ça suffit!

it is no longer pleasant to go inside or outside. i give up. uncle uncle uncle. i was such an insufferable brat this winter saying its not that hot...you get used to it....we don't even need a/c.  ugh. i wish somebody had smacked me. it is that hot. we just got back from the movies and i can hardly find any energy to write. i think i will have a cup of raspberry gelato with a topping of lemon sorbet, dose my head under the outside hose and then off to bed. must start chores and garden work before the sun gets itself too high.

photos: 
1. i am averaging one strawberry every 2 days in the little patch i planted. not quite enough to open up a pick-your-own.
2. a very grainy photo of a very well deserved smoothie. thank you thank you mama for the blenderrrr.
3.  i got a new-to-me easel from a friend who is moving back to california...my paints & brushes are pleased.
4. nick and i worked around and on the house all day, in our undies and straw hats. fortunately, the only visitors we had to day came around 7 am in the form of 12 large pigs that had escaped.
5. there are no smiles in the daytime heat.
6. my success of the day. i used my new badass heavy duty sewing machine. it took all day, i don't really want to tell you about it, but aren't they pretty?

good lookin'

        

this is how the blog tries to debase my existence. all i desire is a quick and breezy, stunning -yet casual- photo session of me, in my white dress, freshly showered, smelling very un-like pig --hard to convey through such a medium, but you would see it immediately if you know me at all-- boba tea in hand with another for melissa, happy as a picnic basket in the a/c of the car....

...but, i'm going to have to perfect the iphone self portrait... i'm too sure that nick will, rightly, and immediately spot me for the narcissist that i am. so i can't ask him to take my picture. he knows me too well. he sees right through the iphone camera and into my vapid soul. so i take ninja photos. all in the name of the blog. can you even tell that is me? or that i'm drinking boba at all?

despite the lack of photographic evidence, the boba hit the spot. the bbq was scrumptious and ended up being air conditioned --for those of you who do not live in north carolina, it has been...and will continue to be...in the 90s all day, every day, all the g.d. week long-- arlo was as cute and babylike as he was the day he was born. everly & mylah are just about to apply to college. and nick and i soaked up a healthy dose of scotty, natasha, brent, and melissa before heading back to the farm.

pick-a-little, talk-a-little

i told you i would tell the story of florence the chick one day. well let me start by saying the story of florence quickly became the story of florence and the un-named turkey polt...which soonthereafter became the story of florence and a duckling called pascal.

it all began with a saxony duck mama who ventured from our pond to the wood shed to lay and sit on a nest of eggs. some busy-body, freeloading chicken of ours saw this as the golden of opportunities and...whilst little duck mama went on food & water breaks...lay a couple of her own, decidedly un-duck eggs in the nest. little duck mama being the non-discriminating sort of duck lady that she is took the high road and sat on all the eggs in the wood shed...duck and chicken alike.

one morning...some 21-28 days later (chicken & duck incubation days, respectively) the humans of longest acres backyard-farm heard a great squawking emanating from the bowels of the wood shed. little duck mama was beside herself, powerless to the NOT ONE BUT TWO large black snakes circling her nest. the great strong humans screamed and pushed with long branches the black snakes away, but they did not kill them.

black snakes are good...well good comparatively....good if you can call any snake good because they are not venomous and are rather territorial...meaning, they keep the copperheads at bay. which is VERY GOOD and we appreciate this to no end mister black snake! even though these are the facts two things remain very true. 1. every time i see any snake i cannot help but wish evil upon it. this is a gut reaction that i am not proud of but cannot control. 2. their favorite snack appears to be new-born birds of the cute and cuddly and loved variety.

so the humans were left in a predicament if ever there was one. let the black snakes live and continue to eat every duckling/chick that hatched from our saxony's nest,  allowing for nature to take it course of terror? NO!! do we then kill the black snake and thereby violently interfere with the sacred but maliciously ironic circle of life? shame on you! NO! the humans came to a sordid compromise; incubating the final, surviving eggs in the safety of the farm's shop. leaving the black snake hungry and, most likely, vengeful, and abandoning the duck mama... egg-less, horrified, and undoubtedly confused. yes, it was a horrid solution....though i'm not sure what would have been best.

four ducklings survived and one chick. three of those ducklings are being raised alongside the farm's baby turkeys. but for one, pascal. he, and florence, the chick, are living in our mud room. i'd always wanted a chick and a duck. ever since joey and chandler got one.

so there you are. our newest house-guests. pascal and florence.

to market to market

we feel are impenetrably cool in elizabeth's 1977 vw bus. its orange. its an original engine. it sounds and smells more like a boat than a car. it leaks from the roof, so cloudy days are risky. it is by far the hottest market vehicle in north carolina. she's planning on giving it to her twins when they turn 16. a badass sweet 16 present. though, i surely resent them for it.

we take liesel -as the vdub was christened- to market every saturday evening in saxapahaw. which is what we did last saturday night and the one before that, and the one before that. we don't have typical saturday evenings like we used to. so i thought i'd photog little bits of it as i want to show you all, that we do see other people and we do venture off the farm....at least once a week.

photos: 
1. road to the market. running late. we always are late to market. running late in liesel is not a prudent way to approach a saturday night.
2. nick gesticulating on the way to market.
3. blurry pastoral pastures.
4. snap peas. the first ones that came out this week. one child at market brought nick a quarter and bought 5, one out of each pint.
5. i'm trying to drink less beer at market. good on me.
6. new potatoes. i'll be making potato salad for tash & scotty's bbq tomorrow with these beauties.

off swimming...

this is just to say, that there will be no blogging today. we are off swimming in watering holes. and drinking root beers with cousins. a demain.

