The Day the Piggies Got Out, the Day the Snake Got In

Pigs:
On Monday, almost a week ago, We spent most of the day starting our garden. Bekah certainly did most of the work, with me merely assisting. We installed some of our sickly seedlings, and some seeds in rows.

At some point, when I was inside, and Bekah called out “Hey Matt, look, the pigs are up”.

In the morning, Karma, the farmer, had been moving fencing around, so my first thought was, “Oh, the pigs have a new pasture already”. If you’ve never seen a small flock (gaggle? herd? school? pride? wing? I like wing.) of pigs gallop around a field, you’re missing out. There are clear leaders, and clear stragglers. Like a motorcycle gang of semi-retarded junior-high schoolers, they swarm around impulsively, in an ever-changing formation, not sure if they’re scared or eager or what, making their little Beavis and Butthead grunts the whole time, with waggly tails and floppity ears.

Well, I thought this was all pretty cool, ’till I looked down the hill a bit and saw that the big gate was open. Oh shit, so I ran down to the barn, looking for Karma. The Pigs were out.

There was one piggie that didn’t make it past the fence. That piggy didn’t have the courage to follow the rebellious herd; it just stayed in the safe, familiar pasture, lookings wistfully out at its brothers and sisters (and probably cousins). I kinda felt a kinship with that pig. When I was in junior high, I wouldn’t have had the guts to break out, either.

So, I helped to herd the pigs back into their pen, and to stand and look menacing near the fence ’till the electric fence was restored. It’s surprisingly easy to intimidate a pig. At least a little one.

So that was exciting. Apparently, this has happened ONCE before, in more than 10 years. Lucky me, to see it!

Here’s a pig video. Unfortunately, this is not of the flocking wing formation, but merely some in-the-pen normal behavior, but still, it’s pretty cool. Watch for the tails and ears.

Oh, and one reader asked why the pigs look burnt: I assure you that they are not burnt, but in fact it does happen. Pigs are very susceptible to sunburn, which is one of the reasons that they like to coat themselves with mud (or lie in shade). These particular pigs are Tamworth pigs, which are famous for their red hair and their good eatin’.

So, they’re even red-headed, these step-children.

Snake:
Later in the night, while eating dinner, Bekah and I were chatting about the garden. She remarked that the grass would likely reach waist height, and that we might want to do something about that. I said that it felt wrong to “mow” in the country, but that indeed it might be good to trim it somehow. I heard how even if you don’t care about having a lawn, it’s good practice to make a buffer zone between yourself and the wilderness, to keep varmints and creepy crawlies away from the house.

Literally AS we were having this conversation, I looked down to see a 3 or 4 foot snake coming out from underneath my chair. I processed this in an instant, and immediately looked to Bekah and grabbed her arm, hoping to help steady her against what she was about to see. She was not amused. I wasn’t either, but was lucky enough to have something to worry about besides my own surprise/fear.

It’s amazing how snakes push buttons in you. Even if you know you’re safe, well, safe-ish, and you know that you’ll be able to handle it, and you know that it’s more scared of you and all of that, some deep-seated dread grips you. There’s something instinctive that just says “WRONG” inside your guts. Or maybe that’s just the city-boy talking.

I got it into a box, and took it outside. The theory is that it was curled up inside of a log that I brought in for the fire. I had seen a bunch of snakes on the woodpile under a tarp, and that’s where this log had come from. At least, that’s the story that I want to believe. I like that one better than the one that goes “it just got in”.

I think that Bekah took a picture of it: head over there to see. She probably talks a lot more about the garden, too. So I won’t duplicate.

Wasail, and moving in

So, we’re back from the pagan festival. It wasn’t so pagan, after all. More like Balkan.

The details are this: there’s an apple orchard called Breezy Hill Orchards that delivers apples, cider, and pies to NYC Greenmarkets, owned and operated by a spitfire of a woman named Liz Ryan. I met her a few years ago at a Slow Food function, when she gave a quite riveting speech about land use reform in the Hudson Valley. Heh. Really, she was that good.

She carries on a tradition where her visitors have a big party and sometime in the night, before too late, they walk up to the oldest apple tree in the orchard with candles and sing to the trees, thanking the tree and asking for a(nother) good harvest.

Apparently, it’s a British tradition. Though, I don’t think that the British typically had an 8 piece Balkan brass band go up with the wasail’ers. That was pretty cool. Imagine the most soul-ful oompa-loompa band ever, in the dark, in a somewhat enchanted forest, with 250 people, all carrying candles, and you might have a good mental picture. Oh, and there was an acappella group of young women singing haunting Balkan folk songs, too. Unfortunately, night-time photography doesn’t work so well, so I have to just leave you with your own vision. But you could go next year. It was super-cold camping, but we made it through, and had a nice long chat with Liz late this morning. We chatted about trying to revive barge traffic for local farmers bringing food to market in NYC… she says that she spend $50K on gas last year. There’s gotta be a better way.

We drove back today, stopping to meet our friends for a late lunch in the Catskills. Boy, we’ve spent a lot of time in the car lately. But today it wasn’t much interstate, so it was a lovely drive, scooting past farms, valleys, and pastures full of dandelions. I feel closer to these things now; rather than just being pretty, I imagine what they grow, how long they’ve lived there, and how they must struggle to keep their way of life.

The House:

We’re getting moved in a little bit and it’s starting to feel like it will be home. Tomorrow, we start to tackle the garden. Then, on Tuesday, Bekah will start work, and I’ll get to some shelves adapted and built, build closet rods, that sort of thing. And hunt for an office.

