Farming with Friends

Entry 14 May 23rd, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 16 Today was the final day, we had some cleaning up to do. We did a full cleanup of the house washing the sheets, wiping down tables and countertops, making it look all nice nice. Trask then had one more task for us, moving the cows to a new pasture. I thought, hey this will be easy, we set up the new pen fences. Then it was go time, we took about 2 hours of running around yelling “up cow! Up cow!” Trying to get them to the new pasture. What a rush that was, we finally got them into the new pen and they began grazing immediately. Hours of Work Today: 2 Total Hours of Work: 59.5

Entry 13 May 22nd, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 14 We’ve accomplished our goals, we did it. Today we went on campus. We worked with Greg today in the wood shop and found a solid piece of wood to use for our trail signs. We used the saw to cut the wood to length of 18x6 and they looked great. We ran them through the planer, talked with trask about what we want to engrave on them. We got into communication with spence who unfortunately wasn’t on campus today so we are going to get them engraved and then hung up tomorrow.  Hours of Work Today: 1.5 Total Hours of Work: 56.5

Reflection 2 May 21st, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 13 Our goals at the end of this second week are looking immaculate. We started off with the Christmas tree project and that was a great success. We ended clearing the land and made a perfect patch. We ended planting over 100 Christmas trees and left trask in a good position.  Christmas trees was checked off and we moved on to clearing a new path off the backside of the platform. It is an old logging road that was overgrown by new trees and brush of all kinds. We eventually cleared the road all the up to a cliff that looks over a nice view. So we cleared that in all directions to make a nice big camp ground.  We are going to make road signs for the new paths that go around the property using the laser engraver at school. This project has been great and this week was another really good time. We walked around tonight with Mel’s friend Sonny. He is a tree expert and we learned a lot about the trees that are in the woods. Along with lots of k

Entry 12 May 20th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 12 With no sports we had the option to finally sleep in a little bit. We finally had cleared all the way to the cliff and the camp spot is looking amazing. We talked with Mel a bit today and the tree expert is coming tomorrow afternoon to walk around and look at the maple trees. There is yet to be a low point of the trip, we have been working hard and having a great time. High points are obviously keeping the dog at school and hanging out with it at the house, it’s a good time. I’m excited for the last day on Monday as well as the hike we are going on tomorrow with Mel, trask and the tree guy.  Hours of Work Today: 3 Total Hours of Work: 55

Entry 11 May 19th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 11 Wow wow wow, What a day today. We woke up and had a nice hearty breakfast, cereal. We took the jeep out to the worksite cause the mule is now out of commission. We have a few more trees to get rid of before the campsite is complete. The big burn pile is looking really good. We sat down with Trask and Mel and they said an expert will be coming to the house on Sunday to look at the maple trees. That’s great. Very excited for that, as we will learn more about what trees we have back out there on the property. We took ziggy to school to get acclimated with people, had a team dinner. It was awesome.  Hours of Work Today: 8 Total Hours of Work: 53

Entry 10 May 18th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 10 Today was like every other. Awesome! We started working on clearing more brush all the way to the stone wall. We made one big brush pile that will be used for a big contained fire. We made loads of progress today and also began limbing trees that were dead. I went and got a hair cut and saw Ryan and Karl while I was there. That place is sweet the butcher barber shop. One of the cows got out and was roaming in the woods so we watched as Trask corralled it back in.  Hours of Work Today: 3 Total Hours of Work: 45

Entry 9 May, 17th Charlie Maloney Day 9 Today was a great day, we made plans to continue clearing more. We spoke with Trask and wanted to expand the campsite area all the way to the cliff and all the way to the stonewall. With that gives the area more potential in ways like larger campouts. A bigger burn pile and places for things like hammocks. We continued clearing and then had to wrap up early to get to school for a game. Made some avocado toast for lunch and it was fire. Great day on the Granite Rooster Ranch.  Hours of Work Today: 3 Total Hours of Work: 42

Entry 8 May 16th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 8 Ahhhhhhhhh yes. The Granite Rooster Ranch was absolutely buzzing today. We got right to work on the access road and made it to the campsite. We continued working on clearing and Trask came up with tractor and cleared out two large trees that were blocking the way of vehicles ability to get uphill. With the tree came 4 very large rocks. The campsite is looking clear and I’m excited to finalize it All tomorrow. We got the Okay from Mel to take one of the pure bred black lab to campus to socialize. That thing is a freakin butterball, such a little chunky monster.  Hours of Work Today: 8 Total hours of Work: 39

