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200 more bales of hay in the barn, 200 bales of hay. We trucked it back and stacked it up, 200 more bales of hay in the barn!
It was a hot evening for putting hay up (isn’t it always?) but thanks to Steve and Liza we made pretty quick work of it.
We are now within 50 bales of the finish line!
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Steve and Liza have moved onto the farm this month…another Antioch connection and wow are we happy to have them with us! They are hard working, cheerful, independent and hearty! Since moving here August 1st they have instinctively accepted the assistant shepherds role, taken on some extra farm chores and made their cabin the envy of Jack and me! We have a fondness for that cabin as we lived there our first six months here, but they have made us think about moving back in, it’s so charming! Steve is a forester, Liza is accepted for the masters program at Antioch New England for Environmental Studies which she begins in September. We have regularly rented to Antioch students, offering reduced rent in exchange for farm chores. Their graduate studies don’t last longer than 2 years and then they move on to jobs in their chosen fields. It’s always interesting for us and we have met some wonderful people across the past 6 years.
Liza and Steve took on the catered lunches for our annual Earthues workshop here at the farm this month, just 2 weeks after they moved in, and set all sorts of culinary records! (Shown here with one of the lunches they prepared). They are a breath of fresh air and we are delighted to have them a part of the farm and our lives.
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Well, there may be bugs on some of you mugs but there ain’t no bugs on me!
She’s a smart little ewe…she stays in the dark of the shed when it’s buggy and keeps quite comfortable!
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I haven’t a picture for this post but hopefully I can evoke an image in your mind.
We ran an ad in the local newspaper for some of the items that didn’t sell at the yardsale. We got a call from a man a few days later about 5PM. I answered the phone and he chimed right up “What’s that lawnmower you have?” So after a bit of explanation and some directions he said he’d be up around 7PM. He arrived and Jack showed him the lawnmower, he started it, pushed it about on the lawn but decided against it as wasn’t self-propelled. But he asked what else we had for sale so Jack walked with Mr. Pasquarelli down to the machinery shed. They were gone quite a long time. They reemerged about 45 minutes later and he had bought the ATV yard trailer and the yard-size limer to pull behind a mower. The three of us chatted for a bit and we learned he was one of the Pasquarelli brothers, both barbers for many years. Mr. Pasquarelli is 90 but he didn’t look a day over 75! He still works in his yard and garden everyday after an hour of weight lifting each morning. He has a female companion since his wife passed away, she is in her 50’s. He says he not to sure he needs to remarry at this point! God bless him, he was a breath of fresh air and a light shining on the golden years!
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I got back from the Harrisville workshop on Friday late afternoon and Jack and I promptly started setting up for a yardsale here…useful items to be sure but no longer for us. We had a Mosquito Magnet, not useful on 130 acres!, a lawnmower, yard size limer, ATV yard trailer and number of other such things, oh! a canoe!
We set up and were ready to go at 8AM and the folks came from everywhere for about 3 hours. By 11AM we started the trips to the recycling center where we have a great swap shop. When Jack took the second trip all of the stuff he’d left the first trip was gone! One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
We came out pretty well for it and there is a lot of empty space in our sheds again.
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So right smack in the middle of farm improvements and my regular 9-5 job I spontaneously decided to take a workshop with Lynne
Vogel of The Twisted Sisters Sock Book. The course was offered through
Harrisville Designs
http://www.harrisville.com/ and was a 5 day workshop. It was lots of fun. We spun dyed roving initially, picking specific colorways for blending and then knitted our
plyed fibers for
entrelac and
mozaic patterning. I was delighted to master Andean plying as I am a big fan of the drop spindle. (I am the proud owner of 2 drop spindles crafted by Tom Golding
http://www.goldingfibertools.com/ , my most recent purchase one of their vintage bangle spindles with a 1.75 weight…just divine!) To be able to drop spin fiber and ply it with no extra tools and
equipment is the best…my kind of style. Back to the workshop, we then ventured into dyeing roving (chemical dyes which are against my visual and environmental fiber but so be it!) so that we could create colorways that would spin up yarn specific to our knitted choice. Lynne
Vogel offered lots of
entrelac patterns and coupled that with
mozaic and also straight knitted techniques. Texture, pattern, color, fun…it was mostly fun and colorful! There were 16 of us in the workshop, from all over New England and beyond. Good week, good friends and good fun. My pictures are a bit limiting here but give you an idea of the week.
http://www.goldingfibertools.com/ , my most recent purchase one of their vintage bangle spindles with a 1.75 weight…just divine!) To be able to drop spin fiber and ply it with no extra tools and equipment is the best…my kind of style. Back to the workshop, we then ventured into dyeing roving (chemical dyes which are against my visual and environmental fiber but so be it!) so that we could create colorways that would spin up yarn specific to our knitted choice. Lynne Vogel offered lots of entrelac patterns and coupled that with mozaic and also straight knitted techniques. Texture, pattern, color, fun…it was mostly fun and colorful! There were 16 of us in the workshop, from all over New England and beyond. Good week, good friends and good fun. My pictures are a bit limiting here but give you an idea of the week.