Paint Yer (Egg)Wagon

So, we were sitting at Fat Boy's with Coyote, talking about chicken eviction...


See, there's a wee barn on our farm that was originally built for The Piper's Jersey cow, Biscuit. Biscuit and her calf, Red Emma, have been gone from the farm for many years. The "two cow garage" morphed first into a woodworker's storage shed, then was repurposed to hold gardening supplies, pigs and chickens. Now, after several generations of pigs and chickens, we have a new plan in mind: tear the whole thing down to the frame and turn it into peoplespace. We imagine book groups, workshops, some nice south-facing windows for seed-starting, and a place for the occasional swagman (or swagwoman) to waltz his (or her) matilda.


That said, the chickens gotta go. We'd been thinking about this all winter and considering the process. We figured we'd cull the non-egg-layers (Mmmm! Chicken stew with dumplings!) and then put them into a moveable coop of some sort. We started looking around at plans and images and studying other people's portable poultry palaces, and the harder we looked, the more perplexed we became. Thankfully, along came Coyote, who had been raising and tending chickens for years and had some ideas and skills to contribute. We decided it was time for a hardware run. Coyote and the Piper and I headed out, with a stop at our favourite cheap seasonal eatery, Fat Boy's, for fortification.


Now, in addition to good, cheap, locally-sourced hamburgers, onion rings and frappes (milkshakes), Fat Boy's has another important feature: crayons and paper placemats. Many a farm project has been sketched on those placemats over the years. We set the paper cup of crayons in the middle of the table and set to work, tossing out possible names for the structure as we went. "Yolks-Wagon" was a solid favourite, but with my taste for the obscure I lobbied for "Taigh-Beak," a play on the Gaelic word for "outhouse." By the time our meal was consumed we'd come to no firm agreement on names, but we did reach the shared conclusion that our moveable coop, in order to fit with our farm's Celtic/British theme, should look something like a traditional Traveller/Gypsy wagon. Alas, due to a local dearth of Travellers and Gypsies, we had only our imaginations and memories to go on, so we boldly scribbled our best approximations of a few paint schemes and sallied forth to the hardware store for said paint and two sheets of red metal roofing.


After we got home, we searched the internet for traditional caravan images. Huzzah! Our paint choices were culturally and historically correct! (Well, mostly. It turned out that "Montpelier Red Velvet," which looked like a basic cherry red under the fluorescent lights of the store, turned out to be sort of a deep raspberry instead.) Our other colours, "Orange Glow," "Blue Flame," and "Globe Artichoke," were right on target. As soon as Coyote had finished the actual carpentry of the structure, with The Piper's occasional help and guidance, I primed the structure and started to paint.


We got one coat of "Globe Artichoke" on the structure before Coyote left. Another WWOOF volunteer helped apply two additional coats, and then I started to play with the other colours. First, I tried out the red paint on the window trim and watched it dry into the aforementioned deep raspberry--not the effect I'd been going for. Next I tried out "orange glow," (really more of a school-bus yellow, but also close to the lovely deep hue of the yolks from our free-range chickens), on the lower portion of three sides. Well, that made everything look bright and cheery, but the big blocks of colour were also intimidating. How shall we get from these bold patches to the complex motifs commonly seen on old caravans? Well, I.....have absolutely no idea. My coop-painting muse has utterly deserted me--and besides, now that it's Spring I have other pressing priorities. It seemed a bit more manageable when the whole thing was three inches high, two-dimensional, and scribbled in crayon on a placemat.


