I see a shadow

My Shadow

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

You know the sun has not been out for a while when your child laughs with excitement upon finding her shadow. We have been inside on many, many rainy days with many different illnesses. I hope to look back on this as the sickest winter we ever have had. I have been looking for the cold weather to come and cure what seems to just linger in our bodies. I am washing the bedding and leaving in outside over night and enjoying the good smell of bringing in crunchy bedding the morning. I have been missing all of the animals being inside with the children in the stormy rain. They have been there all the time, giving me meat (Noah slaughtered our chickens) and milk from Fifi which I have been pouring on the garden until all of our noses and ears are clear. The other day I got to weed and transplant a bit in the garden with Morgan sleeping on my back, that felt good, to have my fingers in the dirt again the first time since August. The raspberries got fixed up and are in nice straight lines (much to my pleasure). Yesterday I went around with the camera and got some photos in the lovely frost. We are slaughtering our own sheep (these are NOT for sale), I'm very excited and also a little sad to see our ram from this spring, Brother, slaughtered. He was a lovely sheep and had very good confirmation. He had had a good life and we will be respectful by not wasting, skin, meat or bones and will thank him for growing my family strong. We are excited for a new year of farming the theme for this year is not to get any bigger but to get better at what we do. We are really enjoying this learning process and hope for happy growing in 2013.  We are telling our animal tales at the Q of U at the Heriot Bay in on January 23 so stop by and say Hi or come ask questions about what we are doing. See you there,  I'll be the one with a baby at the bar:)

running from her shadow 

getting some sun onto his skin one of our clever roasters who escaped the pot suns himself 

This is Cherry of one of our surprise twins from this past August prancing around 

using all the "bits" to make a really good stock

Helping string up the raspberry on a windy day in November 

jack frost was out

a chicken by any other name...

A chicken by any other name wouldn't grow so slow. Well it's time to come out with the story of the freedom rangers that are not freedom rangers.  This spring Noah and I ordered what we thought where 100 freedom rangers from Black Creek Farm and Feed and after a few months ordered another batch of 120 "freedom rangers". Turns out these are not Freedom Rangers but what Black Creek Farm and Feeds calls traditional chickens that take 24 weeks to grow! WHAT! That is a lot longer than our 14 week plan. After calling Black Creek Farm and Feed I thought it was the supplier who had made the mistake, they told me I had never ordered freedom rangers and that "their suppliers don't even know what a freedom rangers is". After trying to understand how this misunderstanding could have happened I heard from two other farmers on the island saying that the same thing had happened to them. They also had ordered a chicken that they had called a Freedom Ranger and had ended up with the same Traditional bird. Lesson learned always do everything in writing and get a chicken supplier you can trust. We have already slaughtered first hundred and they tasted great, but had more bone than we had hoped for. Right now we still have 120 in the field, I have to say it's a little creepy when you hear the pitter, patter of 120 chicken feet following you. We also have the broilers that we are raising to make up for the loss on raising the "traditional" birds. But as the old saying goes there is never a loss without some gain, our fields and garden's are getting a poop load of chicken mature. 

Training our newest farm hand
Here at Hillcrest Farms we take these early years very seriously with identifying farm species in black and white as a top priority:) 

the days feel about this dark lately, eating popcorn with the light on 

missing an hour

It's even darker now with that hour missing, where did it go? It's now dark when Noah get's home from work, so getting the garlic in by head lamp was the only way it was going to happen this year. Lyra helped prep the soil, got nice and dirty and came in covered in dirt and smelling like something the tide washed up, mmm the smell of a few days old seaweed. It's hailing right now as Noah is out finishing up the chores and both of my children are asleep. I have taken to blogging instead of tackling the steady pile of dishes and laundry, I'll call it journaling and feel much more noble about it.

Only a few days ago it was warm enough to be outside in a tee shirt. The colder weather has moved in over the last few days. Here Lyra is showing me the seeds in the buckwheat and that you can eat them, imagine discovering something like that. And for her it was just as it was for the first man(woman) who ever ate buckwheat. We dug the potatoes finally the other day and it looks like we'll have enough for winter. Noah went through all our seeds yesterday leaving a note for me this morning with that list for order for next years seeds and it's fairly short.
Noah is going down on saturday to pick up the rest of the beef from this year's slaughter. I'm excited to have a some in the freezer to eat and another freezer full for freezer sales. We are going to be at the QCC Winter Market this winter and if it's not happening we are going to be here most saturday's from 10-2 with freezer sales. I also set up a facebook page so you can now "like" us on facebook. I will post all new available product on that page as well.

"shopping at local farmstores and establishing relationships with local farmers can answer question about safe practices and helps support a prosperous farming community" Quillisacut Farm School 

fall beauty 

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days are getting shorter

milk sitting out to get to room temp to make butter and yogurt 

a nice walnut harvest with help from Nanna

After serval weeks of sickness, I'm back again. Of course the farm never sleeps. The rain is here to stay, farming is a rain or shine kind of job. The days are getting darker and we are already excitedly thinking about the garden next year, while still harvesting from this year. Fifi is back, without little Gordon, so we are back in milk.  Butter, yogurt and some simple soft cheese are back in the fridge. I'll never tire of seeing that milk from our cow sitting there with a nice seperation of cream. A lot will make it the garden and feilds this year, last year we had pigs who where heavily milk and whey fed. The chickens are really free range now with garden #2 full of meat birds. 

