Pleasant Valley Farm

Hello LocalHarvest readers!

I know it's been quite awhile since you've heard from me.  The truth is, after 200+ entries on this blog, I started to feel a bit burned out.  I felt I was repeating myself and struggling to come up with topics that seemed worthy of writing about.  As I was new to farming when I started the blog, it was easy to write about all the new things I was discovering.  As time went by, the cycle on the farm means the same things happen year after year.  It took some time off to get a feel for how I can make those things fresh again.  Blogging also fell down the list of priorities because, although LocalHarvest provides this forum for free to any farmer who wants to take the time to blog, we don't get any compensation for the content we're providing.  It began to feel like a job, and one that I wasn't paid for, so it was easy for me to adjust my priorities to things around the farm which actually provide income.  

My background is in social work & education, and I've always had a love of reading and a gift for writing, and I've found that I missed sharing my experiences with an audience.  So after much thought, I've decided to come back to the blog format to share my thoughts, to raise awareness about where your food comes from and why small farms matter, and share all the things that I'm passionate about.  I'm also looking to tweak my format, just a bit.   I love old cookbooks and cooking from scratch, so sharing more recipes seems like a fun fit, and something perhaps you can find useful.  I'm also thinking that including thoughts and tips on green and/or self-sufficient living make sense.  It's how I live and part of the farm's ethos, and again, I think something that may be of interest to folks who are excited to read stories about our farm.  Plus photos, of course, because while words can paint a wonderful picture, I love sharing images from the farm, too.  And this is a vision in progress, and I would love feedback, to create a forum where questions can be asked and answered, where alternate methods and great ideas can be shared.

Sound good?  I hope so!  I would sincerely love to have each and every one of you reading this to join this virtual community.   All you need to do is follow me to my new online home at http://pleasantvalleyblog.weebly.com .  I'm calling it "The Farmeress Blogs", and I'm working to make it someplace you'll want to visit more than once!  Bear with me as we get it off the ground, but I do have some content up already, including a wonderful story about the birth of our latest Dexter cow and a chocolate cake recipe from 1943!  I hope you'll join us, and let me know what you think of what you see!

Did you miss me?  Even my own mother asked recently about what happened to my blog!  The truth is simply that I've been busy, and other things took priority. This year has been even busier, if that is possible. A big part of this is that neither Dan or I have off farm jobs for the first time. It takes a lot of hard work to make this happen, and we are grateful that we have been able to pull it off since January. However, it's a bit nerve wracking heading into the winter- the farm stand is closed until Memorial Day weekend 2014, neither of us are getting a steady paycheck, or unemployment, or government money of any type. So, how do we plan on making a living? We're trying to get by with internet sales, and so far, it's working out. I find myself spending a lot of time online these days, as I'm in charge of three separate internet stores. I've built one from scratch on our farm's website, I've reopened the farm's Etsy store, and we do some selling on eBay as well. Besides shipping our jams & other canned products, I have made lots of unique jewelry, including pendants made out of old seed catalog pictures, stained glass items like sun catchers & nightlights and other fun stuff like wall hangings and wreaths. But the big sellers tend to be Dan's handiwork. I really admire the effort he has put into his blacksmithing, and some of his creations are simply amazing. The other day, he made a gorgeous pot rack which hangs from the ceiling out of an old ladder and 20 hand-forged hooks & brackets. We hung it in the kitchen so I could photograph it to list it online. Normally, I'm happy and excited when we sell things like this...but in this case I sort of hope it doesn't because I will hate to give it up!

Even though the Christmas shopping season is over, if you've got money to spend, whether it's a holiday gift or an income tax return, consider spending it locally. You probably know by now how much better food is when it's fresh, local, and produced by your neighbors; the same is true about most other things! We complain about cheap crap that comes from China; your friends & neighbors make and sell things, and while they may cost more, think of it as not only investing in quality and craftsmanship, but also investing in your country and community. Shopping small keeps money locally; money we earn from our sales is spent at the local mom & pop gas station, the feed co-op, the general store where Dan buys his metal and many more small businesses.  

So if you've got money burning a hole in your pocket this time of year, consider checking out our online store at http://pleasantvalleyfarm.weebly.com.  Or, if your holiday loot is in the form of an Etsy gift card, you can shop on over to https://www.etsy.com/shop/pleasantvalleyfarmpa.

This year, our holidays consisted of homemade gifts, delicious food, and the true gifts of sharing time with family and friends.  We hope yours brought the same, no matter what holiday you celebrate!  

This is generally the time of year when I usually start to panic.  As I write this, I only have 3 days left to prepare to open the farm stand for the year, and there is still so much to do!  The grass needs mowing, I have 2 cows worth of beef to pick up and organize in the freezers, a pig to butcher and sausage to grind and package, and I'm roasting coffee tomorrow.  A farmer gets used to never having a day off, but it's a lot, even for me!  

I tend to let myself get overly stressed this time of year, as I often feel like I won't have enough things to fill the tables.  It's been a challenging spring for gardening, with lots of cool temperatures and dry spells.  It snowed here and the overnight low was 24 degrees on May 12.  We may even get another frost over the weekend. So, realistically, I won't have much produce outside of rhubarb, spring onions, and greens this first week, which seems like nothing. Although I always have a customer or two ask where the sweet corn or tomatoes are the first day, most folks are very understanding.  I think more people have a better grasp on what seasonal eating means every year, which is wonderful!  

But folks stop at our farm for more than vegetables.  I actually think meats are a bigger draw, and while the broiler chickens just won't be big enough to process this week as we had hoped, I feel OK about one less major thing to do this week! We will have lots of steaks, roasts and ground beef, plus pork chops and our homemade sausages.  And while I sold much of my inventory of canned goods at the Farm to Table conference, I do have a selection of things- 5 or 6 types of jam, 3 mustards, 2 barbecue sauces, an assortment of pickles and other things.  There isn't a huge inventory of any (well, except things made with rhubarb...I've been busy canning that already) but there will be a nice selection to set out, probably 15-20 varieties.  Plus I'll be roasting coffee tomorrow and we'll have a wonderful selection of that, and Dan is picking up 6 varieties of raw milk cheese (Smoked Cheddar, Longhorn, Havarti, Dill & Bacon, Italian and Garlic & Chive) from Whispering Brook Cheese Haus tomorrow.  And this evening, one of our newest partners, Hummingbird Cafe of Tidioute, brought some of their delicious salad dressings for us to offer for sale as well! So there will be plenty of delicious, local edibles.

