The Fabulous Beekman Boys

We recently upgraded our cable package just so we could get Planet Green, and just so we could watch The Fabulous Beekman Boys. I highly recommend that you do the same. If you don't have access to the channel, then you must at least read The Bucolic Plague––more about that in a minute––or get their first season on DVD.

After stuffing ourselves with Thanksgiving goodness, my husband and two boys and I watched every installment of the first season in a special marathon. We couldn't get enough and eagerly awaited their holiday special in early December. Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge seem to define 'gentleman farming' at first glance, but their antics and learning curve are enjoyable to watch. Besides, I'm rather partial to men who sometimes go to the barn in their tweed jackets, as my grandfather often did after church on Sundays. [He had been ascribed a 'gentleman farmer' when he retreated from the New Jersey suburbs with my grandmother, and their children, in 1945 to have a farm in New Hampshire. They eventually proved the natives wrong, as I'm sure Josh and Brent are doing.]

We were enchanted with Polka Spot, the diva guard llama who cares for Farmer John's beloved goats, and could relate to her antics (as we have a diva deer who comes and goes around our farm). Farmer John, who lives and works on the property, is also a devoted goatherd that truly loves his animals and isn't afraid to express that (even if that makes my less emotive husband uncomfortable).

Being the holidays and all, and a quick study in 'groupie,' I had to order a round of their Blaack raw goat/cow milk cheese (delicious), some goat milk soap, and a signed copy of Josh's book, The Bucolic Plague. Friends, this is one of the best back-to-the-land memoirs I've read or own (even better than Betty MacDonald's The Egg and I if you can imagine that, and an even match with Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish). The kind of memoir I would probably write if I were an former drag queen dancer who left Manhattan for greener pastures with his doctor boyfriend. It is honest, fun to read, and you want Brent and Josh to succeed each step of the way.

While Josh still works in advertising during the week in Manhattan, Brent has been busy on the farm front––and from the looks of it, immediately successful––building up the Beekman brand. A stint with Martha Stewart certainly helped him there but he also seems to have an intrinsic methodology of marketing the farm, its products and their lifestyle. The show is another vehicle for this but it would be a hit whether they had "product"or not. I should also add that I technically bought the cheese, and the soap and the book to put under the tree for my husband. Well, not exactly. I suppose I was being both generous and extremely selfish at the same time.

If you haven't been to Sharon Springs, New York, where 'the boys' live and have their store, it's a lot like Brigadoon (or perhaps now that tense would be 'was like'). You can get there from the Canonjoharie exit on the New York Thruway, which I'd passed a zillion times over the years on the way back and forth from New England to Ohio without stopping (where the Beech-Nut factory looms and I always started asking my parents for gum). Or, on a more leisurely off-road and scenic jaunt along historic Route 20, which the thruway more or less bypassed in the 1950s, thus further cocooning the historic Victorian spa village.

At least that is how I remember it on our two visits there about ten years ago, when we stayed at the Adler Hotel (now abandoned) and met many survivors of the German death camps and Hassidic Jews who still 'took the waters' there. It was an experience out of time and place. Garth and Doug, regulars on the show, are how I remember them when they ran a café in the village: just as kind, fun and welcoming as they seem on the show. [They are now the proprietors of The American Hotel which they restored and opened in 2001––and where we likely would have stayed had it been open when we were there (although the Adler was truly unforgettable in its own way).]

But here's the underlying loveliness of The Fabulous Beekman Boys. In all of their squabbles and visions and hard work, they are just a normal couple. And this is the first reality show I can think of that portrays a gay couple just living their life like everyone else, even if it happens to be on a fabulous farm (and their grand Federal farmhouse is amazing) in scenic upstate New York. They are rural pioneers in a whole different sense than the typical 'urban flight to the farm' story.

In an age of intolerance, often in rural areas, this is also an empowering thing to share with children. There were only a few brief moments in the first season that made me wince a bit as a parent watching with children (we have a 13 and a 10 year old boy at home) but each one of them prompted discussion within our family about lifestyle and acceptance. Our children have always embraced our gay friends as much as we do and they are being raised to know that love does not discriminate. It was probably one of the best moments of the holidays for me.

For me, The Fabulous Beekman Boys is also the familiarity of a comfortable farmhouse, good friends who understand and support you, and historic architecture from my past lives, farm living, and great food (I am hoping there will be a cookbook in their future) that makes me want to watch again and again. And then there's Polka Spot––this llama is going to demand her own show if they don't watch out. The scene where she seems to play dead, with great effect, is some of the best animal footage I've seen on television.