Entry 8 May 15th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 7 Today was a great day! We started our day on the Granite Rooster Ranch at 9:30. Trask was off getting a new steer for the farm making there a total of 4 cows. We kept at it clearing the old access road, making enormous progress. We got all the way up to the first plateau with just a little work to do tomorrow in order to make it up to the maple trees and soon to be camp ground. After lunch Trask got back and we had to bring a newly born piglet back to its mom. Little more work after lunch brought us right to practice time and we headed down the hill back to the house.  Hours of Work Today: 4.5 Total Hours of Work: 31

Reflection Entry 1 May 14th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Week 1 Ah yes, the perfect ending to week one. We cooked up a Mother’s Day brunch and made phone calls to all of our moms. We sat down and talked about the week and started getting excited for the work that is to come in the next few days. Looking back on the first day it seems like ages ago, cleaning big branches and limbing dead trees so it is a safe environment fort the dogs to run around and reside. Meeting up and cracking jokes with Trask is a highlight to my day everyday.  After moving swiftly through the dog pen project, we took on a bigger project and that was clearing the field in order to plant Christmas trees! After discussions with Trask and seeing how far each tree should be spaced out along with property lines, we got right to work. Nice neat rows going up the hill in perfect fashion, man I am excited to come back In 5 years and pick out the family Christmas tree at the Pfeifle farm.  Another day, another meeting with Tras

 Entry 6 May 13th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 6 Wowee another glorious day on Granite Rooster Ranch. We had a hardy breakfast and started our work day at 9:30. This morning we took the Kawasaki up to the house to meet with Trask. Then headed off to the trail to begin clearing. We began clearing the entrance to the trail and started making progress towards the maple trees. Using chainsaws and hatches we cleaned roughly half a mile worth of trail. Due to the lack of time before an early Saturday practice we made as much headway as we could and are excited to get back to it on Monday.  Hours of Work Today: 2 Total Hours of Work: 26.5

Entry 5 May 12th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 5 A later start to the day after a nice brunch meant it was gonna be a great day. We finished up the Christmas tree patch by planting a couple more and watering all of the trees. After we finished, we took the trails back to the house to meet with Trask to discuss our next project. Ah yes, the maple trees. We all took a nice long hike in the woods to check out the property line and see where we would be working the next few days. The task was to clear the old access road so we can get vehicles out there to start scoping out the maple tree/syrup operation. We began working on the entrance to the access road and before we knew it, it was time to go to practice. What a great day! Hours of Work Today: 4 Total Hours of Work: 24.5

Entry 4 May 11th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 4 Ah yes a sunny, blue bird sky day. So far the best day of the trip. The 8:30 start to my day was hearing the roosters yelling at me to get outta bed and get going. Trask was off speaking with a butcher, so we got right to work. Back down to the Christmas tree project, to finish it up and move onto the next task. On our trip through the trails we had run into a couple of pigs and goats that had escaped the pen. The four of us corralled them back into the pen and gave em some food. Once the bacon was back into its pen we went straight to work on the trees, planting almost 40 more trees today. Before we went to practice Mel came up to us and asked “hey you wanna take a puppy to practice?” Of course we said heck yeah and brought the pup to proctor. He had a great time runnin around and we had an awesome time caring for and looking after a puppy for Mel.   Hours of Work Today: 9 Total Hours of Work: 20.5

Entry 3 May 10th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 3 Another glorious day on the Granite Rooster Ranch. With another 830 wake up and 9 o’clock start to the work day we picked up right where we left off. A quick meeting with Trask before traveling the trails to the Christmas Tree patch. We made some more mapping plans and pinpointed a good place to end the rows of trees. Right back to it we began digging and planting more saplings. A short day today due to athletic events going on for the four of us. We got a good few hours of work done and the patch is looking awesome. Finished up the day by watering all of the saplings and taking the Kawasaki back to the house, Then off to sports.  Total Hours of Work: 3

Entry Number 1 May 8th, 2023 Charlie Maloney Day 1 On day one we had a pleasurable 8:45 wake with a 9:00 start time to our work day. We began day 1 by working on  an outdoor dog kennel. Cleaning up big fallen branches, using chainsaws to cut off big limbs that were hanging from dead trees. After creating large piles of brush we used the tractor and Kawasaki to haul off the branches to the big burn pile site. After completing our first task of the trip we took the tractor and mule to the next site where we will begin planting Christmas trees. The site had some work to be done and we began clearing. Cutting down dead trees, pulling brush, and hauling it all back to the new brush pile we created.  Total hours of work: 4.5