Happy 30th Birthday Sue

This past week I took a small trip to New Hampshire. There was a very special occasion. My daughter Sue was turning 30 years old. How did this happen? It seems like only a few years ago she was turning 10. It is amazing how fast time goes by. I remember sitting on my grandmother's front porch, swinging back and forth, and her giving me little pearls of wisdom. She would say that time goes by faster as we get up in age. Now I truly believe her. At that time in my life the biggest wait I had was summer's arrival. Many years later and time rather zooms past now. It is so important to experience and treasure our memories. Travel always depends on weather in our neck of the woods. NH is about a 3hr trip and the weather was threatening snow showers. No problem with my truck. Up early that morning, coffee in hand and away I went. Interstate 95 is a bit boring. The scenery improves greatly when you take the back roads. New Hampshire is a state rich in history with many woolen mills which used hydro power in years past. Salmon Falls damn still exists and has been made into a park. It looks much better when the sun shines. Here is the damn with an iron train trestle bridge. The current looks so dangerous and gives you a certain amount of respect for the water.

True quality American workmanship at it's best. The snow was really starting to fall.

These are the Salmon Falls Woollen Mills. Now it is filled with artists shops. But, thank heaven it is still standing. Many mills still remain in the Northeast area.

Sorry for the mirror in the middle of the picture. Dover, NH still has a Mounted Police Unit. I didn't think they would take kindly to me stopping in the middle of the road to take their picture. Not with traffic behind me.

Susan and I took a tour of the countryside. We had to stop for cows crossing the road.

And people pushing cows across the road. Brookford Farm is an organic farm in Rollinsford, NH. I love this place. Sue plans on getting chickens and vegetables there this summer.

And more cows. I love rural life.

And Happy Birthday Sue! What do I get for my daughter's 30th birthday? Why the same thing I got for her 9th. A shiny new bicycle.

I had a wonderful trip and enjoyed each and every minute with her. Making memories. Keeping in touch. Making my heart happy. Love you girl....ah woman. sniff sniff.

Much Love and Prayers from Mainely Ewes Farm. sniff sniff

First Lambs of 2011

The long awaited time has arrived. We have our first lambs of 2011. Our sheep are Icelandic with beautiful wool and horns. This past November we let Echo into the ewe pasture to work his magic. This is the ram we picked up January 2010 from Terry Carlson at http://redbrickroadfarmsheep.blogspot.com/ Echo has such a sweet and non aggressive disposition. This is Esther with her little ewe lambs. Icelandic sheep mostly twin or triplet. Esther too has a sweet personality and a voice like Ethyl Merman.

We are happy to introduce Beatrice at 7 lbs and......

and her twin sister Bernadette at 6 3/4 lbs. Bernie has a white spot on the top of her head so for now we can tell them apart.

They both got their BoSe shot (vitamin E and Selenium) and navels dipped in Iodine. They have a "what the heck" look on their faces. They nursed right away. The cutest little tails wagging with happiness

We didn't expect them for a few days, however they had different plans. I opened the back door and heard a little lamb baaaaa and yelled "Ted we got lambs". It was a wonderful surprise.

Now it truly is spring on Mainely Ewes Farm.

Functional or Art or Both

Memories are what give you that warm fuzzy feeling inside. It is funny how certain smells bring back memories of loves ones and time spent around the dining table. To me, those memories are what ties us to the past. The truly make us who we are. My paternal grandmother loved to cook and my father loved to eat. She made the best lamb chops I have ever had. I never called her granny, grandma, or Nana. She was always Grandmother or Grandmother Hough. She was a southerner through and through. She even ironed her sheets! She was a lady. While visiting with my daughter, Sue, this past week we took a trip to the Kitchen store in Newington, NH. I love that store. I found this cornstick pan from Lodge. I got a warm fuzzy feeling just looking at it and my mouth began to water thinking about the cornsticks from my childhood.

My mom brought me this big bag of Alabama cornmeal this past summer. Some people give gifts of towels or jewelery. My mom brought me cornmeal. She knows me very well. I mixed up a batch with the recipe from the label. No sweet cornbread here. Nope, southern cornbread.

Add a little butter and heaven, heaven!

Then the pan becomes wall art in my kitchen. Easily accessible and ready to use.

After all, art is in the eye of the beholder. Better than a Rembrandt in my book. Happy Cooking.

Much Love and Prayers from Mainely Ewes Farm.

