Starry Sky Ranch

For love

“Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming?

And always the answer is:

"Love. They must do it for love."

Farmers farm for the love of farming.

They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants.

They love to live in the presence of animals.

They love to work outdoors.

They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable.

They love to live where they work and to work where they live.

If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children.

They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide.

I have an idea that a lot of farmers have gone to a lot of trouble merely to be self-employed, 

to live at least a part of their lives without a boss.”

Wendell Berry

 

I shared elsewhere an interview with Rory Feek which prompted questions by those who were not familiar with him.  He truly embodies this quote and the values that figures like Berry and Joel Salatin and others espouse.  The story of his family is told in the documentary To Joey With Love  and his book This Life I Live where he writes about living with conscious awareness of the 'extraordinary ordinary" which is pretty much my entire life's theme. The story of a homestead built with love here. 

 

“My life is very ordinary,” says Rory. “On the surface, it is not very special.

If you looked at it, day to day, it wouldn’t seem like much.

But when you look at it in a bigger context—as part of a larger story—you start to see the magic that is on the pages of the book that is my life.

And the more you look, the more you see.

Or, at least, I do.”

a happy find

It is said to see the birds you must become part of the silence.  If that is so then it is especially interesting that it was Brendan who found the little quail (yes? I am pretty sure but could be wrong) all puffed up in the cool evening air.  This boy is a ball of energy much of the time but, then again, nothing gets past him.  He knows I have tried for a year now to get a good image of my favorite little birds here.  Occasionally they make there way up here, but the largest flock of them live one street down.  If we are on the road early enough we see them scurry as fast as their little legs can carry them.  Once the babies are big enough they follow behind in a line and without fail I break out into C'mon Get Happy.  (version with happy little animated partridges and the bumper sticker I should own here)

Too much totally irrelevant sharing?  Sorry.

Anyway, he was out after dinner the other night and caught a glimpse of this beauty.  He carefully tiptoed back inside to tell me to get my camera then led me quietly back where he found it.  It really made my evening. 

 

turkey day - no, for real...

Sometime mid-summer we were visited by a handful of wild turkeys who wandered across the back yard, into the neighbors', and on off down the side of the mountain not to be seen again.  Knowing how weird enthusiastic I am about unexpected wildlife sightings, when Aidan spotted them coming down the drive today he told me I better get my camera.  I don't generally need to be told twice so I grabbed it and got out front in time to see the last one waddle past.  

Turning on my heel I beelined through the house again.  When I got out the back door there was a gobble....overhead.  Not a turkey in sight.  Another gobble.  Then I looked up to see several crepey necked fowl peeking over the gutter.  

Coming around the house I saw the last one climbing the garage roof.... where he joined the other ten.  

A few flew into the trees.  The rest crept along the shingles til one inspired the rest with a noble, if less than graceful, flight over the trees towards the base flight line.  Pretty sure they didn't reach the runway.  In fact gravity likely landed them in the farm pasture at the bottom of the hill.  

It was impressive none the less.  

one left

 

 

 

Summer at Hickory Hill Farm

 

Before this summer is completely over I am determined to document the things we have seen and places we have been together.  I'm serious.  Gonna try anyway. First stop...Wisconsin.

When we were in Wisconsin we were able to catch up with an old school friend.  About the same time we left the Rockies for our European adventure some years ago, Gretchen left the Rockies to create a new life for her family back on the soil she grew up on. Back in the day her parents had farmed this land and sold Shaklee vitamins to my husbands folks.  She inherited their love for the natural world and the great outdoors. When both parents were gone she had a vision to bring the old homestead back to life as a modern market farm and is working hard to do just that.  

 It is a year round effort to cultivate Hickory Hill Farm. Nothing goes to waste. In the spring they tap the sugar maples for syrup.  Summer time they hit the farmers markets with organic veggies, eggs, edible flowers and wild-gathered herbs.  In the fall they harvest corn, spelt, and wheat.  Winter brings fresh cut pine and dried roots to the market stalls. In between there is weeding, mending, reparing, building. It's just awesome.  It's a lot of work. A way lot.  Food, it's a miracle truly.

