November Hill farm journal, 2

I do not feel so bewildered when I return to my own fields.

-Henry Beston, Northern Farm

The mower blade that prevented our mowing of late was replaced over the weekend and the entire day on Saturday was spent on the cutting of grass and buttercups growing inches every day. I had chores in the house to do while my husband mowed but I opened the doors so the sound of the mower could keep me company. 

I'm not sure what it is about mowing. I used to do a fair bit of it and I delighted in the monotonous orbiting path I made, around and around and around until at some point my rebellious, or possibly creative, side took over and I would change directions, make a pattern, anything to go against the grain of that circuit of cutting.

My husband is not as cautious as I am about closing gates and putting horses and pony and donkeys away from the mower, and this precipitated some running of the herd and then me out on the porch or the back deck waving my arms to get his attention. 

After the mowing was done there was weed-eating, a thankless chore since it's near to impossible to do the entire property in one weekend, so for the most part it never gets "done" - is always there to do once we slide into spring and then summer. The only way to manage this kind of chore - similar to mucking - is to turn it into something that gives pleasure in some other way than by completion.

The thing about doing this kind of work, for me, is that it brings me closer to the actual earth of November Hill. I walk the property as much as the horses do, and I have learned the nooks and crannies, the lay of the land, how rainfall flows, where the natural spring bubbles up, what is blooming or leafing out or dropping leaves. I find the holes that seem to appear out of nowhere and I know where the rocks are to fill them. I religiously put rocks in small piles beside fence posts and the bottoms of trees so I'll have them when needed. I know when a fire ant mound rises up overnight and needs treating, and I know where the bare patches are that need some compost and grass seed to repair.

This week as the grass was tamed back my eyes lifted to the trees, now thick with leaves, creating huge swaths of shade all over the farm. It's so visually different when the leaves come in. 

And it's true - I walk to the barn and out onto the land itself and I am calmed, brought to earth, grounded. The more I do with my hands, directly, the calmer I become. 

The garden is nearly done for this year. Cucumbers and peppers, basil and dill and parsley and anise. Yellow squash and acorn squash and butternut squash and pumpkins. Tomatoes and okra and garlic. A lettuce bed and bok choy, chard, broccoli, cabbage. We'll put in a few more things - melons and more herbs, maybe sweet potatoes again.

A new blueberry bush. 

The fig tree was shocked by the hard frost after it had started leafing out - I don't think it's dead but it looks odd, brown and dormant as everything around it has burst toward lushness.

Even the stone screening and sand arena is growing grass. Harrowing was the last chore of the weekend and it knocked it back some. I forget this time of year how my efforts to keep the grass out, and the moment of panic I have at some point mid-summer fade when we have the first frost of autumn and suddenly, for months and months, that worry simply disappears. 

Years here have shown me the things I can let go of. A good lesson for more than just the farm.

November Hill cat haven - part 3 (the tunnel!!)

The back yard and front porch enclosures were both very exciting and made life easier and happier for all of us, but I think the cat tunnel that connects the two was the most exciting thing we did in this grouping of cat haven constructions. 

It has become extremely popular with all the cats. I think of it as the first of the cat haven highways.

Here's the entry from the front porch:

The cats often don't even use the handy table - they just sail from porch floor into the opening. It occurred to me after the fact that it would be handy to have a little tunnel door we could use when needed to block the opening. I'm going to have the carpenter make one for each end next time he's here.

Next you can see how the tunnel extends around the corner of the house:

The ramp even has little "steps" for footholds if needed!

And here is Pixie showing off how it works:

And on she goes to the back yard:

And on and on and on. They seem to enjoy stopping along the way too!

The final leg of the cat haven highway, exit back yard:

And the "off" ramp:

I can't tell you how much they love this entire tunnel feature. 

I have more projects in mind that we'll add on when we can. For now, they're having a blast.

We do still need to get everything painted and/or stained to blend in with the porch and house. We debated when the carpenter was here how best to do this - he doesn't paint so we would have had to do it ourselves ahead of time or hire someone to coordinate with him while he worked.

If I had known exactly what I was going to do ahead of time I might have gone ahead and stained and sealed the wood before he started - which would have required him to drop it off and label it for us in advance so it would have time to dry. 