There will be other things as well...we've got chicks & turkey poults for sale, and they are always fun for everyone to check out when they visit.  I've got some stained glass items and lots of jewelry, and there are also some things Dan has made in the blacksmith shop we'll have for sale.  I've also been doing a little sewing, turning empty feed bags into cute recycled tote bags.  In fact, once I started setting things up in the stand, I began to wonder where I'm going to put it all, which is the best problem to have! It really helps me to relax and feel like we will be ready by Saturday at 10 AM.  But not too relaxed...there is still plenty to do before then!

If you've ever been to the farm, you've seen the (really) free range critters here.  The front yard is usually graced by a combination of chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, kitties and a pair of peafowl.  We like letting them run loose, as long as they stay on the farm.  The poultry do a great job of eliminating insects from the yard and garden if given a chance!  We pen things up when they get too comfortable playing in the road, or when we have issues with predators.

Most of our peafowl are in a pen with a net roof, as they are good fliers.  This shocked me at first, with those long tails, but it's true!  However, when we hatch peachicks, we keep them with other baby poultry, like turkeys, because they are similar in size and eat the same things, and the less pens that need checked, fed, and cleaned, the lighter our workload will be.  So, we have two males that have lived all their lives with our turkeys, and generally wander the farm and sleep high in the pine trees at night.  But, they do have an adventurous side!  The have been spotted all over our neighborhood, and although the neighbors seem to get a kick out of their antics, Dan and I have thought that we should pen them up for some time.  This became more urgent this spring, when "the boys" took off and would be seen hanging out with wild turkeys, but somehow, we just never got around to it.  Then, they stopped coming home.  This worried us, because there are plenty of coyotes, dogs and cars around, not to mention the possibility that someone would shoot them just for sport.   

We heard occasional reports of them being sighted on Muzette road, miles from the farm.  Mostly, we always seemed to be away when the phone call would come, but last weekend I wasn't.  So, after getting an approximate location (nothing says country living like directions "they're out by the new gas well on Muzette"...and knowing where that is!) I headed out, armed with my peacock hunting equipment.  This consisted of a bucket of chicken food (aka bait), a fishing net on a long pole, and some feed sacks to transport them home in the car.  I realized that, as I was driving slowly looking in the woods, if an officer was behind me I'd probably be taken in to the mental hospital when I replied that I wasn't looking at the road because I was peacock hunting!  But the only critter I spotted was a porcupine, so I came home empty-handed.  Amazingly enough, the very next night, as some friends were heading out to their car after a visit, they called up to the house that I had peacocks loose & walking down the road.  Sure enough, the lost boys had returned!  I imagine they took to the woods looking for ladies, and when they didn't find any of their own species, they came home.  They stayed in the yard for the next few days, and then, at chore time, I saw they had entered the chicken coop.  I excitedly shut the door the chickens use to access the run, and captured the wanderers.  

While I love looking out my window and seeing a peacock, in all its brilliantly colored glory, strutting in the front yard or perching on the porch railing, I can't in good conscience set them back loose.   I can't put them in the main pen.  There are already 4 males, and I'm sure putting two more in without enlarging the enclosure would just lead to fights.  Plus, we hatched these two here, so putting them back in to breed with the mothers isn't the greatest idea either.  So reluctantly, we've decided to sell them.  I can't imagine splitting them up, so I'm only offering them as a pair.  They don't have the full, impressive tail yet, as peacocks take a full 3 years to mature, and the boys are only 2, but they are still beautiful.  they would also need to go to a home with an enclosed pen, but they do play well with chickens and turkeys.  We are asking $150 for both, and if you're interested, please leave a comment or send us an email! 

***Update*** 

The boys left for their new home today.  As sad as I was to see them go, they are going to live with a lovely family, who up until this point, has 2 peahens (female peacocks)  but no boys.  It's wonderful the way things work out sometimes!! 

About a week ago, I got a tough phone call.  My college roommate's father called to pass along the sad news that my friend Gabi had passed away.  Though deeply saddened, it didn't come as a surprise.  It also has led me to some soul-searching thoughts as I think about my friend, dead at just 34.  Her father asked me if I ever thought I'd go back to social work, as Gabi and I went through the Master's of Social Work program together at Pitt.  Although I spent quite a bit of time & energy attaining that degree, my reply was no.  I really feel that what I do here on the farm is what I was put here on Earth to do, and that I am blessed to have found something that I love and that makes me happy, but is meaningful. I think that's why I went into social work, because I wanted to do something meaningful for others, but I found it was not what made me happy.  Farming is bigger than yourself; it is life and death.  Beauty and heartache.  Though my heart was heavy, I still had chores to do, animals who depend on me to feed and care for them.  I had baby chicks to pull out of the incubator, their tiny lives just starting.  There is a special kind of peace you get inside when you find what you're meant to do, the place in life you were meant to be...it's the answering of a calling.  And it makes me sad that my friend never found the place that she was always supposed to be, because I think if she had, she might still be with us today.

My siblings called to offer condolences, and we talked about happier times, shared memories.  My sister Laurel made my day by buying flowers and putting them by the house Gabi & I shared in college.  As I looked at the photos Laurel sent, I cried a little, laughed a little.  There, in the background, was the weedy patch of gravelly dirt you'd expect on a city street known more for keg parties than local food.  But, oddly enough, it was the site of my first garden.  While we had flowers planted around my family home, my parents gave up gardening when I was very small, so I don't remember tending anything but flowers.  Gabi always had a garden, and missed it, so the two of us got a couple of tomato and cucumber plants and plopped them right in our little yard.  I added some marigolds and mint I dug up from my Dad's property.  Our plants grew, the soil was so bad the weeding was minimal, and when the tomatoes needed staking, we found some old white metal curtain rods in the basement.  We put them in the dirt and tied up the tomatoes with baler twine I brought from home. We laughed at our little "ghetto garden", but we had fresh veggies for our salads that summer!