Meanwhile, the chickens seem utterly undisturbed by the paint scheme (or lack thereof). We've been leaving the front door of the structure open and the hens have been seen hopping in and out. I haven't found any eggs in the structure's two laying boxes, but the two-inch layer of pine shavings with which we lined them has definitely been disturbed. More than one hen has apparently been road-testing those nests. Within the next few weeks, I think we'll go ahead and begin culling, then shut the diminished flock in the new structure for a few days to re-imprint their tiny chicken brains with a new concept of "home." From then on, the little hatch on the side of the barn will be closed and their best option for evening roosting will be inside the yolks-wagon/taighe-beak.   (With the chickens relocated, we'll be able to start cleaning out the barn in preparation for its overhaul and eventual repurposing.)  After a week or two of reliable coming and going from their new abode, we'll move the structure a little farther from the barn each night, and eventually the wee chicken caravan will take its rightful place in the pasture where the chickens can clean up after the cows, following Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm model.


And one of these days, maybe we'll even finish painting the silly wee thing.




(All text and images copyright Mainecelt, 2012, except caravan, borrowed from here.)

Shell Game: Sermon with Chicken and Mushrooms

(This sermon was preached at a UCC church in Southern Maine on August 1st, 2010. It is based on the assigned lectionary readings for Proper 13C: Hosea 11:1-11, Colossians 3:1-11, and Luke 12:13-21.)

And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Yeah, maybe that was the reason they got mad at us, when I was fifteen, the Sunday they let our church youth group plan and lead worship. It wasn't so much the blacklight and neon draperies we put around the sanctuary cross. It wasn't even that liturgical dance we did during the introit, processing in with votive candles we waved in circles as we moved down the aisle. Looking back, I think I finally get what we did that upset everyone—I think it was during the offering. Maybe Pink Floyd's song, “Money”, with all its cash-register sound effects and crass, ironic lyrics, was not the brilliant soundtrack we thought it would be. And when we followed it with a recording of “Money Makes the World Go Round...” well, I guess we were kind of to blame for the fact that there was no “Youth Sunday” the following year.

“Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed...” I kind of get it. I mean, I know we're not supposed to eat too much, drink too much, buy too much, use more than our share...at least, I think I know it. Part of me knows it. The good part of me, the part of my brain that loves to be moral and true and exquisitely well-behaved, the part that's always trying to earn that halo and wings—it gets this. But then there's the soft, fuzzy animal part of me—the part that wants a full belly. The part that wants a cosy burrow. The part that gets scared really easily. It doesn't really listen when you tell it that wanting too much is bad.
And then there's the chicken part of me, that just wants to perch and stare, the part that reaches out to grab whatever edible morsel comes its way, the part that will take whatever it wants, because it can. That part of me doesn't get why greed is wrong. It doesn't get that the power of money is any different than the power of God. It loves treasure. It admires the glittering statues of Baal, the Wall Street Bull, and Mammon.

I admit it—I've bowed to these idols myself-- during those daydreams where life would be perfect if only we had a...fill in the blank. Our farm would be perfect if we had a terraced perennial garden with about 24 of those snap-together raised beds they have in the gardeners'' supply catalog, and a row of those solar path lights that look like copper and glass lilies weaving up the hillside path. And wouldn't the place be altogether great with one of those sturdy commercial greenhouses, the ones with the automatic temperature-sensing system of fans and heaters? Or, really, we'd settle for a decent mid-sized tractor--with just a couple of attachments...well, maybe three or four?--and things really would be so much easier with a bigger barn! Why, we could fill it with all kinds of critters and put up all kinds of food and just sit around all winter, feasting and telling stories and feeding the woodstove...

Perhaps this plays out in our church family, too: sometimes, the place we've got seems alright. We're good people, good at welcoming guests, good at running to help when one of us falls or suffers a setback and needs a prayer or a helping hand. And these are things to be celebrated. But when was the last time we got together—as a whole church family—not to cook a fundraising dinner, but to hear someone witness to the life-changing power of love or the challenge of working on God's behalf? Can you remember the last time we sent a team to work on a Habitat for Humanity house, the last time anyone went to a local or statewide church event and discovered all the amazing things our Church is doing in our communities and across the world? Do we spend time listening, each day, for our Still-Speaking God? Or are we just too worn-out from all our worrying and anxieties, too tired from all the fundraising it takes to repair the roof, clean the floors, fix the kitchen and fill the oil tank of this beautiful big... barn?

