Cape Cod Vacation

We went to Cape Cod on a little vacation to celebrate the end of the season, just like we did last year in mid-October. We stayed at Nickerson State Park again, in a yurt. We planned to spend 4 nights, but only ended up staying 3 because it got rainy and cold.

We got there last Sunday, and after setting up in the yurt, we went for a little bike ride to a beach near Orleans. It was quite overcast, and windy, but we were well prepared with warm clothes.

On Monday, it was sunny and gorgeous. We rode to Marconi beach, 26 miles round trip from the campground, the longest ride Aiyana ever did. The beach was stunning, and made me instantly happy when I saw it. We saw seals playing in the waves; the girls played in the sand, and I just sat and looked out and eventually fell asleep in the sun, listening to the waves crashing on the shore. It was amazing.

Park ranger on the empty beach.

Ed, Sena and Aiyana

Me, very happy to be here

A very steep stairway came up the bank, and from the top of it the view was exhilarating.

We snacked on Autumn Olives, which grew plentifully along the bike path.

Aiyana on her bike

On Tuesday, Sena was feeling sick, so Ed stayed at the yurt with her and I took Aiyana to Sandwich, to the Thornton Burgess Briar Patch museum. Thornton Burgess is one of our favorite children’s books authors. I saw his “Fables of the Green Forest” series on TV when I was growing up in Romania, and always remembered his characters and the stories they were involved in. A few years ago, I quite by accident came across one of his books at a used book sale and immediately recognized it as the stories I used to love. I bought that book, which was Jimmy Skunk and read it to the girls, and since then they’ve been hooked and read all his books. Then I found out that he was from Cape Cod, and that’s how we came to visit his museum in Sandwich.

A cute little gift shop at the museum

Next to the museum, there was a jam kitchen, and there was jam making in progress, which was a nice surprise since I’ve been getting a little into jams myself this year. The smell was delightful, and it reminded me of my great-aunt’s kitchen in Romania, when she used to make sour cherry preserves.

Cranberry and beach plum jam in progress

On Wednesday, we went to Provincetown by car. It was rainy, and windy, and although Sena was feeling back to normal, she did not want to bike, and neither did the rest of us. We visited Pilgrim monument, a tall tower from the top of which you have a great view of the cape. We also visited the museum connected with it.

Quite windy up there. But fun for the girls.

Family picture

The stairway leading to the top of the tower

Later that afternoon we went to a beach south of the Cape to watch seals come out of the ocean at low tide. We were told that up to 200 of them will come out. When we got to the beach, there was a strong wind and driving rain, which made the scene very "dramatic", as Aiyana put it. Although it wasn’t the most comfortable, I found the views and the atmosphere very beautiful in their own way. But then again, to me the ocean is always beautiful, and I’d stare at it for hours no matter what the conditions. Just to be in its presence feels amazing.

Sand dunes on the way to the ocean

Sena, coming to the beach against the strong wind

Seals in the water! (Too hard to get a picture of because of the rain and heavy churning of the waves)

Despite the rain and cold, Aiyana was happily playing that she was flying in the wind

That's Ed down there.

Peace

A little hike

This morning we did some homeschooling, and in the afternoon we went on a lovely hike just ten minutes from our house. We have such a good time together, Sena, Aiyana and I. They are my little companions and I am so grateful to have them to share beautiful things with.

We hiked up to this lookout, and were surprised to see that most of the trees down in the valley are still green. Only along the river did the foliage turn red.

 We had a little snack of cheese and crackers

And had some fun taking pictures

Peace

Homeschooling has begun. Ed's been doing math, physics  and spelling and I've been doing Earth Science and Poetry. We're not on a full schedule yet, because we're still very busy with the CSA, but next week will be the last week of CSA and after that homeschooling will be our main focus.

I've done some research on curricula for Sena and Aiyana's grade levels, with particular attention to the Mansfield school curriculum. I like to make sure that we're studying at least at the same level as the local schools. In any case, I put together a plan about a month ago, containing all the major topics we want to study this year and a daily schedule to go along. But, before we even started, I changed it on sudden inspiration, and instead of studying a little bit of each subject each week, I decided to do an intensive session of about three weeks covering only two subjects at a time. Part of the beauty of homeschooling is that you can be flexible like this, and go with what seems most appropriate and most fun for everyone.

So our two topics of intensive study these past few weeks have been Earth Science and Poetry. I am very excited about how well things are going. In Earth Science, we learned about how the earth formed, the processes and natural cycles that have shaped our world and what drives them - stuff like earthquakes, volcanoes, and some introductory geology. All fascinating. The girls want more. They are asking for books on tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes.

The other topic of study, Poetry, was also embraced, to my relief and delight. When I was a child in Romania, we had to memorize classical poems, and although I didn't appreciate it at the time, now I am often comforted and inspired by those poems and their beauty. I thought that it would be nice to have Sena and Aiyana memorize beautiful poetry, so they too can carry it with them always. I was very happy when they took to it right away. We fell into a routine, where we read poems together, which I select, we study them, and then they chose the ones they want to memorize. Their memory is amazing at this age, and they love to recite to Ed or I whenever we want to listen. They've been reciting to their grandparents too for a treat.

