Did you hear that?

Perhaps one of my favorite conversations from the week occurred while making breakfast on Wednesday. Joe and I were discussing the array of noises we hear from our tree houses. The most recent addition this past week was the infamous wood frogs in the pond by the G-Animal house. They sound a bit like ducks impersonating chickens (see me for a very accurate rendition of said call).
Then Joe asked me if I've heard someone trying to start a generator throughout the night but was never successful as getting it going.
Well, after discussing it some more and hearing Joe's interpretation of the noise I realized he was referring to the ruffed grouse, which I've totally been enjoying hearing. You see, the male ruffed grouse is into percussion. He'll find a hollowed out log then flap his wings creating some amplified beats throughout the woods trying to attract that special someone. Pretty awesome. Joe's description of starting up a generator works well to describe the noise.
Also, I've noticed the early morning bird chorus is rapidly changing and growing, even just in the past week. Sure, the woodpeckers are still getting things going, robins then chime in, those grouse keeping the rhythm but then the most most beautiful melodies have been surfacing, so many that it's been difficult to pick out what birds are involved.
There are some noises that I've been hearing that Joe has not. These are the noises of my roommates: squirrels and mice. One mouse was dangerously close to my head the other night. However, for the most part these roommates of mine our respectful and keep to themselves. And after all they were there first.

So next up in noises should be the spring peepers. The tiny little frogs that throw their voices in all directions creating an epic evening chorus. I bet that yesterday (Sunday) would be the day. Clearly, I lost.
This week seems very promising though...

Listen up!
-Beth

A Thought for Food

My work focus since mid-March and continuing on through April and May consists of compiling farm information, soliciting advertisers, and graphic design and layout in order to produce and distribute the 3rd Edition of the Pemi-Baker Local Food Directory. We want to make this small booklet available by Memorial Day weekend--in time for the full jump into the summer growing season. It is exciting to know that we will be including at least a dozen more farms and a handful of new local businesses and services.

Now more than ever, this is the time to Think and Act Locally.

In the promotional letter we sent out to local businesses--an advertising solicitation that will allow us the funds to produce the Guide, we wrote, "Localization of food, goods, and services is vital to the health and growth of rural counties. Knowing one’s neighbors, farmers, and businesses increases the overall well being of a community and creates a unique thriving economy. At D Acres, we are interested in a legacy of local industry that will ensure food security, nutrition, and community sustainability--the Local Food Guide is a small step in that direction."

Wendell Barry, in an essay he wrote in 2001 states, "the idea of a local economy rests upon only two principles: neighborhood and subsistence..." We provide what we need and what we will use to those who live near us. Is it that simple? I'm not sure, but I'd like to think so.

In that same letter, we addressed the uncertainty and instability of the economic times, " We...are inclined to believe that purposeful and intentional investment in the local community is a long-term investment in the wealth of the local economy." Circulating our money within a local radius decreases our dependency on goods and services imported from miles away, therefore decreasing our dependency on fossil fuels, in turn decreasing the violence, war, and even crime that harms humans, animals, and the Earth. This is my belief.

Some of it is founded in books, essays, and gleaned from teachers, and some of it comes from the pure experience of growing, caring for, preparing, and eating good, clean, nutritious whole food.

I look forward to all the food events we have here on the farm with sincerity, and believe we are providing an environment that vibrates with change for how we view our food. We love to share conversation and "good times" around a bowl full of seasonal soup and fresh baked bread, or a potluck plate of a little of this and little of that. Please come and join us in celebrating "neighborhood and subsistence"--it is simple and refreshing.

With Warmth,
Regina

Upcoming D Acres Food Events:
Full Moon Potluck, Friday April 10, 6-9pm
Seasonal Soup Night, Saturday April 18, 6-9pm

Other Local Food Happenings:
Flavors of the Valley, Tuesday April 21, 2-7pm Hartford High School, White River Junction, VT

Chores will set you free

Chores will set you free


There is a poster that has been greeting me every time I pop down to the basement to put food away in the root cellar; or on my way up from seeding plants. It is at the top of the stairs, and proclaims in joyful dramatic woodcut ink:

The Government will not set you Free. Chores will set you Free.

I think that this statement, equating chores with freedom, captures the homesteading lifestyle at its most crucial point; it is the heart of it.

I have been here for three weeks, and I can feel a fusing of usually separate elements of my life into a single action—Chores. But it would be too simple to call it just “chores.” It is a fusing of working, learning, and socializing into a single action. On Monday, at the meeting when weekly schedules take shape, people will practically fight over certain chores; “Who wants to feed the chickens?” “I’ll take the whole week.” “Awww, I want a day or two!” Moreover, the major work week, comprised of 4-5 hour blocks, morning and afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, is so variable, new, and enjoyable that each block becomes a little experience in itself; Four hours, bite sized, mental, physical and social excursions:

Walking through the snow, the sound of clipping as we prune trees, sculpting the future paths of each branch.

Transforming the greenhouse from disorder to organization, moving from sunny indoor warmth to the hint of cold outside, all while conversation lightly flows.

