Brigid's Garden

The things we do....

2011-10-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

Ostensibly, I thought it would be fun to write a blog about what we do around here. But what I have found is when we are actually doing something interesting (like getting a new home ready for the ducklings or canning massive amounts of applesauce from interesting apples foraged here and there) I don't really have time to write about it. And my mind seems to be busy enough at the moment that I don't remember the little bits of funny and interest to write about these adventures days later. So that means, I either write boring things (like this) or don't write (which is what I have been doing most of the time lately). I am not sure how to solve this dilemma. So in the end, I guess what you see is what you get and I am sorry because if I was putting just a little bit more effort into this I could be doing a whole lot better job.

This week Becca and I canned 36 quarts of applesauce mostly made from piles of little teeny, scabby and sometimes bruised apples. That meant to get that much applesauce we did a LOT of peeling and cutting and washing to get a few little apples in the pot. Becca had a lot going on so I probably did the lion's share of the peeling and burning (and subsequent scrubbing) of pots. She, however was great company and even rather entertaining as posted in her blog-- The Friendly Moth .

Anyway, now Becca is off at the local Seattle Barter faire with a couple of boxes of my canning seeing what she can trade for. She's going to do a way better job of trading the goods than I would. And hopefully have a better time. I gave her all kinds of stuff that we aren't eating right now because of Aidan being on the GAPS diet...green tomato relish, pumpkin quince chutney, plum chutney, plum sauce, jams, corn relish etc etc and I am hoping she will come home with something completely novel in trade. I like the idea of Barter Faire where you bring what you have too much of and trade it for what somebody else has too much of and both of you end up feeling like you got the good end of the deal. BUT, I don't really like crowds (except my family) and I definitely don't like haggling so I never go. I was excited to give Becca stuff to hawk and not have to do it myself. Another good trade. Becca doesn't know because I wasn't clear when she left but I was thinking that for her efforts she ought to get half of what she traded for.

Aidan is upstairs supposedly doing homework, but I think that isn't happening yet because he just came down and said he wanted to earn $5 by doing dog poop patrol and when I tried to give him his money he said, "Oh, no. Keep it. I spent more than I earned..." Which means he was probably buying music online and not doing his homework. hmm.

Steve is off on some kind of marathon hike, which we are hoping he brought Charlie with him because Charlie seems to be missing...The only problem with that hope is that if he brought Charlie with him, Charlie is probably not too happy because it was a heck of a long hike Steve had planned and Charlie only likes going on medium long hikes now. 8-10 miles is good for him, but it looks like from the note Steve left on the chalkboard that Steve was thinking 18-20 miles sounded fun. Another hmm.

So see, now I have told you all there is to tell and it was boring. But at least I told you. Hope you all are well.

Foraging in the early fall...

2011-09-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

I love this time of year. The air smells so clean and fresh and it is warm but also cool and never hot.

I love that I can snack my way around the yard while filling a bowl with goodies for dinner. Like the other night: roasted green and wax beans, cucumber salad, chicken (from the infamous chickies ruining the mud room escapade) and for dessert, melon (not from the garden) with plump blackberries cascading over the top. Everything was perfect. No fancy seasonings..just fresh taste.

It always amazes me just how good food can taste when it is truly fresh. Why did people ever want to stop gardening. Did they leave their taste buds home when they started shopping at the store. I can never quite understand that.

I have gotten so spoiled by homegrown foods that it is hard to buy even good produce at the store, and just forget meat. I used to think it was just tomatoes and corn that tasted better when grown at home. (That was when I mostly grew tomatoes and corn.) But then I added carrots and potatoes to the list. And then beans, and peas, and kale, and broccoli. Now I even think cabbage and beets must be grown at home because there is simply no comparing them.

I believe I am becoming a food snob. I really don't mean to be. Honest I don't. It is just that I can't help noticing the difference.

Strike, crash, boom

2011-09-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

Remember when our house got struck by lightning a couple of years ago right around Thanksgiving. Well, when the lightning was jetting around from our house through all the electricity lines around the farm, it ended up jumping to one of our very tall fir trees and swirling up (or was it down?) the tree in a beautiful spiral.

It left behind a long spiral burn mark on the tree starting thick at the bottom (this is why I think it went up) and peetering out fairly near the top. The force of the strike also split off the top of this very majestic fir and sent it flying into the pasture below where it pierced the grass like a skewer. All in all, very dramatic.

And while we admired the beauty of the burn mark, and the power of the lightning, we feared it would kill the tree. All last year we watched as the tree slowly lost it's vitality. Late last winter it finally died.

Ever since then, Steve's been itching to get out there and cut it down, But last winter and spring the pasture was too wet. When it dried out this summer Becca was in the middle of her daycamp sessions. And with Becca's campers around he didn't dare fall it in case it got hung up or something on the way down. Trees can be unpredicatable in how they fall and he didn't want to create an unsafe situation that he might not be able to get back to for a few days. Thank you Steve.

So today, his first day out of the office since Becca finished her camps, he jumped at the chance to cut that tree down. He bought some extra equipment because the tree was so big, he didn't want to take any chances. He spent sometime on youtube watching professionals fall especially large trees. And then this morning he spent a couple of hours diddling around inside, which I later figured out was his way of gearing up because it was a big, dangerous job and he wanted to do it right.

Then he made us promise to keep the puppies inside the house, shoe-ed Becca and I out of the pasture where we were picking blackberries and then asked Aidan to come out and help. I made Steve promise to watch out for Aidan.

About 15 minutes after he started sawing, the chainsaw stopped and I heard this very loud CRACK. And then a louder boom. I saw the tree go by out of the corner of my eye and I knew it was down. We went outside (leaving the puppies in still) to investigate and there was the tree. Lying all the way across the pasture exactly where Steve said he was going to drop it,

Good job Steve,

It took the whole rest of the day (with many helpers) to clean up and stack the slash and limbs which will make good firewood this winter. That's a lot of tree to take that long to clean up.

Now he is in search of a portable mill because he would really rather make some wood than firewood out of this beautiful tree. Let's hope he finds one.

It's knotweed season

2011-08-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

We are coming to the end of bee season. All the knotweed is in bloom along the road and down by the river. It is the last sure crop of bee friendly flowers we will have until spring.

I was looking in the hives today to see how they are coming along. One is doing so well. Boxes are full of honey and brimming with bees. But another hive, started the same day with bees that are supposed to be prolific producers of honey is barely going. Few bees are in the box.

Unless something weird happens the thriving hive should have no trouble making it through the winter. The other one is another story. If I want it to make it I am going to have to feed it all winter. But this brings up the question is it smart to nurse along a weak hive just to keep it alive or should I only let the strong ones live. It's a hard question.

I think for the health of the bees, probably it is better to let the strong ones survive and let the weak ones go. But it is so sad to know you could help them along and just let them fade away. I am still thinking about what I will do.

Jack and the raspberries....

2011-07-31T11:50:00.000-07:00

Who knew that dogs would eat raspberries. I certainly didn't.

Yesterday I went outside to pick raspberries. Jack and Squinchy came with me. Squinch got bored quickly and went off in search of more exciting endeavors, but Jack settled in right at my feet. Every time I would move, he would move right along with me. There were so many raspberries to pick I wasn't moving very often so he had time for a few little naps at my feet.

From time to time the cows would wander over and look through the fence and grab a mouthful of the raspberry plants. They love everything to do with raspberries...the leaves, the stalks and the berries. They have done some serious damage to the plants right next to the fence, but they also help fertilize these heavy feeders by pooping right next to the fence. So I figure it is a fair trade.

I often leave berries for the cows on the crossbar of the fence and they come up and lick them up. Brigid will eat them out of my hand. Mattie is a little more cautious. She wants hers from the cross bar and it takes her quite a few sniffs before she will eat the berry.

Anyway, we have been toying with the idea of giving the dogs raw food. Because of this, I have been feeding them little bits of this and that to see if they like it. Including fruit. Jack laps currents right up. Charlie is more demur in his appetite for fruit but still, he eats them. Squinch carefully ate everything else in the bowl and left his for Jack to clean up. Given this I guess it shouldn't have been a such surprise to see how much Jack like the raspberries.

At first I would hand him one or two berries and he would happily gobble them up. I didn't want to give him TOO many of our raspberries so after awhile I stopped handing them to him. This apparently did not work for him. Next thing I knew he was sitting at my feet eating the low growing raspberries right off the bush. He'd stick his tongue out and delicately pull a berry right off the bush. And of course, because a tongue doesn't work near as well as fingers do, he only got the ripest ones. Lucky boy!

ducks??

2011-07-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

I am wondering how hard it is to keep ducks alive. They love slugs. Maybe I should love them.

Just thinking this over. hmm

How to fold a real diaper.....

2011-07-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

By far, the very nicest thing my mother-in-law Carol ever did for me was make 4 dozen diapers for Becca and then later for Laura (aka Grace). Now, that may not sound nice but it was REALLY nice and I loved it.

Back then (in the early 80's) we lived in Utah, which by all accounts could have been called the land of babies because there are so many people having so many babies. Back then, especially in Utah, lots of people sewed; so sewing one's diapers was a pretty normal thing. It wasn't however something I had ever heard of having grown up in the land of eternal sunshine and waste (otherwise known as Los Angeles in the 70's). When I babysat, I seldom changed real diapers. The moms of my charges were quick to jump on the plastic diaper bandwagon. I had no idea about the joys of real diapers--real diapers, as in cloth diapers, as in the softest, most luscious flannel diapers you ever imagined.

When Carol showed up with her beautiful, white, soft, flannel creations, I was enamored. I loved the idea of putting my soon to be born baby (aka baby Becca) in such precious softness. By this time I was more familiar with regular cloth bird's eye gauze diapers, but they were scratchy and I didn't really like them. Ok, I admit to being very picky about fabric softness.

The homemade flannel diapers seemed like a cadillac version of diapers, by far. I later learned there was a mercedes version too (aka diaper service diapers, which are soft too--but not nearly as soft as flannel--but they magically wash themselves!) Unfortunately, just like a mercedes, they are expensive to have and keep up with. Carol's flannel diapers offered the additional bonus of being cheap to use.

The only problem with these old fashioned flannel diapers is the folding. If you don't know how to do it, you could be sunk, which leads me to why I am writing this very long winded explanation of diapers and diaper folding.

Jeremy and Bethany are having their first baby really soon. The baby (aka little peanut) is going to wear cloth diapers that are going to be washed at home.

I wanted to make them a present of some diapers (I wish I could have made as many as my mother-in-law but some are probably better than none--diaper flannel is now an exotic commodity, no longer available by the bolt!). The only problem is I am not there to show them how to fold them. My solution (well, actually Steve's solution) a lesson in pictures via the blog.

So here we go and sorry up front about losing the formatting...I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

Lay the diaper flat on the floor. No need to get too picky about the flat...this way is good enough.

Fold an edge (I always did the right side) over towards the other side...how far you fold determines how big the diaper will be so the same diapers that fit a newborn can be expanded to fit a big ole' toddler who you wish wasn't wearing diapers anymore.

Fold the second side over to match the first. You have to make a third fold so the second side doesn't fall off the opposite edge. See close up below...

The sides should be relatively symetrical, but don't go getting all anal about it because it will be dirty in no time and you will be soon folding it again. Close enough works for horseshoes AND diapers.

Fold the tail up. Now here is the part you can be tricky about. If you are folding for a boy, figure out how to put more of the tail so it protects the front. If you are folding for a girl, get that extra tail folded more in the middle. That way you will catch more pee where you need it. I didn't figure that one out for awhile. My mother-in-law only had boys so I folded it the boy way for a long time. Don't expect that mattered, but it was nice to know when I figured it out later.

Last step, fold the top down and smooth it out a bit. When you are putting these on a teeny tiny baby, you can fold in the leg area to fit a bit snugger. The snugger the fit, the less the leakage of things you don't want to leak.

You put them on the baby by pinning the back right over the front right and pinning. Then do the back left over the front left. Pin snugly and cover in a plastic pants or other waterproof wraps. Sometimes the wraps have their own ways of folding diapers so you will have to figure that one out on your own. (Ok, that part was super obvious but just in case, I said it.)

Last hints....

use double diapers at night. This may seem way too bulky when the baby is a newborn, but it works and often lets you sleep a little more because the extra diaper absorbs more before needing to be changed. We used to not change our babies at night and it worked out just great. Quick nursing and back to sleep.
if it is tricky to get the pin through the fabric, run the point of the pin in your hair. The natural grease in your hair makes the pin slip right through.
don't be cheap about pins. Good pins are worth the price. It is worth replacing them when they get dull as you are much less likely to poke the baby if your pin is sharp and slips through the fabric.
put your hand behind where you are pinning, that way you poke your hand instead of the baby. You will learn not to do that really fast. If you do poke yourself, make sure to wash it so it doesn't get infected.
if you want to make your own diapers, google diaper flannel and buy the thickest, softest flannel you can find. It takes about 10 yards a dozen, so prepare for the invasion of fabric should you ever choose to make them. They are simple as pie to make--cut or tear a square sized block--it usually comes 27" wide. Hem the two non-selvaged edges and you are set.
Never, ever throw an old diaper away, these make THE best rags you will ever have in your life.

How to weigh a chicken...

2011-06-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

Did you ever wonder how to much chicken is in a chicken?

I did because I was wondering how big our used-to-be-chickies needed to be in order to be big enough to butcher and give a decent amount of meat. So I asked a professional chicken grower I know and this is what he said: Put the chicken in a bucket and weigh the bucket.

Hmm. have you ever tried to put a chicken in a bucket?? Bet not.

Here's how it goes:

First off you need: a 5 gallon bucket, a scale to set the bucket on and a chicken.

Step one: Grab the chicken. Easier than you think, esp if you have as many chickens as we do because it doesn't really matter which one you get. Wear boots and old clothes. You will get dirtier than you think.

Step two: Put the chicken in the bucket. NOT so easy. After first trying to put the chicken straight in the bucket I realized I would have to subdue the chicken or it would flap too much and break a wing.

Here's how to subdue a chicken and get him in the bucket:

a) grab the chicken by its feet

b) hang it upside down by its feet

c) make sure Jack isn't nipping at it's face so it can relax

d) wait for the chicken to calm down

e) when the chicken goes limp walk to the bucket and quick flip the chicken in the bucket

f) ignore chicken noises, he will be OK but if you stick your face in there, you may not be.

Step three: Weigh the chicken-filled bucket.

Step four: Carry the bucket back to where all the chickens are and gently ease the disoriented chicken out of the bucket.

Step five: Stand guard while the chicken gets his wits back.

Step six: Weigh the empty bucket...subtract this amount from the chicken in the bucket weight.

Step seven: Subtract 30% off the weight of the chicken (without the bucket). and that is how much chicken meat you will get from of your chicken.

Step eight: Take a shower.

Puppy heaven

2011-06-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

Jack, the new pup, is a dream puppy. Yes, he chews. Yes, he nips our toes. And yes he gets into plenty of mischief. But still, he is a dream dog.

He is so affectionate--kissing and hugging us with his little paws. He follows us around every chance he gets and sleeps right on my feet when he is tired. I am sure he is drawing comfort from having somebody he loves nearby, but he gives at least as much comfort as he takes..

He sleeps on Charlie too, whenever Charlie will let him. He loves Charlie with all his heart and does his best to show it. His little head cocks when he sees Charlie do something new. I think he is hoping to grow up just like Charlie. (And we are hoping that too.)

This morning Charlie coughed, something Jack had never heard him do. Jack sat right up and looked at Charlie. You could see the concern on his little face. What was wrong with his favorite doggy friend. Charlie put his head right down and went back to sleep; but not Jack, he sat at attention for a good five minutes making sure Charlie was OK. Once he decided he was fine, Jack put his head down on the carpet near Charlie and went to sleep. I think Charlie has a friend for life!

Dud A.I. again.

2011-01-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

So sad. No baby cows. We have been waiting and watching and hoping and having NO luck. We are finally giving up and calling this a bust. After two AI tries on Mattie and three on Brigid, we are thinking we need a bull to get the job done.

Both these mamas are proven (which means having had babies before) and both got pregnant by a bull. The problem is we don't feel qualified to take care of a bull.

Bulls are big and they sound bad. We wonder if our fences are strong enough and what would happen if it got loose. How do you catch a bull? Most likely, they aren't as bad as we imagine but even if they are half as much trouble as we are thinking they are more trouble than we are wanting.

So we that leaves us scheming on how to either rent a bull (now, there's a business!) and having it live here for a few weeks (kind of scary since it has the same problems as owning a bull only for a shorter period of time) OR taking our cows to a pasture where there is already a bull. The latter is our preferred option but where and how? Esp since we don't have a way to haul cows around. If we could find a pasture that would accept our cows we'd have to find a cowboy for hire to move the cows. And then once the cows were pregnant and we wanted to move the cows back home how would we persuade them to come away from the herd. They are going to like life out there with a bunch of their friends. Wouldn't that bull protect them when we were out there flapping our arms in the field trying to corral our girls? Oh my.

No matter how I think about this, it's complicated. If only somebody would rent us Ferdinand. Then we would be fine.

Nope, not yet...

2010-12-14T22:59:00.001-08:00

Just so you know, no baby cows yet. I did however see the last year's baby boy calf carrying on with the goat. What was up with that? He must be very confused. The mama cows were off in the woods all day. Never did see them tonight. I hope that means something good, but I hate to get too hopeful.

