Wrested from the woods, came the fields and pastures for the farm. Trees cut, stumps pulled, land plowed and harrowed and seeded. And stone picked! Every time a piece was plowed to reseed, up came stones, and more stones. The family went out in force, walking so many feet apart like a band of locusts,…
“Did we come in the wrong door?’, visitors sometimes ask, walking in to hear a pump running, and see hot syrup running through a line into the filter press. Or dozens of breakfast boxes on tables, being filled with pancake mix and maple syrup, to be shipped across the country or delivered locally. Maybe we’re…
I spread out all the Maple recipes from Mom’s big envelope, and took a trip down Memory Lane this morning. So many suppers around our kitchen table, featuring Coleslaw with Maple Dressing, Sticky Buns, Maple Bran Bread… Entries from Maple contests at the Vermont Farm Show, church dinner favorites, recipes I haven’t tried yet. Maple…
I stood still and listened to the Laughing Brook today, and mused for the remainder of my hike about the Old Mother West Wind Stories that I was raised on. Many might recognize the term “Old Man Winter”, and my love of the natural world around our family was fostered by the Thornton Burgess books.…
Watching, in a state of near hypnosis, a steady stream of fragrant, bright green haylege, unloading from the wagon onto the conveyor belt on the Ag-Bagger, or into the blower for the silo. The roar of the tractor, the rocking motion of the seat as the power take off runs at top speed. On and…
A sad sight is our old barn, sitting empty now and going downhill . The empty stanchions where tall Jupiter, with her sharply defined black and white patterned sides stood, third place down on the right, Anne with her big, soft eyes, and June, solid black and endlessly patient with my girls doctoring of her…
Delicate treasures in a little one’s mittened hand, bringing winter in to the kitchen table. Each one sucked to a needle point and stored in the back of the freezer til next July. An old farm house with little insulation, drips from the roof until the ice is javelins, waiting for bigger boys to spear…
See that barnyard fence? As a teenager, I dug the post holes with my Dad. Seems like we were putting in old railroad ties, I’ll have to ask David. The holes were stony, and deep. We had a long, long bar – so heavy, and a long-handled scoop shovel. The sweat ran off Dad’s brow,…
Here’s a pile of “shorts,” odd ends and pieces of wood that are not the regular, cut to length, easy to stack firewood pieces sold to customers. Are they pitched over the bank, because they certainly don’t stack at all, sometimes have to be wrested into the stove, and aren’t pretty? No, family use. Same…
Hours of paperwork for taxes. Whew! It’s what I do, late at night, early in the morning, and off and on throughout the day. “What’s this for?”—I’ll send Paul a text—“1/29 Precast NH $1207.16?” His reply always reminds me of concrete supplies, or tapping supplies, or, sometimes 50 # bags of almonds, making me hungry!…
