In one year....

Let me re-introduce myself to myself & my friends reading here!
I am a happy shepherdess farmer gal, who comes from the cheltenham/jenkintown area, has been living it up in berks county for 4 years now.
Since March of '08 I have been a proud employee of Wanamaker's General Store in Kempton, PA (www.wanamakersgeneralstore.com). Please check out our super awesome website (created by a local business) which explains the history of the store. I get to talk with all of the locals, all of the visitors from new jersey & new york, the folks who come to bird, and the folks who come to fish in the nearly drained Leaser Lake. We make wonderful deli sandwiches, sell: local produce & local handmade items for function or decoration, toys that rock, bait, hunting & fishing licenses, penny candy, bulk foods, organic dairy & chickens, and most things that you need like shoelaces or lightbulbs. I have worked at the store since the new owners reopened it & I get to work among other fabulous people! Pure JOY!

I moved around a little bit last year - all among good folks & in supportive environments. I moved my sheep as well, but more about that soon! I now live near the base of Hawk Mountain, with my sweetheart, Victor. Some of you may be familiar with Hawk Mountain Sanctuary or the Appalachian Trail. Victor & I live in a sweet home that he constructed on an old foundation that was once a grain shed, upon his fathers land. We garden like maniacs, preparing for winter in june. We have 4 chickens in a movable chicken tractor/coop. They are quite funny & interesting birds to hang with and it is so nice to have just 4 in terms of bonding & getting to know one another. Currently we have my two rams at home, being rotated around to spots that need mowing, with electric netting. We have some crazy crazy stories about the couple of times they escaped when the electric was off! There are lots of flowers and berries to pick, which makes me a very happy camper! And endless amounts of space in which to create new gardens to grow a full variety of annuals, perennials, and succession crops.

After some wild times with rotating 14 of my sheep in electric netting, I began leasing a farm on the other side of Kempton last July. I lease 12 acres, with a big beautiful red barn, electric, a water pump, and everything my flock needs. The land is quite diverse and seems very nice for sheep as they get to graze on pasture, drink from fresh springs, and wander into the woods for shade and to munch on dried up leaves, poison ivy and such.

Lambing season 2009 lasted for 2 solid months! It just ended the other day so I can now announce to you all the wonderful results - but that will wait for another posting. Please stay tuned.

In the winter, I holed up in the house around the woodstove playing board games, drinking tea, spinning yarn on my Louet wheel. I went on walks in the snow, checked on my sheep as needed, watched some movies, listened to books on tape, ran through the snowy yard in just my robe to get to the outhouse (how refreshing!). It was a lovely winter & I was slow to release it and enter spring. Then again the weather has been reluctant to offer us spring and summer too!

I attended two births as a Doula, at Reading Hospital. One was at the end of February, the other 3 weeks later. They were both incredible experiences that I felt so blessed to be a part of and so happy to be able to offer something that I believe is so important. Birth is incredible! I encourage you all to delve deeper into the world of birth on whatever level is right for you. Maybe it is just to watch a few eye opening films : The Business of Being Born & Orgasmic Birth!

In April & May we picked wild morel mushrooms, cooked them up with eggs and fresh spring nettles, sipped Victor's homemade ginger soda, started seeds, and readied our garden for planting. I had a superb birthday party at home: full of cake, friends, food, yard games, and live music. It was a lovely way to fully enter spring; to say, Hello to spring & welcome it enthuiastically!

Today is the first of July and I am still spinning yarn as much as possible, tending the garden, tending to my sheep, working two jobs, making jam, giving reiki to myself & others, and going to bed early.

This is my best attempt to update you all on highlights from May '08 to June '09. I hope it was fun, colorful, and a joy for you to read.
Please stay tuned for more news on lambing season and other things that pop up in the life of this wanna-be-homesteader.

Let us eat cake!

Greetings, it has been one year and a little longer since I posted a tale on "the lala update".
Bloggy & I needed a break from each other to review why I was writing & what I was writing about. This past year I went through so many tremendous changes and shifts & growth spurts that I felt it was inappropriate to turn my blog into a reality television show like-thing. That is not why I write. (that is what facebook and myspace are for!)

I remained true to my life visions & goals and still worked my tail off on spreading the message of why eating locally & seasonally and supporting our local economies are the most important moves we can make in these times. I just chose to not write about it. I longed to write, but something felt amiss. The time was not right.

NOW IT IS! I am here to write, consistently. To share the joys & trevails of farming, living, and loving.