Waiting...

2010-12-06T20:02:00.001-08:00

While you guys have been WAITING for me not to be such a lazy bones and write another blog post, I have been waiting for Brigid to have a baby. She kind of looks like the Goodyear blimp--very, very round in the middle.

Hopefully this time she will actually have a baby. Remember we were waiting last year too and she tricked us. Lots of stomach, no baby. This year we had the very best intentions to get that AI guy back out and check her to make sure she was pregnant but we forgot (again) and now here it is time for her to have that baby and we still don't know. So we are waiting.

Everyday I go out and peek and everyday she glares at me. She is running around like a fool in spring. I am assuming that is a bad sign. The thing we have going for us is before the AI guy came this time, Steve took her aside and said 'Brigid, either get pregnant this time or you are going in the freezer." He can be pretty convincing when he says things like this.

The other day I told Steve she definitely looked fat enough to be pregnant but he reminded me she was eating for 4....meaning that she keeps all the other cattle from eating their dinners. Quite a power monger, she has to be the boss and she has to eat first--at all four feeding stations!

It's pretty hilarious actually. She runs from feeding station to feeding station flailing her horns around, taking a bite or two at each one hoping to keep others from eating. They look on mournfully knowing if they try to ease their way in she will whack them with her horns. Even the ones with horns give way she has them so bullied. There is nothing like being the queen bee, I'd say. Even when you are a cow.

Unfortunately for her, this practice has made her quite portly...and the other cows quite fit. Someday she is going to look down and see she has lost her girlish figure and understand that eating first isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

But in the meantime, she is eating and we are waiting. I will let you know if anything exciting happens.

Rain, and more rain

2010-09-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky. Aidan was mostly better from his beginning of school cold. Heidi was home from college to celebrate her b'day (next Friday) and bring back Grace's car (probably the REAL reason she came home). Grace got in from China--she's here for a brief visit to gather all the wedding presents still here (as she flew away without them after the wedding). Becca and Seth came over for dinner and we had a rousing good time. Lots of food and especially lots of cake. Since it is Grace's b'day next Monday we had a combined birthday bash. Steve made a gluten free chocolate raspberry cake and I made a combo birthday girl cake--angel food cake with german chocolate pecan frosting. Cake+ice cream+ silly kids+many world problems to solve=lots of fun and energized conversations.

Meanwhile while we were celebrating the rain came back. It drenched the laundry and brought back out the slugs. Seems like November around here only a little warmer...in the 50-60's instead of the 40-50's. Other than that, not much cooking in these parts. All these pictures are from yesterday. PS sorry the pictures are in the wrong order. I was having trouble moving them around and well, this is what you get. xo

The best laid plans....otherwise known as Tomato Craziness

2010-09-21T11:33:00.000-07:00

This year I had plans, big plans. I was going to grow an entire year's worth of tomatoes and maybe more. I has plans to can, freeze and dry them and make all kinds of other tomato goodness out of them. I did it last year. Why not this year? But then came the summer and the rain and the severe lack of heat. And then the blight. All my happy planning, planting and tending grew luscious lively green plants and three ripe tomatoes. Pathetic.

For awhile I moped around feeling very sorry for my tomato loving self. But then I pulled myself together and started making trips to the farmer's market and buying organic tomatoes by the lug. AFter a couple of weeks I had processed 125 pounds of these red beauties. Right after the Weston-Price buying club I recently joined had a tomato buy. A dollar a pound for 2# (cosmetically challenged) organic tomatoes. How could I beat that? So I bought another 40 pounds. And then, I got an order I had placed a long time before from our organic fruit guy and brought home another 40 pounds of the best non-homegrown cooking tomatoes I have ever tasted. Okay. I admit I got carried away...but honestly we will eat them and be glad. Already we have had two homemade pizza nights. And there will be more to come I am sure.

I bet you are wondering what I did those 200+ pounds. It went quicker than you think.

First, I washed and ground the original 100 pounds in my cuisinart. I put the ground tomatoes in quart ziplock bags and froze them as is for cooking. It takes less than an hour to wash and process 25 pounds. Pretty darn quick.

Next I dried the remaining 25 pounds of farmer's market tomatoes using my tomato chip recipe which is detailed in the Fifteen Minutes of Heaven post if you scroll down here
It takes me less than an hour to prepare 25 pounds for the dryer and a few minutes here and there to check on them.

After that, I started getting creative. With 10 pounds of the buying club tomatoes I made a tomato paste from a recipe shared by somebody in the club. I guess the recipe was originally created by Bruce Naftaly of Le Gourmand in Seattle. It is simple and delicious...thank you Elisabeth for sharing and Bruce for creating..

Tomato Paste

2 lbs paste tomatoes
1/2 c or more red wine

start with 1/2 c of red wine. add tomatoes and cover. bring to a boil.
once boiling, uncover, and reduce heat to simmer. simmer about 60 min.
put through food mill. should yield about 1 c of paste.

It took me a little longer to cook it down but I started with regular tomatoes and not the paste tomatoes. I suspect it took twice as long to cook. I also added a titch of himalayan salt.

While that was cooking I sliced up the remaining 30 pounds and half dried them. This was a recipe from another friend that I tried last year and loved. It is simple to do and makes cooked tomato sauces divine...somehow the double drying and freezing technique makes the flavors extra rich. It took me a little over an hour to do 30 pounds.

Half-dried Tomatoes

Slice tomatoes in four even slices and fill the dehydrator. Let them dry about half time so they are smaller but still are fleshy. I would tell you how long but each dehydrator is different. Then carefully move the half dried slices to cookies sheets to freeze solid and then put them in ziplock bags in the freezer. This extra step ensures you can just grab a few when it is time to cook. Use liberally when cooking with tomatoes. (Can't get much easier than that!)

And finally, today I got even more adventurous by making the last 40 pounds of tomatoes into the roasted tomato sauce recipe from my new friend Heidi P. Of all the tomato recipes I made, these smell the best. Again, this is a super easy recipe that just takes time and patience.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

Cover the bottom of a pyrex or other thick baking pan with paste tomatoes that have been sliced in half the long way. Make a thick pile, about as much as the pan can hold.

Drizzle olive oil and himalayan salt over the top and then sprinkle with fresh herbs (I used basil, oregano and thyme).

Add liberal amounts of fresh garlic cloves.

Bake at 220 degrees until all the extra water is gone. Stir occasionally and keep cooking on a low heat until the tomatoes are the consistency that you like. You can cool and then freeze in useful amounts or can if you like. If you can remember you will need to add citric acid to acidify for safety. With the herbs and garlic and oil, I figure I would rather be safe than sorry so I froze it.

I am sure there are many other delicious ways to preserve tomatoes for winter. What's your favorite way?

Queen of the Flies

2010-09-20T07:37:00.001-07:00

I love September. I love harvesting from the garden. I love pickling, jamming, jarring, cooking, and freezing all that I harvest. I love watching my pantry and freezer go from full to bursting. I love the smells. I love the colors. I just love September. But what I don't love are the flies.

Seems like every September we have too many flies around here. Buzzing and hanging off the walls watching everything I do. Landing near me, on me. Yuck. I don't like to think about it and I don't like to deal with it. But that doesn't make them go away. And this year, because it is so cold outside we have even more than usual. I feel like Queen of the Flies (not to be confused with Queen of the Bees which is a movie you really should see when it comes to your town!)

Usually I have a live and let live sort of temperament when it comes to bugs. This year, however, the flies have finally gotten to me. Armed with the ZAPPER (a wonderful electric orange tennis racket), I have been wandering around the house zapping all the flies I can get. It makes a horrible sound and smell and makes me feel even worse (though I suppose the fly wins in the feel bad department). I just couldn't take it anymore. I have become a mass murderer of flies. I would give you photographic proof but that would embarrass me too much. Owning up to it is about all I can take.

So welcome to my life this monday morning....amazing tomato paste simmering on my stove and me ducking the fly bombers.

I'm back--hopefully

2010-09-18T08:56:00.001-07:00

Well, I admit it. I disappeared from the blogosphere. Completely. It has been months and I haven't even opened this blog page once. I didn't even know how long it had been. I have been busy. Honest. And maybe not in the mood. But today, I am back.

Let me explain...the last time I posted it was right before Aidan's birthday. So there was the birthday. And that happens at planting time, so there was planting, digging and hauling of compost to be done. And then I went to Brazil for a couple of weeks so there was the getting ready for the trip, the trip and the recovering from the trip. (It's a big trip!) And then right on the heels of Brazil was THE WEDDING. The wedding took weeks to get ready for and recover from. And in those weeks there was also the family reunion--FUN. Loved that. Though I did feel SUPER guilty about how hard the wedding ended up working everyone. I really didn't get that in advance and I apologize in reverse.

And then there was catching up from the wedding and reunion and the trip...meaning my garden went to hell from neglect. And then there was a busy summer full of day camp (not that I do any of the work but it does mean a LOT of extra people in my space all the time). And then school started and I was still trying to salvage my garden and fill our pantry and freezer. Did the latter two but the garden is just a mess. One big pile of buttercups. (See the previous post if you want an explanation.)

So that leaves me here, today. Ready to be back. And with not much to say except one big whiney apology. Can you forgive me? Hope so.

The most exciting thing that has happened lately (besides everything I was whining about up there) is the cow went on walkabout. Steve went to feed her yesterday morning and NO Brigid. Now this is a girl who LOVES her food. I have seen her literally charge down a pasture to get a handful of greens that are dangling over the fence. She loves to eat.

So let's just say she has never, ever missed breakfast before. When she didn't show up, Steve was alarmed. He trekked all over heck and gone (meaning through the blackberries and woods) as fast as he could (he was rapidly getting late for work) and couldn't find her. Naturally I was appointed relief chief cow catcher.

I wasn't too worried for some reason and I had a LOT of things already on my list so I decided to let her wander home on her own and give her a few hours to do so. I adopted this attitude partly because I know how hard it is to get her to do anything she doesn't already agree to and I figured if she was dining in the woods, she wasn't going to leave until she was done.

After I got back from my 347 errands and things to do on the official 'things to do list', I ate lunch and went a looking. First I looked from the car because before when she has jumped the fence she has found her way through the woods and onto our neighbor's lawns. I don't think they like that too much. These neighbors are also far enough away it is much quicker to look by vehicle than on foot. She wasn't anywhere to be found on the road back through the woods, so I came home put on my big blackberry-proof boots and headed out into the woods to look. First of course, looking to see if she was back. She was not.

I traipsed through all kinds of thickets and brambles and open spots of woods (ahhh). But of course, NO COW! I had visions of search and rescue teams fanning out in the 2 million acres of woods that are adjacent to our house and of never finding the cow. My imagination was going wild. The more arduous the walk through the blackberries became, the more dramatic my imaginings were. Let's just say I came up with some pretty amazing scenarios...including rescuing cows by helicopters for one.

After a LONG time, I was just about to give up. I went back to the barn to give Mattie a great big hello (she was standing in her stall quite happily) when who should poke her innocent nose out of the other barn door and peer at me with those big brown eyes of hers--Brigid.. And to tell you the truth she was looking much more ornery than innocent.

I guess I can say alls well that ends well but honestly cows can be worse than goats sometimes.

A meditation in Gold

2010-05-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following a few years ago after a particularly long spring of digging buttercups. I just came in from hoeing down those golden beauties and thought I would share what I wrote so long ago. It is surely still true today.

A Meditation in Gold

I am drowning in a sea of buttercups. Each spring their fecundity catches me unaware. By summer, I’ve spent untold hours digging them out of my gardens. When autumn comes, I throw up my hands in defeat as they spread their seeds with joyous promiscuity.

An occasional wildflower where I was raised, buttercups now rule my visual world. Left untended they stake their claim across my farmstead. Buttercups are surprisingly domineering. One summer of weeding left undone and an entire flower garden disappears.

“It’s only because the soil is too wet,” the nurseryman says.

Hmm, I think. That spot wasn’t filled with buttercups when we moved in. Did they bring their water with them when they grew?

Once my garden-loving aunt came to visit when we were new to our farm. Seeing all the buttercups she marveled at their sun-crested beauty. “I’d let them grow, they’re such pretty little things.” she said as she fawned over their yellow fairy cups.

“Maybe,” I hesitantly ventured. “But don’t you think there are an awful lot of them?”

Little did I know. The previous owners must have struggled to remove every trace of buttercups from all cultivated areas before they sold the farm. What harm could a few (hundred) stragglers cause? And so, I let them be.

Now seven years later, the tide has truly come in. Hundreds became thousands and thousands became -- dare I say -- millions. The lower pasture, once filled with lush grass, is now a golden meadow of delight, except the sheep would much rather eat grass than buttercups so what am I to do? The buttercups steadily encroach upon any area of disturbed or wet ground (like my vegetable garden, where I can pull ten gallons a day week after week and not make a dent).

I rail against their bright spirit as they haunt my days with their ever-present vitality. Their sheer numbers render me helpless. How can I rid my garden of them? And yet, if I stop flailing against this tide and relax into the flow, something mysterious happens. They throw me a lifeline. Instead of me subduing them, their passionate wildness reaches out to buoy me along. Buttercups become my meditation

Like early morning sirens, they lure me from my bed. I find them wherever I wander with my trusted fork and a five-gallon bucket in hand. Each morning I gather bucket after bucket of these golden weeds. The buttercups are my excuse to be with the green, growing earth beneath me. The peace of the land penetrates my cells as I silently work the soil. I place each plant into my bucket with care, an offering from the stillness of my heart.

Buttercups have taught me the power of surrender as they alternately yield to and wrestle with my fork. They cling to their home with tenacious intent. Roots of steel, I have often thought. Yet, there is a sense of knowing when and how to pull that gently persuades them to relinquish their earthly connection. If I fight them the stalks snap in my hand, and the buttercups re-emerge with vigor. But if instead, I soften, melding myself to their essential nature, I know just where to pull and how. They literally slip from the soil into my hand. Their surrender originates in mine. When we meet as one, the plant yields and soon my bucket is full.

I give thanks for this practice as I bring my chickens their daily breakfast of fresh greens. The hens happily devour their morning treat, graciously transforming the weeds into eggs with yolks as rich and golden as the flowers. Unlike me, my chickens have no difficulty with their profusion in my yard. They welcome every buttercup they meet.

Apple socka and late frosts

2010-05-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

I just came in from the orchard with sad news. The late frosts kept most of our fruit from setting. There are a few cherries, some apples and some plums but there are MANY trees with no fruit at all. Very sad.

I was investigating the trees so closely because I went out to put little tiny nylon socks on the baby apples. This sounds goofy I know, but I was doing it to prevent apple maggots. We had a few last year and I decided to nip this problem in the bud (so to speak).

Apple maggots are as common as apples in this part of Western Washington. So, it isn't surprising we got them, but I still want to figure out how to help them not choose our apples for their homes. I decided to try a two pronged approach of ridding the orchard of them.

First approach are the goofy looking little nylon socks. Buying them in bags of 300, it is a project to put them out. Climbing on ladders and searching under leaves, you place one of these socks over each baby fruit when they are less than an inch big. Then the apple grows into the sock providing the apple maggots with a physical barrier that supposedly prevents the maggots and coddling moths to boot. I have never done this before so I can't tell you from experience how well it works but my gardening friends love them. It is a bit tedious to put all the little socks on the fruit babies, but it is also pretty nice being out there in the gentle spring sunshine listening to the creek all full of water from this morning's rain. Charlie stayed with me the entire time hunting things in the grass. We had a good time.

Apple maggots are a huge problem where we live. But like all pests, they are a sign that the vitality of the plant is somehow compromised. For this reason, I am planning on brewing as much biodynamic compost tea as I can and spreading it in the orchard as often as I can manage. I have heard of many people doing this and experiencing a dramatic increase in the health of their fruit trees. I figured I would give it a try. I certainly have the compost to make the tea with...thank you Kaitlin!

It is easy to brew this tea. All you need is a 5 gallon bucket, a fish bubbler and some tubing, some compost and a zippered net bag and lastly some micronized endo powder. Fill the bucket with water, turn on the bubbler and stick the tubing down under the water (I hold my tubing in place with a rock). Then put some compost in the zippered net laundry bag and float it in the water. Add the micronized endo powder (which helps the good bugs grow in the compost tea) and let it all brew for a day. Spread like you were watering the trees. Easy as pie. You can buy a fancy compost brewer for hundreds of dollars or you can make one of these for $20-$25. Either way, the brew is mighty powerful stuff, especially when made with biodynamic compost.

We already painted the trees with biodynamic tree paste mid winter. And if we get a chance we will dig the grass out from the base of the tree and put a good layer of compost around each tree. Hopefully, all this will be enough to stop those pesky apple maggots in their tracks. I like apples too much to see them get wormy.

Busy weekend....

2010-05-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

We are full to the brim with people around here. Fun!

Amanda the wwoofer from Hong Kong is still here and still weeding. The dear girl has weeded the biggest pile of weeds (buttercups!) I have ever seen. Becca and Seth are here for a few days before they take off for the pilgrimage walking trip in Spain (5 weeks--hundreds of miles...it is called the Camino, you could google if you are interested). And our friends Jacqueline and Joseph are here and we are having a weekend of biodynamic classes here...yesterday was Bees-The Other Way and today is Biodynamic Basics where we will be showing people how to stir and spray preps and make a biodynamic compost pile. Fun. But I have to run. Lots to do this morning.

buzz, buzz, buzz

2010-04-16T08:35:00.001-07:00

The bees are coming today. I ordered two nucs (which are a bunch of bees and a queen for them to love) and they come in this afternoon. Nice! Only sad part is the man who started the bee business died a couple of weeks ago so his widow will be passing out the bees and I am sure just the thought of doing his work will make her even sadder. I hope the bees themselves will help her. They are SUCH the essence of love. Tomorrow some folks are coming over to watch while I hive the bees. Maybe I will have pictures or something to post. I love bee season.

