we promissed ourselves (and the kids) that we were going to take a full day off each week this year, meaning no farm work, but so far we've broken the promise more than kept it. unfortunately i think it's just not realistic, with the weather and all other factors that impact our work. we've been working almost straight through the past two weekends. but we managed to take half a day each with the kids - ed on sunday morning, and me in the afternoon.

i stopped working at 2 on sunday and we spent the rest of the afternoon at a beautiful spot by the river. it was very relaxing.

peace

from the past week

sena at sturbridge village

sena and snowflake, reading on a rainy morning

aiyana - flowers in her hair

that's their tepee, behind aiyana, covered in deer skins.

other than that, it's been really busy for us. but i'm glad that we got all our peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers and squashes in the ground already. lots more to go though... it's that time of the season.

peace

the CSA began, and evertything is going well.

we are really busy right now; everything is growing like mad, and especially the plants that are in the greenhouse, in soil blocks, they're getting so big and need to go in the ground as soon as possible. my "to do" list is impossible, but i am trying to take it one thing at a time, and prioritize as best as i can.

people ask us how many hours a week we work. i have a hard time answering that question. maybe they should ask how many hours we don't work. that's a lot easier.

feeling good though.

peace

aiyana's vacation

aiyana went on a little vacation last week with my sister and her family. they went to new hampshire and took some very nice pics, which are posted on their blog.

things have been busy, and everything's going well. we have 100 apple trees in the ground already, and a lot of vegetables growing. everything's doing well, with the water from the recent rains; it will be even better when we get a little more sun.
we've been selling weekly at our farm to our email list customers, and next week our CSA begins. that's a big deal, it's going to be really busy with lots of people coming; but i think we're well prepared for it. in addition, we have two new retail customers, that we've been selling to. we'll see where that goes. our first commitment is to our CSA, but we may have enough production to supply these other customers as well.

so it's been busy, but good and rewarding. we're having some problems with cutworms in our chard and parsley beds; and i think crickets or slugs are damaging leaves on some of our seedlings. but overall no major losses just a nuissance dealing with these guys, having to look for them and pick them off by hand.

i'm off to do one of my favorite things right now: weeding and thinning. i really like to weed, it's addictive, and very satisfying to see the results at the end.

peace

ready for some pictures?

we had a beautiful weekend. temperature was cool, but it was sunny. we left the farm both days, which is quite rare for us. on saturday, we went to a spot by the river, only 10 min. from our house, which sena fell in love with in her survival skills class, and wanted to show to us. on sunday, we went to the ocean, which i've ben wanting to do for a while. i took lots of pics both days. 

sena's spot

 

thornton burgess, the writer of the green forest series, talks about a kind of blindness most of us have, even though our eyes are fine. he calls it beauty blindness. if only we would let these amazing gifts of Nature truly reach us....

fiddleheads - a new beginning, life renewing itself 

a decomposing leaf - the end of a cycle and beginning of another, life renewing itself.
i keep hearing in my head bjork's lyrics "nature is ancient, but surprises us all". always so.

detail

 happy children

ed was inspired by aiyana to learn guitar. he's working on the songs she plays.

the river, whose sound can heal you if you let it.

 looking over the water

this was my view at the ocean. we had lunch on one of the rocky break-waters that sticks out into the ocean.

 happy children. i love their smiles, and the enjoyment they get out of being outside.

 big fun

 aiyana

 sena doing handstands to close off the day

 aiyana too

peace

fire

i love outdoor fires. this evening we're expecting a frost, so ed set up a wood stove in our large greenhouse, where all our frost tender seedlings are (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers). we have to keep the temp above freezing in there, and around 40F would be even better. i hope the stove works.
 but, in any case, we had a nice time hanging out there tonight, with the kids and the cat, and the vegetables, all nice and warm by the fire.

there's something about fire that really draws me in. and i've been lucky enough to experience lots of fire lately. at the sweatlodge, which i've been attending with aiyana every other week; and at our house. we have an old wood cookstove outside that i sometimes cook on. i love that thing. it smells so good when i light a fire in there, and that combined with the fresh air and the feeling of being outside is just really nice.

i'd love to fall asleep one night, wrapped in a blanket by the fire, in the cool air of the night with the sounds of the forest in the background. maybe sometime soon....

peace

dandelions are pretty

yesterday i taught aiyana how to make a dandelion wreath. i used to love doing that as a kid, and she loved it too. sena and aiyana both think dandelions are pretty and wonder why people want to get rid of them.

