Hay season on the Jamison Family Farm has ended for now and we are enjoying the fall colors and some much needed rain after a late summer drought. We had a record hay yield in 2019, but short of our potential. Second cutting hay was sparse as compared to first cuttings. To give a few examples, the Lower Field yielded around 1,200 square bales of hay on first cutting and second cutting yielded 99 bales. The Bull Pasture yielded around 300 bales of hay on first cutting and 15 on second cutting. We cut Crown Hill and didn't bother to rake it up to bale as the hay clippings were so thin. In spite of a lack luster second cutting, we had a very successful year. We are watching the weather between now and Thanksgiving. If moderate temperatures prevail, we see some growth and haying weather, we'll try to make a third cutting of hay. In the mean time, we are shifting gears to finish cutting firewood for the winter. We need about seven cords of wood to make it through spring. It seems that everyone says this winter will be especially cold, snowy and brutal, so we might add a another cord or two to the stock pile. All of our wood comes from dead and mostly downed trees. We never have a need to cut a green tree because every year, the wind, ice, etc., bring down enough trees to supply our wood. My boys are adults now and last time out, I gave each one of them a tree and chainsaw. Along with myself, we spent that weekend afternoon cutting firewood for several hours - enough time to run three to four tanks of gas through each saw; it made for a good showing of cut firewood. We cut as much as we can on an outing, leave it and haul it out another day to be split and stacked. We can cut now, but then have to wait during the freeze thaw period of the ground where everything is muddy, and can again resume cutting firewood after the ground is frozen solid. Our wood comes from "over the hill" and in/around the Bull Pasture. We are seeing some dead oak trees that have some kind of insect or fungus getting under the bark and killing the tree. The ash bore's are taking their toll too. Our preference is oak. Locus makes for a great firewood, but the downside of it, in my opinion, is when the wood burns down, it leaves behind large chunks of burnt charcoal (for lack of a better word) - impeding one's ability to re-fill the wood stove's firebox on the coldest of nights. Oak, on the other hand, burns down to a powder leaving plenty of room in the firebox for more heat producing wood. On the farm, as we browse around the woods, especially above the Saltpeter Field, we are quick to pick-up any "pine knots" laying on the ground for fire starting. When I was a boy, the deer hunting activities on the farm were impressive. We would pile up in the farm house with as many as three stoves going. A kitchen wood cook stove, a Warm Morning coal stove in the living room and a wood/coal stove in the "parlor" where there were two single beds and a foot pedal organ. Everyone kept a vigil eye out of the windows for a deer that never came, though someone would get lucky and kill a deer sometime during the two week rifle season "over the hill". We also listened at night to the radio, a Zenith Transoceanic. Those wood and coal stoves would burn hot, but not for long. It seemed we would "bank" the stove with the inside temperature at 80ish degrees, hit the sack in our briefs and no covers, wake up the next morning in all our clothes, coats and heavy blankets on top - watching our breath freeze as we exhaled. Cold feet were the norm. Speaking of hunting... I use to work at a local store in their sporting goods department. In it they sold all kinds of guns, fishing tackle, etc. I would write out hunting licenses for hours. I was NEVER a very good hunter or fisherman in terms of the "catch". I never killed a big buck or caught my limit of trout, however, behind that sporting goods counter, I might as well have been Curt Gowdy on the American Sportsman. Everyone thought that IF you worked at a sporting goods store (and in my case - I drove a 1970 4x4 International Scout 800A which added to the legend), you had to know the business. Customers would ask me - "what are the fish hitting on today?" I didn't have a clue - even on a good day, but I'd blurt out something like "those pink salmon eggs are the cat's meow". The customer would load up on four or five bottles and return later and tell me they caught their limit. Everyone killed an eight point deer and caught their limit and thought I did too, but I didn't. I never caught my limit or killed anything more than a doe - on doe day. Zebco made a set of fish scales