FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions! (and their answers)

Qs: Who is Lillian?
Did you change your name?
Do you work and live on some other Lillian person's farm?

A: Figuring the name for a farm or other business is often hard. Ya want something unique! Something catchy! Something to be remembered!
geez louize --that is a of pressure.
Like how I ALWAYS long to have the most clever, funny & timely costume for Halloween but CAN NEVER think of a good idea that lives up to my visions & expectations. For a farm one wants to consider naming their business with something that will cover all products & services, can travel with you if you move locations, and means something deep in your soul. (well maybe not everyone is thinking about it this much-but I am a heady-farmer who thinks & talks more than most of the locals).
During this long journey S & I talked and made lists & brainstormed. In my Halloweeny desire to have a catchy clever name I kept going back to the name that fits the last two requirements. It can move with me to any farm and it means something deep to my being. This is to name my farm after my grandmother, Lily, who died when I was a preschooler. Funny enough my paternal grandmother, Lillian, has the same name as S's paternal grandmother, Lillian. I find that to have its own depth & special place in my world as our two families are connected by us. Another muy appropriate element is that my Lily is Jewish and has passed on while S's Lil is Italian and still hanging with us. So if one were following the traditional naming ettiquette for each ethnic group than we are right-on target in naming our farm, Lillian's Farm!

great, huh! sometimes I am reminded to find confidence, pride & peace in the simpler things that are part of me.


so are there any more FAQs to answer??
sweet dreams, L

since before...

since my last post the birdies have been sold! 22 hens are living in 2 great & nearby locations. A man split the lot with his sister-in-law; they both live within 10 miles. We are happy to find less poop on our patio, eggs of an extremely high quality..and if the ground was not frozen we would be rebuilding our coop, yard & all which would eliminate all manure from dropping on our patio! But we are not rebuilding nothing. We are doing what we can to keep all warm, watered & fed during this icey spell! No time for extras & the soil is not allowing any additions or changes anyhow. We can barely even walk or crawl without yaktrax or crampons on our boots...

So we now have 12 lovely special hens (3 white brahmas, 1 white leghorn, 3 araucanas, 5 red stars) and two roosters. We will soon part ways with our older roostah, Hunnee. He was hatched out of our eggs last last spring but we cannot have two testosterone infused characters around so we will opt to keep our spring roostah who is an Araucana (they lay blue or green shelled eggs). We happily still have plenty of eggs. There were some excellent articles in Mother Earth News Magazine in he last few months about the actual benefits of eating eggs from healthy chickens (call it what you want: free range, range, organic, grass fed--these are all better than cage raised sad chicken eggs). Folks should read up and I am happy to mail photocopies of articles on good eggs, eating local and supporting local economies! Let me know if you are interested.
www.motherearthnews.com

I am finding this early wintery season to be absolutely breath taking. I cannot take enough photographs or capture enough memories of glistening ice on crop fields with little corn stalk tips sticking straight up, stiffly between spills of ice.

I hope all is well, sending my best wishes out to yall!

ba-bye birdie

we are downsizing.. selling off 22 lovely sweet hens who have done us well and also shat upon our patio and yard daily... we are thrilled to rebuild our fence/redo coop area to more efficiently accomodate a modest flock of about 12 hens & 1 rooster.

And for those of you who know our first four red star chickens that really belong to Mill Creek Urban Farm I will let you know that one of them died of old age last thursday. I believe it was "Olive" that died. We had a nice ceremony to say thanks & good bye over in the solfest fire pit in the field in front of the pond. In this fire ring I found the head & disinegrating beak of a barred rock chicken that had died earlier this summer. It was quite interesting to find a remanant of an animal I had placed in an open field several months back on such a wild property with such a circle of life/food chain presence. Typically one only finds the bones & hair & teeth of the dead (groundhogs, deer & other sacred creatures that we live with).

Funny enough I glanced to the field one day later and saw that Olive had gone elsewhere. go figure.
and go to the Mill Creek Urban Farm 1st ever Fundraiser sunday december 9 from 3-7pm. I have a link to their website below--there will be kegs & music & art & steaz!

Lambing season to start April 15th 2008!

Thanks to Mr.Chocolate! we have a due date already!
He is a beautiful brown ram with small horns and a good frame. Gorgeous brown fleece--yay!
He is the one in the center of the photo approaching my lead ewe, Minikin (the black sheep).

his name is Mr. Chocolate

this could be the best name for a stud I've ever heard!

I will be buying an Icelandic Ram this weekend. His name is Mr. Chocolate. I cannot wait and neither can my girls who have pent up hormone things going on.

It has been snowing in Kempton since before 7am yesterday...it is gorgeous but a surprise to me. I think the sheep must have exhaled when the flakes started falling down. But there really is nothing like a view of yellow maple leaves next to branches weighed down by white snow.

so please enjoy it as you think of how thankfull you are.. List the ways in a comment

reallee nice goodstuff wool for sale - FYI

hey all, I have been washing my wool and even handcarding some of it.

SPINNERS & FELTERS>> For sale I am offering RAW and WASHED, some carded, mostly uncarded WOOL from:Icelandics, Cheviots, & a BabyDoll Southdown. Raw or Washed - both are free of vegetative matter & manure.

My wool comes in several natural colors - no need to dye! (but you could)
Each sheep breed's wool has different purposes, ex:spinning or felting... Let me know if you have any questions! I also have closeup shots and stories to tell about each sheep; I keep each sheep's wool separate. Its a good deal I tell ya!>> wool & stories & pictures! my oh my!

COME CHECK OUT OUR LUSTRE & NATURAL COLORS!

hidden in a pile of soft spongy wool, Lala of Lillian's Farm

me-be mom to a ram?

whoa! yes, I am thinking of actually buying an Icelandic Ram!
well It is breeding time (November) and I am a little late planning. Not for lack of thought & notes & talking to my vet BUT for lack of stability in my physical world..healing from my rotator cuff strain, followed by getting my wisdom teeth ripped out of my thick head. So I realized on Monday- crap I gotto get on this! I have to pick up my list of tri-state area Icelandic Sheep breeders (very few!) So I called the top of the list for Pennsylvania. I spoke with a lovely woman who was also excited to meet another person in our state with these specific sheep. Though she did not have a ram I could rent she kept racking her brain cells to figure out some way she could lend me one..maybe the young guy she just bought from NJ? She was so kind & we were mutually thrilled to be on the phone! I gave a call to the woman who her young ram just came from. A very wise, long-time farmer woman who schooled me and figured that she could sell me a 3 year old ram for a very small price (compared to what this breed normally costs). When I started the phone call I was so set on renting a ram but by the end I was telling this engaging shepherdess that I was pretty dern sure I was going to find a way to come up with the cash! Bring him on over!

You see the day before said phone call I saw some signs in the pasture that my girls are coming around to the seasonal hormones..I have to get a dude in there asap--also to time the births for a good tme.

kay, so that's my big news that is still talk!
more later