December is upon us and while one would think there’s not much to do on a farm in the winter….well, turns out there’s plenty! I only spent a 3-4 weeks on AVCF before needing to move on to San Francisco to pick up some paying work [I’m broke!], but aside from pulling salad greens and root vegetables to sell at the farmer’s market and the usual collecting of eggs and feeding goats, pigs, chickens, cows, etc., we also helped birth some piglets and lambs! There was a lot of pig wrangling in mud [as they are quite the escape artists] and herding goats/sheep/cows to different pastures as the tasty grass comes back to life in the rainy season. My water froze most nights in my van while Millie and I hunkered down under wool blankets and extra sweaters. But during the day, as the sun came out and the swiss chard shed their ice jackets like it was nothing, we stayed busy preserving end-of-summer loot using the dehydrator for dried tomatoes [NOM!] and sugary dried figs, cranking up the apple press to make cider, and fermenting cabbage for sauerkraut, coleslaw, etc.