Fall To-Do List in Pictures

1. Dry burdock peelings for winter tea.

                          2. Process acorns for flour.

3. Keep shelling acorns.


               4. Bottle hard cider for sanity.

5. Pressure can more bony pickerel and pike for winter fish sticks.


                          6. Plant garlic bed.










7. Process meat chickens.


                  
                            8. Breed goats.









9. Finish trim on the new barn.


10. Replant sunchokes and try sprouting asparagus from seed.









 11. Encourage a Kindergartener.

12. Relax with a dew filled spider web.

New View

We are moving to a greener sun-filled small acreage with a view and better schools for our children.  I haven't bothered sharing pictures of the house because it's filled with mold, rotten foundation, windows and walls that need replacing.  It is also half our current living space.  Aside from that, we love it.  I've said it before and will repeat once more, I'd rather live in a shit-box with a view than be restricted by taxes, shade or soil.  We spend so much of our time out-of-doors that occupying and heating a large space becomes silly and ecologically ill-founded.  This property has excellent potential for gardening and solar power, meanwhile our savings will go to purchasing a boat for fishing Lake Champlain.  My winter down-time will be put to good use scrubbing mold, replacing wood, learning drywall basics, building a NEW goat house, and planning an orchard and garden.  I keep telling myself that I can do anything I put my mind to and this project home will be what we make of it for better or worse. 

Meanwhile, the view from a short bicycle ride to the local winery and town beach have me swimming in dreams of retirement.  If I can put homegrown food on the table each night, we could do this earlier than anticipated.

YOU can expect new posts addressing gardening in shade/sand compared to sun/clay, as well as keeping meat critters (rabbit vs chicken) and miniature dairy goats in small suburban locations.

There's No Time Like the Present...Nah, there's just no time

If August hasn't kicked my butt, then September is definitely going to smack me around a bit.  Aside from harvesting every day, canning tomatoes and freezing veg like Armageddon is near, and on top of the usual milking/feeding chores, we were gifted with two more milking goats.  Thelma and Louise were sold as kids by our farm and cared for by a very sweet friend, who has more important duties now than to milk a couple of unruly first-freshening goats.  These girls have GREAT potential as second fresheners, with long easily-expressing teats, they could be better than our top producers, their half-sisters Cordial and Constance.  For now, though, they really just want to mule kick me in the face.  My milking helper actually brought her biking helmet out of storage to approach these girls for the morning chore.  Every first-freshener has a breaking period, but for it to be this late on a strong, heavy gal is wearing me out.

To make matters worse, my neighbor helper is taking a week off this month, just before my inlaws AND great-inlaws arrive for a visit.  We have three family birthdays to celebrate in September, meaning gifts and homemade cake, at a minimum.  The meat birds are going to ice camp, etc.  AND for some reason, we now have a newly hatched chick (singular...no friends) chirping in my ear at the moment for my 5 yr-old to scratch her (fingers crossed that it's not a damn rooster) head.  Oh...and my newly 2 yr-old daughter needs weaning and shots.  Insert curse words and beer here!!   Come on winter, I really can't wait to sit down!

Thelma

Louise

            

Ramblings from the Farm

These are baby Oyster mushrooms in the early fruiting stage.  In the past few days, since taking this picture, they have changed yet again.  I'm so curious to watch these phases take place and will be guessing at when to harvest them, especially considering how we have neither grown nor eaten this type of mushroom EVER!  My husband has refused to eat mushrooms of any kind, for as long as I've known him.  I'm hoping to convert him with these tasty homegrown delights.







 We took another gamble this week by installing new bees (a 5-frame nuc) in our hive, which saw only two months of occupancy nearly two years ago.  I was sad and tired of seeing if sit empty in the garage.  The Italian package originally installed were mostly drowned by my inept attempt at feeding and then finished off by our voracious dragonflies.  The nuc I placed a week ago seems healthy and vigorous.  As I was opening the cardboard package, several frames tipped over onto the ground.  A simple adjustment from vertical to horizontal positioning was enough to warrant an attack directed at me.  Several made their way under my shirt, which I had neglected to tuck in, stinging me on the belly.  So as my visiting mother and children watched from a window of our house, I high-stepped and cursed my way across the yard in a sprint, covered in angry bees.  Lesson learned.