So to honor Gabi's memory, and that first little garden...I'd like to "pay it forward", to you.  Send me an email (send to pleasantvalleyfarmpa at yahoo dot com) and I will send you a packet of seeds, for free.  I'll need your address, and I'd like you to share something with me.  Let me know if you're an expert gardener, or if this spring is your first try.  Or why you garden, or where you find your peace.   Share a homesteading dream.  Anything at all, really...let's just make it a little more personal than a blank email with your address, OK?  I'll send out seeds until I run out of packets I can part with.

 It's my hope that these seeds will arrive like a special present in the mail, and you will plant them, watch them grow, and reap the benefits.  Gabi shared the magic of gardening with me, and I would like to pass it to some new friends as a way to honor her memory and her kind heart.  I think she'd like this idea.  

 I hope you smile like this when you get them.

It's spring!  So much is going on!  Babies are here...we've got calves, lambs, and chicks, with lots more chicks to come, as well as turkey poults.  The garden is plowed, but there is much work to be done to get it ready for planting, and we're also looking to plow more and put in some field corn for next winter's animal feed.  I'm tending tiny tomato seedlings, with plenty more sprouts to start, and we've planted salad greens and spring onions in the greenhouse, and the garlic, oregano, chives and other perennial herbs are green and growing.  The pasture & hay fields are finally turning green, especially with the thunderstorms we've had recently.  

But here in Northwest Pennsylvania,  spring swings from glorious to snowy and back again more than once, so it's good to have plenty of indoor projects when it's too wet or cold to get much done outside.  While I never lack things to do, I'm really excited to have gotten a major project done in the past week, before the weather turns nice for good and my inside time dwindles.  

A few weeks ago, we were finally able to upgrade to a high speed internet connection.  Before that, I had been doing all my  blogging, website maintenance, everything, via a dial-up connection. High speed capability finally came down our road, and so I've been using the last indoor days to do quite a bit of work online.  It's so much easier now!  While we have had a small online store for a year or so now, I haven't been happy with it.  I used Etsy as a host, and truthfully, I think people go there more to look for ideas than to shop, but at the time seemed like a good choice.  I decided it was time, however, to move on, and have been working really hard the past week or so to open shop on our own website!

 I  am so very excited to announce our all-new, virtual farm stand is now open for business! We now offer some of our wonderful canned goods, as well as my handmade jewelry (some featuring feathers from our own peacocks) and the stained glass items I've been making recently, like suncatchers and candle holders. But I'm most excited about listing some of Dan's hand-forged metal work he does in the blacksmith shop.  I've been trying to convince him that his things are wonderful for a couple years now, but up to this point he always thought that he wasn't good enough to be selling his work.  I'm excited that he has sold a few things, and we now have listed things like gate latches & door handles, a cowboy-style dinner bell, and a beautiful wall-mounted pot rack, with more items to come as he makes them, and we'll also be featuring his work at the farm stand when we reopen.

We hope you'll take a look around our all-new store, at http://pleasantvalleyfarm.weebly.com/shop-online.html.  Payment is safe & secure through PayPal.  And please feel free to give us your feedback on the look & setup of the site, or things you'd like to see there!   

Once again, I took the farm on the road to Pittsburgh's Farm to Table conference.  This year's event was last weekend.  As in past years, not only did I have a table in the exhibit hall, but I was one of the featured presenters as well.  

Our table was loaded with good stuff!

The theme this year was "do it yourself" so I spoke on home canning.  I called it "Home Canning 101"  and put it together for folks who may have been interested in the idea of canning, but really didn't understand the process.  It's hard to believe, but not too many years ago, that was where I was at.  I didn't grow up with any relatives who put up their own food, so the process was a mystery to me.  It's intimidating when you aren't familiar with the process, and haven't seen it done, and it's easy to make discouraging mistakes.  As I shared in my talk, my husband & mother-in-law encouraged me to learn, but my first time was full of mistakes.  Betty was in Florida and told me I was free to borrow her equipment, but I didn't exactly know what I was looking for.  After the jars were processed in the boiling water, I had a devil of a time getting them out of the canner, and burnt my fingers a bit.  It was enough to really discourage me.  When Dan came home from work and I told him all about it, he asked why I didn't grab the jar lifters, too!   Having someone explain the basics and show me the necessary tools would have been a great help, so that's what I aimed to do in my presentation.  I was amazed at the attendance, for a Friday morning when lots of folks are working or at school, the room was quite full!  I really hope I took some of the scariness out of the process and that some of the attendees will try it for themselves this summer!

 As in past years, I had my vehicle fill to the brim with yummy stuff to sell.  I'm pretty sure I'm known to plenty of repeat attendees as the "Carrot Cake Jam Lady", so I had lots of that on hand, plus other jams, mustards, pickles and other goodies.  I had some new things this year, too.  I had lots of Happy Mug coffee with me, and made the whole area around the table smell amazing, since it was roasted only 2 days before the conference began!  I also brought plenty of handmade jewelry, which was well received.  People really seemed to like the items that had glass pendants I made using stained glass scraps and old seed catalogs!   ( I like to call them the "Wear Your Veggies" collection)  I also brought a vase full of peacock feathers, since they are so eye-catching.  But I had no idea they would be a big hit, or I would have brought more!  I think just about every child that came on Saturday left with one, at least until I sold out!  

Again, the conference seemed bigger than the year before.  It's truly wonderful to see more & more people really motivated to eat better, and eat local.  As Liz Kanche (one of the organizers) said to me before my presentation "Who knew, a couple years ago, that local food would be sexy?"  and I do think we're getting there.  It's a trend that gets bigger and more popular all the time.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get to the point where it wasn't just a trend, or a movement, but simply the way things are done?

 Some thanks are in order: to Liz & Erin for another great event: to everyone who attended my presentation- I hope you give canning a shot!: to everyone who stopped by our table in the exhibit hall- we appreciate your business and hope you'll come see us this summer; and finally to my mom, Robin Shea, for manning the table with me both days.  I couldn't have done it without you! 

And if you missed the event, or are already out of Carrot Cake Jam and need more,  our online store is always open!