called "The De-Liar" - I thought it an appropriate name for fish scales for the guys using pink salmon eggs and killing those 250 lb eight point deer. One time, I was behind the counter waxing about my hunting experience earlier that afternoon on Linton's Ridge at the farm. I was squirrel hunting at the top of it with my double barrel Fox 20 ga shotgun. There were four or five guys on the other side of the counter listening. I told about how I heard a rustling in the leaves behind me, looked around and it was a couple of turkeys - out of season, of course. I opined, that upon seeing those turkeys, I quietly broke down my shotgun, reached in my hunting vest (all Curt Gowdy watanabes wear hunting vests), plucked out a couple of buckshot shells, eased them into my side by side shotgun barrels and when I closed the gun, the barrels snapped shut with a loud click - the turkeys alerted to my presence took flight never to be seen again. When I finished this yarn, one of the gentlemen in the gang of four or five listening to my story kindly informed me that turkey season was not here yet and had I shot one of those turkeys, it would have been illegal. I said, "who are you?" He said, "I'm Judge so and so - who are you?" I said, "I'm the biggest liar in Alleghany County"... Back to the wood... Unlike the wood stoves we used on the farm, the wood stoves we use in our house are very high efficient, clean burning stoves. We have two wood stoves, one in our living room and one in our basement. The basement stove is an Englander NC30; I call it the heat bomb. It can bring the basement up to 85 degrees in a jiffy. It is an all steel stove and uses secondary air injection to burn the gasses in the smoke. The wood stove in our living room is more elegant and softer with the heat. It is a Woodstock Keystone wood stove. It is made of a cast iron frame with soapstone sides and top. The soapstone absorbs the heat to dampen the heat spikes on the hot side and then as the fire dies down, the stored heat in the soap stone continues to radiate for hours - making for soft even heat throughout the burn cycle. The Keystone uses a catalytic converter element to burn the gasses in the smoke. The chemical reaction of the elements on the catalytic honeycomb substrate lowers the temperature at which these exhaust gases will ignite. This allows for long burns at lower stove temperatures - especially nice on warmer days or when the stove is "banked" for the night. In the coldest of winter, it is not uncommon the Keystone to burn continuously for weeks - only emptying the ash pan and re-filling the stove with wood. When the above wood stoves are burning to a given stove top temperature (read sweet spot), there is no visible smoke out of our chimneys. It is as though there is not a fire in the house. In addition, the amount of creosote in our chimneys is minimal. However... In keeping with the title of this blog, here are a few fall pics around the Jamison Family Farm... In the picture above, those black and green balls on the ground are walnuts. The Jamison Family Farm has many walnut trees around. When I was a boy, we use to collect a lot of those walnuts. Getting the husks off of them left one with black stained hands, so my Dad devised a way to rid the husks without the mess. He would dump the walnuts in our gravel driveway in the car tracks and after a week or so of running over those walnuts, the husks were gone and we could pick out the walnuts - hands stain free. In my Dad's basement workshop, there was a vice. Nearby was a ball peen hammer and we would set the walnuts on the anvil part of the vice and crack them open with the hammer. After smashing our formally blackened fingers with the hammer, we realized the power of vice jaws and set the walnuts in them, cranked down and enjoyed fresh walnuts for a snack... More fall pics... May the Hay Dog is enjoying the Fall down time from haying... If you are in need of First Quality Hay, we still have some timothy mixed grass hay from our first cuttings for sale. For more info, pricing or questions, drop us a note at [email protected]. Disclaimer: This blog entry and all others are checked and edited by May the Hay Dog... woof!
2 Comments
2/2/2020 01:38:04 am
If I had a horse, I'd feed it First Quality Hay By The Jamison Family.
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Lisa Jameson
12/3/2020 10:48:01 am
I love your blog! My grandpa Henry Parker Jamison grew up in that house and I am so glad to see your family is carrying on the use of this land. Best wishes from your cousin Lisa!
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