Experiments in writing its Monday.

The culprits booker on the left Lulu on the right.

This week I am going to try something new. I usually write my blog probably about 4 times a month maybe a bit more maybe a bit less but the thought occurred to me yesterday to see what it would be like to write one everyday for a week. Would I have a lot to say? Would I run out of ideas would I get bored? So here it goes.

Today is Monday a grouchy day of the week for me. Not many people like going to work on Monday and I confess I am not one of them that do. Not only do you have to face your own bad mood but you have to deal with all your co-workers bad moods too.  I try to be zen about it and not wish my life away by wishing it was any day but Monday but I confess again I fail most times. I do try to see the beauty which is prevalent on my long commute down 87. As I left my crazy office building (it is basically perched on top of a paper mill) the sky was amazing and I thought to myself for the zillion time why don't
 carry my camera with me always. I miss some great shots I really do. For example on my way to work today about a few miles from home got to the top of the hill that winds up from the river valley below and the moon was still up and it was surrounded by a perfect circle of clouds. I tried to capture it with my cellphone to no avail. A missed shot that's for damn sure.

Boring day at work talking about paper came home and to be nice i let the dogs out while I brought the remainder of the groceries in. I trust Lulu the older one but the puppy Booker is still a total wild card. I should have known better. It was like letting them out into a black bottomless chasm. I came back out shaking the cookie bag and nothing.......I walked I called I shook the cookie bag nothing.... Trying not to panic watching cars go by I figure if anything they are out back exploring the 196 acres or so behind my house but still couldn't help but worry and call myself an idiot. Finally Lulu came back. I asked her where her dolt of a pack mate was but she wasn't giving anything up. So I put her back in the house and got in the car and drove up the farm road about 1/4 mile up the road (yes I realize I could have walked but it was dark and I was tired) i see some eye shine and there he was. I hauled his ass into the car hoping my husband would notice how long I was gone. Luckily he didn't and I confessed anyway.

See didn't think I had anything to say and I told you all a story.

happy Monday everyone remember to look for the beauty in everyday life even if it is Monday. I'm still trying.

P.S. don't try and write and make dinner at the same time. I put some butter and the garlic on the stove to get nice for a little spinach and by the time i got back burnt to a cinder!

Dirty Hands for the last time this season and bonus days of grace and beauty.

View from kitchen window of new garlic bed too rainy to go back outside!

Just finished planting the garlic something as usual for me I was procrastinating about. But I saw another farmers post on facebook about getting it finally planted in the rain and it made me feel guilty then a quick check of the weather made me get up in a hurry and get the damn thing done. Looks like its going to be a cold week ahead after some maybe heavy rain tonight so I was officially out of time. Thankfully Tommy was up to helping me and he ran the new BCS (fancy italian tiller from heaven) through the new bed a few more times while I spread some manure and fertilizer down. Then I dove into the dirt like only I can and got that garlic in the ground. I hate when I have put something off then finally get it done and then realize it only took us about 45 minutes to do. Oh well lessons I never seem to learn. 

You can see the new bed in the picture above I was too wet and chilled to face going outside again so I took the picture from the inside. Don't laugh but after 3 years of owning my camera I just got around reading the instruction booklet and figured out how to take B&W pics. I love shooting in black and white always have. One thing I love about farming is how peaceful it is when you are out there and its quiet and the rain is falling but not too hard to make it terrible just enough to set a nice scene. The chickens even came over to check out what the crazy humans were doing but thankfully garlic wasn't for them and they moved on. I like my chickens they always come over to investigate what I am doing. Sometimes I wont even notice them and then I will turn around and Clive the rooster is hanging out behind me checking me out. I like to think hes got my back but I have no idea what he is really doing.

I feel better I got some work done pretty much the last chore of the season. The main bed has been mowed and we just need to get the high tunnel prepped for winter and cleaned up and we should be good to go. We spent most of yesterday driving around trying to find supplies to make soap. I have been dying to make soap lately so I finally bit the bullet and ordered some lye from the lye guy and it arrived yesterday. After errands yesterday spent the most glorious afternoon sitting in the yard basking in the sun like a cat. What a bonus day to have this late in the season. What beats sitting in the sun reading a great book you have been looking forward to reading (Second Chance Dog: A Love Story by Jon Katz) while your dogs bask in the sun in the middle of November. Not much I say not much. Funny at one of the more poignant parts of the book I started to tear up and of course at that moment the fedex driver showed up with the Lye. He must have thought I was really happy to get that Lye. What a nice day it was. 

