Missing New England

And so many weeks passed away. Heidi did not know if it was winter or summer, for the walls and windows she looked out upon showed no change....[T]hey generally only saw more fine streets and large houses and crowds of people; they seldom got anywhere beyond them, and grass and flowers, fir trees and mountains, were still far away. Heidi's longing for the old familiar and beautiful things grew daily stronger, so that now only to read a word that recalled them to her remembrance brought her to the verge of tears, which with difficulty she suppressed. So the autumn and winter passed, and again the sun came shining down on the white walls of the opposite houses, and Heidi would think to herself that now the time had come for Peter to go out again with the goats....Heidi would go and sit in a corner of her lonely room and put her hands up to her eyes that she might not see the sun shining on the opposite wall.

--from Heidi, by Johanna Spyri

Who Goes to Anterstock?

The road to Antlerstock. Literally.

Forgive me if this is just the first in a series of Anterstock posts, but there is so much to tell. What a fantastic weekend in Vermont/New York! Before I describe the activities, sights, and food, I'll clue you in on the kind of people who end up at a small farm workshop in New England hosted by a young farm writer with a devoted blog following. We came from far and wide--a school teacher in Arizona who dreams of having some land in northern Minnesota some day, a Canadian who makes the most of her quarter-acre in the city, a farmstead goat's milk soapmaker from Texas, a forestry professor from upstate New York, a candymaker from Boston, an engineer and speech pathologist couple starting a sheep's milk cheese business, snowboard shop owners from Maine, New York City slickers with container gardens on their balconies, organic farmers living on a commune. All told, there were about 40 of us: maybe a few more women than men but a good mix, and about evenly split between couples and singletons.

You know the person who can easily befriend strangers in the checkout line at the grocery store and who shines in a group setting? That person is not me. The Wrangler usually has to drag me kicking and screaming to a party. I was prepared to be a little uncomfortable and perhaps even quietly duck out early and head back to my hotel. But I had so much in common with everyone that conversation flowed naturally. There was not so much small talk as there was exchanging of ideas. The time flew by. I arrived for the first workshop on Saturday at 10AM and didn't leave until 10PM.

We all have day jobs and farm dreams. Some people have just taken the plunge and had lots to share. Usually when I get one of my more radical ideas, well-meaning friends are quick to tell me why it won't work. At Antlerstock there was no naysaying. "We used our entire life savings to start our business," one attendee told me. "Money that we'd saved for years and years for retirement. Of course it's a little scary. But you know what? What's the worst thing that can happen? We lose all our money and our house. Yeah? So what? No one dies. But what's more likely is that we will succeed because we didn't cut corners. We think it's well worth the risk." (I described this atmosphere of encouragement to one of the Six-Button Cowgirls, which garnered the dry response, "Sounds like a support group for crazies; everyone egging each other on.") No one talked politics but I suspect we covered the full spectrum. Yet we all got along just fine.

When the Wrangler picked me up at the airport, I talked non-stop during the one-hour drive home. He pointed out that many of us at Antlerstock probably are left-brainers--lawyers, engineers, accountants, IT techs--but everyone has some creative juices. Some of us knit, most of us have blogs, and many of us are musical. As we sat on hay bales around the bonfire on Saturday night, various people brought out their guitars, bongo drum, flute, mandolin, and fiddle. We truly were a bunch of urban cowgirls (and urban cowboys) enjoying a bucolic October weekend among new friends.

Next up: the workshops.

Pilgrimage

I just finalized the travel plans for what has become an annual fall foliage trip to Vermont. Next weekend, not only will I enjoy scenic drives on winding roads through the Green Mountains ablaze with peak autumn colors, I'll also be attending a small farming workshop. I'll learn about everything from sheep care to lumberjacking. Of course, the danger here is not my solo travels along country roads. The real risk is that the Wrangler will get a text message instructing him to pack up our things, put the pets in the car, and meet me in Vermont. I honestly can't guarantee that I'll ever catch that flight back to Cali.

Looking Forward

It's good to have something nice to anticipate, and I'm looking forward to two events this fall: round-up in Montana at the Mountain Sky ranch, this time with the Wrangler instead of the Six-Button Cowgirls, and Jenna Woginrich's Backyard Farming Workshop in Vermont. I just put down a bunch of deposits, so we're all set. It may seem odd to plan for fall before summer has even begun, but that's how I feel about summer--I just wish we could skip it altogether.

The Backyard Farming Workshop is a two-day event that will cover: chicken basics, sheep basics, beekeeping basics, cheese making, lumber-jacking (wood lot management, tree selection, and felling), hand wool processing, canning, bread-making, turkey butchering, winter greens/extended growing, pumpkins, and a field trip to the Merck Forest and Farm Center to observe the sustainability projects and heritage livestock operation. Jenna also promises an autumn campfire with mountain music and home brew.

It also may seem weird that I'm spending my time planning vacations while a certain housing matter looms large. We're moving out of the cottage in the next month, have two sheep on the way, and haven't the faintest clue where we're headed. I'm assuming that, come vacation time this fall, we'll be flying in and out of John Wayne airport. But I decided that it might be a good idea to wait and book our flights in a month--just to be sure.

'Round the Ranch

Dash getting his nails trimmed. To keep that scruffy little jerk from biting us, we have to set down a jar of peanut butter and let him have at it.

Here at the ranch we're gearing up for the holidays. The weather admittedly has been pleasant, with low 70s during the day and cozy-ish low 60s at night. Things have been busy but banal--just a blend of pets, PT, riding, yoga, and lawyering. I'll have more time for some cowgirl ingenuity once I shed the thrice-weekly PT from the mix. I spent last weekend playing the semi-perfect homemaker: baking bread, roasting butternut squash, dutifully doing laundry (but then getting banned by the Wrangler from any such future endeavor; apparently my signature dumping of clean clothes from the dryer into a five-foot heap on the guest bed causes wrinkles--wrinkles that can't be remedied because we don't own an iron), scouring a holiday bazaar for Thanksgiving decorations, wrapping presents, designing the family Christmas card, ordering our Noble fir from Oregon (which will be chopped down this weekend and, like last year, fedexed to us in an astonishing display of environmental unfriendliness...but hey, a girl's gotta have some vices...), and lining up festive plans for holiday shows, teas, and tree lightings. It's a wonderful time of year!