To be exact January 9th.  Wow!  How do I catch you up on all the wonderful things that have happened in the past 8 months without writing a book?

Let's start with the best...

On May 9th Cold Moon Farm added another human member to it's family.  Georgia and Dave had a healthy baby boy.  His name is Levi and he has added another dimension to our Cold Moon Farm life.  We folks whose kids and grand kids live far away forget the joys a blank canvas in the form of a newborn can bring into one's existence.  He is 3 months old now and has just started to giggle out loud.  His little hands have become a thing of wonder to him.  I love to watch him stare at his tiny fists as he twists and turns them in midair. Today was the first time he made a conscious decision to reach for a toy which he promptly put in his mouth.  I am so looking forward to being part of his life as well as his brother Gideon's as they grow.

Next..Shirley our LaMancha goat gave birth to her first full blooded LaMancha baby girl.  We named her Katie and she looks just like her Momma.  We had 4 pregnant does who delivered 5 little boys.  This is not a good thing since little boys (bucks) are not in great demand since it only takes one buck to impregnate many does.  I tried to trade them for bucks that could bring fresh blood to our herd, but alas no one was interested.  How sad!!!

We have added other humans to our Cold Moon Farm team.  Dave's brother Nate has blessed us with his presence and knowledge of building stone walls and construction.  The Meckes brothers together make an awesome dynamic duo.  Their knowledge and abilities have turned the Cold Moon Farm event site and it's surroundings into a majestically beautiful landscape.   Look for pictures on our website.They're next project is building our first cottage in the woods.  It will be outfitted with fine furnishings and luxurious amenities. We will be posting pictures of it's progress on this website.

We have also added Alex, Julia and Jackson to our team.  We are hoping they will become the core managers as we continue to grow our boutique Farmstay resort.  My 15 yr. old grandson, Nathan chose to spend a month working with us.  It was great for me as his grandmother watch his sense of self grow as he was asked to perform tasks that are out of his realm having grown up in suburbia.  He definitely rose to the occasion and has made me proud.  I hope he will choose to come back again!

We have opened a store at Ezie'sGardens.  We are filing it with the produce from our gardens, the breads and cakes I bake, pancake mixes and honey produced on the farm, bacon from our pigs, eggs from our hens and ducks and soaps made from our goat milk.  This coming week we will begin to add our meat chickens.

Lastly, our female ( gilt) pig Juliet had a litter of 14 piglets.  Two were stillborn so we have a net of 12 babies.  6 boys and 6 girls.  Momma weighs 500 lbs. and each baby weighed about 3 lbs.  When momma lies down they need to head for the hills or she will crush them.  So far so good.

This past Friday we did a photo shoot for the ad we are placing in Vermont Vows as well as various wedding websites.  This is all so exciting. It all keeps me so busy I forget I'm supposed to be old!  My dream now is to book our first wedding...til next time...Irene

We are proud to announce the arrival of our brand new website presented to the world today, Weds. January 9th, 2013.  Just press on the picture to get a glimpse of this baby.  Enjoy the video as well....it's real dreamy...Irene  

2013 has just begun and I am already blessed with three events that will take place and continue to change my life.

First and foremost, I found out this week that Georgia will be having a boy come May 1st. The thought of having a new, precious life come into my existence is thrilling. Our home will be filled with all of the sounds that a new life brings and I am so looking forward to this.

Next…our event/wedding site will become a reality this summer. The landscape planning is already under way. A peek into our plans would reveal huge swarths of flowers with vibrant colors and wonderful fragrances. There will be hanging gardens where the petals, leaves and ornamental grasses will dance and sway with the breeze as if they too are celebrating the event. Our pond will have a dock built so the bride and groom, if they choose, can take their vows looking as if they are walking on water. The fountain will create water rainbows as a background and our “Grand Allee” will be a path covered with arches of flowers to guide the bride and groom to the pond. Wow!! I can hardly wait to see it in full bloom.
And if the bride and groom are lucky, maybe our visiting blue heron will decide to stay and watch the ceremony.  Our chef d’cuisine, Michel Baumann, will prepare gastonomique delights tailored to one’s tastes, theme and pocket book most of which will be grown and raised on the farm. All of this with the magical beauty of our “Green Mountains” as the majestic backdrop. Don’t forget our goats which will watch and cheer with sounds of Maaaa and the kid goats jumping for joy. You must be thinking I’m dreaming…but no…this will be a reality..a dream come true.

