Animal husbandry and Woman husbandry

It's been 3 years. That's right, 3 years since we said our vows and walked barefoot down the aisle. During our ceremony, on that beautiful day, we took 2 separate trees and planted them together in the same pot to symbolize our new closeness. Today, we planted arugala.

It was a fairly normal day - normal being a great thing in my mind. We caulked and painted a room, cleaned emu poop, collected eggs, fed the animals, ate lunch outside, looked at wedding pics and reminisced. Here's one:

The good thing about all these normal things is that we get to do them together, and that’s something we’ve come to value.

In talking about animal husbandry, Wendell Berry writes, “The word husbandry is the name of a connection...To husband is to use with care, to keep, to save, to make last, to conserve.”

Lynea and I are priveleged to stay with a wonderful family on an incredible plot of land in Vermont and learn some basic animal husbandry skills. Each day I feel more of a connection with the land and the animals as I watch the creative process of life unfold. This is good, and I am very interested in animal husbandry, but it's not the most important husbandry for me. The last 3 years I've developed a deep connection with Lynea as I've learned to care for her, respect her and try my best to bring out the best in her. In short, I'm more interested in being good at woman husbandry.

As we reflect on our vows and look at pictures of our wedding day, we renew our commitment to each other and celebrate these 3 spectacular years together. I've found a best friend for life, and I'm truly thankful.

And before I close this entry, thanks to all our friends and family for the love and support throughout our relationship. “It takes a village...”

The end.

(A recent picture from our local restaurant, the Dam Diner. It's next to a dam. Good food.)

Tasting, Extracting and Gathering

We were privileged to participate in the local, annual maple syrup tasting. We tasted around 24 different syrups, and were astonished at the variances. We did not see Aunt Jemima, but we did taste some great syrups. As we said in an earlier post Robert, our host boss, makes maple syrup each year, and it appears that his was the clear winner of this year's contest!

To taste it for yourself, order it from his website here.

Also, had the opportunity to extract honey from the comb last Thursday. Robert has been bee keeping since the early 80's. Here's how the process went:

First, we removed the outer layer of beeswax so the honey could flow out.
Put the combs in the honey extractor and turn the handle rapidly. This forces the honey to fly out of the combs and onto the sides of the barrel, where it slowly drips down and pools at the bottom. Kinda like the scrambler at a local fair.
Don't waste a drop and taste often!
Finished product.
Gathered some shitake mushrooms as well.

And an edible fern called a fiddlehead. Note the shape (it's like a fiddle).

Then Robert made us a white sauce that included the shitake mushrooms, fiddleheads and some ramps (wild onions) we gathered. Delicious and rewarding.

which came first?

one of my favorite daily chores is collecting eggs. i’m still astounded at the variety: blue, green, brown, yellow, big, small. why did i not know this before? lynea and i collected 25 yesterday during our nightly egg hunt routine.

surprised by spring

growing up in florida, i never really experienced the seasons. well, i guess we did have slight variations - very hot, hot, less hot. but overall, i didn’t seem to mind. however, i now realize that i was missing out on one of the common human experiences: winter! cleveland winter’s are long. “always winter, never christmas” as some have said. i didn’t notice it the first time i experienced it back in ‘07-08, but then again, i was engaged and my feet rarely touched the ground. this year, i experienced it fully. maybe it’s because i’m a rookie to this weather thing, but it was admittedly hard. all i wanted was shorts and a t-shirt and a nice jog. or frisbee. or the sun. it was never ending! until, all of sudden (drum roll)....spring! life! joy! flowers! no words just sheer amazement! i’ve never experienced anything like it. something in you shifts, indeed, something in nature shifts. the birds are singing again. my shorts have come out to play. the long, cold death of winter has produced the vibrant life of spring. i can’t stop smiling when i walk outside. i’ve even laughed out loud a few times, then looked around to see if anyone saw me laughing at nothing. no one so far, but now it’s on the internet.

i understand now why we use “cold” as a negative adjective and “warm” as a positive. not that winter is all bad. to be sure, there’s sledding, snowballs, activities by the fire, holidays, seeing your breath (which i still think is pretty neat). but this new season has produced in me a wonder that i’ve never before experienced, and i can only attribute it to winter. without winter, i would not have known these feelings and emotions that i’m experiencing presently. without winter, i would not have known what it was like to be surprised by spring.

Day 3-5 on the Farm

Day 3: Clean out the maple taps.

Maple sugar is made from boiling the water out of the sap. Every winter (usually January or February) a hole is drilled in each tree for the tap to be put in. Each tap is run to a main line leading down to a sugar shack creating a large spider web of tubes draping through the trees. From there, nature does its thing dripping sap flowing down through the tubes. When the barrels are full, someone must boil all the water out of the sap which takes hours...usually through the night. 40 gallons of sap will be boiled down to 1 gallon of syrup!!! When the boiling syrup reaches 219.4 degrees F it’s ready to be bottled up! Fast forwarding a few months brings us to Day 3: cleaning the maples taps, lines and shack. The taps need to be removed from the tree truck, flushed out with water, and plugged up until next year.

Day 4: Cleaning the sugar shack.

When boiling such huge amounts of syrup, you are bound to burn some at the bottom leaving the vessel a mess. Imagine burning rice to the bottom of a pan and then having to clean it without soaking it....multiply this by 1,000. It took 4 of us for a few hours scrubbing and scrubbing. Don’t worry, we’re strong that thing is sparkling!!!

Day 5: Transplanting blackberries.

I used to love transplanting flowers with my dad when I was a little girl...so fun. Transplanting blackberries...not fun. Those darn prickers!!! They were everywhere. Took us a few hours, but we transplanted about 20.

Knocking out the taps.

The Sugar Shack.

Cleaning.

Clean.

Kyle bottling the syrup.

The syrup.

Morgan finishing off the row of transplanted blackberry bushes.

Adventure 2011: Taft HIll Farm

Two days ago we moved to Taft Hill Farm in West Townshend, VT which has the most beautiful view of the Green Mountains. The DuGrenier family is kind, inviting, and extremely knowledgeable. Robert and Kathy have lived here for 14 years with their 10 year old son Luc. Critter, however, is not that inviting...he’s the male llama that I’m sure you’ll be hearing more of. He shows his affection by awkwardly staring you down and randomly running at you.

So far our responsibilities have included learning how to feed the animals in the morning and to put them away for the night. The animals include: 2 llamas, 5 mini horses, lots of ducks (moscovy, shetland), lots of chickens (taft hill blue foot, lady kathy, copper scotch, and the special breed of luc dugrenier), 5 emus, 1 sheep, 1 ram, 1 donkey, 1 dog, 4 peacocks, 1 rabbit.

The weekend also included 2 inches of snow and slush which caused us to stay in doors on Saturday and work in the apartment in which we will be living once it’s done. Luckily my dad was here to help Robert put in bathroom tile while Kyle and I painted the ceiling.

Easter Sunday was spent eating a feast of a brunch, visiting a friends’ day old lambs, hiking down to Hamilton Falls, operating a back hoe, and feeling old jumping on the trampoline. The best way to convey how wonderful it has been so far is to show you!! Here you go.

PS- We miss everyone in Cleveland!!! Love you all so much. Thanks for being excited with us for this experience!!!

Peanut Butter and Fluff is the closest mini horse.

Horse poop turns into soil that is full of nutrients...notice how green the grass is that grows under the poop!!! This is why animal poop is composted and then spread in gardens...rich and nutritious!!

Dominant male peacock.

The pond.

Emu.
Critter the llama and Black Lightening the ram.
Marmalade the pregnant donkey.

A rooster.