I just can't say enough about the truly fabulous Beekman Boys, and Farmer John, and am grateful that they've shared their lives with the world and with my farm family on a quiet ridge in Kentucky.

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Chick-a-Biddy Cottage

Chick-a-biddy Cottage is the latest addition to our farm. It is the childhood and adult home of Ida Dye Doyle, who grew up on our ridge and returned there later on in her colorful life. She died, sadly, on January 4, 2010, a year ago today, in fact, and a few months shy of 89. She was a good friend and neighbor and we wish we had known her for more than a few years. As her obituary states:

She was born on her parents, Walter and Bannie Dye, farm on May 23, 1921 and returned back here in the 1970s. Ida was widely traveled but loved the home place best, perhaps because she intimately knew every tree, stone, spring, and field.

The inner part of the house was once her family cabin and, in recent years, her daughter owned it and added onto it at both ends. Now it looks like a big brown bungalow.

We have started renovating it, quite affordably and without too much fanfare (a fresh coat of paint in your favorite colors is a marvelous thing!) from the inside out and I will blog occasionally about various aspects of it. [In fact, get ready for it: I designed a new farmhouse pantry inside! It was painted before Christmas and now awaits my getting back to filling it and arranging it. More on that soon!]

This watercolor was painted by one of Ida's relatives and inscribed on the back: 'This is the farm as I will always remember. Ira Dell Erwin III, son of Ira Dell Erwin II and Alma Ruba Dye daughter of Walter Dye and Bannie Dye, designer, builder of all you see. This painting must stay with the owner of the above property as a reminder of what was before.' Ida's daughter Roxanne gave it to me before she cleared the house out. I am forever grateful for her many kindnesses.

When the cottage is set up, it will be 'farm central' for me: I can look out the windows, on all sides of the cottage, and see what's what. This is important when you are a farmwife: you need to know what's going on and who's doing what. You need to be able to holler when dinner's ready without picking up a phone. The house is not big enough for our brood but we intend to camp out in it, especially in the summer months when we're across the street all the time. It will also be our guest house.

Most importantly, it is now my little cottage. I've adopted it and taken over, taking Virginia Woolf's advice to the max: forget the room, I now have a house of my own. My husband has his shop, and a hay shed, and an equipment shed, and a cattle sorting shed. I have a cottage. And I'm blessed. Here I will be working on most of my writing and will also be canning and cooking large meals in the summer months. And yes, there's that pantry that needs filling. 2011 is the year that I will be settling in, at last, to our farm world: this is a good thing, because we moved three years ago (remember that whole 'midlife' aspect of this blog? Well, I'll get into that later, too). Let's just say that I have a very patient husband and family!

One day, I expect, whether we build that elusive dream farmhouse across the way or not, the cottage will become, what the Amish and Mennonites call, a 'doty house' ('doty' is grandparent in Pennsylvania Dutch dialect). I'm not being entirely selfish. I will share. My husband and I will likely live there as old codgers on the farm at which time I will convert the entire upstairs into a giant bunkroom for grandchildren, or all manner of guests.

I'd like to think that Ida would approve of what we've been doing. The ridge just hasn't been the same without her on it.

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine


Post Script. I should also explain the cottage name. As you may know from my other blog, In the Pantry, I have real live chickens now. For years I've been collecting chicken ephemera, for lack of a better term, and, among other reasons, well, I rather need a place to put it all. A 'chickabiddy' (also spelled 'chick-a-biddy') is an affectionate term for a young child, like what the French call their babies, "mon petit choux" (my little cabbage). As well as chickens, I'm also getting to that 'biddy' stage––not quite yet, but there are days. Well, you get the idea. As for 'The Southern House of Cupcakes' subtitle, I have two dear friends back in New England who also happen to be cohorts in our blog and virtual reading group, Cupcake Chronicles. Despite the miles, we get together at least once a year in a different location for a weekend get-together.

Christmas Comes and Christmas Goes

Is there anyone else who refuses to take down their Christmas decor until at least Twelfth Night, aka The Feast of Epiphany? (Or later if you're just plain lazy about it...hand up!). I like to hold onto the season a bit longer. Perhaps if I actually decorated the house (I mean, doublewide), like I used to do when we owned a house, earlier in the month of December, I would be ready to take everything down now. I have to admit, however, that this year I just didn't want to take anything out. It's not that I'm an old humbug but I just wasn't into it: could it be because Santa has now been elevated to mythic proportions in our household? Or that our daughter has spent the past three holiday seasons 1,100 miles away working at a Vermont resort? Or that we want to simplify in all realms? So much is in boxes or has been disheveled that I just wasn't that into you this year, oh Christmas tree! My kids were the reason I bothered.

