Second blog

The third Saturday of July, Kempo Rinpche, a Tibetan monk came to the farm to bless the land with a traditional smoke offering ceremony. The ceremony purifies the space and with the smoke that blows all 'round the world, sends blessing of peace and compassion everywhere. To finish the ceremony, the group of about 30 neighbors, friends, and family helped put up 3 large prayer flags to send out more joyful, peaceful blessings to all creatures on Earth. Thanks to all who came.

Next time there's an even like this, it will be posted beforehand as an invitation to you, reading now.

<-- That's Andy McFate, one of the three full-time farmers at Raven Ridge. Kevin Lane and myself, Geoffrey Steen, make up the rest of the crew who manage the milk herd, tend the flock of hens & ducks, grow the nursery of fruit trees, and till the gardens. Here, Andy is putting perlins on the milk parlor, an old photo from back in March. Since then, the pasture's greened up full of grass for the cows and weeds for the dreams of goats (cloven-hoofed friends that might be featured on next summer's pasture, and next year's blog, "Wild & Wily Weed Whackers") That's Kevin removing nails from salvaged wood,
again, back in March. -->

We've been able to cut costs by salvaging, re-using, cutting, and finding all sorts of materials including milled lumber, whole logs, nails, sheet metal, rocks, sand, and clay for our building projects and farm improvements.

To me, animals and plants are tremendously more wonderful to work with than wood and metal and rock, because they grow and reproduce on their own, move on their own, and do all the work without hammering, bulldozing, lifting and certainly they produce delicious cream and wild berries with a minimum of human effort. Cows, for instance, eat steep, hillside grass unsuited for me to eat, and make it into milk and cream. Those same hillsides grow wonderful bramble and tree fruit!

That's Bella and I in Late July. She's an affectionate Jersey heifer with horns hand-raised in Madison County, NC. As of this blog, she's gone on a 'Single's retreat' down east in Taylorsville, NC to meet some potential breeding partners...

If she's bred, she'll spend 9 months making a baby, and calve next year in early summer/late spring.

Malika is our oldest cow, over 8 years, from near Roan Mtn and Bakersville, NC. She's a holstein/jersey cross cow. Holsteins produce the most milk of any dairy breed and have the characteristic black/white coat of the milk cow pictured in cartoons and milk cartons. Jersey cows are smaller, and produce the least milk of any dairy breed, but compared to the watery milk of Holsteins, are loaded with cream--a richer milk better for making butter and pleasing the stomach!

Here's the herd!

from the left: that's Nandi, Dana, Malika, and Bella.

Dana and our newest cow, 'Willa'--not pictured-- are quite pregnant and will each drop a young bovine soul onto the grassy earth by the end of September.

Check back later for new photos!