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.

Do you know music trivia?

Good morning everyone! I hope you all are feeling well today. I woke up with a song in my head today that has been there since last night. You see......

Every Thursday a local restaurant hosts a game of Trivia. We folks from the farm always go and have a grand old time. Last night we came in second place, but only lost by ONE point. Heart breaking, I know. But the last question was fantastic enough to make me dance up to turn in our answer. Here's the question. I'll tell you the answer later.

What song is the only Top 20 hit (it was #15 in 1975) in which both the name of the song and the name of the artist are both palindromes?

Good luck!

In other news, there is a new batch of farm volunteers coming this weekend. Of the nineteen that were here in the fall, seven of us stayed. Since the winter is slow, we didn't need any more people. But now that the spring season is getting closer, we need more hands, hence, new crew! I hope they're good at Trivia!

Winter Break Away from the Farm

Oh wow everyone, it's been almost a month since I've updated. I'm so sorry about that. I left the farm to go home for the holidays, but I am back now. I've been back for about a week and it feels like I never left. It's been really great getting back in the routine of the farm, taking care of the animals and all. My first morning doing chores I fed the buck goats and rams--all the fellas. Now, buck goats have a very distinct odor to them, one I never really found pleasant during the fall. But when I turned the corner of the barn and smelled them for the first time, my reaction was, "Aww! I missed you guys!" Odd, I know.

But I feel like I should catch you up on the past few weeks before updating quite yet. (There's not much to say anyway; winter is definitely a slow season around here. Although probably not quite as slow as you think. But we'll get to that. Don't worry!)

I spent Christmas with my wacky immediate family.....

.....plus my dad's entire side of the family, including my cousin's adorable children!

I made bread for Christmas Eve dinner that was quite delicious, if I do say so myself.

And on Christmas morning it was lots of fun to watch the little ones open presents.

Then we got to play in the snow!

I tried sledding.

But the kids definitely looked cuter doing it than I did.

It was really nice to be able to be all together.

Also, as a present, I knitted my brother a hat and mitten set in the style of "Avatar: The Last Airbender." Not the blue people "Avatar." This "Avatar":

The main character has blue arrows on his head and hands, so........

Look! He's snowbending!

We eventually came home from my grandparents' house and I spent New Year's Eve at Busch Gardens with my friend Jason.

There were some great fireworks.

And that's pretty much it for the break! It was wonderful to see my family and go home, but it's nice to be on the farm, too. I missed the huge amount of noise the sheep and goats make when it's time to be fed. And I missed our giant compost piles. And our little house right in the middle of all the farm action. But most of all I missed the people here and the sense of community that comes from working and living together. I think the spring season is going to be pretty wonderful and I look forward to sharing it with all of you.

Celebration of Living Gifts

This past weekend was the Celebration of Living Gifts at the farm! It was a rousing success. We had over 500 people come out and raised about $6,700 in animal gift donations. We had all our types of animals in the barn for people to see. We had goats and sheep and rabbits and chickens inside.

Pigs, llamas, alpacas, water buffalo, and a cow and calf outside.

Sam and Elizabeth stood outside on Sunday to answer people's questions.

And Ivy stood inside and did the same. She also held various small animals (like this guinea pig) so folks could pet them.

Everything was decorated.

Do you like the cow at the tope of our tree?

However, some of our decorations were edible.

Tilly pulled this down completely.

So we made her wear this hat and she became the belle of the farm.

We had this little area where folks could get their picture taken with the animals.

That's what Liz Jo did all weekend.

And we got a picture of all of us!

We also had a lot of other activities. We had a bake sale.

There was a tractor-pulled hay ride.

Jason and Susan were down in Poland making cards, ornaments, and other paper crafts.

And I was down in Guatemala making rooster ornaments. It was very cold in the house built for the Land of Eternal Springtime. (The stairs were for the hay ride wagon.)

But Jen and I lit a fire and got cozy. We colored a lot of sample roosters.

Aren't they cute??? Jen's is the creative one; mine is the boring brown one.

We also had a fire going outside with sticks and s'more making stuff. It led to a very long philosophical discussion about what came first: the marshmallow or the puffy jacket.

And there was gingerbread cookie decorating. They were all animal shaped.

I made this goat for Jen. I was going for realism, obviously.

At the end of the day, Liz Jo and Chris counted up the totals and updated the tally of animal donations on the window behind them.

