I Just recently I learned about this thing "communal dining" - at first sight it looks like what we are doing. Then I read about it and I read people complaining about it and why they did not like it... I am very happy that we are doing communal dining - even if we are not doing communal dining, actually, let me turn things around, I am going to reclaim the name - we ARE doing the real communal dinners. And here I also argue why if you attend a real communal dinner and you have a negative experience like one described by some food critics, then you are kind of missing the whole point. 
What is the dining experience at our farm? Well, first of all, we are NOT a restaurant. We do NOT want to be a restaurant and we do NOT provide a restaurant experience.

We open our home to a few guests every month and we cook for them and pamper them the way we would with our own guests at home in Italy. We provide a warm, homemade meal. If you are thinking of food like spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna with ricotta cheese and pepperoni pizza you can stop right now. First of all our food is authentic Italian without compromises. When we cook we like to prepare our own puff pastry for voul-au-vent filled with local cheese fonduta and wild morels mushrooms we harvested in our woods. Now multiply that for 5 to 8 courses. Yes, that type of homemade cooking.

The food, made with love and respect for what our land and farm provides is only one of the ingredients. The setting is the second secret ingredient. When you walk into this 1850s farmhouse, where no one wall is straight, you cannot help but feel comfortable. This is a farmhouse that has hosted a dozen or so farm families over the years. When you sit at the table you are taking part of a ritual that unites you with the dozens of farmers that set there before. You can feel the genuine commitment, the struggles, and the determination of the many hands that farmed this land. And then, you get distracted by a rooster that jumped on the bush in front of the window and is spying on you, or the host (me) announces that it will take few extra minutes to serve dessert and points outside the other window where you can see a flock of sheep running freely down the street with the "chef" that is now running after them trying to get them back in the fences. Things are real here - we are not a "hobby" farm or a farm exclusively built for visitors - we farm.

Food, hard work, love for the land and for the animals; that is why people come here and that is why strangers are not really strangers... they all have something in common and when they sit down they have a communal dining experience. At our farmhouse a meal take a few hours. Food is not a quick way to provides you with the energy enough to run to the next thing. Food IS the thing you are committed to doing. After hours or days spent preparing the ingredients and then mixing them together in authentic recipes, our only job is to be mindful of the experience and enjoy it as much as possible. Each bite. Slow down, have fun, talk and relax. No one is bringing the check to tell you it is time to clear the table for  another guest.  People from all ages and all backgrounds surprise themselves with something in common, laughters and chatters starts filling the rooms and the few hours go by faster than you would imagine.

At our farm, this is a communal dinner. I guess I understand why some food critics are not happy with the concept of communal dining at restaurants. First of all, their main job is to criticize, and I imagine people may run out of things to write about - it may be hard to be funny and entertaining when talking positively about a restaurant and it is a lot easier to be witty and funny by complaining about something. Second, I cannot see how a sense of community can be achieved in a restaurant where people come and go at different times, meals take 30 to 40 minutes to be consumed and people may not have very much in common.  There is also a different role for the people attending one of our dinner vs. customers at a restaurant. The customers at a restaurants are "consumers" of a service. People coming to our farm are partners in our agricultural community - they have an active role in supporting the type of agriculture we use and are our accomplices in working towards preserving old cooking traditions and practicing agriculture in a way that respects our animals and our land. 

When Stefano and I started farming we used to take long walks around the land and talk of our vision, how we wanted our farm to be. We had to compromise on the role of pigs, the amount of crops, the focus on the farm, but one thing we always agreed was that it takes a community to farm. We had no idea on how to form or find that community so instead of having a recruiting plan, we left our doors open to anyone that wanted to share a little bit of their journey with us.
We met people from all walks of life.
Some never farmed before and wanted to see if that was the right thing for them. Others had a clear goal of a homestead or wanted to live the romantic slow paced life in the country (ah ah ah! It did not take us long to burst that bubble). Yet, others wanted to find their limits and figure out what they wanted from life. Our 5 bedroom farm house hosted person after person and all sorts of hands tilled the soil, pulled the plastic from the pastures, petted the pigs and shoveled a few scoops of manure. Eventually everyone moved on.
Stefano and I still wondering about our idea of a farming community and still very much wanting this dream to be shared by more than just the two of us.
Then here arrives katie. About 2 years ago her mother, Katie and her aunt decided to stop by the farm to drop off acorns for our pigs. As I am giving a farm tour to our 3 guests with acorns, a group of pigs decides to explore the neighbour's hay field. I start running after the pigs in the fields and katies, very naturally, follows me and helps me bring them back. A few months later Katie arrived at the farm with a box of religion and philosophy books (she is completing a BA at the University of Vermont), settled in the room with the largest king bed in the farm house, and still maintains ownership of that room. Katie also earned the farm "poop oscar"  as best poop shoveler at the farm - she is very proud of that accomplishment. 
After 5 months from katie's arrival, Bobby sends me an email - he is an old student of mine that graduated 4 years prior. He had a good earning job as manager for a hotel chain and wanted/needed to change scene. He wanted to farm. His goal was to learn everything he could so he could buy a piece of land in Montana and farm on his own. After 5 months of living and farming with us he came in the kitchen all upset "You ruined it! You ruined the dream... I cannot buy my farm and farm alone ... farming is a community thing." And so it is... at least, our type of farming is a community thing.  Don't take me wrong, there are a lot of solitary activities at the farm. Most things we do we do it independently from each other. We are always moving electric fences, cleaning the barn, watering the animals, feeding the animals. We spend so much time alone that we have started entertaining long philosophical conversations with the pigs (pigs are better listeners than sheep - we all agree).  But we do not feel alone - we know someone is working in conjunction with us towards the same goal. It is like being part of an organism where each limb has its own job and independence but the final outcome is this intricate combination of detailed work. And if something cool is going on, it takes only a few minutes to reach someone and make them follow you to the place where you spotted a bobcat, or where you found a snake swallowing a frog, or to laugh at the pig that got himself stuck under a table. All the burden are lighter also when they are shared by a group of people and our own unique talents are complementary. For us, farming is definitely a community thing. 

