Making Art at Snow Farm

A few years ago, I took an adult pottery class at a wonderful place in western Massachusetts called Snow Farm. For one weekend, I threw pots, learned about majolica glazing for hours and hours a day and spent time with other people who were just as enthusiastic as I was about craft. It was fabulous experience, one I hope to be able to do again. There are other places in the USA which offer this type of art and craft courses – Haystack and Penland School of Crafts come to mind.

The best part of this experience for me, as an adult, was the total immersion I was able to have in the craft – even if it was only for a weekend. I didn’t have to cook for anyone nor wash any dishes. I didn’t have to go anywhere in my car. I didn’t have to feed any animals. It was all about the craft, the materials, and spending time practicing and developing technique.

Yesterday, Julia and I went to Snow Farm to visit Olivia, my niece who is spending two fabulous weeks learning glass blowing and pottery along with about 60 other high school kids. Olivia has always been good with her hands – when she was very small, she loved to sort buttons by color. Then she spent a couple of years making miniature fimo sculptures and selling them at her church fair. Her dexterity and talent is amazing. She has knit and embroidered projects that have been photographed in my books. She is like a sponge who sucks all the knowledge out of whoever gives it to her. Then she perfects it to a T.

Olivia gave us a tour of her studios – both the glass blowing hot shop and the ceramics studio. Then we ate a picnic lunch under the trees. One of her friends toured us through the flameworking studio and metals shop. What a great facility of little studios full of all the supplies the students need!

I was envious of Olivia’s time there but I was also so proud of her. She decided to do this on her own and earned the money to go herself. She ventured to a new place where she knew noone. She is going to go home with a lot of finished projects. But it isn’t about the finished objects – it is about the time that she is spending experimenting and learning in a lovely atmosphere. And learning about how important it is to have a craft you can spend hours and days, years, and a lifetime, learning the process of creativity. I know Olivia will remember this experience for her entire life. How great for Julia and I to share a little glimpse into it!

I’m working on learning a relatively new craft this summer that I hope to be able to show you soon. What are you learning this summer? There is still time to gather your supplies and feed your creative spirit. Don’t let August slip away!

p.s. Snow Farm hosts adults most of the time. They do full week elderhostels too which includes knitting and other fiber crafts. Check out their website and you might find something new you might want to learn.

More from the Long Day Shearing

Last Monday, Julia arrived back from summer school in the afternoon just in time to watch five more hours of shearing. She was a very good sport in deed. Farming isn't a passion of Julia's. It is something her parents do and she puts up with it. No matter how hard I try to explain what it is we are doing - whether planting, gathering sheep, shearing sheep, harvesting vegetables or flowers - she just looks at me with glazed eyes and asks when we can go home. I'm trying folks but it's just not happening... And that's okay with me. She keeps telling me she is a city girl. She sure does love her Dad.... so she will have to come back and visit one day, I hope.

Here Julia is communing with Cora before Cora gets sheared. It still surprises me how much Cora still likes to chat with the humans - especially Julia. We shear all the white sheep first, and then the black ones so that the black fleeces stay separate.

Once the shearers were paid and left for the year, it was time to move the sheep back to their pasture. Julia and I drove down the hill and waited for our big moment - waving our arms so the sheep will go where they needed to go. After a few false starts up the hill, the two dogs finally got them on the road. Here they come!

Don't they look funny with their haircuts?


And now it is done for another year - Yippee!

Shearing Day - Part Two

Bruce Clement drives from New Hampshire to shear our flock. He uses electric shears that hang from an overhead beam in the barn we borrowed. If we are shearing outside, he rigs up a post in the ground to attach his shears to. Bruce is a retired New Hampshire Extension Agent and shearing is part of his retirement income. He knows a lot of about farming in New England and is a great guy to spend a day with. He has been raising sheep himself since he was a kid. He doesn’t often shear large flocks and we really appreciate him coming to help Kevin out.



