Flying. Nuns.


Yesterday a friend and goat admirer stopped by while I was doing morning chores.  I was bundled to the nines, it was bitter in the a.m. and the morning barn is a cold barn.

Funny thing is that the evening beforehand I was having a great time mocking the commercials about some sort of cosmetic surgery to reconstruct your chin/neck to reveal a more youthful image to the world.  The point of the ad was that the sagging neck was unsightly, ugly, made you less than perfect and life was hardly worthwhile if you could fix it all with a new, younger neckline.  I mocked the ad so much that Char started giving me stern looks that it was quite enough, Mom.

Anyway, I never intended to be so moved as to remedy my own “sagging neckline” with my wooly neckwarmer this a.m., but the souvenir photo my friend sent along to me this evening had me in giggles.  I realized I was effectively combatting the cold while simultaneously “improving” my look!

I hope you can laugh along with me.  In the end, I just think a nun’s habit would do the trick as well.

Patricia & Farmer Tam

Patricia & Sister/Farmer Tam

But let’s talk about Patricia.  She is my beautiful mixed Nubian yearling doe.  She & her stall mates, Lucia & Marcia, love attention.  Of late, the goats have to stay inside because I need to do some fence repair on their pasture.  Waiting for a break in the weather, and after hearing this weekend’s forecast, it will be a few more days.

Patricia somehow managed to leap out of the window of their stall in the afternoon after I’d locked things up in the barn.  Or so I thought.  In the evening, Jim discovered her in the locked, (or so I thought), tack room, chowing down on the bin of sheep grain.  I did an extra evening check to make sure she wasn’t suffering from her overindulgence, and she sprightly jumped up onto the stall door to give me a hello,  just as she had in the morning.  She was as round as a barrel, but fine.

Jim did a special tie-job on the stall door/window, hopefully foiling attempt #2.  But hey, if these guys have learned how to fly, I’m banking on God to lend me a hand.

Not Chicken…


I took this photo yesterday morning of a little Sultan that I’ve had for 4 years.  She pops out of the coop every day to scratch around, bustle with the biddies, play her part in the flock.  She always looks great, even if her outfit is akin to a luxurious bathrobe and slippers.  We’ve had below & hovering around zero weather lately, but Sal doesn’t turn tail and run like some of the other girls. Nope, she’s out there.  Taking it all in.

Sal, the Sultan Hen

Sal, the Sultan Hen

Next we have Schill, the glamorous Maine Coon Cat.  Schill is short for “Schilling”, as in Curt Schilling, who helped our favorite Red Sox win the 2004 World Series.  We call him the “Big Schill” and he has so much presence in our home, amongst our other cats and dogs.  Here he is, surveying the front yard from his rooftop perch yesterday afternoon.  Bold move, Schill.  Way to be the Big Guy!

the Big Schill

the Big Schill

And here are Char & myself & friends, this past Saturday.  The air temperature was about 9 degrees above zero at plunge time with a brisk and steady wind.  This was Char’s 4th plunge and my 3rd, and our team consisted of my Youth Group and friends raised a little more than $2,000 for Vermont Special Olympics.

Everyone asks, “Why?  How?  What was it like?”

It’s for a great cause.  We’re crazy fun people, also. As you can see, we have ridiculous costumes which were supposed to be some sort of scholarly owl-look.  We didn’t win any prizes.

When it’s actually time to plunge, you don’t want to spend much time analyzing.  It’s all a blur and you just go for it. You can’t see it, but the water we’re jumping into is surrounded by thick ice that had to be chainsawed to carve out an opening.  And yeah, its super cold.  But we did it.

And we’ll do it again next year.

Because we’re not chicken.  No, I know what we are.  And now that I realize it, I’m really grateful.

We’re brave.

Team Healing Waters ready for the Plumage Parade

Team Healing Waters ready for the Plumage Parade

Char hit the water first, though I thought this year it might be me!

Char hit the water first, though I thought this year it might be me!

