Author: Loralea

Do you have a friend with whom you share your dreams, your joys, your sorrows?

There is nothing like sharing our daily work with others. It can teach us humility, compassion and wonder.

Rick and I set out to share our love for farming; our wonder in planting seeds and watching them grow, amazement in the knowledge and care our neighbors give to their crops.

We love rural life and we saw it fading in society. Starting the Quillisascut Farm School of the Domestic Arts was a natural step in our farm journey, an answer to a desire to create what we see as “a beautiful world”

What are your dreams and desires to create a beautiful world?

Sharing your dreams with friends is a joyful first step!

What’s for dinner?

Often that seems such a difficult question. My Mom, Daisy Mae, came up with a solution, Saturday night is hamburgers. You may have read about it in our Winter Stories e-book

It does take a little planning ahead. I know hamburgers are considered fast food but we like ours on a homemade bun from a farm-raised beef, two things that you can’t easily run out and buy.

And since tomorrow is Saturday, I need to get with-it and bake hamburger buns! My recipe is simple, not the incredible brioche buns that Don Reed makes for us each year at the Hearth Bread workshop.

Which brings me back to planning. It’s time to consider meals for other nights of the week. I am looking for suggestions. Do you have a go-to meal that is as easy to love as it is to prepare? Or a food tradition that your family request every week? Let me know, I am making a list and of course I will share it with you!

Persistence is good for you!

One of the things I love about goats is their persistence. They will work for days or even years to wear down a fence or a wall or whatever you are trying to keep them from doing. They show a fine sense of determination and are my mentors.

Press On

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race

Calvin Coolidge

These strong guys made a fine team for stacking hay in the barn!

If you remember, last Fridays post, I  started out telling about the deer who come and eat the hay that the goats spill on the ground.

Well,  this morning when Rick went out to feed the goats he found a perfect set of white tail deer antlers laying on the ground. They were right next to each other, we have never found a set before.  There must have been some frisky eating going on!  I believed they  shed their antlers by rubbing against a tree, so I decided to do a little research. I was wrong.  It seems they rub against the tree in summer when they are scrapping off the velvet coating that covers the newly formed antlers.

White Tail bucks shed their antlers every winter and grow a new set during spring and summer.  Hunting for these shed anters has become a hobby, called “shed hunting”. I even found a website that sells DVD directions goshedhunting.com or antleritis.com  check out their fun video.

The antlers are fast growing, they start out as cartilage that rapidly calcifies. They are covered with a coating that looks like brown velvet. This coating carries blood that supplies nutrients to the rapidly growing bone. When the antler reaches full size the velvet is rubbed off. It is really intriguing, you can read about it on Wikipedia.

Now the burning question, “What do you think we should use them for?”  There was youtube video on how to make a pipe. Yes, well my suggestions are leaning in other directions, possibly  hand towel holders?  Do you have any ideas?