Bruce left at around 4:00 and sheared 70 sheep. When both the men are shearing at full speed, Bruce shears three sheep for every two sheep Kevin shears. I find it amazing how fast Kevin can shear by hand with his blades. The picture below is an detail of Bruce's shears zipping through the fleece. You can see that the sheep is left with a ridged pattern on its body. In a couple days it will disappear and they will just look like a skinny sheep until the fleeces begins to fill out again.


I love the look on this ewe's face as she waits for her haircut to be done. Patience and relief!

Shearing Day and More

Summer continues to race along at an amazing pace. The other day, The Farmer was saying to me “I remember when I was a kid and the summers seemed to go on forever…..” I guess the older you get, the faster they go.

Our rain is continuing. At least our well won’t run dry. The rain is making the sunflower farming extremely difficult. We have had to replant many rows at least once because the seeds have rotted. We’re still not finished planting and amazingly, we haven’t given up yet. We know one flower farmer who continues to plant sunflowers in Vermont until the 20th of August. It will make for a late crop and we hope the frost doesn’t come early.

Last Monday, as scheduled, two sheep shearers turned up for the flock’s big day. We had to borrow a neighbor’s barn because of the rain. It was oh so hot and humid and miserable. Julia and I had gotten back late the night before from NJ. Talk about culture shock….. As I stood there, picking up dirty, smelly wool in the heat all day long, I couldn’t help but compare the suburban lifestyle of my childhood to the life my family and I are living now. Never in my life have I gotten as dirty and odorous as the days I handle the wool from the sheep, skirt the tags (that’s the manure folks, from the back end), and bag up the nice parts of the fleece getting poked with rose thorns. I’m not complaining – I’m just comparing my life then to my life now.

The day starts early at 7:30. The Farmer had the sheep and lambs all contained in the barn. The day has a real rhythm to it. The Farmer catches one of the sheep for a shearer and nudges it out through the gate. The shearer grabs the head and gently turns the head a certain way and the sheep falls to the floor. Then the shearer gradually works his way around the animal in a set pattern that has been developed over the years. In a few minutes, the sheep is let go and runs off to join the flock, much lighter and cooler than she began. To me, they always seem much happier and freer of their long coat. Then I step in and pick up the wool and take it to the skirting floor. I pick off all the nasty tags and then bundle it up and place it in a bag. Depending on how heavy the fleeces is, I can usually fit two to three fleeces in a bag.

One of the shearers – Kevin Ford - is a blade shearer. That means he shears with no power. After each sheep, he sharpens his blades on a stone and then moves on to the next animal. Here are some photos of Kevin working his magic. He is wonderful to watch – so gentle with the animals and amazingly quick. He stayed until 6:30 at night and sheared 80 animals. His stamina is amazing, along with his strength.




This fall Kevin is traveling to Norway to complete in the World Sheep Shearing Competition. He and one other shearer will represent the USA on the Blade Shearing Team. He has shorn sheep all over the world – New Zealand, Australia, Ireland.

This is my favorite photo of Kevin's blurred hands and shears as they strongly clip the wool from the ewe.


Tomorrow, I’ll add some more photos of the Bruce shearing with his electric shears……

Camping with the Cousins

Things have been crazy busy here with summer goings-on. I apologize for the lack of posting but it's going to be sporadic for the rest of the summer.

We just spent a couple days with my mom, three of my sisters and almost all of Julia's Nicholas cousins at a cabin in the woods. What a fun time we had. The cousins age from nine to eighteen so finding things that they will all enjoy is a stretch. I found a great book called Camp-Out by Lynn Brunelle that gave me 10 summers worth of ideas. I highly recommend it - especially if you are digging for a summer birthday present for a child or outdoorsy teenager.

We had just about 24 hours to pack in some fun. It wasn't hard to fill up the time. The cousins are not outdoorsy by any stretch of the imagination. Neither are my sisters. When I was a kid, we went camping once with a pop-up camper. It was a fiasco. My dad hated it and Mom had to work harder than ever. That was the first and last camping trip for us.

So as you can imagine, my nieces and nephews prefer lounging by a pool to a day without showers, hot water but plenty of bugs. But they were good sports. I had everyone check their ipods and cellphones at the door (last year that was a bit of a snafu!)

