 Here we go! Snowstorm #1 motivated us to get tapping before Snowstorm #2 hit two days later! Gideon and I finished tapping the trees we can get to yesterday. Running well today...sap runs through the tubing to our tanks to be collected with the truck and brought to our saphouse. Should have enough sap later tonight to start boiling!
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 Some chicks arrived at the farm three days ago, and Wyatt was only too eager to help out. He's a GO GO GO two-year-old, and I feared for the chicklet, but all is well and now he's back with his 59 brethren.
 Don't you love it before the weeds overtake the vegetables? Our family tends a large vegetable garden--some of it in the ground, and some in raised beds--to provide year-round food for a of us. (OK. Liz and Gideon and Gramps tend the garden. Ron, Nana and I are slackers.) Our soil is very rich, and very good for weeds. They will be showing themselves soon!  It's June now, and we syrup producers aren't spending a lot of time in the sap house now, because HAY. But we did make enough delicious pure maple syrup to still have this winter's "crop" available for your pancakes and French toasts, barbecue sauces, and salad dressings. Give us a call!
 Before leaving for the library yesterday, I got out for a little painting time. This vista wasn't my original intention, but the scene 180 degrees from it vexed me in a way that wasn't making for happiness, so I turned around, wiped the panel "clean," and got to it with the green.
Riverdale is situated in a valley and in every direction there is always a mountain backdrop.  A sunny day on the farm after a week of dark, rainy days, and the cows are looking for company. It's almost warm enough to consider some plein air painting. Of cows? Perhaps--the herd (most of the herd) is down on the island now, and a pastoral scene with distant herd might be just the thing.
 I pulled a calf out of a cow! She's the baby on the left. It's the season. Our pasture is becoming populated with tiny calves and they usually sort of just pop out in the night on their own. Well, with some work by the mothers. BUT-- Wednesday morning, one young heifer--first time mother-to-be--had a little foot appearing and reappearing out of her backside for a few hours. No Progress. Eventually, Gideon was able to coerce her into a sheltered space with some hay underfoot, and he wrestled the chains onto the appearing and reappearing feet, and... we pulled. Lots of pulling. And we pulled a big, white baby out! It was awesome. Why, I frequently whine, must it be so windy here in Delhi!?! Before the day job this afternoon, I filled in the hoof print divots in the yard from last month's midnight cattle stampede, and I was comfortable out there in my winter parka.
Winter parka! In late April! I suppose living in a long, beautiful, valley has it's climatory quirks. |
Susan FrisbeeArtist, library director, farm hand and organization mistress, but never the family chef. Archives
June 2021
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