Keeping it Local

Each year we attempt a garden. I say attempt here because it is never a true success. The weeds take over on the days that I have to work and the garden disappears. It looks like a sci-fi movie with the weeds growing at warp speed. We love fresh vegetables, salads, onions, pumpkins.....on and on and on. We always had a garden in Florida. My mom worked very hard every day to keep the weeds at bay. They almost have a year round growing season there. They are having fresh strawberries while we still have snow on the ground. Maine has a very short growing season. Most plants are started indoors a couple of months before the ground outside is warm enough to plant. Otherwise they never mature and get caught in the first freeze. I tried to start some seeds indoors, once. The cats had a wonderful time and really appreciated the fresh greens. This year we have a plan. Our plan is to buy fresh organic produce through a CSA or Community Supported Agriculture Farm. We have bought a full share in Parker Produce , an organic farm in Newport, Maine. You can find them at http://parkerproduce.org/ For a fee, they provide a variety of fresh vegetables through out the summer and fall. They use sustainable organic practices without pesticides and poisons. That means fresh salad greens, peppers, kale, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers..........I love a colorful salad. Aren't these little peppers so cute? They are sweet and crunchy.

We will be able to provide our own farm raised chickens and lamb. We also bake our own bread. Last summer I bought this bread machine on Amazon.com and I am in love. The house smells so wonderful with bread baking. I know I could mix, knead, let rise and bake bread from scratch in the oven. However, in our kitchen the temp hovers around 65degrees on some winter days. Not warm enough for bread to rise. There are some improvements that I am very willing to use. This is one.

It always catches me unawares when it starts to bump and thump in the knead cycle.

So, if you aren't able to spend the time planting and growing your own fresh vegetables, do the next best thing. Buy local. Support your local CSA. Always buy local when possible. Keeping the money in state is the best way to kick start our economy. I think China is a lovely place but right now we need help right here at home.

Much Love and Prayers from Mainely Ewes Farm

Visitors to Our Farm

I am fortunate to work with a very special lady Marylee. She is one of our Secretaries in the ICU. She is always helpful, on top of situations and boy can she bake. She brings in goodies all of the time. Muffins, cakes and treats for the staff. She brought in a three layer walnut cake in the other day. Oh My Goodness! She has always wanted to visit the farm. We agreed on St. Patrick's Day and I would make corn beef with cabbage, potatoes and carrots. Mmmm...one of my favorites. Then the plan went to her coming and making soap too. Hey a girls day in. As the way with all well laid plans, everything changes. She received a call in the morning from her daughter in law needing a baby sitter and her son Adam was here from Portland, Maine too. So we made changes and she brought her mom along too. Asalind is a sweet 3 year old with a vocabulary of an eight year old. Very intelligent little girl with wonderful manners. Adam is very conscious of where his food comes from. He is vegetarian and against commercial producers. I agree with him hence we take very good care of our meat animals. The goats kept trying to get Adams hat. "We will give you goatie kisses for that hat."

Ted kept the goats happy with alfalfa cubes.


The chickens are in love with Asalind. She enjoyed feeding the chickens best. The goats were a bit offended.

Asalind learned where eggs came from. The ladys were very sweet and didn't peck the little hand poking around the laying box.

Marylee and Asalind visiting the goats with a barrier. The girls are a bit pushy.

We love having visitors to the farm. They came prepared with the required mud boots and treats. I feel that it is very important for kids to see animals out of cages and happy. We love our animals and they love treats!

Much Love from Mainely Ewes Farm

Happy First Day of Spring

Happy Spring! To some of our southern neighbors it doesn't mean a whole lot. Just a day on the calender. In Maine it is special. A true spring of sorts. The days are getting warmer and longer. The chickens are roaming around the chicken yard enjoying the daylight. The sheep are in the pasture waiting for the thaw. We put our order in for poultry at Murray McMurray Hatchery. I hope this will be the last order that we have to place for laying hens. I get so jealous hearing about everyone's hens "going broody". I think our girls like to party. They lay eggs and leave. None of that setting for these girls. We ordered 30 Buff Orphington laying hens and 2 Buff roosters. I think our roo may need help with all the additional ladies coming. We want chicks. Buffs are suppose to be very good mothers. We will have broody hens. I just know it. Our girls are 3 years old now. In hen years that is middle aged. We need to add some new blood to our flock. Our roo is happy about the additions. See the lecherous grin on his beak! In addition to hens we ordered 15 Bourbon Red turkeys and 25 Cornish Rock Cross broiler roosters. They all should be arriving around May 3rd.

Spring on the farm. We still have snow but it is melting more each day. Just last week there was a snow drift next to the house about 3 ft high.

Thinning snow means......

All of the waste from the wood pile is showing up. Looking nasty, muddy and genuinely ugly. We are still using fire wood and will have just enough. The yard will take a lot of work. It will be lush and green with paeony's, cherry trees, lillys, daffodils all blooming making the landscape spectacular. I can close my eyes and imagine. That is what I have to do for now because it really looks like this........

So Happy Spring to all from a very muddy Mainely Ewes Farm.

