Tag: farming

Categories
Cow Parade Summer

Part of the Herd

Paige Hardwick and her sweater

Last week (with a little help from our friends), we loaded the cow into the bed of our pickup truck and transported her back to Old Sturbridge Village and reunited her with the rest of the herd.

So now, we have actually transported livestock to and from Star Field Farm. (Can you refer to a fiberglass cow as livestock?)

You could say we are livestock adjacent…our over the hill neighbors’ cows occasionally come by for a visit.

It was surprisingly hard to say goodbye to my cow friend. After all, she filled our entire entry way for two months. And, although my hands were definitely weary by the end, they also feel surprisingly empty without such a massive project in them.

This was definitely the strangest project I’ve gotten myself involved with, and it, like all the other things I’ve done (open a physical therapy practice, write a novel, move to the country and start a farm), it started with a cavalier “how hard could it be?” … Only to realize too deep into the process to back out, oh, yes, this is hard.

But one of the lessons of tackling things like this is learning that we can do hard things. We can accomplish big (strange) projects.

I am grateful to Old Sturbridge Village for allowing me to be part of their Cow Parade and for giving my cow pride of place right inside the visitor’s center. (Doesn’t she look cozy in her stall?)

If you have a chance, do go to the Village and enjoy spending a day in the 19th century as you walk the grounds and visit with all the decorated (and some real) cows.

What’s next for me? Summer is busy at the farm, though now that everything is planted, weeded, and mulched, and the fruit trees are pruned, much of the work is in harvesting before things bolt.

We harvested and froze over 10 lbs of bok choi, just before the heat dome hit.

And my bff’s sweater is next on the crafting list. She was very patient while I set it aside for the cow.

This will feel positively dainty after working in lopi!

And now that the Cow Parade project is completed, I have no excuses for avoiding the novel in progress. It’s the sequel to Litany for a Broken World which came out in February and I’m just over the 1/3 mark.

Knitting a sweater for a life-sized cow in a 60 day timeframe was definitely easier than facing a blank page. So, I will remind myself that we can do hard things and get back to writing.

Thank you for following along in my journey “Yarning for the Past.” I hope it offered you a bit of whimsy in trying times.

Categories
Cow Parade

And finished!

Day 59: #CowParade project

That is one cozy cow.

Over the past few days, I finally finished knitting the second sleeve/leg for the cow sweater.

This morning, I gave it a good soak in the bathtub to relax all the stitches before blocking.

Yes, the sweater filled the entire bathtub.

Normally, I block work on foam boards on our dining room table. Bit this sweater was far to big to block anywhere in the house. Then I remembered that our swing converts to a flat bed. Voila!

No rain today! Yay!

After the sweater had mostly dried, I finished the button bands, sewed on the buttons, and wove in/tied off any ends. Then it was time to hope that the blocking and the fact the sweater was still damp meant I had enough give to slip it on the cow.

Because if I couldn’t get it to stretch enough, I was going to have to reinforce and cut one of the sleeves open and sew it on the cow.

Luckily, I had just enough give to get the sweater on the cow!

And here she is in all her glory: Paige Hardwick and “Yarning for the Past.”

She, along with 24 other decorated cows, will be on display at Old Sturbridge Village from June 21st 2025 through September.

Cow by the numbers:

  • 59 days of knitting
  • One and a half MILES of yarn
  • 5 pounds of yarn
  • Approximately 35,000 stitches
  • Icelandic lopi was used for most of the project, and
  • Homespun yarn from local sheep, plus
  • A little bit of the first roving I spun into bulky yarn using a drop spindle
  • Finally, buttons from my late father’s knitwear business from more than 40 years ago.  I had exactly 10 left.
Categories
Spring

Ready, Set, Grow…

The growing season in Central Massachusetts is absurdly short. The night temperatures were dropping into the 30’s (farenheit) until a week ago. The past few days have been perfect blue-sky days full of sunshine and warmth.

Which means we’ve been busy in the dirt.

Last year we devoted a few rows in our main garden area to straw bale gardening – in which you prepare the bales for planting with applications of fertilizer and water for about 10 days.

Last year’s results were a bit disappointing. Partly because we hadn’t done the best job in preparing the bales, partly because the drought stressed everything we planted. We’re trying it again this year, armed with more knowledge and experience.

The advantages of the straw bale method include having the plants higher up – easier for the farmer’s back, weed control, and better control of the growing environment, especially if the soil is less than optimal.

We also started planting our potatoes, corn, and winter squash. It always feels like a race against the coming winter, given how long these take to maturity.

It’s definitely a frenzy of planting right now, but once everything is in the ground and the watering is set up with their timers, the day to day work of weeding isn’t too onerous.

We’ve already been enjoying the fresh asparagus. I need to harvest the rhubarb (I’m planning on doing a country wine with rhubarb and some fruit I have left over from last year in the chest freezer). Soon we will have fresh peas and leafy greens.

Inch by inch, row by row.

Categories
Spring

New England Weather, Local Food, Food Security

Weather station showing it was 41 degrees F this afternoon.
Last week, it was in the upper 80s F.

We are back to running the woodstove in the kitchen. Spring weather in New England is fickle at best and now that we live in a rural farming community, the extreme shifts are more than inconvenient. They can spell the difference between fresh food later in the year and poor harvests or no harvest of certain fruit or vegetables.

Central and Western Massachusetts is an absolute haven for growing, finding, and eating local food. In a few square miles from StarField Farm, we can source meat, chicken, pork, milk, cheese, flour, stone fruit, apples, pears, pawpaws, berries, and every vegetable you can think of.

If the past few years have taught us anything, it taught us that our food supply chains are fragile. Local food is more than just a “bougie” fad: it is a matter of security and health.

It’s easy for people living in places where food is simply a commodity to get in a grocery store to take for granted that what they wish to eat will always be available.

The two major pressures local farmers face are climate change and development. Both together could spell disaster for local food availability.

Just on our little homestead farm, we already know we won’t have any peaches this year. It’s sad, but it won’t affect our livelihood as we only grow for our own larder. For farmers who rely on markets and CSAs it could mean a huge financial hit in a business that already struggles with the thinnest of margins.

And farmland is disappearing at an alarming rate.

I wish I had easy solutions. All I know is if we don’t value local food and local farmers, if we don’t protect land from irresponsible development, if we ignore climate change, we will feel the impact on our food bills and on our plates, and ultimately in our health and wellbeing.