one week old

old friends

I am in the process of preparing the cabin and farm for weekend company. I have a bread and pie ingredients all over the counter and a batch of cookies cooling on a plate. A hot pot of coffee sits on the stove and I'm listening to an audiobook in the as I scramble around the kitchen to cook, clean, and get the place up to snuff. Soon as all is "snuffed" inside—I can go outside and do the same of for the animals. There are coops and cages to clean, pens to restraw, and rabbits to check in on. Cold Antler is expecting more bunnies any day now. That is, if the last breeding took. My fingers are crossed. A good litter of kits can cover a car payment. I don't think it's any secret that I'm not a wealthy individual, so this small homestead depends on all the animals for their help. Sometimes in the form of selling or trading livestock. Sometimes for help composting the gardens with their waste. And sometimes just for three eggs for breakfast. We're one big codependent community here in our mountain home.

But all that aside, Emily is driving up from Syracuse today. Em and I have been best friends since we shared the same ski life in 7th grade in our hometown of Palmerton, PA. Since we graduated from PHS we've been traveling. I've lived in Tennessee, Idaho, and Vermont and she lived in Alaska, China, Seattle, and New York. While her stories are a little more exiting, mine are a little more comfortable. I can't talk about tiananmen square, but I can tell her to make sure the bathroom door is shut tight so the sled dogs don't eat the chickens. Excitement is relative.

So while the sheep are mowing the grass, and the chickens are out scratching in the dirt I'm going to plod around the place getting everything ready for a visitor. I'm looking forward to pie and wine on the porch tonight, long talks about all the stuff going on in my own everyday and hearing about hers. Good friends do not need heavy upkeep. You can see them once or twice a year and feel as relaxed and easy around them as old hooded sweatshirts. I have missed this sweatshirt very much. Her, and Ajay, and other faces from Palmerton haunt me from time to time.

At least I can promise she'll be well fed. A small farm in July is rich in food.

P.S. Anyone have a few good yellow squash or Zucchini recipes they could share or link me too? It's that time again...

you may be a homesteader if...

You have livestock in the back seat

You have day-old chickens in your bathroom (or kitchen, or spare bedroom...)

You hate slugs

Picking up 50 pounds bags feels like nothing

Your house, office, and home has bailing twine everywhere

You get excited when you see TV commercials at friends' houses (it's been a while)

You drink out of canning jars, a lot

You forgot what grocery store eggs taste like and don't care to find out, thank you

You have corn in your backyard

You really hate slugs

Shopping malls freak you out

People who work at the feed store know your first name

The idea of eating an animal you raised doesn't bother you at all

You buy Christmas light timers in September (for the chicken coop)

You're coffee table has hatchery and seed catalogs on it

You love playing in the dirt

Share some of your own, please!

radio on

While doing some Shepherding 101 reading I came across a great tip to help with my fox problem. In the book Living with Sheep (which is fantastic, by the way) Chuck Wooster suggests using a radio as an audio scarecrow. The idea is to get your machine tuned to a stream of human voices and hang it from a tree or fence post. The sound helps keep hungry teeth at bay and so far it's been working. For the past few days I've been placing my hand-crank outside in the garden while the birds free range outside their coop. Today I turned it up and grabbed the dogs' leashes for a good long walk while NPR babysat my wild kingdom. So far Terry Gross has done a fine job keeping the chicken snatcher's paws off Cold Antler.

P.S. Living with Sheep was written by a Vermont author. All the photos are these stunning shots of local farms and fairs. Steve Whetmore (from the sheepdog trials) is mentioned in there a few times with his border collies. If you're even thinking about sheep, it's a great easy read. Pick it up.

calm dogs

Caught Jazz and Annie watching me from the bedroom as I practiced the fiddle in the kitchen. Two calm dogs watching their girl play a few rounds of Cripple Creek. Don't let their quiet fool you—within moments of the snapshot Annie leapt off the bed and plowed into my knees when I told her we could go for a ride to Wayside. Just thought a few paws and some pause might brighten your morning. (I do not apologize for that last corny sentence. Wednesday mornings are a fine time for soliciting day-old nostalgia. It's what gets us to Friday in the office world)...

