Learning The Ropes

The gang down at Common Sense Farm (the commune three miles down the hill from me) have recently taken on some draft power in the form of two donks. It was a slow start, getting the right tack and learning to work with the clever equines but over the past two months they have really started to perform. Here is my friend Othniel's son learning the ropes of ground driving with Ramona. It was the first time they worked her in a full collar/harness/bit rig and I was floored by how well she did. I expected the donkeys to panic, or balk, or perhaps just stand there looking bored but they did everything they were asked with purpose. I can't get that out of Jasper most times in the cart, so you can understand the smile on the boy's face!

Rob from the Washington County Draft Animal Association was there, as he was the guy I put them in touch with to outfit their donkeys. Othniel is exactly where I was when I started with Merlin, excited to drive but in need of gear, lessons, and practice. Rob was there to help show him how to train up the donkeys and outfit them correctly since he specializes in ponies and had plenty of extra harnesses, collars, and lines to sell for a good price. So a deal was struck and Othniel now has two harnesses for two very encouraging donkeys! If that wasn't cool enough, Rob also brought his wagon team and gave all the kids at Common Sense a wagon ride while he was there. That's 38 rides, folks. Talk about customer service!

I was touched to see this all happen. Touched to see neighbors working with neighbors, touched to see a pre-teen with driving lines in his hand instead of an iPhone, and touched to hear about all the laughter and smiles the kids got riding behind a team of trotting ponies under the fall foliage, which is AMAZING this year. I am so grateful to have the Common Sense community in my life. I really am. While I'm not cut out for their church or regulations, seeing a group of people living in voluntary simplicity warms me. Their life, like mine, isn't easy or always pretty but somedays it is. Somedays there are good animals working in harness, and beautiful blue skies, and children laughing behind the clip clop of a pony cart on a weekday morning. This is a place where those things happen, and I am awed and honored to get to share in the effort and the rewards.

ARROWS RISING & WINTER FIDDLE CAMP ARE SOLD OUT!!!

There are still spots for next summer's Fiddle Camp if you want to sign up. They fill up fast, so reserve them quick. Come knowing nothing and leave with the ability to teach yourself music. You leave with songs in your head and on your strings and your very own student fiddle. If you are bummed about wanting to come sooner you can always sign up for a private fiddle daycamp or archery day. Those worksnops for just one-on-one training are called Indie Days. You can learn more about Indie Days in the post below and Fiddle Camp, dates and details, by clicking on their links. And here is a list to all workshops!

INDIE DAYS! (It's a New Thing I'm Doing)

I have a few special things for sale, which I am offering to you guys because I made myself the promise that I would get the mortgage up to date by the end of this month. To make that happen it means not only earning money, but keeping it. It means spending less, staying home, eating in, and in some cases giving up a few things here or there in service to the cause. It also means I need to be thinking on my feet and constantly choosing being resourceful over, well, having resources!

So while I was trying to think of how to achieve this little goal, I was thinking of workshop ideas or new income streams for the farm and something struck me. I teach classes in things I know, right? Things like turning wool into yarn, raising chickens, and playing the fiddle. But I offer these classes only at specific times, once a year or so. Sometimes folks can’t make the date, and sometimes they live too far away and can only swing by when they are on vacation. Sometimes folks are scared of large groups, don’t feel comfortable with the time frame, or just plain prefer a more intimate setting than a big group. For those folks I thought I would offer Indie Days. Yup, Indie Days.

Indie Days are a new thing here. The reason for them is exactly states in the title. Indie means Independent. If I want to live a life as a self-employed woman, independent and resilient, then I need to keep a roof over my head, stay on top of my bills, and slowly try to improve my own situations. I think this could be a step in that direction. Indie Days!

It’s the chance to come to the farm and hang out for a whole day to talk, learn, ask questions, or just see what life on a farm with this many animals is like? It’s just you and me. Or you, me, and your best friend or spouse or teenage daughter or son. Point is it’s a tiny group and just for you. You can schedule it in advance or make it an Indie Weekend. They work like this: you show up in the morning and we do a farm tour and get to know each other and then we get started on what it is you want to experience: fiddle lessons one on one? Backyard pigs? Homesteading for beginners? Building and planting raised beds? Learning to shoot a bow? Starting a blog or getting into writing? What it takes to take on the dream of a working equine? Always wanted a border collie and want to see one or two (we can ask Jon and red, he offered to share his pooch with CAF readers at times) we can do that! If it is something I can teach you, I will. If it’s something I can’t I’ll let you know.

Here’s an example of an Indie Day, and something I am also offering to anyone interested in this. Woolcentric: come to the farm and join me out in the pasture with the sheep. We’ll talk livestock, I’ll show you my system and animals, and then we’ll take some wool (either off the sheep’s back or from a stash of brown Joe wool) and learn to wash, dry, card, and spin it with a drop spindle or spinning wheel. I’ll send you home with some raw wool and GET THIS, a spinning wheel! You can also buy the Ashford Traditional Wheel I bought from Jack’s Outback Antiques downtown. It’s the wheel I learned on, and love, but I am happy to sell it to someone to help keep this farm in the black. I can always buy another spinning wheel when my money situation improves. Right now I just want to get this place back on track. And that’s the exact point of an Indie Day. You come to hang with a blogger and writer you enjoy, learn a new skill, and go home with what you need for said skill (like a spinning wheel!). Things like fiddles, bows, and dulcimers have to be purchased as well but you can task me with finding the right instrument or tool for the job and you just have to come and learn it, love it, and give it a good home. I also have a stag adorned mountain dulcimer you can buy fro Craggy Mountain Music, Taxidermy, Horse Equipment, and others.