Overwhelm

2010-04-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

Ever look at the list and feel immobile instead of activated. That was me today. Nothing useful has gotten done so far (except a trip to the dentist, which hardly counts). Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

Home again, home again Jiggity Jig

2010-04-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

I just have to say, if you are going to go away, you ought to have Becca and Seth come live your life for you while you are gone. Seriously, we came home to clean house, a cleaner barn, happy animals and fresh CHEESE. I mean, geez, that is something I always mean to do but seem not to find the time for. Yippee.

Becca had even redone all the strawberry beds--the old ones are weeded and refilled with new plants and the new ones are now not crawling out into the pasture. Yes, mam she did a good job. Yea for Becca.

Now it is rainy and cold and I can stay inside relatively guilt free and put all facets of our life back together by getting the laundry done and the fridge cleaned out. Sweet deal. Thank you Becca (and Seth!).

Aloha

2010-04-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

Knowing yesterday was our last day before piling on the airplane and flying home inspired us. We got out early for a short walk on OUR beach and then hopped in the car to go back to Tunnels beach for another round of snorkeling. The surf was up, as were the currents so it was good we went early when it was relatively calm. We saw many of the usual suspects but also saw a gigantic moray eel that was half in and half out of his hole in the rock. We looked him up on line thinking that we could find out what kind he was. Since he was spotted, we thought it would be easy to tell. But alas, there are three spotted moray eels. We think he was a snout eel but he easily could have been a whitemouthed one, esp since the inside of his mouth was very white. Steve tried to take a picture but it didn't come out because we stayed a very comfortable distance above him in the water. I liked that. The last time we were in Kauai, a moray eel struck towards my face when I was looking at some fish near his hole. That was way too close for comfort. But I suppose he felt the same way about me!

After Tunnels we headed into Hanelei to produce the long promised Shave Ice for Aidan. Clearly a winner with him, as he was lamenting that he should have been having this all along. Me, I am not a fan of shave ice...way too orange or blue or green and way tooooo sweet. Steve and Aidan happily ate theirs in the shade on a bench while I walked around. I wandered into this cool store that sold handmade Polynesian things...phew, they make some really nasty weapons like the one that is designed to poke out both eyes of the enemy at once. Geez, I hope if I ever go to that island I mind my p's and q's. Wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of that puppy.

Then we came home for a very quick lunch and to reapply sunscreen because it was SUNNY and HOT and BEAUTIFUL and we headed for the Queen's bath again...of course because we spent so much time snorkeling by now it was 2 o'clock and we were worried about getting back in time for our last Banana Joe's so we had to stop there before the Queen's bath just to make sure. They are closed today so we can't get one on the way to the airport, but I may start looking for a champion juicer on craigslist. I can only imagine how delicious that concoction would be made with berries from the garden...Yummy and good for us too!

Then we dashed off to the Queen's bath where it was one big party. The surf was crashing over the rocks and into the pool which made it very fun AND we saw an entire little tide pool full of baby eels. They were eating each other for food. : (( Guess it was just an eely kind of day.

After this we went back to the fish market for one last round of fresh mahi mahi and came home for a movie. Aidan finished off the Kauai made sorbet that was in the freezer making it a great end to a great day. Oh, did I mention that we got an ice cream too when we went to the fish market?. By the time Aidan went to bed he had had 4 frozen treats in one day. (We tried hard to make his last day memorable! And NO, the parents didn't do that. We have a little restraint!)

Now it is packing and off to the airport we go. Aloha Kauai, we love you!

Bali Hai

2010-04-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

The day started off with a double rainbow, how could it be anything but perfect!

The weather was gorgeous, the seas calm(ish), and the boat within walking distance of the house. We wandered down towards the dock at 7:15. Just as we got there the van was pulling up with all our other boat buddies coming in from Hanelei and then we all watched the boat as it was launched into the water. It wasn't long before we were all aboard and heading down to the Na Pali coast. The boat's name is the Seabreeze and truly, the day (well, morning) was as perfect as the name implies.

Isn't that a great picture! Don't thank the parents, Aidan took that one. His photography class skills have shown all trip. There were 14 of us aboard and two captains. The Seabreeze had it's annual Coast Guard inspection immediately after our trip so our Captain Bob
had his friend Capt. Rick there to help. That way we had two very knowledgeable tour guides and the trip was the better for it. Each had their own take on the tour and since Steve and I were sitting in different parts of the boats we heard both. Capt. Bob focused on the history and land forms, while Captain Rick made sure we knew exactly which celebrity lived where. I can now somewhat confidently say that Julia Robert's house has a green roof and is is NOT on Anini beach but is still close by.

The sea was full of swells on the way down the Na Pali coast, otherwise known as Bali Hai. From the sea, we saw the beach where Mitzi Gaylor washed that man right out of her hair and the scenery that National Geographic considers the second most beautiful coast line in the world. You have to admit, it is pretty spectacular, even with our amateur photography skills. The water is at least this gorgous.
And every bit of the scenery breathtaking. We saw valleys that looked virtually inhabitable they were so steep and rugged, and yet thousands of ancient Polynesians lived there for centuries. We saw the 'warrior' cliffs where the young boys would train for their lives as warriors diving off one cliff and swimming up to a virtually unswimmable beach only to have to reclimb a cliff for some other test of their manhood. Impressive stuff. As Capt. Rick said, this was when men were men! Speaking of that, I forgot to mention that Captian Rick (easily a man in his 60's) makes a yearly swim/run down and back the Na Pali coast in some kind of race...8.5 mile open water swim (with flippers and mask and snorkel and then an 11.5 mile run back up the Na Pali coast trail where parts of the trail are 18 inches wide and if you misstep once you fall down a very tall cliff! The swim part that sounded okay to me.....

When we reached our lunch spot, we immediately saw some turtles swimming in the waters around the boat. Yea! I love turtles. Capt. Bob declared the waters calm enough to swim so we donned our snorkel gear and jumped off the boat for an hour long snorkel. We saw plenty of fish and another monk seal sunning itself on the reef. We also saw a few of those beautiful turtle friends up close. Thanks again to Aidan for capturing them with the camera. It is much harder than it looks to get beautiful underwater shots.
On the way back we saw an entire pod of dolphins swimming along side the boat, jumping and playing. Quite a sight. I even saw a baby swimming right in tow with its mama and a friend. So cute. And then just as we were about to head in over Fringe Reef (the reef surrounding Anini beach that happens to be the largest living coral reef in Hawaii) we saw a baby humpback whale surface. Capt. Bob stopped the boat and we waited and watched until mama and baby came up to the surface again. Quite a sight to see them so close. The water over the reef was shallow the mama whale couldn't flip her tale when she was surfacing and diving because that would have taken her deeper than she was able to go. All in all, it was an amazing morning. Steve however was raring to go more, so as we are walking back up the beach he's planning our next big adventure--hiking above Princeville. Aidan and I stayed home savoring the last one while Steve went by himself and took this picture of some interesting tree he saw on the hill. That boy can go and go forever, Just like the energizer bunny!

Spouting horns and waterfalls...we turn touristy....

2010-04-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

Life has been good...we've been on the go...so much we didn't even make it back in time yesterday for our traditional Banana Joe's frosty. Had to make do with homemade ice cream. Oh, poor us.

Yesterday we put on our tourist hats and went to see the spouting horn and the cutest turtle who came by to see it too. And then snorkeling in Poipu at a place reported to be the best snorkeling on the island but we weren't sure. Lots and lots of people and some different fish than we have seen but I wouldn't call it better. We have been to some pretty stellar places this week. I guess in the end it is kind of hard to compare.

After Poipu, we hopped in the car and took a short drive/walk to a beach that was lined with petrified sand dunes. Cool. The water was gorgeous, as were the waves breaking on the cliffs.
Aidan was feeling very 14 at that moment so he didn't seem to be having a very good time but Steve certainly was. There was a hole in the ground right in the surf that provided him with his very own hot tub.

And then on the way back we decided to continue with our heavy tourist day and visit the waterfalls..We have been to them before but they were very different with the heavy water flow. Last time we were here we went swimming in Kipu Falls, but yesterday it was way too full to swim. The water was bright red with the iron oxide soil that was still filling the streams from the big storm that caused the flash floods. We watched in awe and then walked back through the mosquito ridden grasses with the thoughts of finally getting a shave ice...the local treat we have yet to try this trip. We wandered our way through Lihue in search of the island's best shave ice only to find that it closed at 3. So we hopped back in the car and headed straight up to another falls--one that is taller than Niagra Falls--and about the size of Snoqualmie Falls, though with less water than Snoqalmie or Niagra on a heavy rain day.

After that, we had certainly worn out the generosity of the 14 yr old's patience with his parents ideas so we headed back to get that delicious, previously mentioned ice cream and headed home for dinner and bed.

Time for a new plan...

2010-04-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

Ever have those days when you have EVERYTHING all planned out and it is going be great but then NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING goes the way you wanted it to. That was yesterday. Those days can either be frustrating, if you fight the tide, or they can be awesome if you go where life is taking you. That's what happened to us yesterday.

After the sleepy people woke up, Steve and I decided to go to visit a beautiful lighthouse on the very northern tip of the island. There is a National Wildlife Refuge there and it is a GREAT place for seeing cool sea birds and even sometimes marine mammals. We got going lickity split and were disappointed to find that it was closed (it didn't open until 10). We stood outside the gate for awhile watching the many and amazing sea birds fly around and hanging out on the sides of the cliffs. I tried to take some pictures but honestly they were just plain stupid because the birds were so small (even super zoomed) and the ocean is so big. So you will just have to imagine with a red-footed booby looks like or a frigate bird or some giant white bird with a red tail that I can't remember the name of this morning. Honestly, I guess am kind of boring because I liked the relatively common red-footed booby best. It has such a great name, beautiful bendy black and white wings and seriously has bright red feet...very noticeable to even me (and let's just say that I am NOT the best birder on the block.)

After a long time of watching the cool birds and looking for whales, we got back in the car and talked and waited and then gave up. Probably if the lighthouse had been free we would have had more patience with waiting but it was going to cost $5 each to get in and we had been looking at the view for a while, so we just nixed that plan and drove away onto the next adventure. There is a wonderful fish market about a mile or two from the lighthouse so we thought we would stop by there and get fresh (and I mean FRESH--this stuff is always right off the boat) fish for dinner. But guess what, they weren't open either. That makes sense I suppose, they do need time to be out on the boat. But there went plan two. The ice cream store was closed too, but I guess that was okay considering it was only 9 something.

We got back in the car and drove towards home where Aidan was texting us from his I-Pod--when were we coming home? Heck, we didn't know. We wanted to explore our neighborhood a little more so we took this bit of time to go down all the little roads and check out all the beaches nearby. To tell you the truth, I had a hidden agenda. I knew that Julia Roberts has an Anini Beach house and well, I was just kind of hoping i would run in to her. Okay, stupid but I can dream a little can't I. She has made me laugh more times in the last 10 years than anyone else I know. Gotta love her for that. After lots of driving and no sightings, we went home. I didn't even see a house I would have guessed to be hers (like I would know). After my thorough tour of the road by the beach, I decided that she must have one of the gorgeous, much more private houses on the hill that OVERLOOKS Anini Beach and isn't directly ON Anini beach--unless her house was the one house down this little tiny private road that I couldn't see. Maybe there was a super cool house ON the beach down that ratty road.

Well, anyway, enough of that.

When we came home ready to prepare for the big boat trip on the Na Pali coast. Aidan informed us that the boat people had called to say that there was a possibility that it would be cancelled do to a flash flood warning. Hmm. How could a flash flood warning hurt a boat out in the ocean? We didn't quite understand, esp because at this point it wasn't raining but we said ok. Steve got online, sure enough there was a big storm coming from the south and huge flash flood warnings were out. More hmmiing. We did a few little things and waited. Yep, an hour later they called and cancelled. What to do?

Now there is nothing that a 14 yr old likes better than to tell ya' what to do...so we threw the guidebook at Aidan and gave him an hour and said you decide what we should do this afternoon. We left him alone and when we reconvened he had an EXCELLENT plan fully researched. Go Aidan. We quickly piled into our snorkeling outfits (sans mask and fins for driving), lathered the skin white with sunscreen and drove off towards Hanelei where we haven't seen Puff but have seen his cave. Destination: Tunnel's Beach

I knew all about this beach. I remember reading in detail about the place where that cute 13 yr. old surfer girl had her arm bit off by a shark a few years ago...I knew that. Aidan didn't. But I wasn't really worried really because that was a freak event (only 14 shark attacks in Kauai's written history) and she was surfing at dawn when the sharks are feeding and besides we aren't as cute as she is. I wasn't worried but I did think about it.

We get there and guess what, NO parking anywhere. So we scout it out and find another place to park. Guess what that is all full too. So we keep on going on down the road, this is a 2 mile long beach and finally find some parking way down past where we wanted to be for the snorkeling. This is a swimming, surfing. snorkeling beach each in its own section of the beach. I only cared about the walk because my feet are getting holes in them where my flip flops rub the sand in at the straps. Ouch.

ANYWAY, we grabbed all the gear and started trucking down the beach. We finally get to a spot that looks good to us and get on our fins etc. We are just about to sckwaddle (what else could you call walking in fins?) across the flat underwater rocks to where it is deep enough to get in when some very nice man from Calcary says we might not want to do that because the rocks go on forever there and well, tells us to walk on down the beach some more to the channel out to the tunnels. OK, off go the snorkel and fins, on go the flip flops and down we go. This time we find his spot. Clearly, he was right. Thank you man from Calgary and out we go into the water.

We spent the next 3 hours snorkeling to our heart's content. It was AMAZING out there. So many kinds of fish. Seriously, we saw at least 25 kinds of fish and lots of them So many colors, and even the softest colored ones were beautiful when we took the time to look at them more closely. Gorgeous. Steve took oodles of pictures and I took a few. Taking pictures of fish is HARD. Steve and Aidan are definitely better at it than I am. Anyway, we lost track of time out there it was so fun. One time when I got a few feet away from Steve a monk seal swam by and looked him in the eye. Nice!

After we were all swum out, we asked Aidan what was next. He said " Shave ice, Banana Joe's and Ice cream." All three, yep, all three. Okay we said, you sure? Yep! So we scuttled back to the car as quickly as we could and looked at the clock. Dang, it was so close to when Banana Joe's closed. We ditched the shave ice idea and hurried as fast a person can hurry behind very slow driving cars back to Banana Joe's. We arrived JUST at closing and got our two fruit frostys (Aidan and I) and a smoothie (Steve). It was pineapple again and so we go into a long discussion with the owner about the weather and I guess the reason there are no choices at Banana Joe's this year is because the tropical fruit has had a hard time ripening when the weather was 65.

At this point we were so close to home we hopped on down the hill and all took showers and got off those sandy, salty swim suits and piled back in the car in search of ice cream. Hey, a promise is a promise and besides, snorkeling for 3 hours makes a person very hungry. Thanks to Karen, we found a DELICIOUS ice cream store that also made some kind of soft ice cream that had no dairy and no sugar (what did it have is the real question). Steve was glad to try that and got a big giant bowl of chocolate and vanilla mystery stuff. Aidan and I happily at the real stuff. A quick stop at the fish store for some fresh mahi mahi and then onto the video store where we found a really bad movie, so boring we didn't even watch it.

Dinner was great though and bed was even better. This week is so much fun as to be exhausting! I could use about 3 more nights' sleeps.

All in all, the day that wasn't came out pretty darn good! The big storm did hit, btw. At 9 when we were eating dinner. Whew, what a lot of water. Rained most of the night hard.

We are going to try for the boat trip again tomorrow.

ps sorry for not proofreading, just want to get those sleepy people up and go do something.

Bathing like a queen....

2010-04-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

So I left you yesterday morning when it was dumping rain; roof pounding, can hardly step outside without getting drenched kind of rain. After a couple of hours of that, the clouds moved on and we were left with an amazingly nice (and not too hot) day. How cool is that!

But before the rain stopped completely we decided snorkeling in the rain could be just as much fun as snorkeling in the sunshine. We lathered up the sunscreen as Aidan and I are living testaments to how badly a person can burn on a cloudy day, grabbed our snorkel gear, threw on our flip flops and headed out the door to our own little beach. (I like how after 2 days it is now MINE!) Click here to see a picture of MY beach! We walked down the beach to the little rope swing and shoved our raincoats and clothes under the roots of a tree__yea, you read that right UNDER the roots of a tree. then donning our mask and flippers walked backwards out into the sea. If you only knew how glamorous we can make that look. ; )

Unfortunately the water was only knee deep there for a very, very long time. So Aidan and Steve came back to shore and walked our stuff down to another protected spot and I swam--or shall I say held my breath and tried to swim. Seriously, it was about as shallow as it could be and me still be able to float and navigate. I bottomed out once but not with my bottom. Funny. Sort of. Made me realize if I was ever going to have reconstructive (deconstructive?) surgery of that area of my body I would like a good surgeon to do it, not a wad of coral. Ouch.