The other day, I was joking with Dan that he should feel free to buy me jewelry or flowers, since Valentine's Day is coming up.  He replied that he is permanently off the hook as far as buying jewelry goes, since I now make my own.  And he's absolutely right.  I would rather he get me jewelry making supplies, so I can wear something I made myself, and I'd rather get flower bulbs or seeds over cut blossoms any day.

I got into jewelry making some time ago as a way to use the beautiful feathers produced by our peacocks.  I found it fun and enjoyable, and have since expanded into beaded things as well.  It's a great way to pass dreary winter days, and I set up an online store to feature these items (and as a source of off-season income).  

I was grateful Dan gave me some space in our new blacksmith shop building so I could set up another crafty hobby, stained glass.  The only downside is that it's an unheated outbuilding, so I can't do quite as much of it on cold winter days as I might like.  But it's been another fun hobby, and I'm excited about the things I'm able to create.  I've always loved art projects (I even got a minor in Studio Arts in college) and I'm very blessed to be able to spend my time having fun like this!

 I really enjoy making small stained glass jewelry boxes, like this one!

Over Christmas, I got a book that showed how to combine glass art and jewelry making, which I hadn't thought of before.   The book used clip art, photos & vintage-looking ephemera.  I didn't have any of that handy, but one thing a farmer has in spades is seed catalogs.  I came up with the idea to use photos of herbs, flowers & veggies sandwiched between scraps of stained glass.  These have turned out to be so cool!  For me, the hardest part is not keeping them all!  My favorite right now is a necklace I made that features chives in bloom, and I have another with a lovely photo of a pink rose.  But I've also made creations with flowers, Swiss Chard, hot peppers and more...I think they would be such cool gifts for gardeners or folks who love local food!  

Scrap stained glass & old seed catalog photos...in this case, lettuce!  Isn't it pretty? 

 As I was tearing up old seed catalogs, I found one in particular that had  some beautiful full page reprints of covers from years ago.  I liked how the jewelry turned out, so I thought about what I could do with these full or half pages.  While sandwiching them between sheets of glass would be cool, I don't have a big assortment of stained glass both big enough & translucent enough.  But...what I do have lots of are old farmhouse windows.  So, in a fun recycling project, I've been carefully removing panes of glass from their wooden frames.  Then comes the hardest part- cleaning them up!  I have been leaving any streaks of old paint though, I think it really adds some vintage charm to the panels.  Then I take the picture I like and mount it on some scrapbooking paper, sometimes using fancy scissors to make a decorative edge.  Then I solder the panes together and add hardware to attach a chain or ribbon and suddenly, I have something beautiful made almost entirely out of what most people would throw out.    

I'm really enjoying letting my creativity shine during some of winter's gloomy days.   Making beautiful things really helps me to beat those winter blues, and I can do it while basking in the woodstove's heat, unlike a lot of other farm projects!

 If you like the looks of these, please check out the other creations I have at  www.etsy.com/shop/pleasantvalleyfarmpa/  I ship nationwide, so you just might find the perfect, handmade something to treat yourself or a loved one!

As promised, this time I'm sharing the story of Puff & Little Puff. Hopefully, it's one you'll enjoy, but you may end up thinking I'm a nut. Either way, here it is...

12 years ago, I had yet to meet Dan. I kept my horse Sara on a piece of property my father owned, and we had kitties there. I can remember holding a pregnant Shadow and feeling the unborn kittens moving around. She would have four of them, on the Fourth of July, 2001. Unfortunately, Shadow was hit & killed on the highway when the kittens were only 3 weeks old. I was home from college for the summer; I found Shadow and buried her, then brought the kittens home to care for. My younger sisters loved having kittens in the house, but although fun to play with, none of the girls wanted to feed the kitties at midnight or 3 AM. That was my job. All four survived, and the fluffy tan one would be known as Puff. My sisters used to dress him up in doll clothes and push him around in a doll carriage. He learned that resistance was futile, and for the rest of his life, he would allow just about anyone to pet or pick him up.

He was a special (and spoiled) pet of my sister Laurel, but when our father died, I took custody of Puff, as Mom moved too close to a main road for comfort and I was living on my own nearby and rented a place with a nice backyard and woods for him to prowl. Shortly after, I met Dan and would take Puff to the farm when I moved there. He loved the farm. He would follow me around and supervise whatever was going on; building the greenhouse, weeding the garden, whatever. He also appointed himself farm stand mascot and would greet customers. Many kids who may not have had pets of their own were delighted to pet him, and Puff patiently soaked up the attention.

This past summer, he disappeared. I looked for him, calling and listening. I put up “Lost Cat” posters and talked to the neighbors. My neighbor Heidi gave me the answer I was afraid of...she had found a bunch of Puff-colored hair and a claw in the woods, as though there had been a fight of some kind. It was apparent that Puff has lost, to something with teeth. We never found his body.

….................................................................................................................................................................

In October, an acquaintance asked me if I would take in a couple of cats, as barn cats. Her son had found them in the woods, but since they had 3 large dogs, they couldn't keep the cats, who were currently locked in the garage. Although usually our response is that we have plenty of cats around already, this time I said yes, I would take them. They were about 12 weeks old, and there were 2, that was all I knew. The next day she arrived with a bag of cat food and the kitties. “They're Halloween kitties, one is black and one is orange,” she said as she opened the door to the dog crate in the back of the vehicle. One was black with white paws and chest, and the other...was the spitting image of Puff. Same markings, same hair length. The only difference was his (yes, also a boy!) eyes- the new kitty has copper-colored eyes, while Puff's had been yellow with a green ring around the pupil. I was dumbfounded at the coincidence, but took them down to the barn and fed them there, hoping to train them that the barn was their home, and not the house. When Dan came home, he told me he gave it 12 hours before they came into the house. We walked down to the shop, and saw the kitties had found their way outside. They were sitting on the rocks between the barn and the shop. Although I had told Dan that one looked like Puff, I think it startled him, too, when he saw for himself. “I've missed that cat.” he said to me...and Dan is by no means a cat person. When he came back up to the house later, the little Puff-colored one followed him right into the house as though he owned the place (Dan was way off...it only took 3 hours!). Dan started calling him Puff immediately. I protested, that it wasn't fair either to Puff's memory or to the new cat. I tried to call him LP, for Little Puff, but the only thing that seemed to stick was Puff. Again.

