Shannon Hayes

Two nights ago my mom left a message on my voicemail:

**sigh** Your father’s crying. One of his favorite pigs just died, the coyotes killed another lamb last night, and one of the ewes delivered a set of twins that were so huge, the second one died before we could pull it. **sigh** I’ve been mowing all day, and I’m too damned tired to do a thing about it.**click.**

After spending a day in the full sun battling weeds, covered in scratches and sweat, so was I. (more…)

Saoirse and Ula are three years apart. Saoirse, 8, is unusually tall, slender, well-spoken, and comes across to grown-ups as particularly well-behaved and extraordinarily poised. Ula isn’t any of those things. At 5, she’s about a foot shorter than her sister, demonstrates an ability to move exceptionally heavy objects for a child of her proportions, has a wandering eye that appears to have a mind of its own, wears glasses, and acts on impulse. I have been mulling over how I am supposed to help her work with that last attribute. (more…)

It was just getting dark the night of November 1st, 1999 as I locked my bike outside my Ithaca apartment, walked inside and learned from my roommate that Bob had been trying to reach me. He was waiting at my parent’s farm for my call. The new house we’d just purchased up the road from my parents, 2 ˝ hours away from where I was attending grad school, didn’t yet have a telephone. I went into my room, sat down at my desk and dialed. Bob answered on the first ring.
“Hi sweetie!” His voice was eerily chirpy.
“What’s up?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to make a promise to me.”
“What’s that?”
“Promise me that you’re going to stay in school.”
“Huh?”
“Say it. Promise me that you’re going to stay in school.” I was 2 years away from completing my Ph.D.
“Okay. I promise to stay in school,” I said lightly.
“Good. ‘Cuz I got fired today.” (more…)

Seven weeks of vacation was fun, but our farmers’ market starts in two weeks, and there is a backlog of work that needs tackling in order to be ready for opening day. We’ve been making soap, lip balm and candles; cleaning, repairing and updating our display spaces; weaving baskets to have in inventory;reclaiming the blueberries, grapes and asparagus from the spring weeds; organizing to get the sausage made; catching up on Saoirse’s homeschool lessons and Ula’s eye therapy; and tackling the glut of spring planting. This week, Bob also had to take our fleeces up to the mill in Prince Edward Island, where they will be made into blankets and yarn to sell. Two days before he was scheduled to leave, our sink backed up. He stayed up all hours of the night attempting every plumbing trick he knew of in an effort to clear it out.

Thankfully, the girls were both visiting friends and family for the weekend, leaving us alone to deal with the mess. In a last ditch effort prior to his departure, he went out and bought a gallon of some sort of liquid fire, dumped it down the drain, and hoped for the best.

Things only got worse. (more…)

By Shannon Hayes

Pardon the pun, but the one cut of meat I am most likely to see a new customer “bawk” at is a whole chicken. Our price for whole birds last year was $4.95/lb, 35% less than a pound of grassfed ground beef. Poultry is the cheapest meat at our farmers’ market booth. Interestingly, it is also the most expensive for us farmers to bring to market, owing to the cost of grain and the amount of labor required to produce and process a healthy pasture-raised chicken. Paying $25-30 for a whole chicken may feel like a stretch for someone who is accustomed to cheap* factory chicken from a grocery store, but truthfully, it is the best bargain at the market. A single 4 ˝-5 pound chicken can usually generate 3 different meals for a family of four, making a total of 12 servings. Thus, a 4.75 pound chicken winds up costing $1.96 per serving, a modest sum when you figure that a side serving of fresh local swiss chard costs $1.13 per serving, or that a side portion of decent quality potato chips costs $1.25 per serving. (more…)