Blog
The Woodcock's Dance
July 4, 2025
Yesterday I found a woodcock roosting in the brushy edge of our sheep pasture. It's been years since I've seen one there. We used to hear them every spring as kids, but they lost their favorite field several years ago, and they've been slow to return. They are quite particular about where they choose to spend the summer, so I am very pleased we made the grade. They need brushy pastures for roosting, young forests for nesting, moist woodlands for feeding and fields for courtship.
In late spring a
In the Company of Cedars
June 13, 2025
Even though cedar trees are considered invasive and have a tendency to make a nuisance of themselves in pastures, I'm rather fond of the prickly things. Like a stonewall in the middle of a hardwood forest, cedar trees can help tell the story of how the land has been used over time.
Cedar saplings, which pop up constantly in fields, are one of the few plants that neither sheep nor cows will eat so if the pasture doesn't get mowed, the saplings soon become trees. A good stand of cedars in a
Luddites and The Flying Shuttle
May 23, 2025
The last time we dropped yarn off at the weavers I became fascinated by the loom that Karin's father brought over from Scotland, and was, in fact, immediately sucked down a rabbit hole of antiquity and folklore. With parts dating back to the 1700s, the loom is a functioning story board of the rich history of the textile industry. The older pieces sport the darkened luster of 200 years of age, while newer parts give evidence to necessary repairs brought on by generations of practical use.
The loo
Busy as a Bird
May 16, 2025
It’s probably best, this time of year, to refrain from complaining about how busy you are to any livestock farmer you might meet – unless of course, you yourself are a livestock farmer – or a bird trying to raise a brood here in New England.
I too, try not to whine, at least not out loud, as I rush about my day, trying to get everything done that needs to get done to keep our brand new chicks, lambs, and piglets alive and out of trouble. At first it’s easy - so long as they are warm, fed and
Tributaries
May 9, 2025
When it rains, the western face of our traprock ridge collects all the rain drops as they seep through the talus slope and run under the rocky debris. The rainwater joins the groundwater and flows wherever it can through fractured layers of basalt. At the base of the ridge, the underground springs aggregate and flow until an easier route guides them gently out of the ground through a myriad of seeps and springs. The newly liberated water in turn feeds tiny tributaries which meander in and out
Putting Moms On Pasture
May 2, 2025
My mom was arguably the best mom ever – bar none. And as a mother of five with a full-time career long before daycare was the norm, she was definitely stretched pretty thin. I suspect she discovered early on that the easiest place to cut corners was with food shopping and meal preparation. To save time, she ordered large quantities of everything and cooked while she did a myriad of other things. She was truly the queen of multitasking. She could make business calls, take notes, keep
Romancing the Swarm
April 25, 2025
A healthy honeybee colony, with a summertime population of 50,000 bees, will winter over with only 15,000 workers and the queen. A third of that wintertime population won’t make it through to spring. As the weather warms up, the queen awakens from her torpor, and the surviving crew gets busy preparing for a new season of growth. The comb, now almost empty of the honey that sustained them through the winter, needs to be refurbished to the queen’s satisfaction so she can start laying eggs again.
The Neighborhood Feud
April 18, 2025
I was sitting on the edge of our ridge with a friend, chatting about life and hiding from her kids, when a pair of hawks flew overhead. They barely cleared the tree branches above us and Rebecca let out an audible gasp and said “WOW! How absolutely magnificent!”
“Yes, they are” I conceded – “but we are in the midst of a multi-year feud, a feud which they have been easily winning.”
I explained how whenever we let our chickens out to free range, the hawks treat our flock like their very own “al
The Joy of Playing
April 11, 2025
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Spring is on a roll! Our shiitakes are working overtime, our oyster mushrooms are fruiting, and “in the wild” dryad’s saddle is starting to come in. Patches of ramps are emerging - and I’m sure it’s about time to start looking for morels.
The swampy areas near our pastures have enough skunk cabbage now to keep the bears happy – happy enough, I hope, to refrain from eating our sheep! Our lambs, oblivious to the threats that lurk just beyond the fence, are doing great. Some of the older lambs a
The Rebellion of Lambs
April 4, 2025
In an attempt to protect their monopoly on the wool industry, England tried hard to discourage one from ever taking hold in its American colonies. To that end, the exporting of sheep to America was expressly forbidden, but by 1655, a few smuggled sheep had multiplied to 10,000. Oops! I’m not sure what I find more amusing; that colonial sheep smuggling was actually a thing or that breeding sheep became such a subversive (and successful) act of independence.
Clearly unable to completely stop Am