There are good reasons to want a barn. The disciples of Jesus may have been tent-makers, but we are not first-century people. We are anchored to this challenging time, this wild-weathered place. Long winters, high winds and damaging storms have a way of making us want to hunker down, to get everything under cover, to secure our stuff. The challenge is to keep from focusing too hard on the security of our stuff. There's a term for people who do this: “practical athiests.” We may say we believe in God, but if we're holding on too tightly to let God in—if we're driven not by hope and faith, but by our fears, then we are practical atheists. Instead of learning to soar, we spend our time building shells to crawl back into. Our way of living proclaims not the love of God, but our fear that “stuff” really is all there is, and we have no-one to call on, no-one to answer to, but our own selves.

When I read this week's gospel lesson, I hear a bit too much of myself. I'm with that guy in the parable when he longs to build something magnificent, fill his storehouse to the brim, then relax, eat, drink and be merry. But, meanwhile, I'm working three jobs to cover the bills. I'm laying awake nights, wondering how to hold on to everything we've got. During the day, I move from place to place in a cloud of anxiety, blind to the abundance of this place. I'm shutting out the birdsongs, the slow opening of blooms, the rising blush of the first tomatoes of the season. And I'm shutting out the friends I'm too busy to visit, the call to my folks I never quite manage to make, even though I think about doing it every day. I'm missing the gifts of Creation, offering themselves up on every side: the soaring hawk above the pine trees. The butterflies in the wildflowers along the road. The strange beauty—and free bounty—of wild mushrooms, quietly pushing up from the forest's damp earth.

Let me tell you about mushrooms and chickens. Our friend David, a self-proclaimed “foodie”, who lives to cook and eat, asked if he could learn to butcher a chicken. After years of enthusiastic meat-eating, he figured it was the honest thing to do. And so I shepherded him through the steps: the sharpening of the knife, the respectful, gentle handling of the bird, the actual butchering and feather-plucking and all the unglamourous messy bits. And David was grateful—momentarily sick to his stomach, but grateful—for the learning experience. He took the rooster home, and presented us that evening with a very tasty pot of coq au vin.

I had shared my knowledge, but there was something I wanted to learn, too-- our foodie friend is also a skilled mushroom forager. I've lived close to the woods most of my life, but I've always been afraid of mushrooms. I wanted to be able to walk in the woods and know more about the place. I was intrigued by the idea that shady, untended landscape, the opposite of my sunny garden, might contain some harvestable gourmet treats.

It took a while before I booked my lesson. I was too busy, too wrapped up in my fears and anxieties: refinancing the farm, paying the bills, selling and saving enough of the harvest... and, once I finally agreed to go, I wasted precious time fretting about all the gear I'd need. You could say I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off...well, that's not the way we butcher them, but you know what I mean!

Out in the woods, on the trail of wild mushrooms, the manufactured concerns of society fell away. Our feet fell into a different rhythm, followed deer paths, allowed ourselves to be led instead of pounding out my own agenda... my eyes learned to see in new ways, and then the unfettered joy of discovery: a free gift, a harvest that harms no-one, and a delicacy that awakens all my senses to the abundance of the earth!

Listen again:
The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

“The land of a rich man produced abundantly.” Oh, how worthy of celebration! In the time of Jesus, an abundant harvest was an occasion of celebration, a time to share one's bounty with the whole community, a time to recognize, publically, that the source of all goodness is God.

"And he thought to himself, what shall I do, for I have no place to store my crops? Then he said, I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and goods.” Do you see the man's self-deception? He tells himself he has no storage place, but to build it he has to tear down the buildings he already has! I fall into the same trap all too often. God lays out a feast in the woodlands, and I waste time stuffing my bag with stuff I might need on the trail, just in case. God carves a beautiful coastline and stitches it to the edge of the glorious ocean, and I can't go because I don't have the latest beach gear.

