iliveonafarm-blog

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Morning commute #brookville #courthouse #snowymorn

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Starting the burn #frostburn (at Frostburn)

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Bat Country #frostburn (at Frostburn)

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Flaming bar #frostburn (at Frostburn)

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Harry Zelnick from Nicos Gun playing at FarmJammaLamma 4.  You can find the audio from their late Friday night set here by clicking on Harry.  

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FarmJammaLamma 4 was the best yet!  Pictured above is Digital giving one of their final performances together.  

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This was the first FarmJammaLamma.  Track 7 (listen to the whole thing, it's ridiculous) is where I looked up at the sky loaded up with stars, back down at what was happening in the barn, and my head came pretty close to exploding.  This ranks up there with the day I met my husband and the births of my children...

Click the photo.

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In honor of Earth Day tomorrow:

Find your own special place on this earth.  Make it awesome. 

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Just received the artwork for FarmJammaLamma 4.  Featuring over 30 bands July 4th weekend.  Special thanks to Mandi Stein at www.biandiarts.com.

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This is probably my favorite tree on the farm.  It is just outside the barn and provides just enough shade for a nap or an early morning yoga session.

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Sandy The Pony.  

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CREATE Brookville

The farm is the best place on earth.  4.4 miles away lies Main Street Brookville.  As I type there are 15 people eating, breathing and dreaming change.  Our small town is at a turning point where it can either continue on the path of many small towns where the young people grow up, move out and move on or our children will have the opportunity to grow up with a sense of pride and a feeling of community, equipped with the tools to become citizens of the world.  CREATE Brookville is the first step on our journey for enrichment.  Follow us as we CREATE something amazing!

http://createbrookville.tumblr.com/

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This spring the weather has been terribly unpredictable:  snow, rain, hail, ice.  There isn't much we can do outside other than collect maple syrup and produce the bounty that will keep us in pancakes, waffles and french toast for the rest of the year.  This year we used a system of taps, tubes and buckets to collect the sap every day.  We boiled the syrup using a 10 gallon metal tub over fresh clean natural gas.  

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Winter at The Farm

We take our winters very seriously at the farm.  Being cooped up in the house for 4 months is unacceptable.  Many conversations have come up over the years regarding how to maximize our fun to snow ratio.  After many attempts we are just starting to get it right.

My first winter at the farm my husband bought a snowmobile and each of us a snowboard.  We attached a water ski rope to the back of the snowmobile and towed each other all over the farm.  Up and down we would go, one day topping out at 59 mph with me being pulled along on my snowboard.

The next winter we bought a 5m kite, attached ourselves to our snowboards and set up in our next door neighbor's field waiting for wind.  This was not as effective as the snowmobile but it was pretty cool.

Last year my husband engineered our first rope tow using an 11 hp Honda motor, 2 pulleys, and rope.  All of our friends came over to ski and our 5 year old daughter learned how to stop, turn and do sick jumps off of the little kickers that we made for her.

This year my husband used an old tractor with a boom, a more complex system of pulleys and that same Honda motor mounted to a tree and the rope tow is running like a top!  In addition to the rope tow he also built a groomer using an old Tracker mounted on tracks.  He welded together the grooming unit using old steel and chains.  Today we tested her out and alas, we now have perfect corduroy!

Bring on the snow!

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Just finished the groomer this morning, attached it to The Beast and we now have perfect corduroy.

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This is the beast that my husband designed to be our snow machine and groomer for Winter 2011.  It is an old Tracker body mounted on tracks.

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Rope tow pulley and honda motor as seen from the top of the hill.