For months now we had been planning a hoof-to-table pig processing class with our friend PJ. This weekend we put the last of Star’s first piglets in the freezer. They were huge, but we had been saving them for November, when we thought it would be cold. It wasn’t. It was downright hot (actually record…
Birthdays, All Around
We’ve had so much going on…. and all my children had birthdays in the past two months. Clothilde, the “baby” is now 3! She’s talking so much now. She helps out with everything. She says she wants to be called Cinderella. I think someone read her the story, or maybe Rose brought it…
Nature Finds: Autumn Bugs
A mama green lynx spider…. And on the other side you can see all her babies. Furious fire ants. A centipede…I see lots of milipedes of different sizes, but hardly ever a centipede. Mating wheel bugs. You can see the wheel on their backs. These are predatory insects, so I am very happy to…
Some Growing Things
It is a bumper year for the roselle. Yes, this basket is entirely full of it. I didn’t show the gallon milking pail, also full-to-the-top. And we only managed to pick half the bushes. The ones we didn’t get to were so laden, they were falling over. Beats me what went right this year. They…
Return from the Underworld
Last week I suddenly became very, very sick. I have never been so sick before in my life. For days it felt like I was wandering on my way to the Underworld – darkness, visions, pain, and somehow, strange and beautiful music ringing constantly in my ears. I finally went to the hospital and had…
Nature Finds: Insect Life Autumn Jambore
Giant millipedes mating in the path. Get a room, you guys! A daddy-long-legs orygy? Where are the mama-long-legs? This little guy looks up to no good…. This past week I did a presentation on Sustainable Agriculture for my mom’s college class. Just like last time, it made me lose hope for humanity a little…
Roselle, Early Cassava, and Eggplants
I am feeling a little overwhelmed by the roselle this year. Despite the serious neglect this year, there wasn’t the usual mortality rate on the transplants, and we ended up with six enormous bushes. They are all flowering at once. I picked the whole gallon pail full off of only one side of the row. …
Spontaneous Sack Race
A spontaneous feed-sack race was going on yesterday afternoon. These things are surprisingly fun to play with. There’s so much you can do with it. Stuff like this gets so many more play-miles on it than anything you can buy. Clothilde realized you can go WAY faster if the sack goes on the other…
The Tower
Mrs. Gophy, our neighbor Gopher Tortoise, had a little one hatch out this year. Last year there were three, this year there was only one that we saw. Newborn tortoises are so unbelievably small! Clothilde named it Sandy before it crawled away. An interesting thing happened to me last week. It all started Thursday evening…
Mabon/Michaelmas
This week is Michaelmas, the equinox, the start of autumn. It’s still hot, but not like some years. In the evenings, the wind sweeps over the east hill at the farm, and blows cool. It blows colored, dying leaves down, too, and twists the yellowing bramble bushes. Some years we really celebrated this holy time,…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 