1.31.2011

chocolates, please


if anybody is looking for a valentines day present for me...let that be a little bit of san francisco heaven. thank you. 

rose & morris




this is rose and morris. nick found them, born on a very cold day last week. we took them in, as they were having trouble bonding with their mum. we named them after nick's great aunt and uncle. and as we are want to do, we traveled with them this past weekend to raleigh to see brent and melissa.

the hard thing about taking newborn piglets in, is that you can never be a replacement for their real pig mama. and sadly, we weren't for morris. morris died yesterday afternoon, asleep next to his sister. we reckon that he never got any colostrum when he was first born which makes it very hard to carry on. i hate when piglets die. its plain awful. i hate even more that rose no longer has her brother to grow up with. we're doing our best to keep her company and love her like morris would. she's sleeping on my lap right now, underneath a blanket, just had a big bottle of milk. but its a poor substitute for the real thing.

1.28.2011

neon farm



neon farm afternoon this sunny friday.  this weekend we have our friends' show in raleigh,  kickin' grass to attend with brent & melissa and a healthy amount of house renovations, piglets, and farm chores, high 50 degree temperatures, molasses cookies, and perhaps a pedicure? melissa?

bon-weekend to you all.

etsy lusting




thank you dear danny for this etsy shop. i want one of each please. and do please come down to the farm as soon as.

1.25.2011

tuesdays





tuesday.

i've been away from the farm, from nick, from the animals, for a long weekend. i've been away from email and blogger for even longer. today i am back. well, its actually my day off, and i am taking it even though i have been away. taking it to focus on things like email delinquency. and the fact that nick got me two new piglets, morris and rose, while i was away. i will also be making today my first day of training for my first 50k. this, i am very much looking forward to. time to get my farmer's butt back into running gear.

a couple of side notes relating to the pictures.

1. bluegrass arrows. all year long. a little treasure-hunt in our town.
2. i know the 3 closes places that sell our dairy's chocolate milk. they are, in order of proximity...the grill down the road....the feed store...the gas station in neighboring town. bam.
3. lindsay and i both read, and found, curious, in the year of magical thinking that landowners will tear down a house but leave the chimneys, for tax purposes. is this true?
4. straw manages to get into all corners of the car. even a freshly cleaned car. even just one bale. even on a 7 minute car ride. damn straw.

1.17.2011

good friends make for good sundays



cake and brent & melissa. that's all i really need to make a sunday a sunday. yesterday was one of those winter days that smells faintly of spring. it wasn't even 50 degrees out, but warm enough, that we didn't need our gloves and scarves. warm enough, that we all started planning a weekend trip to the coast. warm enough that b&m mentioned a place with great outdoor dining in raleigh, for our next visit to them. its funny, isn't it? how we complained and complained of the heat this summer...yearned for winter, and now, barely through january we can't hardly wait to get our swimsuits on again.

1.15.2011

i miss the south island


good morning. its saturday and i'm going to market this morning. and then, i am coming home to bake as i am housesitting for my cousin as she has a working oven & a dishwasher. two things that make baking both possible & decadent.

they promise it will be near 50 degrees by the afternoon. and so i will close my eyes as i sit on our front porch with cookies & milk and pretend i am here, back in new zealand, and no longer in winter.

1.14.2011

les oeufs





this is all nick. he started backyard farm....in addition to all the big big farm we do day to day. one of the most exciting parts of this is the eggs. our own eggs. we have 17 chickens. 6 laying hens that seem to give us between 4 & 6 eggs a day. they decided a long time ago that they weren't going to conform to the nest boxes nick had made them. so, for a while, it was somewhat of a egg-hunt, to see where they lay. now they have settled in one spot, at the back of the wood shed, and another on a hay bale in the barn. don't tell our egg-sucking dogs where they are.

so we eat a lot of eggs. tomorrow, at market, we will be selling our second dozen. last saturday we sold our first, to a nun. it was perfect.

our eggs are delicious.

1.13.2011

antsy in my pants




its chilly. and i'm feeling antsy. but not antsy enough to brave the cold for a run. so, while nick builds bella a lean-to....i'm going to get productive inside on the sewing machine. i broke the needle 3 nights ago, rushing to finish bella's plaid woolrich calf-coat before the ice storm. now i am running to the craft store to get a new one so that i can work on 2 pillows, 1 dress for me for sunday lunch with sweet melissa & family, and the final touches on said calf-coat. wish me luck. i am no seamstress.
i saw this on maura's blog yesterday.

I refuse to give in to that feeling of despair. There is light in this situation. I urge everyone: read up about those who were hurt or killed in this shooting. You will be comforted by just how much anonymous goodness there really is in the world. You read about these people, and you realize that people that you don’t even know, that you have never met, are leading lives of real dignity and goodness; and you hear about crazy, but it’s rarer than you think. And I think you’ll find yourself even more impressed with Congresswoman Giffords and amazed at how much living the deceased packed into lives that were cut way too short.


-jon stewart in reaction to the arizona shootings.




my grandfather, my papa, passed away yesterday. he lived a long long happy life. so full of family and travel and goodness. i miss him so much already. i want to write more about him. soon. not ready yet. i just thought how lovely it was of the paperwhites to bloom for the first time, yesterday morning, the morning he passed.

1.12.2011

north carolina may not know snow...but it certainly brews up a good ice storm




2 nights ago we had an ice storm. which would normally be a most unwelcome storm. but nick and i both had the day off. and so we did what all good kids would do on a storm day. we stayed in and babied the fire. we snuggled our indoor and outdoor animals. nick made a lamb stew. i cut his hair. we made sure to go for one little walk. just to stave off cabin-fever. it was slippery. and then we topped off the night with a glass of wine and a stein of beer and two zebra cakes at our local pub.

francesco & sylvester


i have two new piglets in the shed behind my house. francesco and sylvester. their mother is quite young and not producing enough milk for all of her babies. so some get left behind. and that is where i swoop in and bring them to the shed for warm milk and yogurt and a heat lamp to keep them toasty. sylvester had a couple of rough first nights. one with me cradling him on the couch in front of the woodstove while he trembled and wouldn't eat. but they are doing really quite well now. and i'm happy as can be. i love having little piglets in the house again.

1.10.2011

bravo, mama




dearest mama. the cats and i are in agreement. the blanket you made me. us. is just about the best addition to winter we could have wanted. love you to bits. k.

1.06.2011

just another sunset


sometimes the sunsets are extra smooth here. we had a very long day of work which just ended -as all workdays should- with 2 cookies and a beer.

nick and i are going out to dinner now. perfect.

glamorous me

this is about as glamorous as it gets on the farm. in the winter. thank you lindsay

1.03.2011

enjoying my morning off and my daily cuppa and perusing old starred emails (and actually responding to them) found this gem in an email from miss molly. thank you darlin'.

the majestic plastic bag; a mockumentary

1.01.2011

3 mother flippin years



happy new years nicky. cannot believe its been three years since this photo. since that day in bolinas when i had just met you the day before last. i love you.
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