 

i love living on a farm. and i am so grateful that my kids can grow up knowing and loving the living world of Nature.

peace

ed took sena and aiyana to old sturbridge village in Massachusetts last weekend. they love going there, learning about the different trades and crafts people had years ago.

this is sena, wearing her own clothes. she loves the 1800 era style, and wears her dress and bonnet everywhere. well, almost everywhere. this week she's taking a survival skills camp, just her and a bunch of boys, and they're learning about living in the woods, so she left her laura ingalls clothes at home and wore something more appropriate.

 here is being silly

and this is my little guitarist, aiyana, practicing this morning. it's always fun to listen to her play. she knows quite a few songs now...

peace

reading in bed is part of Sena and Aiyana's daily morning routine. i love that they want to do that. they'll read for hours if i let them. they're really into the "american girl" series right now.

we had a little rain this afternoon, which i am very grateful for. the sky was beautiful, with all kinds of clouds, some very dark, others shining bright, and we got a rainbow too! it made everything look so fresh, with the bright colors of spring, the yellows and greens even more vivid after the rain. our farm looked beautiful, and it made me so happy just to be here.

one of the chicken coops

 our little field (with rainbow just visible in the background)

 our house (with rainbow just off the tip of the roof)

 the newly cleared orchard area (we got some trees already, and ed's starting to graft this week...)

peace

old chicken coop

sena and aiyana found one of our old chicken coops on the far side of the field, and have been happily playing there over the past few days. they put hay down on the floor, and brought in big stones for table and chairs. they decorated with dandelions and other wild flowers they found around the field. they made it really pretty and cosy in there, and have been spending most of their time in this new play area. it makes me so happy to see how they enjoy these beautiful, simple things that life has to offer.

other than that, the weather has been strange. there's a "red flag" fire warning in effect right now for our area. usually we have spring rains, but not this year. it continues to be very dry, and windy.
i pray and send healing thoughts to our planet.

peace

i've been so busy, i haven't had a chance to use the internet to write in a while...
it's been really warm over the past 2 weeks, and the plants went crazy. they grew so much and so fast - spinach, lettuces, radishes, etc.- and we've been harvesting and selling at our farm. then last night, the temperature got down in the low 20's. quite a change. i was really worried about the plants getting damaged, being so much larger than they normally are at this time of year, but we covered everything and they all seem to be fine. now if we only got some rain... it's been so dry, for too long. we barely had any snow this winter, and very little precipitation, and the soil is so dry...
we've been irrigating, but i don't know for how long the well will be able to sustain it. so i'm hoping for rain.

been listening to cohen's new album whenever i have a chance to be alone in the house, which is usually when i'm cooking lunch or washing dishes. can’t listen to any other music lately, only what truly reaches me, like him.

“o solitude of longing

where love has been confined

come healing of the body

come healing of the mind”

from “come healing”

 
peace

Happy Birthday Roxi!

today is my sister's birthday, and it was a beautiful, sunny day, quite a gift, quite fitting.

my sister is the most selfless person i know, and i am amazed that we're sisters. i struggle with selfishness and a whole bunch of other things, so i don't know how she got to be this way, but we are all better off for it.
i feel very lucky also that we're so close to each other, physically and otherwise. she really helps us a lot all year long, canning, cooking, making bread, yoghurt, cheese, jam, etc., and just generally feeding us especially when things get too busy and i can't pull it all together.

so a very happy birthday to you, Roxi, probably the most faithful reader of this blog (well, other than my mom, i guess)!

kitties

our new kitties are really sweet. right now they're still in the house, as we have to keep them in for 4 weeks to get them used to their new home. after that they'll be outdoor cats. in the meantime, we're enjoying their playfulness and friendliness. Mindnight has been very shy, but now he's more used to them and started to play with the babies. the mama cat, LT, is mostly doing her own thing, which i appreciate very much.

these are the two babies, Snowflake and Cookie. they're really nutty and cute, and they play together all the time. Snowflake is giving Cookie a bath here.

.

snowflake found this basket and loved playing with it

a nap by the window

peace

our own maple syrup

sweet and delicious. very exciting to have made our own. we got a little over 1 qt so far, but that's ok considering that the sap needs to boil down 40 to 1 ratio to get the syrup. we're not really set up for it either, so we've been boiling on top of the woodstove and some on the electric stove. but it's been fun, and we're still going.

oh, and our CSA is full, which is very, very exciting!

peace