Kimberly's Adventures

Food, Farms, Fields, Forests, Friends, Family, and Feelings

First Month on the Farm - Part 1

The first days of January often inspire reflection over time past. For me the time period most prominent in my thoughts is the past month, from December 2, 2011 until today. 

On the evening of December 2nd I arrived at Hawthorne Valley Farm with my friend Jon after the Stone Barns Young Farmers Conference. That first night I only had what I carried in my backpacking pack, day-pack, and ukulele case for the plane voyage and conference. The majority of my belongings arrived the following day by bus freighter from Minneapolis. 

My first weekend coincided with the Hawthorne Valley Yuletide Fair in which artisans sold their goods at stands set up around the Waldorf School across the street, the school auditorium became the judging and auction ground for gingerbread architecture, and a marionette show in which “Pooh goes Visiting and Gets into a Tight Place” was performed. I spent much of the day moving into my new room and missed the puppets, but caught a beautiful encore performance on a later date.  

I moved into the bunkhouse in a very transitional phase for the space as only two of the six bedrooms were unoccupied at my arrival but throughout the next month they were all emptied, thoroughly cleaned, three of them painted, and over the past four days two and within hours a third to be reoccupied by new housemates and coworkers. Of last year’s full farm apprentices one is remaining a full farm apprentice with increased responsibilities, another will be doing an advanced field vegetable apprenticeship. Two of my new housemates and I will be the remaining full farm apprentices and the other will work solely with the corner garden. 

In terms of farming, I have learned a lot in this single month. My first day on the job was December 5th. Arriving in the barn to help with chores, (scraping the cow poop from the stalls into gutters, sweeping the barn, sweeping the mangers with a different broom, sprinkling lime on the floors, and covering the gutters with hay or sawdust), I was amazed by how everyone could recognize each of the individual cows. These cows are of mixed breed with some Jersey, Brown Swiss, Devon, Holstein, and more in their lineage and range from white or grey to red, brown, and black. The easiest one to pick out of the crowd was Natalia who is a beautiful tan. Now I can distinguish over fifty cows well enough to bring them back to their designated stanchions in the loafing barn after milking where they get a few hours of hay munching during the winter months before being released to loaf and wander.

  1. kimberlydelanghe posted this