homesteading

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the big dig!

April 26, 2010 in homesteading, shared work by eringoodman | 7 comments

Welcome to a story about our water woes that has been in progress for a couple of months now. 

Here’s the quick re-cap: Air in the lines. Hissing, spurting water. Groaning pipes. We thought it was our holding tank so we replaced that but the problem didn’t go away. A couple of weeks later, we opened up the well cap and attempted to patch what we thought was the hole. That didn’t work either so this past weekend we brought in the big equipment and well…dug a little deeper.

Oh and just for the record, I am using the word “we” in a ridiculously liberal way, as I often do when it comes to our homesteading projects. There really wasn’t a whole lot of we – as in me – involved. Also, seems worth noting that our friend Steve is an engineer and an amazingly smart guy. We could not have done this (and would not have even attempted it) without his help!

Ok. So with that out of the way, let’s begin…

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Guess what we did this weekend? We rented a backhoe!

First Papa and Steve dug a hole by the well.

Then while Steve worked on the well pump, Papa took advantage of the half-day backhoe rental and went to work in the rest of the yard – filling in holes, turning the garden, and even knocking down a couple of small trees!

I yelled things like ”Watch the blueberry bushes!!!” and “Don’t cover up my rhubarb!!” from the back deck while taking photos.  (I’m very helpful like that.)

Papa avoided my rhubarb and amazingly (for someone operating a backhoe for the first time) drove right up to the blueberry bushes and dumped the load of dirt over them without hurting them at all!! Yay Papa!

This is what it looked like inside the house while all of the excitement was happening outside. (I was out teaching yoga all morning so no time to clean or make a fancy lunch for the hard workers. Luckily they seemed pretty happy with the bacon and egg sandwiches I threw together for lunch and the frozen pizzas I expertly heated up for dinner. ;-)

And as soon as we were done eating, the kids — our two, Steve’s four, plus a cousin visiting for the weekend — went outside and put the big hill, everything they could find with wheels, and those new mounds of dirt to good use.

I still have no idea what Steve did to our well, despite the fact that he attempted to explain it to me several times, but I know that when I turned the faucet yesterday water flowed freely and the pipes didn’t hiss or groan at me.

And we are so very grateful.

small farm dreams

January 27, 2010 in dream big, homesteading, shifting perspective by eringoodman | 22 comments

We’re in the midst of a January thaw here in Southern New England.

Yesterday was beautiful - sunny and warm, which for my children and their classmates meant extra time playing and running outside. (With spare sets of clothes tucked into their backpacks for the inevitable mud-sloshing that is just too fun to resist.) And for me it meant putting writing and other projects aside and tending to long-neglected barn chores.

Remember the chicken pen I started in November? 

Yeah. It’s still not finished. 

This wire fencing has been used to contain sheep, small children, and soon (fingers crossed) will help to keep the chickens safe and secure in their new pen.

It was this project that ignited the spark of anger between me and John on Thanksgiving.

Helping his wife stretch and staple wire was not his idea of a relaxing holiday. Sleeping in, surfing the Net, and watching a little football was.

I’ll let you use your imagination as to how well that went over with me as I was nursing dozens of tiny nicks and scrapes from the sharp wire, while trying to keep an eye on the kids who were allegedly “helping me” with this project I wanted desperately to finish before the winter in hopes of avoiding another mass chicken tragedy like we had last winter.

Yeah. It wasn’t pretty.

And it was this project that brought tears rolling down my face as snow poured out of the sky and piled up around our house on Solstice weekend, frustrated yet again with my inability to get anything I start around here done. 

But yesterday as I did my own mud-sloshing along with my neighbor, who was out walking his dog when I recruited him to “come help me for just a minute,” it was this project that filled me with feelings of contentment and peace.

It’s much bigger than making progress on the chicken pen (though trust me, I will be very happy when they are secured and we are no longer stepping in chicken poop).

What feels so good is how things are shifting in our home and in our family.

John and I are talking — more frequently and much more softly — about how things are working and about our shared goals for our family. We’re focusing more on the places where we are in alignment and less on the places where we do not see eye-to-eye.

Pigs are out. Indefinitely.

Milking goats. Maybe in a couple of years. But not now.

