longest acres.

for greener pastures...

2012-02-22T13:15:00.000-05:00

i have been wanting to tell you about this for some time now. but, as ever, my more practical, logical, better, half, nick, thought we should keep things to ourselves until those who Need To Know were told (as in...landlord, boss, moms and dads). and until things were as Definite as they may possibly be.

and now They have been told.

and things are more Definite than not.

we have given our jobs our notice. we have written our landlord the move-out day. we have broken the news to our sweet families.

we are moving to vermont. in six short (long?!) weeks. we have found a modest two room apartment for rent in a barn. on a property occupied by three beautifully aging hippies. and their four dogs, two donkeys, two heifers, and one horse.

with 250 acres. and permission to do with those acres whatever we please. and a dairy barn. and swimming ponds. at the end of an ambitiously long muddy road. at the top of a mountain. in a sweet village just 42 carefully timed minutes from montpelier.

here we will farm. on our own. answering only to one another and our braying animals. starting Our farm. on beautiful borrowed land. it is the beginning of what will hopefully be a very long Life on Land.

it wont be easy-peasy...but i think i have talked about that enough here for your poor eyes and ears.

we will rely on nobody but ourselves, our intellect --or what is left of it-- our marketing wise-ness, our animals health and good spirits, the weather, the soil, the grass, our neighbors, other farmers, our family, and friends....oh that sounds like a heavy amount of reliance does it not?

i suppose i mean rather to stress the absence of the obvious and painfully frightening sort of reliance...the paycheck. every mistake will be on us. and likewise will every success.

but this is us. beginning our farm. making the step from backyard chickens and farm jobs to something more tangibly our own.

so six weeks to Pack it Up and wish boston farewell. third farm move in one year. oh that thought is exhausting seeing it in writing.

so here we go. i do hope you will all stick around to watch the fun and the chaos. and wish us a healthy amount of good luck.

in photos:

1. crossing one of the hay pastures with rudy and his new friend lucy.

2. the sunlight in our new home.

3. an outhouse. our outhouse. holy-moly this will be one for the books.

4. rudy. resting. he's not quite sure he's ready for farm living again.

5. several inherited milk pails outside our new parlor. all we need is the cow.

6. nick looking quite handsome in my sunnies.

7. it was the beginning of mud season for vermont of lower altitudes, but still a fair bit of snow up on the mountain.

8. milking parlor entrance that is frozen shut right now.

9. rudy concerned about the barn renovations.

2012-02-21T08:10:00.000-05:00

we spent the weekend atop this little mountain. scheming. planning. dreaming. my parents were also in vermont this weekend and came up to see us up on this mountain. my mom said it does the soul good to see me there. my soul certainly feels good up there. perhaps its the altitude. but i think it may be a bunch of things. vermont certainly is seeming more and more like the place where we ought to be.

so very much more to tell you on this subject. but it must wait until tomorrow.

for now, i can only say how deeply grateful i am for the overly kind and supportive responses i got from you all on my last post. i hate to show too much negativity on this blog. i try very much to focus on the light and beautiful side of things. but i had to get that off my chest as i felt i was about to boil over on the topic. so....proverbial weight has been lifted. and thank you for your understandings and your support. as i said last thursday we would be sunk without it. and i mean that. so, thank you.

and i must must bake 3 cakes this week! yeesh, how quickly this will get away from me!?

until tomorrow.

let us farm, with peace.

2012-02-16T12:24:00.000-05:00

i've had a hard time forming this as a cohesive thought in my head. so i beg your forgiveness if i seem, at best, indecisive.....and at worst, defensive in this post. but i have just about reached my limit of the Well Meaning (friends and family) telling us. warning nick and i that farming will be a hard life. i am so tired of hearing the tone of their voice get serious and slow and low. as though they are talking to a pair of half wit relatives that don't seem to get it. i am so tired of the concerned eyes and the slightly furrowed brow they give us as though we are something they now have to count in their worries.

we get it. at least i think we do. we get that life is tough. that farm life is going to be tough. that it is a life of commitment. that it will be a life of modesty. of relative poverty. or worse even abject poverty. we get that cows need to be milked once, twice a day. every day. that sheep need to be shorn twice a year. and then there is all that wool. and that gardens need your constant vigilance. that weeds will overtake you when you let your back turn. we get that winters up north are colder than cold. that our hands will forever be the most aged parts of our bodies. we get that our backs will suffer. that our shoulders will carry the weight of years of hay bales, of bags of feed, of the worry for the farm.

we get that our bodies are our livelihood. we get that a turned ankle will put one of us down and in turn much more weight on the feet of the other. we get that bringing babies into this world will be doubly tough. that our children won't have shiny things. that our children will learn to milk a cow or slaughter a chicken before they learn their multiplication tables. that our children will need to work hard to get scholarships to go to a good school. we get that the farm doesn't give us heath-care. we get that nobody will be there to cover us on sick days. we get that there is no 'time and a half' on holidays. on weekends. on nights when you are making yogurt so the milk doesn't go to waste or planting rows by headlamp.

we get it. i really think we do. and i appreciate all of the Well Meaning for their concerns. it is good to have objective eyes. it is good be challenged. i know that they all love us and want us to be safe and happy and well fed. and i know that we won't be able to do any of this without the love and support of every one of them.

but i also want them to know, that we will be o.k. that we can do this. that they need to have a bit of faith in our chosen life. because this life is a life that has made me (and i think i can safely say, "us") so intensely happy. i have never felt more natural. more at peace. more at home. than i have while on the farm. while working with the animals and tending to the crops. this life will be a good life. for rich or for poor. we are trying to do good not just for us but for our community. wherever and however that forms. and i think we can do it.

there have been many friends and family and parents and sisters and brothers and even internet-formed friends that are wildly supportive about our endeavors. and i do not mean to diminish how that has helped us by writing this rant. their support means the absolute world to us. clearly. we would be sunk without it.

but for all the career and life changes i have made in my short 28 years...farming seems to strike a nerve in the very people we love. nobody ever gave me a talking to when i started working for a major bank. and very few ever questioned my motives when i joined facebook. nobody ever warned me of the sun's dangerous beams when i worked for summers as a lifeguard. they never told me that my weekly manicures and pedicures in new york were a colossal waste of money. and most everyone thought it was fantastic when we quit our jobs and moved to france for the winter without any idea of how we would proceed. but so many of our loved ones have taken our turn to farming as a personal affront of some sort. and i don't know how to reconcile this.

i suppose i need to accept that some of the people in our lives will always think of small farming as a fool's errand. but i just need a little break from the negativity. i just need a couple of uninterrupted moments of the universe telling us we will be good. that we will do good. and that that is good enough.

so we are off to vermont for a long weekend and some positive planning.

the planning of the garden...

2012-02-14T13:47:00.000-05:00

nick and i are going to have our own garden this year. which is a first. we are usually working and tending to gardens of others. so we will plow our own plot this year. which has me very anxious. and very excited.

i am, by all accounts, already a bit late on ordering my seeds. yikes. who knew you had to think about the garden in february? is there no rest for the weary farmer? but this week i am to finalize my seed order and send it out to the garden gods.

nick and i aim to grow as much of our vegetables as we are able on this little plot of garden. which means planning way ahead to crops that will store well all winter.

i have consulted just about every book we own. which crops are good neighbors. which crops give each other stds. which the honeybees like best. which the root cellar likes best.

it has been one of the most exhaustive planning events of my short farm life. but i find myself so very excited to see it all unfold in by our hands in the cold earth. i'll write more about my 2012 garden plan as the days get closer to the Last Frost. for now, let us await the arrival of the seeds like little february gifts of summer.

are you growing any form of garden this year?

a commercial...

2012-02-13T12:35:00.002-05:00

julie sent me this today. a chipotle commercial she saw last night during the grammys. i've never eaten at chipotle but i have to say it seems like a pretty progressive chain for fast food. a bunch of their managers came to visit our farm in north carolina so that they could see how pigs and cows ought to be raised (as in on Pasture and with Love). and we had a couple of chipolte managers swing by our farm store in boston last week to inquire about ordering wholesale veggies from us for them. i don't think this restaurant chain is stalking us. but i do think they are making some legitimate moves towards sourcing better quality foods. as in food that was raised properly.

and as julie predicted, this commercial made me tear up. though i'm such a horridly predictable target. nothing like pigs to push all my buttons.

i'm not trying to be a mouthpiece for chipotle. i don't particularly care if you ever patronize their restaurants. i certainly haven't.

i just ask, as always, that you support and love your local farmers. please.

playing hookie

2012-02-09T14:52:00.001-05:00

i needed a day off from the farm store this morning. and so my darling boy obliged and went in my stead. i needed a day to romp with the animals. and flop around at home. there was washing to do. writing to tackle. dishes to be ignored. waters to fill. bedding to be fluffed up. eggs to be collected. and fresh air to breath.

so i am home/farm. and nick is store/town today. it is a nice switch up for this thursday. i get to be on the farm/home friday through monday. i don't know why today was so important to me. but it was. because there IS nothing quite as satisfying as Every-Now-&-Then staying away from the place where you are expected to be. is there not? certainly. definitely. on days when spring is singing from every corner such as today.

in photos:
1. while the gardens are empty we supplement the chickens' diet with food scraps from the nearby organic co-op. i drop it down. they loooooooove it. chaos ensues.
2. chicken feet.
3. oddly, my favorite corner of the house. and i cannot eat, or read, or sleep, or write there. and a drawing of dad's.
4. outside lunch of rooster stew, cheese & mustard crackers from mom, apple cider, and finalizing my seed order with a final check with root cellaring.
5. picnic-ing never goes the calm & pleasant way i envision when rudy brings his ball.
6. mung bean sprouts a brewin'.
7. for a couple that makes their current business raising laying hens we have a shocking lack of egg cartons. as in, none. eggs tend to teeter on every surface.

a mom, her mom, and their cake

2012-02-07T12:25:00.000-05:00

i got to take a night a day and a night on the island with my parents last week. which is always Exactly What i Need. my mother and i made a cake. naturally. and we chose a cake that my mom hadn't eaten since her mother, jane, used to bake it when she was a little girl. pineapple upside down cake. which we both agreed sounded pretty gross. especially since the original recipe calls for maraschino cherries to fill in the middle of the pineapples. WHICH on second thought would have added a nice spot of color. BUT on the first thought we decided to do without.

and...it was shockingly delicious. perhaps not so shockingly when you pour the butter and brown sugar into the pan and then plop the batter on top. no, it should be obvious then that such confectionery combinations will be, in fact, delicious. the pineapple was actually a pleasant tangy cut through all the sugar.

and so without further ado

the golden sponge pineapple upside down cake

from the antoinette pope school cookbook

adopted by my grandmother jane lee jones

italicized comments by me

the batter:
6 egg yolks {save those whites!!}

3/4 cups sugar

1/2 t vanilla

1/3 cup boiling water

1 1/2 cups sifted flour

1/4 t salt

1 1/4 t baking powder

beat yolks till thick and lemon-color. add sugar a little at a time and continue beating till very light (about a minute). add vanilla. then slowly add boiling water. last, pour in flour, baking powder & salt all at once. stir till smooth

the topping:
1/4 c butter

1/2 c brown sugar

5 slices pineapple rings {preferably canned if you want to go true 1950s on the cake}

melt butter and combine with brown sugar. pour into bottom of round cake pan. place pineapple rings over the sugar-butter mixture. make this into as pleasant of a design as you are able. pour cake batter over it all.

bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

when done, allow cake to cool for 5 minutes then invert onto a cake plate. allow to cool.

serve with a whipped cream topping

**save those egg whites!! to make meringue. whip the meringue for thirty minutes (or as long as you can stand) with a healthy amount of confectioners sugar until you form Stiff Peaks. once this has occurred drop TINY dollops of the white fluff onto a greased cookie sheet and bake until golden brown. be sure they are tiny so that they cook all the way through.

i cannot bare the thought of throwing out Half the Egg when my hens have worked so hard to get them to us. so do find some use for the whites if you don't want to make meringues.

putting off the week...

2012-02-06T14:44:00.000-05:00

just this sort of day. getting in on the veritable pig pile in the back pen. well pig and cow and farmer pile. i do think bella is the only cow that knows how to snuggle. monday is for putting off real farm work. and cake baking. and writing anything substantial. it is just for snuggling animals.

see you on the flip side.

isn't it odd...?

2012-02-02T08:49:00.000-05:00

it is too strange. the combination throws be back several years. but more than a lifetime ago. spring time and city working. it peaked to 60 yesterday....february 1st....in boston. joggers were out in full force. the city dwellers were coatless. we got several more people signed up for the summer's CSA....confused or optimistic about the current season.

i had to document the date with candied hearts. just so future-me wouldn't think i was bluffing about the warmness of february.

i shouldn't be grateful for this weather. i should be sad and scared of our changing climate. i should be mid-tirade on our crazily indulgent and dirty lifestyles that are changing the world like this. i should be telling you stories of trees and plants that are being tricked into budding with the mild temps. how they will inevitably be set back by another frost. how this effects certain farming practices like falling dominoes.

but i am grateful for this weather. i am so grateful for a mild winter. this winter we came into prepared enough but not completely comfortable with the housing and pens we had set up for the animals. neither of us were totally sure how things would work out. and now because of the lack of snow our chickens are still able to go outside. bella has been able to spend all but a handful of nights sleeping at the mouth of the pigs' hut. we haven't had any problems with frostbite on the roosters' combs. we haven't had to visit the farm in the middle of the night to stoke the woodstove.

perhaps it doesn't have to be so uncommonly warm. perhaps it could snow a bit more before we are thoroughly into spring. i remind myself that winter isn't over. the last frost date isn't until mid-may after all. but this has been a particularly calm re-entry to farming in a new england winter. giving nick and i much needed reprieve as we settle into the northern climate.

what is your winter shaping out like?

a lady, her farm, and her cake.

