Goodbye Andrew!

Sadly, our second year student (read mentor, food orderer, mediator, community organizer, sunday morning breakfast maker and question answerer) is leaving us to work with Nate onCrimson and Clover Farm. We threw him what was supposed to be a surprise (didn't work out so well) going away party on Thursday night. We cooked up some beef stew, churned ginger ice cream and even scraped together a few presents.

At the NOFA conference, Lee bought Andrew this antique scythe. Very awesome.

Josh gave Andrew a women's t-shirt with a sequin flower. Also very awesome.

We gave Andrew the dishes that have been sitting in the basement and are very likely possessed by a ghost. Also, I take full credit for the amazing duct tape bow.

Hay

All that hay for 20 days. Amazing how much cows will eat. And how they'll turn that into delicious meat and poop.

Betsy and Olivier have a bet going that we won't run out of hay. Even though we ordered this, Olivier is technically winning since we still have some of our own in the loft. Hopefully this will turn out better than the time Betsy bet Justin he wouldn't make it down to Virginia before midnight and charged him a nickel for every fifteen minutes he was over.

Prospective Students

We've had a good time hosting prospective students this fall. It's fun to see the type of people interested in this program and meeting so many folks from different walks of life who also want to take a year off from the 'real world' and live on a farm together. This week I had my first person come up to me and say that she had read my blog. Not only did it make me feel like a superstar, it also let me know that besides this being a place for funny pictures of sheep and an outlet for typos, but it's also a helpful tool in recruiting people to such a wonderful place.

In that vein, if anyone is reading this and is interested in farming, or The Farm School (or more funny pictures of sheep) I invite any questions, no matter how mundane. I remember this summer when I was packing and kept wondering if the beds were normal or extra long like in college and therefore what sheets I should bring. So, any and all questions are welcome.

In other news, we erected the beginning of our timber frame this afternoon. So exciting! Pictures to come.

Welding

Another one of our winter classes is welding. It's really fun to learn, mostly because you can make sparks fly really far just like in the movies.

We have independent projects over the summer and I'm thinking about using my new skills to make one of these:

Yes, that's right. A giant steel ball with fire inside. Amazing.

Wool Part 1

Over the month of January, we've had a number of fiber arts workshops. It's a lot of fun to get to work with the wool from our own sheep. Sadly, we're using wool from 2009 and since the shearer isn't scheduled until April, I doubt that the current sheep's wool will be very good (lots and lots of hay crumbles).

We started by skirting the wool, which involves picking out manure, brambles and hay. Then it gets washed which is honestly pretty gross.

We got to pick what colors to dye ours and I chose a variety of greens and yellows. It came out quite nice if you ask me, but I'm probably biased. After carding it, I'm going to spin it and knit it into a hat. More to come on my adventures with the spinning wheel!

Winter Eating

You would think that living on the farm would mean delicious, nutritious food all the time. Not so, sadly, at least for these winter months. Our hoop house, which was supposed to provide greens during the winter, bit the dust in a storm this past fall. Only the carrots and some baby spinach survived. Since we have 1,500,000 carrots in our root cellar already, we would have happily them in for some of the endive or broccoli rabe that we planted.

Theo and I are house sitting for two weeks and are taking advantage of an excuse to eat off the farm. So, I bring you the mesclun/ sprouts/ smoked salmon/ mango/ avocado/ grapefruit/ goat cheese salad of champions. Every nutritional component not delivered through turnips, parsnips, potatoes or carrots. Delicious!

Conference Time!

We're headed to Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York's conference for the weekend. Hopefully it'll be a fun, informative weekend. More to come on my return!