A New Year on our Almost Farm

It’s 2016. Our home was built in the summer of 2011 and first occupied, though without any water for lack of a well, New Year’s Eve of that year. We’ve come a long way. The water took a while and we were still hauling it from the pond, neighbors, workplaces, etc. til August 2012, I believe it was. For the last few years, though, it’s given us many cozy winter nights by the wood stove, crowded gatherings of happy friends, cooling pond swims on a hot day, eggs for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, baskets and baskets of potatoes, loops of skating on the frozen ice as the dogs chased erratic tennis balls, a rainbow of flowers along the fields and on our table, christmas trees from the backwoods, gallons of syrup, cords and cords of wood for warmth and fuel, wheelbarrows full of vegetables, beef that still packs our freezer, brush pile bonfires of incredible size, amazing views from the meadow atop the hill, and countless memories of our little home.

With all of this has also come the opportunity to dream. Though we’re still split between houses/towns/counties due to current work situations, our minds and hearts continue to be hard at work dreaming up what will come of our Almost Farm. There’s talk of pigs and chickens, cows and rabbits, new barns, a new spot for the strawberries and a sprucing up of the raspberries, a dedicated spot to grow some Christmassy soft woods, a reorientation of the lower garden and  additional pasture on the other side of the stone wall toward the sugarhouse. There’s even talk of horse power.

forgotten sage

Fall into winter…

From central…

new seat for an old (new to us) dozer

taking care of the old farmall

plowing in our overgrown, mostly unplanted, garden plot

wood on all sides of the sugarhouse

stepping stumps?

…to the north!

last day of the season for Willoughby

walnuts!? near Lake Memphremagog

a look into Crystal Lake

nice spot to keep your RV

frosted

Wheeler Mountain with a dusting during deer season

 

 

First snow

We had our first snow in the middle of October. Just a dusting and it didn’t last long, but it certainly gave us a friendly reminder that winter is on its way and there are plenty of things to take care of around the house. November, however, seems to be starting off warmly with temperatures near 60 on my post-work run today.

Pulling potatoes

We pulled up the potatoes a couple weeks ago. Three big rows. Pull out the plants. Shake off whatever potatoes we could. One person with the pitch fork turning the soil and trying not to spear the hidden potatoes. The other person on hands and knees snatching the loose potatoes as soon as they flashed through the dark earth. We saw some big worms and got some big potatoes. Laid them out on an old bedsheet to harden off a bit in the air, but frost was on the way so we tucked them in for the night with a tarp. Our garden, rather untended this year as we are living so many miles from it, was at least victorious in producing potatoes. Too many potatoes this year. Too many.

Fall skies

As we drove South on Vermont’s Interstate-91 last Thursday we were amazed at the sky and how its washboard clouds looked almost like water.

Then later that night we were treated to a brilliant sunset over our hillside pasture.

*No filters added to these photos. Just taken with an iPhone.

DIY: shorten pants while keeping the original hem

In my many years of shortness there have been countless hem jobs. Many with duct tape, a few with emergency safety pins, none that looked very good. These days, my go to hemming technique is one I first saw on a pair of pants a friend was wearing in late junior high. A seamstress had shortened her pants but kept the original hem. I didn’t start doing this technique myself for a while after that, likely because I was lazy and without a reliable sewing machine. I started using it consistently at least 5 years ago.  It has only been in the past few years, however, that I’ve 

See the California drought in seconds

When my husband and I traveled to visit family in California this summer, the drought was evident in their every day lives as short shower times were requested and dishes were washed with great efficiency.

Matt Stevens from the LA Times reports that the most recent four year drought has left many bodies of water significantly drier. He states that Shasta Lake in Redding, California has levels that are down 59% from normal, Lake Oroville in Butte County is down 48%, and Folsom Lake near Sacramento is down 32%.

The drought has been drying up the state for years, but you can see Folsom Lake shrivel in seconds in this incredible time lapse and watch Shasta Lake shrink in the blink of an eye thanks to imaging from NASA.

