The summer has slid by almost without our noticing it; only the cats have been able to entirely take it easy and sack out, which they've been doing at every opportunity afforded to them. We poor farmers have been far more active, and a great deal of sheep-shuffling has been going on in the background, while in the foreground we've been busy with assorted winery doings: some of our formulas have been approved, label design has proceeded, and we are very near to being able to put our product in stores and on shelves.
There was an audit done by the state on the winery, which we passed ably, while one farmer was out of town for a family reunion and hundredth birthday party of a grandfather; not even government could get in the way of that, of course! The rams are unimpressed, having no anticipation of making such old bones. They would far prefer to reach the tasty greenery of the ferns and forbs on the other side of the fence.
It has been a dry summer, and there is now a burn ban in place. We've been taking pains to keep all our animals well-watered and at the peak of fire risk, dampening some of the piled dry straw to both minimize hazards and to aid in decomposition. The ducklings have been happy with our efforts in particular, although ducklings are too easy prey too often to the local wildlife, and our bantams have been at risk to skunks.
The winery has new equipment now as well, in the form of a designed-and-constructed-for-us fruit slicer! This piece of equipment should speed up our processing considerably, and reduce the number of blisters we get when chopping apples and pears - chopping a quarter-ton of apples by hand is no mean feat. We look forward to turning out many more barrels of wine in the not too distant future.
It has on the whole been an impressively busy year, with one farmer attending university classes simultaneous to farming and another farmer handling a lengthy commute while farming; but the work is proving immensely worthwhile and fulfilling. There's no feeling quite like seeing a line of ducklings freshly emerged from the egg being led for the first time by their mother down to the water. While not all moments are quite so idyllic, and farm life has its tragedies as well as its joys, such as having to tend to the miseries of a chick who's been bullied to within an inch of its life by roosters, the experiences are compensated by the knowledge that these too can display fundamental truths about life from which our modern existence all too often shelters us. We are better able to appreciate the conveniences when we peel them away in even modest amounts.
As the summer winds to a close, we look forward to roast duck stuffed with apples, content in the knowledge that we would have neither without ducklings and seeds.