 One great benefit of running a farm, or at least a farm in the north east, is that it keeps you in tune with the changing of seasons and I truly believe that I am a seasonal animal. Some people may be happier in a place where there is always a mild summer that shifts to a hot summer and then back to a mild summer. I am not. I need the hot summer, the breezy autumn, the freezing cold of winter and the crazy unsettling temperature of spring. There is something incredibly satisfying into these shifts. And let it be clear, I do not like the freezing cold (as matter of fact Stefano is happy that spring has arrived so he gets to have a break from me complaining about the cold) but it is not a matter of liking it, but rather a matter of needing it. At the farm you learn that seasons are more than a shift in temperature - there is a shift in the cycle of nature and also (forgive me for bringing in the psychologist in me) there is a shift in your thoughts and your attitude towards the world (we call it cognitive processes). From the perspective of natural cycles, Spring is the host of the most dramatic shift you can witness at our farm. Even this year when he winter was very mild for north eastern standard, you can still feel that spring has arrived with a bang! And to be specific, spring arrived last week :) All of the sudden, life is EXPLODING in all directions! Green shoots are coming out of our soil boxes, baby chicks are kicking their way into this world and lambs are popping out like mushrooms (we have piglets every month so they are less of a seasonal event for us). When I mean that life is exploding in all directions I meant, ALL, so that means that with life comes also its byproducts :) yes I mean manure!! We have manure coming out of our ears these days. Winter froze all sorts of lovely manure morsels that now are thawing but the soil is not ready to absorb this nourishment yet so the farm is transformed into this big manure storage space - with all the lovely scent that comes along with this. From he perspective of the homini sapiens at the farm, Spring is about HOPE - Spring is time to get ready for the big pasture/rotational season. We need to focus our energy and efforts on few priorities because it is only few of us and lots to do. So books about agriculture and husbandry theory and practice fill every flat surface in the house, notebooks full of ideas lie everywhere and conversations about different approaches and farming goals substitute the winter conversations about recipes and food preferences. From all these drawings and ideas grows a very well structured, organized impeccable plan that simply cannot fail! We have few more weeks before we need to have our plan nailed down for the upcoming season and then the summer dance begins. In farming at the commercial level there is very little room for mistakes. Any detail left behind has the potential for repercussions on all other levels of the system and that can easily drag you down. I am well aware that often times people are attracted to farming because of the romantic view of farmers enjoying the outdoor life, being able to stop under a tree to contemplate nature. The reality of a small farm in the beginning phases is much different from this. Indeed farming, for me, has been anything but a calming and relaxing experience - what is necessary is precision, efficiency, ability to push yourself to the limit, creative ways to look at problems and determination to get up after the nTH time you fall down. Spring is the time when you  plan ahead as much as you can and you forget that every year this happens and every year Nature reminds you that it does not matter how much you prepare or plan ... stuff happens. But at least in the wee hours of the evening, when you sit down in front of your list and your spreadsheets, you have a clear, well planned farm in your mind and you better enjoy it all because that is the only time when you will see it that way :) So spring is HOPE that this year it will be different and all you have prepped for this winter and the previous year will be ready to be harvested and enjoyed.
Summer is time for DOING. We, the farmers, are not the only one "doing" each single piece of the enterprise is DOING! and sometimes doing too much! Sheep are eating eagerly the grass, grasses, plants, legumes, trees are sending our their leaves, harvesting the sun light using all the water available, pigs are exploring, harvesting, digging, growing!, chickens are searching, hunting, laying eggs and what we are left to do is to coordinate all this. It is like being the captain of a complicated ship where all the different parts of the staff do not communicate to each other. You got to do something with the grass if the pastures are growing faster than the sheep can eat, and you need to provide new safely fenced paddocks if the pigs are digging more than they are supposed to, and you need to make sure everyone has enough water and fuel to make sure they can grow at the right speed. Inevitable it comes a time when I feel I am behind and some aspect of the system is suffering. last year it was the soil. We did not have access to our equipment so we had to let some field become overgrown and that affected the soil and also the pasture quality and logically we lost feed for our sheep. Just when you feel you have attended the needs of one of the members ... inevitably the needs of another part of the puzzle are left behind. SO summer is not for thinking, summer is for DOING.
Autumn is for harvesting. It is true that we harvest our meat all year around and that vegetables are harvested throughout summer, but Autumn is when you harvest considering the months ahead - it is time to anchor down. Only if the plans you made in Spring were followed and well executed you will have enough to set aside for the winter and Autumn is when you get to count what you have left in your pockets. Autumn is also time for the big roasts, the special traditional foods that keep us connected to our history and our culture. The porchetta roasts start piling up in the freezers and we start planning for the big social dinners coming up (Thanksgiving, Xmas and, for us, Cenone - New Years's eve epic dinner).
WINTER - winter for me is for sleeping. I am not a person that sleeps a lot, I can happily go by with 4 to 5 hrs per night but comes winter and I become dysfunctional if I do not have at least 8 hrs. I get sleepy shortly after the sun goes down (which here in  VT means it is hard for me to stay up past 7pm) and I would be completely contempt to sleep and eat the whole day. But I do have animals to attend, so I roll out of bed and go take care of the little guys across the street. Unfortunately in winter we have to work harder than before in some basic things we do not even boher with in the summer months: cleaning the barn becomes a whole day ordeal (and it is never fully clean), giving water is sometimes an epic adventure with potential for story telling for the following years (do you recall when your hair froze to the bucket of water? Or that time when you poured the whole buck on your head and it was -20 outside and almost died of pneumonia? funny stories of endurance like that...). That is the time when I always threat to raise the price of bacon :) I love pigs because when it is cold and windy, they also do not want to be bothered so at times they barely bother to get up as you put food in the early hrs of the morning (fast forward to Spring and you feel they are ready to eat you alive from how much they are screaming if you are 10 minutes late to deliver breakfast!). Winter also is time to enjoy all you have harvested during the summer and it is time for more indoor projects, and for us that means curing and preserving our meat! The natural cold temperature is perfect for making all sorts of insaccati (called in the US charcuterie). Recently I was at a pizzeria in VT with my daughter (5 yo)  who noticed the place was very italian looking, or at least, very familiar to her, which I think is what prompted her to start this conversation with the waiter: "Where is your basement?" The waiter confused "The basement? You mean the bathroom?", Eva "No, the basement, you know, where you hang your prosciutto and salame for the winter?" Which makes me realize that perhaps I am succeeding at giving her an idea of what it is like to grow up Italian even in the middle of Vermont.