2012-01-30T11:08:00.001-05:00

i present to you, lady mckenzie and her charming farm blog oliver and abrahams and her white cake.

a very fuzzy ipad photo of the last piece of white cake. eaten during a garden-planning morning hour.

mckenzie reached out to me through longest acres a couple of weeks ago, i in turn visited her at oliver and abrahams and we have been emailing back and forth ever since. meeting other farm/blogg women has a much coveted Small World feeling to it. to expand my farming community through this avenue makes me feel less overwhelmed, less alone in this life choice. just like meeting louisa through icelandic butterflies. i can talk to them, gripe to them, complain to them, ask questions of them in ways that i cannot with even my closest friends and family. they understand the intricacies of farm life that nobody else could understand, no matter how best i try to describe them. and so, i am so very grateful for such women in my life. i hope some day i am able to visit mckenzie at her farm, and she at mine. but for now, i....we...must be content with her beautiful blog.

mckenzie answered my Call for Cakes last week with at 1964 joy of cooking recipe known as the "white cake".

the joy of cooking writes:

"This recipe is amazing in that it can be multiplied by 8 and still give as good a result as when made in the smaller quantity below... We once saw a wedding cake made from this recipe which contained 130 eggs and was big enough to serve 400 guests. This formula is also the classic base for the Lady Baltimore Cake which in the Good Old Days, 5 layers were considered none too many."

mckenzie writes:

"Recipe calls for three 8 inch round pans (though I split it between two larger ones) preheat oven to 375 f

have all ingredients about 75 f (very precise, but whatever. room temperature is fine)
sift 3 1/2 cups cake flour with 4 tsp double acting baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt
sift 2 cups sugar
cream 1 cup butter
Add the sifted sugar to the butter gradually and continue creaming until very light. Add the flour mixture to the batter mixture in 3 parts, alternately, with thirds of 1 cup whole milk.
Stir the batter until smooth after each addition.
Beat in 1 tsp vanilla (I also used a couple tsp of almond extract, which I think made it much more awesome).
Whip 7 or 8 egg whites until stiff, but not dry.
Fold them lightly into the cake batter.
Bake in greased and floured pans for about 25 minutes, or until done.

For icing, I kind of improvise. I cream about two sticks of room temperature butter (unsalted) and slowly add powdered sugar until its the consistency I like. usually this takes one full bag. Makes a lot of icing, but we have lots of invading fingers around here... I also add a couple tablespoons of whole milk while mixing in the sugar. Then I add a few splashes of vanilla and almond extract. Until it's good, basically. "

it was scrumptious. i made just one layer as we are not in the position to be throwing 7-8 eggs into one cake. neither are we in the position to be eating multiple layer cakes. but it was good even in its smaller self. nick sat down and, bless him, said that it was a good 'every day' kind of cake. i suppose he is ready for the year of cakes.

all photos, save the last of the cake, are from mckenzie's blog.

on the subject of cake. and pigs.

2012-01-27T15:43:00.002-05:00

thank you. for the recipes. i have received so many beautiful recipes and stories that my only trouble now is finding order to them. which to bake when. i have chosen a white cake from 1964 for my first. i baked it today. and have already eaten too much of it. photos to follow next week.

if you still have a cake recipe and a story and any accompanying photos you would want to share please send it to my email kathryn.maclean@gmail.com

now to leave you with several photos of great pigs from our north carolina days inspired by the poem the fable of the great sow by john kinsella that was in this past week's new yorker. (thank you, mom) and by the kickstarter campaign we are helping to back this week found here.

all photos from nick

a study of the non sequitur. and a plea for cakes.

2012-01-24T13:27:00.000-05:00

four days of snow on the ground and i find myself yearning for spring. how simple humans can be....immediately wanting what they think they cannot have. i was looking though printed photos this morning of the sun drenched days of north carolina and i thought i'd share a handful with you. today is calling for the high of 47 today. it appears my spring fever has caught fire. bostonians are practically naked in the streets in celebration.

i got out of bed twice last night. once at 11:30 and then again at 12:20. both to put on my boots, throw a woolen jacket over my nightgown and drive, frazzle-eyed the 1.2 miles to the farm. such are the worry demons that plague me. we had to put bella in the barn last night as she had caught a cold with the drop in weather. there is, too, a small group of young chickens in the barn that have proven to lack winter-hardiness. there is one heat lamp and one space heater to keep them toasty. and though we have taken the precautions to prevent a barn fire these have done little to assuage the feelings of dread that strike me mid-night. with our darling bella locked in a barn filled with fire hazard there was little i could do to stop my sleepless self from checking on her. twice.

i'm behind on my resolution of a weekly cake-baking. i'm one and half cakes behind, precisely. i need your help. i fear it is at risk of falling to the Lost Resolutions just like any other i have made. i find myself without inspiration only 2 cakes in. i cannot just blindly bake a cake from a recipe pulled from a faceless book. i want a story behind the cake. i want to make cakes that are tried, true, and proven to be scrumptious and fattening. how admittedly lazy of me. so i ask those of you who read this far in my ramblings if you wouldn't have a cake recipe to share with me? if you do i would love to bake it. and share it with nick and perhaps, if it is ok with you, share the recipe and a bit about you along with it, here on this blog of mine. it could be a rather nice way, to get to meet you and your trusted cakes. and would give us a bit of escape from the tired farm tirades we know too well. if you are game to help this failing resolution from its near certain death please email me at kathryn.maclean@gmail.com.

and finally, i watched the 7 hours of the first season of downton abbey between sunday and monday. what a thrilling life i lead. now i am caught up and ready to devour season two. i highly recommend if you haven't yet indulged.

le cochonnet et le coq

2012-01-20T10:15:00.001-05:00

the following is a murder mystery based upon true events on sawyer farm. it was originally written in french but was translated by k.m.maclean this past fall and given to Mother as a birthday Handmade gift --the only kind a farmer can afford. it is today submitted to the To Know a Chicken series that i have decided to bore you all with this snow-less january.

the contents are gruesome. the story remains unsolved.

the day began like any other on sawyer farm. the pigs were thrown their slop. the cows brought down for a morning’s milking. the kittens were harassed by cuddling humans. the dogs were neglected.

and like any other blasted morning the chickens were let, out of their coop, and into the great wild world of the Barnyard. the usual feather gossiping ensued. eggs were laid. a great deal of pelletized feed was consumed. it would be just another partly cloudy, low humidity, high of 67 degree day. for all. save one.

mr. bardrock no. 001 was extraordinary in life only for his twin-hood --brother and doppelganger to mr. bardrock no. 002-- and for his inadvertent life membership to a tiny and decidedly un-fraternal club of roosters of sawyer farm.

it is not my pleasure to speak ill of the deceased but he was, for all immediate rooster purposes, an unremarkable one. bringing little to his assigned post but the minimum.

to be just, as i fear i am being uncommonly cruel --he was a young lad of but a year. with the exception of his equally unexceptional but slightly more capable (or perhaps just more fortunate) brother no. 002, no. 001 had little mentor-ship in his quick life. his life, one might say, was utterly void of a developed and healthy protegé/proteger relationship. so it is unfair to judge so harshly a rooster who merely worked with what he was given.

with this void of rooster leadership it came to be that the older, more devilishly handsome veteran rooster, smuggled North across many state lines from the carolinas found an opening for Top Rooster at sawyer farm.

petit monsieur. little mister. you must forgive such a misleading prefix as 'little'. for he was only petit in relation to his predecessor. monsieur original who was of french descent and a formidable creature in girth, height, and charisma.

petit monsieur

it was soon discovered that petit monsieur was well named. fitting in the proverbial chicken feet of his ancestor with the grace and humility he was known for. his talons could fight off a shark should shark ever swim in the nearby creeks and ponds. his floppy beet-red comb covered one eye giving the air of a madhatter. he ordered a harem of over 50 hens. he could bench-press both milking cows, princess and hemlock. he donated 80% of his quarterly profits to charity in 2010. he was a great guy. the sort that everyone wants to be seated next to at dinner. the sort you would always want on your side. the sort you'd never want to see at the wrong end of a broken bottle in a bar fight....or the wrong end of a talon as may be the case...

i digress.

because i don't wish to persuade the jury. because there is a piggy in this sordid affair too. a little one named rose. and its unclear if roosters and pigs work best alone or together.

rose

rose had a tough run with the transition from South to North. she had been the round pink squealing apple of her mama's eye in carolina. spending the better part of each sun filled day with her tummy rubbed. freshly bathed. fretted upon. newly rotten watermelons in her trough. carolina and mama were good to her. she and life were good.

something changed with the move. her dotting mama went on holiday. she was thrust into a farm life to which she had never been accustomed. general slop in lieu of hand foraged garden goods. four poorly mannered goats now shared her quarters. the chicken population had increased tenfold. every single tenant of the sawyer barnyard was her direct competition for food and compassion.

growing up and being fed with the ever elusive silver spoon this change of scenery took rose by an unpleasant surprise. the surprise grew to discontent. which swelled to anger. which boiled up to revenge. which was constantly coupled by a gnawing hunger...which....is it possible?... culminated in murder?

let us return to mr. no. 001. the protagonist fop of our short tale. expected duties of a rooster at sawyer farm follow standard expectations nation wide. morning wake up. hawk patrol. meal calls. egg fertilizing. a monkey could do a rooster's job if these standards were all that made a rooster a Rooster. but a good rooster...one that removes himself from the monkeys of the world...he rises before the sun. hours before. to ensure everyone gets an earliest start possible to the day. he seeks out perches in the barnyard from where he surveys the sky with one eye. he follows human and pig patterns throughout their day waiting for the drop of a half chewed apple or a splash of fresh cream on its way to becoming butter. he calls a subtle mumble known only to his harem, and they come running.

mr. no. 001's heart mustn’t have been in this gig. maybe he imagined himself more as a bigfishsmallpond backyard operator. one who had a more manageable gaggle of hens. one who wasn't expected to arise at a certain hour, or at all.

but the facts were these: mr. no. 001's last morning would be the one of september 15, 2011. he would eek out his last crow that pinkly blue painted morn. he would grab a small beak's worth of pelletized barley. and then he would take just a short jog around the coops immediate surroundings. reaching no further than the southwest corner.

that is where his body was found. time of death unclear but the humans were certain that it happened somewhere between 08h17 and 09h06 that morning. during milking. for as the milking girls were being led out, after giving their wondrous gift of milk to the Undeserving, mr. no. 001 was found. dead. headless. little rose pig standing atop with one foot upon his limp body. her mouth and surrounding whiskers bloody. his head gone. petit monsieur standing quietly nearby --with the most inconspicuous of limps. and, to only the discerning eye, a glimmer of the softest down feather stuck to the bottom his left talon. black and grey in color. bardrock markings.

but again, i am getting ahead of myself...

...it is vital to understand the mental state of both our suspects to determine what happened to mr. no. 001.

mr. no. 001's petulant approach to his post brought shame to the House of Petit Monsieur. for a man who took such intense pride in his work. mr. no. 001 made an unwelcome mockery of the crown. sloth, cowardice, insubordination. it made petit monsieur sick to his noble gizzard to think of the meekness with which no. 001 patrolled his kingdom.

he couldn't afford such poor representation of a rooster in his flock. he couldn't stand to see no. 001's girls wandering the yard with no certain direction. but could pride and honor to the Flock be motive enough for murder? could it possibly be that the rooster-man the entire barnyard envied, loved, confided in, be capable of such cold blooded violence?

and on the other Side of Things...rose had been quite the hungry duckling that afternoon. the day before had...not gone well. her older brother, van gogh, was growing to hulking proportions and at a cost to rose. she had learned to grab 3 apples at a time in her mouth and run away from van gogh every time humans dropped them their feed. but the ingenious method had nearly cost her her life when she briefly chocked on the penultimate pomme that morning. she worried continuously about her next meal and how to pry it out of the strong jaws of her brother. she started to develop an angry twitch of both the head and vocal cords whenever her eyes caught a shadow moving upon her. food was her raison d'etre. and concocting innovative ways all the day long to collect this food was a tiring endeavor for such a little girl.

and so one couldn't help but wonder...did mr. no. 001, overcome with ennui and insubordination go down for a mid morning nap al fresco? and did a certain ravenous rose-pig come upon the slumbering bird and mistake him for a post-breakfast snack?

or was it petit monsieur that decided thursday morning would be a TCB kind-of-a-day and issue one swift cold blow to the Unsuspecting's head? and then did he call upon his ever hungry carolina colleague to destroy the remains of that grim morning?

the humans don't know.

van gogh, the four goats, and the milking cows all remain unsure.

there are only three barnyard beings that could tell you in lucid detail what happened that day. one of whom is dead. the other two ... the other two are a pig and a rooster. one speaks a broken franglais. the other just wants to know if you have any leads on apples and whey.

fin.

the exploratory committee goes to vermont

2012-01-18T16:03:00.002-05:00

it is no secret that nick and i want land of our own. we want a modest amount of land. maybe 50 acres. we would take more if you were offering. we want to have four milking cows on this land. a sow or two and a big but gentle boar to accompany them. we want a flock of sheep. maybe 20. to keep for lamb. we want goats....for clearing the woods. and of course have chickens. a small population of ducks for pascal to boss around. we want a healthy...but not creepy...population of barn cats. and we wants lots and lots of dogs. dogs for guarding. dogs for herding. and dogs for snuggling indoors on couches. we want a small home. that can fit us. and bottle-animals. and someday human babies. we want a barn that won't blow over in a storm. that won't bust at the roof from too much snow. we want our families to be at the farm. to visit the farm with great frequency. to live at the farm. to party at the farm. to work at the farm. we want friends to come live with us and farm vegetables on this land (which we seemingly cannot do). we want our farm to be its own micro universe. producing all the food and all of the joy so that we don't need to leave our farm with great frequency. that probably sounds like a lot of wanting. that is a lot of wanting. especially because right now we have the skeleton of that Want. we have borrowed land. we're raising 200 chickens that aren't ours. we have 2 pigs. we have 1 cow. we have 1 duck. we have 16 chickens (a dwindling number, thanks to madame fox). we have 1 snuggling indoor dog and 0 useful farm dogs. we have no kitties. we have a subterranean apt with no light and no real sense of welcoming.

i know we have to be patient. our land, our farm, will not be handed to us by any silver vehicle. she will find us someday but we will have to work for her. we will have to struggle through various farm jobs. we will have to hire the services of Scrimp and Save and make sacrifices in our personal and social worlds in the name of the Future Farm. we will have to grow our little farm family slowly and surely and methodically.

but it is always fun to day dream. and so this weekend we spent time in the state in which we hope to build this home and farm. way up in the hills of cold, snowy, windy, no-cell reception, no high speed internet vermont. we spent three glorious days waking up late. visiting farmers. visiting friends. getting kombucha instructions. eating cake (THANK you julie for that insanely buttery cake recipe) walking goats. eating caramels. drinking whiskey. talking and talking. reading. playing with dogs. avoiding snow drifts. three days getting a glimpse of the life we hope to someday make. giving us strength and hope and new fears about our future as farmers.

to know a rooster

2012-01-13T12:39:00.000-05:00

nick killed red hawk wednesday night. red hawk is...was...a rooster. not a hawk. but he had hawkish tendencies since he was a wee thing. he always jumped about like a zealous, unsteady, ninja. as though life was too exciting and scary and fun. he was one of five little chicks that our mama hen raised in north carolina. he looked awkward at first. most young roosters look awkward before they gain that dignified pomp. so, red hawk, was awkward. much taller than his sisters. with sickeningly bright yellow chicken legs.

the first time red hawk crowed nick and i were there to see it. it was just morning in massachusetts and we had let the chickens out. involuntarily this prepubescent crow spilled out of red hawk. it startled him. he jumped. as he was prone to jump with any unexpected noise or motion. his own squeaky roar...had scared him. it was oddly adorable and simultaneously embarrassing. watching this little chicken enter into roosterhood.

rather unfortunately, for all involved, the crow was just the start to red hawk becoming a Rooster. next came the mounting. it was...natural, as is with any animal's instinct to breed and red hawk took to this instinct with an appaling vigor. but you see...nick and i weren't the only ones that thought red hawk's feet too yellow or his crow too unsure or his bounciness too distracting. the hens, for the most part, did not take kindly to his mounting. and it became clear that there was little that was consenual occuring between red hawk and the hens.

monsieur, we know as a fierce rooster, who runs a Tight Ship, was very clearly going to kill red hawk. ((if you aren't familiar with monsieur's murderous ways, stay tuned for next week's installment of: To Know a Chicken.)) he spent most mornings, afternoons, and evenings of the past weeks chasing the poor bird all round. there are standards in the chicken world of what makes a good rooster. and it is my saddened duty to say that red hawk did not have It.

he was sentenced to death repeatedly by nick in the week preceding last. every morning nick would tell me; i'm going to kill that chicken. he didn't mean it in the exasperated, figurative way most would have meant it. he meant that he needed to kill red hawk. before he broke one of the hen's legs or backs with his vigor. before monsieur mangled him. before he inadvertently hurt one of the baby chicks in his frenzied way.

and so, wednesday night, nick killed red hawk. he and our fearless friend brian went out into the dark of night took red hawk and another noname rooster --whose history is just as important though unknown-- and slaughtered the poor beasts.

at first i was distraught. it should come as no surprise that i, without apology, anthropomorphize every barnyard being and thus take each bump, bruise, and death, without ease or grace.

then i was greedy. i asked nick why he hadn't saved red hawks tail feathers as they were so handsome.

then i was hungry. and had some rooster stew.

and now i am grateful. grateful for having a partner who can remove his feelings from the barnyard and make difficult choices based on what is Best for the Whole. grateful for red hawk. for giving us our first taste of chicken in nearly 6 months. grateful for our whole little barnyard circle of life and death.

a 24 hour span with my love.

