Drying Off and Moving up the road

Dearest all milk customers, friends, family, and supporters,

Little red house and garage

Meg and I are drying the cows off on the 1st of April. This is one of those things we have to do. The cows need a chance to recharge, rest up, and work a bit less. Hmmm sounds like the farmers need this shot of R&R as well! They mend their udders, put on some body fat, and grow a calf in their uterus. The sixty to sixty days off helps ensure a healthy delivery of the calf, and a healthy lactation for the next year. So there you have it!

view of the white mountains

post and beam

Also we are moving. These rumors have been flying. They are true. We did not have this planned at all, but it is just the cards we have been dealt and so we are rolling with it. We have a bunch of work to do, but believe this move is leading us in a positive direction. We look forward to a better barn, cheeper rent, a three year lease deal, and an easier house to heat. Other positives are the amazing views of the white mountains, and a pond to take a dip in. Our new landlord has also built a sauna just out the back of the house, and is excited about developing a grazing landscape.

The Barn

Sauna

We will notify all when we are going to have our grand re-opeing/open house. We think this will be some time in early July. Until then we can only take it one day at a time and do the work we have to do.  So the parting quote is one Meg and I hope to live by. "First do the work that is necessary, then do what is possible, and before you know it you have achieve the impossible."

Old Friends are Like Onions

Old friends are like onions. Many of us have cut open onions and marveled at the layers. The thin skin. Its not really possible to have thick skin with old friends, that is something we try to pretend to have with the people we recently meet.  Sometimes a green shoot is forming in the middle starting to re grow, or keep growing. 
Old friends are like the land stewards who grow onions. Old friends know that an onion starts as a tiny seed, and shoots up green. They understand "you" as a being, that started growing and adding layers to yourself. They understand having the green parts of  your life clipped off, and used periodically through out your growing season as sustenance.
The best part of old friends is that they are able to see all the layers that have grown on the outside, but they know what the core of "you" looks like. Old friend speak to the part of you that is beyond all the layers. They know that skin is really thin.
Onions add flavor to everything. They are spicy and tangy in salad. When the winter is over and the first salads come out of the garden,  onions are chopped up raw, often resulting in tears. The onion salad refreshes weariness, opens your eyes, invigorates, and charges the spirit. Like running into old friends on the street or in your home town.
Onions make the base for slow cooked stew. Slow cooking takes time, drawing the subtle juices out of the meat, and veggies. The flavor is one that whole is greater than the sum of its parts, like sound harmonics of different frequencies vibrating, to give us sweet music and symphony. The carrots, potatoes, and onions each play their part to perfection with old friend onion holding down the root note.
Onions speak for them selves. And the words we use for old friends fall short because we cant really explain them. They speak for themselves.