Remarkably, all of our tomatoes have begun to set fruit.  These are Sungold cherry tomatoes.

And blueberries are coming along ahead of schedule.

We also added a Copper Maran rooster to our older laying crew.  "Harold" is quite handsome and friendly.  He took his male duties very seriously and we collected six fertilized eggs from our Rhode Island Red hen, immediately.  My nearly-five-year-old was too excited about the prospect of hatching chicks to let this project slide.  So, we a built a cardboard box incubator using an old desk lamp, a wire rack from the toaster oven, and a recycled refrigerator shelf. 

Poor Harold lost his gorgeous tail to a fox the same day I took this photo.  Since then, he has been severely depressed and failed to crow at dawn.  I'm actually looking forward to his recovery.  I miss all the racket and farmyard reminder to get moving out of bed.

Gambling Garden

Kale, cabbage and broccoli under cover

 Never in my adult life have I gambled with money.  No lottery tickets, casinos or memories left in Las Vegas.  Blame it on my perpetual negativity regarding personal luck or simple appreciation for statistical probability.  Never-the-less, I play my cards every gardening season when I plant 2 months before our last frost date in an effort to get fresh food in our kitchen as soon as possible.

We had no snow pack this winter and temperatures near the 90s in mid-March, which ruined our maple syrup crop.  That was just too much of a teaser not to move things up even further, raising the stakes.  To give you an idea, it's tradition in our region of the country to wait until Memorial Day before stepping foot in the garden.  I sowed our root veggies like carrots, radish, parsnip, rutabaga, and beets directly and transplanted brassica starts during this unusually warm late winter.

I've been very wrong before, like last season when a mid-May frost killed all of our tender tomato seedlings.  Or when I put bean seeds in too early and they don't germinate.  But this year, our gamble has paid a handsome return already.  We've harvested all of the main heads from the broccoli crop and the garlic scapes.  The kale is coming in from the garden in quantities sufficient to justify blanching and freezing for winter.  We've even had some beets.

Parsnip up-front, carrots at the back

The carrot bed is full and tall enough that I won't need to weed it again until harvest.  Parsnip are coming on strong since clearing away the companion radishes.

I've a new appreciation for the humble radish.  There is nothing more reliable, care-free or faster growing than a spicy radish.  My previous efforts to slice them for salads did not go over well at dinner until I discovered how delicious they are grated (cheese grater) in a slaw.  We eat slaw in lieu of a lettuce salad, which my infant would choke on and is dependent on finicky lettuce plants that need to be continually reseeded since they bolt if you stare too hard at them.  Carrot, parsnip, beets, radish, and I'm sure any dry crunchy edible (kolrhabi but not cucumber) will make a wonderful salad after grating and adding a dressing like seasoned mayonnaise.  If available, we throw in some chopped napa cabbage for bulk, fresh broccoli and a few garlic scapes.  My 18 month old ate this.

Slaw fixings

 I'm sure there will be disappointment and total failures this season for one crop or another, but for now I'm smiling at our good fortune.  Diversification is not just for retirement portfolios and it certainly takes some risk out of gambling...garden gambling, that is.

onions

3 ft tall garlic

beets

Coolin' It

Here we are pushing close to 90 deg F again and it is only the second week of April.  There are no leaves on the trees to lend shade for the animals.  My cold weather loving cabbages are dry and sunburned from the total lack of rain.  I don't need much more of an excuse to indulge in a raw goat milk and homegrown frozen strawberry milkshake.

2011 strawberries

Potential Energy

I feel like I'm teetering on the top rung of a ladder, reaching for more fruit while risking a fall that could crush everything I've picked so far.  My hope is that this potential energy will remain unrealized with the added support of my husband, daughters and neighbors.  Someone is holding the ladder down below so that I can abandon two arms for the harvest.