We just had several days of rain in Vermont with some areas getting 6 inches. Flood warnings abound. What a crazy world we live in.

The part-time tiny house

The romantic notions of tiny house living can be quite captivating. You think of the simplicity of it all, the coziness, the opportunity to have everything work together with clear purpose, and the cost savings. Then you realize that despite how much fun you think you’d have designing or perhaps building your humble abode from a kit with your own sweat and elbow grease, it challenges for full time living are many. Heating? Plumbing? Electricity? Guest space? Personal time on the toilet? And where would you put all your gear? Why is simplifying so overwhelming? As much as all this simplifying is a healthy goal, perhaps some of the extreme examples of minimalist living can be most helpful to us as inspiration and motivation to get part way there. Even if we can’t shrink our full time lives, maybe we can still get the benefit of solitude, slowing down, and being deliberate in our actions with a part time tiny home – a room, a fort, a shelter, a plot where you can have full control and leave the chaos of your 9 to 5, your errands, sorting the mail, or clicking through another ebill. Maybe it will lead to something more and by that I mean less, but for now it can be a commitment to yourself.

We’ve turned our sugarhouse into somewhat of a part-time tiny house. It’s 16’x16′ and with our procrastination in purchasing our first sugar arch to boil sap into syrup with a couple years ago we got a much smaller system than originally planned. This has allowed us much more room than originally planned as well. And so we’ve added books, benches and, when we’re not boiling, a futon. Our home is simple, but this is even simpler. We play games by lantern light, surprisingly powerful and almost blinding if you look right at it. We warm ourselves by the fire crackling in the sugaring arch. We sleep in silence but at the same time the hum of nature still spins around us as the wind and the leaves toss and turn, the birds and the rodents travel the forest floor and skirt along bark and worn stone, and the creek runs swiftly, carrying with its sediment the stories of its former path. Even if you can’t do it full time, do it part time.

Take an old potting shed, a storage shed, a child’s playhouse, maybe an old camper, and make it into a miniature minimalist space. It can be a place to just sit, a place to do hobbies, a place to read, a place make your favorite music or to do nothing at all. Say you don’t have land, you don’t have access to these structures – take hold of one room in your home and make it a place where you’ll feel the freedom of control by removing the technology, the screens, the beeps and rings, and don’t feel one bit bad about it.

–a pallet shed

-“the rock bottom”

–airy backyard shelter

–readymade bungalow

No more dog days of summer?

The days are shorter and certainly, as I drove to a trail race with temperatures in the high 40’s and a cool rain spitting from the sky this morning, colder.  On our dog walk this evening, noses (human noses, that is) were pink with the chill.

Here are a couple dog things to check out as we transition to fall:

Loki the Wolf Dog – Have you seen this dog? Amazing! Beautiful! His Instagram and Tumblr feeds? Amazing! Beautiful! And see his snowy adventure film below because sooner than we’d like to think there will be snow for us to play in, too. Seems as though canine segments should be included in all Warren Miller, Matchstick, and Meathead Films of the future.

Denali – Seeing the recent press on Loki reminded me of Denali. Ben Moon’s dog Denali was a loyal companion and friend through many adventures and even through Moon’s 2004 diagnosis and treatment for cancer. Another Ben, Ben Knight, helped to create this  award winning and touching tribute (from Denali’s point of view) to the bond between a man and his dog – a true friendship.

and finally Phoebe and Tillie – NPR shares the recent rescue of Phoebe the bassett hound thanks to her friend Tillie the Irish setter spaniel mix who live on Vashon Island in Washington.

Hey, this makes the Pacific Crest Trail look easy!

A 3 minute video takes you along on the 2,660 mile Pacific Crest Trail. While admittedly it’s only showing a second of film from each day of hiking, when I compare these seconds to how things might look on most trails in the East…the PCT = possible cake walk!? I’m sure the thousands of folks who are hiking it, especially with inspiration from Wild in recent years disagree, but it’s a nice video to watch and dream of tame trails and sweet scenery.

p.s. I forgot about the mountain lions. I’ll take eroded Eastern rock and root please.