It is January.

January arrived with a bang! Stefano and I were busy cooking and serving the Cenone to our guests. It was so much fun I do not even have the words to describe the pleasure of cooking traditional foods that have populated my childhood and seeing people appreciating these flavors and enjoying each others company. I was in heaven. Thanks for coming over guys, you helped me have the best new years eve I can recall.

What do you do during this time of the year? For the farm January is a time when our chores end earlier (because it is dark earlier), so we get to enjoy more time in front of the warm fire in the living room. Eva is old enough to play cards so we have been doing a lot of that, something that I grew up doing with zia and nonna. Everyone at the farm is an avid reader, so in the evening we tend to gravitate to the couch by the fire with books about cooking, butchering, baking and psychology (I am a psychologist) scattered all over the room.  Starting in the late evening and going all night till the early morning the two ovens in the kitchen do not get much of a break between ciabatta, whole wheat loafs, pandoro bread, brioche bread, puff pastry and all sorts of baked goods that the two male bakers at the farm produce on a daily basis – I have to thank my mother for gifting me a fast metabolism and 85 pigs that keep me busy scooping manure if I do not reach 200Lbs in the winter. The house smells like a bakery all night long making the atmosphere even warmer in front of the fire.

January is also time to fix the greenhouse, get the beds for the seedling organized, order the seeds, turn the compost, and plan the garden for next year. There is always so much excitement in the planning stages. It is also the only time when you feel things are organized… as soon as the spring begins and you realize you have under-estimated the amount of work that it takes to open up a new pasture for the pigs or the time it takes to bring food to the further pasture … all those plans begin to shift and get reshaped into something more manageable. But in January you can dream of a perfectly functioning 2 acre vegetable garden, 20 synchronized pig paddocks and cover crops. This is also the time to shear sheep to free them from the burdocks they have collected in November and hope that next year we can remove all the burdocks before the sheep find them. You arrive home with your clothes smelling of lanoline a scent that brings me back to the times when zia did laundry in Italy. It is also time to say goodbye to the ram lambs that will be sent to the slaughterhouse and to name the ewe lambs that are officially recognized as breeding stock. 