afternoon de[light]

today is most decidedly not  my birthday. i woke up at 4 a.m. to rudy, vomiting what appeared to be the entire front lawn --our dog, quite literally eats like a cow-- onto my favorite rug. the day got progressively un-birthdayed with the 94° heat and me running at full speed trying to get everyone watered and fed before the high sun, the lettuce harvested and washed before the high sun and the eggs collected and sent to market before the high sun. the icing on this un-birthday cake is the charming and obliging nick who just pulled in the driveway with a truck full of grease collection barrels, pumps, and hoses, all of which to be housed in our shed in the coming months. wonderful.

but the afternoon light was something to get on about. and my cousins are driving up from south carolina for a couple of days of farming and swimming. and the fireflies are zooming to and fro like little rocketships, and that makes me think of my sister.

photos: 
1. the first hydrangea of the summer
2. the "genius bar" set up i got going on, to work on the farm website and stay out of the blasted sun
3. birthday flowers
4. and 5. ajax,
6. sunset, pond, ducks...it gets old.

2-7

today was hot...carolina hot, not new-englanders-wear-linen and-seersucker hot. hot like you must be as close to naked as socially acceptable and you will quite literally perish if you don't keep sucking down lemon spritzers...so we swam and swam, at a good good friend's pool. and drank root beers. and tried to ignore the elephant in the proverbial room that i am not getting any younger, prettier, richer, fitter, faster, wittier, or more musical.

it was a perfect day,  that started with a run in the woods at 6:30 am...just me and all the cobwebs...and a day that will end with decidedly un-local artichokes, obscene amounts of garlic lemon salt butter, a good glass of white, and my --if i may-- phenomenal chocolate chip cookies. a very simple, a very peaceful, a very happy birthday.

oh good day little florence.....what's that you say?

happy birthday?!

to me!!?

its tomorrow you silly impatient little bird. let's go have frappes and grilled cheese at the drive in while we wait it out.

i will tell you the disturbing, traumatic and involved story of little florence just as soon as i get over the big 2-7.

from bed to chairs to hammock, and around again

i'm sick. i'm being a bit of a drama queen about it too. but there you have it. had-to-sleep-in-the-spare -bedroom-with-a-bucket sort of sick. i slept 18 hours or so last night...give or take...and today i made a modest appearance on the farm. four hours of limply holding the role of bailing twine while we strung tomatoes and a short stint planting basil in the raised beds.

but tonight, i feel obliged to rally. my favorite boys are coming to town to play a show and so i will take a much needed shower, put on a dancing dress and go have a gingerale on the rocks with my sweetheart. also, since the rapture is happening tomorrow (anyone know what time, exactly?) i am feeling a bit pressured to not stay in and watch modern family reruns.

photos:
1. saltines and lemon water, my panacea. rose decided today she loves saltines with a spot of jam.
2. over to the hammock when life seemed too overwhelming on the chairs. my failure-to-progress with dickens is only making me feel worse.
3. rose was very pleased with the blanket i discarded in the throes of my fever.

there are other animals on this farm aside from rose & a bunch of chickens

 i guess i tend to forget that most blog days. i suppose its due to the place they all hold in my life. they are my work.  but funny enough, they're actually all offensively adorable (or ugly, in the instance of the turkey). so please, take in their horrible cuteness for just one moment and alleviate my guilt for not introducing you all in a more timely manner.

photos: 
1. animal numbero uno, who, like a first child when the second is born, is continuously overlooked. i can't count how many nights we're lying in bed and one of us asks the other did you feed rudy at all today? neither of us can ever say for sure.
2. rose is far & away the most rotten spoiled of the pigs, but we have hundreds, literally, they live in shady pastures with good wallows all around us.
3. this is winter. she is a busy body. and a clear example of the origin of the word goatee.
4. a narragansett turkey tom. part of our turkey breeding stock. he thinks he's beautiful, so we'll just leave it at that.
5. very clearly not an animal, but i thought i'd give your eyes a bit of a rest
6. this is edelweiss being a terror.
7. favorite rooster. i would like to make a dress out of his feathers. i have told him this, and since then he keeps me out of arm's reach. i had to use the telescopic lens for him.
8. we have a couple hundred red devon & black angus cows. i never know how many there are or which pasture to find them in, they roam the 500 acres around us, so this was a lucky shot.
9. april, the goat, gave birth to kids this afternoon. boy & a girl. i got to carry them out of the field and into a pen....this was the highlight of my day, but it also left meconium all over my new goodwill farm shirt. a fast way to welcome a new piece of clothing to the farm.
10. a gratuitous shot of rose and me looking plainly insane.

stuck in a truck

we went to town today with the simple task of loading up the bed of the truck with leaf mulch for the garden. but the purdy little truck threw a tantrum just before we reached the glorious free pile of mulch. she just stopped. so i spent a good part of my day waiting, and pouting, and being a general useless sack-of-leaf-mulch in the cab of the truck while nick fixed things up. i did make one contribution, i had to give up my t-shirt to the cause as nick needed it to mop up some sort of oil & grease. goodbye t-shirt. as you can see....it was the most intriguing and nail-biting sort of outing.

photos: 
1. i am in very desperate need of a pedicure. full stop.
2. do you remember this gum?? i loved it once-upon-a-time and impulse purchased it at the general store last week
3. while brightly colored, the flavor has the attention span of a flea
4. aside from the gum and, most evidently my camera, these were the only items in the car to keep me occupied....and they all sucked at that
5. nick, finally back, saved the day, he told me in great detail and with some excitement what was wrong and how he fixed it....i wasn't listening though, or i'd tell you

best part of the truck? the bench seat up front that lets me sit right next to my boyfriend.