Happy New Year

   A new year is upon us and of course it is a time to reflect on the past year, what we are grateful for and what we aspire to change in our lives. Mostly though it is a time to look forward to the new year with new hopes, dreams, and resolutions. I hope for good health in the coming year for myself and my loved ones, I dream of the perfect little sheep farm, and my resolution is to finish all my unfinished projects. I seem to have the incurable illness of having to buy every piece of antique furniture in need of repairs and restoration. "Oh I can fix this" is said every time I go to a yard sale, auction, or estate sale. I have refurbished many antiques for our home and many for our yearly tag sale, but yet I have an attic filled with undone projects. It wouldn't be so bad if my husband didn't have the exact same affliction. He now has a garage filled with hopefuls. This is the year! We are either going to use these treasures or sell them, so we must complete these tasks and make junque into treasure.
   New Year's Day I plan to finally look at all the seed catalogs that have arrived in the mail. I think planning my spring plantings is a wonderful way to start the year. Last year's cut flower garden was such a success that I am planning to expand it with more varieties of sunflowers and also different species of flowers to be used in my cut flower arrangements. Most of the flowers were blooming in late summer and early fall, so this year I want to plant flowers that will bloom from early summer until frost. My little roadside stand of cut flower arrangements was quite busy and really was a source of great joy for me. I loved providing a little bit of colorful cheerfulness for others. There is nothing like a sunny bouquet to lift one's spirits.
   January is also a good month to catch up on reading. I am looking forward to reading a new book I bought but set aside during the busy holiday season. January and February is the perfect time to do all the relaxing indoor things you feel guilty doing any other time of year. I may even find time for the daily nap I always talk about but never seem to take. From The Farm at Mill Village, Happy New Year!!

Holly, our two year old chocolate lab, does find time for many naps.

She waits at the top of the stairs every night at 8:00 to go to bed. This dog loves to sleep!

The snow continues to pile up in the sheep field.

The sheep waiting to come back in the barn, while I do morning chores.

Merry Christmas

A Very Merry and Blessed Christmas to All

Christmas Fruit Cake

   As planned, I made my fruitcake on Saturday morning, although I never planned to be mixing the ingredients at 4:00 a.m. and having it in the oven by 4:30a.m. It was one of those nights when you are awake most of the night and finally give in and just get out of bed. Usually I read or knit when I can't sleep, but I figured why not bake the fruitcake. The oven warmed the kitchen on a -8 degree morning ( maybe I should have waited until this morning's -17 degrees) and the aroma of the spices, fruit and rum was nothing short of "intoxicating". I am including the recipe in my post, but you may want to make it at a more reasonable hour.
   Saturday night and Sunday's snowfall was absolutely magical to wake up to. At 14" on the ground I think the chickens and duck will be in their houses now because of the snow depth and not just the frigid temperatures. They have all adapted to staying in with the comfort of heat lamps. When I first started keeping them in during the cold days, they tried to push their way out every morning while I cleaned the coop and fed and watered them. Now they want no part of going outside into the deep freeze and snow. Egg production is high so obviously they are content with their winter arrangement. The sheep on the other hand, enjoy a romp through the snow as long as it is not zero or terribly windy out. They like the freedom of being able to come and go into the barn during the day.
   The Christmas baking and present wrapping continue this week. All the things that make the holidays so wonderful!

First time out making paths

George not to sure if he likes snow yet

 

Martha, twin brother George, and Francis playing in the snow

 



 

Christmas Fruitcake Recipe



 

1 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons cloves

1 teaspoon allspice

3 cups sifted flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup raisins

2/3 cup currants

1 lb. mixed fruitcake fruit

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup chopped dates

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups applesauce

1/4 cup rum

 

 

Cream shortening and sugar gradually with spices. Sift flour, salt, soda together. Dredge fruit and nuts with 1/2 cup of flour. Beat eggs until light and fluffy. Add alternately with remaining flour mixture,stirring until well blended. Stir in applesauce, fruit and nuts, and rum.