A new generation of pigs is about to arrive at the farm. Many of you met Gustavo, our new Berkshire X Old Spot boar that loves tomatoes. Today he was introduced to Franchina, our youngest gilt (female pig that has not had a litter yet). Franchina is a ¼ Duroc X ¼ Hempshire X ½ Tamworth. She is a beauty. He is massive. They liked each other … immediately. In 4 months we should see the effect of adding the Berkshire to the genetics of our litter. Franchina comes from Josephina, one of the three sows that we have selected as our top breeders. The other two sows (Salciccia and Mozza) are about to give us litters that were generated with Zeus (Tamworth X Hempshire). It is fun to be finally at the point where we can play with genetics and see the effects on the final product!

Fresh veggies and fruits on Wednesday and Saturdays for the pigs! We have started picking up the pulp from Tomgirl Juice (Burlington) and … oh boy the pigs love it! It is so much fun to feed them the colorful pulp and plants left over from the juice bar! We are using the pulp only as supplement to add vitamins and anti-oxidants to their diet. In addition to provide a yummy and enjoyable treat for our animals, all these flavors will get trapped in the fat cells and will be released while cooking making the flavor more complex. Gustavo (boar) could hardly contain himself last night when I walked into his pen with a bucket full of vegetable goodies! He was so excited he started jumping and running after me as if he was a little piglet again. Happiness! It is so satisfying to give our pigs fresh wholesome food that we know it is good for them and they enjoy so much! And it is also satisfying to think of all the wonderful flavors that will get trapped in the fat cells and that will be released once we sit down to enjoy the meat coming from our piggies.  

Welcome January. I am looking forward to the rest of the month.

2016 … what a year! As I sit by the fireplace with Eva jumping from “castell to castell,” dressed as a ballerina with a plastic pig nose, the images of all that has happened are rushing in.

Our Pastures:
This year we really focused on our pastures and the rotational plans. We had a 12 acre poison parsnip field that we tackled in early June scratching our heads - what shall we do with this? We could go in the field only in the evening or on a raining day because the raccid poisonous plant was as high as our heads. I knew from my previous experience that pigs and sheep are not badly affected as humans are, but I was not sure how they were going to respond to that much parsnip. We tried with our stronger pigs in a small area and once we did not see any negative outcome we started bringing in everyone! The field is about half a mile from the barn so that meant lots of nice field walks with lines of pigs following us (most definitely the highlight of the year!). During a farm tour someone asked me where I learned to move pigs from field to field like that - in most farms, pigs are either put on a trailer to be moved to a far away field or the farmers build adjacent paddocks so that they do not need to “walk” the pigs. It made me think back to when I had only 3 pigs in Hinesburg and in the Fall I would take them on their weekly walk around the property and we would make stops at the apple trees and under the oaks to pick fallen acorns, and then back home. Yes, I would actually take the pigs for walks, and they would follow me back to their pens after a while. The trick? They liked their pen. If you like your home, you look forward to coming back after a short trip out, right? Pigs are the same. So today we use that knowledge to move pigs out in the far away fields.

Our animals:
This year we bought a new boar. His name is Gustavo and we love him! He is a gentle giant and a lover of vegetables and especially red tomatoes. He also likes warm hugs. We have been culling some of the sows that were giving us good litters but had difficult personalities and were not getting along with any of the other sows or were getting a bit vicious towards us. We are raising 4 new sows and are working on selecting their names. We are staying clear from asking Eva’s help for these ones though since last year we ended up with “Chicken Coop,” “Blue Sparkling Rainbow with Glittery Shining Eyes” and a third one that was actually an entire verse of a song with melody and everything. This year is the first year we sent to the slaughterhouse some of our older ewes. These were ewes that I got 5 years ago, right before Eva’s birth, to start our flock. It was hard to depart from them but… one had a terrible attitude and kept leading half of the flock into adventures around the neighborhood (life did improve after she left the farm), and the other two could no longer have babies because of mastitis or prolapse problems, so we had to say goodbye. One small silver lining is that their meat is truly fantastic and you would not be able to guess it was mutton. I just served it to a farm lunch and people were shocked to find out it was mutton. Yes it was! So, that makes me happy that we can enjoy and have a fully satisfying meal without wasting their meat after they have been part of the farm for a long while. 2017 will be the year of chicken, not necessarily because we will stop raising sheep or pigs, but because we are going to focus more on our biped feather-friends. After moving to this farm and having to face new voracious predators we took a break from farming chickens until we had the time to fully focus on their safety. Now… we are ready to enter the fight with the local weasels, coyotes, and various avian predators.

Research:
We put water probes and have now collected soil samples from the parsnip field. We collected water samples using these terracotta probes we placed about 20-30 inches below ground and after each rain fall we would suck the water collected on the bottom. This will allow us to see any effect the pigs had on water quality in that area. Why? Everyone says that animals on pastures have a good effect, right? Nope. Not always, and it really depends on how long they trump on the soil. We like asking questions and searching for objective answers rather than just using our intuition… so we probed the land. For sheep and cows farmers there are grazing stick to tell us when it is time to move the animal to a new pasture. For pigs… there is not such a thing. We used this parsnip field high in clay, to figure out how long to keep the animals there in different situations 1) to maintain the pasture and have the least negative impact as possible, 2) to slightly till the land to do some light re-seeding and improve grasses/legumes varieties and 3) for a heavy tilling to lift up and expose any superficial rocks so that we can clear the land and seed it. Now we are checking the impact of our practice on water and soil for these different types of pig management plans. 2016 was the first year we could actually add research to our farming. Exciting!