“But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.” And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Whose, indeed? I think of my Grandma Charlotte, who spent her last years sorting through a lifetime of stuff, getting rid of so much matter that really didn't matter at all, leaving us all the gift of freedom to remember her life instead of what she accumulated. Will we leave a legacy of stories that reflect the love of our creator, or will we leave a legacy of stuff over which our relatives will squabble? Will our possessions sing of the glory to God, or trumpet the glory of Bean's?

“So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich towards God.” What does Jesus mean, with this parable's last words? What does it mean to be rich towards God? I suspect it's about something different than tipping our wallets into the collection plate. Being rich towards God means training ourselves to reflect God's generous Spirit, not the false anxieties of advertisements. Being rich towards God means resisting a culture of fear & greed and idolatry of possessions. It means resisting the temptation to close our fists tightly, rising instead to the challenge of open hands and outreach. Being rich towards God means paying attention, sensing God's out-stretched embrace and returning it full-force! It means loving God so much, and believing in God so much, that we refuse to let out possessions restrict our lives like a shell, loving God so much that we try our own wings, work on becoming the healthy, curious, loving creatures God longs for us to be.

God calls us away from barn-building and selfish accumulation of cold, hard stuff, and into the wide world instead. God calls us to be children of wonder, practitioners of fresh vision, shivering with anticipation and awe. Possibility springs up all around us, like mushrooms after the rain, like strangers becoming friends, like friends becoming a community. Money doesn't make the world go 'round. God makes the world go 'round. And our links to each other, the connections we make with the rest of God's creatures, that is the source of our truest security: blessing linked to blessing upon blessing.

Text and images copyright MaineCelt 2010 except CommaWoman.

Barnyard Haiku II

This week at church, I presided over the first session of our "Soul Spa." (I loved the name so much I had to steal it. Thanks, Songbird!) It's a four-week program designed to encourage storytelling, fellowship, and creative exploration on spiritual themes among the women of the church. Each week has a hands-on no-skills-needed creative project, and our first one was a "ten-minute haiku" exercise in which we played with different names for God.

By the end of the session, we were all indulging in a fair amount of Holy Foolishness, and if anyone said anything that happened to be five or seven syllables long, someone would shout, "That works! That could be haiku!" The event exceeded my imaginings!

So, Dear Readers, I invite you to indulge in some further explorations. I've done a few of my own... can you comment with your own haiku related to God, Barnyards, Gardening, or any combination thereof? Profundities and Irreverence are both entirely welcome!

Here are mine:










The bees have come home.
Hurry, open, you flowers!
We make a welcome feast.




















Open the new field.
Watch the cows leap, turn, and munch.
Such well-fed dancers!

















Piglets at wood's edge
Snoozing under broadleaf trees:
No sunburned ears here.

















Sweet, tender seedlings
Garden bed's green, lacy edge--
Get away, damn chickens!

Equinox Pie!

They say when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade.

So, what do you make when life presents you, just before the Spring Equinox, with too many eggs, a handful of kale sprouts, and eight kinds of goat cheese?

Equinox Pie!

This kitchen experiment was the happy result of a seasonal culinary confluence. The eggs, (including one double-yolker), came from our chickens who have now ramped up production to an average of 14 eggs a day. (Ironically, after weeks and weeks of TOO MANY EGGS, I may not have enough for this week's Winter Market because we're about to put at least a couple dozen into the incubator for our first batch of Spring chickens.)

The kale sprouts are our first harvest of 2010: a handful of sprouts that had to be thinned out from among a spritely batch of seedlings nestled in one of the cold frames inside our hoop house. I couldn't bear to just toss them to the chickens—I wanted to enjoy, appreciate, and honour every tiny green snippet.

