Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Women farming’

Farm dogs at last

Posted in Moving to the Farm, The Farm, tagged , , on November 17, 2012| 5 Comments »

I started this blog post a long time ago, when Skeet and Bandit and I arrived at the farm back in the beginning of July, and I had high hopes of settling into a routine that included regular updates.  It has been a lot like heading downhill on a black diamond ski run as a beginner since then, to be quite honest.

How could I have thought it would be otherwise?

At this point in the story telling, with the long, hot drive from California to Kentucky just a faded memory, 4 months and two seasons under our belts, cows up on the pastures eating hay and winter knocking at the door, I don’t think it’s possible to catch up on the details.  I’m not sure I can even write a decent synopsis of the events that have packed my days since arriving here on the 3rd of July.  No, I just need to get started back to posting, which will be a huge achievement in itself.

I’ll try to explain as I go.  It’ll be skippy for awhile, I’m sure, but eventually this narrative should smooth out, the missing pieces will get filled in, and it’ll start sounding more like the story of a woman starting up a small farm, instead of just dreaming about doing it.

Bear with me, please.  The adventure has just begun…

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Meet some women farmers

Posted in Women farmers, tagged on June 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

Following the emailed newsletter link from Roots of Change titled “Women are Essential to the Food Revolution,” I click on the link to Temra Costa’s new book, Farmer Jane:  Women Changing the Way We Eat, which leads to farmerjane.org, a page filled with profiles of the women farmers in her book, complete with website hyperlinks.

Go check them out.  I am renewed and inspired, and have added a couple of new links to my links list and favorite blogs list to follow.

Read Full Post »

Posted in Small farms, tagged , , , on May 19, 2009| 2 Comments »

mel_and_J_in_garden_008GOD SPEED THE PLOUGH
(from an old English cup)

Let the wealthy and great
Roll in splendour and state.
I envy them not, I declare it.
I eat my own lamb,
My own chickens and ham;
I shear my own fleece
and I wear it.
I have lawns; I have bowers.
I have fruits; I have flowers.
The lark is my morning alarmer
So jolly boys now,
Here’s God speed the plough.
Long life and success to the farmer.

 _______________________________________________________

No, that’s not a plow behind that horse; it’s a drag harrow.  And no, that’s not me, that’s Mel driving “the ‘J’ mare” as Jason calls her, working the garden on Ridgewind Farm.   But I stumbled across the poem the same day he sent the picture of Mel and J, and for that reason they go together in my mind.

“God speed the plough, ‘a wish for success or prosperity,’ was originally a phrase in a 15th-century song sung by ploughmen on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Day, which is the end of the Christmas holidays, when farm laborers returned to the plough. On this day ploughmen customarily went from door to door dressed in white and drawing a plough, soliciting ‘plough money’ to spend in celebration. “Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins” by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

I found the poem on Hollin Farms website; another good Virginia farm worth taking a look at.

Read Full Post »

Woman at Work

Posted in Horselogging, Suffolks, tagged , , , on April 5, 2009| Leave a Comment »

lady-horseloggerHere is Mel at work, skidding logs in late March at this year’s Open Woods Day in Floyd, Virginia.

She and Adam are apprenticing with the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation to become Biological Woodsmen.  They’ll head back up north to their farm soon, to start operating their own restorative forestry business  there, and will train, work, breed and care for my mares for a little over two years, until I can get boots on ground at the Farm in Kentucky.

It is my hope that the contribution of living capital, both the horses to use and the foals they’ll keep, will help them get a good start.

Mel’s a quiet girl, but intense and passionate too.   Were you to meet her on a busy city street, you wouldn’t guess she works in the woods with horses and chainsaws and huge, heavy logs.  Having done a myriad of non-traditional jobs my whole life, I can really appreciate another woman who fearlessly chooses to follow her heart into the woods and the fields and do work like this.  It isn’t just for men, and it’s a lot of fun, and we can be very good at it.

These two young people are very special, and very important, to their community and to the world at large.  Not afraid to roll up their sleeves and learn a complex craft that defies the conventional mindset of profit over every other thing, and that gives back to the Earth and her future generations.  They give me hope and remind me that good, honest dreams built of hard work are still all some folks need to be happy in this life.   Makes me feel good, that.

Read Full Post »