvel at the many ways this old house connects our past to our future. We feel lucky to just be here now, right where we are.

Hope it’s not a pipe dream! (Clay pipe from early 1800s)


PS: The very next day Rich also found an old clay tobacco pipe in the same area. What could our ancestors be hinting at now?

Rebuilding the Past

Back in April we wrote about a powerful freak windstorm hit Lockport, NY with wind speeds recorded at 83 mph. Dozens of trees fell, knocking down power lines and blocking traffic. The most notable casualty was a grand century-old Locust tree that shaded our quiet neighborhood street. When it fell, it left an 8-foot deep crater in the road. It also crushed an old iron fence and a section of a historic fieldstone wall that my ancestors built back in the 1830’s.

The fallen tree lay there for a few weeks (during which neighbors and passerby stopped to take photos) until the City hauled it away. The crew had to bulldoze a wider span of the old stone wall to drag it off our property. Just what I needed: another project.

Back in the day, horse- and ox-drawn plows crisscrossed the farm, tilling the ground. Rocks that were plowed up were carted to the sides of the fields where they were used to build stone walls that marked plots and property lines. Several generations of farming had produced a sizable wall of stacked rock. It stretches through the fields, in neighbors’ yards and even pops up on the other side of the street.

Project Rebuild waited until the end of the summer, after planting and the weather cooled off and when my brother-in-law, a former Russian body-builder, happened to be visiting. The first step was actually to clear the jumble of rocks and dismantle more wall so I could see how it was originally constructed. It brought me back to my days working as an archaeologist.

It was a double-wall construction, where two lines of large flat-faced rocks were placed on either side, and small rocks were piled in the middle trough. Thin stones where then used as shims to stabilize the layers. This back-breaking process was repeated until the wall was about 4.5 feet high, then a large capstone was set on top to hold everything in place.


Putting the wall back together was like finishing a large, very heavy jigsaw puzzle. The biggest boulders weighed over 300 pounds. And we have no oxen. It took pick axes, pry bars, perseverance and a lot of brute strength. But, we repaired the wall. Then, we even moved on to rebuild some other sections that had crumbled and collapsed over the decades. When we were finally finished, we’d added 20 feet of new wall with stones that we had collected during this growing season.

Repairing that wall made me appreciate the amount of labor that went into building this farm over the generations. It’s the kind of work that has to be done by hand. Sure, a machine could move the rocks, but only a person can construct that complex wall. Rebuilding the wall was like rebuilding a connection to my ancestors who did the same project on the same spot 180 years ago.


Next time you drive through the countryside and see an old stone wall in the woods, take a second to think of the family who toiled in the fields and built that wall in their attempt to clear the land and make a life for themselves. Until the day comes when no more stones surface in the fields, the wall on our property will be, as it’s always been, a work in progress.