Mistletoe: my favorite part of an Appalachian Christmas.

Actually, I am ready to take everything down, but need to make a part of a day to do so, just as I am ready to make a better crack at it next year. But it involves so much of what I do not excel at since moving here: organizational prowess. 75% of our Christmas decor is in storage. We lack attics and cellars to store extra stuff so use up shed space up and down a mile of country ridge. It's crazy, I know.

I LOVE vintage Christmas items: glimmery tinsel (which is hard to re-use, but not if you buy a case of it on sale), old glass balls, village scenes, freaky vintage gnomes, just about everything from any decade preceding the 1970s. [White, gold or silver artificial Christmas trees never did it for me: and we must really blame them for setting the way for the disco era.] I do believe that my love of Christmas decorating invokes great childhood memories, as well as bringing out the German and English in me. I appreciate and savor tradition. I also realize that you strip away the decor and the gifts and you still have the essence of Christmas. I don't get sucked in by the commercialism but honor, in my heart, those Christmases past, and the people in them, by the decor I keep, to loosely paraphrase Dickens.

I am determined to stick with a better holiday-in-advance schedule this year, so I'm writing it down here. Think of it as a 'Crazy Christmas Vision Board.' Santa will be pleased. [Shopping, I should mention, is never the problem. I shop year round so to avoid rushing about in December: always on sale and when I see 'that perfect item' for someone. I also find many things at craft and gift shops and antique malls or bookstores, especially for girlfriends. Yes, I could be a professional shopper!]

• February: Take out every Christmas item in storage and either put it aside for reboxing, regluing, or a sizable donation later in the year to The Island of Misfit Christmas Decor. Then rebox it properly and label (those giant red storage bins on sale at Walmart right now are just the thing). Place all 100 boxes (well, hopefully not) in cottage attic storage for easy access next year (and yes, I will be decorating the cottage, too, you can bet on that one). NOTE: February is a great time to do this because it's not yet garden season and still with many days of dreary stay-indoors weather. So, a bit of Christmas cheer will be welcome. Also, I do imagine a Christmas pantry in my house of dreams but really, Christmas should be boxed up so it can be better appreciated once a year. 
• Spring: Think about things to make for next Christmas––maybe start knitting again? It is possible in the air-conditioned days of high summer. Start looking for a church, more intently, to call our own: this is important to us but has taken a back-burner (more on this another time).
• Summer: Put up extra preserves and other goodies to give at the holidays.
• October: After decorating for the harvest season, think about Christmas cards (photos?) and what I'd like to bake at the holidays, and when. Or, if I'm going to bake at all (why break that streak? All good intentions...).
• November: Start wrapping presents to ship and, ideally, box up and wait for early December to mail. Gather other presents for local friends and family to wrap later on. Prepare Christmas card/letter for first week of December. On a balmy day, of which there are many at this time in Kentucky, put up Christmas lights outside in preparation (we keep meaning to do so...).
• Last weekend of November: Decorate with advent things. Go chop down a Christmas tree! (No more Lowe's or Walmart specials: no, no NO!) Gather greens for doors. Shoot down some mistletoe.
• First week of December: Ship out gifts to friends and family elsewhere. Start on Christmas cards when ready. Finish decorating.
• December: Wrap at leisure, bake things with the kids (and solo), enjoy the season with friends and family. Plan minimal, but meaningful, events and gatherings with friends. Drink lots of tea and Bailey's Irish Cream while wrapping or baking. Nap often.

Vintage Christmas linens, aprons and towels are a favorite collectible of mine.

There, that was easy. I feel better already. Did I mention that I still have last year's Christmas cards and photos in a box, intended for a January 2010 mailing? I'm a firm believer in recycling and reusing. Besides, what's a year between friends?

