Archive for the ‘Wintervale Ranch’ Category
Enjoying Everything
After spending a day in bed, recuperating from a fever, it feels odd to step out onto our property again. Just one day, and I feel like a stranger. Maybe spending much of that time buried in a book that describes a farm in the Shenandoah Valley contributes to my feeling alienated. That, and the fact I have been busying myself with visualizations of what our place will become over time, based on the inspirations and energy of Joel Salatin’s writing.
Cyndie, poking at the embers in the smoldering brush pile
When I stepped out yesterday evening, I was back to the place with the fence project in limbo. We have provided funds for the purchase of material for the two paddocks. We now await arrival of the boards, posts, wire, and accessories, and then we hope for good weather and available laborers.
One thing I am okay practicing is, patience. We haven’t even been here 3-months yet. I still don’t know what the property will be like during the spring thaw. We hope to be here for many years, so taking our time to get these fences just right is very important to us. I want to remember to be patient about accomplishing all the things we are envisioning. I also want to be cognizant of the many possibilities that we haven’t even thought of yet.
In this moment, I am back at the day-job, striving to return to normal function. As always, things are moving fast, and also moving slow. We are where we always are, right in the middle, …enjoying everything about it.
What First?
Monday was a day of rest. Whatever illness found me to be a suitable host has brought on congestion, coughing, headache, body aches, fever and fatigue. Between delusional-dream naps, that don’t feel as restful as I wish they would, I was able to read further into Joel Salatin’s book. That served both to inspire and intimidate me. Not an unexpected response, I would guess. I aspire to accomplish everything he describes, while at the same time, I feel weighed down by the burden of how many issues need to be considered and acted upon, and how daunting a task it is to get things done in a most efficient and beneficial sequence.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Or the fence, or the hay shed, or the breed of dogs, or the pickup truck, or the horse trailer, or a more local employment opportunity, or the source for hay and feed, or the deck maintenance, or the varmint extermination, or the critter-proofing of the log home, or the water sealing of the log home, or the re-calibration of the garage door opener, or the energy audit of the home, or the design and installation of a rainwater collection system, or the arena creation, or the exercise rounds, or the equine watering system, or the manure management plan, or the tractor attachment to move 1-ton rounds of hay, or the repair of Cyndie’s car after the deer collision.
Oh. Cyndie hit a deer last night. Oops. There’s never an efficient or beneficial time for that event.
The tally since we moved here:
John: 1 fox
Cyndie: 1 deer
There are plenty of opportunities for similar animal collisions in the cities, but this does feel like a result of having moved to the country.
Embarrassingly Easy
I have now successfully edited my posts going all the way back to November 30, to fix the missing links that allow viewing the images in their full-size. I find it a bit embarrassing to admit that the solution was always available in the form of a button to click, which creates the link. I guess the link was previously a default situation when I uploaded my images, and became a selectable option when the software was updated.
I let myself think I was too busy to pay attention to this level of detail. Funny how the mind works when it comes to things like this.
Not as embarrassing, but unquestionably easy, was our decision to purchase a share in Walker Farms CSA yesterday. They are our neighbors, and represent many of the philosophies that appeal to us. We came home with eggs, chicken, ground beef, ground pork, ham, and even some lamb weenies, from free-range, grass-fed animals that are not fed systemic antibiotics or any type of hormone, and are raised in a sustainable environment. 
That isn’t all we came home with… They loaned us the book, “The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer,” by Joel Salatin. I recognized having seen at least one of the documentary movies that are referenced on the back cover of the book, featuring Joel and his family farm. After reading just the introduction of the book, I am enthralled by it.
It immediately brought to my mind, the friend I consider a mentor, Ian Rowcliffe, in Portugal. Ian, you are so not alone in your visions and energies to improve our fates by altering the direction of so many aspects of the ways of the modern world. Visiting with our neighbors at Walker Farms, and discovering the writings of Joel Salatin from his Polyface Farms, has expanded my understanding of my own reasons this adventure that Cyndie and I are undertaking feels so right. Ian’s Forest Garden Estate fits right in with it all, and remains one of my primary inspirations.
It really is about more than just the horses, even though that is the primary focus I have been referencing for our reason for moving here. We are trying to figure out fences right now, for the horses, but fences lead to, and are connected with, all aspects of our future operation here. Managing manure is leading to reasons we might want to have chickens. Testimony from the Walkers offered good evidence of the value of chickens, and the introduction of Joel’s book pretty much cements it for us.
There are an amazing number of things for us to discover related to accomplishing all the things we hope to achieve here. As difficult as that seems to be sometimes, it is also surprisingly easy. You could say, embarrassingly easy… because we tend to embarrass ourselves over and over with each lesson we encounter.
Unfortunately, none of them are as simple as finding out the solution is just a click of a button.
Couple Possibilities
We are all about possibilities. The design of our layout, including traffic routes of people, horses, and tractor; location of the round pens; dimensions of the paddocks; location of the automatic watering trough; location for storage and management of manure; location and type of hay storage facility, …are all in play right now. We meet, once again, with our fence installer this afternoon, to discuss the layout of our two paddocks, and whether we are ready to pull the trigger and begin installation.
We also have an appointment this morning to visit a nearby farm to meet the proprietors, one of whom is a farrier, to discuss their operation and whether we can buy into a share of their CSA farm, to get meat and produce throughout the year.
It should be a productive day!
Here are two versions of our working images for planning:
Relative Something 