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...

Friends with benifits

the zacheries all the way from THe Bay to OR!! thanks guys, Maia Mesurin' and Maia helpin' Brian tie up his panchetta : )



Maia Relaxin' with Clementine and using a sawzaw... damn that girl is multi talented!!

Brian putting Kev to work schlepping hay digging ditches and Splitting wood ...
I'll just say this guy earned his supper : )




On Wednesday Kevin and Maia arrived it was a much anticipated visit and they are still here it's been really amazing!!! they arrived with zacheries pizza and so far have built a pig pen, started the chicken coop, installed a kev's sculpture, schlepped water, built a goat house in the rain, dug ditches, drew schematics of ditch and drive, split wood ("unsplittable" wood at that), cooked a stunning "eggs kevin" breakfast which involved homemade muffins topped with Kevin's special holindaze sauce, fixed our stove... humm these guys should come more often ... it's been an amazing visit full and relaxing at the same time.. .more to come on that when I can just sit back and re-count... oh and and killed a lot of wine : )

Ty and Dara and the boys

We had a super nice visit from ty and the boys last weekend! Sam got to drive the tractor with uncle Brian and let's just say that made him VERY happy... so hapy that when it came time to be changed he insisted on being changed in the front loader of his new tractor... it was a ton of fun... thanks for coming guys!

moving water tanks and goats

this photo should give an idea of scale of a 10,000 gallon tank ... it's the green that goes all the way up to the rafters...

If you had asked my on monday morning which is easier moving a 12 foot in diamter 2000 lb water tank up hill by putting your shoulder to it with your husband (the tractor apparently was not suited for this job) OR moving the pasture for the goats I would have chosen the goats hands down... WRONG!!! once you have goats out grazing with no pen to catch them... it's pretty tough .. but not as hard as trying to catch a llama.. which is darn near impossible the woman who did sell him to me mentioned a holding pen to catch him... should have listened a little better... we did manage to coral the animals and get the hot fence moved but not after a LOT of DISCUSSION and several hours... jeeze that was exhausting ... we did also manage to role the water tank up to the barn and "store" it there for now till we can figure out how to get something that big 1/4 mile up a very steep hill... hummm : ) it was much bigger than I had anticipated ... it's 10,000 gallons.. .the hope is to hook up a solar pump from the spring (after we fix the cistern.. details details...) and pump up to the tank for a gravity system.... now the next time the power goes out we will have plenty of water...

new contenders... Perry and Plattus

I had to post this post... despite it's being ehemmm VERY irreverent : ) but I didn't write it Johnny did I'm just "publishing" it ... humm

Brian and My Friend Johnny has added to the pig naming... for those of you who are rowing geeks you will find this amusing : )

Hey Clare and Brian-
Great to hear from you. I've enjoyed your blog site a lot. Anyway, our mutual friend Perry Plattus is the only cop we know. I'd suggest you name one of your pigs Perry and the other one Plattus in honor of him. Going with Ham and Bacon or whatever is a bit cliche, even for rednecks down home on the farm. My two cents anyway.

thanks johnny http://www.beatsgriffracing.blogspot.com/

Proscuitto and Pancetta!

Porter re-named the pigs I love the new names : )

Oink Oink...

Patunia and Pattty.. but Brian would like to call them ham and bacon...

We got our newly waened pigs today!!

Brian brought them home in the dog crate in the hybrid true yuppy style : )

... they are VERY cute but they DO smell I must admit ... and I'm hoping the car recovers... (I think a trip to the professional car washer is in order.. next time the pick up may be the better choice) l
then into the wheel barrow to get them up to the barn we really didn't think it would have been wise to pull them out of the crate and "walk" them up to the barn.. I'm thinking we would have been chasing pigs all afternoon had we tried that.. so into the pen with the crate and they can out when they felt a little more relaxed...

We put them in the stall I built for the goats (who are now happily browsing full time)

we will keep them in the stall there for about a week then the plan is to set up a low electric fence where our garden will go and put them in there to act like rototillers!! : ) we'll see if it works in the mean time they are rooting up the stall I put them in and generally doing what pigs do ... I now understand why people put pigs on cement...

here they are : )

Now It's official

The search has ended we bought our tractor yesterday and it arrived today!!!

It's a Massy Fergeson 45 Hp with a front loader and a scraper

we bought it used from great guy close by he's re-built it from the ground up and we felt really good about the tractor and the price! Now all we need is ... a disc, tiller, post pounder, wood chipper, wood splitter and fork attachments ... humm : ) just the beginning...

here she is...