The spring crazies are here without much winter reprieve.  I won't belabor talk of the winter that was not.  Instead, I'm making preparations for a very EARLY and busy spring.   We have a continuation of projects past and new endeavors to report, in brief. 

We'll be raising two Berkshire/Tamworth piglets this summer, in collaboration with our neighbors.  They will have whey from our small cheesemaking operation, homegrown organic vegetables, and acorns from our mature oaks.  They will be slaughtered on our farm and then butchered at a local farm.  We wanted to do the cut-up ourselves, but without a cold-room I fear the outside temperature in October would not permit a proper hang.  

Maple sap started to run a week ago, so we will try out our new/used hobby-sized evaporator this weekend.  We have placed about 26 taps and hope to produce enough maple syrup for ourselves (and one neighbor) so that we can avoid cane sugar altogether this year.
 
We've started leeks and onion seeds in the basement.  Brassica are next up, followed by tomatoes/peppers in March. 

Our 2012 goat kids are due in less than three weeks, so the girls have had their hooves trimmed, CD&T vaccinations, selenium-E supplement, and a copper bolus administered.  We added black oil sunflower seeds to their usual fixin's a week ago.  They also enjoy kelp, free-choice loose minerals, baking soda, an increasing grain ration, 1st and 2nd cut hay, AND we will be adding yeast extract next week.  I'm pretty sure they eat better than I do, at this point.  But then I'm not pregnant again, thankfully.

We're also expanding our usual poultry (layers and meaties) to include guinea hens because from what I've read, the ticks will be worse than ever this season.  Last year, I had to pick them off of my daughters with all too much regularity.

Our garden is expanding to the neighbor's as well, so we are adding many new crops, including some for our four-legged friends.  Storage crops are getting a real boost with the extra space.  I'm so excited and terrified at the prospect of it all.

Cheers, for a spectacular spring! 

Sweets for the sweet

We gave sweet potatoes one more try this season after being disappointed with them last year.  From two small shriveled roots, I began my own slips in a sunny window during late winter.  They yielded about five little plants, which I placed in a sandy area side-dressed with compost.  At first, the slips died back from too much sun.  But by then they had already begun to grow roots and once these took hold underground, the leaves returned and the plants flourished.  They were moderately neglected after that.  I weeded once and never watered, but the conditions must have favored them just enough because we had an amazing haul.

From five plants, we harvested 15 lbs of very large sweet potatoes.  We'll be planting these again next year.  I've learned that the growing tips can be used to start new plants and will sprout roots when cut and placed in a glass of water.  We already have about six little plants growing in small pots in a sunny window.  I will continue to propagate these through the winter and expect to begin next spring with an unknown exponential number of little sweet potato starts.  I love that these plants do not need hilling, are disease and pest-free, and then they very nearly pop out of the ground when it's time to harvest.  They store very well, once properly cured, are nutritious and my kids love them.

Early Thanks

I'm sure that I'm not alone when I say this is my favorite time of year.  For starters, I begin to mentally let go of the garden and simply appreciate every day that it produces food.  My expectations fall away and the worry fades.  We won't break any production records this year, but it was more than enough.  And if one crop failed then another was there to fill any void.  I've put up enough food to relax and enjoy the satisfaction that comes from eating what is available one day to the next.

The evenings are crisp, leaves threaten to burst into the brilliant reds and oranges that so many travel here to appreciate.  We have a sugar maple just outside our living room bay window that is the bell-ringer every year along with the tall oaks that pound out the shortening days with their acorn percussion.

There's a batch of tomato sauce waiting on the stove top to be milled and canned.  A half bushel of apples is next in line to sauce.  Every morning I pick a quart of fall raspberries with our baby napping on my back.  The goats are, at the same time, at ease that the biting insects have subsided and anxious about the cool mornings as they've begun to come into heat.  The meat chickens are also living one day at a time.  They have grown especially fast this year and will be harvested earlier than planned.

