bugknits

This past week has been pretty busy. We had work done on the house through mass save, which took a full 6 days. The hope is that now the house and the finished space of the barn is better insulated and will help lower our energy bills (especially oil) and just overall be more comfortable. That also included sheet-rocking the ceiling of the barn garage which was primarily to help insulate the upstairs, but I think it will be nice if we start to use that space for a workshop space (power tools, etc.). But now we have a ton of holes to properly spackle, sand and repaint…

My mom also came last weekend and helped us by painting some of the kitchen cabinets. They’re looking really good (where they’re finished…)

We’re also trying to decide on how to do the walls in the loom room. I really want pink, partially inspired by this place I stayed at in France, but it has been hard to land on the right pink…

We’re trying some faux finishes too (to match France), which luckily my mom is able to do so we can see if we like them.

In terms of the garden, we keep finding massive asparagus! It’s awesome! So far we have found 12 plants, but I think there are more. I’ve started marking them with caution/road stakes so we don’t step on them.

We also set up one of our raised beds and transplanted our broccoli and sowed our lettuce. I covered them with some mesh and clips, and weighed down the edges with bricks. Hopefully this keeps out the deer and rabbits.

Speaking of animals, we’ve seen a a flock of turkeys come almost every day this week. I hope they’re eating some of the ticks. And then we saw a porcupine! It was hilarious (well, Jeremy felt bad), because the first time we saw it, it was climbing up a bush that could not sustain its weight and was grabbing on like the hanging in there cat and fell over in slow motion. It was clearly fine because we saw it in the tree the next day, but it was hilarious.

The plants have also been growing. We have about 20 tomato plants at the moment – San Marzano, Sun gold, some Roma variety and Berkley. I’m most excited about the Sun gold and San Marzano (I generally don’t like Roma tomatoes).

And today I spent most of the day starting my Piet Oudolf style garden. I had echinops, echinacea, feathertop grass, and Oxford blue salvia seedlings to plant. I still have a ton more, but some will have to go in the bed because I don’t have the time (or energy) to keep clearing sod (we don’t have any power tools for gardening at the moment). I’ve also started slowing down on new seedlings while I figure out where they’re all going to go! But I have a bunch in the works. I’m particularly excited about some of biennials like the double black hollyhock and white flowered verbascum, but I have to keep reminding myself they won’t flower this year.

And today we also went to our first town activity – the small and antique engine show. It was cute! It was like a very mini Brimfield. I wish that sears tractor was viable for us to use.

Last week we learned that

• we have a plum tree!
• we have a crab apple tree!
• ticks survive the washing machine…
• we have asparagus!

The asparagus is so funny. Someone I was listening to talk about flowers (maybe it was an interview with Sarah from Saipua) was talking about how it connects you to the people who were there before (and will come after) and the asparagus really did that for me. It’s this weird feeling of eating someone else’s food. Or that they had to leave abruptly and left food behind (but obviously that’s not the case – the plants are a beast and deep in the ground).

I’ve been trying to divide my time before work between house work and “farm” work. I put it in quotes because right now it’s more garden than farm work, but the end goal is more farm. At least I think it is. We will definitely have animals and grow crops so in that sense it will be a farm, but it’s unclear to me what my path with flowers is.

I absolutely LOVE flowers, and I would love to just have unlimited funds to buy seeds, plant interesting varieties and take care of them and share them with other people. Does that mean I want to be a flower farmer for seed? Does that mean I want to just have a massive garden and give things away? I’m not sure yet. I also love the idea of doing really epic arrangements like Sarah of Saipua (the first time I really fell in love with flowers and a flower farm was when I stumbled upon her blog right after graduating high school and she was blogging her early farm days). 

I find myself afraid to do weddings, and unsure if the Boston/New England wedding scene will be as interested in wild, botanical arrangements as NYC would be. Maybe the Berkshires/Western MA. But regardless, I have many many steps ahead of me, and time to figure out what parts I love.

So far I LOVE starting seeds. There is something so satisfying about putting all these tiny differently shaped guys into their cells and checking each day what grows. I told Jeremy it feels like Christmas every day because I can’t wait to go and see what has sprouted.

I’m particularly excited because I have a lot of Double Black Hollyhocks (I planted two full packets so I would hope so) and got a third madder root sprout after weeks of little moldy balls just sitting in the tray!