We built a couple camp fires and did almost all the cooking over the fire. The kids helped cook their dinner and made s-mores. Finding kindling took a bit of time. My sister Nancy made some killer pancakes for breakfast.

I organized a tree and leaf scavenger hunt and the cousins totally surprised me. They each got a zip-loc bag with photos and identifying characteristics of 15 trees. I split them up into two teams and off they went. And they actually did go deep into the woods and both teams came back with all the different leaves. I'm hoping they learned something - at least they will remember the day.


Then it was off to a swimming hole and an icy dip. And then sadly, everyone went their separate ways.

I have some very fond memories of spending time with my cousins in the summer. My sisters and I try real hard to get our kids together a few times during the summer so they too have good memories. We are all scattered throughout the Northeast and two of my nephews live in Brazil so it takes a bit of effort but it is worth it.

Manure, Mulch and More

I made the mistake of deciding I should finish weeding and mulching my garden yesterday. I’ve got a bunch of family obligations coming up and if I didn’t do it then, it wasn’t going to happen. Two hours in the blazing sun, heat and humidity – it was miserable. If you are a long time reader of my blog, you’ll know that manure and compost are quite the thing around here. A couple years ago, The Farmer gave me this for an anniversary present.

It has rotted to a lovely grainy texture and I have been digging it and spreading it for a few days now. It may not have a lot of nutrients left, but it’s got to add to the texture of the soil. I weeded around the plants using my favorite Korean hoe. If you garden and don’t have one of these, order it now. It is the most useful tool I own. I left the weeds in between the rows and then topped it all off with a thick layer of one of The Farmer's giant 800 pound hay bales. I can't believe I went through all that hay.


Here’s what it all looks like – I am so proud of actually completing the task. I know it looks like a pile of hay with a bit of green amongst it but to me - it is a beautiful thing. In a couple of weeks, the plants should rise above the brown mulch and we'll have something to eat and gather.

My gardening intentions are always there every year, but they frequently don’t materialize into a finished project. My perennial garden may look like awful this year, but this veggie and cutting garden will surely bear many fruits come the end of summer.

And then there is this problem.....

Julia and I are going away for the weekend. The Farmer is in charge. He's got tons of farming to do. Some of the sheep have been escaping a few times a day - like this evening. I'm hoping my garden survives the weekend. There's an old fence around it right now and I'm hoping it works so that all my work is not lost.

Garden Shed - Part One

This is our little garden shed. It is 12 x 16 feet and has a narrow four foot porch and a metal roof. We had it built when we first moved here to house the garden stuff that accumulates. I picked up the front windows from my sister Laurie's and brother-in-law Bruce's old 1920's house when they were re-habbing it. It was nice to give them new life and they have an interesting pane arrangement. We don’t have an official barn on our property to put stuff in. The main barn to our farmhouse burned down in the 1960’s. It is sad because a house such as ours, as old as ours is, should have an outbuilding or two – including a very large post and beam structure. But it isn’t here anymore and we love our place anyway.

When we built this little shed, we thought we were doing the right thing. Now, it has turned out too small for much of our stuff. We’ve got to live with it until we hit the big-time -- which means this is probably it.

Our little garden shed is in direct view of the mountain landscape we enjoy every day. This summer, I’m hoping to gussy it up a bit. I’m letting you in on the before picture now. I thought I would be able to present the before and after in a complete post but that was a pipe-dream. Might as well show you the stages as they happen. Probably more fun that way too.

I’m mostly planning cosmetic stuff on the exterior. Maybe someday I will tackle the interior but definitely not this year. (I have long-off dreams of it being my pottery shed for throwing pots.) The exterior is stained a grayish green which has been an excellent choice because it doesn’t peel. The mildew that happens doesn’t show up as bad, it just adds some depth to the sage-green boards.

During the harvest season, I like to sit on the wicker chairs and pick beans and basil. But mostly, I like to look at the chairs and imagine what a conversation would look like if we ever slowed down to enjoy the scene around here.

Unsettled

The weather here is hot and humid and miserable. Today, I’m hiding out in the basement with a bunch of our farm felines. Animals know not to move on days like these. Vera, the matriarch of the cat clan, has a particular favorite spot on top of the copier. I've just taken to calling her the copy cat.