Now I am aware that I probably showered more affection on this cat, since he looked so much like my furry little buddy, and that can have an effect on the way he would behave towards me. But I swear this cat loved me right from the start, and wanted to be petted and be near all the time. I've never met a cat that enjoys being picked up and held so much. I tried writing it off, because really, the idea that the cat could be reincarnated and find me again was just too much. It's just a crazy coincidence that it is a friendly little cat who looks like the one I lost. But then again...

He seemed to learn his name was Puff in no time at all. From the time he arrived, he would come to the farm stand and supervise, even letting a small child pick him up the very first market day. One of my regular customers was shocked at the resemblance. Little Puff also picked out the exact same places to nap. While the computer chair and the back of the couch are kitty hot spots that all cats seem to gravitate towards, there are others that were really Puff's alone, and Little Puff would eerily be found in the same spots. For instance, in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, Puff loved to sleep between the pillows on the turned-down sheet. I think it was so he could get more cat hair on things, but he was always there. One day, I went into the room putting things away, and there was Little Puff. It didn't even register, I was so used to seeing a cat that color (and that color alone) in that spot. Then I remembered that it's not the same cat!

When my Mom came for Thanksgiving, she walked in the door, and before she even took her coat off, she said "Oh my goodness! It's Puff!” I reminded her that I told her about the cat that looked like him, and she replied that it didn't just look like Puff, it was Puff. Little Puff also seemed oddly at ease with Pepper, my mother's dog, with whom Puff lived for years. Strange. Talking to my neighbor Heidi about it, she told me that among those who believe in reincarnation, it's very common to believe the same dog will find you again, and considering how close I was to Puff, it didn't seem like much of a stretch to think the same could be true of a cat. But, I protested, given the age of the kittens, they would have been born at pretty much the exact time Puff disappeared. Heidi's thoughts were that since he left so unexpectedly, and he knew I would be worried, maybe he made it a point to come right back. Talking about him at Christmas with my family, my sister Laurel told me to drop the “Little” and just call him Puff, because I should accept that he came back. And then, when I came home after my family get together, Dan said he had slept very poorly because the cats kept him up. Puff had always had the most horribly annoying trick to get me to open the door and let him in at night. He would get on the couch on the front porch and claw at the sheet of plastic we used to weatherproof the bedroom window. It makes a terribly annoying noise, so you have to get up out of bed to let him in. None of the other cats ever picked up on that trick, even though I'm sure they had watched Puff use it to his advantage many times. While I was gone that night, Little Puff got up on the porch couch and began clawing the plastic until Dan got out of bed and let him in. The odds of that being coincidence are just too much to fathom.

So, this spring, when we reopen, I'm confident I will have a fluffy farm stand mascot once again. Stop by and see for yourself, but by now there is enough evidence that I'm positive that the cat came back.

Little Puff and his brother, 8-Track.

**After writing this yesterday, I was reading a book when (Little) Puff jumped up beside me.  When he looked up, I noticed an unmistakable ring of green around the pupils of his eyes that simply wasn't there when he came to me.  Spooky, isn't it? ** 

It's hard to believe we're over a week into 2013 already! Looking back, 2012 was a year of great successes, but also great sorrow. Putting up the greenhouse was a major achievement, and I had far more success in starting seed than ever before. Despite the craziness in weather, the garden produced bountiful amounts of delicious produce, including tomatoes from June into October. We grew some awesome new flavors in the garden; winners included Pineapple Tomatillos, Fingerling Potatoes and Jimmy Nardello's Italian Frying Peppers. It was a more successful year for melons than I've seen before. Plenty of babies were born (sheep, rabbits, calves, chicks, quail, turkeys, kittens), including the first calf to be bred here at the farm from our bull. Yet again, I was able to be home on the farm full time, a major achievement in itself. I created new favorites in the canning kitchen, making Pineapple-Jalapeno Jam, Rhubarb Marmalade, and Bread & Butter Pickles. Dan and I (with some help from our friends) put up a new building, creating a blacksmith shop which also included some space where I could set up a stained glass studio. Dan has improved his smithing skills and has also learned to make some fantastic knives and other blades, while I taught myself both jewelry making and stained glass this past year. Off the farm, I shared what we do at Pittsburgh's Farm to Table conference and the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's national conference in North Carolina. Closer to home, I talked about the importance of healthy, local food to a United Way group of families and at a luncheon for diabetes awareness, and also at a meeting of our local Lion's Club. I got to learn all about roasting coffee thanks to Matt Shay at Happy Mug Coffee.  I was interviewed and featured in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article for the Farm to Table conference (complete with a picture of me and our team!) and my blog was even features in an issue of edible Allegheny magazine! Whew! A LOT of great things!

But there was heartache too. In July, my cat Puff, a companion of 11 years and self-appointed farm stand mascot, was lost. All that was found was some fur in the woods, as though he lost a fight with something large and with teeth. Six weeks later, my beloved Morgan mare Sara, my best friend for 20 years, passed away in my arms. On a farm with lots of animals, there will always be losses, and life does go on for the rest, but these were the two creatures that were part of my life before I met Dan and became a farmeress, and losing both so quickly was not easy. But as life moves on, other special creatures arrive. I hope to take more time blogging in the near future and tell you all about Little Puff the cat and Montana the horse, both whom arrived on the farm last year but haven't made it into my writings yet. In the garden, sweet corn season was disappointingly short, and the salsify proved to be tricky as well, and by the end of the year there were more weeds than I like to admit (and something I vow to do better at each new year!). I also wish I'd have put up more corn and peppers in the freezer and saved seed from a few more plants. But, I need to remember that there will always be things that don't quite measure up to the standard of perfection in my head.  After all, finding happiness in life involves celebrating the successes and moving forward, not dwelling on what could have been done better.

