Tunneling Out

It was a classic Nor'easter, one of those storms where it looks like stagehands are standing on scaffolding above the windows, dumping down buckets of giant snowflakes. We shoveled out yesterday in the late afternoon, but when we woke up this morning, all we saw was pristine snow. Like moles in a hole, we started to tunnel out.

The Luge Track From Door to Driveway

It took a while to get to the barn. The snow is thigh high (I'm short, but that's still over two feet, including what was there before this storm) and heavy, unlike the other storms we've had this frigid winter. Must have warmed up a bit last night. I certainly felt warm after a few minutes of shoveling.

Almost up to the Doorknobs

We managed to dig out the doors on the north side of the barn, despite the compacted snow that had fallen from the roof. The goats were pretty impatient by the time we blazed a trail up to their yard. Buttons forged ahead to the fence so she could yell at us better.

Goats Want Breakfast

Tannenbaum's Last Stand

The Christmas tree is a wonderful thing to me. I love the smell, the lights, and the thrill of having an eight-foot evergreen in my dining room. But taking it down is depressing. It usually gets to a point where February is approaching and the tree is still there, neglected, unwatered, and unlit because it seems too late to have a Christmas tree in one's home. Yesterday, only five days after Epiphany (my Christmas-tree-disposal goal date), we undressed the tree, dragged it out of the house, and hauled it right up to the goatyard, where it provided a welcome midwinter treat for the herd.

The Scrum

Welcome, Winter

It snowed all day and night yesterday, and into the morning today. When we woke up, there was over a foot on the ground. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else at this time of year.

A big snowfall feels so Christmas-y. Plus, there's a tree in my house. It smells wonderful, and I love seeing the lights from outside when we are coming back from evening chores and it's just starting to get dark.

A Farmer's Thanksgiving

The days are getting shorter and colder, but not yet idler. At this time of year, even though the garden is finished, the pigs are gone, and we've stopped milking the goats, we are rushing around trying to complete projects we didn't have time for earlier in the year (barn update coming soon) and get the farm cleaned up before it's buried under snow. We're looking around and taking stock, and I feel a sense of satisfaction and gratitude.

I am thankful for a full hayloft (and to the fine farmer and friend at King's Creek Farm who grew and harvested the hay, trucked it out here, and helped Farmer Fin load it in). The hayloft feels all warm and cozy and the barn smells so sweet. The goats will eat well all winter, whatever the weather, hunkered down as their babies grow in their wombs.

I am thankful for the ever-growing pile of firewood in the woodshed (and for our good neighbors Tracy and Justin - the man behind Green Wolf Brewing Co. - who lent us their log splitting machine). Having a couple cords of wood split and stacked staves off that feeling of impending doom that settles on me in late fall.

Killer Clyde

There's a new critter on the farm! His name is Clyde and he's a homicidal maniac. Here he is, hunting in the high grass, one of his favorite pastimes.

Clyde, like Farmer Fin, is originally from Brooklyn. In fact, we used to be roommates. Born eleven years ago on the mean streets down by the Navy Yard, a very cute teenage Clyde followed roommate Rachel home one day and begged to come in. He never left, and when we moved into a different apartment, he came with us. Clyde belonged to all of us, but he ended up with Clara, the last to leave that apartment. 

They lived together for four years or so; the studio they shared is spacious by New York standards, but apparently not enough for Clyde, who amped up his destructive habits in some kind of feline campaign to drive his generous caretaker out of her mind. Desperate, Clara appealed to us, the countriest of her country friends, and a month ago I picked up her and Clyde at the Albany Amtrak station and we installed Clyde in his new home, the barn.

Clyde, like Farmer Fin, is a natural! He has adjusted very well to farm life. Within a few days he had figured out the ladder to the hayloft, and we have been finding a variety of rodent parts around the barn. He seems to enjoy the feeling of grass under his paws and the warm sun on his fur. I think he's enjoying his new station in life.

Farmiversary

Last weekend marked the five-year anniversary of our move here from Brooklyn. We came with a five-year plan and a vague knowledge of the learning curve ahead of us. We jumped right in to the Farmie Life (to quote the title of a PowerPoint slide show we put together in order to convince our families we were not insane to leave the city for these pastoral environs), and although I sometimes wish we had acted with more forethought, five years later we are actually, surprisingly, pretty much on track with the original plan.

It seems natural to reflect on everything we've learned and experienced here on the farm since we got here, but it's a little overwhelming, which goes with the general feeling I've been having since the end of the summer. Between teaching again and trying to keep up with the goats and the barn and the garden and the kitchen, I've been feeling swamped. Something had to give. At first not blogging was kind of a relief. I was starting to feel redundant: natural beauty, human error, barn updates, repeat...

But the relief soon festered into a full-on case of writer's block. And the writer's block, as it always does, got all snarled up in a litany of personal insecurities: I have nothing to say because I'm boring, lazy, incompetent, a dilettante, etc. The thing about living here though, is that it's hard to stay entirely focused on oneself, because there's so much demanding attention. 

Like sometimes you wake up and milk goats by the light of stars and headlamp (who knew Orion is in the center of the 6:00 AM sky at this time of year), and then you finish and the sun is just rising and the sky looks like this:

Which is what happened to me this morning, and I just felt so fortunate. Maybe I'm a disorganized loser and all that other stuff, but I guess I've made a few good choices. Life is completely out of my control, but those choices resonate throughout it. The Farmie Life is exhausting and scary and confusing and so beautiful that it nearly knocks me down sometimes, and I love it. I loved it this rosy morning and again in the silvery evening, looking at the leaves changing colors just like they did the first week we lived here.

Apple Antics

Used to be, when we moved the goat pasture, Farmer Fin drove the truck that pulls the sheds while I ran behind shouting encouragements, tried to manage the livestock, and hooked and unhooked the sheds to and from the truck. We recently discovered, though, that it all goes more smoothly if I just take the goats down the hill and distract them while Fin does all the other stuff. Naturally, this arrangement works for me! And what better way to distract a herd of goats than hanging out under the apple trees. 

Jasmine Looks Apple-Crazed

Bluebell Gets a Little Help From her Mom

Jas and Jade Need No Help

Even the Littles Are Big Enough to Reach Some Apples

Pansy Is in Apple Ecstasy

YUM!

The apples are getting ripe. It's a good time to be a goatherd.