Bake in a well greased tube pan in a preheated 325 degree oven for 1 1/2 hours or until done.

Ready for oven

Ready to eat!



Oh Christmas Tree

   We got our Christmas tree last Saturday, put it up in the house Sunday, and decorated it on Monday. You know you are getting older when it takes three days to get a Christmas tree up and decorated. It was snowing lightly all day Monday, and with Bing Crosby crooning Christmas songs it finally felt like Christmastime. It took us longer than usual to pick out our tree this year, since I pledged not to get an overly pruned tree. Last year our tree was so artificial looking with each branch so manicured by the tree farm. This year I wanted a more graceful, natural looking tree with boughs that were not all trimmed to be of equal size. This was not an easy quest, but after walking up and down hills at the tree farm we found our treasure. This tree was in the last row of Christmas trees, almost in the outer forest. Maybe it was in the forest! Anyway, my collection of vintage ornaments showed off much better this year with more space between the branches. We put the tree in our library this year and I don't know why I didn't think of putting it there other years, because it is in the perfect spot to enjoy it.
   I'm still finishing up making a few last minute gifts, but most of the shopping, crafting, and Christmas card sending is done. That leaves baking and wrapping presents. Tomorrow I plan to make my family's recipe for the most fabulous, moist fruitcake. It wouldn't be Christmas without this cake!
   We are still waiting for Charlotte to come home to the farm from the breeders. Hopefully just before Christmas we will pick her up. It will be good to have another body in the barn to keep it warm. Since we sold our cow last year, I can tell the difference in the temperature of the barn. A big animal makes a big difference in the winter months for heat.
   With the cold weather and snow cover outside I have been feeding the birds at the bird feeder. This year feeding the birds is becoming stressful do to pigeons. And I mean a lot of pigeons! They can clean out a bird feeder in just minutes. My husband and I keep scaring them away and luckily they are becoming fewer and fewer everyday. We are very vigilant at watching for them, but the minute I go out for a few hours they definitely help themselves to every seed in the feeder. We also nearly had a casualty yesterday. A chickadee flew into our kitchen window with a thud and ended up laying on the back porch stunned. After bringing him in the house and stroking his little body, he was ready to go back outside to be with his friends. A happy ending!

Visiting Chickadee

Vintage sled and skates by our back door

Christmas Tree 2013

 

Butternut Squash Beef Stew Recipe

   The Christmas decorating continues At The Farm at Mill Village. Hopefully I will be done by Friday, so I can sit and relax listening to Christmas music and just enjoy looking at all the embellishments which bring back wonderful memories of past Christmas seasons. On Saturday we plan to go and cut our Christmas tree at the local tree farm in Chelsea, Vermont. It would be nice to have a fresh snowfall on the ground, but the forecast for today and Friday is calling for mostly rain with a little mix of snow and freezing rain. Tomorrow night may bring an inch or two of snow, so I have my fingers crossed for a little tree harvesting snow.
   This year I decorated the wreath on my barn with vintage garden hand tools, a terra cotta flower pot filled with faux holly and apples, and a miniature watering can. I tied the garden tools on with baling twine that I took off of a bale of hay in the barn. That's what I call re purposing.

 

   I forgot to mention in my last post that our oldest black lab, Millie, had her birthday last Sunday on December 1st. Millie is now 14 years old! She only climbs the stairs once a day now just to go to bed at night, do to her arthritis, but other than that gets around pretty well. She also has much less gray hair than I do. She is such a joy to us!

Millie

 

   Tired of leftover Thanksgiving turkey? Try this tasty, warming stew on a chilly night for supper. The butternut squash and Marsala wine give it a sweetness that is just delicious and the herbs lend a savory flavor. Served with a loaf of crusty bread it is a wonderful winter meal. Enjoy!