Third…Georgia has created a new website for us with wonderful videos and pictures. She has incorporated all in an easy to navigate format everything anyone would want answered about Cold Moon Farm Bed & Breakfast. She takes you from who we are, what one can expect from a stay at Cold Moon Farm’s Luxurious Bed & Breakfast, to how you can arrange Farm Tours, Cooking classes with me and Chef Michel (our chef d’cuisine), special events, info on our wedding/celebration venue and much more. It should go live in about another week and I can’t wait to hear the reviews.

I’m so thankful to have these dreams come true… would it be too greedy to wonder what other great dreams will come true in 2013???….Irene

That is the question my friend Matt of Someday Farms has been asking me. Matt & Scout have been providing my family with wonderful organic free range turkeys for many years. Now that we have our own farm Matt is encouraging me to grow my own Thanksgiving turkeys. I’m still not sure…they do such a great job!!! Ed has heard that turkeys are downright stupid. He was at the feed store and a woman came in ranting about her dumb turkeys. It seems some of them jumped into the feed container and suffocated. Since then Ed has decided we shouldn’t deal with this farm animal. But I like to find out the facts on my own so I’m not convinced we shouldn’t give it a try. What great satisfaction we would get knowing we were serving a home grown bird….but then again Matt & Scout do such a great job with producing wonderful birds. Any thoughts on this???

We had a busy, bustling, bursting with flavors Thanksgiving. 26 of us…friends and family.. sat around our dining room tables enjoying the harvests of our land. We laughed and ate and laughed and ate and laughed and ate. Get the picture?

So now I’m dreaming of next year’s farm bounty ladening our table. Ed & I definitely have so much to be thankful for!!!!  Irene

I must be since my Knight in Shining Armor…no wait that’s not quite right…my Knight in Faded Blue Jeans (ahh..that’s better) has come to save the day..no, no not the day but the Farm.  Who might this Knight be, none other than my very own wonderful husband of almost 49 years.. Ed.  He has come to save my dream of running a farm.  When our associate farmer, Steve, left last week  I thought this dream was finished.  Ed would have none of that and and promised that together we would make it work.  He has definitely fulfilled that promise and has been doing the watering, feeding and the other chores it takes to keep our animals and veggies happy and healthy. 

So I am really very happy that this not a dream otherwise I would be waking up to the reality and sadness that would come from having to stop farming.

My new dream is to find someone who will fit in with our dream farm and be willing to help us make it grow and prosper.

Thank you so much my wonderful husband for making me so happy!!!!  Irene

It’s great to be back!!! We went off line so we could make my blog part of our new Cold Moon Farm website. Thanks to my terrific son Tg (pronounced TeeGee)  who developed our new, beautiful and soon to be packed with info on what’s happening at the farm website.
So where do I begin??? I guess I’ll have to do as they do in the movies…a flashback!

December, 2010..got the call from Taylor Farm, located in Londonderry, Vt., that they would like to carry my line of fresh baked breads at their farm store. Wow…that blew me away to think they thought so well of what I produce to sell it to the public. I dove right into baking up a storm. I would chuckle to myself at 5:00 a.m. as I was shaping the dough and sliding them into the oven that I was like the “time to make the donuts” man. The best part was my breads sold quickly and so I had to keep making more!!

January, 2011…”The snow is snowing, the wind is blowing…” It’s very white here and the snow banks are getting higher. Good thing we can cozy up by the fire. In hindsight I should have done some more cozying. Little did I know back then how busy we would get. We’ve had a pretty steady stream of wonderful guests staying at the B & B. We are really enjoying meeting new people.

Febuary, 2011…Still snowing…..”Goat School” takes place Sat. thru Mon. of Presidents’ Day Weekend. What a blast!! Ken and Jan Spaulding of Stony Knoll Farm, Maine made learning about goat keeping fun. We all got a big laugh when our Golden Retriever, Hawkeye, discovered the frozen goat hoofs Ken & Jan had brought for us to practice hoof trimming. Hawk came prancing into the room with one in his mouth feeling very proud of himself. We had a total of 30 people attending and some couples booked rooms at the house. How great it was to spend a weekend with people who share the same interest and love of goats. I prepared a buffet lunch for the attendees for each day and if I do say so myself the chili I made with goat meat was ass-kicking. Everyone left happy and more self-assured about taking care of our goats.

