Winter is coming. It’s not here yet, but she’s knocking at the door. I have the thermostat in the house set at 60. The upstairs rooms are closed for the season. The heat up there is turned off. I have moved my office to the table in front of the windows beside the wood-burning stove. [...]
A friend who reads my blog commented recently “farming seems stressful,” as if to ask why I put myself through it, and another said, “Maybe you should stop farming,” as though it’s not good for me. I am finishing one of the most exhausting weeks I’ve ever been through on the farm, and so these [...]
As I write this, Undici is bawling by the fence where she last saw her mother. Ayla died yesterday in the pasture we call The Last Supper. It was her time to go. For the past few days I have been anxious, fretting, awake nights, staring at the grass, fussing with the fences, making a detailed [...]
It rained and rained and rained and rained. For almost three days. Some say we got six inches. The Green River is fat. My pond is a quarter of the way full. The ruminants aren’t drinking out of the water troughs because there is so much water on their food, and the chickens are tripping [...]
The past couple mornings I have opened my eyes feeling a heaviness that would hold me in my bed if it weren’t for the sound of the chickens on the porch, the roosters crowing, and the cows coughing at the water trough. I worry about the coughing and remember what’s it like to have too [...]
It’s harvest time on the farm. Here’s how it works… Hello past Crazy Wife Farm beef customers, You have the first shot at buying beef this year since you are past customers. I am planning to process two cows this year, one very large and one smaller. The large animal will be sold as quarter [...]
Memorial Day weekend I had a gathering of friends from the city who had all heard about Violet’s demise and wanted to visit her, so we went for a walk in the woods.
I am trying to teach Moon to speak chicken. My previous dog, a 150-pound bullmastiff named Henry, spoke perfect chicken and he taught me how to hear it, too. There is a difference between the cackling of hens laying eggs, the decoy screeches as they run across an open space without air cover, the social [...]
Farming is entirely weather dependent, so days when the weather is absolutely perfect tend to be good days on the farm. The weather in the Berkshires has been in the 80′s with clear skies and low humidity for a few days, and looks like it may stick around for a few more. In some places [...]
Norman is not a fancy bull. He’s a mutt with an odd mix of features. A Red Devon-Brown Swiss cross, he looks more like a dairy bull than a beef bull, his coat is long and brindle, and his nose is pink. He’s awfully homely, but he’s hung like a horse, which is why he’s [...]