Rabbits are doable. Later this year. Maybe. 

In the whirlwind of cleaning and decluttering that has been happening in our home (inspired by One Small Change), the kids found this photo of Lily (about 18 mos. old) with her first flock of chickens and one of our Shetland sheep, George.

George and his sister Gracie left us the following fall. Both sheep were fond of jumping out of their pen, and chasing them down on a near-daily basis (with a toddler on my back and a baby strapped to my chest) was more than this sleep-deprived, aspiring farmer-mama could handle.

The other day, when the kids handed me the photo, I mindlessly grabbed a magnet and stuck it the fridge.

Yesterday as I walked through the kitchen I was struck by the beauty of the photo and the words on the magnet, a gift I received a decade ago from a wise friend.

 Having it all does not necessarily mean all at once.

 

staying grounded

November 16, 2009 in energy management, homesteading by eringoodman | 6 comments

Yesterday’s Forum was beautiful. I look forward to sharing some words and photos with you but anticipating that I might not be ready to do so right away, I wrote this post last week to share with you today.

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Although I have been hosting events and speaking publicly for most of my life (I was even the MC at my high school’s commencement!), and last fall I taught public speaking at the nearby university, I am still not immune to pre-event jitters.

Sometimes the jitters get so big that I want to curl up in my bed and hide, dreaming of canceling the event or praying for Mother Nature to provide a major rainstorm or snowstorm to do it for me.

It is a really vulnerable feeling to stand up in front of a group, and as the groups I speak in front of steadily increase in size, and the topics we discuss get bigger and more personal, I am continually challenged by feelings of being unprepared and over my head.

But thanks to the powerful process that I am experiencing with the help of my amazing life coach and friend, Julianna Ricci, I am learning to go with the flow of energy that comes up right before a big event, rather than fight it.

One thing that I have learned is that I need to do things that help me stay grounded in the days leading up to a big event. Things like digging in the Earth, being in nature, and being around animals are really helpful to me.

So although in some ways it might seem crazy that I began tackling a major barn project this month, it is actually in perfect timing.

Here are a few shots of the very early stages of our new — and very much improved — chicken pen (one that will actually hold our chickens in and keep our compost-scrounging dog out):

I’ll keep you posted on this project as it comes along (another collaborative project with design input from my dad and the skills and hard work of my cousin Dan) and I will share what I can about the Forum and also about my recent retreat as I am able to find the words to do so.

Hope your week is off to a lovely start!

barney black big eyes

November 4, 2009 in at home, family fun, homesteading by eringoodman | 10 comments

We’ve been talking for quite some time about cats and how we might reconcile the fact that while everyone in our family likes them, two members of our family are quite allergic to them.

It’s a conversation that has been happening on and off over the last couple of years. Meanwhile, in recent months we’ve been noticing a pretty sophisticated tunnel system, and many tiny little mouse foot prints all around the dirt floor of our barn.

So Mama made a suggestion: Perhaps we could get a cat that would live outside in our barn.

And so we put the word out that we were looking. And the e-mails and calls started coming in. It was hard to not take every sweet kitty that was offered to us, but we really wanted to wait for just the right one.

A cat who is good hunter and willing to do some work. One who was independent and scrappy enough to live in the barn. But social enough that he or she would enjoy living with a small flock of hens, a slightly-grumpy old dog, and two small doting children, one of whom may be inclined to practice her veterinary skills from time to time.

Two weeks ago, with the help of a wonderful animal control officer, a sweet little black cat found his way to us. 

For the first several days we kept him in an old dog crate in our barn where we visited with him and introduced him to his new friends. Then we started letting him out once a day while we worked in the barn.

This past weekend, after securing a nice new ID collar on his neck, we began letting him have full run of the yard during the day. (We are still closing him into the crate at night — for his protection — until we are able to better secure the barn doors.)

There have been many moments that feel like a crazy three-ring-circus…the cat chasing the chickens…the dog chasing the cat…the kids chasing the dog…the Mama shooing everyone out of the barn. 

But it’s a whole lot of fun.

And, whether or not he is inclined to catch mice, we are so glad that Barney Black Big Eyes has joined our happy little homestead.