Good morning!

mountain goat

a man no more

Yesterday after Finn's hike we both hit the road. I put him in the back of the Subaru (which has now transported chickens, turkeys, ducks, sheep, goats, rabbits, dogs, and coworkers) and we drove the back roads into Rupert. Rupert's a small town, mostly farmers, and that is how my livestock Veterinarian likes it.

Dr. Ceglowski's practice is nestled just outside Hebron, NY (on the Vermont side) with a giant red barn and registered Guernsey dairy cattle. Besides being a full-time Vet—he's a full time farmer. "I like keeping busy," he told me as we went over how to administer needles into the shoulders of goats. I liked him instantly. He's a warm, older, gent with a white beard, glasses, and coveralls. He tends to livestock and pets with great care and a large heart. This past winter he made a housecall to my neighbor's to put Cody, their ailing labrador, to sleep in his own living room. Doc will even look after farrowing sows (something few large animal vets will do around here). And talked happily about helping with piglets just a few week's ago at my neighbor Chris's farm.

So this is where my goat's day went downhill. I had an appointment for a professional castration. Finn's my first goat and I wanted to watch and learn the procedure from a doctor. This is not the kind of thing you "wing"— plus, the little guy needed his shots. So to the doctor we went.

Finn was a champion. He stood for the whole event and when all the crushing (sorry guys) of the arteries above his...goods was done he just collapsed in my arms. He looked up at me breathing deep, shaking, scared to death but calm as a lion. It must have been horrible, but considering the pain he was a saint. He also got his rabies and tetanus shots and a bevy of "goat shots" for fancy goat diseases which I was glad to offer him. Amazingly, the whole time with the vet was only fifty dollars, not bad considering the importance and level of care. I was given a booster needle to take and inject in two weeks.

I have syringes in my fridge. Welcome to living with livestock.

When I got home I placed the kid in his pen with fresh soft straw, water, and grain. He slept like a man no more. While he rested my mind turned to work. (I also like to keep busy) So my neighbor Roy and I moved a ton of sheep shit out of the pen with the aid of his giant orange tractor. Some folks spend a good lot of time bitching about green vs organge tractors and their sussed-out merits. Personallly, if it moves a pen full of mud, straw, and sheep droppings I don't care if it's tie dyed. I'm a practical gal.

finn's first hike!

Finn went on his first ever packing trip today. It was just a half mile with a light dog pack. I filled the panniers with raw wool to give them some bulk and had to make some adjustments based on goat-pack designs, but I figures it out and he was able to move freely with the load in place. Finn did wonderfully. He trotted alongside me and loped up the dirt road as we made our way to my neighbor's forest paths. I had been given permission to hike on their trails, and since it's just across the street from my farm it was the perfect training ground. More later on Finn's big day. Can't say the rest of it was as enjoyable for him...

the garden this morning

good morning from cold antler

This morning feels different. I know it's July but had you told me it was an early September morning, I would've believed you. It was cold enough last night that I lit the fireplace and this morning as I zipped up my blue hoodie to feed FInn and the sheep, it felt like I should come into a house with pumpkin bread in the over. Or maybe I'm just projecting? I can't wait for fall.

By the way, my pumpkins are looking amazing! This year may be the bumper crop I've been working for since Idaho.

Yesterday's trials were great. I stayed till the end and spent most of the day scribing again. Got to talking a lot with the judge who gave me the name of a young couple around Troy who have a big operation and working dogs. He said I should see them, make friends, and see if they'll show me around their farm. They also run dogs in the club. It's a start, whoever they are. A field trip may be in order soon.

No fox yet. I've been hunting without luck, but I know he's still around. I put up a baited Havahart trap and the little jerk dug a tunnel below it to eat the bait from below without going into the cage.... I am dealing with a clever predator.