Preparing breakfast, taking orders, meeting and greeting visitors as the community pours in for Farm Feast Breakfast (95 visitors strong!)

And on Monday, as the meeting lilts on and on, my schedule goes from a blank page to a full page; and free-time events, traveling into town, seeing such and such presentation, band practice, are pressed right up against my chores, feeding pigs, cleaning stalls, construction. In fact, it is harder and harder to tell which is chore and which is free-time.

You will never have so much free time as when you are constantly busy. Chores will set you free.

We Stay Until We're Done

Walking through the soft, melting snow of Bickford Woods Rd. I trudge along with another curious sugarer, Beth. An abandoned sugar shack awaits us just down the noll. How long has this shack been out of comission we wonder? The entire shack itself has a lean that most people wouldn't dare go inside, but crusasders like me and Beth felt we had a calling. An evaporator the size of King Kong extends a good 20 feet if not more along a cord of beautifully aged, dry wood. The boiling pans turned over as if they were closing off the stove. Looking around we find a newspaper from 1983 with an article about Ronald Regan. (Not the actor, the president.) After venturing outside we find the old logging/sugaring road. It starts just at a rotting gate and looks downward on a clear pathway to and beyond the sugar shack with maples on both sides. It looks as if it would have been a piece of cake to run this trail with oxen or horses. Maples that have to be at least forty years old tower over you head like skycrapers. Most of them look like something out of a Tim Burton/Sleepy Hollow flick. You can identify an old tap, but it's nothing but a tiny piece in the bark. The tree has entirely healed itself since the last year it was tapped. This property feels like buried treasure to me. Something I could only dream of ever owning or having a piece of. You can feel the presence of the sugarers that were heading up this operation and hear the roar of the flames that scorched this stove.

This past weekend D Acres and I hosted a workshop on the sugaring process here at Dorchester. At one point there were at least 25 people following me around, collecting sap and trying to fit in a sugar shack made for no more than three people. A day in the shack is a test of one's personal endurance, as I tried to explain to our guests. There were a few that came back around, but it was Kip and Veronica who stuck it out to the very end. Their enthusiasm made the process that much more rewarding. All in a days boil, 17 hours later, I am down to approximately 2 gallons of sap left. Just enough to bring into the house and start the morning off with the smell of maple syrup in the air. I make some billini's with frozen raspberries from our garden and get to taste one of the first batches I did. So far we're at the three gallon mark, with 50 more gallons of sap waiting for me to boil down tomorrow. Somebody asked me how long we would be in the shack for. I told them our motto is "we stay until we're done." There is no other job in the world that I have felt more satisfied completing than sugaring.

Peace out y'all. coolio (see you in the shack)

Sorting Out Life Plans(subconsciously) While Sorting Trash

It was perhaps three or four years ago when I met Josh Trought and was first introduced to the idea of this place called D ACRES. The Scene was the MOFGA common ground fair. I signed up to volunteer for composting and recycling team. Josh did too. Although I can’t recall all the details interesting conversation sure sparks up when digging through the aftermath of fairgoers.
Since that time D ACRES has continued to come up in my life in many forms and now here I am interning and participating in this community. Feels incredible to say the least.
For the past two years I’ve been living in Seattle and as a New Hampshire native I can’t think of a better way to reconnect with this state/New England culture. It’s good to be back in these woods! The North East forest offers such a diversity of plants, which I’ve been quizzing myself on walking around the D ACRES trails. And of course another perk of being in these woods at this time of year is maple syrup. I’ve been involved with two boils here in our ol’ sugar shack. The sugar shack is a vortex where time has no relevance. A welcomed vortex. I’m looking forward to the sugaring workshop tomorrow, which I’ll be helping Neil out with. Please come on by!
Although it’s early on in this experience I'll leave you with some things that come to mind: playing music, learning how to make bread, frozen compost, hearty kale, hearty spinach, hazing from the oxen , snow melting, thinking like water, cobb oven, slowing down, finding things in a new kitchen, seeing stars again, inspiration all around.
Feels good.
Happy Spring,
Beth

Heat

Woo. 46 degrees F feels pretty good. The other day I walked outside with a shovel for the first time in 4 months to dig into the ground instead shoveling snow. With several feet of snow stocked up all melting at once, water suddenly becomes the next obstacle – a refreshing obstacle. Mud Season. Digging shallow trenches to redirect water away from the blacksmith shop is a joy. Not only am I keeping the water and occasional ice from invading the shop, but I'm also having the opportunity to think like water and earth. It’s all so loose and flexible – attributes I’m trying to strengthen in myself. I’ve been tying to distinguish wants from needs, and trying to let go of “wants” that aren’t beneficial as much as I can. This is tricky business in some ways. Sometimes I short myself and try without a need on accident – and things build up inside of me, much like the water in the trenches that is stuck in a concave area. Eventually the water spreads and deepens as more rushes in without an outlet, creating a large puddle, until it either spills over the concave area and finds a route down hill or soaks into the ground. It creates an obstacle for farm operations – making life for everyone a tiny bit more difficult. And when I have my personal “build-ups” I think it becomes an obstacle for the 9 other people I’m living and working besides every day. To help resolve this, I want to take better care of myself, or at least be more careful with digging trenches to relieve my “build-ups” so people don’t have another obstacle to work around, or get their feet wet in. Peoples’ energy is contagious and I want to contribute more to positive energy.

