We've been taking advantage of Howard Gray's farming nostalgia the past few weeks, putting him (and ourselves!) to work on the new homestead. It's amazing how much there is to do. Old Vermonters tell us there are two seasons here: winter, and preparing for winter. We ordered five cords of firewood to see us through the upcoming freeze, and all of it has to be neatly stacked into piles to dry. This is much harder than it looks. A few of our beautiful stacks collapsed more than once.
Howard and Austin have attacked the trees, pruning everything and cutting down mean-looking weed-trees with big thorns. We had to get a chipper to deal with all the branches they took down. The place looks beautiful. Howard borrowed the Young's roto-tiller and turned the burn pile into a garden plot for spring, and he's been edging our flower beds too.
We have been picking berries like crazy. We've been averaging two batches of raspberry jam every other day. Now that the blackberries have come on I've totally given up on the raspberries and started recruiting friends to come pick them and take them away. I have to say, I was a little skeptical of the blackberries, they definitely don't taste as good right off the bush, but they make the *best* jam. 
After all the hard work berry-picking and tree-cutting and wood-stacking and roofing and roto-tilling, it's nice to be able to just run down to the river and jump in. The swimming hole is averaging around seven feet deep, and there's a nice shallow "island" the kids can wade around on and pick up smooth river rocks.
We have been picking berries like crazy. We've been averaging two batches of raspberry jam every other day. Now that the blackberries have come on I've totally given up on the raspberries and started recruiting friends to come pick them and take them away. I have to say, I was a little skeptical of the blackberries, they definitely don't taste as good right off the bush, but they make the *best* jam.After all the hard work berry-picking and tree-cutting and wood-stacking and roofing and roto-tilling, it's nice to be able to just run down to the river and jump in. The swimming hole is averaging around seven feet deep, and there's a nice shallow "island" the kids can wade around on and pick up smooth river rocks.