We foraged enough wild grapes to try a first small batch of wine.  Soon our local orchard will begin to press cider, which I buy in 5 gal lots for fermentation into apple wine.  Nothing says autumn like fresh homebrew.  

August Blues

The garden looked really great about a month ago when I took these photos. Since then, it's taken a turn for the worse. I don't know what it is about July that turns a promising group of plants upside-down with nasty bugs and weeds so much so that I don't even like to be out there in August. With our absences the Japanese beetles have eaten holes in everything, grasshoppers are zooming up and flitting out of reach every time I take a step inside the garden, squash bugs have killed the zucchini and pumpkin plants with wilt, and the tomatoes have early blight. The potato and garlic harvests were also really pathetic. I actually think there were more of both, spuds and cloves, when planted than what we collected after a full growing season. To top it off, a raccoon made a meal of what little sweet corn we were able to produce. This summer has been quite humbling.

Despite the pests and disease, we've still had a remarkable amount to eat and share with two families. We've been bartering cheese, eggs and veg for goat hay out of our neighbor's barn and the single CSA we supported last year returned for this season. The share that usually goes to the freezer is lacking, however. We did very well eating frozen vegetables through the winter and consumed nearly everything that we put up last season. Thankfully, pumpkin puree is still in excess, which we will use over the coming months. I took a few hours to organize the chest freezer last week...berries have their own compartment, meat, as well as 2011 veg, which we'll keep separate from older things that need to be consumed now. This doesn't sound like an exciting chore, but finding some long forgotten morsels to make dinner easy is always a bonus. And with the temperature above 80 degrees, who could complain about a freezer dive. On the bright side, without the extra packages of kale and beans taking space we'll have more room for when the meat chickens go over the rainbow.

The Orchard

We spent Memorial Day weekend mowing the new orchard with our scythe. It has been planted with 4 apples, 2 pear, 2 peach, 3 cherry, 3 plum, 2 apricot trees, 2 currant, and 4 blueberry bushes. This is something we can check off the long-term goal list. My parents gifted us two fruit trees last year for our wedding anniversary. The idea grew on us and it will forever be a place where I think of them.

Trying to keep up with the busy bees.

Garden Update

The weather has finally given us a beautiful weekend to work in the garden. Our snow is still melting in some areas, but now we have a decent area to play with. We planted two types of carrots, Nelson and Bolero, in a bed that we had just spread with our overwintered red wigglers and their casings. I've read that this is the best food for carrots and last year our harvest was improved by the vermicompost. The overall worm population in the garden is really remarkable. They've broken down all of last year's goat hay mulch into a rich substance I am tempted to call soil. However, they have also done some damage to our vegetables, so I made an effort to run the chickens over some older beds prior to planting.

Adjacent to the carrots, we planted two types of parsnip, Javelin and Lancer (OP), along with some burdock and radishes. I first read about burdock on a blog called "Living the Frugal Life" and I'm anxious to see if this root vegetable, similar to parsnip, will give us another spring dug treat to rely on during these starving months preceding the summer's bounty. The sandy nature of our soil should make it easy to store more root vegetables outside instead of limiting ourselves by what the refrigerator crisper can hold. The overwintered parsnips that we dug last week were gorgeous and a welcome addition to our meaty dinners.

Sugar snap and Oregon Giant snow peas went in just behind the carrots. I have a bad habit of not leaving enough space between rows because I'm always worried we'll run out of room for everything planned. This is going to catch up with me this summer when I need to weed the carrots. Whoops!

It took most of the weekend to transplant our starts of broccoli, red cabbage, kale, and chard. Immediately after planting, we installed row covers as a defense against cabbage moths. I also put in three varieties of edamame and some purple bush beans. It's much too early here for beans, but we're trying fava beans, which are very cold hardy, for the first time this year and I foolishly grouped all the "beans" together. Hopefully they will germinate before rotting in the cool wet soil.