2013 so far has brought lots of snow, meaning we had much work to do in keeping the snow off of the greenhouse. Letting snow build up on the plastic will actually lead to the metal supports inside bending and can bring about the collapse of the entire building, so it's one of those things that HAVE to be done, even if it means setting the alarm clock for the middle of the night, just to check. But we're already looking forward to growing again. I spent yesterday inventorying seeds so I have an accurate picture of what we'll need to order. Dan says it's too early to be looking at seed catalogs, but it feels like time to me.  With the success of the sprout house last year, I'm eager to try new and exotic flavors that are only possible when you start your own plants, with special attention to tomatoes, peppers and melons. I'm always excited to try new herbs, and am kicking around the idea of starting some flowers before too long, with hopes of having them blooming by Mother's Day. I'm excited to be incorporating stained glass into my jewelry making, especially the new things I've been making by recycling old seed catalogs. I think the pendants made with pictures of flowers, herbs, and vegetables are really fun! My online store continues to grow, featuring lots of both jewelry and canned goods, which is a great help this time of year. (Check it out here!) Although it's cold and snowy, lambing season is little more than a month away, and soon the incubator will be humming and hatching. It's also time to round up some of my free-ranging yard bunnies so we can offer Easter bunnies as well. I've got two speeches lined up for March, one for an event put on by a group of Master Gardeners, the other at this year's Farm to Table (on heirloom seeds and canning, respectively), so I'll need to prepare for those soon, too.

I'm confident that 2013 will be full of farm babies, sprouts, delicious produce and tasty local flavor. I know there will be great successes, but that they will also be tempered by things that don't go as planned, but that is the nature of farming, and truly, of life in general. I'm excited to pursue all the wonderful things I so enjoy doing here- caring for the animals, gardening and growing, canning and cooking, and making beautiful things like jewelry and stained glass. Maybe this will be the year I learn to sew more than just curtains, really play the guitar, get back into yoga, write a book (or two!), get back into oil painting, or start a new hobby- I'd like to try woodworking, leather crafting, or making soaps, lotions, scents, and candles. As always, there are a stack of books I want to find time to read. Maybe I'll get around to training Ponyboy to do something useful or painting the room we've worked on turning into a library.  While I know not all of these will happen (this year, anyway), there is no harm in dreaming big.

This year, as every year, my most sincere wish is to dream and then do, to create and to love. I wish that and a very happy 2013 to all of our farm stand friends, and to all of you who take time out of your busy lives to read my ramblings. May the coming year be joyous and productive for you all.

Ah, December. Although this means the farm stand closes for the season, it's still a hectic, busy time for us, just like everyone else. It's seemed especially busy recently, as I've been working away from the farm a bit.

Working away is an unfortunate fact of life on most family farms. I feel very blessed that I've been able to be home, full time, for about two and a half years now (wow!). And although money is always tighter both around the holidays and winter in general, I have some ideas to expand winter sales and have been working hard to set the online store up, so I wasn't actively looking to do anything else. Instead, it was more a matter of helping out a fellow local food provider, and a chance to learn a lot.

Awhile back, in one of the group, monthly emails from Happy Mug coffee, Matt Shay (owner) asked if anyone would be interested in helping him out a bit. I let him know that I'd love to learn more about his coffee, since I sell it but am not really very knowledgeable, and I was genuinely curious about the process. He replied he basically jut needed someone local to help run to the post office and such, but I told him to keep me in mind if things changed. It's been a busy December for him, and last week it worked out that he needed some help, and my schedule was clear.

A lot of what I was there to do was pretty routine stuff for any business...printing labels, packaging the product, boxing up some holiday gift assortments, and helping to send online orders out by mail. But up until this point, Happy Mug Coffee has been a one-man show. Even as I was doing things like weighing green coffee and putting it into a bag, or putting labels on bags of coffee, Matt would be close by, and he is absolutely a wealth of knowledge. He's also passionate about responsibly grown and traded coffees and freely shares his knowledge about the coffee trade in general, and the respective farms and coops behind particular varieties of coffee he sells. We also drank, not surprisingly, a LOT of different kinds of coffee together. If he tried a new variation on the roasting process of a bean, we'd try it. Or we would try a couple in succession so he could help illustrate differences about what he does. In many regards, it was like a wine tasting, where you are trying to pick out certain notes. While it was no surprise to me to learn that beans that grow in different places can taste differently, by tasting it was amazing to be able to sample for myself how the area of the world a bean is grown in profoundly affects the flavor. Coffee grown on Pacific islands, in places like New Guinea, have low acidity because of the volcanic rock in the soil. Coffee grown in Asia (places like India or Yemen) tends to be bitter and have lots of undertones of herbs and spices, possibly because they are grown in close proximity. African coffees often have notes of citrus or blueberry, but absolutely not in the way a flavored coffee does.

I also learned about the roasting process, and even roasted a batch or two myself! This is not nearly as impressive as it sounds, because Matt has a state-of-the-art roaster that has an amazing digital panel. He can set up profiles of things he roasts often, so it can be set to operate itself! The temperatures are digitally controlled, so if it is a standard coffee, you just measure out the amount you want, pick the matching profile on the screen, pour the coffee in the hopper, pull the lever to send it to the roasting chamber, and make sure the lever goes back and starts the timer. Then, it will roast and dump the finished coffee, you don't have to do anything else! The part that takes knowledge (and taste testing!) is setting up the profiles in the first place. Many roasters aren't nearly this automated. In most places, it is actually roasted by ear to an extent, because the beans make popping sounds (like Rice Krispies or popcorn) at certain, key times of the roast. He even talked me through an entire roast, just so I could see, hear and smell just what was going on. It was fascinating and I'm very thankful to have been asked.

I was amazed at how committed to freshness Matt is. If you walk upstairs to where Happy Mug is (above King's Building Supply in Tidioute), you can't just grab a bag of coffee. There are no prepackaged bags laying about, just small bins with freshly roasted coffees (I would be shocked if any contain coffees roasted more than a week prior). Coffee is roasted in small batches, often just a few pounds at a time, to order. In Matt's opinion, if your coffee is more than about three weeks old, it's time to replace it with something fresh!

I was also amazed at how much business he does selling green (unroasted) coffee beans. I know that homebrewing your own beer or wine is becoming increasingly popular, but I was simply unaware of the homeroasting trend. Apparently, there aren't a lot of places where you can order just a pound or two of green coffee beans (it is imported in sack weighing over 100 lbs), and even fewer who sell organic, fair trade beans to boot, so Happy Mug ships all over the nation. It was really neat to check out all the different bulap bags, from many countries all over the world. Sometimes it was just easiest for Matt to tell me to look for something (a purple stripe or a picture of a cow) rather than trying to decipher the foreign language on the bag.