I took off today, as you well know. I'm sitting here with a cup of coffee so strong it would scare my coworkers. The sheep were extra thrilled to be let out into their pasture on a weekday morning. I even gave them a little extra hay to celebrate the stolen time from the office. (Sal seems to enjoy it, as you can see from that photo.) Soon I'll be getting Finn ready for a short hike and then running off to do some farm errands. I have three new laying hens to pick up to replace from the fox losses and Finn needs some shots at the livestock vet. You know, in case any of you nice people wanted a systematic breakdown of my day.

riding to the fields this morning

hen delivery

When I got home from the trials, I was met right at the cabin door by Jazz and Annie. Their dark eyes and quiet voices (they rarely make a sound). My dogs met me at the door and smelled the dozens of sheepdogs I'd be working with all day. Tails wagging, nuzzling their wolf heads against my waist. They forgave me and I hugged them. I would not trade them in for the best border collie in Scotland. They're family, and the only constant thing I've known since I first left Pennsylvania nearly five years ago. Everything else changes but these dogs are mine. It's written in stone.

After the dogs were walked and the farm taken care of—I called my coworker Noreen. (Noreen was the woman I went on that chicken adventure at the office a few week's ago.) She'd just constructed her henhouse and run, and was ready to have the birds she bought with me delivered. I loaded four hens in the back of the haytruck and we headed down the mountain into Arlington. You just can't know the fun of hand-delivering laying hens to a first-time owner.

I showed up at Noreen's to find her laying in her hammock. (I like hammock people, for I am one of them) and she was as excited a girl waiting for her prom date. We carried the cage to their new home and placed in the two Light Brahmas, an Australorp cross, and a Red Star. The four hens made their home their own quickly. I hope they start laying for her soon. Noreen did not stop grinning the whole time.

There is something empowering about raising chickens. I know that sounds a little silly, maybe a little dramatic, but it is. Chickens up the ante from the basic garden. They bring in the element of protein right to your backyard (without all the messy slaughter work or ethics of killing). I depend on my flock to cover a lot of meals and help with baked goods and entertainment around here (I don't have a TV). And with new chicks chirping away, and some new adult birds on the way as well...I hope to stay in chickens for a long time.

the society of lamb and wool

I arrived at Merck Forest and Farmland Center early. My car pulled into the dirt parking lot a little after 8AM. My heart was beating faster than usual. If you're new to this blog (and my story) know that being a full-time shepherd is the dream. There is nothing I want more than to own a little land, raise lambs, harvest wool, and herd with my collies by my side. I was about to enter the world of people I idolize: The Society of Lamb and Wool. A scrappy, but thriving subculture of the 21st century: modern shepherds.

I had emailed a few folks in the club letting them know I'd be there and willing to help, but I had no idea what was in store for me. Volunteering a sheepdog trial can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it means running water bottles and bagged lunches to judges across the field, and other times it means wrestling with Scottish Blackface ewes... (I know. I had done both over the past year.) Just in case I was asked to work the pens, I wore my favorite old boots and put a fresh change of clothes in the car. I would do what I was asked, and I'd do it gratefully.

I also brought my banjo. I did not know if there would be a time and place for music, but I feel that acoustic instruments are like guns or condoms—it's better to have one and not use it than really need one and not have it. I threw my 5-sting in the back and considered myself protected.

Anyway, back to this trial.

I walked the quarter mile through the forest into the open fields. As the trees parted and the morning light filtered through the branches—I stopped to take in the whole picture, like a still from a movie set. A team of horses was coming down the path in front of me, pulling a wagon (taxi service from the parking lots). I sighed the sigh of a woman who had found the life she yearned to live. Relief and panic swept over me like falling in love, which I was.

And it's hard not to fall hard for this world. It really is beautiful. Open Northeast woods with rolling hills of sheep and cattle. Footpaths going in every direction. A fishing pond with children and poles. Post barns with heavy horses in harness outside, waiting their turns to carry their loads. Under the white tents people sat and watched the trial as an announcer explained the course. Sheep bleated from side pens while border collies trotted everywhere—my future partners in labor and crime.

