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

Read more…

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

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

Karl's Birthday Spread

Karl turned 40 this week, and though he spent his actual birthday pruning the apple trees, on Saturday night we celebrated in style. Karl’s undergraduate degree is in Soviet Studies, and he spent some of his early twenties living in Russia, so we revisited his youth with delights that ranged from black bread and salo (cured pork fat, think Solzhenitsyn in the gulag) to caviar and blini. The boldest among us toasted him with vodka or kvass (thanks Pam!), and we all rocked out to the strains of Kino and Leningrad (thanks Robb!). A fine way to start his fifth decade!

I’ve had several requests for the recipe for his chocolate birthday cake. It’s one of my favorite desserts, from one of my favorite all-purpose cookbooks, New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant. The cake is dense, moist, and richly flavored. We’re still savoring the last few slices….

Events, Food, Recipes birthday, blini, cake, caviar, russian food, salo

Bea and Charlotte climb one of the apple trees (last fall) that we’ll be pruning this coming Sunday (Jan. 24) for our first homesteading workshop of 2010.

We want to apologize for our absence … it’s been quite a while since we last posted something to the site. 2009 was a rough year for many, us included, and ended roughly as well–with Margaret laid up with pneumonia for almost 2 weeks over Christmas and New Years. It’s amazing how quickly the delicate balance of children, chores, work, and other obligations can be upset when one half of the team goes down. Needless to say, it’s taken us a bit to recover. Margaret’s been working on a post about her time spent resting and recovering, which we’ll be posting soon.

Before that, we want to announce our first Homesteading Workshop of 2010, which will be a Winter Tree Pruning Workshop this Sunday, January 24, from 1-4pm, which we’re doing in conjunction with the Lakes Region Permaculture group. Dave Homa, who has pruned trees professionally, will be showing us how to prune our apple trees while they are in their winter dormancy in order to improve their ongoing health and productivity. The event will include discussion of techniques, common mistakes and suggested tools. Handouts will be provided. The session is expected to run about 3 hours, including an hour outside pruning (so dress warm and in layers), and will be followed by the sharing of a potluck meal (please bring a dish to share). There is a $5 fee that covers the Permaculture group’s Meetup costs. Bring pruners or loppers if you have them. There is a limit of 15 people. (Date: Sunday, January 24, 1-4pm). Hope to see you there!

Announcements, Events, Workshops apple, pruning, trees, workshop

“Little guy” chooses The Year of the Goat winner

And the winners of the Antiquity Oaks blog Q&A book giveaway are:

The Year of the Goat: Catty Jackie

Living With Goats: Annette

Congratulations!

Toka, Tonni and “little guy” deliberate the entries

Events, Goats books, contest, drawing, giveaway

Margaret is doing a Q&A today on Deborah Niemann-Boehle’s Antiquity Oaks blog, and we’re giving away a copy of each of our books to 2 lucky readers who chime in with questions. We visited with the Boehle’s in 2004 during our year on the road, and you can read about that visit in The Year of the Goat!

Events

A sleepy Margaret shows off our Thanksgiving turkey (23 lbs!) before popping it in the oven first thing in the morning.

We have so much to be thankful for:

• Our beautiful healthy children
• The farm and our animals
• Jobs and health insurance
• A supportive family
• Friends who inspire and entertain

And now we have the wonderful Thanksgiving we shared with Margaret’s dad, the Knight-Chamberlain family, and the entire extended family of our friends, Nicole Chaison and Craig Lapine. There were 23 of us (a pound of turkey per guest) and we kicked off the meal with a communal goat milking. Some of the Chaison-Lapine clan introduced us to the custom of a “gratitude basket,” Nicole said a beautiful grace, and we ended the evening with song. Margaret closed out the meal with the poem by Mary Oliver that her mom (who couldn’t be with us, but is very much alive) likes to say for grace.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Read more…

Events, Family, Food, Poems Food, Holidays, Thanksgiving, Turkey

When we moved into our homestead, there were ten ancient apple trees scattered around the property: one near the barn, one near the garden, two at a gap in the stone wall that marks the entrance to the orchard, and six farther down, neatly arranged in parallel rows. Most of the apples are relatively pedestrian varieties like Red and Golden Delicious, but we do have a couple that are more interesting, like a Tolman Sweet, and some baking apples that we haven’t yet identified. Since moving in, we’ve pruned the trees, cleared the orchard, and added two hives of bees. The bees didn’t last the winter and heavy rains knocked off most of the blossoms this spring, but even so, each fall we bring up baskets of fruit for sauce and pie and the trees provide a ready snack on our way to hikes in the woods.

For Valentine’s Day this year, Karl and I bought each other one Reliance peach and one Montmorency cherry sapling, which we planted in the front yard. Ever since, I’ve been lobbying for some pears and a couple more apples. We’ve been held back by two things: the deer that come up from the woods and nibble the branches all winter, and our farm name, Ten Apple. Imagine my surprise and delight when we found, dangling like ornaments in a half-cleared thicket behind the paddock, the apples of an eleventh tree! Its trunk was gnarled, and many branches were dead, but there it was, peeking out from between the blackberries and sumac. The spell is broken! (Though I still don’t know how we’ll keep the deer at bay.) It’s another Red Delicious, but never fear, the Fedco tree catalog is open on my desk and I’ve started my wish list.

Agriculture, Events, Food, Workshops apples, trees, workshop

Purple Fairy, Greenish Fairy, and Princess Florence

Usually we’re goats for Halloween, but this year Charlotte had something else in mind. Her original plan was to combine two of her favorite fantasies to become a Rat Princess, with the rest of us filling out her court as Rat King, Rat Queen, and Royal Rat Baby. On the way to the fabric store, however, she changed her mind so we ended up a motley crew: Purple Fairy (Cha Cha) and Greenish Fairy (Bea), squired about by their parents, the Rat King and Queen. Trick or treat! Read more…

Events, Family Halloween, Holiday, party

We had the great pleasure of being guests on Ray Bowman’s Sheep and Goat Radio Hour on Radio Sandy Springs Web Radio network this morning. We’ve been in touch with Ray since The Year of the Goat days, it was fun to be able spend an hour chatting about goats, homesteading, the new book, etc. The show will be broadcast again Saturday morning (October 31) at 9 am. If you miss it, you’ll be able to catch it in their archives. We’ll post a link here as soon as it’s available.

Events