2012-01-10T10:55:00.001-05:00

i am thankful for a lot in this life. but i have been feeling most acutely thankful for the days i get to see nick. we have both been so busy; i with the farm store and he with the farm chores that our paths so rarely cross. the other day i referred to our home as nick's house. as in i'm going to try to stay at nick's house tomorrow night. yikes. but we got to see each other yesterday. which was really nice. all day. we started with chores together and then a breakfast of eggs. we went to a friend's farm for chicken-talk and tea and biscuits. we had a lunch of crappy store-bought soup in the car. we argued over who had eaten more of louisa's caramels. we strolled a nearby sculpture garden and felt very highbrow about our day off. so this was our 24 hours together. told through the ever un-vibrant, un-clear, lens of the iphone.

45 seconds of pascal

2012-01-06T10:16:00.001-05:00

as i told you last week, i wanted to take time to introduce you to the stars of our chicken crew. i thought, what better way to start such a segment off, than with the duck of the chicken crew.

as you or he may or may not know, pascal is a duck. he was born a duck rather. but has been raised a chicken. this is not some sick livestock-psychology experimentation but rather what happens on any self respecting Hodge-Podge farm. animals get mixed. a cow spends her days with the pigs. a cat spends his mornings sitting on a clutch of eggs. and a duck gets thrown in with the chickens for lack of other ducks.

to read all about the story of pascal's birth and best-chicken-friend, florence and her untimely death you can visit here.

now pascal is a grown man. or woman. we aren't actually sure. it isn't that sexing a duck is complicated. you can tell from their tail feathers. or from their quack. or from their plumage. but for whatever reason we haven't cared to really know. pascal is pascal. he is neither he nor she. neither duck nor chicken. pascal is pascal. (but for simplicity, as this wish-wash could get rather old, i will refer to him as a duck and with the use of masculine pronouns).

i've wondered ever since he and florence lived in the house as little duckling and chick what he has thought of his existence. he learned to cheap before he could quack. he has been designated as Sentry of the Chickens for bedtime. he stands guard at their door til dusk. he cannot perch. he cannot dust bathe. but he sleeps in a nest box, keeping the eggs toasty through the night. he waddles around the chicken yard following his troop. quacking grumpily at the smaller chicks. taking 'swims' in the 3 gallon horse bucket we fill for him.

we're thinking of finally determining pascal's gender and getting him...or her....a mate. eventually we want a pond for them as it is cruel and disgusting (the poop!) to withhold water from waterfowl.

but for now pascal will continue to exist as he as always done. as one of the gang. i will continue to snuggle his soft downy chest anytime he makes the mistake of waddling into my arm's reach. and our chickens will continue to be grateful for the funny looking bird that keeps the night watch.

so now you have met pascal.

wired.

2012-01-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

fridge at 11:29pm: i wish there were more to my fridge than PBR, cake, and cabbage...sadly there is not.

i'm totally WIRED when i get back home from a day...or two...in the city. and it can't possibly be the delayed effects of the one kombucha i chugged. wired as in lying in bed and telling a sleeping nick all of the things i have forgotten to do as they come to me. telling him about the friend i made over breakfast. telling him about older gentleman who has me call him when his favorite mushrooms come to the farmstore. telling him that there are 198 steps in the porter square t station. wired as in getting up and out of bed a handful of times in 20 minutes walking in fastforward motion through the dark apt in my underwear while doing speed stretching. trying to relax. totally jazzed. my body is a ball of frenetic energy after my city-time. all i want to do is stop and take a hot shower and stretch and stretch and drink 20 gallons of water and eat a spot of cake and sleep. but my mind wants to be here on the computer. on the web. connected. wired in. thinking of tomorrow. thinking of the train ride. the t-ride. the very very very quick and brisk and chilled walk from the station to the store. thinking of all the store produce and all the orders to coordinate. thinking of the chicken waterer nick wants to build. how to itterate and change and make better and modify it with him but from afar.

our farmstore manager is sipping cervezas in panama for the next 10 days and i unwittingly became fill-in manager. which means 99%farmstore 1%farm for the next 10 days. i cannot possibly continue as this careening ball of nervous twitches. i must breathe. find peace in the city. drop the shoulders. stretch out the neck. find some warm slippers for the farmstore. and start getting over this neurotic city self.

how do you relax in a city? i think i've forgotten how to live like a 21st century modern being.

so tomorrow morning game plan:
arise with sun.
ignore forming dread in southern region of hair for at least one more day.
hot shower/hot yoga.
cuppa no-caffeine tea.
breakfast of pea shoots, fried eggs, and mushrooms with nick.
piece of cake. it isn't a proper meal without a proper sweet conclusion.
ride into big scary sweaty nervous city with book and warm, proper, clothes.

the day will be met with serenity and calm. i will conquer these city nerves.

ringing it in with the good and the bad.

2012-01-03T13:40:00.000-05:00

it always comes this way doesn't it? farming seems to elicit feelings of failure right alongside the joy and serenity our farm creatures give us. we've been 'learning lessons' ever since we started in this particular Line of Work. but some weeks you feel more like a petulant school child than others. never getting the lesson. always being punished in the corner of the room...dunce cap askew.

this week's Lessons were with canning and foxes. nick and i spent the better part of the last two weeks preparing for winter. our main focus being quarts of vegetable soup. they are the perfect for meals of two. and we have been rich in veggies. especially squash and carrots. so we peeled and diced and roasted many pounds of both and came alive with two dozen quarts of soup. half carrot/ginger. half butternut squash....AND THEN...

...we read, according to the venerable ball book of preserving that you never can puréed soup. which is of course exactly what we had done. and had already consumed several quarts. apparently the purée makes the soup too thick and even with pressure canning you cannot be sure that you have heated it all the way through. but google botulism one too many times after a glass of whiskey and you will soon be convinced that you have poisoned yourself. that yes, your lower legs are feeling numb....most likely the beginnings of the paralysis they warn you about. so we tossed the soup. in a bout of fear, shyly applauding ourselves for being practical. we figured. the veggies were free. our time was not. but our lives were important to us and we didn't want to die from rancid soup. canners go back and forth about this puréed business. and i'm not advocating for either. BUT i do want to be safe with our preserved foods. i think being unsafe and potentially reckless about it is what can lend such living a reputation of bad.

the second lesson in the Book of Nick and Kate and All Mistakes Farming was with foxes. just yesterday we had a fox come in through the poultry netting and kill three of our chickens. all too big for her to take. but calm, and slow, enough for her to kill. so we have learned that winter is a serious time for predators. that they will not let up so long as they are hungry and that we need to respect the unrelenting power of this hunger and better protect our flock. this is going to be hard. we are not permitted to have dogs on this farm and of course, dogs are the first and best defense we can think of....short of keeping them indoors. but there is nothing like a good puzzle to make winter on the farm more challenging so this is what nick will be spending his week doing.

the good came in eggs. came in cake. came in snuggles with the pigs and bella. the fabric of this life that nourishes our bodies and our souls. we're getting 4-6 eggs a day. a nice christmas bonus. the cake is the beginning of my new year resolution to bake a cake a week. ahh the anti-work-out-eat-well resolution. the snuggles....well that is me, spending new years day which was a bluebird of one....lying in the freshly-layed hay with my fat happy animals. thankful for a year past and another year begun.

these feathered friends.

2011-12-28T19:56:00.001-05:00

it occurred to me today that i haven't spoken much to the consistency of our farming here in boston. it hasn't been the most structured of traditional farm time for me as there is quite frankly not a lot to Do on this particular farm in the winter. instead, i've been helping out at the farm store we opened up in town. which has been a blast. mainly because my favorite farm co-worker...aside from nick...is the store's captain. but i've felt more like a shop girl during the past month than a farmer. and this concerns me. worries me. beats down my brow into a crumpled mess.

for, i don't want to be a shop girl. as much as i don't want to be an astronaut. or a cyclist. or a chef. or a banker. all i want to do, with my entire being, is farm.

but right now, we take money where money is being made. and so, for me, that is at the farm store. in the Big City. i take the train into town in the morning and come back the same way in the dark of night. it feels closer to the Old Life than the one i have since chosen.

since this is, more than likely, the last time nick and i will live so close to such a big town, i figure i might as well Lap It Up. so i buy scones from the bakeries. i indulge in cheeses from the fromagerie. i visit clothing shops and hat shops and bobble shops on my lunch break. i wear dainty shoes and the occasional frock. i keep my hair combed.

this week i wasn't feeling my prettiest or my most energetic...post-christmas exhaustion i reckon. so the past two days my darling boy has taken my place at the shop. and i've taken his at the farm. and so i spent a good portion of today, after all the necessaries were completed....lying on my stomach, camera affixed to eye, observing and capturing my chickens.

did you know that we are raising 200 chickens for this farm? have i ever told you that? have i really been such an uninformative blogger? this is the beginning of this farm's livestock program. these 200 beautiful little birds. they make me so proud. watching their personalities develop. knowing that nick and i did this on our own (mainly nick, with a sprinkling of Me). we've raised these birds since two days after they hatched (shipping time). building their coops. building their perches. sourcing the best local feed. mixing that feed. introducing them to the Big Outdoors. they are nearly two months old now and are becoming such little people-chickens.

so i wanted to introduce you to Them. i plan on writing about several individual chickens (and of course, the ever-present duck) with whom i am in love over the next few weeks. to show you what is happening on this dear farm. and to remind me that i am still a farmer.....that these creatures are still my life.

so prepare yourself for a NewYear of feathered features.

putting up the goods

2011-12-27T12:22:00.001-05:00

nick and i have spent the last few weeks belatedly preparing for winter. apple sauce. pickled beets. radishes. carrots. cranberry jam. butternut squash soup. carrot ginger soup. we are running out of ideas for what to can and are now fearful that we will be dining on nothing but puréed squash all winter long. a bit too similar to a baby's diet.

fortunately, the hens are laying again. i think the fox attacks have quite literally scared the eggs out of them. we also had the good fortune to buy some beef from a friends farm in western massachusetts. and we purchased 60lb bags of wheat and oats from a friend up north.

all of this doesn't distract neither nick nor i from the one glaring deficiency of our larder. the lack of dairy. we have no milk cow. still. we have kind friends to keep us satiated with yogurt, butter, cheese, and milk from their sweet cows. but we need our own milk cow.

counting the days until spring when this issue can be addressed properly.

a belated merry christmas to all of you. nick and i spent the weekend with my parents and sister on the vineyard. it was, as it always is, the most needed rest and comfort i could have hoped for.

a typewritten induced silence

2011-12-20T14:08:00.001-05:00

please excuse the silence as i hurtle myself towards the christmas deadline that so torments the card season. i certainly wish i had chosen an implement other than the typewriter. i typewriter type with one finger. it is loud. painfully slow. and ludicrously unecessary.

so while i type away you can look at an interview the nice ladies of bcfootwear did on me and my animals.

season of rest

2011-12-19T13:17:00.000-05:00

winter fluctuates...for me...between two existences here in new england. between rest and boredom. the grass is gone. the veggies have been pulled. the flowers have finished. life becomes less picturesque. less of the bucolic pasture-life i love to show. everything is either a sticky muddy mess or frozen solid. most animals move indoors. into the bowels of an old barn. life becomes a series of mazes. with everyone in different stalls. everyone still in need of feed and unfrozen water. life becomes more condensed on the farm in the winter. which is good in some respects. everybody is warm. everybody is together. its like a party in the barn. the party get's a little old in march, when everybody is still inside. still in such Close Quarters. but for now. it's new. it's warm.

we don't have enough barn space here on our farm outside of boston. so we are making do with a hijacked greenhouse and a couple of animal houses nick and i built for the pigs and chickens. bella has a windbreak. the big barn is filled with vegetable farming equipment, but we have one stall saved for Us. the one stall will be our savior some nights. some nights when the wind and the freezing, sleeting, unforgiving rain is more than what bella or the pigs can stand.

so we don't have quite the same jovial animal kingdom going on in our barn here as they do at the farm in western massachusetts. we were at the farm last friday for a visit and i spent most of my day sitting in the barn amongst all the animals. observing. hiding from the cutting wind outside. thankful for the big barn. thankful for the animals and their acceptance of Winter. we spend all summer waiting for the Rest that winter brings. and now we will spend all winter waiting for the Life that summer brings. i love the cycle of this. i cherish how connected it makes me feel to the earth and to the animals. and so here we are in the last few days of autumn. the first few inches of the ground have frozen. everyone is at their winter stations. we are all ready for the winter solstice this thursday. all ready for the official Season of Rest to begin.

horsing.

