Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - First Week of May 2017

We continue to work on the forests and trails surrounding the Unity property to create a community resource.

 The map below shows the current status of the land (water is in blue) - 18 trails, 10 bridges, 3 ponds, and 5 streams.   We’re clearing invasive non-native plants, removing decades of scrap metal/pottery/plastic midden piles, and taken down unstable dead trees that are a safety issue.  With every passing week, the land becomes more and more accessible.  Every time I go to the rural foundation meadow, I find it filled with wild turkeys, deer, raptors, coyotes, and rabbits.   Our goal is to protect the local natural ecosystems while also offering educational opportunities to the community.   The cattail loop and brook path are the new trails we built this week.   All the remains to be done is spreading wood chips on all the new trails, which we’ll do over the next few months.  Well,  I do have to clear one fallen oak tree on the brook path that's 8 feet in circumference (pictured below).   I need a bigger chain saw!

On Saturday, with town permission,  I cleared all the fallen trees and overgrowth from the Sherborn portion of the Bay Circuit Trail (the complete trail runs from Newburyport to Duxbury - 200 miles).   The portion of trail I have volunteered to maintain is the 4 miles between Perry Street and Route 27.   This seldomly used trail is just a few minutes from the Unity trails and has a great wilderness feel to it.   After a few hours with chainsaw and hedge trimmers, the trail is in great shape.

The warmth of spring has brought an early crop of flies and we’ve implemented our usual prevention measures - organic/pesticide-free fly traps,  fly tapes in the barn, and 20000 fly predator wasps (they don’t sting).   We have fly masks for the horses if needed, but thus far we’re keeping the fly problem at bay.

The produce from the farm this time of year includes asparagus and mushrooms.    I’m picking daily fresh asparagus and just harvested 20 pounds of Shiitake mushrooms.    Soon, our spring greens will be ready in the hoophouse and they’ll be replaced with cucumber, tomato, and pepper transplants, which are growing in the greenhouse now.

The weekend ahead includes the usual farm and sanctuary related tasks - animal care, repairs, planting, wood cutting, and trail mulching.   As stewards of 150 animals and 60 acres, the joyful work is never done.