Our community:
We have put quite a bit of effort in continuing to build the community around the Farm. It is not always easy to balance the needs of our animals with the demands that come with having guests, but the satisfaction of seeing people appreciating the opportunity to connect to our animals and the land is priceless! It is also a good way for us to keep in check and make sure we keep giving 100% and live the life we preach. We have added lunches to our monthly calendar and this has allowed us to meet many people that lived too far away to join us for the evening meals or that felt the dinners were running too late for their schedule. We have also reached out to the Middlebury community and have met many new friends there that have become regular customers around our tables. We have put together a very rustic, outside, wood fire oven that we have not used much in 2016 but that will receive all sorts of love and attention in 2017! As I write I have next to me the menu options for the Cenone, our New Year’s Eve dinner! We are so excited about this. We hope it will become a well embraced tradition at the farm! It takes us 4 days to prep the food for the event and 6 hrs to eat it J We are so excited to bring this Italian tradition here in VT. Among the most memorable ways we connected to our community was the Raviolo Clinic we did for Addison Farm to Early Childhood Program. Jed Norris, from Shelburne Farms brought over a group of early childhood educators for a tour and a class on making ravioli and connecting children to farms. It was so enjoyable to spend the evening with our hands dipped in flour and eggs around the kitchen island!

Our Farm Family:
In order to survive, our farm relies on the hard work of interns that move in with us and share with us living quarters, food, farm and housing responsibilities. We fall trees together, we work at the farm elbow to elbow and then we cook, and drink and clean and read and watch TV together. Every time our farm becomes a little richer with the sweat and the gifts that each intern brings. Tirragen was with us for half of 2015 and half 2016. His love for the animals and attention to the personality of each one definitely enriched our farm culture. Also we owe him the nice flock of meat birds we have right now (well into their third generation) and that you all will soon be able to enjoy! We also owe to Tirr the duck and geese that we have at the farm (true that we have no idea how to farm these birds yet… but they are here and made it clear they are here to stay, so we gotta learn how to farm them). Over the summer we were relying on the work of 5 people and, as I already told many people that saw me overly stressed in June), 2 people we hired stayed for 2 days then packed everything in the middle of the night and left! Yes, they left without saying anything –they just left an email saying that the cat allergy was too much for them. Even when I contacted them pleading to reconsider their decision because without them the farm may have gone under, all I got back was “we are not reconsidering, best of luck to the farm.” Mmmmh … “best of luck” really sounded like a “go to hell to the farm.” So, while Stefano was in Italy taking his agronomist exam, it was only 2 left at the farm, Drew and I. Drew was an intern from UVM who … who simply saved the farm. He worked 40 hrs per week next to me as we were building paddocks, putting down water lines, weed whacking around the electric fences, pulling birdocks off the sheep pastures, wheeling the feed for 80+ pigs half a mile into the pastures. And we were also planting vegetables, building raised beds for 140 tomato plants, for zucchini, planting peas, beans, lettuce…. And of course taking care of chickens, rotating the sheep paddock daily, castrating and vaccinating the new piglets, butchering three times a month and going to market. Drew gifted to the farm the pace of the hard working day we have kept till today. We have all learned a lot from his ability to face the day with a smile and positivity no matter how hard it was going to be and his ability to put 100% effort no matter what. His footsteps are all over the farm and each single one of our pigs has received plenty of petting and scratches from him because no matter how long the day was, Drew found the time to “flop a pig” while doing chores. And now we get to the present time. Now Andrew is sharing our house and farm. Andrew is not only an experienced carpenter that has given a facelift to the pens inside the barns and added new feeding areas that help us keep piggies clean and healthy, but he is a superb cook! His passion for old traditional foods and the art of baking has definitely shaped our lunches and dinners at the farm, not only for our guests but our daily meals at the farm. Andrew has been stimulating our interest in trying out new products that we will be excited to bring to market next year.

In addition to the “farm family” that lives here, our little farm community also includes Richard Witting, the chef that works his magic during the farm dinners. Richard strong connection to the land, his knowledge as an expert forager, and his creative tastes have left a strong print all over our farm and in our memories. I do not walk our pastures the same way any more. I am in constant search for some of the special bites of deliciousness that grow in the most unexpected places and this makes me feel so much more connected and grateful of the 56 acres we farm. In addition, Richard is father to a daughter that has become good friends with Eva and in the summer time it is fun to take the girls mushroom picking or foraging (an excuse perhaps for mom to be out foraging with Richard?).

