Winter is nearing it’s end

This past winter has been peaceful, restful and rejuvenating. It makes the demanding work of the farm the rest of the year worth it, in exchange for a winter of freedom. So much so, that this time of the year can almost be the hardest mentally. There is a combination of work and play that needs to happen before the end of March. The clock is ticking, and it’s the sound of ticking that disrupts the nerves.

Lisa chewing her cud in the sun.

Overall, it’s been a brilliant winter. The cows have remained in good health. Queenie is growing big! And Fingers crossed, we have enough hay to get us through until the grass starts growing again.

Hopefully we got a new winter tradition too:

We got in a great 3 day vacation at Wrightsville beach, back in in January. The Holiday Inn on the beach was a supreme oasis, with an indoor pool, outdoor hot tub and the beach right out the back door. This trip I think will become an annual staple, at least I really hope so. So pleasant! We all want to go back.

Winter is also my time to get creative and get adventurous. I’ve been in the mountains plenty. I almost have a full map completion of the eastern side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This past Saturday I finished up a 37 mile section of out of Waterville. The Smokies have been a winter destination for me over the past 2 years. The expansiveness and lushness of the park, even in winter, leaves me transformed every time I go. Even this past Saturday, I reached Mt Sterling’s tower at 7 p.m. Rain was coming down steadily. Fog made visibility low under my headlamps' meager glow. Rain changed the sounds of the forest to a steady patter, drowning out the silence. I kept up my spirits on the descent. Slipping and sliding all the way down the mountain. I felt like an uncoordinated wild animal crashing through the trees. I knew I was the only one around for miles and miles, performing this act. This is the freedom I’m talking about. What steps me out of the door, in the middle of winter, under less than ideal conditions, is knowing it’s now or never. With that being said, when I reached my truck back at the park’s parking lot, my beat up 2-door couldn’t make me any more happy.

I’ve been inspired and very interested in branding and design. Ever since I’ve tried designing labels for our cheese in 2020, I’ve been down this road of studying logos, lettering, images and color schemes. There is a great power in telling a story through images. Ad makers know the power and subtlety of images and video. Furthermore, I’ve noticed that cheese labels and cheese branding usually lag behind in style points compared with the beer, wine and the liquor industry. Although, cheese is up there is culture. So it really should have a modern, hip and well designed look. I love looking at the beer and wine labels to get the creative juices flowing(In comparison, I’m rarely inspired and intrigued by the design of a cheese label.) Some beer and wine labels are ingeniously fine art that you don’t mind having up on your wall. I hope to pull on those creatives and bring some in to our cheese labels and farm imagery, with some more practice and patience.

My latest in Lane in the Woods lettering design. It went cosmic! I started with pencil and paper. Took a picture of it. Placed it in the iPad and used procreate to play around with the lettering more so. I then put it into Affinity designer. I vectorized the lettering. I then put it back into Procreate and added the sun, moon, stars and mountains.

More farm imagery! There are so many different styles to play around with. I usually carry a style as far as I can take it and see where it leads me.

As we enter March, it’s time to finish up the farm projects. All this needs to happen before our first calf arrives later in the month. This is when freedom officially ends and its full time farm for the rest of the year. We are finishing up our barn which has been sitting unfinished for the last 6 years. (Where did the time go?) We are raising up all our calves this year, and this will be there home as they grow. It’ll be real nice to finally have this done.

The posts have been in the ground for over 6 years! If you see where the tractor is in the photo, that side of the barn was finished in 2016. I have been scratching my head why I haven’t finished the structure. The post in center of the photo have been warped and bent out of shape by the sun, since it wasn’t anchored to anything(and hitting it with the tractor a couple times doesn’t help.) I still can’t come up with a good reason why I left the barn unfinished and even more so can’t figure out where the time went. This picture is of Kate’s father, Oliver, which he oversees and helps when he visits!

More under way…

The plan today is to remove everything out of the Creamery, this includes the vat, sinks, tables etc. and we are going to hire a concrete finisher to lay down a nice commercial grade blue floor epoxy. This is very exciting. It’ll look really nice and it’ll be easy to clean and kept sanitary. Besides the mini splits and the spray foam insulation, this will be the 3rd job we have hired out. Very happy to do so.

The transition to milking always feels natural once it starts. I can confidently say that we have never fully been ready. There is always something that needs finishing that doesn’t get complete. But we must be a little more prepared than last year, and surely more ready for calving than the year before that, and the year before that?

It feels like I’m already missing winter.

Hanging out in the snow in Big Ivy, NC