Booker taking a sun bath!

Acts of charity thank goodness for friends and a butt size depression in the couch.

View from the kitchen window.

Its been a tough couple of months around the old homestead and one thing that is really taking the brunt of it is the homestead itself. I have never been much of a housekeeper and with things the way they have been I have been even worse than usual. Between working full time and then trying to farm in my free time the house just started falling farther and farther down on the list of things to be done. And honestly I am one of those people that once something becomes overwhelming well I really start ignoring it. So needless to say my beautiful house built in 1775 was starting to look like something a bunch of meth addicts live in and I think it was making my borderline depression even worse.


But folks do not despair because a little angel came to rescue me or maybe rescue my husband (who between you and me is under employed but has been sick and depressed and not up to doing much of anything besides watching tv on the couch been sitting on it so long there is actually a permanent depression where his butt has been).  Our friend Missy came over yesterday armed with supplies and started cleaning the kitchen and as embarrassing as this was for me I decided to go with it and be happy someone was willing to help. Now Missy to be honest is one of the most warmhearted and generous souls I have met in a long time and coming over to start getting my pigsty of a house in order is just one example. It was odd though to see another woman's touch in my own house but it was neat in a way too to see how she arranges things and how she likes to hang her dish towel. It was almost intimate if that doesn't sound too creepy. Most appreciated was the way she cleaned and dusted my cherished cook books you could tell that she knew how important they were to me it showed.

Seeing some progress though really helped with my head I instantly felt more grounded something which I haven't felt in a long long time. I have felt totally disconnected from almost every aspect of my own life. And I have HATED feeling like that. But just seeing the progress she made felt like a switch had been thrown in my brain and I starting waking up and seeing things as they really are. For the first time in a long time I am actually looking forward to going home and cleaning and getting the house in order. For the first time in a long time I feel like I own my life and my house again. Its amazing isn't it how things work one act of generosity makes a huge dent in another persons depression. How cool is that? Thank goodness for friends.

Where is the couch Freud and looking a more meaningful life.

Life. Life is not easy right now its not terrible but its not great either. Nowhere that I want to be. I want to be living a life of meaning and purpose and I don't think I am there not nearly there at all  Life can be so bleak and you see it everyday you see it so hard you almost feel bad ever feeling bad for yourself because there is ample proof that probably a good percentage of the world has it far worse. But does that discount your own hurt just because you have a full belly? I don't know. I know I always always have to be thankful thankful for the life I have the family I have the place I live the animals who share my life but sometimes I struggle with not feeling it. Its like I am a character in my own play and I am not owning it I know the lines to the play but they aren't coming out right. Does this make sense? I think it comes down to knowing that I can do better and I better get at it life is flashing by and I am almost half way done at 44 if I am lucky.

So what is my plan? Not really sure but I think one of the ways to get more grounded is by creativity. Growing season is over and I know I get a little lost it in all during the summer I get lost or maybe found with my hands and feet in the soil working my ass off to produce food. I have never had a goal like that before an all consuming goal that makes my mind so active its hard to turn off and my heart pound with joy at the successes and even at the failures. I understand failure I have always been well tapped into the dark side of feelings. But when winter comes I think I get a little lost I have lost in a way that purpose so newly found. Oh man do you think I am hiding from myself in growing food? Freud where is the couch dammit!

So being a Virgo I have to have a plan because I can see now where I want to be the kind of person I think I can be and enjoying the life I have been given and sorry but in being an atheist I am pretty sure this is the only shot I will get at it. I think to chase all the hobgoblins of fear and angst away I am going to embark on a campaign of creativity. Now I can paint but I cant draw but I am getting more and more drawn to the fiber art. Last year I began knitting during the winter with some strange result and this year is the year of the quilt. I cant wait to try and teach myself how to quilt. Hey its beautiful and practical whats better than that! So here is trying to ground myself and to feel connection and wonder in this world by creating a bit. Here's hoping it gets me through the dark times until growing season begins again.

Strange Dreams and then some.

I have always been a vivid dreamer.  I dream in color, dream a lot multiple times a night, can be in them or just watching, can be male or female myself or a character. I can even wake myself up and if it was a good or interesting dream I can go back to sleep and put myself back in the dream. Its always a little different but the same theme once I get there. I love dreaming like I love sleeping maybe the dreams are one reason I like sleeping so much. Okay paired with being pretty lazy. I hear you I hear you. So early this morning must have been between 5 and 6 am I have a whopper of a dream...I have never posted about my dreams before but this one was so interesting so here we go.