2011-12-16T12:24:00.001-05:00

playing around with misty and the iPad this morning. today started with milking. then bottle feeding a calf. moved on to cleaning eggs. nick is grinding flour with the lady of the house for tonight's dinner....so bitterly cold this morning and still so comfortable to be here..back at the farm in western mass...if only for the day.

(testing out a new blogger app on this little device, so apologies for the grained photos)

have a bon week-end.

the fox

2011-12-13T17:10:00.000-05:00

an oana befort watercolor

while feeding the pigs this tuesday's chilled morning nick caught a glimpse of a not-very-sly fox slipping through the woods and over the farm road. he followed her path as it seemed to be pointed distinctly towards our Unsuspecting. the chickens and pascal-the-duck. when he reached our brood he found them scattered, scared, and squawking. pascal was limp in the mouth of one fox. another was corralling our sweet chickens. fortunately for pascal he was too heavy for the little rascal's mouth (and i am oddly proud of his playing dead technique). she dropped him. and nick's pure human presence ---and a fair bit of yelling---scared the two red cloaked hellions away. but they got one of our little 3 month old chicks. one of mama-sister's babies. mama-sister was as devastated as a chicken could have capacity for such emotion. standing atop an old compost pile looking for her little-one.

it takes a tremendous amount of effort on my part to not allow such a traumatic morning to send me into the usual emotional tailspin that i imagine you are all quite accustomed to by now. i understand and respect the Hunger of the Fox. it's is becoming quite cold here. and food is seasonally scarce. i have historically always cheered for the protagonist Fox in any disney/pixar rendition of the timeless chicken-farmer-fox triangle. and i recognize the good fortune that i am only just now confronted, as a farmer, with this sordid triad. so i have been trying all day not to think of mama-sister's little baby chick. to not think of the 28 days she sat on her egg. to not think of all of the cold nights mama-sister had her two babies under each wing, keeping warm. to not think of mama-sister's other baby chick. who Lived. who no longer has her sister. i'm doing a fairly commendable job at keeping these thoughts at arm's length (save for writing such words). reminding myself of the ever-warned dangers of personification. but then...is it commendable to keep Emotions for the Animals away? or is it just the beginnings of a dark stormy path of apathy and a wizened heart?

** this watercolor is one of my favorites from the Very Talented Oana Befort. you can visit her blog too which has fun giveaways of her art and and downloadable beauties. i highly recommend a visit.**

the dog sort of tired.

2011-12-12T16:15:00.000-05:00

some days homelife is more thoroughly tiring than worklife. yesterday we spent all afternoon making christmas cards (their steps to creation may border on too ambitious this year...why do i insist on a typewriter when the computer is sitting idly by.) last night was devoted heartily to canning 10 pounds of cranberries and 40 pounds of carrots. resulting in more pints, 1/2 pints, and quarts than is good for our nomadic selves.

on the topic of burdensome material objects...nick and i had christmas with each other early this year. 13 days early. precisely. as i retrieved his present from the seashore on saturday and given its size --17 feet long-- i couldn't imagine hiding it in our one room home for very long. a wooden canoe that was built in 1963 in old town, maine. it's lovely. most assuredly. but i'm not sure it was a wise purchase. it will take up the majority of the bed of our truck. it is delicate. it was pricier than my farm-hand bank account could afford and it needs a winter's worth of repairs. but i've always been a romantic for wooden boats. my summer's have always been speckled with them. and nick and i have always wanted to build a ship. so i think what is wise about that dream would be starting small, by fixing up a canoe.

nick got me an ipad. which i am Over The Moon about as i haven't had any new computer/phone anything since i worked at facebook. its wonderfully curious to think how totally different our gifts were to each other this year and how much it highlights our pull between the Old and the New worlds. all we want, most days, is to be together with the simplest of technologies. the tent. the canned goods. the wooden boat. the raw milk. the livestock. but other days, how could we resist the promise of connectivity the World of Apple and the like can give us?

devil-may-care.

2011-12-06T00:15:00.000-05:00

raking. that i artfully avoided whilst home.

flowering, in december.

a basket acquired at a yard sale. with a serious lean.

yogurt and raw milk. both from my island. both happily perfect in taste.

dress-up. trying to decide on a dress for the christmas party.

marcel. my companion this past week-end.

the 'before' of a family photo.

i love every inch of the house i grew up in. but most of all this room. with this rug. and this table.

it's not every december 4th one can sit on the deck of a boat and fully enjoy the sun in Her glory.

the stowaway.

i used to worry a lot. it fed my insomnia. or my insomnia fed my worry. either way. i was always worried about everything. and then i moved to california. and whatever it is in the ocean air, you are enabled to stop worrying. life is so goddamn beautiful in california that you couldn't possibly have anything to worry about. it's so simple to say that a state takes your worries away. of course i'm Simplifying. but it's nearly midnight here and so i allow myself such a late night extravagance. something did take my cares away. something eased my brow for the last several years.

and now something has changed in the past few months to fill me top up with worry.

i worry a pack of coyotes will attack and eat me on my way to tuck in the chickens...in the middle of suburbia.
i worry that our christmas photo won't stick to the wood-backing as planned and will fall off...off friends' mantels and refrigerators.
i worry that rose will get another rubberband stuck improbably around her snout like she had this morning.
i worry that the baby chickens are cold. every night.
i worry that bella doesn't like her hay and that we won't be able to afford the $9/bale horse hay this winter that she likes best.
i worry that i'll never live again, for a long stretch of time, on the island where i grew up.
i worry the emails to which i never respond will disappear and the loved ones awaiting my answers will assume the worst.
i worry that the world will really end next december. sometimes. just for fun.
i worry...i know...that i don't talk to my two best friends enough at all.
i worry over every bump on rudy's body, hoping he's not as old as he says he is.
i worry rocco cat is still lost somewhere on cape cod and that i've missed the craigslist post saying he's been found.
i worry life won't be as peaceful here as it was in north carolina.
i worry we won't have as much space, as much land, here as we did there.
i worry obama won't win the 2012 election.
i worry i haven't set aside enough squash, enough cabbage, enough onions, enough food for us to enjoy through winter.
i worry about where on earth i'm going to find parking in the south end tomorrow.
i worry the townsfolk will smirk that my hair is one big snarl and that i smell like muddy pig.
i worry that i won't be able to fall asleep until too late tonight.

i know it's dreadfully unhealthy to worry. i know it's boring. it's pedestrian. so i need to shake it. it's just that...somedays (or some months, as this case may be) the responsibility of It All is terrifying and you worry that something's got to give. and all you can do is hope it's something small, like the parking.

another month come

2011-12-05T09:10:00.000-05:00

another month gone. another crappy homemade calendar here. damn our frugality. made out of scrap plywood from the farm. which will coincidentally, also be backing our christmas cards this year. you must use What You Have.

a good cuppa this morning with some eggs and toast. the perfect end to chilly morning chores. the perfect beginning to the week. so happy to be home with rudy and nick after a much needed weekend on the island with the family.

here's to you and yours for a rainy and mild december week.

doulas rock...and other pieces of advice from melissa

2011-12-01T07:59:00.001-05:00

my sweet melissa is on her blog talking about the need for the self-education of women in how they birth their babies. having been right here with her as she labored through arlo's birth i can tell you that Women's bodies are an incredible creation of nature. they can do amazing things. they can, sometimes, most-times, create and deliver human babies all on their own. melissa and i both certainly agree that modern western medicine can save mothers lives. can save babies lives. can give babies to mothers who would naturally, not be able to have them. and all of that is equally amazing. equally miraculous. but the natural delivery is a lost art in the states today. something that needs revisiting. something that needs saving. for the health of the Mother. for the health of the Baby.

sister come home

2011-11-30T06:54:00.000-05:00

this sister of mine travels east today for a whole month. which will have december in the running as the best month of the winter.

tonight nick and i and billy and fiona will all reunite in cambridge for dinner. i cannot wait for this month to begin.

the prospect of rest.

2011-11-28T12:13:00.000-05:00

some photos of nick's adorable nephews that have little to do with this post but were taken on the farm this week-end.

its been nearly a week since the vegetable farmers were here. nearly a week since our last market. since our last CSA harvest and pack. things are calming down here. there are only so many veggies you can grow in new england in winter. most of the roots have been harvested. all of the carrots are dug. the kale has been picked through. the brussels and the broccoli only have a handful of flowers remaining. i believe there is still some cabbage in the far field. and with this warm weather i don't doubt the mesclun and the oak leaf lettuce are still there. so i wouldn't say the harvest season is quite yet finished.

there are still restaurants to supply and a small group of devoted CSA members who signed up for the month-long 'holiday' share. we're opening a farm store in boston in december, so we will have that to stock. if i cannot say the harvest crew is finished for the year, i can say, with all correctness that they are damn well near done. they're in the coveted home stretch. they're cruising. so much so that they were able to take a real thanksgiving break. gone. off the farm for five days. all of them.

of course...they do deserve it. i have never seen a group of my peers work as hard and as long-day-ed as they do. 7am to 7pm. monday through sunday. pouring rain. beating wind. even under the threat of hail and snow. in conditions too chilly for rudy to even think about going outdoors these farmers are out there kneeling in the mud, bare hands digging into the soil searching out the last of the potatoes. every single time i have worked with them i have given up before they've finished their day. they are badass farmers and deserve every hour of every day they have rest.

so i have been happy for them while they are on their break. but i would be a dishonest woman if i didn't admit to you my misgivings about animal farming in times such as these. for, with livestock, you cannot simply leave for the week because you need a break. or because its your nation's favorite holiday. or because a friend is in town. the animals aren't going anywhere. they --every morning and every evening-- need the same attention you've always given them. there are always substitutes you can find to help you on days you need off. but for those of you who have ever had a friend take care of your dog or cat or pig or horse or cow, you know...despite the friend's best intentions...that your four legged free loader is only 100% his peak happiness when you are there. and so it goes.

nick and i barely get to travel with one another anymore. when the outside world calls one of us, the other generally stays behind on the farm. it's just easier that way. you know everyone is safe. everyone is happy. there is nobody i implicitly trust with the animals more than nick. and i gather he feels similarly about me.

i do hope that someday we can be rich farm barons that can afford the luxury of 10....or maybe just even 1 person to look after our flock when we need the rest. but betting on that sort of future is not suggested in this sort of life. so for now, we need to find someone who can help us on the odd day or two or five so that nick and i can enjoy a small slice of what the veggie crew is enjoying. the prospect of winter. the prospect of rest.

fat cow

2011-11-22T12:26:00.000-05:00

the girl eats more compost than rose and vangogh put together. she is a monster pig in a red cow's clothing. its alarming. we are constantly underestimating her appetite. last sunday she ate all of her cabbage leaves, her parsnips, her turnips, her carrots, and her boring old winter rye/oat pasture that she decided to leave her pen in search of more food. what a fat cow. i can't believe we're going to have two cows this winter. two fat cows.

buy a happy turkey

2011-11-21T08:52:00.001-05:00

it occurred to me that i don't soapbox nearly as often as i ought on this blog of mine. this post is, undoubtedly, two weeks late in its submission but the very fact that i am On Top of my world of cluttered farm-work enough to write this to you before thanksgiving is reason enough for me to be self-congratulatory.

there was an article this past sunday morning in the Times about the price of turkey this year : In the Labyrinth of Turkey Pricing, a Reason Under Every Giblet. the article is in the business section of the paper and investigates why some turkeys are sold for 49 cents a pound and others can go for $6.50 a pound and What You Are Paying For.

i highly recommend you read it. the interesting point the author seems to make is that nobody is making money off turkeys. not those selling confinement, non organic birds at dollar candy prices. not those selling free range, happy healthy organically raised, humanely raised birds. the cost of feed is too expensive. corn and soy prices have shot through the roof in the past years and the consumer won't take on that burden. in fact it is the consumer that expects, Every Year, that the Price of anything will go down. especially the Price of a 16lb butterball turkey. and so the Price does.

seeing signs at supermarkets for 49 cents-a-pound birds makes me literally laugh aloud. having raised turkeys before i can only imagine what sort of cost-cutting measures these farmers are taking to at least break even if not lose money on turkeys this year. even the organic turkeys for sale at whole foods are advertised at a whopping $1.49 at our local store can't possibly reflect the actual cost of raising the bird.

but forget the farmer that is loosing money. forget the supermarket that will most likely make no money on these thanksgiving birds. forget how much breast meat you are hoping to have afterwards for the prodigal leftover. forget how much food you intend to heap on to your plate that afternoon. forget feelings of guilt about how much you need versus how much you take.

and try to remember the life of the bird this thanksgiving. try to remember where he was raised. try to remember if that bird ever got to see the light of day. or smell fresh air. or keep its beak. or keep its toes. or keep its wings.

try to remember whether or not this bird was grown and fed so quickly that its breast grew faster than his legs could keep up so that at the end of his life he couldn't even stand up.

i don't advocate on this blog To Not Eat Animals. humans are carnivores. have been for what seems like Forever. will be for as long as animals continue to taste so good. but i do advocate researching the animals that you eat and what better time, what more black-and-white a time to do this than with the thanksgiving turkey.

i've never been the best at the Cold Hard Facts so i urge you to give you some attention to a daily green article from last year's thanksgiving. i urge you to look, this year, as you buy your turkey, for local farm's turkeys. to search for birds that are not broad-breasted whites (these are those that are designed to grow too quickly). i urge you to at the very least consider an organic bird. so that you know those birds aren't living in conditions where antibiotics are a base-line. i urge you to at the very least consider a free range bird (a free range bird means only that the bird is not kept in a cage but can still be kept in a warehouse with just one, small, open door).

i urge you this season to think with your dollars when you are remembering the bird's life. we all have so much to be thankful for this thanksgiving. let you count in your blessings at the table this year the bird whose life was given for your meal. and let it have been a good life.

thumby

2011-11-18T15:05:00.000-05:00

this little girl got the OKAY to go back with the flock today. we sent a sample of her poop to the state lab and she is a healthy little girl now so back with all of her friends. yay! thanks to everyone for all of the well wishes for little thumby.

happy friday indeed.

this is wednesday.

2011-11-16T08:54:00.001-05:00

i'm not sure who left this carrot in the barn or if the carrot herself decided to take a sunbath on the stall's ledge. but either way she was there. and i was there passing with the iPhone.

today's afternoon is calling for heavy rains so nick and i are trying to help with the csa harvest before lunch. sending thumbelina's poop to a state lab for testing today. the glamorous life. less than 6 days left until the season's harvest officially comes to a close. some down-time will be in order.

today i am thankful...