Anyway, enough with my attempts with a hippy-dippy analogy. I’m psyched about the blacksmith shop this year. I’m giving 3 introductory workshops in April; two of which will be three day sessions. Then on May 2nd my neighbor and friend, Rob Hudson, who is probably the most skilled blacksmith I’ve ever met (ranked best knife maker in the world in 1999) will be giving a workshop on how to make a fire poker while delving into the history of iron ore and how blacksmiths have been utilizing it for thousands of years. On top of that, Ralph Sproul from Iron Bear Forge, who is also a highly skilled blacksmith with a deep and all round handyman mentality might be coming up with a portable set-up to ad another workstation for participants as well as assist and be a resource of vast mechanical knowledge.

On top of the group workshops I’ve been doing a lot of private lessons on a weekly basis. Last weekend I had three separate lessons - two boys who are 13 and another who is 15. I see in their eyes what I feel when I’m looking at a hot piece of iron. Excitement and Possibilities! I’m always fascinate by what students come up with to make. Steel is definitely a route for some people’s genius to come out. I swear there is some sort of blacksmith gene. When thinking about all of the people I’ve shown the craft to or demonstrated for, one out of ten are wholly fascinated by it. There’s something very mystical about it. Glowing hot iron is out of this world - unlike any material the vast majority of people get to experience in a life time. When hot, it is elegant, fluid, and malleable. As it cools it gradually becomes harder and tougher to work, durable, sometimes brittle, and at times has the potential to be razor sharp. A piece you're working on can be like digging a ditch in New Hampshire’s granite filled earth (which can be very enjoyable), and other times it’s like floating down a river. A full mental experience, and not far from a total body work out as well.

The dates for the upcoming workshops are:
April 10, 11, 12, 12:30pm - 4:30pm Basic Blacksmithing
April 17, 18, 19, 12:30pm - 4:30pm Basic Blacksmithing
April 25 1-4pm Basic Blacksmithing
May 2 1-5pm Fire poker making w/Rob Hudson

Sleeping and eating arrangements can be made for the 3 day classes or private lessons.
Check our website for dates later on in the season and check regularly as workshops develop through the year.

Happy forging,
Joe

More than Farm to Table

My friends have an organic farm and CSA in Greenville, NH. They came up for a quick overnight visit--they arrived the afternoon of the big storm on Sunday. I was late to greet them, having spent the morning at Cardigan Mountain Art Gallery making Ukranian decorated and dyed eggs. When I arrived at the house, I saw that the counter was covered with gifts of vegetables from their farm--potatoes, turnips, rutabaga, a couple of gallons of cider, and apples that had been stored since the Fall. The abundance of the hard Summer and Fall work was such a pleasure in these waning Winter months. They had never visited D Acres before, and it was another pleasure for me to show them around, talk about our work here and the daily life of living in community with others.

The night before their visit, we hosted a special Soup Night. We invited area farmers for a potluck and a time to share about their plans for the coming season as well as brainstorm ideas about how D Acres can help facilitate a further movement toward food localization. This year will mark the 3rd Edition of the Pemi-Baker Local Food Guide. So again, we are connecting farmers and local businesses with the wider community by creating and distributing a readeable and helpful takeaway guide. It will tell you where to find the farmer, who to call, what kind of produce, meat, dairy, fiber or other goods they may specialize in. It was a small, but faithful turnout of folks at the potluck. I was excited to be facilitating such a gathered group. It was hard to hear of the struggles some small farms are having, and it only made me want to push this work even further. These farms and individuals may offer us such abundance--knowledge alongside a product. It is the most sensible and sustaining economic decision any one can make to purchase from, visit, and get to know your local farms and farmers.

Though this was a small gathering, I gained the sense that something amazing and revolutionary could take place in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. What an opportunity it was to talk with such hard working and dedicated individuals. Whether it was Beefalo, eggs, or a small plot of a cultivar of winter wheat that is hardy to New England climate, our talk went beyond each farm's specialization. I felt encouraged when everyone voiced a hope to meet more regularly. But even more, there was a longing for more organized connections between farmers, local services, and the wider community. People want to be able to support the knowledge of their neighbor, but oftentimes have not a clue that their neighbor could help or provide food for their family.

I feel my words are not strong enough to emphasize the welling feeling of the need for dramatic change and action on the part of small communities like Dorchester, Rumney, and Wentworth. There are leaders among us, and we simply must continue to stand up. To rise up against a monoculture that oppresses imaginations, creativity, and common sense.

I can become overwhelmed by the global and even national economic and societal unease and instability, or I can remember my friends who are working just as hard to create food localization and cultural revitalization in their own town. And then I can be firm in my hope that another small farm across the country is doing the same.

Create, Make, and Make it Happen. Call it Revolution or call it Radical--the simple acts of meeting your neighbor, telling a story, and working hard.

with warmth,
Regina