Updated Workshop Calendar

Here is the list of workshops coming up in the next few weeks. Come to the farm and learn how to raise rabbits, string a bow, play the fiddle, prepare for the worst and make soap with the best! It's a busy spring here and folks have been asking for an up-to-date list of the goings on. So here it is, along with the links to each event! And you can still get a Season Pass for a full year for about the price of 3 workshops, so if you want to support the farm or just want an excuse to roll in the grass with a border collie, email me to sign up!

Prepping for the Rest of Us with Kathy Harrison!
June 1st 2013
Cold Antler Farm, Jackson NY
4 SPOTS LEFT

Goats & Soap!

Come to Cold Antler for a day dedicated to dairy goats and homemade soap. It'll be a multi-farm adventure - visiting both Common Sense Farm (just three miles down the road) and CAF. Come to learn the basics from the experts at CSF on getting into home dairy. Learn about the breeds, the people who raise them, and what goes into keeping an animal that makes you milkshakes, cheese, and amazing soap.

In the early afternoon we will make a batch of soap, a dairy based recipe of near-freezing goats milk and natural essential oils. Learn how the chemistry and process works as well as how to mix it up with additions like oatmeal, home-brewing extracts, or herbs from the garden. This will be a day of happy barns and happy hands. Come meet the scene and go home with a bar of the day's spoils!

Price $100 June 2nd 2013
Cold Antler Farm, Jackson NY
5 SPOTS LEFT!

Midsummer Invitational! Archery For Beginners and Tournament Potluck
June 29th 2013
Cold Antler Farm, Jackson NY
5 SPOTS

Rabbit 101
July 20th 2013
Cold Antler Farm, Jackson NY
4 SPOTS LEFT

Summer Fiddle Camp
August 31s and Sept 1st 2013
Cold Antler Farm, Jackson NY
2 SPOTS LEFT

Dulcimer Daycamp!
Oct 5th 2013
Cold Antler Farm, Jackson NY
3 SPOTS LEFT



Antlerstock is up in the air right now, not sure I can make it happen this year. Columbus Day Weekend, if it goes down.

I Love Seeing This On My Road

Double Entendre

Last night, just before dark, I heard the sound of calling sheep. I've lived alongside sheep for years now and over that time I have acquired an ear for what all the different bleats, baas, and cooing mean. This was an all out holler, translated roughly into English:

"Heeeeeeeeey, heeeeey! Hey guys outside the fence! We want to be outside the fence with you tooooo. Heeeeeyyyyyy!"

The sigh I let go of must have weighed six pounds. I was inside, having just finished the last of the milking dishes and had just swept the living room floor. Sweeping the floor is the last chore of the night, something done more out of habit than necessity. The beautiful handmade broom was a gift from my good friend, Raven Pray, of Maryland. Sweeping the last of the dirt, dog hair, and grass clippings stuck in upturned pant legs is the chore that says, "Okay kid, you can sit down now." And that is what I was doing. I must have been teasing fate because the sheep had escaped, were certainly in the public road by this point, and I had to get dressed and head back outside. Goodbye fire. Shut up, mocking broom.

It was colder out, around forty degrees with wind and the weather report was calling for frost. This had me in a frustrated mood. Chores took longer than usual this afternoon while I went about the extra work of watering and then covering all the garden beds I wanted full clemency for. I could see the sheep behind the fences, up in the woods and along the thick bushes and brush by the roadside. I stood outside my house by the lamppost and called to the sheep. "Come here you wooly bags of dim suet!" I yelled, copying the insult from a favorite book. And then the parade headed towards me.

Maude was in front. In her full wool coat she bounced down the hill, the crescent moon above her. Behind her in a perfect goose V were six other escapees. They all trotted with heads high, horns gleaming lamp light, and fluffy coats. I would have been angry with them if they weren't so damn beautiful. Maude stopped a few paces ahead of me, having seen no evidence of grain. I put my hands on my hips and stared at her. She looked away.

"Can we please stay inside until daybreak? Please." And I grabed a bag of chick feed to lead them back into the main gates by the horse's paddock. Merlin and Jasper watched the parade behind me, giving me their own heckles for rewarding acts of anarchy. One by one the sheep came back inside the fence to join Sal and the Cotswolds who didn't escape. Then in the near black of real nightfall I walked up the hillside repairing holes and hatches in the poor quality fencing. What I needed was a clean, fresh, string of electric wire right at nose level. I had a new grounding rod on order at the hardware store and plans to do it this week. But for now it's all about reaction and repairs. I did what I could and prayed it would make it till morning. The last thing I needed was a school bus driver beating on my door to tell me to move my livestock out of the road.

This morning, they of course escaped again. Three times. And right now this blog post is the first writing I have done all day. That's a crime and a pity with two weeks to a manuscript deadline. But a woman needs to vent, so there you go.