And the eight kinds of goat cheese? Oh, what a lovely mishap! A fellow market vendor (Creeping Thyme Farm) had set out his full range of goat dairy products for folks to sample at last week's market. Usually, the samples are consumed with the enthusiasm his delicious products deserve, but it was an unusually warm day. Maybe most of our usual customers were suffering a bout of Spring Fever and couldn't bear to come inside-- even though “inside” just meant walking through the open doors of an otherwise unused commercial-size greenhouse at a local garden center. By noon on that unseasonably warm, clear March day, the solar gain of that unheated greenhouse had all the vendors peeling off their coats and sweaters. By one o'clock, the heat had us rolling up our sleeves. By two o'clock—closing time for our Winter market—my fellow vendor was looking at his table full of fresh, handmade cheeses with something approaching despair. “Could you use these?” he asked, “'cause after all this heat, I really can't save them for anything.”

One delighted smile and an enthusiastic nod later, that entire array of cheeses was bagged up and set in my cooler. I swapped him a dozen eggs and some other farm goods to make it worth his while. Once home, I combined all the softer cheeses (plain chevre, garlic & herb chevre, plain bondon and bondon with bruschetta) in one container. Into another container I packed all the harder cheeses (feta, queso fresco, queso fresco with sundried tomatoes, and ricotta salata). I knew I needed to use them all quickly, but what to do, what to do? I mused and pondered for a couple of days, thought about the eggs and the kale that needed thinning, and rummaged to determine what else might need using up. Then, inspiration struck:

Equinox Pie!

In celebration of the year's turning—complete with my tiny handful “harvest” of the year's first green growing things—I would make a quiche. Now, I've only made quiche a few times in my life, but after flipping back and forth through a few cookbooks to get the proportions and techniques, I thought I had it figured out well enough to have a go.

First, I put on my apron—a custom one made for me by another one of our market vendors. This apron takes a bit of fussing to get off and on, but the vintage style ensures that clothes are well-protected (and it makes me feel ridiculously charming, which boosts my confidence in the kitchen).

Next, I made a batch of pie crust (Pate Brisee, Joy of Cooking, p.591, chosen for its ability to “withstand a moist filling”). I used a cup each of unbleached wheat flour and white spelt flour, a stick of butter, about 2/3 cup cold water, and about ¼ tsp of “Sea Shakes,” a locally-made blend of sea salt, seaweed, and herbs. There: the fruits of the sea and the bounty of the oceans were properly blended with the gifts of the earth. The elements were balanced and harmonized, as equinoctal ingredients should be. Once made, the dough was set in the fridge to rest for a couple hours before rolling out, trimming, and draping in a pyrex pie dish. I crimped the edges by hand, a process that always makes me feel like a happy five-year-old.

Time to tackle the filling: I used six eggs, including one smallish pale green Araucana egg and one monstrous double-yolker from an overachieving Golden Comet. I broke them into a large mixing bowl, beating each egg in thoroughly before the next was added. Into this lovely golden puddle I poured two cups of milk (raw whole milk from nearby Winter Hill Farm, shaken well to incorporate the cream). Next, I added the soft goat cheeses-- about 8 ounces-worth-- and mushed them around a bit. Then I took all the harder cheeses—another 8 ounces or so—and whizzed them in a food processer just enough to break up the larger chunks, then added them to the milk-egg mixture as well. I also tossed in about ½ cup of peas (for color and a sweet contrast against the cheeses' saltiness) and about half of a leek, sliced thinly. For seasonings I added a finger-full each of nutmeg and paprika. I figured the salt and herbs in the various cheeses could provide all the rest of the excitement.

Lastly, I tossed in my handful of kale snippets. ( I think the high-end restaurant menus refer to these as “gourmet micro-greens.”) I knew they'd get lost in the mix, but I trusted they'd contribute some ephemeral hint of greengrowiness. I poured the soupy mess into the waiting pie shell. Lastly—and, I suspect, utterly unnecessarily—I grated about 1/3 cup of Monterey Jack cheese and sprinkled it over the top—because, really, is there such a thing as a quiche with too much cheese?