2011-11-14T10:55:00.003-05:00

today i am thankful...

for a weekend full of weddings and parties.
for the hot tea in my thermos at market to keeping me alive.
for watermelon radish snacks.
for making a new friend and for her visits to market.
for the two beautiful brides and the two glowing grooms we saw commit to each other on saturday.
for a room full of friends from san francisco.
for dancing like a grown up with men in tuxes.
for finding boba tea in boston.
for brent and melissa's voices on the telephone.
for always having a warm and welcoming place to stay in boston.
for the roof deck hot-tub.
for jelly beans from the drugstore.
for buying a book and actually reading it.
for playing in town from friday morning til sunday evening.
for rudy, who stayed with a friend this weekend, and whom i missed dearly.
for the farmhand who found sweet bella waltzing solo down the street sunday morning.
for this yellow evening jacket from marie years ago....that i wear when i'm feeling fancy.
for only 10 days left of harvest and markets before the vegetables go into hibernation for the winter.
for the solitude of winter that is coming.
for the cats and this last photo i have of them together. on my lap on a long car ride, just loving their quietude and warmth.
for nick. without whom i could hardly get through the day. for his love. his compassion. his order and motivation and ambition and direction. for his cooking. for his friendship.

i haven't done these gratitude posts in over a year. going to try to get back into the habit of them as i find myself complaining about the most menial of things. life is so good. we have so much to be thankful for. we may as well celebrate that.

***post-posted addition*** i was just looking through my wheel of favorite blogs when i came to soulemama. maybe there is something in this crisp fall air that makes one thankful for it all.

my peers...

2011-11-11T08:02:00.000-05:00

every once and a while i find myself relating more to the 1950s national geographic women than to my peers. which in parts i love. and in parts i regret. i need to take advantage of our recent proximity to a Big City and get enrolled in a yoga class. a photography class. i need to start creating forced ways to interact with humans and get a couple hours of time a week away from the farm for the winter.

not enough egg.

2011-11-09T12:55:00.000-05:00

its humbling how easily these little feathered creatures can make palpable feelings of Failure as a Farmer. two eggs. dos. deux. zwei. due. two eggs in nearly three weeks. our chickens are on strike. which i didn't think was likely, but it would appear that we have pushed too many of their nasty buttons with all of the relocating. so we don't have our usual protein intake here west of boston. we don't have a milking cow. we don't have any beef or pork or venison or goat or lamb. i know i'm getting a fair amount of my daily caloric needs fulfilled by my boss's wife's bakery. but i'm missing the simpleness of meat and eggs and milk. the meat i can sustain without but i Cannot Do without the eggs nor the milk.

and so we are still looking at cows. a milking cow for me and/or...or/and... a heifer for nick. we are talking with friends about all going in on a cow together. sharing milkings. sharing chores. sharing the milk. making cheese and yogurt and butter together. it all feels very old to me. in a good way. going-back-in-time-where-community-reigns old.

in the meantime i may have to buy our neighbor's eggs. shame.

in photos:
1. a prospective heifer's mama with some nicely shaped horns.
2. one of the two eggs.
3. a decidedly empty nest.
4. a clean barn as we had guests today.
5. biking home for a lunch of soup and cheese with rudy.
6. a portrait of a prolific laying-hen. an obedient and loving laying-hen. not a witholding hen.
7. i miss when we had friends who used to come by and give us gifts like this. thinking a lot about north carolina on this spring-induced day.

scones and milking cows

2011-11-07T08:06:00.001-05:00

today is the first day we have had off together in what feels like a lifetime but has really only been a 17 days. this morning while nick tended to the animals i started off the early daylight monday with a scone from marie. cassis jam which was a little slice of france from my mom. and fancy kusmi tea from paris from eve. and a little QT with the november calendar i made out of a scrap piece of cardboard the other night. neither nick nor i can ever be bothered with remembering the date and we have weddings and birthdays approaching so i thought a rare bit of order was in need.

this afternoon we're off to connecticut to see about a milking cow or two. and to have a picnic with the goodies packed in to my grandmere's basket. very highbrow.

feeling so very greatful this morning for these things in this house that remind me of all of the women in my life.

fingers crossed for fortunate cow-window shopping.

thumbelina

2011-11-04T14:02:00.000-04:00

its always been one of the more disappointing human traits of mine, loving animals more than my compatriots. i have always cared so terribly fully for each and every animal we had in my childhood and little changed as i grew older. .

until we turned from being pet owners to farmers. during my first several weeks on the farm in north carolina i was frantically covering the 500 acres and as many animals straining for any signs of need, of sickness, of distress.

that's how i came upon van gogh. a bloodied two pounds of piglet that was put by a farmhand in a 5-gallon bucket in the back of the mule the morning he was found as the sole survivor of a vulture attack.

that's how i came upon oscar. the limping, scarred three-day-old pig, whose right scapula had been shattered by his 700 pound mama-sow.

it's how we came upon bella. and squirt. and donovan. the two wild bunnies. john henry. billy-cat. peggy. and pascal & florence. i have had a fair amount of animals in the past years that i have saved from the realities of farm life. one may assume from my farm memoirs that i am regularly devoted to my job as farm-nurse. but the truth is that the ark-like smattering of animals nick and i have taken on is such a small percentage of the animals i see every day that could use the helping hand of a Human.

one of the issues nick and i have argued endlessly about is the level of intervention we partake in on the farm. there is a side of farming that implores the farmers to Take Care of the animals. to keep them alive, and with dignity. to help them get better when they are sick. but the farmer's job isn't to create a sanctuary for the sick and elderly and meek. its to make food with or of the animals.

and most often it isn't in the farmer's or the farm's best of interest to spend 4 morning hours giving a runty piglet a hot bath, a warm bottle, and motherly-love. or to carry a baby turkey that seemed depressed in the farmer's shirt pocket while gardening so that it could be fed every 30 minutes.

sometimes farmers make very sound --but arguably cold-- decisions to let nature take its way with the weak, the injured, the infirm.

i learned this quickly one early week in north carolina while i was caring for the one hundred baby turkeys in our little office brooder. one became sickly, sad, depressed, and i so i kept her in my pocket all afternoon while i continued my day's work in the garden. she died, warm, but alone, in my pocket several hours later. i cried like the ridiculous woman i am. i dug the tiniest of graves. said a simple selection of words, most of which were greatly exaggerated as i did not know the turkey chick well. i recounted the events to nick. horrified at the brief and cruel theme of this world.

...and then another turkey chick got sick and sad and droopy. and the same events repeated themselves.
...and another. until nearly forty chicks met the same fate as the first in just a handful of days. (an illness previously contracted at the breeder's farm we later discovered).

i hate to expose myself as a heartless witch here but it is a time for honestly. i buried the first three. the rest, i started a mass grave for behind the compost pile in the southern woods. the sheer scale of their tradgedy desensitized me to the horror. they stopped appearing to me as these individual needy beings and i began to see them as livestock.

i started farming then. not to say that farmers don't have the capacity for empathy or even sympathy with regards to their flock. but farmers can't have the capacity to empahize with Each and Every One.
i don't know how i quite feel about this change in perspective for me.

i haven't gone out in search of a sickly or needy animal since oscar. nick found bella, and peggy, he even brought me rose. i've spent the last year hiding from imploring eyes. trying to focus on what's best for the whole farm.

but i met this little thumbelina 2 days ago. she stuck her sad little head down in the chick brooder. one eye shut closed like a pirate. inaudibly cheeping. terrifically under weight. i hadn't been able to single out one bird from the flock yet. they are but a week old. still look one and the same. still have the intellect of an ant. but something of my former pet owner self wants thumbelina to live.

we're afraid she may have something badly contagious. so she's in quarantine. we cannot let her get every other chick sick. it could destroy our whole egg laying program. i want her to survive so badly though. i don't want us to have to kill her for the good of the flock. that would be purely horrific.

i have her set up in the warmest room in the barn. blasted with the space heater. i feed her molasses water. i clean out her bad eye twice a day. i hold her on her back and tickle her belly. i've learned she likes her right leg stretched. that she get's frightened when she is able to open both eyes. that she prefers to stand in her water. that she likes the dark better than the light. that she is completely comfortable perching in the cup of my hand.

we always need balance in every aspect of our lives. and here, in my cold blooded farmer's heart i too need the balance of little furry balls of love so i don't become ever wizened and crooked and grumpy.

to market to market

2011-11-02T13:37:00.000-04:00

the last week of peppers and sunflowers. the root veggies are the solid players they've always been. the kale and lettuce are just hitting their stride.

i've been attending market lately with the new farm. markets in fancy pants boston. which is a terribly good time where we drink hot cocoas and schmooze with the veggie addicts. with the cold and rainy and snowy weather market has seemed more appealing than harvesting for the Obvious Reasons.

but today is a bluebird fall day. where even sweaters and jeans feel too warm out in the fields. so we are digging up all manner of things in the fields this glorious afternoon and feeling pretty good about our jobs. the weather always dictates my mood.

the last photo is a shameless copy of louisa's dancing carrots

a glimpse of winter

2011-10-31T15:21:00.000-04:00

it snowed. in october. twice.

we are still without power at the house but fortunately the farm is back up and running. nick had to drive up north to pick up a generator on saturday for the Just In Case, which turned out to be a good idea.

despite my general dislike for a new england winter that begins as early as this one will there is something so very quieting about first snowfall. we took a midnight walk on saturday to the farm. but for a handful of nervous drivers on the roads everything was still, almost muffled.

when we reached the farm to check in on everyone and to turn the generator on we found every animal snug in their respective shelters. the chicks were under their heat lamps in the barn. the laying hens were perched. pascal was below them on an armful of hay i had schlepped out just for my duck. the pigs were belly to belly in a nest of straw in their nick-of-time-finished hut. bella was awake, but lying down in the far stall, munching on some turnips and carrots that nick had left for her.

i couldn't be less enthusiastic about the idea of starting winter a month or two early. the weather calls for sunny and high of 50s through the week and i expect nothing less for the month of november.

but i say this little glimpse of winter has me less tentative than i was for the season ahead. less embittered about cold wet hands and damp boots and drafty barns and more anxious for the quietness of winter to begin.

it snowed.

2011-10-28T08:17:00.001-04:00

...a little dusting but more this weekend. and we weren't prepared for that. so we are working round the ol' clock to get every animal ready for winter is coming.

toothbrushes and carrot soup

2011-10-26T17:10:00.000-04:00

life is settling in. but i'm home sick. with rudy. and several pounds of carrots from the new farm which means we are going to be subsisting on soup for the next several days. which is good because the only other thing in the fridge of any real nutritional value is egg nog.

its hard making a new home in a place that isn't your home. but things like my toothbrush with nick's. and an old blanket from susie. and my sugar bowl from new zealand. things that make home feel like home.

we made the trek safely from the berkshires to here. the animals are all ensconced on the new farm. but our originial plans for housing fell through and so we have been fortunate enough to find a friend of a friend of a sister of a neighbor of a sister to let us live in an apartment in her house for the Time Being. its just a mile from the farm. and so we are here. and the animals are there.

i've never lived away from our animals like this and it is just as hard as i had imagined. i spent all of my sleepless night pondering the physics of a coyote attacking a pig, or two pigs, or two pigs and a cow. i hate not having them sleeping just outside our window. not being able to here every stir in the barnyard. i don't know that home is truly going to feel like home until we have them right there again.

but for now they will sleep there and we will sleep here. and i will cover the house with discarded market sunflowers and bake cookies and make soups so that when we are here it feels as much like home as it possibly can.

summer's done gone.

2011-10-24T10:45:00.000-04:00

they're predicting a Light Snow for tomorrow morning.

we slept in the tent last night. it was a cool 34 degrees but we needed the closure.

today we are on to our third farm in as many months. today is for last minute errands for farm supplies. for collecting animals. for packing cars. for closing down the tent. for saying goodbyes. for getting everyone safely and -if possible- smoothly to the next farm.

we need to do everything today to get ourselves moved because tomorrow the postal service will call us with a hundred baby chicks for delivery and our jobs as livestock managers of the new farm will officially begin.

so please wish us luck as we move from the hill towns of western massachusetts to the bright light city farming outside of boston.

and i wish you all a moderately more relaxing monday morning.

**photos tomorrow as neither of us have any idea where our computers are and im so very over the quality of my iPhone photos.**

big picture farm

2011-10-19T12:02:00.000-04:00

i've suppose i have sounded like worthless sop in my past week of posts. something tipped me off to this. maybe it was the mountain of concerned emails and comments and phone calls i was receiving and dramatically not responding to.

i don't like to be a debbie downer of this internet space. i have always thought of myself as a happy woman. and i am. just going through a bit of a rough patch. as They Say.

so, i thought a more cheerful subject for this wednesday would be the ever lovely and ever smiling louisa of big picture farm. she and her husband farm up in vermont where they make goat, sheep, and cow cheeses....and goat milk caramels. which are heaven. we went to visit them last week and i haven't stopped thinking about wonderfully fit for their lives they are. they are kind. they are welcoming. they are generous. they are hardworking. and they are both undeniably talented in the worlds of confections, cheese, and art.

go take a look at louisa and wish her well as she has been Under the Weather and that just won't do when all of her goats need her.

wretched sweet teeth

2011-10-18T13:27:00.000-04:00

i didn't bring my running shoes to boston. which. is really nothing new. i've spent a lifetime as the victim of regrettably poor packing. but i didn't know we intended to stay in town so long. i didn't know that i had left my back up pair of shoes on the island and not in the city. i thought we'd be doing more moving and shaking and less craigslist surfing than we are. i also expected things to go More Smoothly. we didn't get the 48 acre farm for lease that we were planning on moving into.

always counting my little chickens before they hatch.

and so now we will be biding time with a room in somebody's basement near the farm we'll work at. until we re-figure things out. which. is really not what i want. but i'm Putting on a Good Face.

and i'm eating a lot of candy. which brings me back to my lack of shoes. nick's mom's apartment building shares a basement with a running store. they have a box labeled 'donation shoes'. i had a thought that i could silently borrow a pair of these used sneaks, run in them for the week, and then slouch back down to the basement before we leave to return them. but its a morally grey area. so i think i'll just leave them be.

but i do wish i'd run instead of consume candy corn. it doesn't help the nerves. it doesn't help the belly. it certainly doesn't help my petulant child breakdown in the early afternoon.

feeling terrifically antsy. maybe i'll walk to cambridge tonight for a film screening. give my legs a little of what they're looking for.

i'm ready to go home.