We also met Steve and his girlfriend Tessa. Steve loves goats and I was looking for someone to help us grow the farm. What could be a better match? and his girlfriend of 6 yrs. is sweet and adorable. Steve had graduated from Univ. of Mass., Amherst with a pre-vet and biology degree. The guy is brilliant!   We agreed we would give the relationship a try this summer and then take it from there. We decided he would move to Vermont the end of March so we could get to know each other and prepare for the coming of kids the beginning of May. Tessa was to stay in Mass. since she is graduating with a degree in graphic arts this May.

Received terrible news…Brooklyn (our 10 yr. old Golden) has lymphoma and Hawkeye (our 11 yr. old Golden) has a mast cell cancer. Brooklyn will start chemo and Hawkeye will have surgery.

March…Still snowing….Brooklyn begins her chemo.  She is to go through the Wisconsin protocol which means a chemo injection each week for 16 weeks.  She handles the first injection fine and her lymphocite numbers go down from 50,000 to 2000.  We figure we have this thing beat.

Hawkeye has surgery to his left thigh to remove the tumor and he comes through with flying colors.  No extra treatment needed!

Steve moves in with us and he is a joy to have around.  He jumps right in, shares many of the day to day jobs that I ask him to help with and takes it upon himself to do jobs where he sees a need and I haven’t.  I bake breads to sell now and he makes goat milk soap that we will sell at the Farmers’  Market this summer.  We start planting seeds for the summer’s produce and it’s so nice to have someone share this task with me.  We seem to have so much to talk about and we’ve become friends as well.   Both of us are eagerly awaiting the May arrival of  Annie and Sophia’s kids.

Ed, Steve and I attend a series of 3 classes on bees.  Those are truly amazing little buggers.  What I learned to put it simply is the male (drone) bees impregnate the queen and then they die.  The queen is catered to as if  she is Cleopatra.  Food is brought and fed to her, she is fanned to keep her comfortable and is not allowed to lift a wing to help out in any way.  All of this is done for her by women bees.  I was truly jealous until I learned that she lays thousands of eggs a day.  I decided then and there she could keep her lifestyle…not interested!

April…Oh, did I tell you it’s snowing…but who cares.  My house is once again filled with the smell of earth from all the little seedlings sprouting and Ed and I are off to Kiawah Island, S. Carolina for a few weeks.  The family will be meeting us there to celebrate Passover together.

Brooklyn is not doing well.  She has stopped responding to the chemo.  I know this will be her last trip to Kiawah.   April 26th, 2 days after we arrive home we have our wonderful vet, Dr. Rob Treat, comes to our home to put Brooklyn down.  The whole process took  3 minutes and my canine best friend is gone from me for forever.  It was truly a very sad day!  Poor Hawkeye lost his soul mate and became very despondent and we were afraid he would pass away from a broken heart.  We included him in everything we did..but we could not cheer him up.

Mud season has begun!

May…Guess what it stopped snowing!!!  but still somewhat chilly and raining.  It seems the rain has taken over for the snow and the road is muck & mire.

 We are proud to announce the birth of 2 black & white spotted little boys (bucks) weighing 6.5 & 6.8 lbs. on May 3rd.  Mama Annie and kids are doing fine.  We are also extremely delighted to announce the birth of  3 little girls (does) weighing 4.5 lbs. to 5.8 lbs to Sophia on May 11th.  Mama Sophia’s delivery was extremely difficult since 2 of the girls where tangled up and it took human intervention to save kids and mama.  Sophia developed a fever 4 days after the birth and stopped eating.  Steve diagnosed her and suggested we start her on penicillin. Annie stopped eating as well and we found out we should have dewormed Annie & Sophia since the parasites multiply exponentially due to the stress of delivery.  Since both mamas were not producing enough milk for their kids we had to give them a homemade milk replacer.  It turned out to be too rich for their litte tummies and they came down with diarrhea.  My wonderful friends in the goat community helped us with their advice that comes with years of experience.  Even when I would call late at night they were there to tell me what to do.  I am definitely blessed to have such wonderful friends who share their knowledge so freely…Thank you…Thank you…Thank you!!  I am able to say that everyone is well and thriving.