Anyway, once we were all back in the water, we snorkeled around for a couple of hours looking at all kinds of cool coral formations and tons and tons of fish. I am sure this beach is not known for its snorkeling but it was cool anyway. And it was still raining on and off so it was surely more fun than sitting inside waiting for the rain to stop. What's the point in that?

After a couple of hours we came home and made lunch...hmm, maybe we were out there longer than that because it was 12:30 by now. How did it get so late?

Regardless, we munched on boring things like guacamole made from fresh, very local avocados and tomatoes from a farm down the road a bit (Steve and Aidan) and peanut butter sandwiches (me, because clearly nobody else is going to eat what I thought would be good lunch stuff) and then we jumped back into the car and headed to the queen's bath. There is a lot of history to that spot but I forget it and was more interested in swimming than history so I didn't reread it yesterday.

The Queen's bath was my favorite part of Kauai when we came here in 1999. Well, at least tied for first. Kauai is really nice. Hard to pick, ya know. It is a beautiful pool of frequently refreshed ocean water (waves come splashing over the edge) complete with fish and interesting underwater things to look at. It is a nice (bit tricky) walk out from a subdivision in Princeville which is only 5 minutes away from MY beach.To get to the Queen's Bath, you walk down a hill, past a waterfall, across the lava flow and then down into the pool. The views are amazing. Seriously, amazing.

I saw on whale spouting yesterday, but the last time we went we watched whales swimming by for nearly an hour. And saw oodles of turtles swimming right off shore. Yesterday though, we concentrated on swimming and more swimming. We had the place all to ourselves (which apparently was kind of a miracle because after about an hour 30 or more people showed up and we saw almost that many walking out when we were walking in). We had plenty of time to swim and swim in completely comfort..warm water, no dangers. Very nice. (The queen's bath can be dangerous if the surf is high, but yesterday it was perfect.)

After watching the fish swim in so many different ways--with their whole bodies, with lots of fins, with just a couple fins, with their back fins...etc. etc. I decided I would try to emulate them and see how well I could get around. It was the kind of thing that embarrasses my children, so it was lucky that Aidan wasn't watching me and nobody else was around. Apparently, that while I am a great swimmer, I am not a good fish. I couldn't do any of their moves and still move forward. Actually, a lot of the moves I tried made me go backwards or worse, absolutely nowhere. I am sure I looked ridiculous, so I am very glad nobody noticed what I was doing and took pictures. The ones they have been taking are bad enough.

We swam until we were done (maybe 1.5-2 hours) and then walked back up the rocks and to the car. During the last half hour when all the people came we got to talking to the other non-locals about possible things to do. What we had scheduled from Thursday (a boat ride up the Na Pali coast starting in the south of the island 1.5 hours away from here) was apparently better scheduled from our end of the island. We had meant to pick a tour boat from here but somehow messed that up, We were definitely not keen on the drive, nor the time we would be doing the drive (leaving at 5:20 am) so we hurried home to cancel and reschedule. With just a few minutes to spare before they closed we were able to cancel with the southern company (with no fees--whereas, if we had waited until today it would have cost 50%) and then reschedule with one that takes off from OUR beach and will require no driving at all. Score. And supposedly, according to the guidebook of all guidebooks Kauai Revealed this is the best trip on the island. How did we miss this one to begin with? The rain must have addled our brains this morning and caused us to read an advertising magazine instead of the bible!

With that little mistake corrected we headed back out for our daily dose of Banana Joe's. Things have changed there since we were here in the 90's. No longer do you get to choose your flavor from a variety of choices. They make one kind a day and you suffer through their choice, like it or not. It was pineapple again, and poor us, it was delicious. Every time I eat these things it makes me want a champion juicer. How can just plain frozen fruit taste this good. Oh my, better stop talking about it or we will have to go twice today. yummy. We do have a few hours to fill before the boat ride.

While at Banana Joe's, we bought some more fresh produce and then wandered down the road to a little roadside stand selling ice cold coconuts. Since coconuts have been promoted to a real live superfood, how could we not stop and get one. Umm, fresh young coconuts are so delicious...Steve and I drank the water (Aidan tried it but didn't no likey) and then handed back our coconut to watch it be smacked with the back side of a machete. Amazingly, it cracked in half (I guess the right tool is everything). and with a little plastic spoon we scooped out bits of the inside. It was so soft and creamy, not at all like other coconut I have had. Guess i have never had one that young before. Yummy again.

We came home again and had some kind of taco/tostada concoction with tons of local, delicious produce and a beautiful pineapple, coconut, papaya salad for dinner. yumm. Even Aidan was full after this. An hour or so later, he resumed his grazing habits and found the local ice cream we had stashed in the freezer. yum on that too. Tonight we will try the guava and the pineapple gelato we found at the health food store. Made in Kauai, no dairy. Sounds good.

After all that swimming, we went right to sleep and I at least slept for a long, long time. Those two lumps are getting an extra long attached to their sleep since here it is after 7 and they are still sound asleep! Maybe I will go jump on their beds and wake them up. It's BEACHTIME.

ps Since it is beachtime, I am not going to take the time to redo the formatting to get those pictures in the right spots. They WERE there and then it changed. The top one is the Queen's bath...and the other two are sel-explanatory.

Lucky girl

2010-04-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

My kids always say I have very good luck when it comes to seeing wild animals. I guess yesterday proves their point.

Steve, Aidan and I went snorkeling at Ke'e beach at the very north end of Kauai yesterday afternoon. It was windy and kind of rainy so the water wasn't as clear as it could have been but it was warm and the reef there is beautiful so it didn't matter much to me. After the initial 30 nanoseconds it takes to get used to the water, the swimming here is extraordinary. (I hate cold water so much I can even think the water in Hawaii feels cold!). We saw zillions of tropical fish, large and small. And most excitedly a 700 pound Hawaiian monk seal taking a nap on the beach. These seals are critically endangered so it was more than a treat to see one.

But let's back up a bit and start the day for real. First off Steve and I went for an early morning walk along Anini Beach (the beach that is 100 steps from where we are staying). The tide was low so we were able to wade around the headlands and watch the sun rise up (not the official sunrise but the rising sun). It was beautiful. In our wade we saw all kinds of critters in the tidal zone--sea cucumbers, beautiful fish, crabs, and a bunch of critters that I don't know the names of. Then we went back to the house, had breakfast and got ready for the day. (It was all of 7 by then.) The Hawaiian time is 3 hours earlier than we are used to, so it has been early to bed, early to rise for this crew so far.

Anyway, Steve loves to snorkel but has all kinds of trouble with it..he wears glasses so he can't see and has a mustaches so the water leaks into his mask and goes up his nose and makes him really uncomfortable. Poor guy. So after our last trip to warm snorkeling waters he swore he was going to change this. When it came time for him to get his eyes examined last year he decided to buy himself some contacts. He's been wearing glasses since he was 12 and will be 55 in a couple of months. 42+ years of glasses with no contacts. This was a big change. He's been learning how to use them hiking and skiing (other places where his glasses caused him trouble) but he has been waiting to see what it will be like to snorkel with them.

He has also been saying he needs to shave off his mustache to properly seal the mask so he can have fun. Now saving a mustache might not seem like a big deal to you, but in our 33+ years together I have never seen him without one. I have seen pictures and let me tell you, they were scary. I have always jokingly said if you ever shave off your mustache I know you want to break up with me and then when we got married I included that as my only condition to marrying him. It was a joke but you know how jokes often are--they aren't really. So after this 30+ year build up, let's just say he was more than a little bit nervous about doing this and actually needed a lot of encouragement from me. I cleared him for this project months ago but I guess he didn't believe me.

I just spent way too long trying to post pictures of this but something weird is going on...so I am giving up. Here's a link to facebook to see the pictures...hope this works.

After all this was done, we packed a lunch and headed out for Ke'e beach...I just tried to post somebody else's beautiful picture of this beach (because we forgot to take one so excited we were to get into the water) but that didn't work either. hmm.

Anyway, we donned our flippers and masks all piled in the water. Aidan, a bit reluctantly, and Steve and I with great enthusiasm. We snorkeled to our heart's content. We saw oodles and oodles of beautiful fish and after snorkeling we walked down the beach for awhile and saw the Hawaiian Monk seal. It was raining on and off but that didn't matter in the water. We were already wet.

After our walk, we sat on the beach for awhile and ate lunch (peanut butter on rice cakes). 15 tiny dove like birds and a Hawaiian cardinal came around begging for treats. I fed them little bits of plain rice cakes and soon they were climbing all over my leg and arm and eating right out of my hand. One time I had three of them on my hand--two were piggy backed on each other! Obviously, somebody had tamed them before me. They must have weighed 3 ounces at the most and had such pretty little feathers. About an hour later when the doves were getting full, 3 wild chickens came by and chased all the little birds away. They pecked my little bits of rice cake down in not time flat and were on their way. As Aidan says there's no escaping chickens or rain in this life.

All in all, it was a great day that we topped off with a trip to banana joe's...a place that transforms plain old fruit and nothing else into the best frozen concoction I have ever had...or at least one of the very best. Yesterday's flavor was pineapple. yummm Then we piled on home, took showers, had dinner and another beautiful walk on the beach (that makes 3 in one day!!!) and came home to watch Men with Brooms. The movie was funny but not near as much fun as the rest of the day,

Now here it is the next morning. I woke up bright and early ready for another early morning walk but these two lumps are still fast asleep.

And actually it is raining, dumping so hard even the infamous Kauai chickens have gone back to bed. So I guess I will wait awhile.

When the going gets rough, this gardener gets going...to Hawaii

2010-04-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

So last week we almost had frosts 4 nights. I went to sleep concerned for all our fruit trees, most of which are in full bloom. Then came Easter with a big snowstorm right up the hill from us. Sleet, hail, freezing winds. What do I do? Do I go out with blankets and sheets to cover the trees, set up hot pots to keep the orchards warm. Oh no, not me. I get on a plane for Hawaii. And that is where I sit, right now. In the sun on the lanai of the little house we are renting that is 100 steps from Anini Beach in Kauai. You envious? You definitely should be. It's amazing here.

All around me are the sounds of birds, many kinds. I see an enormous mango tree just laden with baby fruits. The trade winds are blowing just the right amount and I am waiting for Steve to finish his morning back stretchers so we can walk down on the beach. For it is sure bet that the 14 yr food monster will sleep another couple of hours. It is only 6:34 after all. I have been up for hours waiting for it to get light (a half an hour ago) and then for Steve to wake up (just now). I thought it would be more fun to walk with him. But if I wake up so early again, next time I may not wait. Hearing the crashing waves is like a siren's call for me. Hard not to follow.

Meanwhile, we left Becca and Seth home to milk cows and feed critters. Hopefully, we will all have a good time. Poor Charlie though, he really wanted to go.

ps When I call Aidan a food monster, even he thinks of himself that way. Last night he ate a steak that was bigger than his FACE. He was one happy camper. crazy, right.

The hay came in and the cow went out

2010-03-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

Somehow, in the process of getting the hay in the barn we left the stall door open and Mattie escaped. She didn't mind one bit. She found the greenest, lushest grass on the other side of the fence and proceeded to eat it as fast as she could because she KNEW we would find her and put her away. Guess what, she was right. You should of heard the ruckus she made when we put her back. NOISY. Oh well, at least she is in out of the rain, which is more that Moose (her baby) can say. He is patiently waiting on the other side of a different fence for his mom to come back after milking tonight. He doesn't have a roof to stand under so he is wet. It's been RAINING all day. A lot.

Calling in the troops....wanna spread some rock dust?

2010-03-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

We're still here working on the mineral brigade. We asked Becca and Seth out to come help spread more rock around. Grace was also here working on wedding planning so we got her dusty too. And finally after weeks of weekends, we are almost done. I say almost because we were missing a few bags of magnesium and one of manganese so those will have to be applied later--later after we order them, after we drive to Olympia to get them from Black Lake Organics, after we get back from vacation, after we get the taxes done, after Steve teaches next month, after the new bees get hived. Later meaning as soon as we can.

Spring is a busy time around here, especially if we want to do any new projects rather than just maintaining the old. Actually maintaining what we already have going is more than enough but it is so easy to spend the dark, cold winter nights thinking of exciting projects to do come spring. My list was long this year, probably too long. Oh well, at least the biggest job is almost done.

Last night at dinner, Steve, Becca, and Grace were all commenting on the odd physical effects of spreading minerals. You end up with one muscle in your non-spreading arm that is very sore from holding the bucket under your arm. It is a peculiar muscle that doesn't much use. It must be under the arm or something. Maybe we should inform all the personal trainers of this eccentric activity that creates beautiful definition of this very unused muscle. I am sure Steve could tell you its name. I sure can't. Meanwhile, people are reaching for the vials of arnica cream and looking at their buff armpits.

While they were busy spreading rock dust, I was inside preparing for the second night of the wedding salad tasting extravaganza. We are testing a BUNCH of salads. Last night was the biggest lot. We invited a few people (in addition to the kindly rock dust spreaders) and made official ballots and fed people 7 different types of salads. I should have taken pictures but honestly I was too busy. Here's what we tried maybe you can use your imagination to see the colorful spread we consumed: Moroccan Carrot and Ginger Salad; Paprika Cucumber Salad; Romaine Hearts with Avocado, Jicama and Orange; Guiditta's real Italian Salad; Fennel and Orange Salad on bitter greens; Grandma Hall's potato; and Sir Wasano's Infamous Indonesian Rice Salad. There were no big winners, but everybody does love Grandma Hall's potato salad. Tonight is night three of the salad bonanza. Hopefully, after dinner tonight Grace will have the wedding menu all nailed down. So many decisions, I do not envy her.

Okay, enough blathering. Must get back to work.

ps latissamus dorsi is the name of that funny muscle. I asked Steve.

What a day!

2010-03-21T08:59:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a big day. We are still in the middle of laying all that rock dust on the pastures and orchards. Steve and I spent the day mixing and spreading 1500 pounds of dust. He spread, I weighed, measured and mixed (well, he helped with the mixing as it is a two person job).

The way it works is I measured out the specifics for each dust and each pasture: 9.8 pounds of Iron sulfate, and 13.1 pounds of manganese oxide and 17.4 pounds of copper sulfate and 44 pounds of redmond mineral salt and 47 pounds of azomite--the list goes on and on. Then I put this all on an enormous plastic tarp. When the mix was compete and all piled high on the tarp--hundreds of pounds by the time I am done, Steve and I mixed the goodies by each taking an end to the tarp and walking it towards the other side. As we pulled the tarp along the rock dust mixed itself up by folding into itself and around. We folded it back and forth and up and down about ten times and the dust was mixed, which is much easier in theory than it is on the body. It's heavy pulling that much rock dust along. But we did it and while I made the next batch Steve shoveled and then spread the old batch. Poor guy, I felt for him out there...that is a LOT of work. Just the kind of thing that diesel machines were invented for. But ole' mighty man did it with a smile and even seemed like he was having fun.

After he was done, I sent him to the shower to wash off all that dust and then put him in a warm bath tub full of relaxing essential oils to take the wear and tear out of his back. I wanted a chance to try out this new gadget I just got (for my birthday but it just arrived through customs this week). It's a fancy German oil diffuser for the bathtub that has some German name I can't pronounce or even begin to say so I call it the oil thingy. It is both terribly fragile and terribly expensive.

The oil thingy works by connecting the water from the bathtub to a tube and running it through a fancy glass machine that looks like something straight out of a mad scientist's laboratory. As the water processes through the machine it absorbs micro amounts of the oil by breaks up all the oil into teeny tiny droplets (which thereby allow it to go into your skin WAY better) and it spins the water into an vortex which further allows the healing energy of the oil to penetrate the water. Pretty fancy stuff that has pretty amazing results. My doctor prescribed these baths for me and I have been blown away by these baths (though the prescriptive baths are more complicated than I did for Steve). I have been lusting over this machine for months. And now I have my own...yea for birthdays! Can't wait to try it for myself too.

Anyway, today is the day after and Steve is still sound asleep (a sure sign of how much work that was yesterday) and it is raining which is so perfect for the soil after a rock dust application I would be dancing a jig but I am too tired. Way too tired. Guess the next installment of rock dust is going to happen next week. All we can say is where are the wwoofers when you need them.

Happy St Pat's day

2010-03-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

Wish I could say I had corned beef cooking in the oven right now. I know I must have the right cut of beef out there in the freezer somewhere. Problem is, I don't know what cut of beef that would be and so, we are just having some kind of beef we haven't tried yet. See the thing about butchering a cow and then having an entire cow in the freezer, if you are as ignorant about meat as I am you get a whole lot of things you have no idea what to do with because they never (seldom?) sell them in the store. Tonight we are having one such cut--top round something or other--which sounded like hamburger to me but is some kind of rectangle shaped piece of meat. We'll see. It looks okay waiting to go in the oven.

To go with it we are having baked yams (my favorite) and roasted collard greens with lime. That's pretty good for March--2/3rds of dinner will be homegrown.