The Equinox Pie baked for about 50 minutes at 350 degress Farenheit. I took it out when the crust was nicely browned and it was no longer jiggly in the middle. It was served to our “Good Dirt” farm book group during a discussion of Derrick Jensen's extraordinary collection of interviews, “Listening to the Land.” (This is, hands down, one of the best books I have ever read. You should read it. In fact, everyone should read it... preferably while eating locally-sourced quiche.)

HAPPY EQUINOX!

News Flash-- Bye, Bye Birdie

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post to bring you this important update: as of this morning, all surplus roosters have been...um, dispatched. The year-old broilers-turned-stewbirds, denizens of the Very Bad Year, pre-dawn hellish harmonizers, feathered idols of concupiscence and caprice...them birds had to go.

For the sake of more squeamish readers, there will be no pictures of the process. Suffice to say that the knife was sharp. They were dispatched most humanely with reasonable skill and speed. We thanked them and vowed that nothing would be wasted...and nothing was. What didn't end up in the freezer or the stockpot went to fertilize the garden. As the Wise Ones say, "everything is food for something else."

These birds have been a bane for so long that the final bird's death felt like more than just another unpleasant-but-needful barnyard task. It felt elemental, primal, like an offering of sorts, or some ritual banishment of bad spirits. Perhaps offering IS the correct word. We offered its soul back to the Cosmos and its blood and feathers back to the earth. We transformed its body into more nourishing forms. With these acts came a lightness, a curious sense that we have released ourselves from the taloned hold of last year's suffering.

Did our Celtic and British ancestors feel these things, when the wheel of the year turned to harvest and their hands fell to the hard work of culling and butchering? Did they offer prayers of release? Did they sense the tenuous, terrifying beauty of nature's balance? Did they speak aloud their thanks, breathe deeply, set their jaws, and bloody their hands, killing and taking only what they had to, using everything they possibly could? And were there special words or tales or tunes to honour all of this?

I found the tune of an old wassail song welling up in me as we worked. There are many wassails-- songs of seasonal blessing and honour, from ancient roots meaning "be whole." (There is one called "the Apple Tree Wassail" that I sing to my fruit trees when I plant or prune them. I am of the belief that no creature, rooted or footed or winged, can be too often blessed.) I reshaped the words to our purpose and sang them--not cavalierly, but with genuine joy, recognizing that every harvest is a time of death, but reapers need not be eternally grim. There is a time to reap. There is a time to sow and a time to gather in. It is good to move with The Great Wheel's Turning.

Goodbye, roosters. Farewell, four-thirty A.M. alarmers. Tomorrow is the sabbath. We shall celebrate by sleeping in.

Flying the Coop

It's five in the morning. The roosters have been crowing for half an hour now, reminding me with urgent, combative dissonance that the world's agenda rarely matches mine.

These roosters should have been done in nine months ago. Initially their necks were saved by the burst plumbing in our old house. It's hard to butcher and process chickens without a lot of clean, hot water. Further months of intense house-building kept those birds alive as our energies were consumed by our own 30'x30' nest. I managed to do in a few of them between March, when we got our plumbing, and June, when the rains came. Last week I finally had a little bit of time, but no remaining freezer space to receive the processed birds. (It's all been taken up by our surprisingly meaty little bull, who arrived home from the butcher in eight big boxes of little white packages!) Now, as we near the end of our house-building--and the end of Maine's wettest Summer on record--the pre-dawn ungawdly chorus is enough to make me want to run far, far away.

So I'm gonna.

Later this morning, The Piper and I will leave the state. No fear-- we're not moving, as evidenced by the fact that we have a bank appointment to discuss refinancing on the way to the airport. It's an awkward time for a vacation, but--as those roosters keep reminding me, life's wake-up calls and urgent messages rarely meet us in a place of perfect readiness!