Some blue potatoes went in a very sandy spot behind the asparagus and next to the compost pile, so I can top dress easily throughout the season. These originally came from the grocery as baby roasting potatoes, a few years back. Last year, the uneaten spuds began to sprout and I dug them in just to see what would happen. We were impressed with the yield and vigor of the plants. With such a small space to garden, it's impossible to grow all our own potatoes and I'd rather plant something with a more efficient output, but at the end of the season fresh potatoes are delicious and fun to dig. In some ways, it just wouldn't be a garden without a potato row.

This weekend among the quiet but familiar beds and sprouting raspberry canes, with so much gardening and backyard farming ahead of us, I actually began to wonder where the winter had gone so quickly. Such a break gives us a fresh and hopeful start to an improved season of eating.

Spring has sprung...without us.

Yesterday was mid-50s, sunny and a spring teaser considering today's snow. We're already a week behind our gardening schedule from 2010. Last year our cold-hardy transplants of kale, cabbage, broccoli, and chard were already outside and the bed preparation and seed sowing of carrots, parsnips, turnips, radishs, and peas was completed. This year snow is still covering 90% of the garden. Instead of getting impatient about it, we took advantage of the beautiful day and remaining snow by chopping down a beech tree that shades the back of our woodland garden. It's one I've been cursing for several years because in the spring we have full sun and easily forget what a menace this tree is once it has leafed out. By that point in time, the garlic is sprouting up, beds are planted and the tree cannot be felled without undoing the effort we've already invested in the garden.

So quite spontaneously and without too much prodding, my husband set out to the daunting task of dropping a large tree while sparing the house, chicken coop and goat shed. He's getting better with his aim, which increases with accuracy if I hedge my bet against him. Last year, in one afternoon, he nearly crushed our meat chickens a week from harvest and then narrowly missed our living room bay window with a second tree. Practice makes perfect fuel for the woodstove next winter.

Inexpensive Improvements

Some of my earliest memories are of walking the grounds at public estate auctions and begging my parents for a hot dog from the vendor wagon. Mom and Dad have an appreciation for antiques, although I think their unwaverable thrift was what beckoned them to these events. They filled our childhood home with beautiful old furniture that, as my mom would say, told loving stories of other people in different times. I attented my last auction right before leaving for college. My mother let me bid on a $20 curved leather-inlaid coffee table that I have since carted up innumerable stairs to dorm rooms and later into apartments. It has suffered scratches and dings over the years, but looks graceful in the living room of our home aside some of my parent's favorite antiques.


My best garage sale find was a $2 Hamilton Beach coffee maker that I bought more than 15 years ago and we use to this day. Since discovering Craigslist four years ago, we have made a very deliberate effort to reuse items people don't want or need before buying them new. I recently found my favorite pair of jeans at a consignment store for $4. The front button was missing, but this just gave me an excuse to wear a belt. Great finds are easy to come by when you live near a college town. Students rarely have the time or inclination to barter when they are moving, both literally and metaphorically through a turbulant period in their lives. I've also found great recycled building materials for our goat shed at a downtown shop devoted to reselling deconstruction salvage (two wood frame windows for $5). This hasn't always been convenient, but overall it has been a good experience dealing with sellers in our area. We have bought furniture, baby items and, most recently, a few things for our farm.





Several years ago, we assembled a seed-starting rack from used components. I bought each 6' stainless steel rack, with four shelves, for $25 from a local catholic church. The shelving had previously been used by nuns for storing their canned preserves. They only needed to be cleaned. We use one for books and two others for tools in the garage. The fluorescent light fixtures and bulbs are in rough shape, but they were free from my farm internship.




About two weeks ago, I found a very old and still functioning dorm refridgerator for $40. It will make an excellent cheese aging cave. This was so much more exciting for me than it really should have been. My guess is that it works better and lasts longer than anything I could have bought new.

Garden Treats

If you have kids or you just have a hard time eating your veggies, these are some of my 3 yr-old's favorites that you might consider growing;

• Soybeans (edamame)...our first try last year yielded a delicious snack to shell and eat right in the garden. While they are buttery and delicious fresh, if you collect a few more than you need right away, they freeze beautifully and were a big hit that we will repeat next season. Our biggest problem was keeping the chipmunks from taking them all.
  

