Welcome Back

Hello all! After a very lengthy absence, I am back from my journey abroad. I have traveled just shy of 11,000 miles through the lower 48 states in seven weeks, and have never been happier to be home! Needless to say, there is an overwhelming amount of stuff that has happened in my absence. I'm going to do my best to get all caught up. In the meantime, enjoy this adorable video of one of our lambs chasing the geese. Yes, the lamb is new; and yes, an introduction is due.

HAPPY LEAP DAY!!

        Happy leap day from CPE!! We can't wait to see the changes from now until February 29, 2016!! Thanks for following our progress, and remember your input is always welcomed and valued!

        Cheers to four more years!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Part I

        Christmas at Cair Paravel is celebrated with the gathering of family, incredible food, and huge trees.  Every year for the passed who-knows-how-many Christmases the Ledford family Christmas tree has gotten bigger and bigger.  This year was no exception.  We decided to support a local business, so Whitt, Martha, Maddie, Mia, our good friend and farm-helper-extraordinaire Max, and I headed to Spruce Rock Farm Inc. in Madison, Va just north of Stanardsville.  There we had a great selection of trees ranging all sizes.  Tim, the owner of the farm, was more than helpful and gave us the grand tour of the tree selection, and pricing.

Mia ready to tree hunt!

Max enjoying some hot cider as he waits for the search to begin!

        After looking through the selection (and a lot of convincing) Maddie chose the biggest tree available for the Ledford family tree: a nineteen foot monster of a douglas fir. Mia and I were excited to choose our second tree together as a married couple, and our first tree living up on the farm. We don't have quite as much space for a tree as Whitt and Martha do in the main house, so we settled on a measly little eleven foot tall tree.

Whitt standing in front of the chosen tree!

Mia and my choice!

         Out with the chainsaws and our selected trees came tumbling down. Usually yelling "timber" is a bit unnecessary when it comes to Christmas trees, but these two were the exception. The video below is Mia and my tree being cut down.

        With the trees felled all we had to do was load them up and off we were for home! Fortunately Tim let Whitt drive the truck to the tree as opposed to having to carry the tree all the way back up to the parking area.  With the help of the farm owner, we were able to carry the smaller tree over to be loaded onto our car.

The tree all loaded up.

Maddie, Max, and Mia showing off the great feat!

Mia and I before the journey home.

        Next Christmas keep Spruce Rock Farm in mind! Their prices cannot be beat!

Tim & Doris Williams

Spruce Rock Farm Inc.

P.O. Box 789

Madison, Va 22727

Happy New Year!

    Happy New Year from Cair Paravel! We're looking forward to 2012 and all it has to offer! Just in the passed week and a half our planning for the year has shown this year to be a busy one. With the new year come some fun changes to our blog to help it and us become more interactive with you the reader. A new "tab" feature has been added to the top of the blog to act as a handbook for the farm. It's our hope that these tabs will help to make our blog a hub for all things Cair Paravel so that our day-to-day activities, BnB availability and reservations, food we make, animals we tend, even the current weather conditions and forecasts for the farm are all a click away from our blog home page.

    At the top of the screen just below our title picture and e-mail subscription bar, you'll see tabs across your screen. Click on any of these tabs and it will take you there! More and more tabs will be added in the next few weeks so feel free to explore! What better way to keep up with the farm then adding our blog as your home screen? These tabs will help our blog be a more useful tool.

Thank you for all the support in making 2011 a great year! 

 

Thanksgiving: In Review!

    Thanksgiving this year was a fun-packed weekend-long undertaking filled with incredible food, awesome friends and family, warm fires, and merriment. Whitt and Martha had the usual suspects up for Thanksgiving dinner aside from Grethcen and Austin. Unfortunately they were unable to make it up from Asheville, NC.
    The meal consisted of three (yes, three!) of our turkeys prepared in different ways. Two birds had been brined by Mia and Martha prior to cooking: one in a water and salt mixture, the other in a mixture of water, milk, salt, and various spices. The third was relatively untouched prior to cooking. The idea behind brining is that the salt and liquid mixture will coat the skin and form a protective coating that holds in the moisture of the bird while being cooked with minimum basting required. The two brined birds were grilled while the third was cooked as normal in the oven. Howard and Whitt spear-headed the grilling of the turkeys.

