a glimpse of winter

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.

...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

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.

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

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.