Once upon a time I thought this was my destiny.  It turns out I was wrong but it is super inspiring for me to follow Gretchen's journey.  She is amazing. So glad we were able to visit in person. 

And, people?  If you have never looked out over a lush, central Wisconsin valley and smelled the veggies and grain ripening in the heat or felt the rain pelt down from heavy clouds overhead, you don't know what you are missing. 

It was good to be back. 

Where's Archie?

When I saw him crashed on the bathroom rug the other day  I knew I better get pictures before he doesn't fit on it at all.  

We call this rug his Poodle Puppy Camo....

zzz.....

Feeding Grandma's Chickens

 

Where I come from houses are white and barns are red.  Not always, but very often. It just seems the way it should be.  My mother-in-law's farm is such a place, Wisconsin perfection with mown lawns and flowers planted near  the barn doors.  On summer evenings it is idyllic.  The little girls loved peeking inside the big red barn with her and visiting the hens. 

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.
~William Cowper

bullwinkle by morning

 

Yesterday morning began like most mornings do.  Coffee was brewed, breakfast made, lunches packed, and people sent off to work and summer football practice. I was giving myself the celebratory pat on the back (you know, go Self! They are fed. They are packed. They are launched into their day and it isn't even 8am!) when I thought I saw something move back behind the trees. The thing I thought I saw was a pony.  There is no logical reason for this other than once upon a very long time ago we had such a pony.  That pony never scaled the side of a mountain however. And that didn't happen yesterday either.  

Nope. 

Much as it may have looked like a pony bum for a minute there, it was not a pony in my yard.  It was a.....

MOOSE!

oh.my.word.   

It was a gosh honest truth, real live MOOSE and it was just meandering around the yard nibbling on trees til it got full and decided right there would be a perfect place to....

...sit a spell.

In my YARD, y'all.  

 

And there he sat for the better part of the morning, with us periodically peeking out at him til he up and wandered off, all casual like. As if this sort of thing just happens.  

Our neighbors said they spot one every once in a blue moon and generally they don't cause trouble. We watched from a safe distance just the same.  Moose are prey, not predators, but they can reach speeds of 35mph when they are defending their young or during mating season (in the fall) or say, when the neighbor Corgi tries to herd them and they get super annoyed.

They sound like a cow which we didn't know until later in the evening when he returned and made actual cow sounds.  Our neighbor texted me from her porch. We couldn't see at first in the dark until she said he was over eating our apple tree.  This enlightened us to two things.  First, we have an apple tree. Who knew?  Second, we probably shouldn't count on a lot of apples. 

He has made one more appearance so far, chasing the aforementioned Corgi back to her porch early this morning. To be fair she sorta had it coming. By all accounts this doesn't happen very often so this may be our only opportunity to see such a magnificent creature so close.   Still, I will probably look over to the hillside in the mornings just in case...

  

 

wings night

While we were visiting our friends the other night we got to help out with their little backyard flock of backyard chickens.  In their neighborhood, like many today, they may keep a handful of hens.  Understandably however, their neighbors would like them to keep said hens in their own backyard. In order to afford the birds some freedom to scratch and stretch their legs they allow them out each day.  Every few months they get their wings clipped to keep them from literally 'flying the coop' and wandering into nearby yards.  

It was quick and painless work - just like getting a haircut so long as you don't clip so far down the feather as to hit a vein. (much like trimming a dog's nails)  Basically you catch the chicken and cover her face a moment.  This simulates the sleep position of a bird putting their heads under their wings.  Instant calm.  Someone else spreads a wing and trims the longer primary feathers, the first ten on each wing. In no time each bird rejoined her flock.   

Let me tell you after years of owning chickens who routinely flew the coop we feel really silly now.  So easy.  You can read more here and here  A real life science for the week. 

new