On Saturday, May 21st we travelled to New Hampshire to pick up our new rescue Golden Retriever.  He was in a kill shelter (which means he had 5 days before he would be euthanized) in Louisiana when Golden Huggs of Williston, Vt. found him.  They retrieved him (no pun intended) and sent him to a foster home in Arkansas and then from there to us.  His new name is Ernie Kovacs (Ed’s pick) and he is truly a comedian.  He came strolling off the transport wearing this big grin on his face.  He cracked everyone up.  He’s about 2 yrs. and is a sweet, sweet pup.  He is also very handsome.  Hawkeye is beginning to perk up since Ernie’s arrival and this is good.  So he is filling in that hole in our home that opened up when Brooklyn died. 

So now another hole will be opening in our home…Steve has told us that he will be leaving us.  His girlfriend (now fiance) needs him back in Massachusetts.  I’ve come to rely on him sooo much and enjoy having him around.  He truly became part of our family and a good friend, so I’m feeling sad for me and at the same time thankful that I got to know him.

We started selling at the Jamaica Farmers’ Market on Sunday, May 22nd.  I made my artisan breads and Steve made Banana Bread.  We also sold chicken and duck eggs.  We did better than we expected and I sold out many of my breads.  As an extra benefit, we really enjoyed meeting an array of very nice and interesting people.

Oh..it stopped raining.  I am now dreaming of all the veggies that will be springing to life and ready for harvesting before too long…yummm!  Irene

Poor Sophia & Shirley! They are both in heat and are in desperate need of a man. They kept us up most of the night moaning & crying out. At first I thought “Oh My God..they are sick or something has gotten into the barn”. They are sick…love sick that is. Alas they will have to wait another few weeks before I will bring them to their respective lovers. Thank G-d they are in heat for only a day or two…but then Annie will come into heat and I guess she’ll be moaning & crying as well. They will all come into heat again in December.

They’re dreaming of a love affair….and I’m dreaming of baby goats…will that make me a NannyGranny?

Nov. 3rd was our anniversary and I received 2 wonderful gifts. First, my son & 2 grandsons surprised us and showed up to celebrate our anniversary with us. They traveled 200+ miles to be with us. Unfortunately my daughter-in-law had to work & couldn’t make it, but it was her idea and she shooed them out of the house. The other wonderful gift was from my husband Ed. He knew how much I wanted a barn cam and he had it arrive on our anniversary. A wise person once said there is no such things as coincidence…my son’s arrival enabled Ed to get the cameras up and connected to the computers. Now I can view my animals anywhere I might be. I can even get them on my Blackberry.

So now I get up in the middle of the nights and I watch them. I have found that they all get up during the night and eat, even though the barn is dark. Last night at 3:00 a.m. Lucy & Ethel were having a head butting & sparing event. Poor Shirley is in the pen with them and she had everything to do to keep out of their way. I guess Shirley didn’t get much sleep last night.

I can’t wait til Christmas eve. My friend has told me that at the stroke of midnight the animals talk. Well, I’ll be ready and I’ll find out!! I wonder what they will have to say?

I guess I won’t be dreaming that night!!!

Well I have been beyond busy and having Lyme’s Disease (you know the one where this itty-bitty little tick no bigger than a period brings down the Goliath of the human body)did not help.  Running a farm when your energy level is below zero is not an easy feat…but the animals still need to be fed, watered and hugged and the veggies needed to fed, watered and hugged.  Ed, my stable boy, husband and all around farmhand fed, watered and hugged me.  I am happy to say we all seem to have made it thru this ordeal and my energy level is rising.

So since I last posted we acquired this beautiful, nice rooster which we named Roto (the Rooster).  Alas, last week Roto crowed at 7:00 a.m. and at 7:05 a.m. literally croaked.  One minute he was alive and the next he was dead.  Have no idea why…but he is really missed by all the girls in the hen house.  So we are now actively searching for another wonderful rooster. 