2011-10-14T13:59:00.000-04:00

i want to go home. i have had enough with this living out of boxes. with keeping our animals in a continuous state of flux. with not having a proper place to lay down with rose. with not having my favorite snacks, my favorite teas, my favorite chocolate milk. with not having our routine. with not having each and everyone of our animals set in their ways of the day.

i miss the land in north carolina.

i miss my cousins.

i miss the jordans.

i miss fostering piglets in the back shed.

i miss our herd of goats, even though i spent countless, needless hours chasing them around the farm.

i miss the landscape of cattle behind our home.

i miss bella and rose sharing the same pasture. growing old and fat together.

i miss the light in our home from 15h to 16h30. every blessed day.

i miss walks with pigs across the farm.

i miss ineptly trying to photograph little farm beings.

i miss harvesting exclusively for dinner.

i miss the mud caked legs of my favorite run.

i miss that bed.

i miss the call & response of the turkeys.

i miss the laundry line.

i miss the counter workstation i'd write from while nick made breakfast.

i miss our summer table by the pond.

i miss my feathered and bristled coworkers.

i miss billy cat and rocco kitten.

our billy cat died unexpectedly yesterday morning. he was hit by a car. even though we so purposefully lived away from the road. there was something so overwhelmingly destructive about his death. that unraveled nick and i as we were barely keeping it together. its been so very difficult not having rocco-kitten with us but billy's remaining presence was keeping us sane. he, rudy, nick, and i were the core four of our mottled backyard farm. we were able to keep a nominal sense of routine. of normalcy. of peace with the four of us in the tent. we love all of our animals. but we depended on billy's companionship with an intensity we've previously only reserved for rudy. and then, wednesday night, he never came home. never came back to the tent for his midnight check in. never came for his early morning breakfast the next day either.

he was found on the road. stiff. wet. much blacker than i remembered him. his face had been hit by the car. it looked as though it had been quick. but he was so un-billy that i had to check his nose to make sure it wasn't him. but it was. his nose was missing the same piece it had always missed.

i still was quite sure we had the wrong cat when we buried him under the apple tree up on the hill overlooking the farm. when we said our few words and laid quartz rock and cosmos on his grave. i was even more certain when we left yesterday for boston that the farm would call us later that day....or maybe even today. with the good news that billy was alive and well, sleeping under the bed in the guest room. and we would all wonder humorously at the macabre blunder of burying someone else's cat.

but they haven't called.

and i find myself overwhelmed with missing north carolina. where we used to have all the creature comforts that the tent lacks. where we used to have two loving kitties that spent their afternoon on the bed. spent their nights in the carolina hills. and spent their mornings eating thawed liver from the freezer.

we're hoping to find a home this week-end. which is why we are here in boston. but it feels now like we missed our chance. they may just be two cats to the outside world. but they were the definition of our family and of our home. and now we don't have them. and now i just want to retreat to the farm in north carolina and go back to my cousins. back to our pigs. back to the 500 acres we called home. back to a time when we had everybody and everything just so.

its only monday and i already miss the week-end

2011-10-10T13:40:00.000-04:00

i had a weekend of cousins. of long runs. of summer weather. of exploring a new-to-me, old-to-friends swimming hole filled with fresh water that made your legs ache with cold. of finding cheerwine in massachusetts. of buying shiny things i don't for need pennies at tag sales.

but this week is going to be filled with business plans. with a meeting with a potential landlord. with a dinner meeting with a new boss. with packing boxes for the seventh time in 4 years. with lots of driving.

and so i'm trying to hold on to that week-end essence for a moment longer. cause i imagine this is going to be a trying one.

rocco-cat

2011-10-09T17:48:00.001-04:00

i miss the shit out of this cat. every. goddamn. day. going through old photos of old animal friends this afternoon. never a quiet task.

i love you rocco-cat. i wish you would come home. i hope we didn't drive you away. i imagine you are with some stupidly-loving cat-thieving family that feeds you raw liver and snuggles you deeply every morning as you were accustomed.

sitting back a la campagne

2011-10-07T16:54:00.001-04:00

i never get to sit back and unwind in the country. there will forever be things to do. fences to mend. gardens to tend. but i'm housesitting for some neighbors this week and the luxury of it all is divine. inside bed. hot bath that can fit two. wifi. the good comfy life for a couple of days.

photos:

1. milking goats has me so nostalgic for my north carolina days

2. guinea egg. chicken egg. duck egg. goose egg.

3. tall stack of oreos and a glass of goat's milk

4. basket o' eggs

5. abigail and martha

6. workstation. finally getting to a month's worth of email.

the finality of Frost

2011-10-06T22:24:00.000-04:00

the day started off with a freeze. not a deep freeze. but one that had the weather service issue a warning, informing us with all finality and no ceremony that this would be the EndoftheGrowingSeason. that anyone with AgriculturalInterests needed to harvest their crops as soon as.

there's something comforting in going all out, all summer. working dawn to night. sweating through and dirtying every t shirt you own. knowing that some day in october the temperatures will drop and then that's it. well, of course, the kale, the broccoli, the b. sprouts, they'll live through Frost. they actually get tastier with Frost. but for the better part of it all, the summer garden is formally complete with the arrival of Frost. which leaves us to plan and dream of Winter. when we are left to our animals and our preserves.

i'd be negligent in my writing if i didn't tell you that the tent was decidedly chilly with the dip in weather. the first night that i was....under my world of woolen and down blankets....quite cold. wallpapered to nick and rudy's warm bodies.

but the day turned herself around. long-underwear and vests were exchanged for shorts and sweaters and milk was made into yogurt and cheese and butter. like it was just any other thursday...

photos:
1. the lingering crystals of Frost.
2. 10 gallons of dairy to process.
3. we need to wash our windows more often.
4. ricotta, yogurt, butter. check, check, check.
5. oatmeal for breakfast. pumpkin soup for lunch. breakfast for dinner.
6. the sunnies are done for.
7. pitbulls playing in the sunroom.

our un-apologetically humble abode

2011-10-05T13:43:00.000-04:00

i thought it was about time you two met. Tent, meet Blog...Blog this is Tent.

i think we are nearly, after five weeks, just now becoming fluent in tent living. this means that we are able to keep the tent free of 1. dirt 2. rain and 3. cold. this wasn't as simple as i had blithely hoped. i had first covered the tent's bare floor with my most special rugs, pillows, blankets. then the rains hit and those rugs were first shockingly dry... then damp... and then soaked. and then we were damp and soaked. because the golden rule about tent living is that water seeps. if one pathetic little belonging gets wet anything it touches will also, slowly, but surely, become damp to wet.

i put our bed and rudy's on a platform of old pallet wood. all of our clothes are in milk crates up off the ground. we have two down blankets because we found that sleeping every night in bags is slippery. the sub zero bags remain in a dry bag near the entrance for emergency needs.

we have a bouquet of pine to ward off the smell of Mold and Mud. midnight mason jars of water litter every surface. two prickly plants and a broken statute of a bull found at the corner store greet you on the wooden plank to the bed.

it is a little home. a dirty and smelly and sometimes frustratingly musty home. and here we prepare to move further eastward into a real home with floors and windows and doors and walls, and armoires and desks, and bookcases, and nooks to place my teacups, my typewriters, my books and baubles. yet i find myself already nostalgic for the small-ness. for the simplicity of tent living. for only keeping 70 square feet of living clean. for only having the Absolutely Necessary with us.

its a good, humbling tent.

happy birthday maman.

2011-09-29T06:36:00.000-04:00

little bean cat and i spent all week writing and rewriting and editing and trashing and starting afresh and getting ink all over us. we neglected emails and phone calls and farm chores to bring to you the first ever of hopefully many (but probably very few) farm mysteries. its a farm whodunit. just for you. the ebook version will be available to you through a link in your morning mail.

i love you. and i'm issuing this public apology for the fact that the hardcover is just in the postal service's hands this morning.

on the subject of Needs of Me

2011-09-26T15:03:00.001-04:00

i suppose i ought to add 'bathing in a creek-tub' right below 'milking cow' to the ever preposterous and somehow modest list of Needs of Kate

bathing in a creek-tub is Cold. lets call a hat a hat. but while the autumnal gods still manage to throw us a bluebird 80 degree day every once and again i'll be tubbing it al fresco. and when the cold returns i'll be calling on friends for the use of an occasional hot bath.

...and the leaves begin their fall.

2011-09-23T08:30:00.001-04:00

today is the autumnal equinox. and the polite thing to do is to take photos of the trees in their glory. this one in particular has been demanding of an audience since tuesday. its been taunting me on my runs. reminding me that summer is ~~damn~~ ~~near~~ over. reminding me that we are soon back to Cold. that this is the beginning of the end of what we will see of the green. one brilliant culmination of color. that the tomatoes we have in the garden are our last. that a real frost is imminent. that we are setting up for a long winter of eggs and potatoes and meat.

one can't help but get so predictably nostalgic at this time of season. and here i cannot help myself. so it is quite perfect that the aged p's are coming for a visit this week-end. just as they did when i was at school here. time to go hike the same mountains we hiked in school. time to horde the same apple cider donuts i became so dependent on at smith. time to drink warm teas. time to add warmer blankets to the tent.

i hope some of you are still savoring the last days of summer with a swim in the sea. and that some of you californians continue to be innocently unaware of any season change back east. and that some of you are thinking of candy corn and long cold runs in the forest. however you may be celebrating the autumnal equinox let in be in good style. it was a good summer. and it will be a good winter. and the in-between will likely be as spectacular as this little red tree.

cats setting a grueling pace for rainy and sunny days alike

2011-09-22T15:47:00.001-04:00

the rhythm of yesterday

the rhythm of today

i want a milking cow for christmas

2011-09-19T19:01:00.000-04:00

i'm becoming more high maintenance in certain aspects of my day and of my life thanks to the farming nonsense i'm waist deep in. that would seem rather contrary to what you would think...no? but it isn't how my hair is coiffed. or my pedicured toes. my hair is one big rat's nest that i'll refer to as a dread here as that somehow sounds less awful. my toes....they are knarled and dirty and have the faintest hint of pink on them from the summer. they are farm feet. hooves as nick calls them.

no, my maintenance issues come to what i eat. because what i eat is what i spend every waking hour thinking about. because i am constantly hungry and have the appetite of 20 lumberjacks at the end of the workaday. when we first started life on farm i immediately threw myself to the snobbery of strictly and only fresh farm veggies. no grocery store veggies. then it was eggs. and nick and i quickly determined we could never live without at least a modest backyard flock o' hens. a little farm garden in the summer and 5-10 birds-a-laying isn't too ostentatious. that could still allow for a well socialized life...maybe even one close to town.

but then the diary cow came into my life. just 3 short weeks ago. and she has for ever changed my requirements. i cannot imagine how nick or i will survive the winter without these beasts. the amount of dairy that now makes up my life would probably be sickening to anyone who does not live on our farm. suffice to say it is not rare that a 1/2 gal of milk, a quart of yogurt, a quart of ricotta, a tub of butter, and then another 1/2 gal of milk will be destroyed in just one sitting here.

so we are looking into the purchase of one jersey lady cow for ourselves. just now in the docile criagslist-creeping phase. not the calling to farms. not quite yet.

so for now. for those of you who do or do not have a cow. here is a simple strained yogurt recipe. it takes about 8 hours start to finish but most of that is you do nothing and the cultures doing everything.

you'll need a thermometer, a yogurt starter (any whole milk yogurt with 'live and active' cultures), milk, cheesecloth and a colander.

1. heat milk (skimmed or whole) on a double broiler to 185F.
2. when milk reaches temp remove from heat and let cool to 115F.
3. when milk reaches 115F put in 2 T yogurt for every quart of milk you have. do not stir.

** a note about the yogurt culture you use: you will not need to buy a new tub of yogurt from the store every time you want to make yogurt. that would be ludicrous. you can use your new yogurt as your culture for subsequent yogurt makings. the culture that you make starts to wear off after the 10th iteration or so. i don't know why this is.**

4. with milk and yogurt together now place vessel in a bigger vessel with the hottest tap water you can find. this is harder to explain than i thought. basically we use a cooler. fill it with hot water to wear the milk/yogurt vessel can sit comfortably in it but not be submerged (you don't want water getting in the incubating yogurt). and then we put a lid on the cooler to keep it nice and toasty in there. scale way down on this and use whatever smaller insulated vessel you have.
5. let milk and yogurt culture incubate for 6 hours.
6. pour resulting yogurt and whey through a cheesecloth and colander. let strain for about an hour.
7. refrigerate and congratulate yourself for making yogurt.

i really advise getting this process started in the early am so you aren't up all night. let it start incubating and then get on with your day for those 6 hours the yogurt just sits there.

**the a-d-orable recipe cards are from please note paper shop.

autumn is coming

2011-09-16T16:54:00.000-04:00

the weather is changing. that much was obvious when we had to add two sleeping bags and two kittens to the mix of our bed, that already included two wool blankets, one comforter, and one dog. the leaves haven't quite turned. which would be the obvious thing for them to do. us, farming in the berkshires. where foliage is almost cliché. but there is something about them that is different. every other moment i find a big gust of wind come upon us and i look around at the trees. suspicious of their color development. everything is still decidedly green. but they have a pre-turn aura now. i don't doubt that the next day i look up at them all, ready to give them my shrewd and penetrating stare, that i'll find they've already changed to their burnt oranges, and reds, and yellows. i really don't want to miss it. so i keep pausing to look up.

but the crispness of the air today. that was unmistakable. that had me covering my toes and my head this morning. that had me in corduroys and a down vest and heavy socks by 6h30. that had my hands frozen stiff as i fetched the dairy girls in the upper pasture. it never really let up. that's the real clue. even by lunch. even though we ate on the porch in the full sun. we were still all sweater-ed and hatted.

today...thus far

2011-09-15T15:11:00.002-04:00

it rained last night. not with the same gusto as in week's past. early september was a Wet One for tent dwelling farmers. but it did rain last night. which explained the slug on my bed when i awoke. and the quiet of the farm at 6h39.

there is a slower rhythm to life on a farm in the rain. a gentler walk to the milking parlor. a more leisurely lunch. nobody makes a rush out of anything except the chickens. the rain unearths a galaxy of grubs and so they all run about with a frantic air, binging on worms.

so here are the photos of my day thus far through the crass quickness of an iPhone's lense.

island home.

2011-09-12T12:39:00.000-04:00

i hadn't been to the island since christmas. but this weekend, one of my dear friends from new york got married to a man from california. they now live in seoul, korea. so the island was a natural mid-point for them.

it was a crispy bluebird weekend. which made me ache for more days there. so we took one more. and now we are on the ferry boat. headed back to the great world of Off Island. where we will see a farm today that we may be able to rent. and then off in the dead of night. back to our little hamlet in the berkshires. back to the tent. back to the 6 am wakings. back to the gloriously large and wonderfully simple farm dinners and breakfasts and lunches.

its happened before that nick and i have attended a wedding and only come home with a handful of self portraits and none of the dear bride and groom. but that is just our vanity. something we have to deal with one day at a time. and sadly, something you have to witness here, from time-to-time.

an afternoon in the kitchen

2011-09-08T18:31:00.000-04:00

the sun came out today. but not until just recently. maybe an hour ago. up until then, things had been rather dreary. five days of straight rain can have a gloom-ful effect on even the most cheery of individuals. we all slept in until 8h the past 2 mornings...because...what's the point of rising so early if the sun won't show her warm welcoming face?

i had fallen ill from exposure. which i loved saying, because it seemed very dramatic. very 1850s. but yesterday, i did indeed spend too many hours outside, in the steady rain. with soaked boots and soaked socks.

so today, my fellow farmers took a dear amount of pity and told me to stay indoors and tend to the dairy processing.

and i obliged. happily. i started the day milking and then turned my gains into butter and ricotta.

i thought today, i'd start out that backcountry How To with a quick lesson on ricotta.

ricotta is quite simple. don't be intimidated by it just because its a cheese. my advice is to just go for it and you will always learn from your past mistakes.