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Farmwifery

Farming is not something out of the pages of a magazine, although old stuff and a big country kitchen helps. A lot. Here are some of the things I've learned so far in the past few years on our farm:

• On a farm nothing happens overnight, except for frost.
• When it first frosts, Johnson grass produces cyanide so you can't let your cows near it for at least 24-hours. Fortunately, a nice neighbor told us this.
• Doublewides are not (technically) trailers, but they're not real houses, either. [But the local water department and everyone else calls them trailers.]
• Young fawns are all too easily maimed or killed by haying equipment. Soft-hearted, but insane, farmers care for injured deer, much to their joy and, sometimes, sorrow.
• Free-range chickens are adorable, until they poop all over your porch.
• When a neighbor says 'you be careful!' as you're leaving, they're not cautioning you about a hillbilly hit. It's a nice, friendly form of 'goodbye.' [But 'you come back when you're ready' is really less obtuse.]
• Clean cattle tanks make excellent places for a good cool bathe in a pinch.
• Robert Frost was right: Good fences do make good neighbors. But he didn't say anything about when those fences are moved without permission or boundary lines are altered on maps.
• If you throw on an apron when someone is coming to the door, it goes very far towards tidying up.
• If you wear an apron around the farm, you don't have to wear a bra.
• Biscuits and sausage gravy make the best breakfast––and easy to make (the biscuits and the gravy, both). I can't believe it took me 45 years to even learn of this combination!
• Supper at 10pm is not uncommon during hay season when every ounce of daylight is utilized. [And fortunately, this is my more 'manic' time of year.]
• Boys love tractors. So do their fathers.
• A mud room is a must-have on a farm, ideally with a shower, or at least a nearby fire hose.
• The sound of absolute silence is absolutely lovely.
• It's great to have neighbors, but it's even nicer when they can't see you.
• If I didn't have satellite internet I could probably not be a farmwife. On a quiet ridge. In Kentucky.

Farmwife at Midlife

Here it is: 1-1-11. The first day of a new year and a new decade. So a most perfect time to launch a new blog. I live on a farm in Kentucky. I'm a writer. A mother. A farmwife. (Not necessarily in that order!) A collector of too much vintage stuff, books, cookbooks, unfinished projects, dreams and canned goods. I am obsessed with pantries (and literally wrote the book on them), great architecture and gardens (as well as the gnomes in them). I like to cook (most days), love to bake, and am learning to 'put up' much of our food (and raise it).

Several years ago we moved from New Hampshire to a Kentucky ridge where we've put together a cattle farm along with some chickens, pigs, and a few stray deer. It is total 'boy world' but I like it, too.

Lately I've become a chicken lady. And a deer whisperer. Sometimes I sing. And dance. And I usually wear an apron while doing so. Or flannel pajamas. Or my favorite denim skirt and shirt combo. I don't like to wear socks, unless it's winter. Pantyhose only when I must. I seek comfort in all things: in old and new friendships, family relationships, food, a good book, my home, or the natural world around me. For some reason, however, I can never leave the house without lipstick on (well, the chickens don't seem to mind).

Remember that scene when Meryl Streep, as Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa, is hollering to the native Kenyans from the back of her train car: 'My crystal! My Limoges!'? This somewhat counters her lilting phrase, 'I had a farm in Africa.' and all that evokes and yet it rather sums up what we brought down from New Hampshire and how we brought it. In several box cars. Most of it is still in boxes. Perhaps one day we will use it again or it will remain, in our barn, only to be unearthed in some future salvage operation.

'I had a mansion in a New England village.' It was beautiful and sometimes too perfect. It was not really either of us, my husband or myself, and yet 'these things we carry' from our past we can't quite leave behind––just yet. We all kind of grew up in that house, but we grew out of it, too. It is hard to pack up your life into boxes, especially when from a house that has the layering of generations. Yet, it is the best thing we ever did for ourselves. Our room-by-room inventory is still ongoing.

So I can't help but share a quote that I read recently, by Ellen Goodman, a former columnist for The Boston Globe:

We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.

This is what I've been doing at this place and time in my life. It is an ongoing process. I am grateful for the opportunity, sometimes fearful. But always blessed.

For now, it's practical magic in a doublewide. In a cottage that we're fixing up (more on that as the weeks progress: Chick-a-Biddy Cottage will be my haven, writing studio and farm-meal central). All in the rolling and lovely backdrop of Kentucky knob country.

How we came here is a story in itself and I've been telling that along the way at my other blog, In the Pantry. Recently I decided that the venue for the tale needed changing. Because I now really am a farmwife, a firmly middle-aged woman (at 48 and not quite firm, either), and totally perimenopausal, I realized that Farmwife at Midlife was a much better moniker and place in blogland to be telling my story.

Here I will share musings, thoughts, many photos (mostly my own, so please use only with permission), and recipes from our Kentucky farm. I will try to be more 'bloggy' and less verbose and save my personal essays for publication. [And I promise you, I do write in complete sentences.]

As my neighbor Margaret on the next ridge always says when I leave, 'You come back when you're ready!'

I hope that you will.

Catherine