Rescued Kitten

This is 'Squeak' as he was called for his short visit with us.  Squeak was rescued by someone I work with at my 'real job' at just 3-4 weeks old.  Covered in fleas, infested with worms and shivering cold, he was a terrible sight.  I brought him home for a couple days, cleaned him up, fed him and gave him a whole lot of love.  I have rescued several animals and adopted them out to forever homes. Therefore I didn't think it was possible to get so attached to this little critter so quickly - was I wrong.

Several days later it was apparent that he was either going to stay with us for the long haul, a proposition which my four adult cats were not at all interested in entertaining, or he was going to need to find a new forever home.  Squeak came from who knows where to my house (20 miles away from where he was found), went with us to NH (230 miles round trip) for a powwow then two weeks later he went to ME to another powwow (292 miles 1 way).  He now lives way up in Millinocket, ME (another 100 miles north of the powwow grounds) with good friends of ours who we met through the North Country Intertribal Powwow - Holly and Frank.

Surprise!

My husband and I had noted a marked decreased in the number of eggs we were getting from our chickens.  We figured that some of our older birds were getting ready to molt and the new layers hadn’t started yet.  We didn’t think much of it… until Tuesday morning.

When my husband got home from work he came inside and asked me if I had work clothes on because I needed to get underneath the porch. (DH and I are not small people).  My expression must have said it all because he told me that he noticed some strange noises coming from underneath the back porch. ‘The eggs we were missing are now up and walking around’, he said.

He found eight brand new little ones running around.  One of the hens that our friend bestowed upon us when she moved in June had made herself a little nest and had been hiding out under there for at least a month now.  It was forecast to get down below freezing on Tuesday night.  We proceeded to dig out the feeder and waterer which was put away after our spring pullets, ran out to the feed store to get some growing mash, got out the heat lamp from the workshop, and began assembling a brooder box.  We took a spare cardboard box outside and I began squeezing my not so little self underneath the back porch.  Momma didn’t mind so much that I was coming under there to visit her, she was used to us collecting eggs from nearby nesting boxes in the chicken coop.  It wasn’t until I started removing her new babies that she got really upset with me.  Imagine lying on your tummy in a two foot tall crawl space, reaching in front of you trying to catch day old pullets and having Momma peck at your hands, your head, your shoulders, etc.  The pecks don’t hurt so much, but trying to protect my face from flying dirt and debris while she was dancing around was interesting.

There are still eight more eggs in the nest and she is still sitting on them.  We are watching every day or two to see if any new little ones have emerged.  Fall pullets were not in the plans for this year due to the lack of heat and some repairs which need to be made to the weatherproofing in the chicken coop.  Apparently Creator decided that more laying birds were in our immediate future.

To-Do List Items for the Chicken Coop:

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  Re-seal the roof
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  Wash and paint the exterior walls
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  Remove hay insulation (doesn’t work together with leaky roof – very messy and moldy), wash down inside walls with mold preventative and replace insulation
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  Fix drainage problem in coop yard (we are hoping this is as simple as digging out the existing dirt and adding some layers of varying sizes of gravel and sand).
• 
  
  Add roof to ½ of coop yard (tarp is getting worse for the wear).
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  Replace coop yard fence running chicken wire 8-12 inches under soil level to deter whatever has been digging at the side of the coop yard fence and to keep the ducks from hiding their eggs under the coop itself.

Hopefully I will remember to bring the camera along as we attempt these and other fall projects around the house.

Stop taking my picture!

Do you have any interesting fall projects that you are planning to tackle?

Fresh vegetables abound

Canning, canning, and more canning...

The house smells fantastic.

Brief reprieve

We took a brief reprieve from the farm to enjoy friends and extended family at the North Country Intertribal Powwow in Newport, Maine. It was a wonderful week full of dancing, drumming, celebration, ceremony, and its share of really hard work. My husband has been helping put on the pot-luck feast at this event since 2004. I began helping at my first visit in 2006 and we have been working with the Littlefield and Luce families ever since to make this event better each year. This picture is of the second tipi on Friday morning just as the fog was lifting from the field before sunrise.