Teammate Kati in the middle, Ahmad(from Palestine!) on the left, me on the right(reddish hair flying)

Teammate Kati in the middle, Ahmad(from Palestine!) on the left, me on the right(reddish hair flying)

The team splash

The team splash

Mother/Daughter Pre-Plunge

Mother/Daughter Pre-Plunge

Mother/Daughter Post Plunge

Mother/Daughter Post Plunge

By the looks of it, I'm having a great time!

By the looks of it, I’m having a great time!

Sprouting & Plunging


Coming up this week:

Bitter cold weather, annual Penguin Plunge to raise money for Vermont Special Olympics, and, drumroll….

my tomato & cilantro seedlings!    They’ve sprouted!!!!!!!

Hallelujah!

This is the year of my 3rd plunge, my daughter’s 4th, and yes, we are crazy.  Click here if you want to support Team Healing Waters, and, well, we are grateful to you and you rock.  And also, if you’ll just keep us in your warm thoughts on Saturday, we’d be grateful to that as well.

Here are some photos from the past couple of plunges – we dress up in costumes with our Youth Group to take the edge off the cold, as if it helps:

2010 Plunge

2010 Plunge

Penguin Tam 2011

Penguin Tam 2011

Team Healing Waters 2012Team Healing Waters 2012

2012 Plunge

2012 Plunge

Viking Tam 2012 PlungeViking Tam 2012 Plunge

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day


Originally, I ignored the tweets and emails about participating in Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Instead I was enjoying, living & gardening vicariously through my southern blog friends’ posts.  Here in Southern Vermont, we had a glorious amount of snow in December and early January, then a significant thaw and deluge over the past week.  This morning it was 26 degrees, with recently bared and frozen packed ground for footing.

I’m guilty of not fretting about an early spring or unseasonably warm winter because I’m a human-popsicle from October til May.   Also having gardened for 24 years on my property, we’ve not consistently experienced early springs ever.   Lambing photos in April & May reveal that I am bundled in overalls, neck warmer, hat & gloves in the bone-chilling cold of the barn stalls.  Snow in May is not uncommon and what I know for sure is that you should never, ever set your tender annuals out until after Memorial Day.

However, nudged to not be such a curmudgeon, I set out looking for something to contribute and happily discovered premature signs of spring.

This corner of Southwestern Vermont is Zone 5a as far as the USDA‘s Zone Hardiness goes, but around here we are jokingly referred to as living in the Banana Belt.  Microclimate‘s abound, and parts of my own gardens break the zones down even further, depending on the plantings and structures around them.

Happy Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, all!

Daffodils

Brave little Daffodil shoots

Hellebore, or "Lenten Rose", buds

Hellebore, or “Lenten Rose”, buds

Flowering member of the Oleaceae (Olive) family, this Forsythia that I planted last year survived the goat - a greater accomplishment than surviving the seasons!Very excited to snip a few branches for forced February blooms!

Flowering member of the Oleaceae (Olive) family, this Forsythia that I planted last year survived the goats a greater accomplishment than surviving the seasons!
Very excited to snip a few branches for forced February blooms!

Looseleaf lettuce seeds indoors - sprouting at 2 days old!

Hippeastrum, commonly known as "Amaryllis", which my neighbor gave to me at Christmastime, indoor blooms will likely fill my windows in February!

Hippeastrum, commonly known as “Amaryllis”, which my neighbor gave to me at Christmastime, indoor blooms will likely fill my windows in February!

Sunshine


I’m not a “go south for the winter” type of gal.  My Russian-heritage instilled me with a quality = struggle outlook.  I’d feel like a weak-y taking a tropical vacation.

Bring on that sunshine!

BUT, yesterday I planted tomato, cilantro and lettuce seeds in my kitchen.

I can’t wait for spring.