Right now, I’m focused on trying to establish our Piet Oudolf-style garden. I took about 100 bamboo skewers and put them in the ground to outline paths from the house, to the fire pit (old pool location), to the “farm” (2 50×50 patches we will have rows for vegetables and flowers), to a nice seating area. I will do a mix of perennial and annuals this year since a lot of the perennials may not bloom until after the coming winter. I can’t wait for the last frost to be done so I can start putting things into the ground.

I also have started planning out where I want some fruit trees and flowery shrubs. I love apple trees, hydrangeas, lilacs and roses (ok I mean, doesn’t everyone like at least one thing on that list?). My goal is to establish a “wall” of hydrangeas along the one side we have a traditional neighbor for both privacy and also to make use of a sort of awkward space (a good portion of our cleared land is essentially a giant side yard. This is where the “farm” beds are and where the perennial garden will be). I then want to create a row of roses along the front starting from that same corner, and hopefully just keep adding to it over time to create another layer of privacy.

I’m obsessed with Ghislaine de Féligonde roses, but I’m not sure if they’re still sold in the US? They seem hard to get. I want to take time to research before getting roses and try to order from some smaller suppliers and get interesting varieties. I’ve told myself I can get $200 of roses when the time comes (I was late this year and didn’t want to risk planting them too late or buying varieties I’m not obsessed with).

For hydrangeas, I really like ones that start white and fade to pink over time. I feel like it gives a lot of opportunity for different arrangement material throughout the season. And for lilacs, I’m currently obsessed with the Lincoln variety. I have a vision of replacing these two sad hedges in our front with purple lilacs and big black hollyhock sprouting up from behind them. We’ll see. The siding has to get done first (that’s June).

This is a bit of a ramble, but I want to try documenting things more and if I’m too precious about it, it won’t happen. So you get what you get.

I wrote a blog post the other day, but then I took it down. I find that when I go to write a blog post, I end up writing in this weird formal way that doesn’t totally feel like myself, and it feels kind of dumb to be doing this if every post is just going to sound like some generic “everything’s good” answer to “how’s it going.”

But, in this case, things are pretty good! We (maybe) found a house! It’s a 1700s cape in a small town in Massachusetts not too far from New Hampshire. It needs a ton of work, which is why I say maybe. It needs a new roof, repainted/repaired siding, sill work, and other structural work. And that doesn’t include any of the cosmetic updates like a nice kitchen or repainting what will be the loom room. BUT it has almost 7 acres(!) and some is already cleared, so if/when we want to bring on animals, we will have the space to start. It also has a barn that is basically finished living space on the top and an animal/workspace on the bottom. I’m incredibly excited, but we still need to do the formal inspection and make sure we feel capable of taking it all on.

On that note in particular, I feel really good about it. I don’t think either of us are afraid or intimidated by the amount of work, doing things ourselves where we can, and coordinating with professionals where we need to, but money is finite, and we want to make sure we can stagger projects so we’re not draining our funds too quickly.

I’m really excited at the idea of building our own cabinetry when we finally get to redo the kitchen, and trying out some plaster finishes (the original house is all horse hair plaster). I’ve been really into the idea of pink Venetian plaster for either the bedroom or the loom room.

We’d also love to have an awesome outdoor kitchen of some sort. We watched this awesome video of this guy building a combo pizza oven and offset smoker that we definitely want to recreate when we get our skills up.

But what I’m most excited for is to just have a nice quiet place. I don’t want to share any pics of the actual property yet, but here are some photos from other properties we looked at that just felt so wonderful to be at. Unfortunately the first one was just way out of our price range, and the second was on a crazy busy road, but we loved how both the back areas felt.

Right now, I’m pumped. We should know if the house is unwinterized today and then we can schedule our inspection. Fingers crossed it all goes well and we could be moving in a month! 🤞🏻☘️

Wow, it is hard to keep up with a blog. It’s not as if things aren’t happening, or I don’t have things I want to say, but sometimes everything is just moving so quickly it feels like there isn’t time to reflect on anything.

Jeremy and I are in the throes of farm-hunting. Throes is an appropriate word here because it has definitely been somewhat painful and incredibly exhausting. Property in Massachusetts, especially commuting distance to the Greater Boston Area is incredibly expensive. Our current criteria is 3+ acres, with most of it cleared or able to be cleared (this is trickier than it sounds), with a house that is either liveable, or cheap enough that we have the cash to do the required work relatively quickly (ex: putting in a new septic).

