The next few days on the farm I spent making various food items: applesauce & apple juice, eggplant parmesan, pesto, etc, to put up for the rest of the year, while Ryan went  to help do some maintenance at another piece of property where Allan has a contract with the university to maintain the land and garden.

On Wednesday, while Ryan was out in the pasture mending a fence when all of a sudden he hears a plop next to him. Lo and behold, when he looked over, there was newborn calf laying there. When of the joys of working on a dairy farm is that you frequently get to see baby calves, but this was all new for us, so Ryan and I were very excited to see the newborn. After notifying all of us about the event, Ryan carried the little one to the barn where several people toweled her off. We were quick to get her colostrum and once she had her fill we spent the afternoon running around the barn, helping her to get her sea legs.

 

For the days following we harvested a lot of things from the garden because the potential of a frost was threatening with the encroaching cold front.  With much of the basil picked we made tons of pesto and the rest was spread out on cookie sheets to dry. During this time, Ryan also got to hone his architecture skills helping to build a pump house for an off-site garden.

I also spent some time reorganizing the green house, which was one big pile of pots and tools, but I’m pretty proud of what how it turned out.

While perusing through the wwoof website for our next farm to stay at, I stumbled across a newly added profile of a farm exactly 6.2 miles down the road from where we were at Woodcrest. Ryan and I both really have enjoyed this area so we decided to pop over to this farm and check it out. The woman there seemed very nice and they were just starting up their farm operation so we decided it would be the perfect opportunity to test out some of our newly aquired skills.

Why would we choose to stay in this area for yet another two weeks? Well, we are actually smack dab in the middle of what is know as “The Triangle.” It is so named because it encompasses the towns of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, which each house a university: North Carolina State University, Duke University,  and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, respectively. It is renowned as the highest amount of degree holding population in the United States and is a hotspot for local food and progressive people, all with a small town feel. Needless to say, we like it here and want to explore more of what the area has to offer.

We are so thankful to have had the opportunity to stay at Woodcrest. We were provided the opportunity to learn a lot, try raw milk for the first time, play with lots of barnyard animals, and spend some time with really great people. It was great to have met you Chris and Allan, thanks for all the awesome experiences and most all, for making us feel like family.

Now, for fear of boring you, I did not talk about every single farm animal… but I did take lots of pictures!

 

 

 

As Snowball once said,

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Tonya & Ryan