Early Autumn News from the Farm

And a Throwback to 1983

Hello Colorful Friends:

It’s so nice to be back in touch with you all after last week’s newsletter - my first since April. It’s great to hear from you all and to update you on my creative life. The winner of last week’s Instagram Tannei Casey Bag Giveaway was @joyous360. I’ll ship the bag out to her when I receive her info. Congrats! Thanks so much to all who entered this first giveaway of 2021. You can follow me on Instagram here.

Oh how things have changed outside in a week. The garden is looking more tired and the autumn colors are developing. The sunflowers are pretty much over the year. There’s lots of seeds maturing and they will feed the birds and critters through the winter.

We found an unexpected surprise in one of the grazing pastures. Our ewes don’t often have triplets. The mama is doing a good job with them.

A few years ago, I was gifted a peach tree for Mother’s Day by my family. This year was the first year that I paid enough attention to it to actually harvest some beautiful (and not so beautiful) fruit. Let me say that I have an enormous amount of respect for fruit farmers — especially organic ones. The peach harvest took over a month of my life as I inspected the fruit daily not sure when to actually harvest it. There were many drops and very few peaches that were perfect. That’s okay. Chickens love drops. From the one dwarf tree I made several batches of jam, some fruit crisps (here is my recipe), ate some straight from the tree, and have a few bags frozen for this winter. I’m looking forward to next year’s harvest.

I’ve been making lots of pottery over the past few months. I hope to have a Shop Update sometime this fall. I have my pottery and tea towels every Saturday at the Amherst Farmers Market. In the meantime, there are some short videos of large vase that is decorated and ready for the bisque firing over on my Instagram feed. Here is a large vase I made a couple years ago that I kept for myself.

This weeks links……

• If you haven’t baked since last winter, Joy the Baker has 5 Tips for you for this coming fall.

• Best thing I made this summer - a Peach Crisp using this recipe and fruit from my peach tree.

• This recipe for a veggie centric mac and cheese might just make it onto the dinner table this week.

• I am reading Finding Freedom by Erin French, chef and owner of The Lost Kitchen. I hear she has a television show on the Magnolia Network.

• Nice piece over on Toast Magazine about Tom of Holland’s Visible Mending project.

• I like this from Austin Kleon about his Bliss Station. I’m lucky to have carved out a couple of them here at our farm. I lose myself in my work and it’s a lovely feeling.

Places to See in Western Massachusetts

• If you are traveling to western Massachusetts to “leaf peep”, I suggest a stop at The Book Mill in Montague. It’s a real gem and there is a cafe for coffee and a lovely restaurant too. Used and new books and places to sit while browsing. Sadly, there aren’t as many bookstores like this one left.

Video

• This YouTube channel comes from Azerbaijan. I’m in love with their simple country life videos. This video shows how they process 150 pounds of tomatoes for winter. Fascinating.

• I enjoyed this video interview (7 minutes) with author James Rebanks. His new book Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey is out now in the US. You might have read his first book The Shepherd’s Life.

Podcasts

• I just found a new to me podcast called The Long Thread. It is hosted by Anne Merrow, one of the founders of Long Thread Media. I really enjoyed two interviews thus far. The first one was with Susan Druding, Owner of the late Straw Into Gold and Crystal Palace Yarns talks about her background, how she started Straw and segued into the knitting yarn business. What an interesting fiber filled life she has lived. The second interview was with Linda Cortwright, owner and publisher of the magazine Wild Fiber. (FYI: Long Thread Media is the newish company to own and publish SpinOff, Handwoven, and Piecework Magazines. Linda Ligon, the founder of the original Interweave, is one of the owners of Long Thread Media. Here’s an article about the company that if you are a long-term fiber person, you may be interested in.)

While we’re on the subject of Interweave and SpinOff, I want to thank them for publishing two of the first articles I ever wrote back in 1983. Not only did they publish me, but they loved the author photo so much that they had an artist render it in black and white ink and put me, my dog Haida and one of our lambs on the cover. I found this copy in my Mom’s basement. Those were the days when we had 20 sheep…. Who knew we would still be at the sheep farming gig…….

Until the next newsletter issue, live colorfully. If you are local, I’ll be at the Amherst Farmers Market on the Common from 8 to 1:30 every Saturday morning until just before Thanksgiving.

Kristin Nicholas

P.S. Welcome to my new readers. Here’s a little background.

For many, many years beginning in 2006, I wrote a blog called Getting Stitched on the Farm. It is still on-line and you can check it out here. It was my happy place where I wrote about our lives on the farm, my creative life and what I was making and cooking (including favorite recipes) and where I wrote about the books I was writing. The blog opened up many new avenues for me for which I am grateful. I miss writing it and so this newsletter is a bit like the blog was.

As with all things in our world today, the internet moved on. Now it is all about Instagram (@kristinnicholas), Facebook (@kristinnicholasdesigns), TikTok (don’t think I will be doing that) and who knows what else is coming next. I am in my sixth decade of life and although I have always liked to stay current, there is only so much time in the day. Mostly I am enjoying Instagram and try to post a few times a week. I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook and will go months without checking in.

If you are new to what I do, the best place to start is to watch this video which was made by the fine folks at Houzz.com back in 2015. It will give you a feel for our farm and lives and how we live here on our patch of ground in western Massachusetts.

If for any reason, you no longer wish to read or subscribe, you can click the link at the bottom of this email.