 

 

Butternut Squash and Beef Stew

Olive oil

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

Rosemary

Thyme

Beef cubes coated with flour,salt, and pepper

1 cup Marsala wine

1 butternut squash cubed

can of diced tomatoes (15 oz.)

3 cups beef broth

 

- saute' onion and garlic in olive oil

- add flour,salt,and pepper coated beef cubes and brown

- loosen browned bits with Marsala wine

- add beef broth and thyme and rosemary (tied in a bouquet)

- add tomatoes, squash and more pepper to taste

- cook at least 1 1/2 hours ( better if cooked all afternoon)

- remove herb bouquet

- served garnished with fresh parsley

 



 

 

November's Farm News

   After a month of not blogging, it's time to get back to writing about the happenings on the farm. Daily activities are very quiet this time of year. No garden tasks to attend to, except perusing all the colorful seed catalogs that are showing up daily in my mailbox. It used to be that in January, right after Christmas, they would arrive giving us something to look forward to after the holidays, but they seem to be coming earlier and earlier each year. With too much to do getting ready for Christmas in December, I have tucked the catalogs away in my desk drawer until January. It is such fun to sip a cup of tea by the fire in the middle of a snow storm and dream of next year's garden. The empty palette of a snow covered garden offers endless possibilites of what to grow next year.
   The animals are spending a lot of time in the barn with the exceptionally cold temperatures as of late. Yesterday was hovering near 30 degrees and the sheep acted like spring lambs, running and jumping. It really puts a smile on your face to see them run and play in the bit of snow we have on the ground and act like it is April rather than December.
   The chickens are really not a bit impressed with the snow we have covering the ground, in fact they do not like it at all. They squawk as soon as they come out of the hen house and feel the cold and see the snow. Frostbite on the rose on top of the chicken's heads and their feet is a real concern in the sub-zero temperatures, so they have spent a few days locked in their house with a nice warm light on and are just as happy, and actually laying eggs everyday. The shortened days of winter offer less light and most chickens lay fewer eggs, but my girls have been laying steadily. With holiday baking starting now nothing beats farm fresh eggs in all baking recipes so I'm glad for the extra eggs, as are my family and neighbors.
   Charlotte, our breeding ewe, is now in New York State at Cabin Creek Acres in Schuylerville being bred. The younger lambs miss her terribly and look for her and call her with their baaing daily. Even though she is not the mother to any of them, they seem to rely on her as a mother figure. She will be home just before Christmas, hopefully pregnant. She is a bit chubby from sneaking grain from the other sheep and eating more than her fair share of hay. This extra weight can be detrimental to getting pregnant and to birthing in the spring, so she is on a diet. Poor Charlotte, she so loves food!
   Today's chores include hanging the outside Christmas wreaths and enjoying the upper 20 and lower 30 degree temperatures. After our latest cold snap it will feel downright balmy out. Thanks for your interest in The Farm at Mill Village.

Unhappy chickens in the snow.

Francesca trying to drink frozen water although she has heated water in her duck house!

Sheep happy to be in their barn when it was 1 degree outside.

 

I have no idea where they came from, but these yellow violas are still blooming against the foundation of our house despite frigid temps. Summer lives on!

 

  