It seemed like a lot of work up front and so we went forward with the construction. It will require a bit more finesse to paint it now, but at least we can see what it looks like against the house and color it accordingly for best blending in.

I'll post after photos once we get that done!

Front porch cat haven heaven, a bit of feline congestive heart failure hell

First, the heaven. Osage, aka Muffine Eloise, enjoys the front porch this lovely Sunday morning. This is why we did it. 

Second, the congestive heart failure hell. 

On Thursday Mystic started throwing up. It initially seemed in response to his food, so we got different food only to learn that he was throwing up other times too. Then his cardiology vet had us stop the meds thinking something was causing nausea. He continued to vomit.

I found two hair balls, and at one point two of our other cats vomited one time each. 

We took Mystic in to have bloodwork done and his numbers all look even better than last Friday, so that was a relief. 

Suddenly the vomiting stopped but he now flatly refuses to eat the premium grain-free canned cat food he's been eating for the past year.

I purchased some high end frozen raw food yesterday and he ate two meals of that and now doesn't want that either.

The one thing he is reliably eating in the past 48 hours is human grade meat and fish. So I spent the morning mixing up a couple of batches of cat food using Dr. Pitcairn's recipes from my well-worn volume Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide To Natural Health For Dogs and Cats.

Meanwhile Mystic is back on the two most important heart meds per his vet. I'm feeding those using pill pockets and doing it in between the meals so he doesn't associate meds with food any longer.

Apparently this is a common issue for cats with congestive heart disease. He's alert and happy, playful and purring, but the food thing has been difficult for several days. I hope the home-made cat food continues to work.

He goes back to the cardiology clinic for a follow up in a week.

I'll be scheduling an appointment with our homeopathic vet too so that we can come at this from both ends of the medical spectrum. Will keep you posted. 

Meanwhile, Pixie shows off HER version of front porch cat haven heaven:

November Hill farm journal, 1

I'm reading a wonderful book right now, Henry Beston's Northern Farm: A Chronicle of Maine. Beston follows the seasons on his Chimney Farm in the 1930s and also offers thoughts on farm life versus urban life. His words ring true today and I'm finding myself wanting to share many of his passages as I read.

At the end of the first chapter he writes:

In a world so convenient and artificial that there is scarcely day or night, and one is bulwarked against the seasons and the year, time, so to speak, having no natural landmarks, tends to stand still. The consequence is that life and time and history become unnaturally a part of some endless and unnatural present, and violence becomes for some the only remedy. Here in the country, it all moves ahead again. Spring is not only a landmark, but it looks ahead to autumn, and winter forever looks forward to the spring.

Beston keeps a farm diary and after reading the first few chapters I'm going to do the same for November Hill. Many of the blog posts I've written over the years have been entries in an unofficial farm journal, but now I'm going to name them as such. Living on a patch of land and watching what happens as the days pass and months, and then seasons and years, is a gift. I feel it here every day and I'm happy to have Beston's book as a model to follow.

November Hill farm journal, 1:

It's the season of greening and growing things and what I'm watching this week is the grass grow. The back yard is a sea of knee-high grass that we let go because the cats so love hiding in it, and then the mower blade broke while mowing the way-back part of the farm, so we waited even longer for the new blade to be ordered and collected. We'll get to mowing this weekend but for now it's tall and lush and cats disappear completely in certain areas.

In years past I've let horses in to graze it down but this year we have the cat haven set up and until we change the gates to open inward, the wire is something one has to duck under to go in and out. Not an option for the horses, though if I opened the gate they'd try their best to come in.

I'm even more impressed by the overseeding I did of the bare area outside the barn doors. I spread stall waste in a fairly thick layer and let it compost for several weeks and then overseeded. Suddenly there is grass there again. Every day another bit fills in, all the more remarkable because it gets walked on every day by humans and horses. What was horse manure and fine pine shavings is now breaking down to earth. 

The parts of the paddock and fields that get muddy during rainy spells in the winter are the most miraculous of all. Every year I walk the mud and think, this is it, no grass will ever grow in this mess again, and every spring I marvel that suddenly those mud patches are green and beautiful. I don't know how it happens that earth so well-churned by hooves can turn to grass.

