Farming in the shade

Today I am composing my 1,000th blog post. My posting stream over the years has ebbed and flowed. Sometimes it has nearly dried up. Many things have changed in the eight years, four months and twenty-two days I've been blogging. When I started, our kids were all teens or pre-teens. Now they are all adults. All of them are gainfully employed, own small businesses, and/or are working on a degree. There are still some piles of dirty laundry, smudges on the refrigerator, and a few pair of shoes to trip over--but these are fewer than they were eight years ago. Instead of being a stay at home mom who homeschools her kids, I am now employed part-time as our township clerk and work on the farm in my free time. I just finished parting with the last of the expendable homeschool materials, though I have kept many of our favorite books for future little people who may come to visit. Over time we have transitioned to organic farming. We added beef cattle and dry beans to th...

But here is my best shot at it. We planted beans. No new varieties this year, unfortunately, and it looks like the Marrow and the Green Flageolet have have not sprouted well. I visited Chicago with our two oldest daughters. Daughter #1 had a conference for work, and so the hotel (the biggest expense in Chicago) was covered. We used the GO Card for Chicago to see several different attractions, like the River Architectural Cruise (above) and the view from the Hancock building (below). While we were gone, The Farmer mowed and put up part of the first cutting of hay. He hasn't mowed any more hay, as we've had a veritable monsoon since this hay was put up. It's either feast or famine with the rain here lately. We also celebrated the marriage of daughter #2, and son #1 moved back in to our home. Big changes; no pictures. We kept moving the sheep and cattle around on their rotational grazing plan. We continued to work on the barn, by installing a new s...

Last Saturday was our Shearing Day Event. Photos are in process and we should have some posted within the next week or two. Please be patient. One of the things we do almost every year is a prize giveaway. Last year, with 400 attendees, we gave away two prizes. This year, we had about 180 people visit, and very very few of them elected to enter the prize drawing. So this year we are giving away one prize. We used a very high-tech process to determine our winner. We put all the entries into a cardboard box, and shook it vigorously. Then we picked (without looking) one of the entries out at random. And the winner is... Isabel G! I am emailing you with details as to how to claim your prize.

Today we had the third tree guy out to assess the damage and give us a bid. The other two tree guys are wonderful at what they do--but they suggested we take all the damaged trees down. That is not what I wanted to hear. How will it be Shady Side Farm without those big silver maples? So I called a third tree guy. We are waiting to hear back from him. We are also waiting to hear back from contractors, who are apparently busy with other things. We are busy with other things, too, so they don't get reminded much. So, even though the yard is mostly cleaned up, the house still looks like it was in the center of a minor battle. And our crushed grill was called into service just yesterday. We had to prop it up on a block of wood (former landscape timbers) to keep it level. I can't decide if the fact that we are so desperate for grilled lamb brats that we would use a destroyed propped-up charcoal grill is pathetic or comical. Carry on, soldier.

It seems that I'm getting a lot of spam here at the blog lately. In an effort to cut down on it, I've added the dreadful word verification form to the commenting process. I don't like it. But I also don't like spam. If things lighten up (spam-wise), I'll try taking it off for a while. In the meantime, please accept my apology for the additional step when you comment. (By the way, I love comments!) We are busy planting crops and moving sheep and cows from pasture to pasture and endlessly fixing broken equipment. We are also struggling with the reality that an extended family member is under hospice care. Forgive me if I don't post as often as I should to hold your interest. Life is short. Please go hug those you love...

Just read an article (the second this week) about being faithful to the task at hand. I'd love to, but I've got what feels like 47,000 tasks at hand.  When The Farmer started with the beans, and indicated to me that this would mean going to farmers markets, I begged off. "This will be your thing, okay? I don't really want to take on any more." Fast forward to now, when we regularly attend two farmers markets, and are looking to add in a third. They're all on Saturday, and all in different cities. Guess who is going to market? We're winding down with homeschooling, but I want to finish well, and not sputter out like a lantern with a worn wick.  About four years ago, I started a part-time job. It has released some of the financial pressure that used to threaten to crush us. But at what cost? Even when I'm not AT work, I am thinking about it.  There is more, but I won't bore you with details. The truth is that the juggling of many...

Some of the projects we've been involved with over the past few weeks have taken away from my blogging time and motivation. Our beans will be featured in the Grand Rapids Magazine's December edition. At least that's what we've been told. When we were interviewed, we realized that we really can't put off having a real website much longer. So we've been working on that, with the great help of our daughter and her co-worker. Whatever "works" about the website is because of them. Whatever is clunky is probably where you see my fingerprints. No, we're not unveiling it just yet. It still needs a little more spit-polish. For a couple of weeks there, this blog's future hung in the balance. Why not just incorporate the blog into the website itself? Have everything look uniform, streamlined, less cluttered... But I just couldn't leave it behind. So, while I may rearrange the furniture a bit sometime this winter, I'm sticking with the blo...

One would think an early-morning walk in the countryside would be quiet. Right? I spent some time listening this morning. A barking dog. Early morning birdsong. A far-away siren. The random shots of an air cannon. This cannon is used in neighboring blueberry fields (photo above) to scare off the birds that would gladly harvest all the ripening fruit. We segue right from firework season to blueberry cannon season. The bleating of ewes, calling for their lambs. We separated them yesterday, and it's always a sad couple of days on the farm. Highway traffic noise off in the distance. The crunch of gravel under my feet. A rooster, announcing that the world is lucky he is alive. What do you hear when you go for a walk in your neighborhood?

With gratitude to those who have given their lives through the years for our country.