First Snow

   This morning we are having our first snowfall in South Royalton, Vermont. Only up to an inch is predicted, but it is our first honest to goodness snow of the season. Since the date is October 30, old timers would forecast 30 major snowstorms for this winter. I don't know if this "old wives tale" will come true, but that is a lot of snowstorms for the winter of 2013-2014. We only just had our first frost last week on Monday, so after a very mild October we are suddenly plunging head first into winter it seems. Yesterday's morning low was 19 degrees and today's was 24 degrees. Brrrrr.
   Last week we devoted to the delivery and stacking of seven cords of wood to heat our farmhouse for the winter. We are lucky to have a 20x24 1930s garage on our property that we store our firewood in every fall and winter, to keep it dry. Also lucky enough to have it only a few steps from the backdoor of our house, a blessing during frigid Vermont winters. The garage seems to accumulate a lot of gardening equipment and "where do we put this?" items in the summer, but come fall it is cleaned out for only the firewood and storage of our porch and garden furniture.
   We also brought our hay home and stacked it in the barn last weekend, and can now breathe a sigh of relief that all the heavy lifting of wood and hay is complete, we'll be warm this winter, and the sheep will be well fed.
   One of our ewes, Charlotte, will be leaving to go to another farm to be bred in the beginning of November. I know we will miss her, but she will soon be back and hopefully grace our farm with a beautiful lamb (maybe twins) next April. The sheep are being lazy laying outside on the sunny days and still foraging for apples. It seems the pace of all the animals has slowed down and with no gardening chores I finally have time to make Christmas presents. So far I have made 4 1/2 presents,  with a lot more to go. So since the weather is chilly and snowy, I am off to my craft room to create. Enjoy the snow!

Sunrise over the barn last Tuesday am

Millie checking out the first frost

First snow!

A poor "woolly-bear" caterpillar caught in the first snow

 

Warm Gingerbread

We have a bounty of eggs now that all of our chickens are laying. We sold several dozen eggs last week and have had requests for more. The new "Fresh Eggs" sign is almost completed, just waiting for my husband to letter it this week. I enjoyed painting the graphics of the chickens on the sign, but will not even attempt to do the lettering. Hopefully the sign will be up by the road this weekend.

Laying hen in nesting box

 

The sheep have one late apple tree, at the very back of the pasture, where they spend their lazy days  waiting for the last apples to drop. I think they will be quite sad when these apples are gone, since they have so loved eating apples the last two months. They still run out of the barn every morning and check the ancient, crooked apple tree they have been getting all their apple treats from, even though it has been barren the past ten days or so. At least they have this one more tree to satisfy their apple cravings. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees on our property and within our view so these red apples on this tree are a little bit of color for us to see.

The chickens, duck, and sheep are in their barns by 6:30 now, so I find myself curled up with a book on the couch by 7:00. I like this time of year with no urgency to get things done in the evenings. I do enjoy baking, so I sometimes pop something in the oven for an evening snack. My latest baking endeavour is an October favorite- gingerbread. Once you make this from scratch gingerbread, you'll never use a mix from the grocery store again. Served with a dollop of whipped cream it is undeniably an autumn treat. 

 

Gingerbread

1 2/3 cups all purpose flour( plus extra for dusting pan)

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg ( or ground nutmeg)

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing

1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 large farm fresh eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup molasses

1/2 cup warm water

1 cup light raisins

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8" baking pan with butter and dust with flour.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until well blended. Set bowl aside. In another bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter and brown sugar until well blended and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, until just blended. Continue beating while slowly adding the molasses. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the egg mixture and stir just until incorporated.  Add the water and stir until blended. Gently fold in raisins. Spread evenly into prepared pan. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on rack. Serve warm with whipped cream.

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preparing Gardens for Winter

   Another busy week on the farm getting ready for the winter to come. This morning, since the weather is so nice out, I finished pulling out all the remnants of our four-square colonial kitchen garden. This year one square was devoted to green beans, another beets and carrots, the third onions, and finally the last square is where we grew our tomatoes. All have been harvested, eaten, frozen, canned, or stored in the root cellar. The ground has been hoed and raked and ready for next spring's plantings. I will be planting one quadrant with garlic in the next couple of weeks, but the rest of the spaces will sit barren until next spring. I only wish all the gardens were all cleaned out and ready for winter,  there is still a lot of work to do before winter sets in. I haven't even cut back any of the perennials in the border in front of the house yet. A long border! This is my least favorite job in the fall. It always seems like such a good idea to fill your property with beds of flowers until you have to maintain them, but that is the price to pay for beautiful flowers.
   Yesterday, while the ground was still wet from the rain we received, I pulled out all the stalks from the spent sunflowers and put some of the flower heads in the bird feeders for the wild birds and gave some to the chickens. What a treat they thought that was. I was amazed at how massive the clump of roots had become and how deep they went, a very hard job to pull out especially when you have seventy sunflower stalks to pull.
   The weather is supposed to hold out for the next few days, so I hope to finish all the outdoor gardening chores for this year. I do plan to make and can applesauce over the weekend as well, so it's back to gardening today. Have a great week and enjoy these beautiful sunny days.