In 2016 two new people enriched our farm team, Chef Julia Clancy and photographer, PR exceptional and jack of all trades Brooke Wilcox. Julia approached me as she was planning to move to VT. She read an article on Seven Days about the farm dinners and wanted to be connected to this type of environment. To get to know each other better we decided to have our interview over food where we would each bring an ingredient we liked. She brought a lovely lemon, I brought gizzards of a chicken we harvested the day before and… it was love at first bite. We have been enjoying cooking and promoting the farm lunches ever since. Julia studied in Bologna and brings some old Italian traditions to the farm that makes me feel back home like nothing else. One of the things that is part of every single lunch is a full large bowl of hand whipped cream (rigorously whipped by hand!) and of course all of us standing around the bowl with our spoons full of the white gold.
Brooke came to our farm one day because she wanted to take “some pictures” of food during a lunch. Before we knew it, Brooke was filling up empty water glasses, organizing the dirty dishes, and serving food! It was so natural to have her part of the farm that we just kind of started working together. I have to admit that at times I feel the Farm is acting more of its independent will than an entity I manage. I am barely hanging in here and trying to read what the Farm wants. Brooke is one of those instances. I was not looking for a PR person, the Farm was… and the Farm got one, whether I posted an advertising or not.
 
Looking forward to seeing you at the Farm!
Ale & the Farm

I realized it has been a long time since my last posting. Life has been a wild ride at the farm and it took me all the energy I got to hold on and not fall off. Lots has changed and we are now reaching new equilibrium so I want to reflect a little bit on the past year. The main change that affected everything at the farm is that Charles no longer lives here. We came to the realization that the paths we wanted to pursue were getting more and more distant and less parallel. Now Charles has an apartment in South Burlington. It was a difficult choice but I am very proud of how supportive and loving we have been able to remain throughout this transition. Eva, our little one that many of you have met - yes the one that goes around with a princess dress or a dragon costume with a pig nose :) - is doing well and has adapted well to the concept of one family with two houses. She enjoys having the undivided attention of mom during mom's days and dad during dad's days.
The other bump in the road is that Alex had a major car accident in December - yes, exactly the day before all the porchetta roasts were due for delivery - He broke 2 vertebrae in his neck and risked to be completely paralyzed. Fortunately after and emergency surgery that fused together his spinal column and few weeks of bed rest he started getting up and moving around and now I have not seen him in over a month because of sugaring season, so I am sure he is doing okay.

These changes have pretty much left me in charge of the farm on my own and fortunately I had Stefano and Tirragen to lean on or I do not think we could talk about Agricola any more, especially considering I have a full time day job at the University. It is now nice to reflect on all of this and see that we are getting at the end of the tunnel. Every day gets a bit easier. We are also hiring 1 (possibly 1 and 1/2) new farm assistants so that starting in June life will be even more manageable.

One things that keeps me grounded is that pigs, sheep and chickens do not seem to care about any of this - they still want their food, their water, a clean and safe shelter and they have their mating and family planning needs. So the farm has been continuing for its merry way and growing - and growing - and growing! And our community and supporters have been growing with the farm.

Life in the Barn:
Our barn is now hosting about 100 piggies of all ages and coming from three different breading mixes. They are so eager to go out and frolic in the sun on the fresh grass and we, evil farmers, not allow that (the tender new grass just growing would suffer too much).  We have 13 new lambs and 3 more ewes that have yet to give birth. Lambs are at that special age when they are small enough to go through the holes in the fences but big enough to feel bold to explore the world, so, at any given time, if you walk inside the barn you may be greeted by a flock of baby lambs running full speed towards you and they may or may not be able to stop in time. Chickens have been growing too - we have selected the eggs for the new generation (something necessary to ensure chickens with larger breasts - more similar to what people are used to see in the store). One hen has been broody (sitting on eggs she wants to hatch) for over a month...we hope she will last few more weeks and wait for the eggs we are hatching in the incubator so that she can have her flock of baby chicks to train and protect (not only chicks raised by hens are better at foraging and hunting but they are also better at protecting themselves from predators).  Soon we will have a number of hens parading thier chicks around the courtyard - that is when I feel spring is finally here.

Life in the fields:
The fields look empty without the animals grazing. However, this break gave us time to attend the pastures. We have cleaned up another field of the plastic left behind by the previous farmers. The plastic has been annoying and makes us feel we have a junk yard, not a farm, so removing it has been extremely satisfying, but I have to recognize the adaptability of different wild animals that have found refuge inside the crevices of this black and white mantel that is 2/3 under ground covered by years and years of abandonment in the fields. We have even found a family of weasel - a mom and 10 day old weasel babies...weasel are probably the most deadly predators for chickens but having to kill first mama and then the still blind, pink babies was quite traumatizing... life at the farm is not always easy and romantic... but as a farmer your priority is protecting the animals you are hosting and that includes eliminating families of young baby weasels. We have also been frost seeding the fields with legumes and grasses, especially those areas that were covered with plastic and weeds last year. On sunny days we walk up to the field to check the progress of the new grass and feel good about the fact that, acre by acre we are making a little progress in this 65 acres we have decided to look after. The experiemental paddock we grazed with sheep and pigs and then seeded at the end of the winter is also growing incredibly well - you can actually see the bright fresh green grass all the way from Panton rd and every time I pass by, I look at it and feel good about that entire week-end I spent removing rocks and planting seeds before the frost. I am also incredibly proud of the greenhouse Stefano and I have been building to host the thousands of vegetables we plan to grow in our 1/2 acre vegetable garden. We dream of lots of tomatoes for yummy tomato sauce, onions for savory preserves and lots and lots of fresh veggies to support the farm and to sell at our farm stand - so exciting! Right now we have over 300 onion, 100 peppers, and 250 tomato seeds under growing lamps and shortly we will move them to their new green house - so neat.

