Mother's' Day Weekend

Saturday

My mother's birthday is May 7th. This year it fell on the day before Mother's Day. When we talked about what my Mom wanted to do for her birthday, she mentioned wanting to spend the day together, just her and I.

Growing up, Saturdays were fun days where we would go on adventures. Now as adults we will on rare occasions, abandon the men-folk for an afternoon and enjoy a mother/daughter day. Since John works on Saturdays, and my mother's bday fell on a Saturday, the only question became, "What to do?" We decided to start the day with breakfast and then go shopping.

Meanwhile, I mentioned a while back that I wanted to learn more about growing mushrooms. Turns out my Mom was also interested in this process and had asked me to find us a class nearby. So I did some poking around and found one. I mentioned it met numerous times throughout the summer, and there was even a class on her bday. So Mom decided that would be her bday adventure and so we went schrooming...

My mother and I had been here years ago for the Blue Heron Music Festival.  It was strange for us to be there with so few other's around. We could really take in the beauty of the place.

In the mushroom yard...

Below is a picture of a mushroom just starting to bud from an inoculated log... 

A wonderful day to be in the forest... 

That's gonna be a lot of mushrooms someday... 

We learned a lot and had fun in the process. We stuck near the waxing station. Each log is drilled and inoculated. Then hot liquid wax is daubed over the inoculation holes and brushed in a thick coat on the log ends.

After a nice lunch, I showed my mom a short cut from Mayville to the homestead. I showed her where our Amish builder lives and we stopped at a yard-sale. She was surprised at how close the homestead is to such a large Amish community.

When we arrived at the homestead, I gave Mom the grand tour of the barn. She we hung out and talked about the many options that the future held. Our day together ended with my Mother leaving to pick up my step-father and go to dinner. I decided to go back to the city and take care of things at the house there.

Sunday

Sundays are normally farm days, but when a holiday falls on Sunday, John does farm chores on his other day off, Monday. We loaded the car with Mom's Mother's Day swag and headed out to the farm.

We are usually good at keeping my Mom's bday and Mother's Day separate, but this year it was difficult to do that. So while my Mother and I had our mushroom adventure on Saturday, we had her bday cake on Sunday with Hank and John.

It was a such a pretty cake, but we dug in before I could get a pic....

For Mother's Day there are always flowers....

And because you are never too old to make something for your Mom....

Another family birthday tradition is a meal out at a restaurant picked by the person whose birthday it is. So that will happen next Sunday. The festivities continue!

After we wrapped us the Mother's Day Celebration, John and I decided to go out to the homestead. However, before we could leave, I had to stop and and say 'Hi!', to the boys.

Stan was being super cute today...

 

We invited my parents to come with us, out to the homestead. It was Hank's first time seeing the barn or what we have started calling the 'cabin'. He was impressed with the quality of workmanship. The four of us hung out and talked about the next-steps.

Once my parents left, we got to work. John moved some gravel and our mushroom log to a better location.

We have been learning a lot lately about forestry and survival techniques or as the English call it, Bushcraft. Here, John is making kindling with a hand-ax... 

While no fingers were lost, a band-aid was deployed ;-)

So now we are back in the city and ready for the week ahead. The whole while knowing, in 5 short days we will be back out in the woods preparing the land for a day when we won't have to leave. In the short term, it is a cabin for summer fun and we plan to enjoy it!

August on the Farm

August at Starry Brook Farm is all about preparing for the winter to come.  My parent's home is heated with a wood.  So the wood shed needs filling....

The alpacas have their fleece to keep them warm.  What they need for the winter is hay... Here is the main hay barn filled to the brim....

This is the hay storage part of the alpaca barn....

And we managed to squeeze a few bales in another corner of the barn... oh look, that is where the container of beet pulp is.... 

All our preparations were done of under the watchful eye of Pumba....

Spring Arrives... or "Shearing and Septic"

Vividly Spring joined us at the homestead...

