the latest

Well friends, you wouldn't believe the weather here!! It rains a couple times a week, it's very cool, sometimes even chilly in the early morning, and other than for a bizzare 3 day "heat wave" 2 weeks ago (it got up to 96 for a few minutes! almost felt like home), it hasn't really snuck up past 80 yet this year.  It is really, really beautiful. we feel really lucky.

The yurt is moving along. We have the water heater up and are working on the plumbing, I converted the natural gas stove to run on propane. not too hard. tomorrow justin and I will finish (fingeres crossed) all the plumbing, which means its time to scrub the very cool but very disgusting stainless sink from the neighbors old dairy bottling room. the dairy's been out of use for a decade.
We did run into a pretty big glitch with the water catchment system which is supposed to be our source of bathing and dishwashing water.  She ordered the yurt with the catchment system built in to the roof and Justin and I have been simply baffled trying to figure out how to set it up, figuring out what we're working with. none of the diagrams from the manufacturer looked anything like what we had here.  Turns out they sent Julie the wrong yurt 3 years ago and she never realized it to call the company and get the correct yurt sent.  Someone at Cornell University had julie's green yurt with a water catchment system, and we have their red yurt without a water catchment system.  awesome. funny at least, but quite an inconvenience.

so yurt progress-  we're actually been asked to make sure we're out of the house by thursday.  we wont have a bathroom or kitchen ready by that time so we'll have to hike down to the for the basic ammenities.  you might remember from a post a month ago that this is exactly what i wanted to avoid but we dont really think there's much better option. we'll see how it goes!

We had our very first farm stand last weekend!  4 people stopped over the 4 hours we were open and we made very little money, but we sold EVERY vegetable we harvested!! That felt good as we had low expectations for the first day.  We plan on setting it up to be self-serve, just leave your payment in a jar, so that we dont have to sit for several hours when we could be weeding or planting or changing sheets, checking out guests, and cleaning the kitchen.  I forgot to take a picture, and it was so beautiful! I'll make sure to take on this weekend.  Oh! my MOM and AUNT will be here helping, so it will be super fun.


Oh! An explanation for the delay in postings:  our computer really, very seriously and irritatingly, refuses to work for more than 2-5 minutes. After over two months of working with the Apple company to fix it under warranty, they finally agreed to let us mail it in for them to fix it rather than instucting me over the phone in countless diagnostic tests, disk upgrades, and futile bizzare key stroke combinations. So i hope hope hope they send it back in excellent working condition.


Soooo until the next post, here's some photos for you to enjoy.

These are the very first eggs our chickens layed!! check out the size of that one in the middle.  Justin ate that one- it had two yolks, which isn't all that uncommon, but for the very FIRST egg the lady layed! OUCH!

two of our boss' dogs. they are sweet, but goofy :)

Some baby St. John's Wort, which I started from seed. I am very proud! most of my herbs are doing great!

check out our toilet!! not quite finished

putting on the door

little olga!!

new focus, and then some

Well it has been a while since I've posted an update on our lives and work. Sorry about that. That's just the nature of agricultural life- the busyness can just get away from you and it can be overwhelming to try and get it all done.  And that's just the thing, as my former boss Neil Rowe Miller told me- when you're a farmer, at the end of every day you always leave things unfinished, your list never seems to get any shorter. It's totally true! It nearly killed me at WHRI, but I learned how to deal with it some.  Now here in Pennsylvania at Maple Hill Farm we're in crunch time!

The bed and breakfast will be open for business in one month and about that same time, Justin and I will hopefully have some vegetables to sell at the farm stand we're setting up at the barn. The bed and breakfast is demanding a larger part of our time these days as we have to get it completed in such a static time frame so the garden has necessarily suffered a bit.  We do have strawberries, sweet potatoes, chard, pak choi, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, onions,  broccoli, cabbage, and romaine in the ground now (yippee!)

We needed to cut back our planned plantings some so that we would have the time to devote to getting the B&B ready, so we decided to sell some of the transplants we started that would otherwise have to be thrown out.  we'll be advertising for that this week and hopefully we'll have people stopping in occasionally for some squash and tomato plants! 

A large part of our efforts at getting the B&B ready is grounds and landscaping which is pretty fun! I planted petunias, and begonias in the sunny areas and coleus and impatiens in the shady spots. Also we're using some edibles aaaaand medicinal herbs in the landscape!!  We put in lots of bright lights swiss chard (beautiful!) and pak choi, romaine and a couple broccoli for the landscape and I planted 6 calendula plants which I started from seed and will harvest all the flowers from! and 2 catnips. I have a few photos, not of the landscaped herbs, but of my herbs that I started from seed that are gettign ready to go in the ground. I am just so proud of these little plants, I have to hurry and get a spot prepared for them so they don't get wasted! these babies are very valuable as medicinal plants and I can really stock my medicine chest and have lots to share with others!

It might be hard to see but here I have Valerian, St John's Wort, Astragalus, Marshmallow, Motherwort, and Catnip! And that's just in this shot. 

Another large part of our time is spent getting the yurt in a shape where we can live in it. We have a long way to go! There is no running water, no electricity, no bathroom... and all of those things have to change before we move in there, though not in the conventional way. We are really excited about living out in the woods but if we are just camping out every day for the next year, then we wont be very productive. Seriously, I am all about pooping in the woods when you gotta, but not if you have to live nearby. Also, hauling water is pretty hard work, I dont want to have to haul all my cooking, drinking, dishwashing, and bathing water every day. we would never get anything done with how much longer domestic tasks take when you dont have a sink with flowing water.    Anyway, here's some photos of our meager progress. I forgot to take photos of the bathroom and shed Justin is building. it is fantastic! I'll have to show you later. but for now we have set up the "bedroom", the "living room" and the kitchen. though there are no walls in this round house, we're trying to divide it up a little so that when you sit down at the dining room table you don't feel like you're in our bedroom. that'd be awkward.  So you can see here a little bit of our arrangement and the beauty of our little simple home. It's actually nearly 900 square feet, plus another 40 in the bathroom Justin is building.  Our goal WAS to be in there by Memorial Day, but that just ain't gonna happen. We hope that within 2 weeks we sleep there and that in 3 weeks we are living there full time, no need to run down to the house for the amenities. Can't wait for you all to see it!

Did you hear we got our chicks?! they are getting close to 2 weeks old and they are strong and healthy!  As you can see the little king of the hill. They like to climb on top of the feeders.  I know I know, they're so cute...Just give it time. They mature into what I like to call the dinosaur stage so quickly and boy do they get ugly!  

Then of course I have to throw in a photo of our ladies:

And of Olga,

She wants those chickens so bad!! Not a chance, Sister!

and the beauty of this place

 Apple trees are all in full bloom right now and they smell wonderful! I cut off a low branch and put it in a vase in the kitchen. It's so beautiful! Also, check out that awesome trunk, y'all!!

Much love.