Happy New Year to All!
It should come as no surprise that the wine of choice at The Accidental Farm is a French delight called “La Vielle Ferme” or “The Old Farm”. It should also come as no surprise that we drink copious amounts of this wine that is available for $15 in the mag. Or that we drink enough to pose plastic bovine eating tortilla chips with it.
Our New Year’s celebration was a blast. 10 out of a possible 12 Cooks came to ring in the new year, including an extra Lab dog and 6 children. As is the tradition, we arranged for a brief yet worthwhile snowstorm to hit the evening after all had arrived. The days were spent shoveling, sledding and snowboarding outside… cooking, warming and sipping inside. The cousins LOVED HeyZeus and there was even an incident where one over exuberant nephew was filled with so much love that he tried to give HZ a hug, much to HZ’s dismay, and once again for the holiday season we had a Peacock in a Pine Treeeeee.
While I would love to pictorially display all of the joy that was shared, I will spare you the endless shots of our family. This also means you aren’t getting any peeks at the annual After Midnight (read: After Kids Are Asleep) Topless Sled Run that we do to bring luck into the new year. You want in on the action? You get yourself here next year.
With the celebrating and the advent of the new year behind us, it was time to think towards what 2009 will bring and, more importantly, what we will bring to 2009.
Some exciting things:
- Brian and Dad ventured off on a particularly successful farm equipment acquisition this evening. Thanks to Craigslist and my family’s addiction to reading it religiously, we now own 20 double hung used windows to make into cold frames and 30 used maple collection buckets and 16 taps.
- This afternoon I signed up for a Beginning Beekeeping course that is being held through Cornell Cooperative Extension. I have been talking about getting bees for about 2 years now, but I finally think I am ready to do the research and make it a reality.
- And now for the most exciting. (This is where my belief that there are no coincidences (and there is no spoon) comes into play.) When Bri and Dad went to pick up the buckets from a family in Ballston Spa, the woman selling them told them that the family is unable to use the equipment because they are moving to Italy. Tough life. In any case, she asked if they knew anyone who would be interested in purchasing her hive and colony of Italian honeybees. Guess what. I am ALMOST the proud new farmgirl with Italian honeybees. Dad wants me to rename the farm “Mikko’s Guinea Bees”. I reminded him that the joke is only funny if people actually know that we’re Italian.
What do I know about Italian honeybees? About as much as I know about Indian peacocks. However I truly believe that everything happens for a reason. Dad and Bri were going on about beer with honey AND maple syrup. Me? I just think that this little farm of ours gets more and more interesting every day.
We’re only on the 6th day into 2009. After looking back at all of our successes and failures of 2008, I can’t begin to fathom what this new year will bring.
Hell, I’m just excited for tomorrow.
