Double zero

Days 50 and 51 Miles: 0 and 0 Mileage from start: 4,292 One zero of errands, helping with harvest at Sweetland Farm, visits with friends and cleaning muddy bikes turned into two zeroes.  We love it here so much we just needed another 24 dose: Reading and playing in swimming holes and eating food that […]

Into Vermont

Day 49 Miles: 98 Mileage from start: 4,292 The first ferry across Lake Champlain to Vermont went at 7 a.m. We woke up at 5:30 so we would have time to eat a big breakfast and pack up and ride the two miles to the ferry by 7. And it all worked perfectly.  We got […]

Now we’re early risers

Day 47 Miles: 125 Mileage from start: 4,099 We decided to give ourselves more time by getting up and out before 8 a.m. By 10, we’d covered 30 miles.  I remember when crossing from New Jersey to New York on the Appalachian Trail, I was surprised by how hilly New York was. All of a […]

The animals of Sweetland Farm

Livestock are a vital component of small farms. They allow the farmer to cultivate new crop fields by providing in-house fertilization; and, in the case of pigs, built in rototillers. Sweetland Farm raises chickens for meat, swine and sheep. The chickens and sheep eat and poop their way around their given runs, leaving behind precious […]

Tales of a right-hand farmhand

It’s been three weeks since I started working for the lovely and talented Norah Lake as her right-hand farmhand at Sweetland Farm. In short, I’ve experienced, and (generally) recovered energies from, twice-weekly harvests, building an electric fence, slaughtering a meat-chicken flock, moving pigs and sheep to new pasture, second-cut hay bail chucking and so much […]