First CSA Delivery!

The harvest has begun!  Tomorrow is our first CSA delivery and though it is the beginning of another chapter of busy-ness, it is also the beginning of the feast.  There is nothing that can compare to the taste of freshly harvested vegetables.  Jasper, who is 8, grazes in the fields on kale, cabbage, peas, and … Continue reading »

Bone Tired

It wasn’t until I started farming that I understood the meaning of that phrase.  Bone Tired. We spent another weekend working in the fields planting, fertilizing, and basically trying to outsmart disaster.  Of all the work that it takes to produce a head of lettuce, for example, there are hours spend trying to problem solve … Continue reading »

Building Discipline

So much of adult life is about discipline.  Doing something diligently, whether you want to or not.  “Because I said so,” as mom said so many times to my eternal irritation was really just a precursor to building discipline.  And as a farmer, you would think that I had discipline.  I weed, water, and plant … Continue reading »

Sad Little Lamb

The good news:  two of our last lambs of the year were born here yesterday.  A boy and a girl.  We were with them about an hour after birth, treating their umbilical cords and checking to see that they were nursing.  They were doing well, except.  Except. The bad news:  the little ewe can’t stand on … Continue reading »

Transitions and Growth

Transitions and Growth

Anyone who has ever raised children, changed jobs, or moved homes knows how difficult change can be.  That is, all of us.  It doesn’t seem to be the change itself that is difficult, but the span of time between the two states, the transition.  Transitions trigger in us an impulse to grip tightly to what … Continue reading »

New Beginnings

New Beginnings

  We have spent three years reconstructing this farm – repairing and restructuring buildings, feeding the soil, introducing animals.  We have come so far from the run down dairy that it was when we found it.  Second chances. But this week we got a new beginning.  Our sheep flock is growing and so is their need … Continue reading »

Free CSA Shares Available

To some people, vegetables are just a food we are supposed to eat.  Grudgingly.  Because they are good for you. But to us, vegetables are much more than a matrix of vitamins and nutrients.  If you have ever tasted lettuce freshly picked and still warm from the sun, a carrot newly dug, cooly rinsed and crunched, or a green … Continue reading »

Our Orphan Finds her Mother

Our Orphan Finds her Mother

Tenacity.  Loyalty.  Ingenuity.  These are not the words often used to describe a lamb.  Especially one abandoned by her mother at birth.  But our little orphan lamb, Cinderella, has found a way back to her mother. Cinderella never forgot who her mother was.  She followed her around, calling for her in vain when we let … Continue reading »

New Little Orphan

New Little Orphan

Mothers are not always so kind, so caring.  The  maternal instinct is not innate.  Last week we had twin ewes born on the farm and for some reason, mom claimed one as her own and left the other to her own devices, which on the farm means an early demise. Maybe one walked away and … Continue reading »

Surviving the Hunger Gap

It was with a sigh of relief that I washed 300 eggs today.  Sounds strange, I know, to be bordering on ecstatic for an hour of work cleaning poop and pine shavings off of eggs.  But I can breathe a little easier, a weight of worry I wasn’t aware of has been lifted from my farmer’s … Continue reading »