My brother is taking me to meet a man and he tells me this man likes chubby women and women who love the ballet. I look at him and say I got that. So he says we are going to see this guy at his upscale apartment in a tall office-like building but instead of entering through the door we have to enter through a small opening that we crawl through like a heating duct or something. So I think this is strange number one why is my brother kind of pimping me out (don't worry Dave it wasn't you but the younger weird brother I never had) so i start to question this mode of entry but he says don't worry this is how he likes people to visit and don't worry hes cute. So I fall for that and say okay if hes cute that's cool.

So we enter and my brother disappears and the guy is older but cute and Italian I think. So we chit chat etc and then end up going to bed the sex is pretty decent and then afterwards he makes enough oblique comments that I realize he is going to kill me and he is going to kill me by making me go out a different exit much the same as the entrance but in leaving through the exit i will plummet to my death. So I start stalling telling him about myself and my family I think I even make a pot of tea anything to avoid my demise. Finally I can stall no more and he starts to shove me out of the window and I look down at what looks like the streets of NYC and maybe the facade of the Plaza hotel? But the rub for him is that we are only like 50 feet above ground and there is a canopy underneath so I say dude this fall isn't going to kill me what are you going to do now? So he starts shoving harder harder to get my fat ass out the window and I get far enough out that i look to my left and a young lady is standing there on the ledge apparently trying to kill herself. So I say listen we will talk about this later but can you scream an alarm for me this asshole is trying to kill me. It gets a little vague here but somehow I jump down and survive. At this point I take myself out of dream and watch.

Yes I can do that and yes its cool sucks if you do it during a good part though. It becomes like watching a movie. Now I watch the action the young girl (I think from the ledge) starts to run down the busy sidewalks of NY and magically the bad guy appears and he is PISSED so he pulls out his huge out of date cell phone (one of the flip phone ones that is almost as big as a house phone with the huge antenna) and he dials his nimons and says red alert she escaped. and he start his pursuit and I wake up.

I lay there mulling over the action of that my brain has just delivered and then I slowly fall back to sleep and put myself back into dream. The action now opens at the house I grew up in and my parents are there and I think there is some kind of cooking anxiety for me maybe no clean dishes and only 3 eggs to feed 17 people on Thanksgiving anyway something like that. To calm down I walk out on the front porch and there amongst the fallen leaves and debris that accumulates on any front porch there is a package for me and its from the Italian. I open it and it is a statue that I think I admired at his apartment and it is of a sacrificial bull kind of cycladic style and at first I am floored by this gift (apparently I am easily swayed by gifts try to kill me but buy me a gift and we are all squared?) and I am happy but then I realize he hasn't taken the price tag of $150 bucks off and I think how tacky he wanted me to know what he paid for it. Attached to the price tag was a note to me it was written in red ink and effeminate handwriting and yes folks I woke before I got to read it. Damn dog that had to pee! And the return address had an Italian name like Mr. Berlucsoni sounds like the old PM of Italy? Omg I just goggled it up its him but in my dream he was much cuter. Dreams are strange got to love them. 

First Saturday off since June and I still woke up early.

I had planned to sleep in today like only I can but alas I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep so instead of trying I grabbed my camera and took these shots of the fog and sunrise.

This is the first weekend since June we haven't had market to go to so no waking up early to pick and wash and pack and sell vegetable instead we are going to go up to Glens Falls to the farmers market to be consumers. Its always fun and I think good practice too to see other farmers displays and methods and to get ideas for improvements to our own setup and display for next year. Then we are off to get some lumber to build a few raised beds outside the kitchen for a nice herb and flower garden. I have always wanted one and this year dammit it will be mine. Our mower finally died this week and some how my John Deere dealer got them to up my credit limit (he must be a miracle worker) so we are going to buy a used one that is much bigger and should fit our needs better you can also get some farm-like attachments for it so that should come in handy that paired with our new walk behind tractor hopefully next year we will do a better job at this enterprise of farming. I am doing way too much work by hand and I need to start working more efficiently and spending the limited time I have more economically. Here's hoping I hate spending all my time weeding instead of planting.

My grandmother is in town with her cousin and her cousins son and I look forward to having a nice family dinner at my parents tonight. This is part of the family that still farms a bit making hay and I cant wait to talk shop I have million questions about making hay. Well maybe not a million but more than you probably think one person can have. Hay fascinates me. Well off to start the day. Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Barnheart, Farmache whatever you want to call it I have it bad and my solution so far.

