Yesterday Ed & I went to meet Jacob, the buck who will mate with Annie & Sophia, my does. He is quite the good looking fella and has black & white spots like Annie. They should have great looking “kids”.

Jacob lives with Dottie & Milton Cross on their farm. Dottie has been raising Nubians for over 30 yrs. and is considered the Guru when it comes to taking care of Nubians. She & Milton were so warm, gracious and hospitable. I had such a great time and time did get away from us. We were there for 2 hrs. talking about goats and family. In my opinion that’s a great way to spend my time.

Dottie had me bring a washcloth which she rubbed all over Jacob who right now is quite stinky. Male goats in rutt are in desperate need of a good deodorant, but the ladies love that smell. We put the stinky cloth in a jar with a good fitting lid. I brought it home and when I think my girls are in heat I am to take the stinky cloth and dangle it in front of them. If they strongly react to the cloth as if it is an aphrodisiac then I am to quickly pile one or both in the SUV and quickly drive to Dottie’s farm. Once there, Jacob will meet Annie and/or Sophia and hopefully consummate the union. This should take about 15 mins. and hopefully 5 months later Ed & I will become the proud grandgoatparents of baby kids.

Dreamin of “kids”….Irene

Well another one of my dreams is coming true. Cold Moon Farm is actually becoming a learning center. Ed & I have contracted with Jan & Ken Spaulding of Stony Knolls Farm to host their “Goat School” at our farm. We found out about their school through an article that had been written about them in Hobby Farm Magazine. They only present Goat School at their farm twice a year so we are lucky they are willing and excited to be coming to Vermont. Last Mother’s Day Ed took me to their Goat School and it was great..although very cold & rainy. I have since contacted them and they have agreed to bring it to sunny? & cozy! Cold Moon Farm. It will take place Presidents’ Day Weekend, Feb. 18th, 19th & 20th. The “Goat School” session will be on Sat. Feb. 18 & Sun. Feb. 19th..cost $200 pp, spouse $100 & includes their newest edition of “Goat School” book which is filled with great info and resources. Mon., Feb. 20th will be their Cheese & Soapmaking class…cost is $100 p.m. All sessions include lunch. Since space is limited contact me ASAP if you are interested.

At last we will be able to share with the greater public how wonderful goats are to raise.

In addition our Bed & Breakfast should be licensed and operational by then. We have 3 rooms with private baths that will be available.

This will be our first step into the business of Agritourism…we are committed to sharing the fun of food & farming with the public at large.

I will also be developing more workshops in gardening, raising chickens & sheep, herbal farming, etc. I am open to suggestions.

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!!!

Since Roto the Rooster passed away Ed (my husband & farmhand) has been feeling very much in the minority. After all he is in the male minority on our farm. Only Hawkeye (our neutered male golden retriever) and Uncle Wetherbee (our wethered (castrated) sheep are the only other males left on the farm. Poor Ed was really identifying with Roto and now he’s gone. So Ed has been urgently urging me to get him another rooster. This morning his dream came true- without me lifting a finger. This morning at approximately 8:00 a.m. one of our young “hens” crowed & at 8:02 a.m. crowed again & at 8:03 a.m. crowed again, etc. etc. It seems someone at the hatchery made a mistake…all the day old chicks we bought back in May were supposed to be hens (females) but lucky for us one was not. His name is Patch & he is soooo handsome. His breed is Auracana and he is white with splotches of brown, black, green & rust. His tail has beautiful black, irridescent midnight blue and green feathers.

Maybe now the young hens will start laying their perfectly shaped tiny eggs since there is a handsome new man in the house.

I’m glad Ed’s dream has come true…Irene

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.

It continues to blow my mind that out of nothing comes something so amazing. I planted hundreds of these miniscule and sometimes not so miniscule orbs and after coddling them with warmth, encouraging them with light and nourishing them with black earth and water….Voila, I am rewarded with the giving forth of life! It begins with a peek out of the black earth and then the urge to grow upward takes over and the green stem and leaves push upward and before I know it I have a jungle growing in every nook and cranny of my house. My home now is permeated with the sweet smell of the earth. In another week I will be sending these babies out into the world to fend for themselves in the big garden. At that point Mama Irene will give up most of her control of their growth to Mother Nature. Hopefully she will be kind to them and will nurture them as tenderly as I so they will produce fruit and veggies that will sustain us as I have sustained them.

I dream of wonderfully sweet red tomatoes, crisp cukes for salads as well as pickling, green peppers for garlic peppers and red peppers for salads and cooking, red and green cabbages, eggplant, squash and the list goes on.

So now my dreams have visions of veggies..and I wonder why I feel hungry when I awake….

Last Monday my farm girlfriends, Suzanne & Scout came to my home for tea.  Now you have to understand, that I was a tomboy as a child.  Much to my mother’s chagrin I played Cowboys and Indians and would have nothing to do with dolls and tea sets.  So when my friend Scout suggested with get together for tea to celebrate our mutual birthdate at my home I jumped at the opportunity.  Now at the ripe age of 66 I could fulfill my mother’s dream of her daughter having a girly tea party.  So I got out my good china and served tomato basil bisque in pretty tea cups along with a pedestal tray offering feta cheese(which I had made), a vermont made tome (a hard aged goat cheese, an English Weyansdale cheese, walnuts and raisins.  I also offered a Cheddar Bread which I had made that morning and taking center spotlight was the tea.  This particular tea was given to me by my daughter-in-law Julie.  It is a large bud which is put into a glass teapot and then hot water is poured over the tea bud and as it steeps the bud opens into a beautiful flower.  The flavor was a peach infused green tea.  It was perfect!!  This was all set out on my table decorated with pretty napkins and place mats artfully arranged by my friend Suzanne.  And guess what we three ladies talked about while indulging in this feminine ritual…..Tractors, Farming and developing our School to Farm Initiative!!!  What a rip!!!!!  We had the best time!

