Sprouts!

Sprouts are a delicious, nutritious, and fun way to pretend you are gardening when it is winter. I get a yummy sprout seed mix from the food co-op in Albany. Radish sprouts are my favorite because they are spicy. You can order seeds from seed companies or get them from your favorite hippie food store. 

My Fancy Sprouting Device

First, soak your seeds overnight. I do this in a wide-mouth jar covered with butter muslin, which is like fine-gauge cheesecloth. I fasten the cloth on top with the jar band. In the morning, drain and rinse the seeds. I am an incurable kitchen gadget collector, so I have this special seed-sprouting setup. It has slotted trays for the sprouts and a solid one on the bottom to catch the runoff from rinsing. You can get one too, or you can just flip over that cheesecloth-covered jar onto a plate or something. Just make sure the sprouts are getting good air circulation.

The Home Stretch

First, let me apologize to the skiers and schoolchildren of the Northeast who have been praying for snow for the last couple months. It's been a pretty lackluster winter as far as all that goes, and I'm sorry. It seems I've out-hoped all you snow lovers out there with my fervent and selfish desire to get the roof on the barn before this winter's first big blizzard. You can have all the snowdays and fresh powder you want as soon as that roof is on there, I swear. Fortunately, we are almost there.

Fin Lifts the Second-to-Last Purlin into Place

Brian Nails It

Last One!

New Year's Day = New Barn Day

With the help of two Brians and Mother Nature, we got a lot done over the holiday weekend. On New Year's Eve, Fin, Architect Brian, and Neighbor Brian got the purlins in on the southeast and southwest sections of the roof. We spent that evening developing a strategy to get the middle section purlins up. We also made a delicious dinner and made some noise at midnight, of course.

The middle section presented a few challenges: the beams are longer, they had to be lifted from the ground, not the deck of the hayloft, and attaching them would require two people to be 24 feet off the ground with nothing but concrete beneath them. Pretty scary stuff! We devised a system to pull up the beams with ropes. Happily, it worked.

Happy Holidays!

It's the second-to-last day of December and we still have no snow on the ground. I harvested this salad from beneath the row cover a couple weeks ago - delicious, nutritious, and a surprisingly successful experiment in winter gardening.

Christmas on the farm was lovely once again; good company, good food, and presents more than made up for the lack of snow. I want to leave the tree up all winter.

The goats enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner of spent grains from neighbor Justin's last brewing.

Barn Progress

Last week it snowed again. It was quite dramatic there for a few hours, but ultimately unremarkable. We are incredibly grateful for this, and for the generous help of friends. Brian and Kasia came up from NYC last weekend to help us get the floor joists up. Fin and I had spent a frustrating day the previous weekend trying to do this without help, to no avail, but with a few extra hands it went smoothly.

Hoist Those Joists!

Autumn is Sexy Time

Oooh, Autumn, you are hot! With the balmy temperatures we have been experiencing this year, we have been walking around like it's the tropics, in little more than our underwear. And long underwear, jeans, warm socks, boots, and a few layers of thermal shirts. Sexy time! 

The goats have grown out their winter coats, and their thoughts have turned to love. Let's call it love. Breeding season went more smoothly this year than last, as we humans know our goats a bit better. They can act like loony, moony teenagers and talk trash for days, but once those tails start flagging, it's on.

Juniper and Pansy Sunbathing in December

Juniper was first to take her "field trip" in mid-November. No extended singles cruise this year. We drove her to the breeder one morning, and we were pretty much in and out. As it were. When we got home, Pansy took one whiff of Junie's buck-smelling coat and lost her mind, so we got her up into the truck (for those of you who know her: Yes, this is a minor miracle, considering we could not get anywhere close to her at this time last year, but all our patience - ok, mostly Farmer Fin's patience, not mine - paid off and she has become a sweet girl a lot of the time), and turned it right back around. Her deflowering was pretty unceremonious, and we were done for the day. Sassafras had her field trip a week or so later, and Violet on the exact same date as last year, right before Thanksgiving.

Veronica, Vernon, Sassafras, and Violet

It's going to be a very busy (and very cute) April 2012 for us. This year's kids are seven months old, but they still look pretty small (and pretty cute) to me.

Veronica Likes To Be on Top

And then there is Destiné, speaking of growing up fast. Even Destiné is not immune to the charms of Autumn. I saw him trying to hump one of the Beatrixes yesterday, proving for good and all that he is, in fact, a rooster. And a handsome one indeed.

Big D Scheming on the Ladies

Well, that's about all I need to share about this sexy time of year. May winter find us all snuggled up with the ones we love, doing as we please.

Barn Work Day 2

The last weekend of October brought us 8 inches of snow. We were lucky this time, in that the lights stayed on, unlike some of our neighbors in MA and CT. And it was pretty much melted by last weekend, so we could get back to work on the barn. Again we had a great crew, and a beautiful day too -  just look at that blue sky! The first story is up now in the front and the back.

Teamwork Holdin' it Together

Danny Directing from on High

The next step was to get the crossbeams in place so we could start on the second story hayloft floor.

Tractor Moving the Crossbeam into Position

Eric, Brian, Justin, and Kasia Strategizing

Mortises, Tenons, and Braces, Oh My!

We got the western beam in place right nice, thanks to monkey people and strategy.

We had an amazing auxiliary too, including Amaya, Laura, Scarlet, and Cassie. It was a beautiful day on the farm.

Run Amaya Run

Bird Soaking up the Sun on the Slab

By sunset (which happens at 5:00 now, thanks to the time change), we had all those big heavy crossbeams on top of the first floor frame, ready to be maneuvered into place. Time to hang the floor joists and get to work on the top story. 

It's a race against snow. Hopefully we win. Either way, we'll keep you posted.