This time of year is the hardest to be eating from the garden. I have LOTS of plant babies out there. They struggle valiantly against the elements to grow in the wind and the rain and the hail and sometimes even snow. Takes a lot of fortitude to be a spring plant, I think. I go out everyday to cheer them on and plant a little more, dig a little more and generally just get my hands dirty after a winter of no gardening. Feels good to have dirt roughened hands again. But the problem is there is precious little to eat out there. We have a titch of over-wintered lettuce left--maybe one salad's worth, and a few dinners of kale, collards and parsnips. And of course, the nettles and chives are coming up but that's about all.

I am missing cauliflower and brocolli and brussel sprouts. I have them growing but they are so small it is hard to imagine ever getting to eat them. Just like my plant babies have to imagine there there will someday be sunshine and warmth, spring gardening requires a lot of imagination on my part. I have to imagine my garden full and lush so I don't plant things too close together (like I did the swiss chard today). I have to imagine what is tall and what is short so I don't lose plants in the shade of other plants. It is so easy to throw things in willy-nilly (esp if you garden like I like to) and then be sad in a few months because all that beautiful kale you have growing is surrounded by a particularly vital squash plant that has encircled the kale like a fortress.

Hopefully, this year I will have a lot of what it takes to be a spring plant--imagination and fortitude and that will yield a particularly wonderful garden. All those plant babies make me happy. Let's just hope I make them happy too.

Moving the marionberries

2010-03-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

Marionberries, in case you don't know, are a cross between a Chelelum blackberry and Ollallieberries. Renown for their complex flavor, they are beyond delicious...and as luck would have it, they are exceptionally nutritious too. Click here to read more about them (and see some luscious photos).

For years we have had a small patch of marionberries growing at the back of our raspberry patch. I planted them there because I didn't know any better. I knew I loved eating marionberries and that they cost a fortune in the store. Seriously, half a pint can cost upwards to $4. Unfortunately when I bought the plants, I didn't really understand what growing them would be like. And I REALLY didn't understand what picking them would entail. I should have done more research. These plants are ferocious. Seriously. But, as is often the case with me, I do something first and learn about it second. I think I like to learn from experience. But sometimes, this causes problems. And believe me, our marionberries were a problem last year.

Last year, you could not walk down the aisle to pick them. Last year you couldn't walk by them to get to the rows of raspberries and strawberries behind them. Last year, picking them was a lot like going to the dentist--something I really need to do but never want to.

When I ordered 3 plants 5 years ago from Raintree Nursery I had NO idea they were going to grow into a monstrous hedge of thorns that jealously guarded each and every one of its berries. I didn't know that they would grow in such a way that I would loose serious amounts of skin each and every time I went out to pick these little treasures. What I did know was that I LOVED marionberry pie and that they grew well in this climate.

Once the plants arrived, I naively planted them a tad bit closer than the directions suggested (what's one foot, I thought!). and then we waited for them to grow. The first couple of years they were manageable and we got very few berries... The third year they grew a reasonable number of berries but we hadn't trellised them correctly so many of the berries rotted for lack of air flow.

Last year we figured out how to better use the trellis and suddenly we had oodles of berries. The only problem was we also had oodles of berry plants that were covered in fierce thorns. OUCH. Picking was no fun, just ask cousin Frank who was almost hospitalized for blood loss after he was seen crawling on all fours across the ground and under the mass of plants trying to get to the berries and away from the thorns. Sorry bout that Frank.

Apparently, marionberries follow the old gardening adage for groundcovers...first year they sleep, the second year the creep and the third year they leap. Being this was the fourth year, they had leapt and then some. In four short years they had gone from spindly little plants to a completely unmanageable mess. This year we knew had to do something.

That's why (thanks to the efforts of the mighty man, yet again) we now how an all new, completely separate marionberry hedgerow that is accessible from both sides but has no other plants growing near it that we can't cut back. It's way down in the lower pasture. Steve rebuilt an even better trellis and carefully relocated the entire berry patch out of the raspberries and down to where we HOPE picking them will be much less painful. Who knows, it might discourage trespassers too. I can vouch for the fact that nobody in their right mind is gonna wanna walk through those babies.

Somebody else must not have liked the thorns because Raintree no longer sells marionberries but rather sells a thornless berry they promise tastes the same. I wonder if that's true.

Planting sweet peas in the sunshine

2010-03-13T14:27:00.000-08:00

How good does life get when I get to go outside on a sunny spring day, get my hands dirty and plant 4 big rows of sweet peas. I say, mighty good. And then when I come back inside and make a big pot of chowder to bring to a potluck with my friends it only gets better. And then when I get to throw some chocolate in a bowl and bake up dessert, well, I am just here to say life is good. And delicious.

Snail!

2010-03-10T15:34:00.000-08:00

Saturday we had nothing but sunshine out there. Hot too. Nice. Today though, the weather is another matter completely.
In a word, you could call it unpredictable.

In the short time it took for me to look outside see sunshine and decide to go work in the garden, the skies changed from clear blue to a threatening black and down came the rain. Hard. So I set aside my garden plans and grabbed the absolutely delicious book I am reading. Three pages later I looked up to see that the torrent of rain had stopped. i quick jumped up and ran outside to start digging up the sweet pea bed I had hoped to plant today. But before I could even get more than a couple of feet dug, out came the clouds again only this time they starting snailing (hard). Snailing, in case you don't know, is what my family calls that dubious form of precipitation that is somewhere between snow and hail. It drops white pellets that are cold, wet and white but not quite hard. Determined to get a few sweet peas planted I persevered. The clouds were not cooperating. Not only did I not get anything planted, I got very cold and very wet.

I trotted inside once again to wait out the weather. I read about ten pages of my book this time and then out came the blue sky AGAIN. Great I thought as I threw back on my boots and headed out. This time, I dug as fast as I could and finished preparing the bed. Five minutes later, it was dumping again. By this time, I didn't care. I stuck it out and got all the sweet peas planted. And guess what, the second I was done, the sun came out again and has been out ever since. Go figure.

Sunshine!

2010-03-06T16:25:00.001-08:00

Thank heavens for the mighty man is all I can say. I was feeling a little disheartened about being able to spread all those minerals after my first attempt earlier this week. I enjoyed doing it but was sooo tired afterwards. It was hard to motivate myself to do more knowing it would wipe me out for a few days.

Steve on the other hand woke up raring to go this morning. After drinking is powerpacked superfood smoothie, he went outside and laid down HUNDREDS OF POUNDS of the heretofore discussed minerals. Thank you Mighty Man. When I said that to him he smiled and showed me his muscles...his bicep looked just like Popeye's! He seemed pretty happy out there with his arm in a bucket sowing rocks.

This whole mineralization is a many step process. Right now we have two steps in front of us. Yesterday Steve finished one and we will start the next one in a couple of weeks...The first step is laying down the rock phosphate and borax that will in essence prepare the soil to receive the calcium and other trace minerals it needs. If the two are laid down together they would bind each other up (this is where a little more chemistry would make this clearer to me) but by putting some time between applications we will get optimal availability of all the minerals we need.

What this means for the animals is they are going to be cooped up in the barnyard for six weeks or so looking at the grass that will literally be growing greener on the other side of the fence.

While Steve was busy with that project I got to work in the gorgeous sunshine and planted out some broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts (I know, too early) and cabbage. I also spread out a big bed of spinach and lettuce seedlings. Today I am back to the hoophouse to do the same thing in there with all the many lettuce and kale seedlings I have going in there. No going back on spring now.

Aidan spent the day earning money for a school trip to the Ashland Shakesphere Festival by picking up the winter's dropping of branches and sticks from the areas we mow, hauling a huge pile of kiwi prunings down to the bank and knocking down molehills. Today he plans to clean the cars. He's got a couple of hundred bucks to earn so if anyone has a job, he might be interested.

By the way, if anyone is interested in learning more about mineralizing your garden you might want to check out Black Lake Organics. They know their stuff and are happy to teach you too. It's a drive to Olympia, but well worth the time and effort.

Spring, sprang, sprung

2010-03-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

Well, it's official. We are having an early spring! No going back now. While the rest of the nation is battling snow and ice storms, our fruit trees are blooming. The daffodils have popped. Even the magnolia tree is blooming. Those seeds I ridiculously planted in January are now fine little seedlings--small but mighty and strong enough to weather those chilly early spring nights. All this earnest growth outside has me ready to garden. But first, I have to attend to the soil.

In a couple of hours 3400+ pounds of minerals are arriving. Add those to the 700+ pounds that are already waiting in the barn and we'll be ready to tackle a major soil-remineralization project.

Encouraged by the members of a biodynamic list serve I am on, I decided to dive into this foreign world of borax and azomite and epsom salts as a way to build my soil. And while not strictly biodynamic (a system where the farm or garden is a closed loop and which you strive to never add any inputs), I am excited about the possibilities that remineralizing our soil can do for our food (and our bodies).

When we moved here in 1999, we didn't know squat about caring for any farm animals other than chickens and we certainly didn't know about pasture management. Our pastures were sorely overgrazed from the last owner's 30 year tenure on the farm. We knew we needed to do something to bring them back to health but we weren't sure what. With all the learning curves we had to master, the pasture found its way to the bottom of the list. Finally, it has made it to the top.

Last year we sent five soil samples away to Logan Labs in Ohio testing the two pastures, the two orchards and the garden. This year we sent in two, the garden and the hoophouse. Basic soil testing is pretty cheap considering all the information it details. It's usually around $20 a sample. From that you learn how well the soil takes up minerals and which minerals are available in your soil and in what quantities. A balanced soil profile produces healthier plants and healthy plants make gardening a whole lot easier.

But as we found out last year, soil tests are wonderful but only if you have somebody amazing to analyze them. Last year I did the tests and then stared blankly at the results, clueless as to how to interpret them. Even Steve with his degree in Chemistry wasn't sure how to translate the test into practical action.

We heard rumor of an amazing guy (Michael Astera) who knew how to rebalance worn soils with organics and minerals but we didn't quite know how to find him. Eventually, the soil tests found their way to the middle of a pile on my desk--lost but not forgotten--and gardening season began.

Unable to solve the mysteries of our soil tests, I took a class from Steve Diver about raising high nutrient vegetables. He talked a lot about the importance of remineralizing the soil and activating the soil organisms that make the minerals more accessible to the plants. I applied just a few of simplest things he said to in my garden and kept up with my usual biodynamic practices. The results were astonishing. We had the BEST garden we have ever had and the taste of the food was phenomenal. Taste is directly correlated to nutrition so I knew we were onto something.

So, this year when Michael Astera appeared on my biodynamic list serve and said he was looking for people to participate in a study about using soil minerals to raise the nutrition in food (as measured by the brix level with a refractometer and tissue samples and more soil testing) I ignored that fact I didn't really understand what he was saying and that science is not part of my vocabulary and quickly said I'll do it, I'll do it. And this is how I find myself with two tons of minerals arriving on our doorstep.

Oh please, cosmic muses of mineral distribution appear in the night and instruct me as to how to do this monstrous task of distributing these many pounds of rock dust with ease of back.

I will figure this out because just the simple remineralization I did last year made such a radical difference in soil tests from last year to this. I can only imagine what will happen when we follow an individualized prescription such as the ones given to us by Michael as his part of the study. My part of this study is buying the minerals and then doing the actual work of applying them and then recording the results--oh how I wished I had paid more attention in those high school biology labs.

One reason I am willing to haul two tons of rock dust around the place is that nutrition, and specifically the declining mineral status of our foods, is directly correlated to the rise in chronic, degenreative disease that runs rampant in our culture. Since Steve and I are of an age when these diseases start appearing, I am thinking the more minerals we eat the better off we will be in the long run. I look at Steve's poor aching back and think what an even better diet might do. I think of me and my RA and think, yes, this might be an answer (or at least one step in the journey), so heavy, mineral laden wheelbarrow here I come.

I will let you know how we feel AFTER we lay down two tons of minerals. It will be interesting. All I have to say is where are the wwoofers when you need them!

Oh and by the way, at the very least you could add 14 oz of borax to every 1,000 feet of garden you have. (Twenty Mule Team borax from the grocery store works fine.) Borax will help your plants have more access to calcium and silica, both of which are basic building blocks of healthy plant tissue. (And if I got the reason why wrong, I got the amount correct. Sorry, science is not my basic language.)

When the cats are away, the mice do what they want....

2010-02-20T19:30:00.000-08:00

It is the last night of a week home alone without my family. Talk about a mid-winter treat. Not much to do outside (it is February after all) and with the family gone, well I didn't find myself too motivated to do much of anything except exactly what I wanted to. I did yoga, I went on walks, I pet the cows, I took naps. I read books. And then last night I finally got hungry and I made a feast. Wish I had taken pictures because it was a beautiful dinner.

First of all, a bit of broiled beef from recently butchered Gilly. He tasted all full of love, and was amazingly okay to eat. Guess it helped knowing he had a good life and a gentle death. Then there was the roasted asparagus (brushed with a tiny bit of olive oil and sprinkled with coarse Himalayan salt and then roasted at 400 degrees for 8 minutes--superb). And lastly, was this coconut dish I made up and will definitely have to make again...try this..melt some coconut oil in a hot skillet then drop in some bits of chopped fresh ginger. Add some sliced leek (preferably from the garden like mine were) and then saute those three ingredients until slightly tender. Add some chunks of cauliflower. Let that cook a bit, until the cauliflower started to get a bit tender, add some chopped red pepper and season with turmeric. Add slices of ripe mango and smell. When all the vegetables are tender slowly add some coconut milk and cook it until it thickens. As the coconut milk thickens add some Himalayan salt and a bit of fresh or fresh frozen basil (like this was from last summer's basil). Serve hot and enjoy. I was deliberately vague on the amounts because I was cooking for moi and you might be cooking for more. Anyway, it was well worth repeating. In fact, I may just have the leftovers tonight. Yum.

Flowers, flowers everywhere

2010-02-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

I don't get this Febuary but I like it. Today was blue sky heaven. Took a walk in the woods and the grass along the path wasn't just green it was growing--already 4 inches tall. And our garden is full of flowers. Crocus, hellebore, violets and oodles and oodles of snowdrops. Feels like a gift out there.

Tales of a lazy farm girl

2010-02-14T12:04:00.000-08:00

Sooo, the second batch of wwoofers left yesterday. They did a lot of dirty work (literally) weeding and especially hauling manure/straw for sheet mulching. They did our annual bury the mummy berry spores under cardboard, compost and mulch effort with the help of Steve, and Becca (and me driving the truck). That means the worst jobs of winter are all done and now it is time to wait for the sun.

Some of those seeds I planted that larky warm day in January sprouted and are valiently braving the cold. They aren't growing much but they are there, a testament to the will to grow no matter what. I believe in them. And I believe in that sentiment. I may build them a little plastic tent to grow under if I get ambitious but the way I am feeling today I doubt it.

In fact, I doubt I am going to do much except feed the animals and do what I want today. See, the gang all went skiing for a week and left me here alone (well, alone if you don't count the cat, the dog, the 17 hens and 2 roosters, the 2 cows and 2 steers, the goat, and the 5 ewes and their 4 babies). That's almost alone. So far today I cleaned house cuz it was bugging me and I wanted to. I am about to go on a walk with a friend and if I knew somebody with TV recption I might beg to go over there and watch the Olympics.

Clearly, a lazy day. Hope you are having a grand V'day. Steve left me beautiful flowers before he took off for Montana. What a guy!

Things to be thankful for...

2010-02-09T20:39:00.000-08:00

First off, you should be mighty grateful that you aren't a wwoofer here this week. If you were, you would be like Julia and Shelton and be tucked in your bed with very sore muscles. Poor wwoofers. We are seriously working these guys HARD...

In the last two days they have shovelled and wheeled an untold number of beautiful finished biodynamic compost and carefully laid it around the blueberry bushes.

They have also been dumpster diving for cardboard to put around the said blueberry bushes (under the compost). AND then they drove (numerous times) to my friend George the dairy farmer's dairy where they collected many (and I mean many) tons of yep, you guessed it, FRESH manure. Luckily for them, George has a great big green tractor that he used to plop the stuff into the bed of the truck. Saved a lot of shoveling on that end!

Once the truck was loaded, they drove it home (no doubt wishing it had better suspension--and ventilation) and then they shovelled it the goop off the truck and into the garden cart and hauled it around the blueberry patch to put in the paths.

Not only was this backbreaking work, it was REALLY smelly. George feeds his cows lots of grain and their manure smells like it. In contrast, Brigid who eats no grain, has lovely smelling poo. Cows were not meant to eat lots of corn, even if they love it.

On Friday (after a couple of well deserved days off) Shelton and Julia will spread many bales of straw on top of the manure so we can both walk on it while it is composting and it will help balance out all that nitrogen in the manure when it decomposes.

The whole point of this exercise is to build the fertility into the soil since most blueberry diseases (and most plant diseases for that matter) come from a lack of or imbalance in the soil fertility. We've been working hard on our soils and hopefully, this year will be the year we get the mummy berry licked. For those of you who don't know, mummy berry is a fungus that infects blueberries plants and ruins the berries. Once it gets established is harder than heck to get rid of. Our bushes were covered in it when we moved in, but it has gotten much, much better over the years thanks to a monumental yearly effort such as this.

While we've been pretty successful with our methods but it is never easy work. If we get it right we will get rewarded with hundreds of pounds of beautiful berries so we can make things like this delicious almond cake.

The second thing you can be grateful for is that you aren't here. I am sure we would love you to visit, but maybe not this week. The smell from the above mentioned tasks is well, horrid and will be for few days (weeks?) to come. Hopefully the rains will come soon and wash away the amnonia.

