Self-taught farmers confidently raising chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs. Our focus is on practices that are environmentally harmonious and respectful to our livestock. We appreciate the beauty around us, clean eating, fermenting, and responsibly utilizing the bounty of the land. If you like thinking for yourself, continuous learning, and connecting with the homesteader lifestyle, check us out.
Just short post today, but what I think is an interesting one, nonetheless. Always enjoying new discoveries, I happened upon something I’d not seen to date here: what looked like a clump of soap bubbles at the base of one of our maple trees. Have you seen this before?
Continue reading “Around The Farm: Arboreal Soap Art”
Winter has some of the most striking sunsets of the year. I’d chalked it up to the crisp clearness of the season’s days, and science seems to back that up. The depth of the smoldering hues on the horizon seems, at least to me, to be a sort of swan song: the sun, not going gently into night, leaves its breathtaking impression on the observer.
Experiencing beautiful sunsets one of the rewards of being a farmer. Nighttime chores mean receiving this gift of Nature’s beauty without needing to make special arrangements to see it – fortuitously, I’m already outside! Sometimes the display is accompanied by the soft hooting of owls, a reminder that predators arrive with the darkness and to make haste in getting the poultry secured for the night. And, each night, our birds are settled in safely, just as the sun reluctantly dips below the dusky sky.
Interesting fact: according to Stephen Corfidi of NOAA, “were it not for the fact that human eyes are more sensitive to blue light than to violet, the clear daytime sky would appear violet instead of blue”. Learn more about the science behind spectacular winter sunsets here.
It sounds like a thousand squeaky screen doors being opened and closed: metallic, raspy, and loud. The unusual noise accompanies huge flocks of acrobatic birds that darken the sky. These large groups of starlings visit our area periodically, and despite my worries that they’ll empty the bird feeders in five seconds flat, these travelers don’t even seem to notice them.
Continue reading “Haiku: Murmuration’s Mystery”