Ready for next Spring

Sunflower Treats

 

Sheep and Wool Festival

It is hard to believe it has been a week since the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival and I haven't even written about it yet. It was really fabulous in every aspect, the weather was perfect, the sheep and sheep dogs were all on good behavior (as were their owners) and the vendors had the most amazing selections of yarn, roving, and raw wool. I couldn't believe all the types of yarn, and the selections of colors were nothing short of incredible. I was so overwhelmed at the various choices I didn't know what to knit out of which yarn. I wanted to buy a sampling of every color and every weight of yarn. Next year I plan to pick out a few patterns for knitting beforehand and come prepared with a list of the weight, color and amount of yarn for each project. The thing that was most impressive was that everyone seemed to be genuinely having a great time, evident from all the smiles I saw. Of course I forgot my camera to capture all the happy attendees and all the beautiful sheep, goats and alpacas.
Next it was on to my highly anticipated three hour spinning class. Here was my chance to learn to take my sheep's wool and spin it into yarn for making hats, mittens and even sweaters. It is every shepherdess' dream to wear a sweater she knit from her own flock's wool. Not so fast! I have decided I will probably keep buying my yarn, or else send out my wool to a mill to be processed into yarn. Yes, that is my new dream. A sweater knit from the wool of my sheep processed at a mill. I found the whole spinning process discouraging and boring. It didn't help that my loaner spinning wheel kept malfunctioning and had to be repaired by the instructor several times.The class was filled so I was stuck, no more extra wheels. I have to admit spinning is not for me, no matter if I had a perfectly working wheel. I now have such respect and awe for people who spin their own yarn. What patience to sit for hours! I just don't have it. So now I am off to put my sheep and chickens in for the night, because I have been sitting too long blogging. Good night.

 

Apple Picking

We finally got out to the apple orchard Saturday afternoon. It was a picture perfect late September day, complete with a deep blue sky and gorgeous colorful foliage. The problem was I never know which apples to pick for eating and which apples to pick for baking. I know the names of the ones I want from previous experience, but I never recognize them on the tree. Which is a wealthy? Which is a cortland? Which is a spartan? I have no idea. The orchard closest to our farm, that we visit every fall, doesn't label which apples are on which trees-and there lies the dilemma. I never can figure out what apple I am picking. I even bought a reference guide this summer with pictures of apples and their names and uses. It didn't help me one bit. So, we ended up driving down the road to the orchard's farm stand, in the barn behind their house, where we "picked" labeled bags of apples. Spartan, crisp and sweet for eating out of hand, and red cortland for baking. It couldn't be easier. No guessing and no disappointments. This morning by 8am I already had a red cortland apple pie in the oven. Just the smell of it baking was intoxicating. No candle company has been able to perfectly capture that aroma in any candle yet in my opinion.
Here is the recipe for a 9"apple pie, I hope you will try it and enjoy a little bit of apple season.

I hated to take the apples out of the bowl for baking!

9" Apple Pie

Pastry for 9-inch two-crust pie
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
dash salt
8 thinly sliced large tart apples (peeled and cored)
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

Heat oven to 425 degrees
Prepare pastry.
Stir together sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt; mix with apples.
Turn into pastry-lined pie pan; dot with butter.
Cover with top crust, seal and flute edge, cut slits in top crust for ventilation.
At this point I prepare an egg wash, to brush on the top crust before baking, of one egg and 1 Tbl. spoon of half and half ( you can use milk). Wisk together egg and half and half and brush onto crust with pastry brush. Then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. ( This step is optional, but it makes a golden brown crusty pastry.)
Cover edge of crust with 2 inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning. Remove foil last 15 minutes of baking.
Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is golden brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust.