But what has me extra thankful (besides all this amazing help we are getting from the wwoofers) is the glorious springish night we have outside. The stars are so bright I feel like I could fall into the sky. And the frogs, they are singing, even in the cold. They don't even seem to mind the smell of manure. What a great night.

One of those days

2010-02-07T16:32:00.001-08:00

Ever have one of those days where you had really high hopes for the day and you just didn't pull it off. Today was one of those for me.

I woke up smiley like a bunny and hopped right down and took a nice warm shower. Ummm. I love showers. The day was going to be just fine, I thought. But then I slowed down. Steve is teaching a class here today so I was being kind of quiet so as not to disturb the 12 people trying to learn to feel a cranial pulse.

I started reading about how to grow nutrient dense food and how to interpret the soil test results we just got. I quickly got in WAY over my head with the chemistry stuff. (Makes me wish I had spent more time in high school learning chemistry and less time playing jotto.) Eventually, it all started looking like gobbly gook so I set that down and made myself some yummy little toast pizzas for breakfast. They were just like my 7th grade cooking teacher taught me to make except I used Dave's amazing bread instead of little white English muffins. (Hate to say it but they were super yummy and a great way to use that last little bit of Friday night's spaghetti sauce--do you know how to make them--a slice of bread, a dab of spaghetti sauce and then you sprinkle it all with cheese and broil for 3 minutes. They are surprisingly yummy). Anyway, after a couple of those little pizzas jobbers, I read for awhile as I am starting to feel guilty about not having read our coming book for my book group but unfortunately that didn't hold my attention either. Nothing against the book. I really like the book--Astrid and Veronica by Linda Olsson--I was just restless.

By then it was lunch time and the class streamed downstairs and I still hadn't really done anything. So I quick like a bunny hopped outside to pick more nettles but I forgot my gloves so that inspiration didn't last long. Now my hands are all tingly and sparkly (kind of nice, kind of not so nice). I got the nettles drying in the dehydrator and it was already time to go on a walk with my friend Gloria. This was the good part of the day. Nice weather, beautiful walk by the river, and time with a good friend. That was perfect except that Charlie the wonder dog decided to be obstreperous instead of his usual gentlemanly self. He began chasing cars just to bother me (I could tell by the look on his face). I had to rein him in and drag him along instead of let him run free on this very rural road we were walking on. I have to say that this put a damper on the relaxing part of the walk. But still, it was a great walk and very fun to see Gloria.

Then I came home all tired and crashed on the bed. I was supposed to be putting clean sheets on it but that big pile of comforter and pillows looked so inviting, I snuggled right in. I finally dragged myself out of that delicious pile of pillows and made the bed but then I immediately started longing to be a regular American with TV reception so I could watch the superbowl. I don't know why but I love watching the superbowl. It isn't like I even like football or anything. I just like the spectacle of it. Earlier in the day I tried to talk Aidan into a plan where we would drive into town to the movie theatre to watch it the game on the big screen where it is free and we could eat popcorn. I think he thought that sounded stupid because he sort of grunted one of those classic 14 year old grunts that tells a mom in no uncertain terms how dumb her brilliant idea is. Using my superior intelligence, I took his grunt as a definite no and that ended that. Eventually, I started calling my friends that have TV reception but not a single one answered their phone so they either were all engrossed in the game or were smart enough to be out doing something more exciting than watching a bunch of grown men bash their heads in.

So that leaves me here, waiting for Steve's class to end still stinky from my walk (which thereby undoes the one thing I actually did accomplish today beside walk--ie take a shower). I have absolutely NO ambition. The day is almost over and I did virtually nothing. I guess somedays are just like that. Maybe I will take a nap.

NO time for pictures...too busy working

2010-02-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

We have had a busy week...with two wwoofers here to lend a hand all kinds of forward movement has been made. The nettles have been pulled from the blueberries (ouch, is right. I forgot to wear gloves). And Shelton and Julia worked and worked down in the raspberry and marion berry patches in the garden. All is weeded and denettled.

We made nettle infusions, and nettle soup and dried batch of nettle in the dehydrator. Our first 'crop' of 2010.

Yesterday they watched Andrew the AI guy work his magic with Mattie. They seemed more than impressed with just how far he got his arm in there. Phew. Then I showed them how to dock the lambs tails and turn the boys into wethers (is that how you spell that, hmm). I expected the wwoofers to be a little more squeamish than they were but they dove right in and in minutes were pros using the handy dandy little tool which is seriously called the emasuclator. It only took a few minutes and all the boys were fixed.

So far, we have four boys lambs this year, one set of twins and two huge singles. Since we are growing the lambs for meat is always nice to get boys as they grow quite a bit larger than the girls. Two of them are going to have four horns just like their daddy did. We have two ewes left to lamb so maybe we will get some girls, who knows. Those poor ewes can barely make their way through the barn door to get their dinner. It is no fun being late to birth when you are expecting twins!

I also got started growing the flowers for Grace's wedding. I was outside today in the wind and the sun mixing a big vat of potting mix. Peat moss, coconut hulls, perlite, compost, worm casting and a bit of dirt...stir until mixed. I felt sort of like one of Macbeth's witches brewing my magic. As soon as the seeds turn into little starts I am going to plant them out in the hoophouse and wish them a speedy life to flower. July 4th is going to get here sooner than I can imagine.

Next week we are going to compost and mulch the blueberries, working to keep the mummy berry in check. The list is long. Good thing we have these two young backs to help cuz we have lots of work to do. Yea for wwoofers.

New Wwoofers have arrived...

2010-02-02T22:26:00.000-08:00

Julia and Shelton (two friends from college) have arrived ready to get to work. They got here just as it was getting dark so I introduced them to the cows and then messed around with kefir and ate dinner. It's lovely to meet them. I wonder what we will do. There's a big list on the chalkboard--pruning kiwis, rooting out nettle roots, planting seedlings. Always lots to do.

Spring seems to be settling in. So maybe it wasn't so crazy to have planted all those seeds last week. Lots of things are greening up. Maybe the seeds will sprout. Hope so. I have high hopes for the garden this year. It would be great to get things going so early.

January Yummies

2010-01-30T16:03:00.000-08:00

Absolutely, the best part of doing all that canning in the summer and fall...potlucks in the winter. YUMMY.

Tonight we are going over to our friends house for our monthly (sort of) documentary night potluck. I am making bbq chicken with a sauce that has its base in the delicious homemade ketchup that Becca and Seth and I made this fall. I am also bringing a jar of dilly beans to snack on. I might even bring some brownies if I get off my duff, of course they won't have anything canned in them but they might taste good anyway.

Here's the recipe I made up for the bbq sauce...I was inspired after reading recipes online and then I just did my own thing. (Can't seem to follow recipes that well.) The sauce tastes good, bet it will be even better when it cooks into the chicken.

Ok, first I brined the chicken for a couple of hours in water (2 quarts, 2 T. salt--I used that delicious pink himalayan salt I love but I suspect any coarse salt would be good and 2 t. dried thyme).

I stuck that and the chicken (in this case drumsticks but any would do I am sure) in a gallon ziplock bag and put it in the fridge until I was ready to cook them. I did a couple of hours but even 15 minutes would surely help the chicken taste better and be juicier. If I was more of a garlic girl I would have smashed up a couple of garlic cloves (that is if the clove is the piece not the whole head of garlic) and put that in their too. I am not a big garlic fan so I saved my garlic for the sauce.

Then I made the sauce. I started with a pint of that delicious ketchup we made. It is not too sweet and full of savory goodness. If I had to use a commercial ketchup, I might cut down on the sugar and add more spices.

Then I added:

1/4 c. sugar (or brown sugar)

1 T. black strap molasses

1 T. salt (same kind as in the brine)

1 large garlic clove smashed

3 T sliced/diced fresh ginger

2 T balsamic vinegar--if I had had wine vinegar I might have chosen that

1 T olive oil

1 t. bacon grease leftover from a 14 yr old boy cooking his breakfast (optional)

1 t. dry mustard powder

1 t. paprika

1 t. thyme

and I meant to add a chopped onion but I forgot...so do what you want.

I cooked this mixture over medium heat for about 20 minutes to join the flavors together and then later when the chicken was all brined, I drained the chicken and put it in a 9 X 13 in pan, covered it with the sauce. Right now I am baking until it is all done...an hour maybe--it would depend on the size of the chicken pieces. So far, it smells delicious! I am going to assume it is as good as it smells but if it isn't I will tell you tomorrow. Ok, off to do the dishes before we leave.

Seeds and dreams....

2010-01-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

You know what I LOVE about January...seed catalogs. In January the garden is all about possiblity. It's a way to try new things, start over. All the wrongs I have done in the past can be forgiven with this new garden. In January, I have high hopes. I even believe that this year I might just weed. I might just give plants enough room to properly grow. I might, I might, I might. By June reality has set in and I am back to my usual ways. Luckily my usual ways, while leading to rather untidy gardens, work pretty well.

But meanwhile, in the long, dark nights of January I sit near the fire with a huge stack of seed catalogs and dream. It's wonderful. I have such big ideas.

This year I am especially captivated by Wild Garden Seeds in Oregon . Last year, every single seed variety I grew from their catalog was a rousing success both in taste and vitality. I only wish they grew more kinds of seeds--they specialize in greens and a few herbs. I would buy all my seeds from them if only I could. It's amazing what the difference GOOD seeds make. I didn't know how much of a difference until I ran into this catalog.

Sadly, I think my other favorite seed catalog -- Fedco Seeds in Maine was lost in the mail. I love that company. We have been buying seeds from them since the mid 80's. I love the seeds and the wide variety they have. I especially love how they are trying to change the world one gardener at a time. Another thing I love about them is how they give a discount for large orders. By ordering in bulk (aka a group order with your friends) you can save significant money and build community at the same time. Sweet.

Every year I try to experiment with some new kind of plant. Last year I dabbled in cabbages and this is what we got. Amazing. We made the best sauerkraut. Yum.

My goal this year is try to grow a small plot of grains, which we can then feed to the chickens for some of their food. The plan is to grow oats so we can have both the groats and the straw for their nesting boxes. I am excited to try something so completely different than anything I have ever grown before. I even bought a book to help me learn. It's called Small-Scale Grain Raising and looks really good. Hopefully I will read it BEFORE I start planting. It would be like me to just wing it and wonder what happened later. But seeing how it is January, I still have hopse that I might be different this year. Ha ha.

January Madness

2010-01-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, I admit it. I was a total fool today. The sun was shining. It was WARM. Really warm. Enough to take off the sweater and bask kind of warm. And so fooled by this gorgeous March-like weather, I got out my garden fork and turned over a bed. The soil was fluffy and perfect. It called to me like a siren. In a moment of weakness, I succumbed.

I got out the seed bucket and planted kale, mustard, collards, lettuce, winter greens, swiss chard, spinach, bunching onions, winter cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, carrots and beets. (Okay, it was more than a moment.) I planted the whole shabang. Ignoring the biodynamic practice of planting things at their proper times I put entire packages of seeds in the ground (and in the hoophouse). I talked myself into this after looking at the sorry shape my original winter garden was in after that long, hard freeze we had last month.

What WAS I thinking? It is FREEZING out there now. If it were really spring this Hellebore would have already bloomed, not merely starting to bud.

Seriously, right now (a mere 3 hours past planting), it is a beautiful starry night and the ground is frozen tight.

All I can say is I was struck down by a case of January madness, the kind of crazy that infects the minds of true blue Pacific Northwesterners when they get a sunny day in January and the weather report is predicting a few more. We forget that this is still winter. We forget that sun is a temporary kindness and do stupid things like jump in the lake to swim (brrr, my kids tried that one) or plant entire packages of seeds with high hopes only to remember a few hours later that January is NOT planting season no matter how nice it seems.

Oh well, since this is an El Nino year, I guess I will just call this bit of temporary insanity an experiment and see how things do. It will be nice to have a comparison of things planted in the hoophouse with the things planted outside. I'll let you know if anything grows. Tomorrow, in the next bit of sun I am going to remind myself that the kiwi plant needs pruning. That will surely keep me busy all day long and then I won't waste any more seeds.

ps news report--Brigid was NOT pregnant again, but she was ripe for another AI treatment. We will see next time. Hopefully, the third time's the charm.

Why Mattie Loves Steve more than me....

2010-01-24T15:38:00.000-08:00

I am trying hard not to take Mattie's preference for Steve personally. She is my cow, or so I thought. I carefully saved up my extra grocery money (money saved from growing things in the garden) and then researched exactly what kind of cow I wanted.

Lots of time on the internet, and on my farmer/biodynamic lists made me know that I wanted an A2 cow, as opposed to an A1 cow. Milk from A2 cows is far less prone to cause milk allergies in folks (and people in my family are proned to allergies). I wanted a heritage breed with a sweet temperament. I wanted a cow that had been handled and loved and didn't need taming. I wanted a big cow that gave a lot of milk. I wanted a cow that I could fall in love with. And I wanted a cow that would fall in love with me too.

Mattie is a former 4-H cow, who follows without a lead rope (at least for some people--like Steve) and is sweet as can be. She's a full-blood Guernsey so she gives LOTS of extra nutritious milk. (Guernsey milk has more vitamin A than other milk, so much so it is even tinted a bit yellow!) Guernsey's used to be common but are now rare (filling my heritage breed desire) and are almost always A2. So it seems I got almost everything I wanted in Mattie but the problem is that Mattie LOVES Steve. Honestly, this isn't much of a problem if she would only love me too. But she clearly prefers Steve. She much prefers when Steve milks her, feeds her and handles her. I am so the hired help.

I mean take milking for an example. For me, she stomps and kicks and gives a little bit of milk. For Steve, she might kick a bit to start but then settles right down and gives a LOT of milk (unless I walk in the barn and she starts kicking again.) She lets Steve handle her and is much more fussy towards me. She likes me well enough from the other side of the stall door giving her hay but the second I walk into the stall she much prefers Steve. Two people commenting on her interactions with the lot of us have suggested that she's jealous of me and wants Steve all to herself. Sorry girl, I got him first.

I got to thinking about it though and maybe it makes sense that she likes Steve better. Mattie was raised from a calf by a teenage boy who wanted her to be the best 4-H cow he ever had. His brother just had a cow go all the way to the National cow fair in Madison, Wisconsin. Mattie was related to this cow, so he had reason for his high hopes for her.

All her life before she came to us, Mattie was loved, and fed and brushed and trained by a boy who wanted her to be the most beautiful cow at the fair. And you KNOW how devoted a teenage boy can be to the one he loves. Everyday, he worked with her, talked to her, cared for her. And his mom Vicki (the woman I bought Mattie from) cared for her other cows in the background. Then the boy went away to college and left Mattie behind. Mom took over her care. She was kind but she was busy and she wasn't Mattie's boy.

Then suddenly Mattie and her little calf Moose are on a truck being away hauled to a new place without all the cows she had lived her whole life with. So now she's lost her home, her friends AND her boy. Life kind of sucks, even if the new folks are nice.

She gets out of the trailer and meets me. But unfortunately, ever so human things have caused the boy's mom to be hours late delivering Mattie and suddenly everything is a rush. This meant I didn't have the first few hours to properly welcome her and help her settle in. Instead, we lead her in the barnyard with Brigid and Gilly and then we all rush away. By the time I came back she looked a little dazed. New place, no friends and the new cows had horns.

Mattie didn't like that. In fact, she refused to eat (Guernsey's are like that.) And so we had to give her her own pasture and she isn't part of a herd. Cows love to be with their friends.

It took us a couple of weeks to figure out the best arrangement for all of this. So each day, Mattie and I negociated change after change while Steve was the steady one who came each night late and gave her an extra flake of hay and a nice scratch on the head. No wonder she likes him better. On some level, he has to remind her of her devoted boy.

So when it came down to milking and you were Mattie, who would you choose for your favorite? Good ole' reliable late night treat man, or wacky change woman who can't make up her mind about which place you get to live or what is the best way to feed you. The answer is pretty obvious, pick good ole' reliable treat man. And that is how this is sorting out (at least for the time being). Steve comes late at night, brings treats and milks her and I do the middle of the day stuff.

I suspect she feels like I am the cleaning lady and Steve is the crown prince. I am not sure who she thinks Aidan is, the morning stable boy? Oh well, at least we all know our places. And Mattie is surely the princess in all this. One thing I know for sure, there's no way for her to be queen, Brigid has that role more than filled.

Why I own a cow (or 4)

2010-01-22T15:13:00.000-08:00

Owning a cow is kind of a big deal. Well, I guess not even kind of. It is a big deal.

To begin with cows are just plain big. If you live somewhere like I do where you have to feed them 9 or 10 months of the year, they can be expensive. If you aren't careful they step on your feet when you are trying to move them around (my foot still hurts from the last time one did 6 weeks ago) and well, they aren't like a dog that comes in out of the rain and lays by your feet and snuggles. They need a covered space in bad weather. And they make a lot of poop that has to be dealt with.

Granted, a fresh cow will give you delicious fresh milk but you have to milk her and that my friends, while relaxing in many ways, is no small endeavor. You have to be home at the same time everyday. You have to separate them from their baby (which neither mom nor baby enjoy) and you have to milk them.

To milk them, if they are a full sized cow like Mattie, you have to get over your fear of how big they are and how small you are in comparison. Because one thing is for sure, if the cow figures out that you don't think you are boss she will do her darndest to make sure she is boss. And boss cows aren't particularly nice.

