Cha Cha tastes her creation in the Ten Apple Farm test kitchen

Charlotte has been really into making salads recently, which is both exciting, and as it turns out, delicious. Her latest creation is a carrot salad with dill and smoked paprika. Seriously. She made this up herself. The smoked paprika and carrots really go nicely together. There are no real measurements of anything when Cha Cha cooks — it’s pretty much all to taste, but here’s a basic recipe, I fudged the amounts, so feel free to fiddle with them. We love it!

Cha Cha’s Carrot Salad

Recipes, cute kids carrots, recipe, salad

Happy Birthday Charlotte!

Charlotte turned 4 last week and was lucky enough to share the celebration with some of her favorite people. Since her birthday falls smack in the middle of strawberry season, we spent the week picking berries for her traditional cake, a three-layer strawberry shortcake. The festivities included goat watching, pea and wild blueberry picking, an ongoing game of croquet (sort of), and a few rounds of marshmallows toasted over our new fire pit. As the party wound down, Cha Cha invited everyone in to meet the newest members of our menagerie, her birthday fish Lucky and Sarah (yes, it’s her favorite name). Happy Birthday, little one!

What do you do at a farm birthday party? Pick peas!

Bea and her blue balloon

Family, cute kids birthday, birthday party

Beatrice and Charlotte decide that they want to live in the new duck house, too.

We jammed a lot into the three day weekend — so much so that it took us until Wednesday to post something about it. It’s a remarkable feeling to look back now over the weekend and revel in our accomplishment. Here’s a quick recap:

Saturday was a day of doors. I got the new duck house facade built with a drop down door/ramp. I got the garden gate hinged and working (we’d been propping it up with a stick). And I got a door on El Diablo’s dog house in the chicken yard. (He can make it up the 8 foot high chicken ramp, but in the summer prefers to hang out in the dog house. The door will keep him safe, and muffle the crowing in the morning.)

Sunday, the girls and I painted the duck house, and then I took out my newly tuned and sharpened chainsaw (that lasted about 20 minutes) and cut up all the limbs and branches we’d had taken down from the big oak behind the house. In the afternoon, our dear sweet girl Charlotte saved a mouse’s life.

Monday, we brought the ducks out of their box in the barn and introduced them to their new house and yard. We put the goats on the hill underneath the oak to clear out some of the bramble that had been taking over, and to expose the groundhog hole. We then turned to mowing and planting, and somehow got the entire back 2 acres mowed (thank you garden tractor!) and managed to plant our tomatoes and a few other things in the garden.

For photographic recap of the weekend, check out our page on Facebook.

The real revelation of the weekend, and I think we’ll be writing more about this in the days to come, was the discovery that we have, after 4 years of doing nothing but letting it sit, beautiful, amazing compost.

Our homemade sifter and delicious compost.

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Farming, Goats, cute kids compost, ducks, Goats, weekend, work

Margaret and Charlotte enjoy a camp fire in our new fire pit, constructed out of boulders and rocks excavated from the garden.

It was a great weekend, and we got much accomplished. Not our entire list, but enough to feel pretty good about our work. The biggest and most satisfying accomplishment of the weekend by far was the construction, inaugural lighting, and marshmallow toasting over our new fire pit. Earth and rock was moved, arms and backs bruised and sore, but when it was all said and done, the joy the kids took in roasting marshmallows made it all worthwhile.

Charlotte enjoys her first toasted marshmallow. Bea looks on with anticipation.

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Family, Garden, cute kids chores, firepit, hoop houses, marshmellows, permaculture, skillshare, work

Beatrice and Charlotte count the newly arrived Rouen ducklings.

cute kids, poultry ducklings, rouen

A poem, by Robert Herrick:

The Argument of His Book

Poems, cute kids blossoms, poetry, Robert Herrick

Sarah put on her dandelioned best for Bea’s party on Sunday

There isn’t a weekend that goes by now that I don’t wish had at least one extra day in it, and really two extra days: one to get a little bit more stuff done around the farm, and one just to recover. This past weekend was jam packed with parties and cakes, and we were able to squeeze some farm work in there as well.