The point of this is to give readers a chance to experience and support the farm in a special way. It’s one on one, catered to what you want to know, and at a date of your choosing. It will cost more than a workshop, but not a huge amount more and isn’t included in the Season Passes (though season pass holders can certainly do this, too). Indie Days are special.

If you are interested please email me at jenna@itsafarwalk.com. I'll send you all the details, pricing, and such. If you want to send an email about how you think this is ridiculous, how you are happy to see the place struggling, how I don't deserve my farm, or how I am a general horrible person you can direct all of your complaints here!

Planting a Winter Garden!

I am working on my winter garden today, and feeling that same excitement I usually only feel in melting spring. You know what I mean, right? The urge to plant, see seedlings in your hands, a little life among all the dying leaves and colder nights. Gardening is becoming more and more important to me, and to society in general. America has been away from their gardens far too long and knows it, the interest in growing food at home has never been so high and I personally want more of the green stuff.

So I am planting seeds today, right in the ground: kale, lettuce, spinach, kale, kale, kale and more kale planted. I have left the world of whimsy in gardening and now just want to grow the practical, what I love and what I eat. Since kale may be my favorite vegetable in the world I would like a winter supply right outside my door. So far the chard and kale is all that is growing on the hill and I would like to plant a lot more and create an inexpensive poly-tunnel over it with pvc, bamboo, and plastic greenhouse sheeting. It should cost under twenty dollars for a near 4-season garden expansion and I am so exited. My seed supplier and one of the farm's sponsors - Annie's Heirlooms has supplied me with all the seeds I need to keep me stocked in that beautiful green stuff….

I'm off to plant!

Street Gang

I Can't Wait!

Riding Into October

Sunday was a beautiful day, in every sense. The last days of September and the sun shining warmly. Maples are near peak color, a swirl of orange and yellow under a sky so blue it looks dreamlike. I was with Merlin and my friends, enjoying Washington County roads the best way possible - by horse cart. We had a seven-mile trek along dirt roads and slowly sloping hillsides. Eleven wagons in all, a happy parade. With the sun on your backs and no wind, rain, or hindrance of any sort the horses and their owners were in high spirits. We trotted, walked, and *cough cough cantered cough mumble cough* as we made our way to the Battenkill Creamery for ice cream cones. The event is called "Dessert First" and hosted by these two beautiful people in my life: The Wesners. Look at them. Sitting up there in that beautiful draft-sized Meadowbrook cart with their steed, Steele leading the way. I write about meeting Patty and Steele and learning to drive from them in One Woman Farm, and it astounds me it was less than two years ago. That I went from shaking her hands at a book signing in Cambridge to becoming best friends, two women with horses, carts, and adventures to spare.

I was the only person driving alone, no partner or passenger in my cart beside me. It was such a grand way to experience the fall day. I of course shouted and talked with people around and behind me in line but long stretches were just Merlin and Me, watching the leaves slowly fall to the dirt roads and listening to the sounds of jangling harness and hoof steps. I could see Tyler ahead of me, sitting in the back of a red wagon and taking in his world while his wife sat up in the buckboard seat with Jan and talked while their team of haflingers trotted ahead of them. Behind me Rob and his son drove their trained ponies, in teams and a single cart. I liked knowing that other adults were out there working ponies to be more than hay burners or children;s passing fads. I wish every homesteader who was considering draft power could talk to Rob and see what one little pony could do for the small investment in hay and care. He travels dozens of miles with horses that eat less as a team than Merlin does as a single.

Back to Jan! Jan and her husband are serious teamsters. A usual drive for them in twenty miles. Their haflingers are athletes, no doubt about it. Ike is their big gelding and I have never seen a neck as thick on any animal. He is a rhino! Jan said she loves watching him bunch up that neck, tighten up his rump, and push forward with courage. I must agree, he is a beautiful thing to behold. At sixteen years old, Merlin was not up to their level but a firecracker in his own right. He may be one of the smallest horses in the club but he's diligent and fast, strong and calm. I would not trade him in for any other animal in the club. He's my boy.

I'll leave you with this. A view of the valley as we descended towards the Battenkill Creamery. And I thought Ike's neck was a thing to behold?! Darling, THIS is paradise. This view of my home, an agricultural wonderland. A place where food abounds, the air is clear, people are kind and life is about manes and tails and not IoS7. This is the real world. This is what we are all working for. This is the reason I go through all the effort, because of moments passing through my life as this.... Yes. Paradise is out there. You just need to scrape and howl and hunt it down. It's a hell of an awful path to take, but just look at the view from the top. Carry on. It's worth the fuss.

photos by Tara of goingslowly.com and thank you Melina for the title!