So why, given all this, was I so determined to have a cow? I had two reasons--one I used to buy raw milk from my cheesemaking neighbor down the road and got positively hooked on the wonderful feeling my body had when I drank REAL milk. Julie's cheese went big and she stopped selling milk. I tried buying raw milk in the store but it just wasn't the same. There is something about one cow and her milk. It is just different than drinking milk all mixed together from a dairy full of cows. Funny as this sounds, having a relationship with the cow seems to enhance the relationship of the milk with my body. One of those things we just don't think about any more in our ever so modern world. It seems like every step of modernization gives us things and but also takes things away. In the case of dairies, we have a LOT more milk than we used to but the quality has gone way down.

My other reason was I am a compost nut and every good gardener knows that compost goes better with manure, esp cow manure. Brigid gave us some nice manure, esp if we were willing to trot about the pastures picking it up. But Mattie, Mattie's my girl because she happily donates massive amounts right there in the stall and all we have to do is scoop it up and make compost. Since she's been here we have made one gigantic compost pile and sheet mulched 3 good sized areas for new garden beds. And that is just in six weeks. Think how much compost she is going to help us make when she's been here a year. I can't wait.

But in the meantime, I am going to take her delicious milk and turn it into homemade kefir and make myself a delicious breakfast smoothie. Here's how....

First get a quart jar and put the kefir grains in them...if anyone wants to try this and doesn't have access to kefir grains let me know, I can grow some extras and send them to you.

You need about a tablespoon of kefir grains per quart of milk, but they keep reproducing so sometimes you will have more and the kefir will make itself faster. Once you have a couple tablespoons, divide the grains in half and share with a friend. These grains (in the picture) are about ready to divide. And while they may look gross, these funny little grains voraciously eat the sugars in the milk and form a powerpacked delicious way to build your intestinal flora and add calcium to your diet. If you have only tried keifr from the store don't be so sure that you know what it is like. Homegrown kefir out of fresh raw milk is an entirely different taste than anything I have ever bought. No matter how good the store kefir package made it sound, raw homemade is better.

Once the kefir grains are in the jar, add a quart of milk and cover with a good fitting lid. Place in a warm spot and leave be for 24-48 hours (depending on how warm it is and how many kefir grains there are). When you walk by give the jar a gentle stir and watch how the milk gradually thickens and turns into kefir as the time goes by. Once the kefir sets up, remove the grains by running the kefir through a strainer and start the process over. Put the fresh made kefir in the fridge until you are ready to use it. If you leave the grains in too long, the kefir grains get hungry and start making the kefir taste too sour. (It is kind of sour to begin with so too sour is not good. You can eat it, but it won't be as yummy.)

To make a breakfast smoothie, here's what I do.

Into a blender or cuissinart I put:

1 c. fresh kefir

1 t. honey (for its superfood qualities)

1 cup homegrown frozen fruit (my favorite is peach or strawberry)

1 raw egg from my chickens (I know some people would leave this out, that's ok. It is good either way)

1 T. fresh cream (thank you Mattie)--I do this for a health reason (long story)

Then for extra nutritional gumption I add:

1 T. maca powder (another superfood, this time from South America)

1 T. fish oil (this is the only way I can get this stuff down)

2 T. noni (another superfood)

1 T. aloe vera juice (another superfood)

and then I add any other supplements I might be taking that come in powdered or bad tasting forms, for example I might add cal/mag powder and/or extra probiotics, even though fresh kefir is super high in them, I know they are good for some stuff I have going on so I throw them in as an extra precaution.

Occassionally, I add some acai which is another South American superfood.

Then I blend this all together for a long time--2-3 minutes. I blend it so long because the smoothie gets super creamy and tastes almost like ice cream and we all know how much I like ice cream. I put it in my car cup and drink as slowly as possible (sometimes it tastes so good I gulp it down). Yum! And the best thing about these smoothies is how flexible they are..if you like bananas--add one. Hate fish oil, leave it out. It's up to you and no matter what it is probably going to taste really, really good. If you try it, let me know how you like it.

And I was serious about the offer for kefir grains. They are easy to mail around.

Beyond slacker, I am becoming shameless....

2010-01-21T19:41:00.001-08:00

I just read on my neice Katy's blog Silly Tater Tot that her friend Katie (aka Chocolate Covered Katie ) is having a giveaway on her blog...and the prize is something I have ALWAYS dreamed of getting-- a vitamix (have you ever had frozen banana and almond 'ice cream' made with a vitamix--omg, to die for).

Anyway, I am shameless enough to do what Katie asks to get some extra entries in her contest. Post a chocolate covered recipe on my blog....so here you go, my favorite chocolate covered dessert or breakfast food depending on what you define as breakfast (definitely more healthy than a chocolate crouissant!) And this recipe is easy as pie so you might like it too.

First you have to start with good chocolate...that's a must and the darker the better, that is if you can stand DARK chocolate. Since I consider dark chocolate a necessary health food, I have no problem thinking this dessert, I mean breakfast is food! Read about chocolate sometime if you don't believe me--even raw foodist David Wolfe supports eating chocolate. In fact he even calls it a superfood . He's my kind of guy.

So to make this breakfast (aka dessert), which we have yet to name, you need only 4 ingredients...sounding better all the time right? And you don't even have to bake it.

Here are the ingredients I use...

--Dagoba chocolate bits --dark (though if I am making this for the kids I throw in some semi-sweet too so they will eat it--all dark is kind of strong)

--Organic unsweetened coconut flakes (superfood number two)

--Raw, unpasturized certified organic almonds from Anderson Almonds (a really sweet old man will sell them to you over the phone and they arrive nicely boxed and not irradiated just a few days later). Chop them well so they are nice little chunks--I do mine in the cuissinart.

--Chunks of coarse himalayan salt (or other good mineral filled salt)

To make: gently toast the almonds and coconut over low heat. I do them in separate pans because they take a different amount of time to toast. Then toss the nuts and coconut flakes together in a bowl. A raw foodie could skip this step and just ignore the fact that the chocolate has been cooked.

Melt the chocolate bits over low heat (I use about 1/2 -3/4 c. of chocolate to 2 cups of finely chopped almonds and coconut). You know right about using the lowest heat possible (or even a double boiler to melt chocolate so you don't temper it funny and change the taste).

Gently mix the warm chocolate into the nuts and coconuts and stir until the nuts/coconut mix is covered.

Place spoonfuls (your choice in size) of the choco-nut mix onto a parchment covered cookie sheet. Lightly sprinkle with the coarse salt and chill.

I usually freeze them for about half an hour to an hour and then serve.

They go like hotcakes around here and since two of the four ingredients are superfoods, and the other two are healthful, I don't feel an ounce of pain eating them.

Now, if I only had a name for them, life would be complete. Any ideas?

I'm a slacker, what can I say

2010-01-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

I know, I know...I was going to tell you about our new cow and then I disappeared. We have had Mattie and Moose (the new cow and her baby) for weeks now, so many weeks I don't even know how many. As you can see below, she's a beautiful Guernsey girl who gives luscious milk semi-willingly--we have had some trouble with her kicking and such, but we are getting it down. Steve is the larger part of that "we" since she seems to like him milking her better than me. Mattie's a big girl, so let's just say that getting the hang of this milking gig was a whole lot more intimidating than it was with Brigid. The best I can say is we are learning and she is getting used to us. It is bound to calm down soon. She's a sweet girl even if she does like to swing a leg. And her milk makes the best kefir ever!

Since I've checked in we've also had a lamb born (with more on the way). And the butcher came and went. We couldn't find a shearer, and the raspberries have been pruned as have the orchards. Big huge compost piles have been built and the hoophouse partially replanted. Needless to say there were a few holidays thrown in and well, it's been busy. Here's a few pictures to give you an idea of what we have been up to. Including a shot of our first snowdrops of the year.....

Brrr, it's cold out there

2009-12-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I WAS going to write about our sweet new cow Mattie, but then we got hit with a blast of arctic cold and pretty soon I was far too busy chat. The boy had the brains to get himself sick this week, or this little tale of woe would be his. Here's a picture of his favorite nurse. She's been sleeping (almost non-stop) by his head ever since he got sick.

Anyway, back to my story...about ten days ago, the farmer's weather report said to get ready for winter. I blithely ignored that figuring how cold could it get. HA! Got me.

A mere 15 hours into the cold some kind of valve failure caused the winterized pipes in our barn to freeze up, not to be fixed until they thaw. 24 hours later the water froze solid in the animal's 100 gallon watering trough. Just about this time our resident water trough filler disappeared down to town for a weekend visit to a friend's house. Good timing him.

That left me to do about an hour and a half of water hauling from the kitchen sink. Let's just say that's a LONG way to haul 10 gallons of water. Or even 5, or say 75. Once I got over that bit of work, I realized we were in this for the long haul and we would be toting water morning, noon and night until the pipes thawed. I tried to view this as an opportunity for exercise. That idea lasted about a day. Tomorrow will be 8.

I wish that waterhauling we didn't include me but it does. We=Me and Steve, and I have to say Steve doesn't whine near as much as I do about this.

When we were just about sick to death of frozen pipes, the boy reappeared from his weekend of fun and went back to being the water sherpa. Thank God! He faithfully hauled buckets for a day and a half until he got sick and put himself to bed. He has yet to emerge. Poor boy. Good thing he has that cat.

Now I bet you can guess who's back to hauling water again.? You got it. Me (and Steve, the tireless mighty man.)

Three times a day, we have been hauling as much water as we can to the big grey watering hole on the side of the barn and the giant blue bucket in the cow stall and to the other giant blue bucket behind the cow stall. And apparently we can't keep up with the demand, because everytime we go out there, most of the water is gone and what's left is frozen solid.

All this hauling water reminded me of what life was like for Ma and Pa in Little House on the Prairie. Remember that one long winter where they just about froze or was it starved to death (hard to say which). I don't remember a single mention of Pa hauling water that whole winter. But he must have and he must have hauled tons of it. (Literally.) Or maybe they just melted snow on the stove all day and invited the cow in for a drink? Maybe there's no mention of it because hauling water was so normal, Laura couldn't imagine talking about it. Kind of like us going to the grocery store or say breathing. But really she should have said something because it's hard work. Though, I do seem to remember that she does mention all the water hauling SHE did when she and Almonzo planted those trees on their homestead. So am I to assume that water hauling only deserves mention if a person does it themselves. Did I mention that I've been doing a lot of it this week?

And just so you know, when it is this cold (11 degrees F early this morning), fashion rules change. Cold requires special attire. Layers and layers and layers...honestly, if I told you how many layers we really have on you wouldn't believe me.

And can you see the frost on Steve's glasses and mustache? Crazy....he was only out there for 15 minutes or so. Brrr...

And speaking of crazy, check out these eggs we found under the chickens last night. Frozen solid. Told you it was cold around here.

Back at last and with tales of woe.

2009-12-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

Gosh, we've been busy as a beehive around here. No time for such frivilous pursuits such as blogging. We (meaning Steve and Kaitlin and little bit of me) have been digging and composting and getting new cows (more on that another time) and cleaning up the garden for winter (just in the nick of time, I might add) and all sorts of other smaller projects. One of these projects sounded like such a good idea. But like many 'good' ideas it turned into much more of an adventure (or more accurately--fiasco) than I meant it to be.

This whole thing started a couple of years ago when we bought 4 Navajo Churro sheep and introduced them into our existing and I might add VERY healthy flock of romneys. I had this idea that since we were such a small operation we could do our part to preserve the world's genetic diversity by switching our animals over to the rarer, heritage breeds. (What follows is only a small part of what I get for trying to be noble.)

I started by doing a LOT of research trying to find a breed that would give us what we wanted (yummy lamb) and that would be easy to keep and have nice fleeces. I never really thought about how perfect (and hardy) our existing romneys were. They are a standard breed in a climate like ours--sort of like an angus or holstein cow might be. Here's what they look like (not ours)...

We loved our romneys, they were easy keepers and easy to shear and had beautiful fleeces. Plus they were pretty friendly for sheep. Sheep are notoriously shy, but ours were nice. I could walk up to them and pet most of them without much trouble.

Enter the churros. We bought four beautiful churros from a breeder in Central Washington. Churros are known for their colorful fleeces, and their tendency to have four horns. They lamb easily (and often, sometimes three times in two years) and are known to be hardy. They are also listed on the Slow Food Ark of Taste, which means they are known especially for their delicious tasting meat. With all these characteristics, I thought we'd be a perfect match. Here's what they look like (again, not ours)...

Churros are smaller than romney's..see those delicate little legs of theirs. Since they are so tasty I thought the smaller animals would still be okay with our lamb customers. They are much more skittish than the romneys but I thought maybe we could work that out over time and with love. Ha. That was my first mistake. It's been two years and they are just as timid as ever and those beautiful fleeces are apparently glued to the sheep with superglue because our shearer almost refuses to come shear them as they are such hard work to cut. Hmm. And did I mention that churros are hardy in the desert and we live in the Pacific Northwest. (My mistake again.)

Anyway, back to the real problem. See, my next churro mistake came out of ignorance. We had the romneys for almost nine years and never had wormed them. Our flock came with the place and had been on autopilot for many a year before we got them. We added a ram and away we went. Lots of lambs every year and no problems. We didn't even know that intestinal parasites were a common problem in sheep because our sheep NEVER had them. The churros apparently did.

A couple of months after we got the churros, we noticed the romneys getting thinner. As they approached lambing time, we thought hmm this isn't good. We fed them more and watched them grow fatter tummies and way skinnier bodies. It is harder than heck to get a vet out here that knows anything about sheep. Believe me, I tried. Even the large animal vets pretty much focuses on horses. When the lambs started coming, we had all kinds of problems. Failure to thrive, mamas that were too skinny, a stillborn. I started reading on the internet but didn't really find an answer...probably because I didn't know what questions to ask and maybe because the obvious was just too obvious for me to know.

We lost a few lambs (both romney and churros) and that got us really worried. I started asking around more fervently. Then right after we lost a few lambs, a mama died. She just laid down and wouldn't get up. We kept the baby alive by bottlefeeding her but it was sure sad to watch her sit day by day by her dying mother with us not knowing what to do.

We still had no vet to come. The mobile vet said he was a dog and cat man and the horse vet said she didn't do sheep. I asked around but wasn't getting any answers. This is the problem with living on the suburban edge of rural.

Then my Australian sheep farming friend Lloyd came for a visit. He took one look at my sheep, pulled down their lips and said "Aw, girl, those sheep have worms. You gotta' treat um quick or they are going to die." So quick like a bunny I hopped off to the nearest farm and feed store and bought some wormer. But cuz this feed store specializes in horsey gear, they didn't exactly have the right wormer and another sheep died. From the wormer or the worms we will never know.

By now I was feeling way more than bad. Lloyd was gone and with him went his 60 years of common sense. All my years in Catholic school/church kicked in and I was feeling REALLY guilty. (As well, I should have been.)

We finally found and applied the right wormer and fed those girls up and everyone got healthy again. The shearer came a couple months later and wondered what the heck happened to our girls. Hearing our tale of woe, he was shocked we hadn't been worming all these years. Apparently, it is normal for sheep and other ruminates to have worms. I guess everyone knew this except us.

So the months went by and we diligently followed the directions on the wormer and gave everyone a dose every month. Each month the sheep became healthier and healthier and things seemed better.

The problem was I started reading about that wormer. Gosh darn, that stuff is nasty. I sure didn't want to give my sheep something that was that toxic if I didn't have to. It was bad enough that the sheep would eat it but my insides got all quivvery when I knew we would be eating the meat too. The wormer said it was safe and that it passed right through in 24 hours; but still, I didn't like the idea.

So, it wasn't long before my next internet quest became the search for a natural worming medicine that worked. Apparently, this is a lot easier said than found. There are many natural worming methods that don't do squat. And there are many more that people promote with enthusiasm but that nobody has any proof that they work.

I kept reading as much as I could and investigated all kinds of methods. Some methods sounded like they would work but they were tricky. If you gave a sheep just a little too much they would die. That sounded worse than the sure shot wormer that came in the tube with specified doses on an oral syringe. I kept reading. I figured with my luck and lack of skill I was bound to hurt somebody and I couldn't bear the thought of anymore of that.

Finally, after I couldn't find any method I particularly liked, I asked a friend in California whom I knew to be both sensible and organically minded. Lots of organically minded folks still use the nasty wormer because getting the natural ones right was so hard. I figured if Hank did something natural, it would work and wouldn't be that hard to get right. Hank owns a goat dairy and makes some of the best cheese and goat's milk soap ever. And he doesn't seem to like to fuss with stuff unless it is necessary.

After getting his recipe via email, I trouped all over town and the internet and finally found all the ingredients. (Already this wormer is much more expensive and way more hassle than the wormer in the tube.) Kaitlin (the wwoofer) and I then mixed the ingredients together in a tub. Using face masks to protect our lungs from the powdery diatomaeous earth, we felt quite satisfied when we were done with our mixing. We put the mixture in a covered tub and then left it for a few days while I tried to figure out a way to make the sheep and goat and cows want to eat it. Another HA!

See those sheep are smarter than they look. They took one whiff of that wormer and walked away...literally...even though I had hidden it in a delicious pile of grain and molasses--their all time favorite treat.

