Help Save Tsuki!

Our 4 year old hound mix Tsuki needs your help! She is in need of surgery to remove her left rear leg. She was found last Tuesday wrapped up in a wire fence, and despite our best efforts to save her leg, the tissue damage is too severe. The surgery is going to be more than we can afford, so anything helps! We can't imagine life without her. She is already so fortunate to have been found alive, and wants to keep fighting! She is such a good spirited pup, and we love her so much.

Visit our donation page to make a contribution in any amount below to help save Tsuki. Thank you so much!

Tsuki Surgery Fund

 http://www.youcaring.com/fundraiser_details?fundraiser_id=12532&url=helpsavetsuki

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.

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!!

 

 

 

 

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!

Serenity

Time for boating! Whitt, Maddie, & I took a Sunday trip down to Kinsale, Va to get Whitt's sail boat up and running for the season. We've been so busy the sail boat has been put on the back burner.

Serenity is a 26' sail boat. We were able to get a brand new motor and needed to test it! So we motored out to an island close to the harbor, threw out the anchor, and cleaned the boat just off shore.

Anchored!

The happy captain!

Scrubbing the decks!

Weird shrine to American freedom on the island.

After scrubbing down the decks and cabin we headed out to the bay for a little joy ride. It was a gorgeous day and the ospreys were out in full force fishing. The only thing that would have made the day better is if there was enough wind to set the sails. But at least we now know the new motor works!

A view from the bow.

Land-ho!

Nat Geo shot.

If you look closely you can see the baby in the nest to the right!

Lou Update!

Yes! We have settled on a name for our lone gosling. It's LOU! Call him Louie, Louise, Louis, anything! Just remember Lou only really replies to "weep-weep." He's been moved outside into the cottage garden and now lives there permanently as watch goose/gardening helper. We've since re-named the garden Lou's Garden. He's much happier outside and loves to follow Martha around while she tends the plants. Come play with Lou! Lou will love you forever.




Maddie teaching Lou what a marsupial feels like!

Surgeries & Recoveries

As most of you may know, Whitt had surgery back in January.

We are INCREDIBLY PLEASED to announce that his surgery was 100% successful!!!!

Whitt's health is back to where it should be and we couldn't be more proud of him. Thank you so much to everyone for your love and support from the beginning. We are all so relieved to have that chapter of our lives behind us. A toast to the future!

Cheers for good health!

Moving South!

Gretchen and Austin have moved to Asheville, NC! Wish them luck and safe travels!

Happy 60th!!!

Whitt has just turned 60 (believe it or not)!

In honor of the day we had a hoe-down up on the mountain. That's right: a hoe down complete with line dancing, overalls, a full Reba Mcentire cover band, and a cattle auction at the end of the night.

..Actually no. Just kidding! Our version of a "hoe-down" is a pot-luck with great food and all of our friends! The theme of the party was music, so we had everyone bring Whitt a mix CD along with a dish. Thanks so much to the Artz, Fahy, Finn, VanDerveer, DeSilva, Spencer, Cox, families as well as Chris, Kelly, Mary and everyone else that made it up!

It's harder to find a picture of Whitt NOT working than you'd think...

Aslan: Protector of Our Mountain

Aslan looks more like a polar bear than dog in all the snow! It's funny though, all this snow and he's still able to find a mud patch to romp in. I guess he figures we wouldn't be able to find him if he kept clean!