Brooke’s amazing bridal shower cake/cupcake creation

On Saturday, Margaret and the girls headed down to Massachusetts for a bridal shower. If we ever open that bakery we’ve been talking about, our 11-year-old cousin Brooke will be our first hire for sure. Check out the cake and cupcakes she cooked up and decorated!

While the girls were in Mass., I headed North to the Fedco tree sale, where I picked up 3 new pear saplings, two apple saplings, and four high bush blueberries. I love the Fedco Tree Sale, but what I loved about it especially this year was picking up our pre-ordered trees seeing “Ten Apple Farm” written on the six foot tall paper bags containing the saplings, next to dozens of other bags with the names of other small farms and homesteads, each one clever, or sweet, or poignant. It was a great reminder that we are a small part of a greater movement taking place, with many people striving to make new (and old) connections to the land, to their food, and find a better way to live. The trees are sitting in our basement, roots wrapped in wet newspaper and sawdust, waiting to get put in the ground. We’ll write more about the trees and planting when we do get them in, later this week if all goes well.

The big event of the weekend was Bea’s 2nd birthday party. If there’s one thing we do well, it’s throw a kid’s birthday party. With birthdays in April and June, Charlotte and Bea will always be blessed to have some number of baby farm animals around for their parties, and so will never be wanting for a petting zoo. Between the baby goats romping around the yard, the the baby chicks in the backhouse, and all the kids taking it all in, with cupcakes no less, it was a day overflowing with cuteness.

Bea and Connor feed Lily and Nadine

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Events, Family, cute kids birthday, cake, cupcakes, garland, Goats, kids, party

Charlotte digs into her fiddlehead curry

The next installment of our fiddlehead bonanza! We enjoyed this with plentiful basmati rice and a side salad of grated carrots, radishes and coconut from Yamuna Devi’s The Best of Lord Krishna’s Cuisine. As you can see from the pictures, the curry was a big hit with the girls, who couldn’t get enough.

Fiddlehead Curry

Fiddlehead Curry

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Food, Recipes, cute kids curry, fiddleheads, recipe

Bea, Charlotte & Flora in their Eastover finery

Last Sunday marked the fourth annual Eastover luncheon, hosted by the incomparable Leslie Oster at Aurora Provisions. In the midst of our farm bustle, this brief escape (on a weekend, no less!) is my favorite rite of spring: celebrating the season with great food, friends and conversation. We’re a multi-faith group–Eastover = Easter + Passover–and in the years that Leslie has organized it, Eastover has grown from a dozen guests to four times that. New babies have arrived (welcome Violet and Victoria!), new friendships have blossomed, but through it all there are a few constants: the kick-off hunt for chocolate eggs, the beautiful spring flowers on each table, and the centerpiece, the food: tender lamb and sweet parsnips from Broadturn, Sam’s Asian slaw, Kamala’s outrageous coconut-chocolate macaroons, I could go on and on. This year’s menu included grilled Arctic char, quinoa and beet salad, Leon’s famed lamb stew, a layered almond-chocolate-meringue torte, and flourless chocolate and honey cake, among many other treats.

It was a glorious afternoon, made even more so by its contrast to the rest of our day: Karl had awoken at 5, done chores, and spent the next four hours mucking out the large goat pen. We traded off at 10 (when my cake came out of the oven), and he cleaned up while I took a turn with the pitch fork. After the party, I changed back into my grubbies and finished up, while Karl raked out the perennial beds and the girls played in the sprinkler. A fine, full day. Happy Spring! Read more…

Events, Family, Food, cute kids celebration, Easter, Eastover, Food, goat pens, Passover, spring

While they’re not quite ready for full barn duties, Charlotte and Bea are learning to start their days with chores. Ours is a family farm, and we encourage the girls not only because we want them to learn responsibility, but also because it’s just fun to work together. Watching them, intent on their respective goat kids, reminds me why, when my hands are blistered and my back aches, I keep shoveling or tilling or planting or doing whatever is my day’s project. It’s one of those simple and profound lessons of parenthood: I want to be as good an example for them as they are for me.

Family, Goats, cute kids children, chores, kids, parenthood, work