It was really neat to be able to sample a ton of different coffees. He gets in some amazing stuff...one bag was such a special, hand-picked coffee, that the name of the owner of the estate was on the bag, and only six bags of it exist in the whole world. I wish I could tell you I loved it, but although a tomato-like taste is supposed to be the sign of a great coffee, I just couldn't really appreciate it. Not my favorite at all! I also got to sample some Blue Mountain, which is apparently the BMW of all coffee...a highly recognizable, upper echelon brand name (after the region in which it grows). And costs something ridiculous like $30 per pound. Most Blue Mountain coffee is a blend, so it is more affordable, but those blends are actually 90%  of cheaper coffee and only 10% good stuff, making it pretty impossible to pick out the flavor of the actual Blue Mountain. I was fortunate to be sipping a cup of 100% Blue Mountain, and that was a coffee I'd gladly have another cup of!

At the end of the day, I also got home to bring home a bag of something. I woke up last week with the Morning Blend, which I've been told all the cool kids are drinking because it's Happy Mug's coffee of the month. Dan's new favorite is the Extroverted Tanzania, which I enjoy as well.

It seems Happy Mug's Christmas rush is over, so I'm home baking cookies to go with all this great coffee. I'm looking forward to going back sometime in the not-too-distant future as well, as we've talked about my managing the business if Matt wants to get out of town for a few days. It's a huge responsibility to be trusted with something like that, but I'm hoping I'm up to it. And so thankful to have had the wonderful experiences of roasting and tasting and, most importantly, learning more about great local food!

You can visit Happy Mug online at www.happymugcoffee.com...but please be patient if you're ordering as the website is being completely redone and will hopefully be fully functional in the very near future.

It's early December, so for us that means the farm stand season has finally come to a close.  We're so thankful to everyone who stopped by the farm and supported us over the past season...without folks like you who believe in what we do, we wouldn't be able to do what we love!  

One question I get frequently as the season winds down is "...so, what are you going to do all winter while you're closed?"  It truly amazes me how many folks think I'm going to have a leisurely winter holiday in Florida or somewhere warm.  (Well, maybe the Keys...if some relatives would be kind enough to move back so we have a reason to visit!)  The truth is much less glamorous.  Dan and I spend the winter doing lots of things, but soaking up sun generally isn't one of them.  There are more animal chores this time of year than any other, as the horses, cows, sheep and goats need to be fed hay while the pastures lie dormant.  The horses spend a lot more time in the barn, so there is more manure to move.  Keeping fresh water in all the pens of birds, bunnies and other critters is extremely important, and when it's bitterly cold, something that may have to be done 3-4 times per day.  

There are, of course, lots of "inside" projects, too...this is the part of the year where we can paint a room in the house or take up a new hobby.  For all the things we do here, we're always looking towards learning more to make ourselves more self-sufficient.  This winter, Dan & I hope to get started in leather crafting a bit.  I'm also hoping to play with some of his newer woodworking tools and make some signs & other decorations around the farm.  I haven't really mentioned him in the blog, but we got a young horse, Montana, earlier this year, and I hope to work more with him now than I did in the summer.  It's also a time to review what worked over the past year, what didn't, and what we want to do in the coming year.  The seed catalogs starting arriving before Thanksgiving, and after the holidays I'll devote quite a bit of time inventorying what seed I have, what I want, and then trimming that down to what we can afford, both in terms of money and garden & greenhouse space.

It's also a time to do more of the hobbies we already have...Dan looks forward to more blacksmithing, while I'm excited to have more time to devote to stained glass and jewelry.  The farm stand is closed for the year (tomorrow will actually be my first Saturday off since May 19, and I have to say that's pretty exciting!) but I am trying to make more of a go of our online store.  This week it's been a major project to upload lots of new items to the store.  I have a selection of some of the more popular canned items, plus a couple gift baskets, and now I've got a nice selection of listings of my handmade jewelry, and I've even got a few stained glass items up!  All handmade by me here at the farm, of course.   

I am extremely fortunate to be able to pick and choose what I do each day (at least after the animals are taken care of!) and this time of year means far more leeway in what HAS to be done on a given day vs. what I FEEL like doing.  It's a luxury that makes all the hard work of being self-employed worth it.   On this gloomy, damp day I'm making room in the freezer by making spaghetti sauce from the tomatoes I ran through the food mill & froze, when I had more canning to do than time to do it, earlier in the garden season.  I don't mind having the stove on for hours today, and it's pretty amazing to me that the only store-bought ingredients going into the pot today are salt, sugar, and vinegar. (Although I make vinegar, too, it's not tested for acidity and therefore not safe for canning.)  Everything is boiling now, and in the next few hours when I just need to stir every so often, I'm working on more jewelry plus a new decorative hop vine wreath idea I have...if I get ambitious, I'll list some more items online.  It's great fun to be making things like jewelry and stained glass, and I'm really hoping to have more of a supplemental income this winter from it as well.  The hardest part so far seems to be resisting the urge to keep most of it for myself!

 If you're shopping online this year, we'd love it if you took a look around our virtual store.  I ship nationwide! Visit our online store at: www.etsy.com/shop/pleasantvalleyfarmpa/.  We wish you happy holidays and stress-free shopping!

The second weekend of November, I attended the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's annual conference and had an absolutely wonderful time.  The ALBC's mission is to preserve rare breeds of livestock.  Most people think of tigers or pandas when they think about endangered animals, but the truth is that many farm animals are endangered, too.  Industrial agriculture favors only the animals that do well in the overcrowded, grain-based production systems that have taken over our food supply.  The ALBC lists over 180 breeds of livestock & poultry which all have great qualities, but are in danger of dying out because they only do well on small or grass-based farms.  It's an organization we wholeheartedly support, since we raise some of those breeds listed; Belgian horses, Dexter cattle, Bourbon Red turkeys, Toulouse geese and Delaware, Barred Rock and Golden Phoenix chickens.  