• Husk (or ground) cherries...close relative of the tomatillo, they are happy to volunteer around the garden, after you've grown them once. These plants are hardy and low growing (no staking). The fruit develops inside a papery lantern, which means they are always clean while giving children the joy of unwrapping a sweet delicious and healthful treat. We freeze these like any berry. My daughter loves them frozen, but I've heard they can be made into pies, if you have any left.

• Carrots and parsnips are a carefree and staple snack. They also give us a reliable long-term storage veg to enjoy during the winter in soups and slaws.
  

Spending frenzy

This should be a time of year for reflection and relaxation at our chilly and snowy latitude. Instead, I'm fretting over internet orders. Shopping always stresses me out for some reason. Perhaps it's my frugality, but I have never enjoyed purchasing with the excitement and abandon of my generational peers.

So far, I have placed and received my orders from
Johnny's Selected Seeds http://www.johnnyseeds.com/,
Hoegger Goat Supply http://www.hoeggergoatsupply.com/,
Glengarry Cheesemaking Supply http://glengarrycheesemaking.on.ca/, and
New England Cheesemaking Supply http://www.cheesemaking.com/.

On my to-do list are still orders for
FEDCO http://www.fedcoseeds.com/, and
Miller Nurseries http://www.millernurseries.com/. I keep telling myself that this small investment will continue to pay dividends well into the future, perhaps unlike my retirement account.

We're less than a month from our first doe's due date as well as seed-starting and gardening mania (brassica go out in March) . I feel better knowing we have our kidding, milking and cheesemaking supplies on hand. So much for putting my feet up. Bring on spring!

Progress

Although I raised a vegetable garden in 2006, these are all first-time major additions to our homestead.

2007

• planted our first organic vegetable and herb garden including
  
• perennial starts of asparagus, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries
• built a chicken coop and added laying hens
• added red wiggler composting worms
  

2008

• rhubarb crowns planted
• purchased two Nigerian Dwarf milking goats
• built a shed for the goats
• planted fall garlic
  

2009

• we added two cold hardy dwarf fruit trees to the front yard, one peach and one plum
• and two elderberries
• planted hops rhizomes
  
• raised our own laying hens
• first goat kids born
• identified maple trees on property for tapping and syrup production
  

2010

• planted cranberry bushes and one concord grape on an arbor built in'09
• shared our garden with our first CSA member
  
• purchased bees and hive
  
• raised and slaughtered two groups of meat chickens, Cornish cross and Red Ranger
• added a milking room and kidding stall to our goat house
  
• sold two doe kid goats
• purchased buck goat as a kid
• butchered a spring lamb
• harvested and processed acorns
  
• invested in land
• ramped up hard cider production
  

Changes/considerations for 2011 additions

• one fall raised group of Red Rangers on pasture
• add two heritage breed piglets to make use of whey and acorns
• build a root cellar for aging cheese and storing fall harvest
• try to produce a brie/Camembert and waxed Gouda cheese from goat's milk
  
• begin a small orchard on additional acreage
• process two lambs
• give bees another try
• Meyer lemon trees in pot
• begin an outdoor mushroom patch
• add meat rabbits or begin hunting squirrel
  

Our first garden

We began our first backyard garden in May of 2007. It was my highest priority and took precedence over most everything. In fact, I started seeds using fluorescent lighting hung from random things such as kitchen chairs in our old upstairs apartment months before closing on our house. We ordered asparagus crowns, raspberry canes, blueberry bushes, and strawberry plants well before our big move into the first home we've ever owned. My husband had to talk very fast to keep me from also buying 25 chicks in advance of our transition.

Most people would spend their first months in a new home refurbishing and painting to get it the way they wanted. Instead, my husband and I were cutting trees and tearing out beach roots to make a modest area for planting. We worked outside despite the spring rain through exhaustion until dark most days to get a space ready for our garden. I was five months pregnant and this can only be described as intense outdoor nesting.