Life in the Farm House:
it is crazy busy! We have a large house but for some reason I always have all rooms full! There is Tirragen and Stefano; Eva on few days of the week, and then Alex (the other farm owner) now and again, and then guests from all walks of life. Right now we have Tirragen's sister visiting from California and getting a brutal awakening to winter in Vermont (poor thing... she choose the wrong week!). Plus we will have one or more farm assistants coming to help so ... we have so many people around all the times, and let's not forget we have Maurizio (the cat) and Giulia (the skunk) that keep us company. Giulia is quite friendly, really... even the propane guy commented on her friendly attitude. We have also forged supportive relationships with farmers around here and whenever in a pickle I can rely on 3 or 4 people that I know will do anything they can to help me out, and in exchange I butcher their pigs or have them over for a farm dinner - farming is never a solitary act and you can really see that in action here at our farm.

Looking ahead
The to do list before May is long. We still have a lot of plastic to pull out from the fields, shelters to build or fix, structures to repair, farm signs to make and to post, new fences to make for the pastures, plus we have more butchering dates ahead of us, lots more agriturism activities (pretty much every week-end) to host. We have the beds of the vegetable garden to prepare, the wild flower garden to seed, the grill for the Farm 2 Grill events to prepare, a zillion new piglets that will arrive in the next 3 to 4 months. Then there are the new farm assistants to interview, the restaurants in New York and Boston to follow up with etc.... the days are full, but the sun stays up late and the energy at the farm keeps us buzzing with excitement. We are ready to wake up from the slow winter months.

See you at the farm!
Ale

I used to be normal... You know, one of those people that get excited about spring... Not any more. For those of you who are thinking about starting a farm, let me break down spring for you: everyone around you is excited about spring, EVERY O N E! This means the piglets, the saws, the boar, the lambs, the sheep, the hens, the chickens, the mice, the flies, the ants, the coyotes, the bears ... and no one stays in its freaking place!!! During winter, containing animals is a trivial issue. You spend most of your swear words on frozen water, frozen pipes, the stove that does not start, and who forgot to call the fuel company to fill up the oil tank. Your animals are all nice and cozy in the barn and, for once, you live the illusion that you finally "got it," you have mastered the most important and challenging aspect of being a farmer: containing the animals. Then springs come and reality sinks in. You have lived in the frozen illusion of being "containing the animals." The reality is that chickens stayed in the barn because there is no freaking way they will consider walking in 2 feet of snow on a subzero day, no matter how enticing the sun may be. The sheep did not "finally learn to respect the boudaries." They just had agreed that having YOU bringing them the food rather was a lot better than having to go out themselves in the -20F climate. And the pigs!!! oh the pigs ... because you really thought that THIS TIME you built the pig-proof gate. Ah! That's funny ... it took them less than 30 minute to find a way out the instant the sun was out and no one was watching. The well known knock at the door from the neighbour was all you needed to snap back to reality. Well, at least pigs came when you call them so I just had to stand in the middle of the street calling "Heeeeeere piggggggie pigggggie pigggggie heeeeeeeere1" and watch for the amusement and then the fear in the neighbors' face when she saw a drove of 15 adult pigs running full speed down a pretty steep hill. I mean, even the geriatric blind saw managed to get out and go for a walk up the hill! She usually does not even want to get up to get scratched! But everyone has SPRING FEVER at the farm.  

It is not only the "breaking free" that makes the whole spring a less than idyllic time at the farm, it is everything! 

In the past, Spring meant changing the clothes from winter to spring in the wardrobe. Now it means: nothing, absolutely nothing can be warn to adjust to the ever changing temperature outside. You either are freezing at the beginning of chores or you are sweating beyond what any non-atomic deodorant can do. 

Another horrible present that spring brings is what farmers call their brown gold ... to me it is S&#T. I used to complain about mud on my shoes (in Vermont spring IS mud season) ... now, I have other things to complain ... let me remind you of few physics laws that take over in the Winter/Spring season. When outside it is 20F below, things (all things) freeze quite quickly. Unless you are ready to pick up manure within a few hours from when it was dropped you can rest assured that that turd is now frozen solid ... till spring. I have to admit that my pigs are not trained to all deliver the manure at specific times when we are ready to scoop it up. Now, imagine you have about 80 pigs and although you are able to catch some of the manure when you clean the barn twice per day, just for a second imagine what you DO NOT catch. Once you have a bottom layer of that lovely brown gold, then the next layer is almost impossible to shovel out and so ... it accumulates until one day those nicely shaped, frozen and oderless morsels of brown gold become alive and fully fragrant almost as if they were just laid. All of them ... at the same time, after a few hrs of 40F. 


