New Volunteers! And Snow! And Baking! And Joel Salatin!

Are you ready for the answer? The only Top 20 song ever in which the name of the song and the name of the artist are both palindromes is..........."SOS" by ABBA! Brilliant, eh?

Meanwhile back at the farm, the new group of volunteers for the spring arrived this weekend! Huzzah! We got ready for them by preparing a beautiful blue and pink spiky pinata.

Their first night here we had a big welcome dinner. Sarah made (MADE!) a ton of delicious pasta.

We had two different sauces to go with it, Jo made a salad, Jen made bread, and I made this chocolate peanut butter pie! So good.

Ashley (a volunteer last fall) came back for a visit. She likes to get in other people's pictures.

After we cleaned up the big room where we ate, we all came back to our house and destroyed the pinata. I think it is a mark of how good this group is that we didn't have to force them to do it. Jen and Jo were very proud of their handy work.

My new roommate, Susanna, took a mighty swing at it.

And, even though the goodies inside were supposed to be for the new folks, Sam dove on them as soon as the thing burst open. Oh Sam.

In other news, it snowed yesterday and today. It's been quite beautiful.

Additionally, we got some new living room furniture. I don't have pictures of it yet, but our old loveseat didn't quite make it away from our front door before all the snow started happening. Oops.

In still other news, I have been cooking and baking a lot in the past week and a half or so. We had an all-farm lunch today so everyone could meet each other. I made these cookies and these rolls.

And on Sunday, one of the leading farmers in the organic and sustainable agriculture movement, Joel Salatin, came for a visit. I made him this bread.

And these raspberry strudel bars.

This is my one, terrible paparazzi shot of him.

It was very interesting to hear him talk and I think we all learned a lot. Both about very practical things (i.e. how to set up a portable chicken fence in ten minutes or less) and more philosophical things (i.e. how do you define a happy animal). A couple new volunteers were here in time to see him, too. Between him and the new folks, it's looking like the beginning of a great new season.