We also help with a relatively new powwow only in its third year – the Great Northern Moose Intertribal Powwow in Dummer, NH. This is a small event which feels more like visiting old friends then it does an organized event. The Tessiers have established a great bed and breakfast and they are working on new campground across the road from the lodge. Out in the middle of the north woods, they couldn’t have a better location to gather and celebrate the Native American culture. You can visit the lodge at http://www.greatnorthernmoose.com/.

My first powwow was in May of 2006 in Tamworth, NH. That weekend I was welcomed with open arms into ‘the family’. The powwow trail has some incredible people and my life has only been enriched by knowing and learning from them. Grandmother Two Feathers and Grandmother Awabejiwani took me under their wing and began to teach me the ways of the red road that weekend. I went to six powwows that summer and at each I gained a better understanding of who I am in addition to meeting and becoming great friends with my husband’s extended ‘family.’ Today, I pray each day to Creator for my friends and family who need help and for guidance in the choices I make and the manner in which I live my life. Sometimes I get so mired down with ‘things’ or distracted by everything on the to-do list that I feel lost. Those days I take out the sage, tobacco, cedar and sweet grass, go outside to one of my favorite places on the farm and talk to Creator. I am left with a renewed sense of vigor and almost always with answer to get myself un-mired.

There are several more powwows in New England between now and the end of October. If you are looking for a great, family friendly and even educational event, look one up. We are hoping to get to at least one more, but it is getting cooler and the fall farm chores are at hand.

May your journey be full of learning today.

Hand painted mandelas

Coyote Mandela

Often my husband will place an item on the table in front of me, ‘just for a few minutes’ while he does something… Usually several hours later some new creation rests on the table in place of the original item. I often wonder if he does it on purpose to sidetrack my day or if he just knows that I need some quiet time. Painting is and has always been an outlet for expression of my feelings or a quiet time of self-reflection for me. I lose myself in the landscape, in the world of the animal or object I am painting. Anytime I try to force creativity out of my mind or hands, the result is disastrous. If it just comes to me one day, the result is usually beautiful.

One day a friend of mine asked me if I could paint a picture of her dog for her on a mandela. Mandela’s are decorative shields; symbols of protection. I did not realize how important this was to her until the day that I was inspired to paint him sitting at the kitchen table with some crafting materials on the table in front of me. The leather thong (lace) was resting in a pile next to some beads, a box of feathers and some sticks which my husband was using to craft some drumbeaters. I asked him what he had done with the tops of the branches he had cut off. He told me that they were out on the side of the garage. I grabbed a scrap piece of leather and proceeded outdoors. Two hours later, I had a great sense of calm and achievement as the mandela hung completed from the china cabinet.

Two weeks later I saw my friend and she stopped dead in her tracks as she walked past the china cabinet and broke down into tears. I have since made 10 more to give to her family and friends in remembrance of ‘Axl.’ It is not only a great feeling to make someone so happy, although I didn’t want to make her cry; but also to be able to enjoy the process of creating the craft or painting in the first place.

I realized earlier tonight as I was getting really grouchy that it might be time for me to take out the paints again!

Learning something new each day

September is looming just around the corner and another summer is coming to an end. My garden has been extremely generous considering the amount of neglect that it has received. The flowers are still blooming in between the weeds. The fruit trees are still yielding a bumper crop of apples even after being assaulted by Japanese beetles. Even the Christmas trees are still growing under the mountains of hay that is growing between them. The saying that you learn something new everyday is no where more true then on a small farm. Some of the more important things that have been learned this year include:

Double rainbow from front deck

MULCH, MULCH AND MORE MULCH – The poor tomatoes are only just now turning red as they were buried under weeds for far too long. Next season, each transplant will receive a good helping of mulch in order to keep them moist and in an effort to better control the weeds.