 

8 cortland apples unbaked in bottom crust produces a generous filling.

 

Cooling apple pie

 

www.thefarmatmillvillage.com

 



Pumpkin Bread Season

A pretty chilly start this morning, 36 degrees at barn chore time. Still no frost in the mornings and none forecast for this week. The leaves are really starting to change though, time for leaf peeping and apple picking. It is very overcast and windy so far today, just the kind of day for baking. I just made two loaves of pumpkin bread, the first of the season. The house smells so good and the oven makes it feel so cozy. This is a really simple and straight forward recipe that I want to share. When you smell it baking and taste it warm, you'll know it is Autumn. Served with pumpkin spice coffee it is sublime. The recipe makes two loaves. You can easily freeze one for a later date, it tastes just as good. When my six children were growing up at home two loaves were gone in two days. When I first started making this pumpkin bread, about 35 years ago, I didn't have an electric mixer so I used a wooden spoon to mix the ingredients together. What a luxury it is to have a beautiful red kitchen-aid stand mixer now. Wow, does that make things easier!

Pumpkin Bread

2/3 cup unsalted butter
2 cups sugar

4 farm fresh eggs
1 can (15 oz.) solid pack pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
1 1/2 cups raisins

Preheat oven to 350. Grease two 9x5x3 inch  loaf pans. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in eggs, pumpkin and water. Blend in flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves. Stir in raisins. Pour into pans. Bake about 70 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Carrots and Herbs

My carrots really took off the past couple of weeks. Although I planted them early, they just seemed to take their time growing this summer. I think it was just too cool and rainy at first, but now all at once they are ready. I have been periodically pulling a few out here and there but they were always too small and underdeveloped, now they look like carrots on steroids! I have had good luck in the past with Touchon carrots, a french heirloom variety, so I tried them again this year. Looks like we will have plenty for soups and stews this winter. Carrots keep very well following the methods used for beets and other root vegetables.

Touchon Carrots

 

It is another beautiful day before a showery weekend. A perfect day to pick herbs from the herb garden and begin the drying process for winter usage. My herb garden did really well this year, although I did lose a thyme plant, a dill plant, and a sage plant to poor drainage. Too much rain and poor drainage didn't make for happy herbs and they didn't survive, but the rest of the herbs did beautifully. I only entered a few herbs in the fair this year, parsley, rosemary, lavender, and sage. All received blue ribbons to my delight.

 

The best time to pick herbs for drying is mid-morning after the dew has dried off of them. Find a dry spot to hang the herbs out of direct sun. I dry mine in my attic on a large wooden clothes drying rack. Hang the herbs in bunches using a rubber band, string, or a twist tie. A drying screen, such as a window screen, works perfectly to dry leaves and sprigs of herbs that cannot be bundled to dry. A piece of cheese cloth or muslin placed under the herbs on the screen works nicely. Herbs dry pretty quickly when denied moisture. They are ready when they are totally dry to the touch. Put the herbs in labeled jars (with the name of the herb or herb mixture, and date) and store in a dark cupboard until ready to use. They should remain potent up to one year.

I will be drying parsley, sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme, lemon verbena, mint and marjoram. Next year I am hoping to plant several chamomile plants so that I can dry the flowers for tea, a remedy that always helps my husband when he has an asthma attack.

Keep in mind to only use half of the amount of dry herbs in recipes calling for fresh herbs. Dry herbs are much more potent than fresh herbs.