Two weekends ago, a couple that is part of our CSA offered to bring their telescope to our farm so we could watch the sky. This just happened to  fit in perfectly with our Earth studies. They came on a beautiful, calm Saturday evening just after sundown, and we set the telescope up in our field. It was an 8 inch diameter telescope, with lenses that magnified 40, 100 and 200 times. We were able to see the moon, with beautiful detail of the craters, as well as Saturn with its rings and one of its moons, and Jupiter. We also saw Andromeda galaxy. The whole thing was awe-inspiring, and made a great impression on all of us. I went to bed that night feeling more connected to the vastness out there, and it was all very helpful as a reminder for putting our lives in perspective.

Aiyana turned 9 on Sunday. She had a party on Saturday, with her friends and grandparents and us. I made pizza from scratch, which Aiyana requested and it was a hit. I also served my home-made feta and other appetizers and a winter squash soup. My sister and Ed's parents brought food as well. My sister made icecream cake, which was a huge success. Ed's mom made deviled eggs, always a hit. It was a nice party for everyone, and on Sunday we celebrated just the four of us. I can't believe she's nine! The old cliche that they grow up so fast is so true. It's scary. The only cure is to be present, and that is my focus.

Peace

Fall Equinox and some cow stuff

Happy Fall Equinox! What a beautiful time of the year! I love it, the light is so soft and rich, the trees are all in color, the days are sunny and crisp, the evenings and mornings so cold that I can see steam rising from the bucket when I milk Opal.

We have some good news: Jasmine is pregnant, and there are good chances that Opal is as well. Jasmine got pregnant the first time we inseminated her, in July, but Opal came into heat again and we had to inseminated again a couple of weeks ago. Jasmine should have her calf in April, and Opal in June if she is pregnant. So the herd is growing, although we most likely will not be able to keep all of the cows because we are land limited, and can only sustain 3 or 4 cows on the pastures we have right now.

Speaking of pasture, we have the cows nextdoor right now, on a field we're renting from our neighbor. Unfortunately the pasture quality is not that good over there, and we're seeing quite a drop in milk production. I'm getting closer to 2 quarts (liters) a day now, instead of the 3 I had become accustomed to our our pasture. But this is a learning experience, and I have come to honestly believe that every setback has a lesson to learn if we're open. In this case, I learned that we should've managed that pasture differently early this year, and I have a few ideas how, and if we had done that it may have been much more lush and productive by now. So that's something to take forward for next season.

Another recent setback I had is that Opal kicked me in the chest yesterday when I was by her side milking her. I think flies were bothering her, or I may have unintentionally hurt her teats somehow. I don't know, but I was quite taken aback, and I fell on my butt, although nothing hurt at all. I'm not sure what the lesson is in that, but today I was more careful. I don't think she wanted to hurt me, it was more of a "get off" kind of thing because of something I must have done wrong. In any case, I did slap her side and yelled a firm NO!

So we're learning a lot about cows and pastures these days. It's exciting and a little overwhelming. There are so many variables in farming, whether you're doing vegetables, or managing rotational grazing, or something else. The first step is always to get a clear grasp on the most important factors affecting production, and the only way you can do that is through intimate experience. Reading and conferences help, but there is nothing like getting to it and letting experience teach. After getting some idea of the main variables, the fun part starts, where you start tweaking them, one by one, or more than one at a time, whatever fits your system and your schedule, and see what difference that makes. That's were data recording and analysis comes in. It's amazing what a few plots of data gathered from the field will show you. So engineering did pay off, see mom and dad? All those years in college, and I can make some pretty fancy graphs now. And what better stuff to plot than vegetable yields, or milk production?

Last Friday Ed and I went to a cow conference in Massachussets. The "conference" was outside on pasture, in one of the most beautiful places I've been to in a long time: up on top of a mountain, with veiws of ridges like waves in the distance, a small country road traveled, we were told at the rate of one car per day sometimes, cows on green meadows, and people passionate about what they're doing. So it was a lot of fun, and Ed and I were joking that this was our big getaway for the year, but joking aside, it was a beautiful one.

That's the news from here for now.

Peace

The Harvest

This season has been exceptional. Our harvests of most crops, not all, but most, have been much higher than expected, and pretty much off the chart relative to previous years. It’s been a dry season, and without irrigation it would’ve undoubtedly been our worst. But, with a good well and irrigation, the crops did amazingly well. Many fungal diseases that affect us every year and lower the productivity of the plants, were only minimal this year due to the dry conditions.

I’ve been busy preserving the bounty over the past few weeks. Every day that I was not out in the field harvesting and preparing for the CSA, I spent in the kitchen, canning, freezing, fermenting and so on, in an attempt to store food for the winter. The shelves are almost filled with pickles, tomato sauce, apple sauce, apple chips, jams, etc., and the freezers are full as well. I feel blessed by this abundance. The earth gives us so much!

Here are some pictures of things I tried my hand at lately:

Sena harvested wild Concord Grapes, and I made this apple juice from them. I also made kombucha flavored with the juice, and grape jelly, which was quite a hit.

These are husk cherries (in the background with the husk, and out of the husk in the foreground). We grew them for the first time this year, and were very surprised at their sweet, pleasant taste that reminds me a little of pineapple. We ate many raw, and some, I made husk cherry jam with. The jam came out great - the kids like it on yoghurt or pancakes. My favorite way of having it is with cheese and black tea. I made a delicious Feta this week, and topped it with some of this jam, had a cup of tea on the side, and that has been my sustenance, body and soul.

Husk Cherry jam.

Peace

Down-home like