*this is technically a queso blanco and not a ricotta, but i don't have a mozzarella starter so that is for another day.

you'll need a thermometer, vinegar, salt, milk, cheese cloth, herbs, and a colander.

1. heat skimmed milk on a double broiler to 185F (about 30 minutes)
2. when milk reaches temperature turn off heat and add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/3 cup vinegar to each gallon of milk.
3. stir very gently for 30 seconds.
4. place mixture with lid on away from everything. you don't want the ricotta to be disturbed while it is inoculating.
5. allow mixture to sit. curds & whey will separate. this takes about 2 hours.
6. after 2 hours of sitting. strain the curds & whey through a cheese cloth & colander.
7. leave ricotta with a bit of whey to keep it moist in the jars.
8. mix in additional salt and fresh herbs to taste (i use s&p, chives, dill, parsley, etc..).
9. enjoy! it will be good for probably up to a week. so eat it up. love it. repeat and tweak as you see fit.

sugar deficient rain soaked woman

2011-09-07T17:13:00.001-04:00

it hasn't stopped raining since sunday. we live in a tent so that is a Pretty Big Deal for us. the tent and her contents all range from sickly damp to sodden. i couldn't take the weight of all this rain so i made a complicated and wordy excuse to run to the creamery. where i sought solace in the sweet processed sugar of a toffee bar.

please let the sun come out tomorrow. ormy teeth will rot and my tent bed will float away.

a dollop of back country How To

2011-09-05T13:48:00.001-04:00

i have had women in the past year requesting kindly in writing that i stop yammering on about piglets and outdoor tubs for one blessed moment to address the How To. How To make butter at home. How To can peaches in a simple syrup for the belly of winter. How To quit one's job and become a paid/ unpaid farm hand. so i wanted to provide to you a terribly unofficial forum to request any certain and specific How Tos that i am undoubtedly no expert in but nonetheless can share a morsel of knowledge about. so suggestions? comment or email me and we'll get this blogball rollin'.

peaches & carpentry

2011-09-02T13:47:00.001-04:00

preparations for farm shabbat dinner are in full swing. we made challah this morning. dug trenches for the ground wire. built a better chicken door that allows the chicks to stream in and out but keeps the feed-minded pigs and goats at bay. lunch of fresh bread and our ricotta. an afternoon of canning 10 boxes of peaches. this is how the friday goes. about to take a little hot sun jog up and around a steep nearby hill to get a fresh view on this bluebird day. have a stellar labor free week-end. n & i will be down in nw conn for some maple syrup, lake swims, and good solid time with two of our most beautiful friends.

all the pretty milk cows

2011-08-31T11:44:00.001-04:00

princess and hemlock. they are our jersey milkers. princess calved just recently and so is producing the most magnificent gallons of creamy milk. milking has become my favorite time of the farm day. 7 in the brilliant fall morning and 7 in the chilled and damp night.

to be that close to a cow. to a sweet large animal like princess or hemlock. to breathe in their mud grass sweet scent with your head resting on their side. to get odd and large muscles in your once delicate hands. to give the first spots of milk to the farm kitten. to sit there and milk and talk and sing with girlfriends you feel like you've known forever. to return to the milk house with gallons of fresh warm milk. to turn that into butter and yogurt and ricotta and mozzarella. all with your own hands. this is the beautiful side of farming. the part that gets me out of bed at 6h while the sun is making her way across the berkshires. all to start the day not with coffee or tea or the paper but with these two gorgeous cows.

we are tent people now

2011-08-30T09:33:00.002-04:00

more detailed photos to follow this week. suffice to say it is stellar and was a military issued winter tent made on 15 august 1950.

for now we are harvesting cukes to pickle. the morning's milking is done. breakfast is settled in our stomachs and the early fall sun is warming our cold toes and legs.

milk maid-ing

2011-08-26T09:38:00.002-04:00

started milking a cow at sunrise today. and nick learned how to bake challah. firsts all around on the farm.

the boston-side of farm things.

2011-08-25T08:10:00.001-04:00

we spent our first day back on a farm yesterday. we went to a farm outside of boston that we will be working on through the winter. they are a non-certified organic veggie farm with over 40 acres in cultivation. we have been hired to introduce livestock to their acreage in the coming year. chickens and pigs most likely. we spent the morning talking cover crops and local predators (a coyote mother who likes to watch them garden from the compost pile). we talked winter shelters for chickens. we talked heat sources and found a great solution from a woodstove in an old green house.

it felt good to talk shop again. it felt less good to spend 5 hours bent over in the hot sun harvesting arugula and kale and potatoes and cilantro. but we had to put in some solid time with their college-infused garden crew. show we aren't the bitter and wizened 27/28 year olds that we appear to be.

and so today, we are headed over to the berkshires. to begin our fall apprenticeship in the hippy hills of western massachusetts. where we will sing a lot of songs. and make a lot of farmer's cheese. and bake a lot of bread. and have general merriment and be generally productive. and be reunited with my rag tag flock of animals.

we don't have internet at this new farm. so i will do my best to communicate to you our goings ons. but a fair warning, that you may be in for a more heavily loaded iphone picture blog in the close future.

wish me luck.

in iphone photos of a friend's farm:
1. happily colored honey bees. doing their job. in their little honey bee village.
2. flowers picked for nick's sister.
3. out of focus photo of ants devouring a melon.
4. pop-corn.

holiday-ing farm-ing fools.

2011-08-23T14:19:00.000-04:00

24 days into a 25-day holiday from farm work and the guilt of days filled with self indulgent laziness has overtook. well, it overtook about 20 days ago but i was still too dedicated to the holiday to write to you. i asked last week (was it actually 2 weeks ago??) if farming and holidaying could be reconciled. when i wrote that, i had the inkling it could be...last week i was not so positive. and today i gather Yes and No.

its been 24 days since i've awoken to the rooster's cry. since i've raced the sun across the lower garden to rescue ripened tomatoes and perfectly sized okra, eggplant, and fragrantly screaming melons. over three weeks since i've filled a pigs wallow or combed a donkey's back or packed the v-dub full to hawk our wares at the nearest town.

i grew accustomed to a life of leisure this august with an appalling ease reserved ---one would imagine-- for a woman not seriously applied to life as a Farmer. it is appalling. and alarming. what does it say about our future in such a physically and mentally demanding field if we schedule it as such to be spoiled mercilessly rotten one month every year?

i can say to you that the idleness of holiday, whilst welcome in my bones and deepest muscles, has not stopped my mind from attempting to bring the farm to vacation. we've sought after pigs and cows and chickens and gardens in canada and the cape and now here in boston. i've had mom kayak with me over to the next island with a bag of compost to feed pigs. this morning we had our toe-headed nephews picking tomatoes and chard and squash with us in the garden next door. nick has moved them on to blueberries for this evening's cobbler. we've walked, hiked, biked, and driven anywhere we can to find eggs up to farm-snob snuff.

the time with family has been invaluable. that much is obvious. that much might not be so desperately needed in the coming years now that we live near our most precious people. the time to sleep in, rest bones, think about the evening's cocktails and eat processed foods. the time to spend with your boyfriend, your love, your partner, without worrying and stressing about the farm. it is all welcome. it is all needed. we need to have some measure --however small-- of balance in our lives so that we don't burn out in this life. that may seem like a form of betrayal to the sincerity of this life. it may seem convenient or spoiled, but i can tell you, from one hard year on the farm that a form of Time Away is paramount.

but the time away from the animals needs to be done with a more thoughtful execution. nick and i feel such deep gratitude to our family and our friends who have helped us care for our flock this summer. we were so desperate to get out of the hot south. off the farm. into the nurturing holds of our families that we didn't dedicate enough effort to the acclimation of every animal and we paid dearly for our haste. we lost our sweet rocco-cat to the cape and we are culpable. it is on us for dragging him all around. next summer. i will not let the anxiety...the intoxication of the prospect of a holiday overcome. next summer we will take fewer days and do more preparation. because we are Farmers now. and a Farmer cannot take weekends or holidays or sick days like s/he was accustomed to taking. and a Farmer has to remember that s/he is responsible to the flock...to the crops first. rest can come. rest does come. and should come. but it needs to come in different shapes and sizes than it did before.

and so here you have my thoughts. that took me the better part of three weeks to form. that farming and holidaying are not and should not be exclusive of each other but their relationship needs to be reworked and tinkered with, just like everything on a good farm. now to enjoy the penultimate day of vacation.

lost

2011-08-19T11:31:00.000-04:00

the chances of anyone reading this on the upper cape are slim. but we have put fliers up all over town. we have knocked on all doors and accosted anyone walking, running, or biking by. our little rocco kitty is missing. he's been gone now for almost two days. billy-cat would really like him to come back. and so would we. he's a good boy. but shy. he responds to rocco and kitty-kitty. and, as promised on the flier, i will bake you any kind of cookies you want as a reward.

thanks.

morning a la cape

2011-08-18T13:05:00.001-04:00

its past noon. nick's family is insisting on beach time. i am so tired of the beach. i grew up on an island. going to the beach every dragged day. i'd rather spend the afternoon in provincetown. today is carnivale there. and i need a healthy dose of gay man's carnivale in my life. the antithesis of rural north carolina. but we are doing family time which is good good good. and needed too. so i may be held prisoner in the sand, by the water for the afternoon. i do appreciate when holidays force decisions such as these. it skews perspective. this evening. when i am well into my third g & t i will conclude to you my thoughts about farmers and holidays. i write best with a bit of gin in the veins.

until then.

photos:
1. a warm and crushed diet coke found on the deck this morning. i don't know what possessed me to take a sip.
2. teddy bear. ensconsed. he hates the beach as much as i. lucky fella gets to sleep in.
3. this dress is dangerously short for the winds prevailing off the bay.
4. nick's sister got these bowls for the cape house and i'm photo-ing them to remember how much i would like a set.
5. le ciel...ça me plait.
6. taking pictures of legs --i've always hated my legs but nick's are all dark and hairy and covered with bites so not pictured-- while nick was phone-talking to some good farmers who are taking care of our sweet bella-cow for the summer.

the fine art of camper-living

2011-08-17T12:30:00.001-04:00

with our families and friends on the scout for places nick and i could live this year we've all been coming up with some rather practical but unlikely visions of housing possibilities. here are just a few.

dad sent us this bike camper idea this morning.

the half-yurt design.

your classic tipi .

a dutch company, tonke, makes caravans that start at a cool $50k.

and finally, the embodiment of Stealth and Portability. the camper kart by kevin cyr.

i miss her.

2011-08-15T13:04:00.001-04:00

my sister. i had nearly two months with her this summer. living and farming and talking and eating and cooking and planting and swimming and singing and running and reading and puzzling and talking and harvesting and hiking and exploring and arguing and music-ing and talking and sleeping and boating and driving and berry-picking and bathing and talking. all summer. with my sister. she is, without a doubt, the most loveliest person i know. in every single way she exudes beauty...even when she is grumpy with me she can't help but be the most beautiful. and today is my first day without her by my side. and tomorrow is her first day back west. and christmas is the next time i will see her. it is a magical thing to have a sister. even if you have to go stretches of months or weeks or days without seeing her. even if neither of you can keep a cell phone or write an email or send regular letters. those days that you get to be with her make it all worth the un-wholeness of when you are apart.

photo credit to mom

belly-scratches with rose

2011-08-11T19:12:00.002-04:00

nick sent me this reassuring snapshot today. he is in the berkshires checking on our brood. rose, he determined, was feeling adequately at home on the new farm. i am in such desperate need of a good lie down in the grass with my ever-growing piglet.

farmers on holiday

2011-08-10T13:44:00.000-04:00

i've been mulling over how farmer's can go on holiday. how they can leave their animals and crops and land and cares behind to put them on hold. to put them out of their ever stressing minds.

i'm on holiday, so i'll need to mull over these feelings of guilt and this need for rest and see if i can't reconcile it for a coherent post. for now, we are in town, getting wares. the winds are picking up a bit. and if we are to make it back to the little island without getting too wet i need to cut this short now.

i'll be back to a more regular source of internet gold next week when we land on cape cod. for now, have a lovely extended summer week-end. will see you on the other side.

too terribly busy and exhausted for words.

2011-08-05T19:33:00.000-04:00

rudy and i explore the boundaries of our vanity

2011-08-04T14:14:00.001-04:00

i called the farm today to get an animal report. they are being Model pigs and cow and chickens and duck and bees. this kind of report puts me very much at ease as i was worried we had coddled and cuddled and spoiled them all too rotten.

with the Good News it opens space up for other things to worry about. like what form of human housing we can create this winter? we will be at current farm just 2 months and then we have farm jobs outside of boston but with no place to live. renting doesn't fit our modest farmhand budget. but there are options. tee pee. larger tent. 1960s camper found on craigslist. such options while small, minimalist, and sexy present two seemingly insurmountable problems. how do we heat any of the above through the bitterness of a new england winter? and on whose land in such a proper setting as outer-boston can we set up such red-neckian accommodations?

such are the thoughts plaguing me on this thursday morning. the river is glass calm and the sun is beating gently down --mercifully much unlike it beats down in the south-- so off to the rocks to make like a lizard and soak in this day. worries about winter be damned for a rainier day.

top of the morning

2011-08-03T09:12:00.001-04:00

good morning of foraged berries and nick's honey. the boyfriends are out fishing. the sisters are about to go running through and around the big island's farms. and the aged p's are reading. good river morning.

we made it

2011-08-01T15:07:00.001-04:00

it's monday morning here in canada. i just finished swimming laps between two islands and it's nearly time for lunch. the pace of the day...coupled by the cool breeze and the temperate water...and the nearly 900 miles of driven miles makes me wonder if that really was us just four days ago. running away at dusk.

the day had started off innocently enough. fiona and billy had already taken a carload of our most coveted pots, pans, tea cups, and overalls north the week before. despite their help and the attempted early organization of that first carload we were left with a series of unruly small bags and boxes and buckets. it took the better part of last thursday to tetris all the pieces into the bed of the truck...with some last minute surprises like a Second 50 gallon barrel of filtered veggie oil. once the bed was packed and strapped in with tarps and bungies we serenely planned that we would load everyone up. the bees, the chickens, the duck, the pigs, the cow, the traditional domestics (a la cats & dog). then we would shower. eat. leave.

but it was nearing Dangerous Temperatures once the noah's ark was loaded and we didn't have time to do anything but go. so go we did. we left just a couple hours before sunset. in the heat of it all. without showers. in clothes still caked with carolina mud.

we drove through the night to ensure the coolest weather for our cargo. i am so grateful and so genuinely surprised that everyone made it to the berkshires safely. the farm we arrived at was more magical and serene and welcoming than we could have ever hoped for. we spent the past several days there. embedding our flock with theirs. these good people are going to watch over our animals until we return in september. then we will repay them with two months work this fall. it won't be difficult. they may work us from sun up to down. but it comes with fresh cow's milk and cheese and yogurt and homemade granola and bread and blueberry wine and seven beautiful men and women all bathing in a creek and eating around one table and trying to live and farm through life like nick and i.

so there i was. and there the animals were. and here i am now. g&t in hand...taking a small break from farmlife to enjoy how the other half lives. the half without chickens waking them up at dawn.

