March 27, 2020
March 27, 2020
Pandemic or not, the lambs are arriving and with them come stressful days, sleepless nights and equal parts joy and chaos. We wouldn't have it any other way- but it is tiring.....
March 20, 2020
For years I have been assuring Anne, "pretty soon, things will settle down, life will be calmer and we can have a cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon" - I had no idea it would take a pandemic for those words to come true, but there it is, tea in the middle of the day...
March 13, 2020
Our fiber festival, like most everything else, has been postponed. We still need to shear the sheep, so we will livestream the shearing.
We are planning to continue our delivery service, as long as Anne and I remain healthy (which we fully intend to do!)
I think a small scale delivery and distribution service, such as ours, of local farm fresh foods, can offer some comfort to our friends and family. So let us know if we can do anything to make your lives less stressful. - No we won't start stocking toilet paper, but we did just get in a half ton of pig food, and are picking up another half ton tomorrow. We all have our priorities, and while yours might be the finer paper products, our priorities lie with keeping our pigs from going feral and our friends and families well fed.
March 6, 2020
The lamb cam is live! Now we just need to find a way for it to pay for itself.... - and lambs- we definitely need some lambs.
We have been busy with "sugaring"...Collecting sap, boiling it down, finishing the syrup. If we kept track of our hours, which we try hard not to do, it comes out to $10 an hour for all the work that goes into a gallon of syrup. There are more profitable ways to spend our days - even farming!- but what would Spring be like if it wasn't mostly spent inside the steaming cocoon of our Sugar House?
We built temporary sheep pens and ramps for the shearing event, which will take place inside the barn, at Hill-Stead. (March 21). The pens have to be sturdy enough to keep in the sheep (that will definitely want out) and keep the kids out (that will definitely want in) and the railings for the pen have to be removable and freestanding so as to not damage the historic integrity of the Museum's barns.