Where to Begin?

Almanac, December 2024

2024 is almost over. 2025 is a drooling something lurking outside our doors, peeking at us through cracks in the blinds.

There is a lot going on at the Hedge right now.

Starting with the willows, we are mid-harvest. Several hundred pounds are in the barn with hundreds more to go. If you’re interested in buying willow rods for basketry let us know using the form on our site. So many thanks to our friends and family that have helped us with the harvest!!!

Harvesting, while a lot of work, is a reprieve from the past year’s growing challenges: drought, insect pests and weed control. There’s nothing uncertain about what needs to happen during the harvest: anything reaching for the sky gets cut down.

And with the geese, we’ve reached a turning point. We have too many geese with no options for slaughtering off-farm to sell (legally) as meat. We’re in the process of exploring whether we can slaughter them on-farm. If on-farm slaughtering works out, which is a longshot, we’ll start expanding the goose operation. Either way, we do plan to continue breeding the flock. This year we’ll offer hatching eggs starting around the end of February. To express interest in goose eggs, please indicate through use of this other form on our site.

While we wait to find out about the goose plan, we are finishing up the flock-work for the season. We’ve taken 11 to the butcher and had an incredible Christmas feast. The remaining work involves separating the final chosen from the damned, taking the damned to the butcher, starting the chosen on a yearly de-worming treatment, setting up the breeding pens and separating the couples and thrupples.

We also picked up a few chickens for eggs for the family. We don’t miss our last flock of chickens, but we do miss having a regular supply of eggs. And more than that: chickens are toddler-leftover disposal machines. Z creates a steady stream of food waste, usually shredded or crumbled into the perfect consistency for chickens.

This Fall, Maren and I decided we wouldn’t go another year without venison (if we could help it). I am happy to report I put two deer in the freezer. Apart from the food we got, it was a time for me to connect. In one of my last hunts, I was standing up in a tree. I looked at the sky and freezing rain melted on my face. Tears met the rain and shared the rest of their fall. I had already been mixing with the woods for a couple months, and can’t say if the tree brought the rain, my tears or both. Either way, in that moment, my gratitude attached itself to the slowly swaying trunk at my back.

below is one of the many pumpkins we grew in the goose bedding.