Nightlife

Besides attending local football games, there's not a whole lot to do out here. Luckily, we make our own fun. We: do laundry, make dinner, knit, play music, draw, read, make yogurt, make cheese, make cookies, clean up the dead mice the cats leave us, have campfires, have craft nights, having singing nights, dehydrate various foods in our dehydrator to see what they come out like and go to bed around 9 pm. It's all very wholesome.

If all else fails, there's a night club in Orange. Hopefully it never comes to that.

Rabbit the Ram

We had some excitement the other day when our ram showed up. His name is Rabbit and we found out that it's probably because he doesn't walk: he hops. Actually, getting him to hop is an improvement over dragging him by his halter a quarter mile to the ewes. We realized that that just wasn't happening and got a great lesson from Josh, the bearer of the ram, in how to flip a sheep over. Sheep become very docile when on their back, a fact that came in handy this weekend when two sheep escaped and we had to tackle them under the guise of giving them grain.

Post ram flip:

Dragging Rabbit:

Giving up on dragging Rabbit and loading him into the truck:

Rabbit securely in the truck, ready for his trip to the ewes:

Harvest Celebration

On Saturday we celebrated the end of the harvest season. We invited everyone who works on the ridge top with us as well as some friends and family. Most everything was cooked in our wood fired bread oven. We also ate some delicious road kill. A few weeks ago, a deer was hit by a car and lay dying in our swiss chard patch. One of our neighbors came out to dispatch it, rather than let it linger in it's state. We had it butchered and served the back strap, or tenderloin with dinner. So. Delicious. We don't eat much meat here so a piece of juicy deer like that hit the spot (this came after the discussion Emily, Justin and I had if it was ethically right to eat animals).

Andrew supplied a wild turkey that had also been hit by a car and he killed and brought back to the farm. He brined and roasted it. Better than any turkey I've had to date, so I'll have to see how Thanksgiving matches up.

Theo made mozzarella, Sophia made feta, Justin made pizza dough, Emily made brownies, Emma made scalloped potatoes and Bradley brought hard cider (I did chores and lots of dishes).

It was so nice to have everyone sitting together down to dinner, plus children running around the house and delicious food from the farm.

Chores part 1

Every day, pre breakfast at 7 am and post work at 4:30 pm we have a lovely part of our day. The first week I was here, I was on horses/chickens and pigs. There was a lot of grooming, feeding and egg collecting. The next week I was milking and taking care of our beef herd which is the most intense chore and I was really glad when it was over. After that I had sheep which involved moving their pasture in the morning and playing with them at night. This past week and this current one (due to the rotation switching and having new partners to work with) I have house chores which means cooking breakfast every morning and cleaning the house in the evening.

Chores aren't really that bad, though they all have their perks. Except cows, which drains your soul of energy between milking in the morning (I have it down to 30 minutes! woo hoo!) and moving their fence at night. The horses, chickens and pigs are fun since they're quick and there's nothing like seeing pigs eat. Sheep is great since it's a breeze in the morning and the evening involves simply petting them so they're used to humans. Number 60 bit my leg one day but I've forgiven her since she's the friendliest. House chores are kind of a pain since it's a bit stressful to cook breakfast for 15 people every morning but it's really nice not to have to go outside and to sip coffee and keep warm so early.

Black Radish Man

This is Black Radish Man. He likes to remind you to eat your radish juice. Sadly, he's getting old and wrinkled as Black Radish men don't have very long life spans. Eat your black radishes!

Driving Horses

Probably one of the coolest things we've learning so far is how to harness, hitch, and drive a team of horses. We spent two days in Brattleboro, VT working with Jay and his eight horses. I was really glad to have ridden before since it is quite complicated and Jay has high standards for his horses and for us.

We started off each pretending to be a 'horse' with our eyes closed and bailing twine hooked over our thumbs. The twine was held by our partner who was standing behind us and we walked around a series of chairs, tables and a wood stove (the scariest when your eyes are closed and you can feel it getting hotter). It was really neat to see how a horse might feel and how little pressure you needed to get your point across to turn left or right.

We then got out the lines (not called reins) and looped them around a post to practice gathering them up and our hand position.

Only after that could we go down and get the horses. We led them through figure eights around buckets until they were bored and we were dizzy. The point was to practice asking them to move slowly and take one step at a time, and for us to learn how to keep them behaved and communicate with them.

Jay and his wife served us a wonderful lunch from their farm and took us out for a drive in the afternoon.

We also practiced walking behind them steering which was incredibly hard.

The next day, in the middle of a storm, we took them out driving which was awesome. The wood stove came in handy for frozen fingers and we spent the afternoon practicing harnessing. All told, it was fascinating and incredible to have learned so much in two days!

And perhaps the best part... Jess the six month old foal:

Black Birch

No presentation on Black Birch is complete without some Birch Beer (high fructose corn syrup included!)