for greener pastures...

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.