The dye buckets are finally outdoors and sit on the ground waiting to merge with the wax. The mixing of dyes is time consuming and my least favorite part of the batik process but I feel a release of my creative spirit now that the buckets of dye are ready. It is warmish and the…
With one big push the calf finally gushed into the world and lay still behind her mom. Being nervous I pushed forward to be sure the nostrils were clear to breath, but before I reached the small jersey heifer (female calf) she shook her head and took the first breaths of life. Birth is a…
Sundance Trilogy, this batik is finally completed, out of the dye and hanging to dry, free in the wind. Nothing dyed here, except the batik. Here is a large pail filled with a deep red dye, which was the final dye bath for Sundance Trilogy. Sundance Trilogy going into the dye set…
So I wrote out the request. “Please cash in my teacher’s retirement account”. I had worked as a traveling art teacher for about five years and took a leave of absence to work on my art. But I never went back. I loved creating my art and was managing to sell much of it in…
He is sitting beside me on our trip to the Memory Center in Bennington, Vermont. My husband Dick had a diagnosis of early Alzheimer’s last fall. I knew it was coming as he would ask the same questions again and again, become anxious especially at night and go over things repeatedly. He had had a…
As I pounded through the thick ice on top of Steppin’s ( (My old best cow that we have to this day) round water tub in the minus 20 degree weather last weekend, I could not help but think back to our first winter on our farm. Today I chipped through much of the ice…
It is said you have to love farming to keep doing it and we did. It was not a job but a way of life, a ritual repeated day in day out with exciting and unexpected events both good and bad. We loved the animals and loved the land. Dick had grown up near Boston…
Today is a gift from Mother Nature. The sun is bright and strong and the small amount of snow we had is quickly melting away in tiny streams that fill me with the excitement of spring. But it is not spring, the farms in the distance are quiet, waiting for the real spring to jump…
Sara was present for many surgeries on our beloved jersey cows over the years, most of them performed by our favorite veterinarian Dr. Jack Rath. Dr. Rath, Jack, was a true blessing to us in guiding our husbandry at Amity farm. Very patient, he was a peaceful person to call for a sick animal…