There may be frost in the air but as far as the sheep are concerned, it's time to spring.

Monday Night Poultry Slam

Gibson And The Nail

I took Gibson to the vet today. Last night while I was milking Bonita, I heard a yelp of canine panic and left the chore, midstream, to run outside the barn. I know the sound of fear in Gibson, and this was intense. What I saw was a dog running towards me best he could on three legs, the fourth up in the air wildly kicking back like a cowpony. I thought he ran over some broken shard of glass, or stepped on a thorn. When he ran to me I asked him to lie down and he rolled on his belly, showing me the problem. He had a rusty nail sticking out of his paw.

It wasn't in deep at all, barely really. But the bend of the nail made it impossible to dislodge. I took it out and brought him inside. I washed his feet, checked for a wound and bleeding. What blood there was was less than a scrape. This was more an act of drama than injury, but I was instantly worried about tetanus. I called the vet first thing this morning and they said it was rare for a dog to contract tetanus, but they could check him out and give him a preliminary strike of antibiotics. I set an appointment time.

Gibson was a good patient. The vet staff was kind and patient. We were there just a half hour, mostly talking, and Gibson got his shot. I felt somewhat foolish, all this fuss over a nail scratch. But I knew if any sort of blood poisoning, bacteria, or infection happened to that dog I would never forgive myself. Gibson is the closest I've ever been to another animal, human or otherwise. I raised him from a pup and we have never spent more than 4 hours apart from each other. That sounds co-dependant and crazy-dog-lady scary, but it's more a case of luck and lifestyle than anything else. I once worked at a place that allowed dogs so Gibson came to my office. Now I work from home on a farm, which doesn't allow overnight travel or any fancy vacations, so we are here, together.

I love all my dogs, all I ever owned, but Gibson has become the saving grace I needed during the toughest time in my life. The last year since leaving Orvis, the events that lead up to it and all the personal things swirling around it caused a firestorm of emotion and choices that have had a considerable level of fallout. I don't know how I could have gotten through it without that dog. As I write this he is asleep outside the office door. He is worth $77.50 to save from the threat of tetanus. He's worth everything I own or could hope to own.

If a man in a suit said I could keep my farm or my dog, I would hand him the keys and walk away. There are a thousand farms in this region. There's only one Gibson Mackenzie that has ever existed and I'm the luckiest son of a bitch to have him.

He's my fast, fast dog.

A Love Worth Fighting For

Lambing Soon, Escape is Nigh!

The flock is getting ready to lamb any day now. The mother's all have tight, round bags under their tails and are pawing at the ground before laying down away from each other. I have a feeling lambing will be a chaotic three days here, but not last much longer. It seems everyone is on the same schedule, biologically speaking. Of course, just saying that is taunting circumstance, so perhaps it'll be a long 45-days of lambing, one or two little quicktails showing up at a time.

I like watching the flock this late breeding season. They are all stuck in one paddock, the ground all eaten down to moss with petals of apple blossoms all over like falling snow. They eat and bitch, circle and butt heads. As a woman (albeit, not a mother) I can tell when others who share the gender want more personal space. Atlas the ram seems only interested in food, his job done for a while. He has escaped (and lead three other escape attempts) into the woods so far in search of the lushness all around the fence lines. I guess it's hard to deal with that level of matriarchy inside a fence? But sheep escapes are easy to thwart. A bucket of grain and a lifted bit of woven wire they can shimmy under and they are back inside the safe zone. I have been repairing the weak areas these past three days, trying to stop all the exploration committees, but Atlas is clever. He knows exactly the spots I have missed. Jerk.

I am in the last two weeks of writing a book, behind on the mortgage, lambing is any day now and out of coffee. As you can imagine, stress is at an all time high. Gobson ran over a rusty nail in the woods yesterday and is on his way to the vet this afternoon to get it seen to. When it rains....

I do know enough about myself and this farm to know this is a phase. And all this fear and frustration and deadlines and bill calls will ebb and flow away. Right now I need to focus on the work, and working a little harder to make ends meet, but it'll all be fine. Whenever I feel panic wash over me I just sit outside on my porch and take a deep breath or seven with my eyes closed. I tell myself when I open them I will be surrounded by a farm I built by hand, through nothing but scrappy willm hard work, and the kindness and devotion of a readership all over the world. And when I open my eyes the proof is all around me. It's in the waddling ducklings parading to the well. It's in the sounds of Joeseph the sheep on the hillside. It's in the flickering ears of Merlin, the toss of his mane. It's in a dog with a sore paw, and a house with apple blossoms crowning a rack of antlers, and in the heart of the girl breathing slow on a porch.

Good things are on the way, and the only way out is through.