Baby Bump

We weren't sure that we were going to have kids on the farm this spring. I had already convinced myself that we were to be kid less. Honestly, I didn't think that Bucky got the job done if you know what I mean. I know that Janice from Stoney Knolls Farm was probably laughing at me. At last count they had 18 kids born. I can't imagine all of those kids but I sure would love to sit in the middle of them all with a bottle. Just imagine all the goatie love I would get. Well we wanted to rest Isobella this year. No babies for her.

No babies for Corina either.

Today I noticed baby bumps on both Bella and Sophie. Bella is on the left and Sophie on the right. Oh, that little Annie in the back is Isabella's little girl from last spring. She is definitely not pregnant. I'm so happy that our two girls are pregnant. I just don't think that we can milk more than two goats at one time. Then what would we do with all of that milk? This should be an experience in life for all of us. These two goats have never been milked. This is their first pregnancy. They are spoiled beyond belief. I will keep you all posted. I'm sure there will be plenty of laughs. These two girls were raised in the kitchen. Doesn't that say all?

I sent my check off for Goat School this spring at Stony Knolls Farm. Ted and I are going and are so excited. There is so much information that I feel like I missed the first time around. Janice and Ken Spaulding have been caring for goats for many years and they have so much information to share. Janice is a wonderful cook and has many recipes for a certain meat that we will leave nameless in respect for our caprine friends who read this blog.

Baby bumps, baby daddy, baby momma. All terms from this decade. Now we will start a new term. Goatie baby bumps. No, anyway. It is difficult to see if we have sheep baby bumps. So much wool. Take care and stay safe.

Much Love and Prayers from Mainely Ewes Farm

Winter Pups

Hi, Emma and Lucy here. It has been a long winter here in Maine. We have been very busy. We are up early, ready to run out and check on the farm after a good nights sleep. Of course it is really hard work and we have to take an afternoon nap. Too much energy expenditure and we are just two pooped pups.
What do we do for fun? Chewies! Yes folks, chewies. What is a chewie you may ask? Well it is anything and everything that fits into our mouths. It can be rawhide that keeps out teeth clean. A Hartz chewie that Lucy is sporting there. Oh, how we love to eat the hard starch middle and chew on the yellow spike ends. The package says that it is for hours of chewing enjoyment. I heard Mom say "yea, for regular dogs, not Cujos". I don't know what she meant by that. Who is Cujo? Oh, well....

Mom and Dad went to the store today and we have CHEWIES!

This is one of our favorite treats. Kongs with a kong cookie loaded with peanut butter. We love these when Mom puts them into the freezer first. WooHoo what fun. We love peanut butter. If you come over for PB&J just make sure that you don't use the jar that has DOGS written on the top. That is our jar only. Well unless you don't mind dog slobber. Hey, whats wrong with that?

So if you get bored and have nothing to do go to Petco and get you a Kong, load that sweet creation with peanut butter and you have an afternoon of gooey fun.

Much Love and Prayers from two happy pups on Mainely Ewes Farm.

Blog2print

I should have thought to put the link for printing the blog in the blog. Duh! Sorry about that. The price varies according to your choices. Hardcover vs softcover and if you choose to have comments included. I couldn't not have comments included since they are my favorite part. The more blog entries you have the more pages you will have and hence greater cost. I love the books because I am of an age where the internet didn't exist and I don't really trust it. For my book this year I chose hardcover, comments and it was 253 pages and cost $100. It is a bit steep but I really treasure it. It is my journal of sorts. It is the story of We. Hope this helps.
http://Blog2print.com


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Chickens in My Kitchen?

The Ladies have been doing an outstanding job laying eggs. We are getting at least 1 dozen a day, every day now. This past winter the girls went on strike. No eggs for days. We decided to let nature take it's course and didn't use any artificial light to lengthen the days and increase egg production. In commercial egg houses they do terrible things to the hens to make them lay. As a nurse I recognize how important sleep is to my patients. They need lights out and undisturbed time. So do our hens. We did use heat lamps on the coldest nights. Oh, on the chickens not my patients. Just sayin.
We are using clean, recycled egg cartons. Saves money and the earth.

I have chickens in my kitchen too. Not the noisy, pooping kind. Painted pictures of chickens,

bought pictures of roosters.....

and more roosters.....

and chickens just standin there.

Thelma and Louise

Henny Penny egg basket, with eggs of course.

Chickens way up high. (do not comment on the cob web)

chicken tins (chicktens)

The hen fruit ends up here. Waiting. Waiting to be sold to anyone who wants to have a heavenly breakfast. Is there any difference between store bought eggs and farm fresh? If you have to ask, run, don't walk to a neighbor who sells fresh eggs. Heaven. Pure heaven.

I sell eggs to co workers at my hospital. I have them addicted now. They just can't help themselves. Every day I go to work I here "hey Kelly, you got eggs? I got money. Let's make a deal." Yep, addicted nurses and pharmacy staff. Eggs. Hen Crack!

Much Love and Prayers from Mainely Ewes Farm.