Howard sprinkling on some magic.

A couple swipes of goodness...

And viola!

Whitt and Howard talking about the boring view.

In goes the bird!

Annie doing one last nose check before the lid is closed to make sure it smells good.

     According to all present, every bird was unbelievable, but the grilled birds where exceptionally good. Of course the birds were merely the center piece to the meal. All of the sides and desserts were also, as normal, incredible.

This Is Ground Control to Major Tom

Hello blog followers!

As many of you may have expected, the holidays on top of our regular work schedule have been swallowing us whole. Thanksgiving is always a blast at the farm because not only do we celebrate on Thursday, but we also have Thanksgiving Pt. II! The barn was in dire need of a re-vamping with the influx of animals in need of storage. I'm glad to say we have finished most of that project up. We've been able to get Christmas trees, decorate for the season, throw a holiday party, host lot's of visitors, AND rent a ram to breed our ewes. Needless to say, the blog will not be neglected for the next few weeks.

There's so much to tell you about! Stay tuned!

-Brendan and the whole Cair Paravel Family!

Hunting

    As most of you may know, it is hunting season here in Virginia. For you hunters, it's the season for waking up early, stocking the truck with bullets and beer, and sitting in a tree for hours and hours on end. For us non-hunters in the middle of the action, the season consists of our loveable dogs bringing back all the pieces the hunters didn't want one disgusting piece at a time, and constantly being worried someone is going to shoot them. So, we have come up with an attempt at a practical, yet fashionable, way to help prevent buck shot from finding our dogs.

    Here we have Tsuki modeling a dog safety vest complete with a handy pocket for treats or anything else she wants to put in there. Actual dog vests run a surprising amount of money, so I just ended up making these with 97¢ human vests and a 47¢ spool of thread. Hurray for safety!

Broken Bones

A few weeks ago Maddie broke her ankle. She has since had surgery to repair the break and is on a quick path to recovery. Keep her in your thoughts and wish her well! I'm sure she's thrilled I posted this picture of her pre-surgery (and hyped up on pain meds) on the internet.

Pumpkin Carving!

Disclaimer: Yes. This post is late. Very late.

        Halloween fell on a Monday this year. That meant children across America were bummed having to trick-or-treat on a school night. For us up on the farm it meant hurray! More candy for us! Actually, seeing as we don't get trick-or-treaters, there was no need for us to get candy at all... but we did carve pumpkins!

        I'm horrible at carving pumpkins. I have really great ideas, however, executing them is very difficult for me. Yes, it would be rad to carve Moby Dick exploding out of the sea with a ship between his jaws, but I can't draw it on paper let alone carve it out of a pumpkin. So after beginning the most epic pumpkin carving on the planet, my pumpkin ended up looking like this:

        Whitt's pumpkin didn't turn out nearly as primitive as mine. Nor did he spend two hours of cursing only to cut a huge hole out of the center of the pumpkin.

    Maddie went for the abstract. I'm not sure if there was a face, or if I just took a picture of the wrong side of the pumpkin. Either way, I still really like the design!

        Now Mia: she is a professional. She took pumpkin carving to the next level -- a huge long-neck squash! Ever seen those big dragons used in parades and festivals? You know, the ones with forty people wearing the same dragon costume and dancing down the street? Well, that is what Mia turned her squash into. Check it out!

Mia hard at work!

 

 The finished product!!

 

 

 

 

Follow Us!

  Cair Paravel now has a twitter! Follow us @CairParavelFarm!

Consider it the addendum to the blog, the more day-to-day, the fun filled fact machine of the farm, the picture gateway, the...well, you get the idea. We'll also post news, available products and prices, as well as requests for help with certain projects. Become a bigger part of our farm with Twitter!