My seeds have become plants and the plants have become producers of the most wonderful and perfect red, yellow, orange slicing and plum tomatoes, slicing cucumbers and pickling cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, pattypan squash, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, green cabbage, red cabbage, spinach, lettuce, red potatoes, Yukon Gold potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, cantalope, peas, beets and string beans.  Oh we do have pepper plants but the farm hand trampled them in his efforts to erect fencing to prevent our tomato loving Golden Retriever Hawkeye from consuming all the tomatoes and not sharing any with us.  So I now have been busy making tomato sauce, rattatouille, zucchini parmesan, zucchini soup, gazpacho, blanching veggies to put them all in our new freezer chest ready to use during the chill of winter.  It will be a wonderful reminder of  summer’s warmth and will bring a thank you to my lips, as I sit by the fire , to the earth and animals that are a part of my life which sustain my family.

As if we aren’t busy enough I’ve gone on to reach for the stars and make another dream a reality.  We have  applied to be licensed as a Bed & Breakfast.  The state has been here to inspect and we are taking care of the few items that need to be addressed to comply with state regulations and are hoping to be operational at the start of 2011. The name of our B & B is Cold Moon Farm Bed & Breakfast.  We are hoping to become part of the agritourism market and want to impart our knowledge and love of farming to those who would like to learn about where and how one’s food grows, what one can do with it and how it can bring families together.  Stay tuned for more info!

Well I need to go feed the dogs…they’ve had their eyes staring at me for the past half-hour and I’m beginning to feel guilty.

Let you know as my dream comes closer to a reality…

Wow…spring has brought us so many wonderful, fun and heartwarming experiences.

First my wonderful stableboy and husband (they’re one and the same) Ed agreed and did spend Mother’s Day weekend with me at Goat School in Maine. It was cold, raining, windy, bone chilling and damp and it was wonderful. We were outdoors the entire weekend and I got to share a port-a-potty with 100 men..lucky them they didn’t have to drop their pants to do their business. My darling husband did not complain one bit…what a trooper!!! What did I learn one might ask….I learned that I know quite a bit about goats and that made me feel good and secure! Thanks to my friend Jennifer who is always willing to take my phone calls of distress…she has taught me sooo much. But it is always nice to confirm that you actually get it! Boy…Ed could have saved lots of money….

My niece Stacey came to visit the farm for the first time. She arrived on May 20th and on May 21st I got her into the thick of things. She and my friend Yuval went with me to pick up day old chicks. We picked up 15 laying chicks & 6 meat chicks…lots of peeping going on. The next day we picked up 4 Indian Runner ducklings..lots of peep/quacking!

My friend Scout gave me fertilized eggs for one of my chickens to sit on (its called brooding) and on May 26th two babies were hatched. She’s a good Mommy and the chicks follow her everywhere. She immediately taught them how to scratch for food. It’s so amazing to watch them. Oh I forgot to mention we don’t know if one or both is a rooster. I guess we’ll find out soon enough if we hear crowing at 5 in the morning!

Two weeks ago, Yuval brought Ed his bees. Yup..Ed my husband & stableboy is also a beekeeper. He now is the proud keeper of 10,000 bees.

He scared the daylight out of me when I came in from the barn. I walk into the mud room and there is this totally white creature..Ed had donned his beekeeper’s suit which is totally white including the hood and was just standing there waiting for me to come in…I nearly jumped 4 feet off the ground!

All the seedlings have now been planted in the garden and Mother Nature is being frigid towards them. The extensive amount of rain and lack of sun is not encouraging them to go forth and multiply.

Ed also bought me a tractor and he also won a tractor. My friends wanted to know what we were going to do with two tractors. I told them we are fancy farmers so we will have his and her tractors. Just kidding..actually we were able to take cash for the tractor. It wasn’t as good as the one Ed bought me. Only the best for the stableboy’s farmer wife!!! It’s a really neat tractor..it has 34 hp, 4 wheel drive with ag tires, a front loader with a 60″ bucket and a pto system. Got that?

So as summer gets closer I am dreaming of sunshine, warm (not hot & humid) days, ripe tomatoes, honey and watching the herd out on the pasture and listening to the sounds of the farm… Can’t ask for anything better than that.