We are headed to the Northwest for a week with kith and kin. My older brother is going to be married this coming Saturday. Our presence and services have been lovingly requested: wedding music from The Piper and a wedding homily from me. (Good heavens. What does a farmer-preacher-poet say to her own incredibly hip urban brother and his smart, professional, no-nonsense wife-to-be, in front of such a cloud of witnesses?!? Guess I need to start writing on the plane!) In addition to the wedding and a series of long-awaited visits with Northwest friends, there will also be ripe blackberries to pick, plant nurseries to peruse, rambunctious new puppies to meet, and another farm to see: the burgeoning homestead of a childhood friend I haven't seen since sixth grade!

We are leaving our farm in the hands of an experienced farm hand, a young man who loves animals and will tend our creatures with joyful care. It feels wonderful to be able to step away with confidence. (Friends have been ribbing me all this past week with the ol' "farmers don't take vacations" line, and I confess that my stress level and general exhaustion caused me to reply a little more harshly than I'd have liked, but I promise to have a better sense of humour when I return.)

Oh, and WHEN we get back... those roosters better watch their backs, 'cause we aim to be rested and ready!

(P.S. I know that's not a very roostery-looking bird in the first picture-- it came in our broiler batch of chicks but turned out...um...well...less roostery than the rest.)

Moovin' Into June

Welcome, June, sweet month of green-growing!

June is a month of movements: folk flex muscles and venture outdoors, seeds open and stretch, leaves unfurl, vines extend, snowbirds return from Parts South and the highways of Maine burgeon with migratory herds of RVs.

The first movement of our own June symphony involved some challenging orchestration. The instruments at hand were spools of electric fence-wire, unwieldy armfuls of step-ins (portable fenceposts), hoses and water-tubs, several hungry animals and a clamjamfry of forage areas.

To begin with, we made an overture...a perambulation of all areas with enough mollifying mouthfuls to appease our hungry cattle. They've eaten their way through everything in their permanent pasture, and--as we wait for the recently-seeded auxiliary pastures to become established--we view all grass-growing areas as bovine buffets. No need to pull the gas mower out of the barn yet this year-- all our mowing has been done not with a sputter and a roar, but with a munch and a moo.

I'm sure we'll need that mower towards the end of the week. Earlier this Spring, in a fit of temporary insanity, I offered our farm as the host site for a church picnic. Wouldn't it be fun to share our sweet baby animals, tidy little gardens, and the farm's fine, green expense--er, expanse--with the rest of the congregation? The offer was made--and accepted--in April, that cruelest of months when all gardens exist merely as figments of the imagination rather than rank, bug-bitten, weed-choked realities. April, when the pasture is just starting to emerge from the snow, and one imagines it perpetually lush and grassy...well, I'm sure you can figure out how this played out! Here we are at the start of June, struggling to rotate our livestock around the yard while we rush to beautify the (manure-strewn) landscape and try to make the house look like a quaint little cottage instead of a construction site.


Yesterday we moved the cows (out of the side yard into the orchard)










so that today we could move the piglets (out of the barn into the side yard)










so that tomorrow we can move the chicks (out of their box upstairs into the barn)
so that we can start a new batch of chicks in the incubator.



ADD TO THIS WEEK'S TO-DO LIST:
Finish all interior house trim. (Mmm-hmm. Right.)
Move the tablesaw out of the dining room. Replace with actual table.
Tile the bathroom floor so we can finally hook up the bathroom sink.
Clean out the pig stall, power-wash & spray down with bleach.
Clean out the chickens' stall & add used shavings to compost pile.
Weed raised beds; plant succession crops, beans, tomato seedlings.
Make signage for farm hazards & mark safe areas for picnic guests.
Haul all debris, tree-prunings, & construction waste to burn pile.
Have everything looking nice by Friday morning.
Work at Farmers' Market Friday afternoon.
Work off-farm job all day Saturday.
Mow whatever remains of lawn (Saturday night?)

Yep, June: month of growth and movement. Right now, I'd better get mySELF moving, because I'm growing a nice big crop of STRESS!