The conference was an amazing mix of people- everything from dedicated breeders to folk who just support the mission, but haven't yet made the leap to keeping livestock of their own.  I learned a lot from the sessions I attended, and I hope people learned from the session I presented as well.  Of course, speaking in front of a national audience is a bit intimidating (and I really hoped that the name of the conference room wouldn't be a bad sign, since I was speaking in the "Cape Fear" room!)  but I felt that I knew my material well enough.  After all, I was just sharing my story of how we farm with the work horses.

Friday night was an amazing dinner, full of meats from rare breeds like Mulefoot hogs and Pineywoods cattle, all donated by ALBC members. (Ironically, one of the best ways to save rare breeds is to eat them...consumer demand for rare breed products, like meat, eggs, milk & fiber, encourages more farms to raise them.)  And that enjoyable meal was made even better by a wonderful keynote speaker...Diane Ott Whealy.  She and her husband founded Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit farm dedicated to preserving heirloom seeds and plants- vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers.  Their mission mirrors that of the ALBC, just preserving plants rather than animals, although they have incorporated some heritage breed livestock to their farm as well.   I've been buying seed from SSE for years, and hearing her story was amazing.  She has just written a memoir, called Gathering: Memoir of a Seed Saver.  I've been thinking about buying it anyways, and while I usually hate to pay cover price, this time all the proceeds when right to the ALBC!  I was really excited to actually meet Mrs. Whealy later in the conference and have her sign my copy.  We chatted for a minute, about seeds of course, and even have the same favorite lettuce, Grandpa Admire! I can't wait to sit down with my copy and read more about her story.

I felt a lot calmer Saturday morning once I got my PowerPoint loaded and ready to go. My presentation was titled "Horse Farming 101: How We Farm with Belgians" and as the title suggests, was a basic introduction to the use of draft horses on a small farm.  I talked about the advantages of farming with horses, both in sustainability and economics. The bulk of the presentation was just showing our machinery on the projector and explaining the use of the implements and what tasks they do on the farm. Although the crowd wasn't as large as some other sessions, I thought the speech went well, and I got some very positive feedback afterwards, including from ALBC staff.  

 My presentation featured lots of pictures of the team hard at work.

 I learned a lot at the other sessions about caring for and marketing rare breeds.   The keynote and pleneray sessions were inspiring.  I listened as some very distinguished folks talked about breeds and seeds.  Success stories of how parts of our farming heritage have been saved by these organizations, in very real ways rescuing the last members of a breed from the slaughterhouse door, or of discovering a rural gardener still growing a vegetable variety once thought extinct.  About how what we all, as stewards of rare breeds and seeds, do is important and how very much it matters. While I think networking with other small farmers or learning about research or marketing success stories are very valuable things, the inspiration of the importance of what we do as small farmers is what I hope to hold onto the longest.  

 Before Friday's dinner, I was chatting with a woman in the hallway who also raised horses.  We spoke casually about farming, family and our respective parts of the country.  During the dinner, her husband got an award from the ALBC for pretty much single handedly rescuing the Marsh Tacky breed of horse from extinction.  It's exciting to be part of an organization like this, because although I can't to much to save elephants or pandas,  every time I pull a Bourbon Red turkey poult from the incubator or plant a funky "new" (to me and my customers, anyway) heirloom pepper or watch a mother Dexter cow with her newborn calf, I'm making a difference, too.

 Meeting one of my inspirations, Diane Ott Whealy

To learn more about these wonderful organizations (Or better yet, join us and become a member!) visit:

American Livestock Breeds Conservancy-  www.albc-usa.org

Seed Saver's Exchange- www.seedsavers.org 

I had a wonderful post typed out on the ALBC conference, but the computer ate most of it.  So, more on that next week...

 It's Thanksgiving week!  For most of us, it means food and family, and if we're lucky, some time off.  For me this year, it's craziness, though!  After the conference I attended in North Carolina, I took some much needed time away from the farm to hang out with three of my siblings (I'm the oldest of 6!).  I had a great time visiting and catching up with sibs, spouses and their kids and returned home last Thursday to all the post-vacation stuff...laundry, catching up on email, and juggling orders from customers looking to stock up on our meats before the end of the season.

 This week is our final week of the farm stand season, and we'll be processing the last of the chickens tonight and the last pig Friday.  It's the time where I start thinking about how our farm year went and all I have to be thankful for, but instead of musing that online today, the plan is scrubbing and baking.  

This year, for the first time, I'm hosting family Thanksgiving.  I've cooked holiday meals for Dan and I in the past, and had Matt over, too, but this year will be the first time I've cooked for my Mom and siblings.  Honestly, I'm a little nervous about it, which is a bit on the crazy side.  I cook from scratch pretty much nightly, and far more so than most folks, so a whole turkey is no big deal, and I'm already pretty skilled at making sure everything comes out at the same time.   Nothing that I'm cooking is difficult to me or something new, but I guess there is that little voice in the back of my head that worries that this will be the year Emily ruined Thanksgiving by (insert disaster here...no mashed potatoes, burned stuffing, whatever).  So today I'm continuing to scrub the farmhouse so it's fit for company and baking.  Since baking is my least-perfected skill, I thought it would be good to do it ahead so that I have a chance to adjust if things go wrong.  However, I'm feeling pretty good, as I'm making a pumpkin cheesecake recipe I've tried before, and it came out awesome the first time.  The other dessert is a Shea family tradition, but also pretty foolproof, and the last thing you'd expect to be served at an organic farm feast.  But the Candy Bar Pie, made with chocolate pudding, graham cracker crust, cream cheese, Cool Whip and Snickers bars requires no baking and just needs to be part of our celebration.  

For the big day, I'm going classic (in my opinion, now is NOT the time to try new recipes!)...roasted turkey and homemade gravy, Mom's famous stuffing recipe, mashed potatoes, my home-canned cranberry sauce, green salad, and a winter squash side.  Maybe some sweet corn, too.  When I talked to my mom on Sunday, she asked what she could bring, so I put her on beverage duty.  I'm excited to have my family sit around the table together, give thanks, and dig in. 

Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday week filled with family time and great food!  Happy Thanksgiving to all!