Have you joined?

Lunachick Mountain Farmstead wishes to formally thank Pete Kennedy at the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund for everything he does to protect our rights and access to real food.  Thank you, Pete.

If you grow or eat real food, I strongly encourage you to join FTCLDF today.  It's a small step that can make a big difference in the outcome of the war on raw milk.

Turning the corner

We're coming up on midwinter around here.  Solstice is past, the days are getting longer... only 100 days to go until breakup.  It's been cold, dark and windy lately- trying to keep busy, and not let it wear on me.  

Ben was home for the month of December, and now he's getting ready to head stateside for some sportsman's expositions while I stay home and farm.  My Mom left for a few months to visit her family, so I'll be truly solo for awhile.  Hopefully everything will function as designed.

Meanwhile, my chickens are happy as can be and the goats are doing well too.  Egg production is continually increasing and even milk is starting to come up.  Only a few weeks now until our kidding season starts.

I brought Tripp, our border collie, home at harvest.  Today I realized that he's really fitting in around here.  The goats accept his presence enough now that he can be outside while I'm milking, instead of having to leave him the house for stress reduction.  Taslyn loves that dog like a brother... he's pretty high energy, but he's predictable and trustworthy.

So, this is just a quick note to say that all is well on the mountain.  Hope your holidays were happy!

Cold hands, warm heart

Five hours of driving, 3 hours of distributing goods, 2 hours of packing and hauling and loading and unloading goods, an hour of shopping, and regular chores on both ends... and all while navigating single digit temperatures.

It was a great day in all, sparkling snow in the day and a million stars by night.  I love my job and I love this land.

Even though the tailgate would only drop half the time I needed it to, and even though I almost ripped my arm off trying to start the snowmachine.  The milkhouse windows are covered with the most elaborately beautiful frost designs... and all is right in our world.

Thanks to my customers and shareholders, and especially to my family, for your support.  I could not, would not, should not do it without you.

Unseasonal weather

Add another record weather event to the books.  Now that was quite a storm...

Most of Alaska got hit hard by a massive low pressure system that packed a wallop of warm and wet, bringing a pretty wild icestorm to the Greatland.

When it thaws in the Alaskan winter, things are a real mess- and an element of danger is lent to the scene. 

At our elevation, we didn't suffer as much as most- and thankfully I didn't have to tackle the roadsystem in all of it's dysfunctional glory.  

Ben and Gramma spent the entire 4 days in Valdez, waiting out the weather, so I was home alone with the small child... hunkering down and taking care of business on the farm.

Now the storm has passed, my family is home again, and there's about 3/4 inch of ice remaining on every surface that is not deep in snow.

The only casualty was our tool tent, which magnificently collapsed as I was walking up to it to reduce the snowload.

We're fine, the animals are fine, travel has been restored to a decent degree and on we go.

Ready

Judging by the mare's tails covering the southern sky, there is a weather change on it's way.  Supposedly by Monday it should be warming up and with a chance of snow the rest of the week.  We'll see about it.  I feel like we're ready.

Ben is down at the bottom, heating up the dozer to plow out the mine road for the first time this year.  Then he'll stock us up on firewood.  This afternoon, we're planning to harvest the geese.  Yesterday, the chicken coop addition got insulated.  Everything else is status quo.  Bring it on.