Thanksgiving Diary

Usually, I have an entire week to cook and clean for Thanksgiving. This year, I seemed to have filled the empty days with other commmitments, and the weather gods did the rest...
Friday before: went to farmers’ market and did deliveries. Should have cooked and cleaned.
Saturday before: went to farmers’ market. It snowed. Terrifying drive home. Should have stayed home and cooked and cleaned.
Sunday before: interviewed possible apprentices.
Monday before: taught a cheesemaking class in Orono. Gone all day.
Tuesday before: Finally get started cleaning. Big storm moves in, power goes out, all cooking and cleaning comes to a halt.
Weds before: Power still out. Go to farmers’ market. Pick up turkey on the way home. Can’t cook or clean. Emergency fence repair. Had to borrow neighbor’s generator to milk the goats and pump water. Decision is made to relocate Thanksgiving to my sister’s house in Camden, where they do have power. Drive the turkey and the stuffing to Camden in the evening.
Thanksgiving Day: Had a dinner that couldn’t be beat, but I didn’t get to host it. Here’s what I couldn’t do this year: my cranberry sauce (bought some local instead), Sal’s special holiday squash (made plain instead), any pies (bought a local one instead).
How the mighty have fallen. I give thanks for sisters.

The New King

Welcome to Big Les, our new rooster, thanks to Jessie. He's a light brahma, and matches four of our hens. Our hens, by the way, are all named Shirley, after Brad's mom, at her request. So, it was only fitting that we name the new rooster after his dad, Lester, or Big Les as he was known to his friends.
Long live the King!

That Ol' White Magic

It never ceases to amaze me that you can take the same basic ingredients: milk, culture, rennet, salt -- and by manipulation of time, temperature and agitation, get an incredible array of cheeses. It’s just magic.
..down and down I go, round and round I go
In a spin, loving the spin I'm in, under that old white magic called cheese ...

My Boys

There must be some capricorn in this old virgo. I love my boys, and I love their stink. I am a sick woman.

Elvis has left the building...

The King is dead. Our rooster, Elvis, shuffled off this mortal coil over the weekend. I miss his clarion call... The farm just isn't the same without his voice.
The bucks breeding snorts just don't do it for me.

Full

Full woodshed.
Full haybarn.
Full grain bin.
Full apple boxes.
Full plate.

A Goat Named Pease (blossom)

Two childhood friends named daughters Caitlin. I only have the one daughter, so cannot return the favor. But I do have a goat named Peaseblossom. I am thinking of using Hurricane names for a naming theme this year, and one of them is Teddy. No Buzz, yet. Sorry, Buzz.

Holes

Wow. The summer flew by, taking with it some new adventures, and leaving behind some holes, literal and figurative.
We had lots of help this summer, with all Fiona’s friends she brought home from college. Our first lesson was that it’s a challenge to keep so many people busy and on task. Our second lesson is that teenagers need a lot of direction and lack focus! But we had a lot of good times gathered around our new picnic table, and got many things done around the farm that needed doing. Thanks to Steve, Jeremy, and Dylan, we got the firewood in, fixed the holes in fences and floors, moved a mountain of manure and built a deck on the cabin. Claire excelled at middle management and delegating tasks, customer relations at market, and packing cheese. Everyone loved the goats. We didn’t finish fixing the porch, and the holes haven’t been filled in.
They were exhausting while they were here, but I miss them all! Holes in my heart.

Spring Morning

Out with the dog at 4 a.m., that zone between night and morning. Peepers peeping, owl hooting. Birds waking up, loon calls from across the lake. Goats stirring in the barn, muffled sound of goat bells. Bats returning to their roosts, wild turkeys leaving theirs.
Close my eyes and breathe in the smell of the lilacs beginning to bloom, and a light east wind brings the scent of the sea.

Oh Frabjous Day!

... to paraphrase Lewis Carroll, we have slain the Jabberwocky of winter.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King, spring at last, spring at last, thank god almighty, spring at last...

Kid Heaven

Just for the kids.

Welcome back, froggers!

I heard the wood frogs last night! Welcome back!
Next come the peepers. Soon, the night will throb with their songs.