So far it has been a bit of a bust. The biggest disappointment was when we saw Wilder Farms for sale, but we didn’t have a realtor we liked at the time and as a result, we couldn’t do/didn’t think to do an early showing. We woke up the morning of the open house so excited, ready to put in an offer, only to see a text from the realtor that they had already accepted an offer. That property would have been perfect, and we haven’t really come across anything that fit within our price range since.

We also looked at a beautiful larger property in Groton, but it was just out of our price range and we knew that if we stretched, we just wouldn’t have the money to do any of the things we wanted to do with the property, so it wasn’t worth it.

We’ve also seen a bunch of properties pop up with things you don’t want like cell towers being on top of your house, toxic waste seeping from a defunct plant next door, and large powerlines with who knows what sorts of herbicides cutting right through.

We may be at the point where I’m going to become one of those stories you hear where the person cold calls everyone in the town to see if they’ll sell their property. I’m not there yet, but maybe by winter.

There have also been challenges due to lots of restrictions here. Wetlands are everywhere in Massachusetts, and they are protected. You are not allowed to disturb them within 100 feet, and you’re not allowed to disturb streams and pools within 225 feet. It may not seem like it, but 225 feet is a lot of buffer. An acre is ~208 sq ft, so when you’re looking at a 3 acre property, and there is a tiny stream that flows through, you’re basically out of luck (if you’re trying to make room for pasture, like us).

Another thing that hasn’t been very clear to us is whether or not sheep can graze on top of a septic’s leach field. So many of these properties use up the entire backyard to put their leach field and I find that insane. It basically means you can’t grow anything besides grass back there! I don’t know a lot about septic systems and the rules, but if I was putting one in, I would try to have it in the least “useable” part of my land, not the prime real estate. Anyway, we’ve heard that sheep can graze on it, but of course there’s always a chance that something is leaking up and they get sick. And if you’re raising them for meat (we’re not planning on it), that would be an extra concern since you don’t want to get sick yourself. However, it’s unclear if that is a real risk or more remote. I’ve also seen it depends on how deep the infrastructure of the leach field is, and that is not something that is usually noted on the Title V (septic inspection) so we’ve been operating on “no grazing,” but again that has added a big limitation to a lot of land.

Separate from the farm search, I have been going through a lot of medical experiences this year. I was recently diagnosed with adenomyosis and endometriosis. The positive is that this potentially explains a lot of the symptoms I’ve been having, the negative is that I’m still having some symptoms and I know it will be a bit of a try and see with what helps. I also had mammograms done, a lipoma (fatty blob) removed from my shoulder (it was like I was growing a second shoulder), and a colposcopy (I don’t know if the IUD insertion or this was worse, but both are awful). Luckily, all these things came back normal but there has been a lot of “scanxiety” as my boss (and cancer survivor) calls it and I am definitely ready to try to put this year behind me and start the next phase of life on my farm. Each medical scare or issue is a reminder of how I want to be in a different place both physically and emotionally in my life, and moving to a home where I can start to do that can’t come soon enough.

SO, that all being said, if you know anyone in the Nashoba Valley region, particularly Harvard and Bolton, that would love to sell their property to a pair of aspiring sheep and flower farmers, PLEASE let me know (:

Hopefully some crafting updates coming soon.

In a lot of the farm business planning workbooks and guides, they talk about identifying your *why* of farming. It has been a really helpful exercise to think through that, and also what my ideal looks like.

Why do I want to farm?

• I want time outside and being active to be built into my lifestyle
• I want to be around animals, particularly sheep, ducks, and goats
• I want clean, fresh food to be integrated into my life
• I want to be in an environment where I am constantly learning
• I want to contribute to something that feels like it isn’t about consumerism and capital, but instead preserves, improves, or contributes to the land and community that I am a part of even if it is in a small way

What does my ideal look like?

• I want my photography to be incorporated into my life again. I would love to be surrounded by an environment and a life that inspires me and to create a photography book
• Working with different kinds of raw fleeces every day
• Host classes/events in a dedicated space on the farm
• Provide wool related products – fleece, batts, sweater patterns, weaving patterns, woven products
• I want there to be something special about the animals and flowers we raise – focusing on heritage and endangered breeds of livestock and species of flowers
• Find a way to make use of my technical/web dev skills to help other farmers. Knowledge and skill sharing to contribute to the community – I learn farming directly or through osmosis from them, so what can I provide back from my unique skills?

I know this will keep evolving, but it is energizing to think about and write it down from time to time as the process of moving and transitioning is slow and overwhelming at times.