Because we need more animals : )

So in about 3 weeks we will have 4 new additions to our farm... yesterday Brian and I went up to Hawks Mountain Ranch and picked out four of the cutest little weathers ever : ) they are just weaned - little bouncing babies... and I can't wait to bring them home...

These little guys are "Pygora" goats - these are smaller goats about the size of romeo and Juliette... I've learned they are great with kids, produce wonderful hand spinning fiber, and are good brush eaters !! which all sounds good to me ...

They are a cross of a Pygmy goat and an Angora Goat. The Angora goat brings in the white mohair fiber and the Pygmy brings in the color and Cashmere type fiber.

Here they are .. more photos when we bring them home : )

Cherry Crisp


Acorn


Cayenne Pepper


Mud Puddle

counting blessings...

This morning as I did my morning "chores" which I have to say really need a new name as I look forward so much to the morning mmmmahhhh from the "goaties", Mr. Chief with his deep low happy to see me" mmmmm ... and the pigs ohhh the pigs.... they are so funny they sleep in till I get there unlike the other animals who start munching when the sun comes up... the pigs lay around till I show up and then they jump up and spin around and grunt...I open their pen and turn on the fence and they go bounding out in to the pasture I think the pigs are BY FAR the cutest animals on the farm... so I'm thankfull for all these animals .. I really look forward to collecting the eggs which should be in another few weeks!!

This morning I was also thankful for new friends we are making up here in OR ... we had two of them for a wonderful dinner last night ... (thanks Maggie and Michael for coming all the way out the the farm... oh and sorry again about that flat tire!) ...


Brian walking up the hill to throw the ball for miss Clementine...you can also see the scotch broom in full bloom!!

which brings me to Brian ... well I'm so totally in love with this guy and he's just freggin' amazing... after chainsawing wood all morning patching up something with the welder he comes inside and cooks the dinner for our friends we started with his home cured duck ham and home smoked wild salmon... followed by oysters , then rack of lamb, risotto with morels, and spinach with home made panchetta... and finished off with a light salad and a strawberry rhubarb tart (that was my little part : ) ... I'm blown away again just writing it... so I'm incredibly grateful for the amazing creative talented man in my life!! I am truly blessed...

My Brother Joseph is visiting for two weeks and that is just wonderful he's helping Brian with all kinds of farm work! and he's been just a dream to have around...

I'm incredibly thankful for this amazing spring we are having and that my gardens are finally "in"

(which is just the beginning of course but things are growing all that work back in February doing hundreds of starts has paid off : )

we had our salad out of the garden last night .. so we are getting there slowly but surely
(thanks Joseph for the all the help digging in the garden : )



my amazing husband once again built me this awesome garden fence !

So happy spring !!! may blessings come to you too!!!


Chief AKA Toro he does all our "mowing and fertilizing" around the house : )

Now a member of the human RACE....

Today is a great day!!! .... Joseph called me a few days ago and said I scheduled for satellite to be hooked up at your house!!!

I'm so grateful that he got me off my "you know what" to get this done... it was one of those things that I've been saying "I'm gonna do" for way too long... and now thanks to the carverlaitermeisterman ... I'm now I member of the hi-speed world!! yippee!!! and although the dish is not exactly the prettiest thing on my 100+ year old farm house.. I'm considering it a very necessary evil for now... and we did try to put it up in the most subtle place possible... and boy I'm loving 1000kbs instead of 28.8!!! hello world... now I'll have lots more time to put into my garden instead of sitting here waiting for stuff to load!!...

in other news around the farm... When I left napa I left behind some of the most beautiful red poppies they where real show stoppers and just went all spring and summer long... .. it is a flower I missed the most from our old house... until yesterday when the bunch of rough looking greens that I'd hoped where poppies finally bloomed. I had never grown any of this sort so I just held my breath.... and then one bloomed and I'm totally blown away!! these poppies are the biggest (like the size on my hand no kidding!) most beautiful poppies I've ever seen ... a total gift ... so today I'm grateful for my gardens as they grow...

this made me smile

Thanks Kevin sunbrothers for this amazing piece of art that keeps things in "perspective"

I love it so much everyone who visits the farm loves the carrot..