The Herb Garden at The Farm at Mill Village

 

 

 

Washing Wool

We are having some beautiful weather this week so I have decided to finish washing the wool fleece that was sheared off of my sheep in March. I washed most of the wool at the end of April when we had a stretch of sunny and breezy days, but it was so tiring and time consuming that I stored some of it until a later date when the weather conditions became perfect again. You really don't want to wash it in the humid weather in the middle of summer because the wool just doesn't dry quickly enough. The process is not that hard and it is so wonderful to have wool from your own sheep to work with.
Of course the first step is to shear the sheep. I do not do this myself. I have a very experienced sheep shearer who has been coming to my farm for the last seven years.

 

Sheep Shearing

 

Next comes the most time consuming task, skirting the fleece (removing a strip of dirty wool all around the edge of the fleece) and removing any dung tags and vegetation- such as hay and bedding in the wool. This process can take hours depending on how dirty the fleece is and how many sheep you have. Many sheep owners put thin coats on their sheep year round to keep the wool clean and free from vegetation. This makes this step much easier. Unfortunately, I do not, so this is a lengthy process.

Once the fleece has been picked through you can begin the washing or scouring process. It is easiest to do this in multiple small batches. The wool is washed in very hot water with dawn dish detergent, changing the water and soap several times until the water looks clean. ( It took me three times.) The worst part of this process was carrying huge buckets of hot water from my house to the backyard. Truly back breaking labor!! A lot of sheep owners wash their fleece in their bathtubs, but I thought what a mess that would be to clean up. The most important thing in this step is to handle the wet wool as little as possible and not to agitate it so that it does not mat up. Also keep the temperature of the water the same with each washing. This also helps to avoid matting.

Washing the Wool

 

The next step is the rinsing which is done the same way as the scouring, just soaking the wool in clear hot water until the water looks clear. It took only two rinsings for me. Then after lifting the wool gently out of the water, I placed my now clean wool on screens to dry. It took two days for the wool to dry, and the results were perfectly clean. The wool that looked dingy and smelled like a barnyard was now so white and smelled so clean!

 

Drying the Wool



                                                                    

I stored all this clean wool away until winter when I will card it. Carding is the process of using two wooden paddles with fine metal teeth in them to comb the wool into usable roving ( clean, smoothly combed wool fibers). I will use the roving for needle felting, but at this point spinners would spin yarn.

Antique

Hand Carders

New Hand Carders

(still basically the same)

 

I am taking a spinning class at the Sheep and Fiber Festival at the Tunbridge Fair grounds the weekend of September 28 and 29, so maybe next year I will spin the wool into yarn also.

 

First Frost

It has to happen sooner or later, tonight South Royalton, Vermont is predicted to have the first frost of the season. The weather forcasters are predicting temperatures to be in the upper 20s to around 30 degrees. Don't forget to bring tender potted plants indoors if you want to keep them a little longer. Also, cover any crops you may still have in the garden that you want to prolong the growing season of. I think I will bring in my nearly ripe tomatoes along with the ripe ones and put them on window sills to finish ripening. I have two huge potted herbs in the herb garden, a rosemary plant and a lemon verbena plant, that I will bring in. Other than the tomatoes and herbs, I think it is time to let nature take its course. By mid-September I am pretty tired of being a slave to the gardens. I am looking forward to putting the gardens to bed for the winter, and spending a cozy winter baking, quilting and wool needle felting, all in the comfort of two woodstoves.
The Tunbridge World's Fair is just a memory now, but despite the first two days of rain and mud, sunshine returned for the weekend. I was very pleased to receive blue ribbons for all of the herbs I entered, as well as my huge potted begonia. Our hens, despite their setback from the fox attack in August, received a second place red ribbon for their eggs.

Prize Winning Eggs

Blue Ribbon Parsley

 

The first place blue ribbon for my wool needle felted downy woodpecker and nuthatch was my greatest accomplishment. Although it feels so good to win a blue ribbon for things you have grown in the garden, there is no comparison to the feeling of winning first prize for something you designed and created yourself without the benefit of a pattern or instructions. I am already dreaming of next year's fair and what I can enter. I have never entered any of the vegetables I grow, so that is on the top of my list.