I've just now started answering the phone, after nearly two weeks of letting every single phone call go to the answering machine. It was election time here in Michigan, and a couple of the candidates had the misguided idea that whoever bothered people the most would get the most votes. It's been a week since our Shearing Day, and while we had a great time, and things really couldn't have gone any better, we still don't have all the set-up taken down. During this week, The Farmer had all he could do to get his own work done and milk the cows of another farmer gone on vacation. Also during this week a bunch of the Suffolk ewes, who were SUPPOSED to begin having their lambs a month ago, started popping them out. We think we are at 14 or so. But we have been too busy to count. A friend mentioned that I had a lamb chart on my blog last year. I don't remember how I did that, and haven't been able to find any help from Google. My favorite photo editing site--picnik.com...

What do farmers do in the wintertime, anyway? Pay taxes. Fill out organic paperwork. Order seed and nutrients for the spring planting. Attend commodity and board meetings. Rest a little. Take a vacation (unless you're an animal farmer). Milk cows for other farmers while they take a vacation. Knit socks. Weave rugs. Go to year-round, indoor farmers markets to sell food and fiber. Fix and rebuild broken things. This morning, as we left a breakfast meeting on social media (yes, really), The Farmer got a phone call. He tossed me the keys, and I drove home so that he could talk without distraction. You see, The Farmer is a mini-expert on composting. And people get to know that, and call him. And all the things that he's learned over the years, he gives freely to others. This morning, as I drove, listening quietly to him tell an Amish farmer why windrow composting would probably be his best option (it was because of the straw bedding), I was grateful. All those people who poured know...

Plans are coming together for our Annual Shearing Day on February 25, from 9 - noon. It's a Saturday morning, and we're hoping for decent weather. Not sure what kind of weather is best--perhaps frozen ground (for parking) with no ice (for falling). We're lining up the demonstrators (so you can see what is done with wool) and the shearers. We've got a good part of our helpful crew in place. But we could stand to have help with parking cars the morning of Shearing Day. If you've enjoyed shearing day in the past, and could volunteer for an hour or two that morning, would you email us? If we get several helpers, the shifts will be short. You can even come with your family and let them enjoy the activities for a couple of hours, while you park cars for part of the time.

Soaking some yarn to make it "bloom" so that The Farmer can knit socks with it. Unwashed (as in straight off the cone) yarn is too crunchy to knit socks with. The past couple of weeks have been filled with doctors appointments, claim forms, and prescriptions. Man, are there a lot of people sick in my family. Honestly, The Farmer hasn't been truly well since before Thanksgiving. He finally succumbed to a sinus infection about two weeks ago. He still isn't well, even after a round of antibiotics. One of our daughters is dealing with a mild medical condition and another daughter is dealing with a slightly less mild medical condition. This leads me to wonder aloud why it is okay to take antibiotics when you have an infection, but not okay to give antibiotics to an animal when it gets an infection. Organic standards do not all make sense to me--especially those regarding animal care. Which is why our crops are organic and our animals are not. Would you or your family membe...

We've only seen a few flakes of snow so far this year. That's okay--I'm willing to wait until closer to Christmas for the stuff that sticks. In the meantime, can you guess what these snowballs really are? Last Saturday we sold out of wool dryer balls at the Kerstmarkt. We've been scrambling to make more for today's West Michigan Co-op drop off (had orders for them, and can bring extras for impulse buyers). And of course we'll need more for Friday and Saturday's Kerstmarkt. So we've been working on dryer balls. What did you guess?

Help! I've fallen and I can't get up... Please pardon the bloggy silence while I try to right myself.

I've been experimenting with blogger's "pages" feature. If you look at the top of the page, just under the header, you'll see the words "Home" "Events" and "Weaving Books for Sale". If you're reading this, you're on the Home page. If you'd like to see our short list of fiber festivals and on-farm events, you'll want to click on the Events page. And if you are interested in purchasing weaving books, I've listed a few up for sale on the Weaving Books for Sale page. I'll keep the lists current, and I may add new pages as the whim strikes me. And if anyone knows how to use the Numbers program by Apple, I need to be talked through a chart snafu. The past few days the lamb charts have been all wonky, so I haven't bothered to post them. I'd really like to keep up with it, but only if it's accurate.

"Wind from the east, not fit for man or beast." Or sign. Gotta be here somewhere... Found it! Fortunately nothing was broken.

Winter is very grey here in our part of Michigan. We escaped recently to a nearby botanical garden to enjoy their held-over Christmas displays, with decorated trees, a miniature cityscape, trains and lovely plants everywhere. Here's a favorite of mine--cyclamen, I think. I wonder if it would grow outside here in Michigan. Anyone know?

I've never liked the reusable bag concept. Well, I do like the concept, but not the poly something or other bags. I prefer paper, which is a renewable resource (plant more trees, make more jobs). In a pinch, I'll accept plastic, which are recyclable. Here's another reason not to like the bags. Edited to change the link. Apparently Yahoo videos have a short shelf-life.

This week I'm planning/scheduling school for the year. Every summer my parents (bless their hearts) go camping for a week with our kids. The kids get away from the farm, build memories with their grandparents, and have fun. I get solitude. Solitude doesn't automatically equal peace. I've got a bushel of pears on the basement floor, ripening faster than I'd like. The knowledge that I should be canning them robs me of some of my peace. The Farmer wants me to accompany him on a day trip for his work, but I need to make the most of my time scheduling and planning now, while the house is quiet. A project at my job continues to take up some valuable real estate in my brain, always making little bumping noises in a far corner of my mind, even when I'm not working on it or consciously thinking about it. Summer is almost over, and some shoulda-coulda-wouldas nag me a bit. And there is the fire monitor that continues to intrude. The Farmer is a part-time firefighter and medi...