Friday, October 22, 2010

Clutch

Dear Clutch,

Guess which one is an acceptable place to sleep.

My bed:

The chair downstairs where no one ever sits:




Sincerely,
The folks whose room you've taken over because their door doesn't latch

PS: if you were Hobbes or Pippin we wouldn't care.

PPS: please keep your dead mice habit outdoors.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Our Own Starbucks




Emily, Kiyoshi and I woke up early to be ready to start milking at 6:30 this morning. After bringing Pride, our dairy cow, in from the field, we set to work. Milking is incredibly difficult to do quickly when we have little to no experience so it take us over an hour between getting everything set up and finishing. During that time, we were hankering for a pre-breakfast coffee so I popped into the house for two mugs. What better than filling the rest of the cup with steaming warm milk? We found out that if you add enough quick enough, it froths at the top and tastes better than anything a coffee shop could make. We're getting rather spoiled with our fresh milk supply. We even had a chicken come in to supervise.



Monday, October 18, 2010

Newport!


Theo and I just got back yesterday from a very successful weekend in Newport. Reasons for the success? 1) amazing Philly beer 2) PR in a 5K 3) seeing friends from Philly 4) the pork. The weekend got docked some points since Levi was not in attendance.

We started the weekend with Sarah and my 5K which was great, followed by a day wandering around Newport, a dinner of braised pork and vegetables from the farm and Jamie-Lee and Aaron's half marathon the next morning. And when I write Jamie-Lee and Aaron, I really mean Jamie-Lee and Duff-Man.

Thanksgiving


It's fun to see my Thanksgiving dinner running around the farm. Turkeys are incredibly strange creatures. They're reminiscent of dinosaurs and sound about the same (I imagine). They move as a group and run really fast so that taking pictures can be difficult. We're slaughtering them soon so I can triumphantly carry a turkey I've killed myself to the table this November. That'll be much more of an adventure than providing the pumpkin, I'm sure.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Chickens


Shoot! I hate when I put all my eggs in one basket!

We each have chores that rotate every week and this week, along with Emily and Kiyoshi, I have chickens, horses and pigs. Our two draft horses are wonderful and easy and the most exciting thing they do is eat carrots we pull out of the garden. The pigs are some of my favorite animals on the farm. If they can't reach the troughs (mostly cause they're growing bigger every day) they bite each other's butts until one moves. Lots of squealing ensues. Chickens are also awesome. They get excited every time you walk over since they think they're getting more food. Collecting the eggs is quite fun since they're often warm and it's cool to see how many you get each day. What's not so fun is the chickens who peck your hands and make loud chicken noises at you. We also have the duck (pictured a few days ago) and guinea hen who both showed up here and have never left.

Next week I'll be moving the beef cows to a new pasture each evening and milking in the morning. There's nothing like the fresh milk we've been getting here! Delicious.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Monday, October 11, 2010

One of These Chickens...


One of these chickens is not like the others. Our little friend showed up one day and hasn't left. Identity crisis, perhaps. Or running from the law.