Cantitoe Corners Update

September 9, 2010

This has certainly been a strange growing season in the Northeast. It seems that all of the crops are a good two to three weeks early. Even the giant puffballs that usually appear in October have already formed in their shady little section of the farm. It will be very interesting to see what next year will bring. Here is another blog about some things going on currently at the farm.

: Another section of carriage road

: Another stream bed – Little fish are trapped in this pool and will be until it rains considerably.

: The steel culvert beneath the carriage road is completely dry.

: Susie Ercole, my executive assistant at the farm, is delighted to have Sharkey and Francesca accompany her on an errand.

: Don’t the trees look so neat this way?

: It has been very dry lately and all of the small streams on the property have dried up.

: The seed sheaths in the meadow are glowing yellow in the sunlight.

: The hay fields were planted with a good quality pasture mix.

: Another view of the lower hay field

: The sun’s shadows are growing longer as the sun becomes lower in the sky.

: I’ve instructed the ground’s crew to apply fresh composted mulch around the base of many trees.

: Meanwhile, Shaun is pruning the lower branches of this grove of weeping willows.

: The composted mulch is first loaded onto the dump truck.

: And then scooped up with the loader

: Pete guides Chhiring

: And then carefully empties the loader

: Giant puffballs grow in this shade garden every year.

: Puffballs are different than most mushrooms in that they lack gills or any other exterior spore-producing structures. Instead, they produce their spores internally and release them in astronomical numbers in a giant puff cloud.

: Puffballs can attain diameters of two to three feet or more, and a single specimen has been estimated to produce as many as nine trillion spores!