The Big Carrot of Big Table Farm... : ) I think I like giant carrot better ...

kind of an inside joke

You may have seen the t-shirts that all the urban hipsters are wearing...

this is my version... : )

a farm by this name...

it's settled...

Big Table Farm

Our wish is to have ample space at our table for others and ample food to fill it

Pretty as Pigs on Pasture...

There are lots of sites around here that are let's just say "unconventionally-pretty" to look at.. I guess it is true beauty is in the eye of the beholden : )

One is the sight is of my husband actually diggin on my horse and vic-a-versa... : ) ...



another view that makes me VERY happy is our garden as it goes in ...
As I write this Brian is putting finishing touches on the new garden fence (photos of that coming soon : ) ... we used the new tiller and tilled our compost pile into the new site (although not fully mature it's a start) I got the potatoes in yesterday and hoping to get the rest of my little plant'lings in by the end of this week we'll see it's ambitious...


I did move the plants outside a week or so ago for "hardening off" mostly because I was anxious to get my studio back so we cobbled together a little make shift green house.. (ok not so pretty but oh so functional: ) we did have some loss as I did rush the the starts out a bit ... but we still have the makings of a substantial garden...


The other pretty picture is the two girls out on grass... our pigs are now on pasture full time which is really fun to see and they are as happy as... "pigs on pasture" : )

,
We also hooked up the chicken bus as it's now been dubbed by carla chambers : ) for it's first rotation around the farm it follows chief's last pasture rotation in order to scratch up and spread out his "left overs" it's been fun to start things moving into a cycle...


In other news we did a bit of tractor implement shopping ... our new acquisitions include

1. a new water tank which Brian retro-welded a trailer for so I don't have to schlep water a couple hundred yards every day.. yeahhh

2. a tiller 64" : ) because size matters
3. a honkin big mower that's 6 foot : ) should "throw down and take names" of scotch broom or so I hope...

4. fork lift attachments for the front loader for Brian's new firewood system...

So now that I've successfully emptied my bank account ...I'm going to go back to work now... to the sound of two dogs snoring in my office.. : )

lulu aka legs she's a tall one : )

new home for a good dog...

There is a dog that has been "surviving" across the street with some pretty neglectful parents since we moved in... this very sweet lab is only 10 months old but has lived her life being tied up outside with little or no attention given to her. Her daily mournful cries have been tugging my heart for months ... I've gone over and untangled her when she managed to wrap her self around a tree and couldn't get under cover or get to water just sitting out in the rain waiting for her owners to come home (which sometimes wasn't at all) and yell at her for what being excited to see them.... I knew I had to figure out some way to help this dog.... finally the opportunity came .. this dogs owners are moving and asked me if I wanted the dog... since I've been wishing I could "steal" this dog from them since December this was a wish answered. The owner said otherwise they'd take her to the pound or "leave her" behind tied up and just come back and feed her every few days! (this was amazing to me)... so Brian and I have taken the dog and are fostering her for a few weeks and then I'm happy to say that Kate the great has decided to make room in her life for this beautiful dog .. So we've "taken ownership"... When They brought me the dog she was of course in heat! yipes so off to the vet asap to see about how and when we can get her fixed get all her vaccines a dog collar etc etc... I'm incredibly grateful to Kate once again.. I know this dog will have an amazing life now : ) I will admit two dogs is a whole new ball of wax... I'm hoping they both settle in ...

her new name will be tallulah (lulu) : )

I used to be cool

so Wilco is a band... http://www.wilcoweb.com/..

it's also a farm store... http://www.wilco.coop/Divisions/Farm_Stores/

way back in a prior life when I lived in Philly I worked as a designer at a downtown ad agency and used to go see bands with a girl I worked with. Her name was Claire too... we had fun we both loved the same kind of music and she seemed to have the touch for finding amazing new bands.... I remember seeing sun-volt and wilco way back when ... I think it was 1994 or 1995 or something like that WAY before cowboy rock , rock-a-billy etc what ever you want to call it was cool ...

we uhhh hung out with the band yes you could easily say groupies, I seem to remember a few post show nights at the south street diner and the rest is blurry... let's just say nights from a past life... details that should be forgotten...

anyhooo...

today I went shopping with my husband.. and I bought a pair of jeans(wranglers) and a pair of carhartts.... yes and I bought them at Wilco Farm store.. humm I just bought clothing where I buy my pig food ....