I wasn't there five minutes when Steve Whetmore walked up to me. Steve's been in the New England Sheepdog scene for years. He's one hell of a breeder and trialer. He smiled, shook my hand welcome, and asked me if I wanted to Scribe today? I told him I would be happy to. I had no idea what he was talking about.

I walked down to the judges area and let myself into the trial field to find out. The gate was nothing more than some bailing twine holding a plastic panel. I smiled warmly as I unraveled it to let myself in. This green twine from haybales has found it's way into every corner of my life now. It was only proper to find it at the gates of heaven as well.

Scribing means you sit next to the judge and write down scores as he calls out points being removed. You also keep time. The man of the hour: David Young (a Quebec shepherd and trialer of twenty years). David judged from the bed of his beautiful Ford 250 and I sat next to his tires in a folding chair with a clipboard and a kitchen timer. I was too shy to ask if I could sit in the truck alongside him. (To me trial judges are a form of royalty and pages don't ask to share the thrown.) I knew my role and set the clock for seven and a half minutes. I watched the dogs. I tried to learn all I could.

Scribing a sheepdog trial means you get a front row seat. It's like being the umpires water boy at a baseball game. You sit right by the post (home plate) and as the handler sends his dog out to gather the sheep you watch it all happening right in front of you. David was a friendly and easy-going guy. He answered all my questions and explained when a dog did something exceptionally well or horrid. I quickly realized how invaluable of a learning experience this was, and shut up as he explained about proper outruns and healthy lifts. I am learning this more every year. I watch the dogs like normal people watch fireworks - calm awe and constant wonder. Every time a dog was finished and the handler patted his hip and said "That'll do" my heart stopped. If they only knew how much the chubby girl in the bandana sitting behind them wanted to say those words to her own sheepdog...

I swear to god, in the field above us a man played the bagpipes. Perfect.

I did this all morning. For hours in full sun, I sat by David's truck and watched the advanced dogs work. When another scribe came to relieve me I took a short walk around the farm. I walked past the shearing demonstrations where Jim McRae was trying to explain to come summer vacationers why it's okay for lambs to be weaned from their mothers. Jim was the man who sheared my sheep this past spring. I said hello and chatted with him for a bit before walking up to the hog and chicken pens. Merck focuses on heritage and sustainability. The animals on the land are all historic livestock breeds of New England. Barred Rock hens, Randall Lineback Cattle, and Tamworth hogs. I walked around their pens and houses under the shadow of the giant windmill that generates much of the farms electricity. Grazing animals, renewable energy, farmers and happy people... If Vermont has any say in the future of this country it is very bright one indeed. I'm a proud patriot of this state.

It's hard to believe that last year, while watching this same trial, I was brand new to this life. I walked onto the fields as a spectator last July. Back then the idea of having sheep was ridiculous. Yet here I was a year later and so much has changed. Somehow I managed to get hoofstock and today I am shepherd. (Yes. I only have a few sheep, but I do indeed have them. And I promise you they are only the beginning...) And now after a year of clinics, and trials, and lessons and the failed-adoption of Sarah, I stood before that whole world mildly competent.

I stayed for the whole trial and ended up scribing the last ten dogs. I was slightly shocked to see Donald McCaig come out into the field with his bitch June. I read Donald's book Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men last winter and loved it. I was so very inspired by it. And here before me was the man who's story about finding a border collie in Scotland had kept me company in my cold winter cabin... (They say people never forgot seeing Elvis live? Well, McCaig's kinda like that for me, but with lanolin on his mustache.) I took down his scores like everyone else's. How the hell did I land here? I could not stop smiling.

Tonight as the thunder rolls outside the cabin I'm just plain happy. All the bad vibes from the past week are washed away and replaced instead with this pounding hope in my fiddle-stringed heart. A hope that I too will be a charter member in the Society of Lamb and Wool. But in the meantime I am here.