Here’s a moving-in picture:

Soon, I’ll post a video of galloping pigs!

First Day In

So we’re here.

Things went better than we could have hoped. Alvaro and Martin helped us load the truck. I’d say that the truck was 4x as big as necessary. I felt embarrassed — it’s in my genes to be the worlds’ best packer (not Packer, but packer, as in to pack a car full of furniture — sheesh you Wisconsin folks have a one track mind) but I woefully overestimated our haul. The thing is that on the web, it sounds small: 9′ x 11′ x 7′. That sounds like about a mattress, a dresser, and 20 boxes. But noooooo. We could have moved 4 times.

We drove the truck. Then we got stuck in traffic. Then we drove some more. Then another stuck in traffic. Then lots more driving and then arriving. Basil was a total champ. She had her own seat, and she hunkered down in her carrier, sometimes actually sleeping. No singing was required. Which is kindof a bummer. But we listened to a book on mp3, Bekah and Basil chilled, I tried to keep the truck between the lines, and we kept it that way for about 6 hours.

We arrived and immediately installed Basil in the house. Unfortunately, our new floor paint was still tacky; it was supposed to take 1-2 hours, with overnight for best results, and 48 hours later it would still rather stick to our shoes than the floor. We put down some cloths and moved in some basics right away. I know I promised that we’ve move in via horse-drawn sledge, but it didn’t work out that way; we used the car, doing shuttle runs between the moving van and our house. So that was Wednesday night.

Thursday we unpacked, did some errands, moved over the rest of the loads, returned the truck, got our stove working, and had our first meal. It felt much more like home after we could finally make food.

Still no hot water, though. We’re down at the farm house now, borrowing the shower.

Sorry for the summary; I’m falling behind a little, but it’s a little hard to do this without reliable electricity and net access. I’ll post some photos and write some more soon. We’re off to a pagan festival tomorrow morning.

No really.

I’ll take pictures.

Back story

So we’re back in NYC tonight, having taken a Greyhound bus down today. (Why is it that it’s such a piss-poor experience taking a bus in the USA? In Mexico, it was actually pleasant to take a bus; much more so than a plane, and certainly more so than taking a bus here… oops, I feel a political rant coming on.)

Ahem. So, tomorrow is the big day with the big truck. Everything is in stacks of boxes, waiting. I’m a little worried about Basil and the truck and all of that. Last time we moved Bekah, Basil didn’t handle the car well, and required a constant serenade during the voyage. Five hours is a long while for Bekah to sing… five seconds is a long while for me to sing.

But I promised some back story. For those of you who may not have heard the details.

So, my sweetie, Bekah, she’s a farm apprentice. Last year was her first year, and she spent it at two farms. The first was a short stint at a small sheep/goat farm, which started in winter, through the early lambing/kidding season. The second was a veggie farm in the Hudson Valley, where Bekah learned a lot about harvesting lettuce on a pretty production-oriented market veggie farm. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but there was a little less variety of education than Bekah might have liked.

We spent that time apart, and it nearly wrecked us, but we got through it. This year, I’m going along for the ride. This year, she’ll be working for another small family-run farm (yes, there are a few of those left) near Ithaca, NY.

The farm is called Kingbird farm, and they make their living selling meat, veggies, and eggs mostly to the great Ithaca Farmer’s Market. What’s interesting to Bekah about this particular farm is its smallness and its variety: they have chickens, ducks, meat cows, dairy cows, pigs, horses, and even a peacock. How is it small? The horses are work animals: they do hauling and plowing, which means no tractor, which is kind of novel. And it’s all run by a family of three: a couple and their little girl.

In general, the whole place has a palpable elegance to it… it feels like it’s in much better balance than most farms I’ve been on. I’m no expert, of course, but at this point, I’ve visited more than a handful of small farms with Bekah, all on the small side, all “organic” and most on a slightly evangelical-sustainability bent. But this place is really special. I’m lucky to get to spend some time there, thanks to Bekah.

She’ll be doing the real training: I’ll not be working. I hope to observe, learn, and chip in informally when I’m able. But still, for me, it’s a big deal because we’ll be moving to the farmers’ land. Frankly, that’s as far as I can see right now…

What happens after we move is certainly the important part, but I’m sorta fixated on the move itself: I’ve lived for the last 13 years in NYC, which is the longest I’ve lived anywhere in a continuous chunk of time. I moved only once, which is pretty rare for NYC, and that was from 20th street to 21st street. I didn’t even change my corner deli. I suppose it’s the hard work of planning and executing the move, too… I’ve described it thus: I know that there’s a beautiful vista ahead of me, which I look forward to seeing. But first, I’ve got this damn brick wall of a move in the way.

Well, that will be substantially over in the next couple of days. Tomorrow the drive, Thursday the actual hauling.

More about the actual house and spot in my next post. I don’t expect a whole lot of ‘net time for a few days.

I finally did it…

… I got a blog.

I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. I’ve played around with WordPress.com a bit during a project I’m doing for my volunteer work. I have made some websites in my time with some significant overlap with the kinds of things that a blog needs to do, and I was impressed with WordPress, and reconsidered my dislike of the idea of having a blog.

Then, Bekah started one to tell her friends and family about our adventure together, and well, I was shamed into starting one too. My family liked her blog so much that I figured I should give in and start one.

She’s a few days ahead of me, so go over there and see what we’ve been up to.

We’ve been cleaning and painting for a few days — I’m t i r e d. But, I have just enough energy left to show you a pig, who is in fact my nearest neighbor.