@CairParavelFarm

Autumn Has Arrived

Last Friday was the official first day of fall. Ah, the double edge sword of autumn. Personally, fall is my favorite season. The leaves start changing, the days become crisp and refreshing, pumpkins are ready for harvest, and the pace of the farm slows down quite considerably. We're very excited to be able to focus much more time to our construction projects. As most of you know we have a second yurt, upper garage, and turn-of-the-century log house to build. Keep looking for updates here on our blog as well as a call for volunteers for anyone who is wanting to get their hands dirty and pitch in to the farm.

Autumn is gorgeous on the mountain and I plan to include you all in the splendor!

HAPPY FALL TO COME!

Bear Vs. Gator

A new tradition has begun. As Oskar grows older, we needed to figure out another way of warding off bears aside from making poor Oskar run at full speed all over the farm.

Solution found:

Step 1: Grab large pot.

Step 2: Grab large spoon

Step 3: Put on bathing suit (optional)

Step 4: Get in John Deere Gator

Step 5: Drive Gator as fast as possible shouting ridiculousness while
passenger bangs on pot with spoon (passenger also shouting)

Works every time.

Turkeys Are Not Chickens, Right?

We have a hilariously confused turkey hen on our hands. She's taken to roosting with our Americana chickens! The birds on both sides of specie don't seem to mind. The turkey hen takes care of sitting on the eggs (yes, ALL of the eggs chicken and turkey alike) and the chicken even cuddle up underneath the turkey for warmth. It's great to see them snuggling in the tractor during the day. What a great example of a symbiotic relationship! Good work birds! Keep working together!

If you look closely, you can see the chicken's backside sticking out from
underneath the turkey's right wing.

The Miracle of Powerwashing

Here are some great examples of how much a good power-washing makes dirty things come back to life!

The machine.

The difference.

The before.

And the after.

Celebrations!

Happy 4th of July!

We've had a wonderful holiday weekend up on the farm. Despite a brief three day lapse in our internet service not only have we been celebrating our nation's independence, but Martha's birthday was on Friday! We celebrated last night by having a potluck. Tonight we're planning on sitting on the porch and watching all the fireworks down in the valley while grilling up some hot dogs and hamburgers.

We've been on high alert for the past 72 hours because our goat Kikki is pregnant and her due date is TODAY. So keep her in your thoughts and we will be updating you on her condition and progress of the birth! Stay tuned!!!

Box Turtle Sightings

Found any box turtles lately? Whether they're young, old, alive -- or even, forbid...dead -- report them to the Virginia Herpetological Society! The VHS is a group based on conservation, education, and research of Virginia's indigenous reptiles and amphibians. Box turtles are a very important part of Virginia's ecosystem, and we can all be a part of the research! Any time you happen across a box turtle either in the road or in your back yard, visit www.VirginiaHerpetologicalSociety.com and report your sighting by scrolling down and clicking on the icon seen in this post. Please confirm that the turtle in question is indeed a box turtle and not another common species. Box turtles look very different at each stage of growth, so use a field guide or the VHS website to help you properly identify the turtle. Then, fill out the online report form with as much information as possible, and submit! Just like that you can be a part of the research, tracking, and study of this important species.

For a direct link to the report form, click here.

For our non-Virginia resident blog followers, look into your own area's wildlife programs and see if there are any similar studies being conducted in your neck of the woods. If so, we'd love to hear about it!

We've Changed Our Look!

We've changed our look for summer! Thanks for following our blog through the spring and we look forward to continue sharing our farm with you! Fall will be here before we know it, so strap in for a great season! And remember, you're always welcome to visit!

Happy Summer!

Summer is here! Martha is finished with school and on summer break, the days are the longest of the year, the heat is the highest of the year, and we couldn't be happier. Happy Summer Solstice!

Remember: Never Let Your Toddler Bathe Themselves in Hydraulic Fluid.

I apologize for this tangent, however:

Does anyone else wonder how we got to the point that warning labels like this one are necessary? Why would this bucket be stored near where a baby would be anyway? Talk amongst yourselves.

Just Incredible Pictures!

Here are some pictures taken at sunrise during this passed winter. They haven't been photoshopped or enhanced at all. It's a true testament to how beautiful it is up here on the farm. I found them on the family computer and was definitely impressed. Now, I just need to find out who took these shots so I can give them the proper credit they deserve! The morning light is amazing on the ice covered branches!