My New Place!!!!

I'm in!! A week and a half ago I was able to move into my new and improved dwelling. It was an exciting time for me. Below are some picture of "moving day".

Packing up the old place!

My moving truck, the Polyface box truck, was perfect on this rainy day. It all fit in one load! ha, ha.

Hope all my moves can be this simple....:)

Had to give the fridge a good cleaning before taking it up to the new place.

My new house! Actually I share it. My place is the wing on the left, the guy interns have the middle two story section and the right wing is for our guy apprentices, Jonathan and Ben.

Yeah,....pretty sweet!!!

My first lunch I sat there wondering what I am going to do with all that shelf space!

I will try to get more pictures when every thing is set up.

"Let there be spring.......and BANG, it happened"

Disclaimer: this post was ninety five percent done then things got crazy busy on the farm. but I decided to post it anyway regardless of age. :-) Enjoy!


The title of this post sums it up.  Spring has come so quickly to the valley that we have been scrambling to get all the animals outside. Cows on pasture, chickens in eggmobiles, pigs turning compost and starting up a new farm, are just a few of the many things keeping us busy.

At the end of March I had a wonderful visit from two of my sisters, Laura and Anna.  We had so much fun together!  They jumped right in with work and were so much fun to have around. Talking at night and making me cookie dough for future baking completely spoiled me! :) We celebrated my 26th birthday with a fancy dinner downtown and enjoyed bowling with some of the farm staff.

I'm looking forward to moving into my new place soon, Yeah!! Work on the "hunt camp", as we call it  has been a little slow but with warmer weather here now things will kick into high gear to make the end of May dead line, before interns come.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

My new place in progress.

In March I went with our three apprentices to a maple syrup festival. We had a great time and enjoyed all you could eat buckwheat pancakes and pure maple syrup,  Yum!

This was a huge storage tank for sap as it came in to be boiled down.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the maple glazed donuts are out of this world! :)

Eggs, eggs, and more eggs.

Laura and Anna washed the real dirty ones.

Cookin' in the cottage.

Target practice time!  

Teaching the girls fire arm safety and shooting tips.

From the Sisters' Perspective

Hello Friends!

This is Eric's sister Laura. :)  I have been given permission to hijack the blog and write about my and Anna's visit to Polyface this Spring.  (Ok, I guess if I have permission it wouldn't be hijacking. :)

Our time at the farm was amazing!! It was so much fun to be with Eric in his 'natural habitat'. :)

When we arrived, temperatures were in the 60's. It was a lovely change from Chicago's 30 degree rainy days. However, the beautiful weather was short lived as 2 days after arriving we got 6" of snow!  Hmm, maybe we brought it with us. :)

It certainly was beautiful!

Projects:

We always think it's great fun to help with chores on the farm.
The first major one was feeding hay at the rental farm where most of the cattle are wintered.

Loading up

 

On the wagon

 

Out for feeding

Each day we gathered and crated over 200 dozen eggs.
Yes, that is a total of 2,400 eggs!
Pretty Eggciting. :)

Are those colored eggs I see?  Must have been Easter Sunday :)

 Eric is responsible for feeding the cattle located on Polyface's main farm.

 Up...

...and over!

~Fun Times~

Eric took us out for dinner on his birthday. Zanendoa is a really nice restaurant with excellent food. (What can I say - their meat is from Polyface. :)  It was a fun sibling time.

Afterwards we met up with some of the Polyface team and went bowling

 The Fans

Eric's birthday celebration with the farm team

 

It was fun to see the dynamics of the "farm family".
They are all interesting, exciting people to be around.

Easter Sunday

 Dinner at Grady and Erin's home

Our little host, Ralph.  Isn't he adorable?!?!!

~Random Fun Things ~

One day we took a fourwheeler ride up the mountain.  Sorry, there are no pictures of the ride.  I wanted to protect my camera from the cold mud and water puddles we went through on the 3 mile ride. :)

View from the mountain top

  Zooming in on the farm quaintly nestled in the valley

We were able to squeeze in our favorite "Barth waffle breakfast"!
(Recipe complements of Eric's diligent search, 10+ years ago)

 Eric's new housing arrangements in progress

 And what would be a ride to the airport without a drive on the
Shenandoah Parkway and some fun pictures? :)

It really is hard to summarize our trip.
It was the perfect way to shake off our winter cabin fever
and get energized for an amazing spring and summer.

Eric, thank you for letting us come and visit!!

Can't wait to see you again! :)