IF IT ISN’T PLANTED IT WILL NOT GROW – May is planting time in Northern Vermont, it was also an exceptionally busy month here both on and off the farm. Lots of seeds never made it into the starter pots, let alone into the ground. Next year we will be looking at adding some supplemental heat to the little greenhouse we built out of scrap wood and windows. More seeds should be able to be started in the greenhouse and we will both be sure not to pick up any off farm projects or overtime so that the garden can be more successful.

PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE – If one does not give old equipment some TLC throughout the year, when one goes to use that equipment, it will show you how much it feels neglected. You have an hour to get a quick project done before you run out of daylight, you run out to mow at least the front two lawns; the lawn mower will not start because it is out of oil. You note the oil on the list of things to pick up on your way home from work in the morning and go to grab the tractor to run through the upper field between the Christmas trees with the brush hog; the PTO will not turn nor will the bucket lift off the ground because the little leak in the hydraulic system got bigger. You note filters and more hydraulic fluid on your list of things to pick up and warn your husband that he will need to pick up some kind of seal on his way home from work in the afternoon once you have had a chance to figure out which one is leaking. Defeated by outdoor chores, you go inside to run a quick vacuum through your car and put air in the tires and check to see if you need oil or power steering fluid (since you will already be going to the store); the breaker in the garage trips and will not re-set because the mice have decided to build a nest in the breaker box. You add a new breaker to the list of things to pick up tomorrow along with plans to clean out the mouse house. Quick projects end up taking far longer if you do not take the time to take care of your equipment, remember to put mouse traps/poison in the garage, or remember to do the simplest things like check your oil.

Chicken prints on the trunk of the car

CHICKENS – If you don’t want your chickens to get into it, it must be fenced, protected or closed. They are more curious then cats, they will get into your garage, your gardens, your raised beds, your car, your tractor, your house… I have never been so angry or laughed so much as I have with my chickens.

SCHEDULING TIME FOR RELAXATION – No matter how much is on the to-do list, we need to remember to find some time to relax, cool down, and recuperate. While trying to make the farm successful, you can get so mired down in your to-do list that you forget to find time to enjoy the little things that we should be thankful for. No matter how much there is to do; it will all still be there tomorrow.

We are enjoying the fruits of our labor from the garden and hope to be able to squeeze in a trip to Maine to visit friends soon.

Best laid plans...

When we are young, we each make plans for the rest of our lives… At 22, I will get married. I will have three kids by the time I am 30. My husband will stay at home and work and I will be the head of a major corporation by the time I am 35. We will have a home in the northern United States, and two vacation homes, one on the coast of Florida and one in a foreign country if possible. I will retire early and be able to travel with my children on their summer vacations. My husband and I will be walking hand-in-hand on the beach in Florida when we are in our eighties. Oh how our plans do change!

Five years ago I found myself in my early 30’s and recently laid off from a really good paying job in Connecticut. The job market wasn’t looking that promising and my only dependents were furry and four-legged, so I made the decision to move back to Vermont. Four years ago I moved back to the farm with four additional four-legged creatures and a fiancé.

This past week, the smell of homemade bread, freshly baked pies and radish relish filled the farmhouse kitchen as I prepared for farmers market. I paused after preparing the labels for the items headed to market and watched the chickens, ducks and geese lounging in various states of repose in the backyard. They had full tummies after getting left over pie crust scraps. My laundry was drying naturally on the line. The berries which went into the pies came from the farm or from our neighbor’s farm down the road. Radishes, all from our garden, went into making the radish relish. My refrigerator handle was covered with flour as I obviously had not wiped my hands between rolling pie crusts and placing them in the fridge to cool. I though back to five years ago, living in the city, looking out my window to see my neighbors’ houses and cars whizzing by 6.75 feet from my living room window, wondering if I would ever find my place in life.

Tonight as I was getting ready for work, my to-do list running through my mind, my grocery list being jotted on an index card, my coffee spilling on the counter, the cats and my husband protesting my departure, and my cheese slicer missing from it’s rightful place; I paused to looked out the window at the moon and the lake and listened to the geese squawk in protest of being penned up for the night (for their own protection from predators) and I thought to myself, I have found my place.