We went to the Winter Market a few weeks ago for the first and time and it went well, so I'll be there tomorrow with Grass Fed Beef by the piece. Thank you for supporting local food the more you support your local farms the more good local food you get. I better go I'm off to pick by head lamp for the market tomorrow. 

Baby's & Pumpkins go together like peaches and cream 

Happy to be free in the garden #2

Meat Time

bacon, say no more. 

scrubbing the  counter with salt to sterilize was the only job I took on

Meat Time 

With the smell of bacon on the stove and an entire deer carcass on the kitchen counter it was "meat time" last night. Noah shot a nice fat three point buck last week, now we would have more than enough meat for the winter, we where able give half the deer away to our friend, Hilary and his family. Hilary had never done cut and wrap before. Noah is no expert but he always gets the job done and it looks perfectly fine to me.

getting ready to start in 

The venison is all in the freezer and Noah is at, Hughs, right now using his grinder to get us a bunch of ground. If all this meat talk makes you hungry we are going to try out the winter market tomorrow at the QCC with freezer sales of beef and pork.

Harvest Time

Off to Market 

The cattle are off to market. Now is maybe a good time to become a conscious carnivore if you aren't already. Thank you to all our customers who pre-booked sides and quarters this year, we hope you enjoy our first year of Hillcrest Farms beef. To those who would like some beef but a quarter is to much for you we are doing freezer sales right now. So give me a call and book a time. I would also love fed back for ideas on the easiest way for you (the customer) to shop freezer sales. Would you like a day you could just drop by once a week? Or does appointment work better for you? We also have freezer sales pork for sale from our pigs we raised. We are getting more meat birds and hope to have those for you in the new year, 2013 is just around the corner!

Morgan "helps" Dad corral the cattle

I have to say I'm more than a little proud of the basil Noah started this spring and I planted. It just kept giving and I just kept topping, it made it's way to the Saturday Market a few times this summer and hopefully I'll have more for you next year. Thank you to my sister boys for helping us get our last load to market, we'll make you the leaders of the child labour work force anytime. 

the house smelled wonderful that day 

We had a local food harvest Thanksgiving get together with friends, the food was amazing. The topic of the evening was chicken poo, I'd leave breastfeed come and back and still chicken poo talk. That's what happens when you get a lot of food growers together, oh the glories of chicken poo. 

A Thankful Heart

On August 15 our we had a son. A beautiful boy, still and without breath or pulse. All time stopped and the world moved in slow motion. How could I get my baby to breath? I knew his little soul had yet to enter his body so while people rushed and whirled about me, sirens went.. I just called him to come to us. He had a big choice to make, with oxygen being pumped into his little blue, grey body and the sound of people counting and calling, after about ten minutes and what seemed like forever and a moment. He took a breath and about five minutes after that a pulse.  Whatever I had been through in life nothing can prepare you for a time like that and nothing but my faith and my loving husband could have brought me through the next few weeks. Not being able to hold your newborn child and seeing them in so much pain is like having a part of you slowly die. The light goes out of your eyes and you feel almost unable to move your body because it feels like most of it is missing. After seventy two long hours of waiting I was able to hold my little boy, skin to skin, and the light just flowed through me and him and in that moment we both knew life was now sweet and the healing had just started to begin. Over the next two weeks in NICU with our son who we named, Morgan James, many miracles happened. Either Noah or I was always by Morgans side firmly holding his hand softly singing to him or talking  to him in a hushed tone, letting him know we believed in him. Every time a machine would come off,  the day he first moved, the day the feeding tube went in and he got his first golden colostrum, the day I could start trying to breastfeed, the day we were moved out of the red room, the blue room and finally the green room, the day the feeding tube came out, the oxygen monitors came off. The day his sister, Lyra,  got to see him without any IV or machines attached and kiss him on the check. I can't express thanks enough to our friends who showered us with love and support at this time. I felt like death eating hospital food, the food that was brought from near and far to nourish us made all the different to my mental and physical  state. After exactly two weeks to the day in the morning, Morgan, had a MRI. That afternoon the first results came back as, normal, and half an hour later we were discharged. In the past weeks we have had so much love come our way through unselfless service and support from family and many friends. It fulls my heart to over flowing I am amazed by all of you. Life has never been so very sweet, I have never felt so full of love, gratitude, patience and strength. My family has recieved a great blessing and I will ever be so thankful for my mother and father for teaching me about a loving Father in Heaven and for the gift of prayer. Now we are home and things are starting to go back to what life used to be but nothing will ever look the same to me as I have been there and back again and I truly know how blessed I am.

holding sisters hand 

the day after we came home 

Eight weeks, such clear blue eyes.