In the bathroom the next generation of CAF poultry is chirping away. (I can hear them as I write you.) Outside the garden is soaking up every drop of this summer rain. Another litter of rabbits is on the way soon, and so is the possibility of a new black ram lamb. On Monday Finn and I will hit the trail. On Tuesday I'll go back to work refreshed. Everything is happening slowly, but it is happening. And that isn't to say everything is perfect. (Hell no and far from it) But I see no reason to focus on the poorer half of my heart this weekend. Tonight I'll fall asleep tired and happy with kind dogs and a novel by my side.

Tomorrow I'll return to help again. Every day at a sheepdog trial is another step down the right road to life I can't wait to turn around three times on and lay down in. Which I will walk down past trotting horses and their carts in my comfortable boots. I'll find my farm, and when I do I'll meet you there.

i'll tell you all about it

a new year, a fresh start

As a birthday present to myself I brought home a small pile of chicks from the feed store. I went into the store planning to just pick up straw and scratch grains but saw that sign posted by the register: Extra Laying Hens: 2.80 each and ended up driving home with a small box of day-old poultry in the front seat. Since I lost so many birds from this fox it felt like a proper present, the thing to do. As I write you five chicks (four Rhode Island Red pullets and one Golden-Laced Wyandotte Rooster) and a Turkey poult (an heirloom breed called the Narragansett, also from Rhode Island) are chirping from the safety of their bathroom brooder box. The chickens are for Cold Antler, but the turkey is for my friend Phil's Thanksgiving (or Christmas, since it is already July) Table. I'd offer the bird to my own family, but that was a disaster last year. (Not everyone wants to meet their meat...)

Tonight I farmed with a rifle by my side and a loaded clip in my pocket. As I mulched and weeded the garden I let the birds out of their confinement for some armed supervision. No sign of the fox in days, but I am ready when he comes. I have a baited Havahart trap set near the coop (which I rented from my neighbor's gas station for a dollar a day) and have been hunting every morning. I go outside at dawn with hot coffee and my .22 and wait. I have no pity for the fool. I'll hang his pelt on my wall.

There was this moment when I was walking out to the garden with a rifle over my right shoulder and two tomato plants in my left hand and I thought to myself: this perfectly sums me up as a woman.

I propped the gun by the garden fence and let Finn out to romp on his tie-out. I watched the birds scratch and hunt worms and salamanders all around me while I cleaned out their coop. It was a back-breaking few hours of pitchforking old crap-lined straw, but the hard work felt good. I've been stressed out all week, and tired as hell. Not getting enough sleep and over-thinking too much. It was good to just dive into grunt work. I am covered in chicken poo and sweat as I check in with you. I am the picture of disgusting. Happy Birthday to me.

This weekend will be packed with things I love. My farm will be front and center, (there is so much to do here) but I have taken off from work Monday for my own mental health and as another small gift to myself. Instead of the office, Finn and I are heading on a local trail for his first-ever pack hike. It'll be short, and his pack empty, but a beginning none the less. (He's already walking on lead up to a mile every day by my side, and has been borrowing Jazz's dog pack as draft-animal training wheels.) I think It'll be fun. I might make him carry a sandwich for me. We'll do lunch. Clearly, I am a very exciting young person. Lunch dates with ruminants...

Tomorrow morning I am getting up early and driving over the mountain to Merck Forest for the Annual NEBCA Open Sheepdog Trials. I am hoping to either help in the pen or by learning to keep score. (In case I end up in the shoot, loading four sheep at a time onto the trial fields...I'll wear my boots) That day will be wonderful, and probably stir up all sorts of longings for my own lamb and wool farm, a dream that keeps me up at night and makes my stomach turn when I think it might not happen... But maybe someday I'll get my farm, and a good border collie or two by my side. That is the hope. I am big on hope. You have no idea.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll hear all about that tomorrow.

Tonight however, I turn 27. I'm covered in mud, sweat, chicken shit and smell like death—but I am happy. Not blissful. It's been a crap week, but happy. Now, I am going to shower like I have never showered before, slice into the watermellon sitting on my counter, tune my fiddle and guitar and light up the porch with as many candles as I can manage. Tonight I will throw myself a birthday concert. The theme: a new year, a fresh start.