The other night I was lucky enough to be able to attend the launch party for Jenna Woginrich's new book "One Woman Farm" and in listening to her talk about the themes and variations of her life on her own farm it got me thinking about my own small dreams and how I have gotten where I am (for better or worse). I bought a copy for my mom too and after she had read it last night while the rest of us went out for dinner (she wasn't feeling well) we had a nice talk about what Jenna calls Barnheart and Jon Katz termed Farmache in his post the other day farmache-life-and-fantasy-on-a-farm. Which funny enough when I first saw his word for some reason I pronounced it in my head with a soft ending on the ache. So to me it sounded like a french affliction until I realized he meant ache. Yes i can be a bit of a dork sometimes. I also recently subscribed to the magazine Mother Jones really thinking I was going to get Mother Earth News I was very surprised when I got my first issue there was nothing about raising chickens.

My husband and I moved here from Connecticut just a little over 9 years ago. My parents had left Greenwich a year or two earlier and were living in Saratoga Springs. I have always loved saratoga I  spent two summers up here as a kid attending the Briansky Ballet School at Skidmore College. We have family friends who  worked at Skidmore and have one of those great houses on Union Avenue so I was lucky enough to spend time here throughout my life whether it was at the track or at the Ballet. I love this part of the country. After 9/11 and losing my job we decided to throw a hail mary and move north. A few months earlier while I was visiting the rents my Dad took me out for a drive along route 29 to visit Saratoga Apple and once I saw those distant mountains of Vermont I was hooked I knew I didn't want to live in Saratoga but I knew I wanted to be close by. There is one thing I have always wanted and that is land. I think it stems from growing up in a beautiful house in a rich town but the one thing we did not have is any land our house pretty much took up our 1/4 plot. All these themes came up in talking to my parents last night after dinner we always have good talks and this was one. My mom is still slightly puzzled why I choose to try and be a farmer in my small way I am sure it puzzles people all the time why would I choose to give myself a second job when I already have a full time job? Beat me. Oh I know why I do it I am only kidding I am one of those people that don't do anything without a list of reasons. I am a Virgo I cant help it. So why do I do it? Because right now in my life it is the only way I can get close enough to the dream of being a farmer. I do come by it honestly actually its in my blood my Mom reminded me that since her family came over on the Mayflower they have always been farmers well at least until the time of my great grandmother. So I guess I am the first person trying to get back to the old ways trying to leave the suburbs and go back to where we came from in the first place.

But I know myself well enough I am never going to be one of those lucky people who said enough forget it life is too short to work in a job that isn't what you want to do to have the balls to quit and go for it to go for the golden ring. Nope I am sorry that just isn't who I am I wish it was sometimes. But I am sleepless enough with my present worries I wouldn't sleep at all. But I sure do appreciate the people who do have the balls to do it who give the rest of us hope and the joy of watching someone else succeed at Barnheart or Farmache or what ever you want to call it that need to get back to nature to get back to the soil to produce food for yourself and to be responsible for yourself. Thank you Jenna you rock and thank you for letting us tag along on your journey and being honest enough to show the good and the bad the successes and the failures I think thats really important you have to share the whole story its the only honest way.

So since I cant or wont jump all the way into being a full-time farmer I spend almost all my free time growing vegetables for myself and market out of my 2 acre backyard. Luckily this small parcel of land (I would have thought it was the size of Africa growing up but now I realized it might not be enough) is in the midst of someone elses' 196 acre dairy farm and my yard is nice and flat with only a small amount of trees. This is my second year at market as "3 Dogs Barking Farms" and I think we are doing okay. Still have A LOT to learn but there are enough small successes to keep me from pulling out my hair and giving up. But I do have a plan of sorts for getting where I want to be to be able to do this full time or maybe more full time and working elsewhere part time. Hopefully over the next few years with the added income from farming we can reduce our debt and with the affordable health care act the corporate world can no longer tell me i have to work for them in order to get health care (take that you big meanies)  and then maybe I can find a job that wont pay as much but would be closer to home giving me more time to grow things and then as the income from the farm increases maybe I will have to work off farm less and less. See it is a plan of sorts. So this is my own story of Barnheart and of Farmache and my small solution to getting part of dream if not the whole thing. Heres to hoping the rest of dream comes my way.


Guess what time for another nap its Fall people its Fall! And I am tired.