I've got a brand new adornment!

This is an idea 5 years in the making, long deliberated over and recently with the help of Rachel K. has been put first onto paper, and then onto my skin.  :)  It's far from finished, but the outline is now complete.  We'll do all the shading over the next 2 months and when it's all done I'll post a good finished picture. For now you can just envision the whole project in your minds.      

Amy Robertson Griffin, thanks for being my snap shot taker and my moral support!  And for not laughing at my whining and wincing.  I'll be there with you when you get yours!

The day off

Today we're trying not to do much work and have a day off. Since we don't have parties to go to or people to see, it's easy to just work 7 days a week. What else are we gonna do?  But we do need a break so we're sitting in front of the TV today eating yogurt and granola. I put on some water for tea and I'm just gonna spend the afternoon updating you with all the pics I've taken of this place so far as well as the work we've started and let you guys get a good perspective of what all's going on up here. 


We had a huge storm the 3rd day after we arrived and the plows couldn't even plow the roads for a few days.

the back of the house, surrounded by maples. in front of the house is the lake. frozen.

the barn, the hoop house, the RV, the livestock trailer, 2 ancient apple trees.  the house is just out of view to the left of this picture.

this is our yurt! it will be our home in about 6 weeks

We've decided to turn the hoop house/ high tunnel into a greenhouse on one half of it. We've been focusing on this project so we can get our seeds started in there. Our window for growing plants is very short here so we're working as fast as we can when the weather is nice!

We built wooden frames at each end of the hoop house and one wooden frame about in the middle of it. We'll cover those frames with two layers of greenhouse plastic as soon as we get a day with no wind and then use half of the tunnel as our greenhouse!

It was 55 degrees! check out the short sleeves.

We got all our supplies in!  Seed trays, potting soil, greenhouse plastic, and today the seeds came from Johnny's!  Also, you can see some of the livestock

this is the oldest and most broken down of the 4 horse manure piles we have.  I covered it with some clear plastic to help it thaw out a little faster so we can use it when we till up the garden next month.  The clear plastic (as some of you know) heats up what's underneath it if you seal the edges, pretty much like a tiny greenhouse.

isn't it great!! you can see our planting schedule on our bulletin board too. The format should look familiar to the old CSA interns at WHRI.  Almost everything will be seeded and in the ground within a 10 week time frame. 

 

Some of you (the moms and dads especially) are very interested to see our house!  here's a glimpse. 

Justin sits in that tan chair by the window every morning with his coffee.

the rest of the living room. that painting is so beautiful. it's a native american woman picking up pears.  Also beautiful: the ninety seven windows across the front of the house looking out at the lake.

Final photo: we have been commissioned with the task of cleaning out everything in the house that isn't "bed and breakfast" type stuff.  They have 20 years worth of junk stored up in these closets, I swear it's crazy.  When I found multiple trash bags filled with horse riding ribbons, I couldn't resist trying to fit as many as possible on my body. I thought I was hilarious.

miss you guys!

New place on this earth

It's been a week now that Justin and I have been at Maple Hill Farm up on Lake Shehawken near Starrucca, PA.  It's cold and snowy, creeping up to the high 40s some days but usually in the 30s.  that means spring!! 
No photos for now friends, (I can't find my camera amidst the boxes) I just wanted to post SOMETHING so you knew we were here and that the blog was up and running for your reading pleasure.  I can't promise that I'll be any better at keeping up with the blog now in 2011 than I was in 2010. (I think I did 3 posts last year?)  But I have the motivation that this may be the easiest and funnest way to keep all my family and friends in the loop without making 17 phone calls every week :)

the 8 WHRI chickens made it just fine. they were shaken up after 3 days int he moving truck but they've adapted to the cooler climate very well!We're ordering seed flats and clear plastic to repair our high-tunnel. we've decided to convert half of the high tunnel into a greenhouse rather than spend the money to buy a pre-fab greenhouse. this will be some work but will be way bigger and cheaper than what we weer thinking of getting. We just need to hurry! these seeds need to get in the pots NOW!

Justin and I purchased potting mix yesterday from Ant Hill Community Farm in Honesdale, PA.  Google them, they're pretty awesome. They wanted us to come back to hang out before the growing season gets underway and life gets hectic. We met a friend of theirs who has a huge orchard offered to come over (it's an hour drive!) to see our apple trees and help us prune them.  It was actually kind of providiential, our visit to Ant Hill Farm.  Sky (the owner) and his girlfriend had just had a home birth 2 days before and their midwife was stopping in for a postpartum visit.  How lucky for me that in one visit we met some friendly hardworking young farmers, that they happen to be into my second passion (natural birth), and that I got to meet a local (New Jersey) midwife!  I wanted to cry I was so happy.


Well that's plenty for now.  We've got a crazy week ahead of us and I need to do some planning for it. 

I love and miss all of you and am so glad you wanted me to start the blog again.


we'll talk soon :)

Been spending a lot of time in the garden this fall. This is ever a source of comfort and peace, the dirty fingernails, muddy toes and knees, and the smell of fish meal that can only be removed from your hands after three washings. Also the salads with radish, lettuce, and tomatoes freshly picked. Even the struggles against tomato flea beetles and squash vine borers (not to mention the opossums which have consumed two chickens) have given me joy in the challenge. Our house has been doing a lot of dreaming lately about our future in agriculture and the spiritual necessity we have to stay connected to our food and to the earth. I have hopes and excitement.


Found this in the Mennonite hymnal at church this week:

God, whose farm is all creation, take the gratitude we give.
Take the finest of our harvest, crops we grow that all may live.
Take our plowing, seeding, reaping, hopes and fears of sun and rain,
All our thinking, planning, waiting, ripened in this fruit and grain.
All our labor, all our watching, all our calendar of care
in these crops of your creation, take, O God; they are our prayer.




Justin's here.
and it is very good.





shalom