Ken Norman was one of the first people I met when I came upstate and his visits are like seeing family or an old friend. I enjoy knowing Eadon Ryan, Ken’s apprentice and a savvy young farmer from Pawlet, Vt. with his own donkey and beef cows and chickens. Ken has been showing Eadon how to trim hooves and the two of them seem like father and son sometimes, they are close and easy together. Ken is generous about sharing what he knows, and Eadon is a very unusual man, he is content with  himself, smart and curious. He always has a lot of questions about our animals and our work, and he also shares what he knows – which is a lot.

There is a comfortable and honest chemistry about these two, and I thought how great it is for someone like Eason, who is bright enough to do whatever he wants, to dream of his own farm rather than a Wall Street money warrior job. And how lucky he is to find someone open enough to teach him this ancient work. Eason plans to spend much of the summer working with Ken and also building a sugar house so he can sell maple syrup. I’ll put up a photo album later today.