Farm Dinners

betsy

Last year, totally serendipitously, I found a new part time job at a third-generation family farmette here in Pittsburgh. I was hired to do 8-10 hours a week of bookkeeping and invoicing, etc. While that is part of the job the bigger part has become much more than that. Farmer Tara has welcomed me as her partner-in-crime to help brood chickens, take care of the beehives, host special events (our first wedding is in October!) and produce the Summer Farm Dinner Series.

The Farm Dinners are one of the coolest things I've ever been part of. This season we have seventeen dinners in the series. Tara worked this past winter to secure chefs from around Pittsburgh to participate by planning menus based primarily on produce from the farm. The chefs also source meats and cheese and other items as locally as possible. We even ask that as much of the alcohol is locally produced and we're lucky to have vodka, rum and whiskey made right here. And the beer! So many great brewers doing their thing locally.

[Side note: We just started working with Hitchhiker Brewing Co right here in my little town. There are plans in the works for them to create a special Churchview Brew with ingredients from the farm. Standby for details on that.]

One of my favorite roles in these dinners is creating the look and feel of the farm. Getting to go "yard-sale-ing" (with my dudes) for vintage dishes and linens is a great way to spend a Saturday morning. We have amassed a nice collection to set the table and various other spots around the farm but I'm always on the hunt. The farm itself is ripe with old wooden boxes, farm tools and antlers to use to create the feeling I'm going for. The flowers for every dinner are pulled from the fields, herb garden, edges of the surrounding woods and Tara's mom's amazing garden. As such the arrangements change along with the season just as the menus do. It's really cool to watch the summer unfold and slowly turn to fall and bear witness to it in such an intimate, close to the earth, way.

I'm wildly thankful to be a part of what goes on at Churchview Farm.  Check us out when you get a minute.

Summer for real and everything is growing

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 It's the season of CSAs and farmers markets and fresh everything wonderful. I started a new job with Churchview Farm here in Pittsburgh and I love every minute I spend there. It's not just that the women who own it are awesome and driven and hard-working; it's not just that there are chickens roaming and dust-bathing and crowing and scratching everywhere; it's not just that bees are flying in and out of their hives - it's all of things rolled into perfect hours under the sun. When I'm not there I find myself daydreaming about our own farm sometime in the future. There's something special about having your surroundings sustain you in ways physical and emotional. I'm thankful for the things that are shifting in my life and in my heart. I'm thankful for my family who I share these days with. Grow some vegetables. And eat them. Enjoy your summer.

And then this!

 I just posted about Spring possibly, maybe, thinking about finding its way and look what I found in the hen house just now! I believe it's a sure sign.

Any other name

I love to name things - Christmas trees, cars, plants, animals - but not anything of my own.I am taking a leap this Fall. I am going to start - FOR REAL - making and trying to get an audience for all sorts of art and craft-related things that float around in my head but never see the light of day.So I need a name. What should I call this venture? I welcome any ideas and thoughts and suggestions. The name I'm mulling over is "Beehive Crafted." I love bees and their unwavering industriousness. Someone opined that this is a forgettable name (JERK) and someone else said it might be "too cutesy" (DOUBLE JERK) for the things I make. So...back to square one? Or not.The first step in my giant leap was to apply to vend my wares at Handmade Arcade. I've done this show in years' past at the L2 Design Collective table and I love every second of it. It draws a huge, selective crowd with great taste and to be accepted to exhibit is a pretty big deal. Fingers crossed.I'll be posting more in the coming weeks about the products I'll be making. Of course I will feature my Love Letter to Pittsburgh series of prints on wood (along with bees, chickens, etc). But there will be other new things in the works. Standby.And do let me know if you come up with anything magical.

**UPDATE: My dear, sweet, best big brother pointed out that by calling people JERK and DOUBLE JERK for giving feedback might dissuade others from offering their thoughts. He's so right. He's always right about everything.

Chicken Love

Thank you to everyone who stopped by to say hello and meet the girls at today's Mt. Lebanon Earth Day Festival. I loved seeing so much excitement over keeping backyard chickens. Also wanted to show everyone the three gorgeous eggs that the girls laid as soon as we got home. It was hysterical to see them dart from the crate, across the yard, into the hen house and up the ramp into their coop. And then, like, magic, these:Please don't hesitate to contact me with questions about chickens. I will do my best to answer or direct you to great resources. Email foxbury [at] mac dot com.