2011-07-31T09:49:00.001-04:00

the new farm. testing out a mobile blogger app.

before the crazy outweighs the hot

2011-07-26T23:58:00.004-04:00

you could call it writers' bloc. or blogger bloc. or more aptly just foggy brained. but i cannot think of a word to write to you. i spoke several weeks ago of a feeling of surreality. of not fully grasping my present. and here it is again. on the eve --or the penultimate eve-- of our departure i am a shell of my former farmer self. i have been so preoccupied with the details of the move that i in turn become even more preoccupied with consuming every last moment on the farm. which creates this overly sensitized being where i am so dramatically in-tuned to my surroundings that i must look like i'm on psychedelics.

like yesterday afternoon when the lightening storm swept over the farm and i stood on the back patio, arms akimbo, breathing in the whooshes of rain along with the clouds. wondering how the sky knew that when i let go of a breath it should let the rain fall harder.

like this evening as we drove across the farm in elizabeth's '79 vw bus, the speakers blaring a 1920s era jazz tape, the stars already high in their position. i let nick talk and talk as i silently tried to count each star and turn the music up ever louder humming to myself a tune i had never heard before.

or just now as i walked through the dark pig pen to check on our sick sow mavis. the air was completely black. and i wasn't scared. i'm not scared of the dark on this farm. but i was attuned if you will. attuned to the indelible presence of bubba, the 800 pound boar, who was somewhere in that pen. lurking, the only way a boar of that caliber can exist at that hour, no matter their kindness in the daylight hours. i heard every ant that crossed a leaf. every mosquito that landed on mavis. every chicken's rustling feathers settling as i scooped feed to the sow and poured water on her hot head and back. listening for bubba. i looked like a jumping hot potato with every sound.

i will embraced the crazy that has overtaken me. i know that the farm still needs me, even if i have done farm chores in my underwear (it IS hot) for the past 3 days. even though i have been making a valiant effort to drink All Of Our Wine by myself. even though i only have 2 more days here.

i'm trying to reconcile leaving with being madly in love with a piece of land. with the ecosystem that this land has fostered. it's not pretty. so i thank you for having gotten as far as you have.

with tuesday night now turning, dutifully to wednesday, i can safely say, that we are leaving tomorrow. the truck is two-thirds packed. i will try to reign in the crazy so that i can bid adieu to this place with some dignity and with some clothes on.

orangie photos:

1. the sunnies finally bloomed. i was so thrilled, they had been mocking me along for the past 2 weeks. i was sure i was going to miss their entrance.

2. in a surprise turn nick collected honey sunday evening. loads of it. and he does it without any mask or suit or gloves or smoking. it is bad ass. i say it is dangerous and beg him not to do it and stand with an epi pen, paralyzed at the front door, as he beekeeps. but i must say, the boy has a way with his bees.

3. tequila sunrise peppers. hate the name. love the color.

4. the steam was so intense in the morning's mugginess that the camera lens kept fogging.

pack it up...

2011-07-21T17:14:00.000-04:00

i don't know that there are many physical feelings of relief greater than that one i had today, in the open field of the turkey pen. panting under the hot sun as i labored with the bird's water trough. after 3 straight days of 100°s and going higher. after lying naked and restless everynight with no air conditioning and no wind in the night skies. after covering myself in sweat and mud and stench from an early morning in the pig pen....

i was just finished with using a pail, i held it in my left hand and i heard a drop hit it. and then another. i looked above me and saw a dark, cartoon, rain cloud hovering there. well, that would be nice i thought to myself and the cartoon cloud obliged and let loose its contents. it poured. poured. for nearly 15 minutes straight. and we all stood there. all humans, birds, pigs alike. everywhere on the farm. and thanked the heavens for their mercy.

the skies cleared and the sun got right back down to his task at hand. as though the rain had been a temporary slip and would prefer you didn't mention it. and so we are back to Sweat, Mud, and Stench. back to packing. back to chores. back to canning. back to cleaning.

photos:
1. linens are washed and folded and shuttered into boxes to be sent north.
2. i am the inefficient packer. the one that likes to pack things in millions of little boxes and cases.
3. nick made a winter's ration of tomato sauce.
4. the rugs are sunning themselves, preparing for their sentence of an indefinite storage.
5. the succulents are posing an issue. how do you pack a prickly plant?

pigs on tv

2011-07-20T16:16:00.003-04:00

its terribly difficult to get an accurate view of the size and scope of a farm such as cane creek. especially when the documenter in question --moi-- likes to take up close or out of focus photos. so i thought i would share the bit that made it onto unc-tv last night about our farm. you can see me & nick herding escaped pigs. and there is a special shot of oscar and van gogh that made my heart lurch. it was shot back in the fall and i had nearly forgotten this footage existed. enjoy.

cool hand luke

2011-07-19T09:03:00.002-04:00

i am as cool as i was this past friday. when humidity broke and we were thankful. when we all...all 7 of us piled into the truck. seven people in one truck...such is the physical capacity of this old ford. piled into the truck and then spilled out of it to dinner in saxapahaw. onto the deck. cool enough to wear pants. cool enough to give in to my anglo-new england heritage and have several glasses of wine in lieu of dinner. cool enough to push away thoughts of packing. thoughts of leaving this home.

on the docket for this tuesday we are cleaning the feed shed. laundering rugs and linens. closing out the second bedroom. canning and preserving tomatoes. making and freezing pesto. a lavender harvest. possibly a run to the store to acquire more jars. with lots to do we are keeping it cool. nick and rudy are still asleep. fi and i are about to go for a long run. the cats are panicked, but that is par. rose, vangogh, and bella are digesting yesterday's rotten tomatoes. the chickens are doing their rounds. all is calm...in welcome anticipation of the move ahead.

the cats just barely made the cut

2011-07-15T19:21:00.002-04:00

nick said to me the other day that maybe we shouldn't take the cats. leave them here. the cats. the CATS. these are the stressful species for us. we can figure out the ear-less pig and his little sister. and the cow. and the honeybees. and the child biting dog. or the duck that wants to be a chicken. but the cats putting us over the Edge. we won't leave them behind. i made that quite clear. but i cannot believe we both entertained not taking them. that the normalized, domesticated, society-accepted animals are the bitch of it. what have we become? this week-end is dedicated to figuring the cats out.

when the sun gets high

2011-07-14T20:12:00.000-04:00

we are being cooked, burnt, fried to a crisp down south. and so when the sun gets itself so high, hot, and mighty we mudbloods search for cooler grounds. for gardens in the early dawn. for creameries. for cold outdoor baths. actually, this morning, in the early hours. the heat broke. the winds picked up. it was delightful.

the tough part of it is that, we can't just lounge about. these photos are anomalies of the past 2 days. rare moments where we have sat down and sighed and attempted to dry ourselves from the constant sweat. but things move forward. the farm, the move up north, the tomato plants. everything seems to be flying forward. we have 2 weeks left. the list grows longer, rather than shorter everyday. it should grow shorter. but we keep adding to it. stupid selves. so far, i have packed up and then unpacked a box of books and my winter hats. yes, 2 boxes. barely even boxes. and we have a whole house to box up. i think i'll pack our socks tonight. just to make it 3, useless boxes.

photos:
1. the corn, hardly high enough, but its popcorn and it makes us proud.
2. girlfriends coolin' their feet in the tub.
3. my raised beds. putting hailey in charge of planting them for the fall. i want to make sure they are in good hands.
4. basil is reason enough to grow a garden. unlimited pesto. which is in need as fiona & i eat it my the forkful.
5. sara at the feed mill.
6. the skinny creamery kitten trying to cop a lick.
7. how did fiona change ice cream flavors so fast?
8. we cracked the first melons of the summer this afternoon.
9. with 5 to 7 people coming in and out of these doors we go through a healthy amount of napkins.
10. onion bags.
11. there is no more sought after goal than goosebumps in the summer.

i need to step up my game

2011-07-12T18:09:00.001-04:00

...because these ladies are how you do it. how you work the farm life.

...and i'm not really working the cut offs and ratty tees like i think i am.

so of Top Priority when we return to new england will be a wardrobe renovation. more tweeds. and corduroys and smarter hats. more english country professor/sheep herder and less....well less of the above. it means a blow to practicality, but a win for glamor. and so it must be done.

**thank you soulemama for the link to these beauties.

2011-07-11T10:21:00.000-04:00

this is our godson. arlo redding. and i love this photo. being a godmother is very new to me and i am insufferably proud of the title. i try to drop the word godson into all manner's of conversation. like, when someone other than his parents reaches for him, i dutifully instruct, my godson prefers to be held belly to belly. or at the dinner table, oh this table cloth reminds me of a funny story about my godson. it's been a little weird, but i imagine my friends can forgive me the subtle boasting. because i have never been so honored as i have by arlo's parents. nick and i have already promised him a pony. which he must share with his sister. and trips to new england. and trips to the cape. and how to sail a boat. and how to drive a tractor. i love so very much that we are somebody's godparents. that that somebody i helped bring into this world. that that somebody is the most handsome baby boy you could ask for. that that somebody's parents are two of our dearest most beloved friends.

belly up

2011-07-08T18:23:00.002-04:00

one of my favorite ways to unwind from the farm is to lie on my stomach in the grass behind our house and watch and kiss and touch all of our little animals. it silences me. it allows me time to make sure they are all individually o.k. to let them know i absolutely adore them.

it's a good way to end a friday to think about the week-end. we have markets tomorrow. a pig pen to finish building. my godson and his parents coming in the afternoon. cookies to be baked. we have all hit a sugar low since last weekend's double cakes for fi's birthday. and a couple rounds of croquet to be played. the course is set on the front lawn and needs to serve a purpose other than breaking ankles each time somebody's foot catches a wicket.

on a much less picturesque note. the fish in the front pond are dying. in droves. Belly Up. there is a serious drought in our county (and i imagine the whole state). the biologists of the family tried to explain to me that this has caused a lack of oxygen in the water so the fish die. it is.....horrendous. on every level. you could imagine. and you will pardon my lack of photographic record on the event. it's not something i want to remember too vividly. i just thought, in the effort of full disclosure, i ought to let you know.

very best week-end to you all.

no need to describe the characters in these photos....i imagine you know who these guys are by now.

the tomatoes are making themselves at home.

2011-07-07T07:29:00.000-04:00

life is starting to feel a bit surreal as of late. maybe its how i am writing this, while eating a quick breakfast, and looking out onto our backyard where my one eared pig, vangogh, is sharing a morning meal with my little rose, with pascal the duck nibbling in between their faces and their 4th, and best friend, bella, the grass fed calf is looking on in envy.

or maybe it is because we stayed up late skyping with best friends in san francisco while drinking modelos and it almost felt like they were just dropping by to say hello.

or that i that i spent 5 hours with nick and the dogs yesterday combing through the farm. checking all barbed wire fences. checking any wells that may have been left uncovered. looking in every corner of this 500 acre property for the beloved farm dog, zeus. who had been missing since monday night when neighbors set off fireworks. and who, was just driven down the driveway last night by a woman, whose father had found the dog when his well went dry. worry and panic will get me nowhere.

or it could be that we are on the eve, nick and i, of another transition. another move. it will be the fourth such move in two years. our family is getting larger and more bizarre and more complicated. we cannot just pack up in the subaru and head north. we had to get a truck. and then a trailer. we have to have the state come to the farm and take blood from every chicken we are taking north. rose has to get an ear tag. all the animals need health certificates. its hard to imagine any of them passing, they are such a scruffy bunch. but, despite outward appearances, i believe them to all be healthy.

its the chaos in the details of the move. of where and how everyone will fit in on the farms up north where we will live and work. but its complimented by a painful nostalgia for this farm that is already overwhelming me. we have never felt that north carolina could be our forever home. but i have also never felt so at home in my adult life. we have poured ourselves into this farm and into this house and into these animals. and i cannot grasp how i can create closure for such a year of our lives in just 21 days.

fortunately, the tomatoes are coming in. and this has created a good deal of distraction for us all. with harvesting. and ripening. and eating them with sea salt and cheeses.

photos
1. i hadn't planted a single flower this summer, but the wilds are doing a stand up job at keeping the honeybees happy.
2. my aunt molly is visiting and she brought with her loaves upon loaves of baked bread. i love when people travel with such things. she wraps all of her bread in this bright white cloth to keep them fresh. it works perfectly.
3. sungolds. not as many coming in yet as last season. but i have to suspect that everyone who works in the garden is taking as many mouthfuls of these as i when harvesting.
4. a cerveza and some bread & butter to take in the afternoon storm and catch up on games of thrones with nicky.
5. the farm front porch essentials. water for the pups. and a broom to sweep off chicken droppings. add screened in porch to my wishlist for our own farm.
6. tomatoes to market.
7. our summer nighttime staples. me, a sundress from marie (thank you!!) and nick his bright orange shorts.
8. i don't imagine these tomatoes will last the day. i've seen all five of us eying and fondling them.

when pigs go on walkabout

2011-07-05T08:40:00.002-04:00

this was how i was envisioning this tuesday morning to start off. lounging like. but yet, like every day off on the farm, there somehow seems to be a minor catastrophe before anyone has managed to have their morning cuppa or even changed out of their pajamas.

rose and vangogh must have been spooked by last night's fireworks and decided in the wee hours to go on walkabout. they conspired to go across the farm to elizabeth's and created a healthy amount of havoc for us all by doing so.

i went to fetch them as soon as i realized where they had gone and the two followed me home like sheepish little dogs, trotting behind me all the way.

now it is 8h39 and i will sip my cuppa. eat some of my aunt molly's bread with some jam and try to get back into the lounging routine i had hoped for.

(by the way, this is junior. he is a superb pig if it isn't obvious from the way i am trying to nap on him)