It is still raining almost daily although I did squeeze some vegetable gardening in this past weekend so the weeds don’t get out of control. The past few years, I haven’t felt the desire to grow veggies. This year, with the price of everything going out of control and no end in sight, I’ve planted a nice assortment of squashes, herbs, beans, tomatoes, beets, swisschard and of course, lots of zinnias and flowers for cutting bouquets. The sunflower planting is way behind schedule – but this week it looks like lots of seeds will get into the ground. And then there is all the outdoor painting that needs to get done. The to-do list just keeps growing.

Summer is so hectic – I’m working on that upcoming book… Yes – still working on it….. And then I said yes to an editorial. It’s in a technique that I’m not quite proficient at and it is basically sucking time away from what I should be working on. I get very upset with myself when I say yes and then hate the process all the way through. It is totally my fault. I’m trying to learn to say no when I have too much going on. Just had the sense to say it this morning – a personal victory. When you freelance, you’re always positive that you’ll never get another job. But then you do.

Everything is a balancing act around here. Lots of things have to be done at the drop of a hat – like catching escaped animals before they destroy the garden and all your work goes down the hopper. And then there is the kid side of summer that I needs attending to. Right now, Julia is in a summer school program so her days are occupied for another two weeks. But she gets home early in the day and I want her to have fun in the summer – not just run around doing errands that need to be done or rushing to Fedex to get there before the truck leaves. Swimming in a pond, reading books she wants to read, running around outside, visiting her cousins.

I hope you are enjoying your fleeting days of summer and that you stop and smell the roses – I’ve got to remember to do that – I’ve only done it once so far this summer.

That’s what is on my mind. What about yours?

Preparations

Every summer, we have the sheep sheared. It is probably the longest farming day of the year. The day starts early and lasts until every animal has their wooly coat removed. We just made the appointment with the shearers Kevin Ford and Bruce Clement. They are coming on July 14th. By then, everything has to be in order. I can feel the tension building as The Farmer hopes for good, dry weather and tries to erect some kind of temporary, wacky shade shelter that has to last only one day.

As you know, the sheep have been up the road on our neighbor’s hill for weeks now. The fields surrounding our farmhouse have been looking rather neglected because the animals haven’t been around to graze. Honestly, how much can 30 grazing chickens do – nothing compared to 200 sheep.

And so in preparation for shearing and for some much needed mowing, we moved the sheep down the hill to our place yesterday afternoon in the heat of the day. The Farmer made sure the sheep were good and hungry so they wouldn’t mind being moved from their most recent home.

Here they are peacefully hanging out before the move. They knew something was up because I was there along with the two dogs.

Here’s the group bunching up – you can see The Farmer and Nessie on the far side.


After a few false starts and wrong turns, they found the road we wanted them to be on and off they went.


We knew they would stop at our neighbor Joanne's hay field - that green grass is simply irresistable. It was a rather long stop for some snacks.

I waited patiently down at the shed, hoping I could move them in the right direction. It's pretty hard for one woman to control 200 sheep. I stopped them from going back up the road which was key.


They found our garden and front yard more alluring than the field we wanted them to be in. After some nibbles on the grapevines and lollipop hydrangeas.......


Then they went where they were supposed to and The Farmer fenced them in with the temporary electric fences.

It surely feels nice to have them back here - they look so splendid in full coat grazing the overgrown pasture.

Otherwise around here, we're trying to duck all the rain and thunder and lightening. I am terrified of my computer being zapped by lightening so it seems to be off more than on. The rain has made the planting of the sunflower field very slow. It is too wet to get on. Some of the seed has germinated but the large part of it hasn't even been planted. I fear we won't have as many flowers as usual. Haying has also proved difficult - too much rain daily that it makes cutting impossible. We'll see if it dries out soon..... Then we will madly plant it and hope for the best.

And so, as most Americans celebrate the 4th of July, we will be too - only we'll be fitting in a picnic in between raindrops and farm chores. Hope you enjoy the long weekend!