Before I had a farm I used to look almost eagerly to the week-end we selected for our "spring cleaning." I would be getting the dusting pad with the long arm to reach the webs in the corners, the special sealer and cleaner for the wood furniture. I liked the smell lingering in the air. Now, spring cleaning usually requires a complete astronaut outfit, an industrial size power washer, and ... let's say that the odor lingering in the air is no longer something I look forward to.


All this extra work is accompanied by lambing and farrowing. All animals decide to go ahead and deliver their babies just around this time so you are working around the clock to keep the barns clean, help the moms and do the extra necessary spring cleaning. 

"Well, at least you all know this so you are prepared" you are thinking. Can I please direct your attention to your calendar. We are in March. What is EVERYONE in Vermont doing in March, and most precisely, what are they doing on the first few weeks when the temperature raises and you are in your astronaut attire powerwashing the barn and delivering lambs? Oh my, of course, it is SUGARING season so no one, absolutely no one is around since everyone is cutting wood, tapping, boiling sap, checking for holes int he sap lines. And it makes sense because sugaring is such a neat tradition and it is so m,uch fun ... and that is what you think as you are removing the 16th wheal barrel of natural brown gold from the barn. 

So ... spring is here. Great. I am glad it is here but just because it means that summer is not far. 

Making ravioli is one of my very first memories of Christmas and family. I recall my mom and other ants, uncles, grandparents etc. getting around the kitchen table and preparing these incredibly LARGE ravioli. It was our family joke that all you needed for a Christmas meal at my mom's dining table was 1/4 of a raviolo (1 raviolo was for the very hungry ones). So ... they were not the perfect Italian ravioli, but they were our family ravioli and no matter how much the family members liked to complain and suggest we go buy the "real" ones "dal fornaio," we loved making them and everyone loved eating them. I also have lovely memories of going to pick ravioli dal fornaio with my father, right after mass. I particularly loved being in charge of choosing the type of ravioli. Each had a different shape to indicate a different filling. At home we would triumphantly show our bag of goodies and tell my mom about gossips we learned dal fornaio (did Maria's son get arrested for drugs? Was Luisa still seeing that guy with the crazy hair?).

Much changed from that time but ... not much really. As I moved to the States I continued to make ravioli. This time, fortunately, with friends who were better at making them than anyone in my family, so my skills improved. I cannot count the number of dinner parties where I made fresh ravioli. I almost do not feel like it is a dinner party if the table is not covered in flour and freshly made ravioli. Ravioli were also one of the first things I cooked for my husband (although he claims that the lasagna is what made him realize he needed to marry me). Ravioli were also at the table when, as poor graduate student, I was forming a life long friendship with two amazing people that share my love for food, community and supported me throughout this entire farming adventure,  Justin and Michelle Turcotte. 

More recently, I have had numerous raviolo lab-parties (I am a professor with an active research laboratory at UVM). Students that work for my laboratory come to my house where I teach them how to make ravioli. No matter what I do, food tend to infiltrate the tissues of any relationship I develop. In my lab we work hard and play hard, We also like to enjoy feeling like a team and having adventures together. One year I took everyone to Italy for a conference and of course we first had to have a Renaissance Dinner at my house as an introduction to the history of the place we were about to visit. Most years we simply get together at my place and roll dough. The seniors choose the filling and the newer assistants learn from the older ones how to make the dumpling or how much filling to place at the center of each raviolo. 

It is surprising how much love, camaraderie, pleasure, friendship and communion you can fit inside a little pasta dumpling.

These days, I am making ravioli for the market. At times I make them during of Farm Meeting when everyone is around the kitchen islands rolling dough, talking about the new piece of equipment that broke down or while planning the new crops or farrowing schedule. Other times, I make them with a volunteer and you would be surprised of the depth of our conversations - I would be lying if I were to deny that a few ravioli got sprinkled with tears about the losses, joy and the difficulties of our lives as we shared our stories while rolling dough. At the market I have regular clients that share with me little snippets of their lives, the latest book they read, last night's meal they shared with their kid, all the small things that make the fabric of our lives. Once again a small community is formed around the ravioli. I am starting to think that ravioli are a little bit magic.

Given this history, it is clear that part of my mission is to bring ravioli into people's lives. But not just by bringing them to you at the market. I want to teach you how to make them so that you may experience their magic and build on your community made of friends, family, children, neighbors, co-workers ... or even enemies. I find it interesting that we are seeing more and more companies struggling to come up with ideas to connect and "build" a team. All we got to do is take a look at how things used to be done in our households. You do not need to figure out expensive and crazy adventures to have to become a team, just invite everyone to the table, figure out how each person can make a meaningful contribution to the process and make delicious ravioli with them. And then eat them (the ravioli, not the team members of course ... I felt given that I am a butcher I should specify this). Mmmh maybe my next marketing effort will be around providing cooking team building exercises :) it may be a good idea.

I hope I will see you around my kitchen table soon. The first raviolo clinic is February 21st (2015).