It was a very successful, fun weekend, and now the Fall season is officially over. Folks were leaving for good all week, and I actually came home myself last night, but only for a couple of weeks. More thoughts on those lovely, wonderful people with whom I shared my Fall coming later, but this is probably long enough for now. Talk to you soon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today is my good friend Liz's birthday! This is probably not super exciting for you unless you are her (Hi Liz!), but it was exciting for me because she only lives an hour and a half away. This is the closest I've lived to any of my college friends since graduating, but we still hadn't seen each other until yesterday. I drove down to Hartford in the early afternoon, hung out all evening and into the night, then left really early to be back on the farm by 8:00 this morning because today was our Celebration of Living Gifts! But more on that later.

It was really great to see an old friend. We (she) made ravioli with mushroom filling that were really good, we had a roasted green bean and bell pepper dish, plus several dips and appetizery things. She also made an uh-mazing cake/torte thing with chocolate and sweet potatoes that didn't taste like sweet potatoes at all and was fantastic. It was fun to meet some of her post-college friends; we played Taboo (and my team totally won) and sat around and chatted a lot. Most of the guests spent the night and I may or may not have stayed up until 3:00 talking and catching up. Which wouldn't have been so bad if I a.) hadn't stayed up until 3:00 the night before, too, baking bread and dancing to "Love Shack" in my living room (hey, all these wonderful people are leaving! We had to have a dance party!) and b.) didn't have to leave at 6:00. So I only slept for three hours, but that was okay, I guess. I kept myself awake on the drive home by belting out Wicked in its entirety, and then being outside all day today I was too cold to think about being sleepy.

It was quite a wonderful birthday party and I'm very glad I got to see an old friend. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am off to get some sleep before The Celebration of Living Gifts, Part II, tomorrow! Goodnight! And Happy Birthday Liz!!!!!

Snow! Again! But this time for real!

It's been a while, hasn't it? I blew right past Thanksgiving with no update at all, and now we're already into the last week for most of the other volunteers here on the farm. By Monday evening, more than half of the farm will be on their way off to other great things. Seven of us are staying on through the winter, though, and into the spring.

And speaking of winter, central Massachusetts has finally decided to stop playing around (we had a day in the mid-sixties last week) and commit to the cold already. It snowed a little earlier in the week and I took a lot of pictures. Then, it snowed hard core last night and all day today but I didn't really take pictures. You should enjoy these, though, and then imagine all this stuff covered in another foot or so of snow.

The only thing left in the garden is this super hardy kale. They look like tiny palm trees. Tiny, sad, frozen palm trees.

I was super excited about all the snow.

It made everything gorgeous.

These hilarious berries looked like they were wearing Marie Antoinette-era wigs.

And Ivy and I found these bent over trees, so the only logical thing to do was pose just like them. (Yes, I am just as blown away as you are at Ivy's amazing bendability.)

She and I made snow angels.

And then Nic came along and inspired a snowball fight.

Meanwhile, Ben and Sarah were enjoying the warmth of the kitchen whilst making farm animal-shaped gingerbread cookies.

The cookies are for the big event we're having this weekend. It's called the Celebration of Living Gifts and folks will come and learn about Heifer International while enjoying cookies (obviously) and cider and hay rides. There will be ornament decorating, a bonfire (with sticks and marshmellows), and lots of animals, some of whom you'll get to take your picture with. The whole thing will also be what's known as a Living Gift Market, which means this:

Heifer International takes in more money this time of year than any other because it encourages people to buy livestock as gifts for their loved ones instead of some thing they may or may not want. Heifer's whole mission is to work to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth through sustainable livestock and agricultural development. So people make donations to Heifer which go to buy a sheep or a llama or a flock of ducks or whatever, to be given to a community somewhere that needs it. A ton of those donations come in during the holidays, so part of our celebration is going to be a living gift market, meaning we'll have a lot of our animals (which represent most of the animals Heifer works with around the world) in the barn for people to see. If they decide they want to "buy an animal" they'll get to pick out what they like and make a donation on the spot.

The water buffalo, llamas, alpacas, and pigs are already in the barn. We're going to add a cow and calf, a few sheep and goats, some chickens and some rabbits. We've got an empty beehive to represent our bee projects, and a fairly large tree to represent the tree seedling nurseries we do, too. It's going to be great. And the whole farm looks like a winter wonderland just in time.