I alternate between focusing on the ground beneath my feet and the sky above - mainly the leafing out of the trees on the farm, oaks and tulip poplar, hickory and sweet gum. This week the wind blew soft, not the staccato sound of wind through dry brown leaves hanging on tight to otherwise bare branches, but the softness of air through new green leaves. I felt myself soften as I listened, the shift toward spring.

The water troughs take up time now. Pollen, now the oak tassels, shedding horse hair - these seem to collect on the water in the troughs and I spend more time cleaning and refilling than is ever needed in the winter months.

Tick count on horses is still under 10, which is a number I can live with. April is usually our worst tick month so I hope that holds true as we move toward May.

The vegetable garden is mostly in now and I'm harvesting all kinds of greens every day. The indoor plants are moving to the porch yesterday and today. I'm having to fit watering the garden into the routine. Thankfully the days are longer and there's more time in daylight to do these extra chores.

I've lost control of the flower beds yet again, though the work I did last year digging out the invasives has made a difference. The honeysuckle has become its own entity over the holly bushes in front of the porch. A project for next winter. For now I'm waiting for blossoms and the sweet perfume they offer.

One thing I know from years on November Hill - what I miss doing isn't much reason to fret. Another chance to take it on will come around again. Thank goodness.

November Hill cat haven - part 2

We've been happy with the back yard project and how much it positively impacted the cats to be able to go in and out into a safe place that also has interesting things to do. In the first few weeks we had the back yard open to them again they managed to catch a snake, a bird, and a squirrel. Now what they catch are mostly insects. 

They have trees to climb and dirt to dig in. They enjoy the deck and the umbrella that shades it during the summer heat.

The overseeding I did has paid off and the grass is growing fast back there. We've let the grass get really tall and they're hunting through it like lions on a savannah. Our vegetable garden is in our back yard so they enjoy spending time gardening with us too. It's a nice space for cats and Corgis and their people.

I knew we would eventually want to do something with the front porch so we could use it with the cats without worrying about them escaping into the larger farm again.

The porch has been a favorite space for them for years:

I spent several weeks poring through photos on Pinterest and elsewhere online trying to find ideas to enclose the front porch in an effective, yet aesthetically pleasing, way.

It didn't take me long to formulate a plan. I knew what I wanted to do, but I felt sure we weren't capable of doing this ourselves so I contacted a local carpenter, Kendrick Harvey, and he came by to look at the porch and help me think through the options.

I had three criteria: 

cat-proof

aesthetically pleasing and fitting with the existing ambiance of the house

able to be dismantled easily if we ever wanted to open the porch up again

Kendrick took my ideas, looked at the photos I showed him, and made it happen in an even more beautiful way than I expected.

Three weeks later he and his crew arrived and started work. This is what it looked like when they finished:

The bottom part of the porch railing is secured by plain chicken wire. You can't really even see it in this photo - it makes it absolutely secure for our adult cats and would also be safe for kittens. 

The upper areas are now fitted with portable, removable screens. They are stable and secure but very easy to remove if we want to open up the porch again, or for cleaning.

The beam that now goes from house to porch in the above photo is permanent. The triangular screen above that beam comes out like the others do. The other end looks the same way.

As you can see, we opted to do the painting ourselves. Once we get the wood painted to match the existing white of the front porch I think the final effect will be even better.

We have a wide front entrance which was somewhat tricky to figure out. Obviously we wanted something that could be used as the entrance to the front door - but it had to be cat-safe and it needed to integrate with the look of our house.

I found photos of a screen porch that had sliding "barn doors" - and that gave me the idea for what Kendrick did so perfectly:

He got a barn door track from the local feed store and made the sliding chicken wire screen doors to fit. They slide open so that the entrance is fully usable but when closed secure the entry way so that cats and Corgis are safe inside. 

I absolutely love it. Once painted I will install some artsy barn door style handles, a latch, and even a little hand pulled bell on the outside so visitors can ring upon arrival. 

It's been a pleasure to have the front door open again this spring. The cats have loved being able to lounge in the front porch chairs and watch the birds in the dogwood tree feeders. And we enjoy sitting close to the horses and donkeys as they graze right outside. 

The sunsets on November Hill are often spectacular - and now we can watch them again with the entire family around us!

Stay tuned for the part 3 - the cat tunnel - on Friday.