In my next post I will reintroduce myself and update you all more on what has been going on at Lillian's Farm and the farm where I live.

now go pick some berries while I type!
Lala

Waiting to exhale

Our last lambs are on their way RIGHT now. This is live reporting from the farm house. I was just down to check on Claire - the hugest sheep I have ever seen & the last to pop. Lucky thing I checked when I did because her first water bag was beginning to come out! How exciting. I shuffled her into the birthing suite after I spread out plenty of fresh straw & a bucket of cool water. If only it was that simple for women! (maybe it could be).

I am so thrilled but also a bit anxious. Lambing season is about to finish & the anxiety of lambs at ANY time of day will disappear with the sunrise tomorrow. However in this moment I was planning on going to bed so now I frantically type & am probably using too many exclamation points in my emails and texts of the evening.

The thing is that Claire was always our indicator of "twins or triplets" because of her ginormous size and because she ran away about 6 times per day for most of the winter, in search of greener pasture. She was very hard to please. Well, since the other 4 gals had twins then we have to wonder what Claire will do? This could be a late night for me. They usually lamb in 1-3 hours. I am not sure how that could change if there is a third baby..

The photo in this post is of Claire & some others, she is huge & lying down in the front.. taken last Thursday afternoon while Elsa was laboring.

Our first lambs!

In the morning of April 19th Minikin gave birth to twins, fathered by Mister Chocolate. Since they are both rams we're thinking of naming them Mister ______ after their father & since it begins with the letter M if follows their mama's nameline. Or whatever happens, we may think of a way better name than Mister anything at all.

They weighed 9 pounds & 9.5 pounds, are nursing fine & so so friendly with people. This is so amazing!

Memories, speaking of NAFTA

In November of 2003 I traveled for 24 hours on a bus full of other philadelphians to miami florida so that we could try to put an end to the Free Trade Area of the America's meetings & agenda-along with several tens of thousands of other citizens. I had a lot of amazing moments, scary ones, gut wrenching ones, and joyously informatively inspiring times!
My memory in this moment is about some of the brightly inspiring experiences I had. One day my new best pal, Jade & I walked pretty far around miami to get to a community garden for a work-day that also included workshops & meals & networking & fun in the sun!

We weeded. We dug. We got dirty. We drank a lot of water.

We learned about the history of this abundant community garden, next to a highway overpass, and we learned techniques of urban permaculture - things that we could bring home to our lives. We met really cool folks and ran into a few old ones.

When lunch hour rolled around two different food not bombs groups collaborated and fed us foods that all of them had grown in other states. They had driven across the whole darn country in veggie fueled buses to bring is their pride & love in the body of food! How sweet to stand in this garden after working in the hot sun and get to talk to someone about the roots of all of the yumminess in my enamelware camping bowl. They served fresh corn from wisconsin & even made healing tea with cornsilk & nettles & other helpful herbs. They made bread from grains and seeds that they grew AND they brought it to us!

What did we do to deserve food like this? We stood in solidarity with each other in resistance of greed and intolerance. We all thought that people and everything on the earth should come before profits.

and we still do.

and this is what led me to start volunteering with the philly food not bombs when I returned home.. and shortly thereafter my new best friend & I helped to start a second fnb in philly-which is still working to offer free healthy vegan foods to folks who don't have enough access to good foods. Because healthy food has become a privelge much like healthcare.

Because we will never be able to close our eyes again now that they are open wide - exposing the truths about food security & the effects of bad nutrition on society.

find what opens your eyes because we don't have time to waste before the earth wastes away.

Tea time

My evening tea blend tonite consists of: blackberry leaves, cornsilk, rose blossoms & petals, lemon verbana infused in a giant white mug with a bag of green tea. I added a little bit of local raw clover honey after it steeped.

Which reminds me of this great tea combo I enjoy that may sound unusual. Try it out & then say you don't like it. Find a nice big mug - make enough hot cocoa to fill it. You can make instant, vegan, syrup based - whatever kind of hot cocoa you can or want. While you are making the cocoa place your favorite green tea bag in the mug, pour hot cocoa over tea bag. Yes, it is awesome! I recommend decaf green tea, regular, jasmine!, and any flavor added green tea. For some reason I don't recommend trying this recipe with black tea; I cannot explain it, just believe me!

This is my weird slow foods tea of the evening.
happy hearts everywhere day,
lala

Hey! don't Forget..

..to check out our Internet Shop on Etsy.
Please tell your friends that are looking for handmade wares & wool to spin or felt their own projects.
And always check back because there are piles of wares that haven't gotten up, as well as NEW items being created, with love & understanding, all of the time!
Support the people not the boxstore CEOs!

click here:
www.lilliansfarm.etsy.com

or click on my cute widget at the bottom of the page while you count the days till Bush is in office (and who knows who replaces him??)!!

stay warm folx,
the crew at the farm