Before + After: Back of House

It is a slow process, this current renovation. If I'm being honest with myself I will admit that we'll never actually be "done" and that's fine. What would we do with ourselves if we finished? Start over somewhere else, I guess. And I'm not remotely interested in moving again so I plan to draw out this renovation for our eternity. Today happens to be a gorgeous one so I thought it was high time to show a before + after of what we've done to the back of the manse.Way back in the olden days:Step one was to remove the crazy arborvitae that was glomming onto the house.Step two: blow a big hole in the back of the house.Step Three: Have Bradley and Bradley Jr from Decks Decks Decks come out and work their magic.Step Four: make a margarita and then another and then another.And just like that (2.5 years later) we have a great space to live in and hang out and watch the hens doing their thing in the yard below.Happy Spring!

Before + After House (a million years later)

Contrary to what this blog would make you think about our lack of progress on the house we have been working like crazy. Our recent big project was a hen house for our girls, Chunky Penny, Lady Whistle and Ms Jackson.Naturally before building a hen house we thought we should go ahead and tear out the non-retaining retaining wall that the previous owners "built" out of broken bricks and concrete blocks. Here's a quick BEFORE shot to make you see just how heavenly our back yard looked when we moved in:FULL DISCLOSURE: the yard didn't look this nice when we moved in. I took this the morning we started the new retaining wall which was just a couple of months ago. Since we moved in we added the butterfly bush and the rain barrel that will eventually catch the run off from the garage.Anyhow - after a day of building the wall and learning that our next-door neighbors are really amazing, wonderful and generous (even moreso than we previously suspected) this is what we had to look at:  The next step was to build the hen house. Little Brother Anthony arrived (in jorts) to aid in the construction.  We made a ton of progress that weekend and then promptly walked away from the project for awhile due to work, travel, etc. You can see by the change in attire and the leaves on the trees how much time passed.TIME WARP:This is much nicer to look at, no?Now the girls live out there as happy as can be. I love to look it every day as more leaves fall and it settles in to look like part of the landscape.This project would not have been possible without the help of friends and family who donated time, supplies and food. I feel like I'm dedicating a book. Huge thanks go out to Anthony for jumping in and getting us moving on the construction; to Sierra and Tommy for helping to engineer and build the wall; to Ton and Sonja for lunch, tea service, gravel and dirt moving and all around moral support (and for giving birth to Sierra all those years ago); to Tammy, Barbara, John, Eric and Jan - neighbors who donated scrap lumber, chicken wire, shovels, etc.; to Dad, Kate L, Terry, Natalie, Cliff M and Janice D for donating license plates; to Mom for hanging out with Whistle and most of all, to Steve, who continues to indulge every crazy whim I get.I am so happy to have built something for the hens to live in that makes our home a more interesting, fun place to live, with the generosity and kindness of so many people involved. My heart swells.  

Chicken farmers!

And just like that, with a call from the post office, we became chicken farmers this morning. It was like Christmas around here  - for all of us. I remember getting chicks at Easter as a kid but I did not remember just how dang charming they are. I know we are supposed to be giving them some peace and quiet for awhile to adjust to their new surroundings but we are doing poorly in that regard. They're too cute to ignore.What is cuter than chubby kid-fingers reaching for baby chicks? NOTHING. End of discussion.I am surely not going to get any work done today.

Little Suburban Farm Life

The chicks should be arriving next week and we're so excited to see the wee things. Fingers crossed that they arrive safely. We're busy prepping for their arrival and also planning the large outdoor "Chicken CUBE" that we're building. We have pretty much decided to build a fully enclosed space and then site the coop - and all other hen-related things - inside the cube.First we have to relocate the castle: Then try to build something a lot like this:Then put this little guy into the "CUBE" (and finish staining the deck and rebuild the retaining wall and stack the firewood and and and)This past weekend we took a quick trip to Chadds Ford, PA and spent a few hours roaming around Terrain at Styer's in absolute awe of it all. I know where I want to be buried. Hope the fine folks at Terrain won't mind. Every square inch was inspiring. Maybe we will face one side of the CUBE in funnels? More on Terrain later. Headed to the incredible Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.