So on my way to fulfilling my dreams I was able to fulfill one of my mother’s dreams..how special is that…dreamin’..Irene

So I decided that this year I would start my veggie garden from seeds. Isn’t this what true farmers do? Being a person who believes in cooking everything (well almost) from scratch doesn’t it seem that the first step should be to grow my food from scratch? However, I didn’t take into consideration that I don’t have the benefit of a mother, father, sister, brother, aunts, uncles, etc. (you get the picture) who could hand this down and guide me in the process of starting seeds indoors. Nor do I have a cookbook for this in the absence of family know how. Really, it can’t be that difficult or can it. Now that the seeds are here..what do I do next; what kind of soil do I use; what window do I place them in front of, or do I place them in front of a window; how much water do they need; when should I plant them; can I plant them all at the same time; oh and if they do germinate then when do I transplant them….the questions just go on and on. It seems one answer will lead to many more questions. I feel frozen…I’m afraid to make a decision or make a move  fearing utter failure.

When I was a little girl I learned to cook by helping my mother and father prepare the family meals. I would stand on a stool and help mix or separate the eggs for a cake, or measure out the flour or help clean the chicken for our Friday night dinner, peel potatoes & carrots, etc. Oh and yes, I had to do the dreaded cleaning up after myself. It was great family time and I gained the knowledge needed to carry me forward cooking and caring for my family…total hands on experience. What better way to learn something.

But now I think I can relate to all those people who prefer to buy foods ready made. You just read the directions and pop into the microwave and Voila! it’s done. No thinking, no decisions to make, no time involved. Oh, but it does cost a heck of a lot more money not to mention the loss of valuable family time or the gratificatioin of creating something.  The same would be true if I would buy my veggies as plants ready to go into the ground. It seems sad to me that skills such as planting, growing and cooking our foods which were considered a commonplace and normal part of family life are basically lost to the family and are really now considered artisan skills. One has to take a course to learn how to do and practice these lost arts. But I am lucky to live in an area that offers courses in these life skills. So I will be going next Sunday to Riley Rink to take a workshop on starting seeds indoors.  I have already put Ed on notice to put aside time to do the planting with me.  Since he has been spending so much time working on the mountain I am truly looking forward to spending time with him.  What better way then to be creating something…life.  So wish me luck since I am dreamin of a great, big productive veggie garden..Yummy..Irene

So what is a girl from Brooklyn doing with a farm in Vermont?….Living a dream and enjoying every minute of it!!!!

However when you are enjoying what you are doing time just has a way of running off.  I can’t believe it is already February.  The end of June we brought home our 3 Southdown Baby Doll Sheep lambs (Uncle Wetherby [a wether is a castrated ram] and Molly & Dolly) who were just fuzzy when we got them but are now really woolly, fat & pudgy looking.  Labor Day weekend we brought home 2 Nubian kid does.  They were 6 mos. old and we named them Annie & Sophia.  So we now have 4 Nubian goats and one LaMancha goat.  In addition that week my order of 25 day old chicks arrived.  The order consisted of Barred Rocks, White Rocks, Buff Orphington, Black Star & Hampshire Reds.  You might ask…What are you going to do with so many chickens?  Well, you see when I called the hatchery I thought that I could order 10 chicks, but they told me I had to order a minimum of 25 since they keep each other warm in transit.  So, I did!  It just so happened the day they arrived (they are delivered directly to the post office) we had been invited to have dinner at friends who also have a small farm.  So, what’s better to bring as a house gift?  You got it…12 one day old chicks!!!  Can’t do that in Brooklyn!  So these chicks are now chickens and laying their first eggs which are so small and perfectly shaped.

So last Weds. I noticed that Shirley (my LaMancha goat)  had come into heat.  I called my friend Jennifer, who owns PolyMeadow Dairy Goat Farm and asked her if I could breed Shirley with her new LaMancha buck (his name is Pearl Buck, get it).  She said I should have Shirley there early Fri. morning.  So Ed & I got up at 5:15 a.m. so we could do our barn chores and get Shirley into the SUV for her trip to meet Pearl before Ed went off to work.  Shirley traveled well in the car & I arrived in Shaftsbury by 8:00 a.m.  Got Shirley out of  the car and Jennifer got Pearl & we introduced them.  Poor Shirley it turned out to be a lousy date…Pearl rejected her.  Shirley was so embarassed she jumped right back in that car as soon as I opened the hatch.  I had to console her the whole way home.  So I guess there will be no kids this July..oh well!

Saturday, Feb. 12th I went to Burlington for a NOFA (Northeaster Organic Farmers Association) conference at the Univ. of Vt. (UVM) mainly to attend the workshop on School to Farm Initiative.  You see, the next part of my dream is to have kids come to our little farm to learn about where the food they eat comes from and how to treat animals and the earth with respect.  I went with my new friend Suzanne who is a teacher (her husband is the headmaster of the Mountain School which is located right near our farm).  It was tremendously helpful and fun as well.  We were both very excited!  The great thing about such workshops is that it stirs one’s creative juices.  On Mon. my friend Scout will be coming here for tea. She has already helped some schools & farms to come together and has said she will help lead us through the process.  How great will that be!!!

Right now it is snowing.  We haven’t had a good snowfall since Jan. 8th.  This snow is really needed and welcomed….Keep on dreaming…