Brian's charcuterie and welding skills...

I hate to gush but... I do love my husband ... tonight we had pizza on his homemade dough and his special tomato sauce AND not to be out shined was brain's home made panchetta thick sliced and then chopped up and into the sauce (I'm never never loosing any weight no matter how many darn fence posts I pound)... I'm am a lucky girl... and as I type I can see is baking cookies ... jeeze merciless : )


I haven't written in about a week ... it's been busy here on the farm. We where sad to see Kevin and Maia go but we have much evidence of thier stay and of course our carrott is now home : )

I'm VERY happy to report the fruit trees have all FINALLY exploded... I was down right miffed a few weeks ago when I drove 5 miles into the next valley and was in apparently a completely different time zone.. as all the cherry's where blooming plum applpe everything was out in full force... so needless to say when my cherries , pear, apples etc finally caught up .. I wanted to say well there you are!! you slept a bit late NO???!!! I think my terroir was down right lazy... I got the "stay out to late and get up when she feels like it" spring this year.. but now that she is up she is sauntering about :) flinging her hair and generally making herself known and it's nice to see her... : )

Edward and goats are happily munching away slowly but surely we'll get this place cleared but I did also buy a really fine pair of lever action loppers from OVS (thanks Kevin) and they aid in scotch broom abatement they where pricey but VERY worth it.. the right tool does make all the difference... but as I stand there cleaning up after th goats I will admit I try not to think about 40 more acres of broom as I have only about 1 acre cleared behind me to date... sighhh...

The pigs well they are sooo cute and I scratch their bellies and they run around and mess with me and play... ohhh man they will be hard to .. you know ..... so I cleaned their pen a few days ago and ohhh again soo cute ran around in the new fresh straw grabbing it in their mouths and flinging it I didn't know pigs where soo playful... then rolling around scratching their bellies in the straw... so cute and sooo tasty : )


All this wonderful animalness was dwarfed by the "egg-mobile" Brian has been working on this project and has done an amazing job ... it bears to mention that Kevin (the newly engaged) launched this project and helped Brian build the foundation of this great work and as we know the foundation is where it all starts... ... this is a kind of chicken tractor but MUCH more sophisticated we have had lots of flocks in Napa but we have admittedly upped the anti big time... we have 28 chickens (and may even go up to 50 depending on how egg marketing goes) we used our napa experience combined with our reading about pasture raising chickens from various sources so we have this mobile unit for nesting, roosting, night time lock down and egg laying and in the day we have a lightweight solar electric fence that moves with the egg-mobile a moving feast for the girls ... This constant new pasture keeps the chickens very healthy happy and hopefully disease free. as we are raising them totally free of antibiotics wormer's etc... I can't say the "O" word as we are not certified but I can say this is "O" plus some : ) ... so after we got all this set up we sat down and watched chicken -tv into the evening I was in heaven : )









Oh and lest we might miss out on feeling like as Brian says "this place is like a barnyard" I replaced the chickens on the porch with 5 baby quail and 3 Pheasant ...




I finish with some photo's of me and Mr. Chief who I've just started riding again now that the ground is drying up after winter : ) I hope to start riding a lot more soon... He's been enjoying all the abundant green spring grass it makes him vary happy and I'm happy now as I've down graded his fence with help from Brian to one strand of tape and some VERY light plastic fence posts... it makes a new pasture a snap... it's hard to believe a 1300lb animal is that respectful of a piece of hot tape but he is : ) happily...