Out Like a Lamb -- no, Kid, no, LION!

March did not depart gracefully. We shipped off the first batch of kids to their new home on the last day of March, and then it started to snow again. This endless winter just doesn't want to let go. More snow predicted for Friday. Such an April Fool.

Spring Training: Zero to 46 in 12 days

The first kid of the season was born on March 19. We're now up to 46 kids, with just five does left to give birth. We've gone from not milking to milking almost 30 twice a day, from no kids to feeding them all. We've already shipped off 24 to their new homes, so the kid peak has passed. In the meantime, the girls in the barn get their spring beauty parlor treatments: hooves trimmed, udders clipped. They have to re-learn milking parlor etiquette: no crowding please! no bullying! please use the In Door! And I have to remember how to make cheese again after a long winter's hibernation.

Signs of Spring

The saps buckets are up! Can spring be far behind? The stately old maples that line our road get the traditional metal buckets. Plastic lines snake through the woods and drip into tanks near the road in less accessible spots. We use milk jugs. I've seen almost every kind of container used to catch the precious sap, even plastic bags. It doesn't matter. It all means spring.

A Winter's Feast

Last night we had breakfast for supper. French toast, with slabs of my homemade bread with Brad's own maple syrup. A side order of Cheryl's breakfast sausage. Accompanied by a sparkling hard cider that we brought back from Quebec last year. It doesn't get much better than this!

Colorless

The monochromatic landscape of winter: gray skies, dirty snow, brown dead trees, leaves, grass. Black and white and brown goats, gray shingled house. Black, white, gray and dirty cars. Where are the colors?

I lust for a two-tone, candy-colored car. I miss the jewell-colored macs. So I had to go buy a pink shirt. Is this why Valentine’s Day is in the middle of February?

Christmas Past

This is post-holiday tree recycling at its finest.
The buck goats get a holiday treat of the Christmas tree, and within a day, they've reduced it to a spine.
Their breath smells like balsam pillows.

Year End Accounting: Taking Inventory

It’s not what you think. 2007 was the Year of the Goat-Inflicted Injury.
Feb: Got knocked down by the goats onto frozen nanny berries, which are like marbles, bruised my knee. It’s still sore.
Mar: Sprain my thumb catching kids during round up for the Easter meat auction. It’s still sore.
Apr: Reduced mobility in my bucket shoulder. It’s still sore.
June: Rip open my leg on fencing while rounding up escaped goats, in the dark, in a thunderstorm. Nice scar.
July: Get front teeth knocked in catching kids during the next meat goat round up. Emergency trip to the dentist. Not covered by insurance. Months of dentist visits to fix. They’re still sore.
Dec: Lay open the back of my hand during goat round up for expensive health check required by the state. Another unfunded state mandate. No trip to the emergency room, can’t afford the time. Lovely scar.
Jan: Buck gets ugly on me, and knocks me down. I whack him upside the head with a shovel, and he just shakes it off and shows off by ripping a board off the wall of the barn. I hope he’s still sore as he boards the meat truck.
Notice a trend here?
Resolved for 2008: No more goat roundups. All cull animals go at one week of age, or in the bucket of a tractor. No more expensive vet visits to test for diseases that don’t exist in Maine. My body can’t afford it.

Full Hibernation Mode

Well, I am in full hibernation mode. With the short days, long nights, deep snow and cold driving me inside, all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch movies... I am only milking a handful of goats, so chores don't take that long (unless I have to shovel yet more snow). Evening chores are done before it starts to get dark. All the signals tell me it's time to go to bed, so I have a hard time staying awake past supper.
My sister tells me she can always tell when I'm getting enough sleep, because I start to get new ideas. New cheese flavors and types dance in my head. I find myself tinkering in the kitchen planning new product lines for summer. I truly believe I have time to bake bread and pick up the house.
All too soon, it will be kidding time, when I go from 0 to 60 MPH in about ten days. I have lots to do before then: a full scrub down of the dairy, winter repairs, a new hoop house for the kids. And oh my god, the taxes and financial aid apps for Fiona. Christmas books to read. Web pages to update.
This is the irony of winter. Not enough time.