Snow melts and nourishes the Earth.

We contribute to the cleanup.

Oh and remember the Deer bones... the vultures came and took those away...

We had marked the area for the house, and now it was time to clear the area. John cut down his first tree... it was an Alder...

Our Amish neighbors most likely coming home from church...

Woodland critters leave their calling card...

An ax seemed like a good idea...

While we work on getting our homestead is underway, the Alpaca Boys reside on the family farm 45 minutes away.  They are our constant inspiration. While they are comfy with my parents on land that has been in the family for 3 generations, we want to give them more.

We made the decision to adopt alpacas before we found our homestead.  My parents had an old goat pasture and barn that we converted.  And while the boys are happy and healthy, and my parents like the daily chores they bring, John and I long for a time when we can step out of our own home and care for them ourselves.

Often times it feels as though life is divided in 3's. There is day to day city life in our old Victorian, where we dream and plan for a future in the country. Then comes Sunday when we drive out to the family farm where hay is stacked, the poop cart is emptied, filled, and emptied again. A few hours of togetherness and health checking.  Are they too warm or too cold? Are the flies bothering them? Does their poo look 'healthy'? Are they fussing with each other? Then it is out to the homestead to maintain the future pasture, and check out any progress left by the contractors.

What keeps us going is knowing that someday we will be living in the country, on our land, and step out of the home we built, to go tend to the alpacas we love. That dream is worth the longer commute to work, the time spent planning, and the effort in making it real.

While we were plotting and planning the alpaca were busy growing their fleeces.  Here they are before the annual shearing. At this time I like to think of them as, 'my wooley bears'.

On the homestead it was time to make room for the house....

John got a gas powered weed wacker with a brush attachment to take care of those pesky thorns....

The field began to green...

A wild turkey sought refuge in the tree line... hard to see cause he had just crossed the road and was moving at a rather high rate of speed....

Step 2 on the building permit application is installation of a septic system and water well.... 

Tim our 'Septic Guy' marked the spot it would go...

The closer to shearing we got the fluffier the boys looked...

This is Hudson's "Shear me now! It's hot under all this fleece!" face.  Okay, in reality, he was yawning... but if he could talk, I am sure he would have said the above phase.

Pumba thinks he is pretty sexy for a gelding...

Stan the man is our alpha and will remind the other boys, should they ever think otherwise...

Sometimes when we drive out to the homestead, we never know what we might see... this time, it was Tim's equipment.

John had to check it out....

Aside from being our 'Septic Guy', Tim also cleared the build spot for the house! So John didn't have to cut down trees and deal with stumps. Tim was just, 'while I have the equipment here, I might as well clear that.'

So our wood pile became a tree pile...

Deer tracks indicated they were clearly keeping an eye on things when we weren't around....

May apples sprouted in the woods.

Lots of stony soil... 

Excavation for the septic system begins...

Here comes the septic tank....

It stays uncovered until the County Health Department inspects it.

Once the county approves, it is covered up. Another stick appears! Tim says the stick indicates where to bring the pipe into the crawl space of the house. He has offered to excavate for the foundation of the house and put in a driveway for us. Tim is a good guy to know.

This photo always makes me realize it will look much worse before it looks better.

While he gets out of bringing any big trees down, John does have a large pile to buzz up into logs...

And then the alpacas were sheared! Stan takes a dip in the pool to celebrate.

They go from wooley bears to naked aliens real quick....

And maintaining the 'lawn' on the homestead is a never-ending job.

Strawberries...

Next is the water well... Fritz says it goes here... ya know, where the yellow stick is.... (are you sensing a pattern yet?)

Future paca pasture....

John sits down on the site of the future kitchen... we think... not sure...

A second driveway is installed after the discussion the town had with Tim about driving his large heavy equipment directly off the road. I did get to go culvert shopping though... that was weird...

What happens if the pasture is not maintained? Elves come out of the woods and plant berries and grapes while we sleep....