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead. – Louisa May Alcott

Healthy & Happy New Year


Greetings from Cricket
Today, a Farmer Tam toast:

May you avoid colic, Coggins-disease, hoof-rot, hookworm & whipworm, mites, lice, fleas, ticks and all of the other ailments we’ve either read about, vaccinated against, or actually had to treat in our own flocks and herds. May you avoid cranky stall-mates, annoying flies, obnoxiously loud baaah-ing, greedy herd-mates, and pecking-order fouls.
Ducks in a Row

All health & happiness in 2013 to you, our friends. Tra-la-la!
Going in

Happy Christmas!


Runner up to the Winter Solstice as my favorite time of the year is Christmastide.

We have fresh snow out there this morning. I enjoyed watching my kitties tiptoe about the front stoop at about 3:30, and by 5:00 their prints were filled in again.

Just finished prepping a goose which I’d bartered from “Garden of Spices” in Greenwich, NY, where I get help processing my turkeys. I rubbed it with a plethora of zest from oranges, limes and lemons, as well as various other spices and salt. My sticky-bun dough has risen, hallelujah, it has risen indeed. I’m starting to hear showers and footsteps, so there are just moments to go before this morning quiet is dispelled.

My favorite gifts? Last evening, my daughters and I presented music at our church’s candlelight service and it is always rich being able to share that kind of work with them. Old friends and new friends have been making many appearances. My kids are all home from college. The hens are laying again. The sheep and horses are frisky & healthy. There’s snow on the ground.

Advent, leading up to Christmas, is so much about hope, so much about how I live my life. Christmastide is a joyful season, and though there are moments in every day that we have a thought of a loved one that isn’t with us anymore, oftentimes, sorrow is deeper during the holidays.
So it is, a time steeped in significant sentiment. For me, I take every ponder as a gift. Blessed to have love in our lives, blessed even when we lose our loves because of how we can carry on for them, in them, with them in spirit.

Holiday greetings from all of us at the farm!

IMG_8141

IMG_8158

IMG_8191

IMG_8204

IMG_8211

IMG_8235

Christmas Card 2012

Care a little?


To my Mother
by Robert Louis Stevenson
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.

This is not so much about the farm.  Sometimes I just write for therapy’s sake.

I just read “Girl on the Contrarys” post about her Thanksgiving kickball game and how her Grammy didn’t play this year.  Also about how her Grammy gave her the blessing to go ahead and blog about her if she wanted to.  Girl is plucky and honest and her posts make me smile or giggle regularly.

I had to tell Girl that I was a wee bit jealous because my mom, my kids’ “Grammie” (note we use an “ie”-ending) hasn’t read my blog and doesn’t care to, that I know of, either.  Her internet connection/computer is pretty awful.  That would be a huge contributing factor.  But also, I’m pretty sure it just doesn’t interest her.

I don’t think it is mature for me to rant.  Being a parent myself, I realize there is no way you can be perfect.  Everyone is doing their best in any given moment.  That’s what I believe.

My mom is awesome and everyone that knows her loves her to pieces.  She’s jolly and sweet and loving.  She’s funny and says hilarious things.  She works like a dog.  She loves to cook for people(hmmm, who else do I know like that?!)  She’s sometimes pops off onto some unrelated subject and we all stare at each other wondering….butterfly.

She taught me a lot about frugality and being homespun and Yankee ingenuity.  She taught me how to save every container to re-use.  She taught me how to haul off our recycling to the recycling place down the road when we lived in California.  She worked at North American Rockwell during the Apollo Lunar program while raising 5 kids. She breastfed all her babies during the heyday of formula.  She travelled alone across the U.S. more than once with the 5 of us when we were all miniature and troublesome, my sister and I in our matching homemade pinafore dresses(that matched her own homemade dress), lest we get lost.  She taught me to can and to freeze and to save. She can flute a pie like nobody’s business.  She is fiercely competitive.  She’s fascinated by the weather and competes to “top” ours/anybody’s whenever possible.  She ran off and married my dad in Las Vegas.  She’s boasted to me at being engaged 3 times(I’m not too sure that’s anything to boast about.)  She undid all my knitting, and still does, whenever I couldn’t get it right.  Then she’d re-knit it all for me. (Side note:  I’m still a horrible knitter.)  She doesn’t play kickball, like Girl‘s Grammy does, but she does play badminton.

