This project that started two years ago is finally done! And of course, by “done” I mean simply moving into the next phase because nothing is ever actually done at a farm.
This week a landscaper came out with the fill dirt and topsoil and got the thing graded and even raised the wall in spots where it needed it. They did a phenomenal job and all in just one day. Remarkable what six guys, the right equipment, and a ton of experience can accomplish!
I seeded the area with clover just to get a nice ground cover while we decide how to map out our garden and paths. My sister gave us some calendula and chamomile seeds that I added along the edge of the rock wall, as well. The weather is perfect this week for growing grass from seed; rainy, not too cold, bits of sun here and there.
Next step: adding path lighting along the wall and some spot lights on the walnut tree. I think it will make it possible to see better in this area at night without the prison-yard effect of the big overhead light on the garden shed, seen above.
We had the sheep sheared. There’s a great local guy who comes over and does this for us. My sister has been talking to green mountain spinnery in Vermont about getting the wool processed so hopefully that will be done soon. We shear these sheep twice a year and with 10 of them now we’ve got a lot of wool to process!
Sadly four of the six ducklings were killed by a predator on their first day at the farm. However, the two that survived are now fully grown and they are big and surprisingly tough! In fact, they routinely bully the chickens and even the big rooster.
So we managed to finish this up on Saturday including a new rain gutter and down spout, sealing, and fascia board to conceal the swale of the deck (which it needs to shed water). The last step will be some blocky finials on top of the newel posts although we’re waiting until we have the house color finalized to put those on since they’ll be painted in the same color.
Our house at the farm has this sort of Alpine lodge look to it. Being surrounded by evergreens adds to the motif. As part of the remodel we extended the deck around the front and so I decided to give it a proper treatment with carved railings and hand-sawn balusters. I ordered all of the wood from a place in Texas called https://www.vintagewoodworks.com and they are seriously the porch experts if you want something made the old fashioned way! So several months back a few palettes arrived via truck freight carrying a daunting load of beautiful milled wood and that’s it. No hardware, no instructions. This is DIY++ although their website is really helpful and it all makes sense once you get over the initial shock that you are not in Ikea anymore, Toto.
I ended up building a jig to construct the baluster segments and my dad is here visiting and he helped a lot in cutting the newel posts and attaching them to the deck. Oh and this is after everything is painted or stained with multiple coats. two days of work now and we’ve got two small sections up. However, the next two are built and then that just leaves the hard part… building the angled sections for the stairs!
I picked up the warcry starter set over the weekend and tried it out with Kasey. It’s a fun, fast-paced game that left me wanting to play more. This is my first foray into the Warhammer fantasy (Sigmar) universe. I thought the “Iron Golem” miniatures were really awesome looking and that’s a big part of what made me want to try it out… plus the thought of eventually putting together a Khorne army for Sigmar.
It took a while and a few tries to figure out the right techniques to paint these figures. This ended up involving a number of layers of contrast paints and metallics thinned with Lahmian medium. It’s a bit sloppy although the color effects are right and so I’m looking forward to painting the rest of this little warband.
We’ve discovered that there is little-to-no information to be had on longevity for farm animals. Most of the material out there is about culling the herd and “humane” killing and processing. We have an elderly ewe (eight years old) that will need special care although finding resources on how to provide this is nearly impossible. While there is a whole industry around keeping horses, house dogs, and cats healthy, the farmers that raise livestock generally view them as resources with a cash value and treat them as such. This is understandable from their perspective although we have a different purpose in mind for our farm.
On this blog we will try to post our learnings as we work to find a balance with nature and be good custodians to the animals that we have invited to live here without anthropomorphizing or excessive sentimentality.
This is the little chicken. He was born on June 1st. As soon as he hatched from his egg his mother attacked and tried to kill him by pecking his eyes out. She had done this to two previous chicks as well, my sister discovering their tiny corpses when she opened up the chicken coop in the morning. This was very hard for her, of course. But this little chicken survived and he was peeping so loudly and so strongly in spite of his terrible injuries that it seemed like he was determined to live. My sister took him into the workshop and put him in the heated box that we used for chicks in the past. She even went out and bought another chick, a gentler breed, to keep him company and hopefully teach him how to eat and drink. Xingyu spent time with the little chicken and took pictures of him and fed him rice water and played with him in the grass. He even put soft things into his home, having noticed that the little chicken would snuggle up with them.
I hope that the little chicken felt loved in those moments.
On Wednesday the little chicken got weaker, and on Thursday he died. I don’t know if this is because he could not figure out how to eat or if he had something internally wrong with him that the mother knew and we didn’t. We’ll never know.
The little chicken has haunted me from the beginning, even before he was laid to rest. He has become a zen koan, breaking my mind. The little chicken is an adorable baby chick and yet he is also the victim of attempted murder by his own mother in his first gasping moments of life, bearing those horrible scars. Such horror and beauty in one, tiny package. Such promise and love and tragedy. This happens every day, at every scale, to every type of living creature in the world and some day the entire earth will spiral into the sun and destroy all of the little chickens and everything else. And so is this good? Or bad? It cannot be rationalized. It is the indisputable way that it is and it doesn’t care what you think about it. Life is so much suffering and so much joy and ultimately what does any of that even mean? Does it matter that we provided some comfort to the little chicken on his very short journey? What is the part that we play in this life? Are we to be stewards of some sort or are we victims? Victims that try to fit everything into our world view?