I still remember the look on the cashier's face when I rolled into the heavy equipment dealer to buy a chainsaw, pregnant belly protruding. He comically asked if I wanted to try it out...give it a spin. Oh how I wanted to, but kept my enthusiasm in check and declined his suggestion. We hadn't even bothered to plug in the TV, we were so busy. After a long day, my husband would sit in the floor, having no furniture, and I would play piano for our entertainment. It was a most unusual and enjoyable time in our lives.

To describe our freshly cleared garden plot as anything but sand with a layer of rotted leaves on top would be very generous. I can't really call what we started out with as soil, but we did a "soil" test and found most nutrients lacking and not surprisingly an acidic pH from all the leaves. This was good enough for the strawberries and raspberries, which are very accommodating and it was nearly suitable for the blueberries. The starting material did not dampen our enthusiasm and against better judgment we planted tomatoes, peppers, cabbages, peas, potatoes and so on. We discovered with that season how much work we would need to do in order to get things to grow and that it would take years to convert our plot into a productive kitchen garden.

Since then we have piled every last piece of goat poo and chicken bedding on top along with worm casings from our red wigglers and amendments from our compost pile. Every year our soil looks better and our plants show their appreciation through their productivity. In retrospect, it amazes me that we grew anything at all in 2007, but there are some things (like kale) that do well regardless of what they are given. Aside from fertilization, we have learned to use row covers (Agribon) for insect control and season extension. We also dutifully rotate the beds and stick to what we know will grow in our short and wet season.

How I came to be a farmer.

Becoming a mom was my graceful exit from a career spiral down spin. After finishing my graduate work in immunology, I began a postdoctoral position in a laboratory that studied type 2 diabetes. It seemed like a good transition and a field with promising funding. I was not incorrect, considering the latest statistics on obesity and diabetes. However, I was extremely burned-out having spent six years working more than 60 hours a week on a project that was abandoned by my advisor, who was subsequently let-go by the university department. Long sad pathetic story that I will spare you.

My new position had promise but I did not. I kept coming back around to a central hypothesis, which was that most people must live where they can find work only to spend everything they make in order to live where they can find work. I was living in central MA, where living expenses are very high and postdoctoral wages are very low. My net at the end of the day was a loss. It was intended to be an investment in my career that didn't pan out. This was about the same time that Katrina came tearing through the gulf and everything I read on the NYTimes spelled disaster.

Instead of doing my job I was reading about cheesemaking and what Vermont, our neighbor to the north, had to offer on the subject. I also read about gardening and mushroom-growing. I felt isolated in my dependency on a system that could fail. I wanted to be independent enough to grow my food except that I lived in an apartment. We contributed a garden to our landlord's backyard and joined a CSA. I bought a pressure-canner and tried to teach myself how to cook with vegetables that I didn't recognize. It was enough for the time-being.

I resigned my position early to begin a cheesemaking internship in Middlebury, Vermont. It was my salvation. During my last days on the job I was so jaded that I proselytized about how one could do more for people by growing an organic garden and sharing it than by working in a laboratory to find a "cure" for a preventable disease.

My internship brought exhaustion at 12 hour days. I would wake in the middle of night unable to clench a fist from the manual labor, but I felt alive and accomplished for the first time in my working career. I realized that the only way to run a profitable cheesemaking operation was to have at least three unpaid laborers at all times. My conclusion has been that if I grow the food, make the cheese and cook the meals while spending the remainder of my time caring for and raising my children at home, everyone benefits. I get to have my hobbies, my family has nutritious food, my children have their mom at home, and my husband has his role as bread-winner. My personal goal is to reduce our living expenses to a level that would offset the earnings from any job I would be eligible for, in the long-run preparing us for a low-cost and thus early retirement. Instead of beginning my own artisan cheesemaking operation, I am satisfied by showing others how easy a process it truly is and encouraging them to provide for themselves in a similar manner. This is my utopia.