She taught me about my ancestors.

I think I wish that she would blog.  I’d definitely read her posts.

It’s quite likely that if I care that much that my mom read my blog, I simply need to ask her to do so.  She would if she knew that it meant that much to me.

That being said, I have no problem vowing to read my kids’ blogposts.  Even if my eyes were to glaze over because I couldn’t get past technical jargon or their interests were(are) vastly different from my own.  I’m pretty sure I could learn something from reading what they’re passionate about, even if I already knew it.  Not to mention that I actually DO love to read my kids’ blogposts.

Above all, I’m thankful that I have my mom still.  Really, who cares if she doesn’t read my blog.  She’s a busy gal.

But for all you Oprah fans out there, WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE:

Grammie would rather I call her up and talk to her ANY day, than read about what is up in our life online.

Love you, mom!

Grammie demonstrates excellent “fluting” technique to SJ & Char

Turkey/Tofurkey Thanksgiving 2012


Tweedling accompaniment to the march into the barn

Cue Chopin‘s “Funeral March“…

Tomorrow is the big day for processing birds around here for 35 Thanksgiving tables in this Tri-State area.  In their last week, my Bourbon Reds and Giant Whites have been consuming 50 pounds of organic grain a day.  I had brought them in the other day because we had a sudden, wet snowfall and they don’t have shelter now that the leaves are off the trees in the pasture.

Shivering off their weight is not part of the plan of raising the turkeys.  Also, as soon as they were snug and warm inside, we had cozy, bonding time together.  They’re so sweet.

Puppy dog eyes

I’ve said it before.  I love turkeys.  I love my turkeys. People in this area love our turkeys and they are exceptional.  I’m o.k. with eating turkey – I think it’s fine.  I’d rather have borscht or wonton soup or mushroom anything – those are my favorites(also, chocolate.)

But it’s time.  So today I tried feeding them a pile of tofu.  I accidentally over-ordered tofu through my local food co-op.  I meant to order 6 containers, but I ordered 6 cases.  That’s 72 containers.  That’s too much tofu for this family.  I gave away a fair amount to the local homeless shelter and tried to share with the local food cupboard.  The food cupboard folk said, “No thanks.”

But the turkeys – hey!  The primary ingredient in their pelletized grain is soy.  So why not organic tofu?  And then if we want to be savvy marketers, we can tout them as “Tofurkeys!”

In front of me, they want nothing to do with the tofu.  As soon as my back is turned, they gobble it up.  Go figure.

Tofurkeys

Grain run


H.N. Williams, Dorset, Vermont

Here is where you’ll find me once a week, early in the morning, to stock up on organic grain for my turkeys, chickens, sheep, goats, ducks, horses & bunny.  Inside this fine establishment, a jury of gentlemen are assembled with coffees and donuts, cordial greetings and conversation ranging from the price of gas to whether you should fib when your wife asks you if “this dress makes me look fat.”  Sometimes I am the consult on certain topics, and so I weigh my words carefully in response to the chat-du-jour.

It’s out of my way, but they take great care of me here.  I’m grateful to live in a part of the world where you can pick up a car full of chow for your livestock and a freshly baked scone-to-go, get the bottom line on politics and the weather, and lean on the counter to share a farmyard story or two.

My family and I are grieving a recent loss.  My youngest brother.  A frequent compliment/condolence was that he lived a hundred years in his 50. He was the type of guy that had a thousand friends in the community.  He was just such a fella that took the time to chat.  They jokingly called him “the Professor” in his town, at his job, because of his knack for throwing himself into lectures and debates with his neighbors and co-workers, but finishing always with a joke and a smile.  I hadn’t recognized the value, the importance of my weekly grain-run ritual, spending time with this micro-community, until I sat down to write and fell to thinking about Larry….

I’m not sure how long I’ll be feeling so reflective, friends, so bear with me.  I’ve got a lot of blessings to count.