Wool Needlefelted First Place Birds

 

View the rest of my wool needle felting at www.thefarmatmillvillage.com 

 

 



 







Rain for the Fair

The big end of summer event in Vermont is The World's Fair in Tunbridge, Vermont. Gardeners and farmers coddle their best livestock and potential prize winning crops all summer to enter in the fair come September. Even the rainy weather doesn't keep real Vermonters away from partaking in the thrill of winning a blue ribbon for Bessie the cow, or that giant pumpkin that has been fertilized to be the biggest yet.
The fair opened yesterday morning with rain and unfortunately rain is the main event again today. My husband, who is at the fair from 7am until midnight throughout the fair, says you haven't seen mud until you've been to the Tunbridge fair this year. Yikes! The good news is the weekend looks glorious, so I am sure the crowds will be out to eat the food, ride the rides, and pet the farm animals. Even I decided to wait until better weather prevails to see how my entries fared. See you at the fair!

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Getting Ready for Hay

It's time to think about bringing home our winter supply of hay and storing it in the barn. We usually go to pick up the hay from the farm where we buy it the last week in September. The farm is about thirty minutes from our farm, which gives us thirty minutes to rest from loading the hay until unloading and stacking the hay in our barn. A huge job! I try to enlist as many family members with pick-up trucks and strong backs and arms as I can for this tiring feat. Having stacks and stacks of hay in the barn always gives me such a sense of satisfaction and security knowing the sheep will be fed throughout the long Vermont winter. Not to mention the pleasure of smelling the aroma from the fresh hay.
So in anticipation of the arrival of the hay, it was fall cleaning weekend in the barn. Rafters, walls and floors were swept, garden tools put back in their rightful places, and summer items stored away to make room for the hay. My husband and I went out to get wooden pallets to raise the hay up off the brick barn floor to avoid any moldy hay. We were lucky to get huge, sturdy over-sized pallets, just what we needed. It now looks like the boardwalk at Atlantic City in the barn without the hay on the pallets, but soon hay will be stacked on them and the pallets won't be seen until spring.

Why worry about hay ?

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Fresh Eggs

Yesterday was a milestone in the life of one of our new chickens who came to the farm in April as a baby chick. One of our Buff Orpingtons became a laying hen! She went from being a pullet (that goofy, gawky teenage stage) to a full grown hen by laying her first "tiny" egg. Not much eating out of that egg as compared to the full-sized eggs our three year old Barred Rock chickens lay, but she will soon be laying breakfast sized eggs.

 

 

It is a huge relief to me to see that they are starting to lay, because we lost some of our chickens to a fox attack in the beginning of August. Not only did he dig under the fence and kill chickens, but he severely maimed some of the other chickens and traumatized them so that they have been laying less frequently. I am already planning what kinds of chicks to order in the spring to build up our flock. For now though, I am glad to see they are all happy and safe. Maybe soon we will put up the "Fresh Eggs" sign!

 

Buff Orpington

Barred Rock

Happy hens at their hen house

 

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Farm Visitor

This morning at 6:15 I went out to clean the barns and let the sheep, chickens, and duck out when I had a colorful surprise. In Francesca the duck's swimming pool was a 6 inch spotted salamander peacefully swimming. I went to dump the pool to clean out yesterday's rain and mud and there he was. Of course I looked it up on the Internet to find out what it was. It is just what it looks like a "Yellow Spotted Salamander". Apparently they are common to the Northeast, but this was my first encounter with one. I learned they can live up to 32 years. Amazing! They spend most of their time underground but come out after rainy weather. Well, we certainly have had that. I also learned that in the spring hundreds, sometimes thousands, migrate to mating ponds- that they return to each year. Again, amazing! These creatures hibernate underground in the winter and emerge again in March. I guess my reward for getting up early and doing farm chores was seeing this beautiful amphibian.

 

 

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