woodrow

evie named this bunny woodrow and spent a lot of time holding him.

a visit from evie, aj, and julie

we had quite a full house here at the natick community organic farm this weekend. julie brought the kids for a visit. aj seemed a bit overwhelmed by all the animals but evie was completely fearless. she mingled with the turkeys, picked up lots of chickens, collected eggs, milked goats, gave hay to the cows, and even taught the pigs how to herd the sheep.

a.j. and the jack-o-lantern

i postponed spooktacular

after a day of horrible weather, i decided to postpone spooktacular until next saturday. i called all the registrants and the universal response was, "good." so i was feeling like i did the right thing. we moved the 61 jack-o-lanterns we had carved into the barn. i thought the cooler temperatures out there might slow the rate of pumpkin decay and allow us to use some of them to decorate next week. it seemed like a few rotten pumpkins might be the most severe consequence of a new spooktacular date.

and then i was reminded about daylight savings time.

the event involves a guided walk along a lantern-lit trail, but we're going to need a lot more lanterns to get some of these little kids to head out in the woods at 6pm when it will already be wicked dark.

i wish i lived in indiana or arizona.

spooktacular

oak knoll's biggest fundraiser of the year is tomorrow night. we're supposed to be getting some fantastic weather for our outdoor halloween event. i think it will just help make the evening more "spooky." imagine being three years old and forced to wander in the woods alone while trees fall down all around you. it'll be a halloween your kids will never forget. there's still time to sign up, if you're interested in participating.

...HIGH WIND WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM TO 6 PM EDT SATURDAY... ...WIND ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM EDT SATURDAY TO 7 AM EST SUNDAY... ...HIGH WIND WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY AFTERNOON...

THESE ARE ALL IN EFFECT FOR EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS AND RHODE ISLAND.

WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO QUICKLY INCREASE FROM THE SOUTH EARLY SATURDAY MORNING...WITH SUSTAINED SPEEDS POSSIBLY REACHING 30 TO 40 MPH BY NOON. WIND GUSTS LATE SATURDAY MORNING INTO SATURDAY AFTERNOON COULD REACH 60 MPH.

WINDS WILL SHIFT TO SOUTHWEST AND DIMINISH TO 25 TO 35 MPH WITH GUSTS CLOSE TO 45 MPH...BUT WILL PICK UP AGAIN ON SUNDAY. BLUSTERY AND POSSIBLY DAMAGING WEST WIND GUSTS OF 45 TO 55 MPH COULD OCCUR ON SUNDAY...ESPECIALLY DURING THE AFTERNOON HOURS.

THE COMBINATION OF THE WIND...STILL PARTIALLY LEAFED TREES...AND A WET GROUND DUE TO HEAVY RAINFALL ON SATURDAY WILL PROBABLY RESULT IN DOWNED TREES AND POWER LINES BOTH SATURDAY AND SUNDAY.

matt inspects a potential acquisition at the dover dump

but what is it?

bunnies on the move

this is the litter of ten babies. three white, two brown and five black. the mother seems rather frantic.

watch what you're doing, mancini!

that goat isn't going to milk herself!

end of the season

fall is starting to fade away here in massachusetts. we're supposed to get some strong winds with heavy rain later today, which i bet will knock most of the remaining leaves off the trees.

i went out yesterday to capture the last of the fall color at la salette shrine, a religious community just down the street from oak knoll. i used the pictures in a powerpoint presentation i put together for the brothers (in the most non-jive sense of the word possible) of la salette to bring down to their national chapter meeting in florida next week. they need to get permission from the chapter to put a conservation restriction on their land and thereby remove any future possibility of development. i made this same presentation (minus the colorful fall photos) to the local group a few weeks ago, describing the conservation restriction and the benefits to the shrine and to the attleboro community that could be achieved by protecting this land. afterwards one of the brothers told my co-worker charlie, "i'd buy anything she's selling." i wonder...

never trust an animal with rectangular pupils

the young goats are amazing escape artists. this past weekend, they managed to knock over a fence enough so that they could walk up and over it into an adjacent pasture, where, of course, the grass was greener. yesterday morning, matt spotted one of the young goats standing in the middle of the driveway- which wasn't an human-intended location for the goat. again, the goat had managed to climb over the fence. this morning, however, fence mastered goat. as i was leaving for work, i noticed one of the goats with her head sticking out through one of the lower spaces in the fence. it seems that she had pushed her way out to gain access to some good greenery, but because of her little goat horns, she couldn't pull her head back through the fence. i thought about leaving her there to teach her a lesson, but then she baa'ed quite pathetically and looked at me with those creepy square pupiled-eyes and i realized i was afraid that if i left her there, she would find a way to escape her pasture, climb our stairs, open our front door, and eat one of every pair of my shoes. i got matt out of bed and together we unstuck the goat.

chemo continues

on monday, matt went for his second round of chemotherapy. first, his nurse nicole carefully accesses his port. then, they administer a couple of drugs slowly over a two hour period.

matt sits in a glowing chair while these treatments are being administered. i think that i like going to chemo treatments because:
1. they provide cheap parking
2. they give us free food (snack AND lunch)
3. they have lots of good magazines, including US weekly

i challenge you to name any office visit better than that!

