Endings and beginnings
Springtime snow at Mountain Heart Farm, late March, 2024
All the snow of the winter has fallen in the last two weeks, and I’m feeling anxious for spring to arrive.
It’s been a season of stark contrasts, marked by the deaths of animals old and young, and the arrival of new life in the form of surprise lambs and a new puppy.
Sen, the old border collie, in his usual spot with his best friend, a 19-year-old cat named Shadow, a few days before he died
We said goodbye to our elderly rescue dog, Sen, who died peacefully in his sleep with his good cat friend curled up beside him. He was born into difficult circumstances, and he was never quite a ‘normal’ dog, but he was a good one, and we were lucky to be his family.
The new puppy, Marlowe, is a tri-colored smooth collie, just over 3 months old. He is full of the puppy energy I had forgotten, and has made friends with Rollo the cattle dog, who has been helping him to quickly learn the ropes around the farm. The cats are reserving judgement for now.
Young Marlowe
We also sadly said goodbye to several of the elderly sheep in the flock over the winter months, including Rain, Cooper, and Gwynn. At about 15 years old, Cooper was quite old, and had been a beloved member of the flock for many years. A big Dorset wether, he was raised as a bottle baby and was very friendly with people. Coop once performed in a commercial, for which he was a consummate professional, flawlessly hitting his marks over multiple takes. I still find myself looking for his huge body out in the pasture, towering over the rest of the flock, and listening for his distinctive bellow.
Our other winter loss was a young ram named Mullet, who died of complications from wethering surgery. He was a beautiful, friendly, black Shetland x Romney, and had spent the winter free-ranging the front yard, separated from the ewes. Or so I thought. While I was still mourning his unexpected loss, the first of an unknown number of surprise lambs arrived.
Baby Ninja, mom Leia, and the back end of baby Noodle - Surprise!
Sleeping in the sun between snowstorms
Baby Nimbus with Lachnta
Clearly, my plan to keep the ewes away from young Mullet has failed. I hadn’t planned on doing any lambing at all this season, but the flock had other plans, and I confess, I’m glad that Mullet had a chance to pass on some of his genes in the flock. We’ll see how many more lambs arrive in the coming weeks.
Textile flax, 2023
Fiber hemp at Smokey House Center, 2023
Since 2020, I have been growing flax (and last year fiber hemp) at the nearby Smokey House Center here in Danby. In the fall of ‘23, I wrote a USDA SARE Farmer Grant to expand upon some of the fiber hemp research work I did there for UVM, and was pleased to learn earlier this winter that my grant has been funded.
In many ways, this work is building upon an earlier, flax-based SARE grant I completed shortly before moving to Vermont. In addition to a plot of textile flax (Avian this year), I will be growing multiple varieties of fiber hemp, and working with some very knowledgeable technical advisors from UVM and Cornell.
Antique and contemporary hemp textiles, and a hemp line fiber sample from the 2023 season
Watch for future blog posts about this work, which will include selective harvesting of male and female plants for long line fiber quality, variety trials, retting experiments, and using retting water as a fertilizer for dye plants. I hope that the work I’ll be doing contributes to the development of a new regional infrastructure of natural textiles, healthy materials, and green building products.
After a lot of consideration, I made the decision to move this ongoing and new bast fiber research from Smokey House to my home farm, Mountain Heart. I’m grateful for my time growing at SHC, where staff old and new supported my work and helped to shape the research questions I am exploring now.
There’s a lot of work to be done to get ready for springtime tasks, including sheep shearing this month, and the preparation of planting beds for flax and hemp research.
If it would just stop snowing…
Bluebird sky. Dorset Peak. So much snow.