snowy is our favorite goat

snowy is calm, smart, friendly, and is a uni-teater, so it doesn't take very long to milk her. this week, the female goats are in the same pasture as the new billy goat, gandolf. as soon as he knocks them up, we won't have to milk the goats any more. gandolf has been hard at work urinating on himself and really getting all dolled up to impress the ladies. i can smell him from a distance of at least 40 yards. i am sure the females will find him irresistible.

cute overload

two of the rabbits at the farm just had babies. and by "just" i mean like two weeks ago. when they had "just" had babies, the babies looked like sucked-out jelly beans and not at all cute. but now, their eyes are starting to open and they are moving around in their bunny pile. i estimate that one nest has ten bunnies and the other has eight. it's hard to tell because they are all stacked up in there and buried under fur.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOO baaa

first frost

evie's artwork

now, i'm not saying my niece is the next picasso, but when i pulled this piece of art out of the plastic grocery bag filled with evie's handiwork that my sister had passed off to me, i was struck by a number of things- her artful use of pink-tinted glue, the way she stacked the popsicle sticks to give this piece greater depth and emotion, and the fact that it weighs at least 2 and a half pounds. i tried to hang it on the wall, but not even my industrial strength velcro seems to be up to the task. i guess this is art best appreciated in a horizontal context.

grammy slack arrives at the site

prepping for siding

in my ongoing role of official photo-documentator of the house construction project at 100 high meadow lane, i have to spend a lot of time watching other people work. it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. wait, what's that you say? aaron and julie are taking their own pictures? my time would be better spent actually working instead of photographing? you only say that because you didn't see how i bad i was at using the special drywall bit on my dad's new drill.

christian cuts some sheetrock

his dog, ted, would later eat the piece he cut out. i hear gypsum is good for growing puppies.

the high work

my dad worked on finishing off the siding on the east end of julie and aaron's house. the scaffolding was very high. my job was to stay inside and hand him things. it seems like it would have been nicer had i handed him the rope in an untangled state.

even oakley had a long day

hanging drywall with the hocks

the work party was a success.

thanksgiving dinner

matt and i did the chores this morning. the turkeys are really getting big.

hen of the woods

a delicious edible mushroom that grows along one of the stone walls each year at oak knoll. and when i say delicious, i don't mean to imply that i have actually tasted it.

save the date

i am currently in the throes of planning oak knoll's fifth annual halloween spooktacular. this year's event is scheduled for october 28 and will feature... (wait for it)... a bug buffet. david gracer from sunrise landshrimp will be here with a variety of tasty treats that i am surely not going to sample but that you can indulge in for just the price of admission- no need to pay extra for the bugs.

this exact sort of thing is why i don't like halloween. gross.

chemo begins

matt started his chemo treatments on tuesday. he has to be in the hospital for about four hours while they administer a couple of different drugs, and then he comes home with a small pump that attaches to his port-a-cath and continues to administer additional drugs for another 48 hours. he has three different kinds of pills that he can take to combat nausea, although he hasn't yet felt a strong need to take them. he also hasn't felt much fatigue, another significant potential and probable side effect of the treatment. he felt well enough to help with morning chores at the farm on wednesday and also enjoy a big community lunch with the farm staff in the office downstairs (they do this every weekday!). i think matt is going to be showing up quite often around lunch time.
"don't mind if i do."

we can run but we can't hide

it seems that where ever we go, insect infestations are sure to follow. at the latest place, it is houseflies. the problem with houseflies is their biotic potential. imagine, if you will, a single female housefly (Musca domestica) moves in to your house. left completely to her own devices, and given sufficient resources and the lack of any environmental constraints, in just over a year that single housefly could be the ancestor of 5.6 trillion flies (please see table).

after ten years, there would be enough houseflies to cover the entire earth to a depth of several meters. so we got some fly paper.
"Farmhouse"
Welcome this is a farmhouse
We have cluster flies alas
And this time of year is bad
We are so very sorry
There's little we can do
But swat them.
-phish

from 28 farm to 119 eliot

although there are a few small odds and ends at 28 farm street that still need to be dealt with, for the most part, our move to the natick community organic farm is complete. we had great help from ruthann, who kept us well fed throughout the day, from abi, who prepped the new place for us with an extensive scrubbing and provided us with more cleaning supplies than i will go through in a decade (perhaps it truly is time for me to step up the home maintenance routine), from jack, who made me feel like my diet coke habit isn't all that bad and who carried lots of heavy things, from malachi, who carried some light things and convinced us to occasionally take breaks, from michele and adria, who completely purged the old kitchen and artfully engineered the new one (although i have only a slim idea of where things actually are now), from my dad, who arrived just in time for lunch and narrowly avoided disaster by having his brakes fail in the driveway instead of on the highway and who worked tirelessly on all projects, including our first round of chores at the farm, from thomas, who showed up after we were done moving but had to help me rearrange furniture five or six times, and from bekah, who, well, uh, what exactly did bekah do? i guess she didn't get in the way too much, which was good. and she did wash some dishes, which i really appreciate. ohhhhhh, right- bekah cleaned the old bathroom. she was a godsend.