The truth is I tried to turn the wormer into nice little molassesy grain balls that they would love to eat up. What I got was gobs of molasses with all kinds of powdery stuff in a bowl. It didn't quite work like Hank said. I guess I must have done something wrong. Apparently when he does this his goats can't wait to eat their wormer. An hour or so into my molasses mess, I was wishing for his goats instead of my sheep.

After all my fussing around trying to make it right, what I still couldn't figure was why they didn't rush to eat this delicious gooey mess anyway. The bowl was filled with grain. They LOVE grain and they never, ever get it unless it is a special day (like today) when I want them to do something that they don't want to do. Usually the smell of the grain overcomes their good sense and they follow me like lambs. I guess all that garlic powder in the wormer overruled the sweet grain smell and turned them away.

Here's how it sort of went: We let the sheep into the barn by twos and threes and offered them a tub full of my grain/molasses/wormer mess. But see, that is the cleaned up version. What really went on was a whole lot less tame.

Let's just say we spent an awful lot of time and energy trying to get those sheep to eat that wormer. I can't really tell you all the things we did and said and keep a G rating so I am going to skip that part. But you can guess. Just put in your mind, twelve skittish sheep and one bossy goat, two cows with horns and one with none, two baby cows and a border collie who doesn't know what he is supposed to be doing but really, really wants to help. Add a couple of humans who are way too slow for this crowd, a very cold day (think molasses in January) and a barn full of pumpkins and delicious hay. Now let's just say we ended up with a big mess and the wormer is now inside the sheep. And the sheep, well they smell like they spent the evening at Dimitri's.

Since you all are undoubtedly going to be more successful at this than I was...Hank PROMISED it was easy, I am going to give you Hank's recipe and pray that your journey with worms is less adventurous than mine has been. Here's what Hank said and good luck!

Here are two recipes we have been using for 4 years now on our goats. Works great and I am sure it would be effective on other ruminants.

#1: 8 parts wormwood, 8 parts fennel seed powder, 8 parts garlic powder, 1/2 part black walnut powder, 1/4 part stevia, 3 parts DE. This formula is used throughout the year, EXCEPT when the animals are pregnant.

No wormwood for pregnant animals!

Then we use:

#2: 3 parts mugwort, 2 parts fennel seed, 2 parts hyssop, 2 parts thyme, 4 parts garlic powder, 2 parts pumpkin seed powder, 1/4 part stevia, 2 parts DE.

For both formulas: Add in summer 2 parts nettle; add in winter 4 parts rosehip powder.

Either formula can be given as a three day "cure", then we give about 1/4 cup to the animals weekly, mixed in a small grain ration or rolled into balls with molasses and grain..

News flash

2009-12-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

We have a new cow! Mattie. I didn't get picture and I don't have time yet to say more but it is exciting. She's a beautiful guernsey and she came with her baby (three week old bull calf) who is oh so cute. More very soon.

Weather wimps and the new agriculture...

2009-11-19T22:13:00.000-08:00

I have to admit being a weather wimp these last couple of days. It's been raining and raining and raining and after a few days of it, I decided I was headed inside for awhile. It has been Kaitlin's days off and I didn't have anything pressing to do and besides the boy was sick, so I decided the couch was the place for me.

This is not all bad. I caught up on the lightning strike paperwork (yes, there was a pile of it) and caught up on almost all the phone calls I needed to do--new cows, yes; sheep shearer, no. I wrapped and boxed almost all our far away Christmas presents. I kept the fire roaring so the house could heat up (yes!). But none of these things excited me near as much as finding this blog by a soil scientist who wants to make farming as cool as rock'n'roll. He's my kind of guy. I can't wait to sit down with a cup of tea and read this entire blog.

I get that I am weird but I am still going to like it. Michael Astera rocks.

Back from the dark (and rainy) side of busy

2009-11-18T15:12:00.000-08:00

Gosh, it has been crazy busy around here. In a good way, but busy all the same. We've had a wwoofer here for the last ten days and she is keeping me on my toes.

Wwoofing, for those of you who don't know, is a great exchange of energy between people who are farming and people who want to learn about farming. By offering to teach and supervise (and feed and house) someone when they are learning, I get a volunteer who will work on the farm for 25-30 hours a week. Here's a picture of our wwoofer Kaitlin hard at work!

This is our first experience with the wwoofing program and so far, it's been great. Wwoof stands for willing workers on organic farms, and Kaitlin sure fits that description. Just like most wwoofers she travelled here from far away. (Kaitlin is from the coast of Maine.) In case you are interested, you can learn more about wwoofing by clicking here .

So far, in the last week Kaitlin has shoveled manure from my friend George's dairy farm (stinky!), double dug two and a half very large garden beds (which you may remember entails digging a hole three feet deep, adding tons of organic matter and manure and then refilling it), made a biodynamic preparation, finished the property line fence with Steve and mixed up seven trashcan-fulls of chicken food. And that is just some of the stuff she has done. Here's a bad picture of one of the holes she dug in our

absolutely dreadful weather. Seriously, in the last week, we

we have experienced deluge after deluge, a ferocious windstorm and an icy snowstorm and Kaitlin has experienced them all first hand.

It's great to actually be accomplishing THE LIST. Even if we aren't the ones doing all the work. (Maybe BECAUSE we aren't the ones doing all the work.)

Kaitlin is in Seattle today on her day off exploring the city. When she's back on Friday it is on to building compost. And she thought digging holes was hard work!

Hunting Brocolli in the Dark of Night

2009-11-06T19:13:00.000-08:00

I just harvested what I think will be our last brocolli of the year. And of course I forgot that it was going to be dark by five, so I was out there by the light of my cell phone trying to pick the teeny little florets in the pitch dark. Whoops.

There was just enough for one last homegrown stir-fry with brocolli, collards, kale, and swiss chard from the garden. Wish Steve would hurry home so we could eat it.

We have been eating absoultely DELICIOUS brocolli from these plants for six months. Prodigious producers, seven plants first delivered way more brocolli than we could eat (big bowlfuls EVERY day). I couldn't think of enough ways to eat brocolli. If anyone dropped by, you can guess what I gave them. The food bank, yep gave some to them too.

After a few weeks of brocolli overload, we found our rhythm. The brocolli produced just the right amount for us to have a brocolli centered dinner a couple of times a week. This went on until the end of September. The more they produced the right amount, the more I fawned over them.

Then October came and the brocolli slowed way down. First it was one dinner a week, and then lately it has been one dinner every 10 days or so. From the looks of the stalks tonight, I think what I picked today will be the end for this growing season. This picture was in early October.

I feel like I ought to have a memorial service for those trusty plants. They really were BEAUTIFUL at their peak. And honestly, I have never had better brocolli. But what is even more exciting, Aidan finally figured out that he liked brocolli so I didn't have to hear the "Oh, Mom, not brocolli," chorus whenever I served it. I don't know if that was because of the brocolli or the fact that he is a 14 year old boy who basically eats anything that doesn't move. Whatever the reason, I was happy to have a happy brocolli eater around.

You maybe wondering what kind of miracle plants these were. I wish I could tell you there came from some amazing organic seed that I bought from a little organic seed farm in Oregon and grew in teeny pots on my windowsill. But, to tell you the truth, I picked them up cheap one day in March when I was wandering through the plant section at Home Depot. The seedling tray had eight plants, one died and the others went on to live a glorious life. Hybrid, non-organic, super producing, delicious brocolli. Go figure!

ps And here's what's for dessert. Gluten free-dairy free peanut butter cookies. Lucky boys scored tonight. umm. They are even good without all the ingredients that are usually in there. Phew, I get worried sometimes when I have to leave too many crucial things out of the mix.

An Excellent Question

2009-11-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

Somebody just asked me why I don't just put a bull out in the pasture with Brigid and let nature take its course.

I would love (really love) to except:

1) I don't feel confident enough to handle a bull, and especially if it escaped.

2) It is hard to find bulls in these parts and even harder to find bull owners that are quick about picking up the bulls they drop off. So if we did get over our trepidation about dealing with the bull, we might be feeding it all winter, and believe me that would cost a lot more than a few visits from the AI guy.

3) We don't have a trailer for moving cows. It seems like we might want one if we wanted control of how long the bull was here.

4) I would feel horrible if my ignorance caused some kind of accident and somebody got hurt by the bull.

5) Having a bull around is WAY out of my confort zone.

I own that these reasons are mostly just me being fearful, but I think somethings are worthy of being afraid of. And in my book, until I know more, bulls fall squarely in that category. If only I could invite Ferdinand for the winter.

Making Progress--Warning--graphic cow description

2009-11-03T11:50:00.000-08:00

It always feels good when I can strike one thing of the LIST. This fall it feels like I have been adding more to the list than I have been scratching things off. But today is a good day, a great day because I can scratch off GET BRIGID PREGNANT. (Not personally.)

You see, Andrew came yet again and we now have a bred cow. Or so we hope. Of all the visits, this is the one Brigid hates the most. She kicks and flings her body around trying to stop the process. It still amazes me how coordinated Andrew is. I know this is what he does for a living but still.

So here is how the AI process goes...The entire process takes 10 days. During the first visit he sticks the long plastic hormone implant inside Brigid and gives her a shot. Next visit he takes the implant out and gives her another hormone injection (or three, if she is flailing). But it's the last visit, where Andrew really shows his stuff.

First of all, you have to know that he drives around in a mild-mannered white pickup truck. Lifting the sides of topper (there is a better word for that but I forget it), he pokes around in these steamy cold containers that hold the vital juices of all kinds of bulls. You certainly couldn't tell by looking at the outside that he had special temperature controlled vats inside his truck.

We had our choice of Jersey bull--sexed or not, Angus bull or Dexter. Since we knew how she did with Dexter, we decided to try Angus and see if we liked that kind of mix. We knew we wanted her baby for meat, so Angus made more sense than Jersey. Each one of these decisions takes time and research because neither Steve nore I grew up around cows or knows much yet.

Once the decision is made, then Andrew fills the insemination syringe (extra long turkey baster?) with the appropriate stuff. This time it came from a bull named Above and Beyond. We secure Brig in the stanchion and he quickly puts syringe deep into her vagina. In order to guide it to where it needs to be he has to stick his other, very gloved arm up the other hole where you and I just don't want to go. From there he guides the syringe into place and releases it when it's ready. This is happening basically simultaneously. And all the while, Brigid is going ballistic and is kicking at him with both back feet and lurching around in the stanchion. Let's just say he has faster reflexes than an Olympic sprinter.

Andrew is gone in a flash and off to another farm where he will do this whole process again (and again). Last week when arrived at our house a bit late he apologized but said that he had just bred 53 cows that morning. Whoa. That's a lot of kick dodging. No wonder he is so fast.

The rest of the day, Brigid is a bit cranky. I don't blame her. I mean, not to anthropomorphize too much, but it does seem like a VERY invasive process on a non-consenting cow. Poor thing. At least I didn't humiliate her further by taking pictures.

Luckily, she loves being a mother.

Wayward cows and Halloween mysteries...

2009-10-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

I went out to my car this morning and found Brigid and Gilly muching on the front lawn. (Happily, I might add.) I thought they finally got up the gumption to jump five feet over the still broken electric fence. But I since was racing out the door, I ran inside to get the mighty man and let him deal with it. (I was late.)

When I came home I found him in the middle of a new project that appeared to be far off the long list of problems caused by this week's lightning strike.

Apparently Brigid and Gilly escaped because a Douglass Fir came down and smashed the fence in the lower pasture. It took two trees with it on the way down. I was just out there yesterday and the tree was standing and the fence was fine. It must have fallen in the night.

Didn't take long for those two bovine high-steppers to wander right through the branches and find their way to green grass. (Confirming their suspicion that the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence!)

A closer investigation found the giant Doug fir next to fallen tree had bad scarring down the entire length of it. Here's an example of the scar....

At first I thought the one tree had damaged the other on the way down but then I looked up a hundred feet or so and saw the same kind of damage running all the way down the tree, way higher than the other tree could have caused. Hmm, this is getting way more mysterious by the minute.

It almost looked like the giant fir got hit by a lightning strike too. Could we have had two lightning strikes in one storm?

But then why would it have taken few days for the smaller tree to fall over? And why would the smaller tree have fallen at all.

The fallen tree was cracked and split in a funny spirally way that this picture doesn't show. It looked to me like the tree was forced apart.

I guess that is a mystery we will never solve.

In the meantime, we are getting a headstart on next year's pile of firewood and the beginnings of a new woodland compost pile out of the deal. Too bad though, we liked the tree.

Update on the cow situation....

2009-10-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

So, in case you are wondering, Andrew the AI (artificial insemination) guy made his second trip out here today. And with his usual amazing dexterity, he whipped out the giant implant he had placed inside her last week. This thing is huge--I want to say 5 inches wide (maybe 4 but usually I am pretty good at guessing sizes) and it had a LONG tail. He grabbed that puppy and yanked. In less time than it took for me to figure out what he was doing, he was done and successfully dodging kicks. Then 30 seconds later he was done giving her three shots and sent her on her way with a pat on the bum. I was going to get pictures but I was holding the rope that controlled her head, which meant he only had to dodge her kicks and not her horns too. So, sorry, no pictures.

On Monday, he will come again for the third time and inpregnate (hopefully successfully) her with the goods from either a Dexter or Angus papa. We still have to decide. She's a small cow, but she birthed like a champ her first time so he thinks she could handle the big boy Angus. There are a LOT of decisions a cow person has to make, and to tell you the truth, I don't really know enough to be making them. I'm trying to learn though.

This time (because of that learning curve) we are going to have Andrew back out in a couple of months to make sure the AI process worked. No waiting a year hoping. That was last year's learning mistake!

Because last year's efforts were for naught, and we now are starting over, I decided I didn't want to wait the almost three years it would take to have Brigid's future baby be our milking mama (9 months for the baby to be born, 15-18 months for the baby to grow big enough to get pregnant, and another 9 months for her baby to be born), I am looking for another mama cow. This, of course has me scouring websites and Craig's list and asking everyone I know who knows about cows if they know of a good cow for me to buy. I'll let you know when I find her. Exciting.

Pre-Halloween Spooks

2009-10-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Our big news this week is that our house got struck by lightning. ZAP, BOOM, BANG. Loudly struck by lightning. It raised the hair on our arms and made our hearts beat fast. Seriously, we could feel the electricity jetting around in our bodies.

At first it was kind of exciting, especially since we hadn't figured out that it hit the house. The power went out and we lit zillions of candles and sat around in the dark talking. It's so quiet when the electricity is out.

Aidan finished his homework and did his foot exercises by candlelight. We watched it snowing out the window and marvelled when it stuck...it is October in Western Washington after all. And then, after all that excitement we went to bed.

About two o'clock in the morning, the power came on (just like the lineman who arrived within an hour of the lightning strike said it would). The blown transformer was replaced and we thought all was well. We went back to sleep happily thinking "Ah, that's done." No eight days without power again (like what happened last year). Six hours, esp when you are asleep for three of them, is a breeze. It was odd though that there was a LOUD cracking noise when the power came on. That had never happened to us before. But we ignored that and went blissfully back to sleep.

We woke up to the battery powered alarms we had set the night before and headed downstairs, thinking to reset the clocks and then start our day like normal. Not.

First clue something was off, the toaster wasn't working, and neither were most of the plugs in the kitchen. Hmm. Wandering a little bit deeper into the house we find that the office computer is fried, as is the surge protector and the modem. Hmm, no internet, no computer, no toast. What about the phones? Nope, no phones.

Then we think, what about the outbuildings. So we bundle up and troup out into the snow to see. The freezers are dead but half the electricity is on in the shop so Steve rigs power to the freezers and they are up again. Phew, I won't be having to run the generator on and off all day to keep all our meat frozen. And I won't be having to figure out what to do with three freezers worth of food because the freezers got fried in the surge. That's a relief.

Next stop, the barn. Whoops, the box that is the mastermind for the electric fences is literally BLOWN APART with pieces of plastic laying all the way around the barn. Luckily, all the animals are okay. They are standing awfully close to the fence though. I wonder if they know.

We then check out the 'mother-in-law'--don't ask how that weird building got named, I have NO idea. Hmm, the lights work but the extra fridge is shot and half the plugs don't work. On to the chicken coop.

There the light is blown and a socket destroyed but what is most amazing is the 2 X 4 that the light was mounted on was blown off the wall. This is a 2 X 4 that the mighty man attached--the one whose mythical construction firm I lovingly call Fred Flintsone's Designs because everything he makes is overbuilt. You can bet that there were many nails holding that board on, and guess what they were all bent! Wish I had a picture of that.

The power in the woodshed is gone and in the original (uninsured) cabin behind the basketball court.

We still keep discovering things that are broken. Our insurance adjuster said this was normal for a lightning strike. All in all, we have a lot to fix or replace; but we SO happy that is all we are doing. Things could have been much, much worse.

ps here's some proof of the pre-halloween SNOW!

Spinning my wheels out there.

2009-10-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Not quite sure where the time goes. Last time I looked it was Tuesday and here it is Saturday morning. It was one of those weeks were I felt really busy but looking back at it I wonder what I was busy doing. I did go on a beautiful walk up the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie.

Every other spare moment I had I spent working out in the garden getting it ready for fall. One of my classic gardening mistakes is not planning for the fall when I plant in the spring. It would make my fall jobs much, much easier if all the plants I planned to winter over were in one place, Meaning all the kale, collards, swiss chard, leeks, carrots and parsnips were planted in a chunk.

If I did that then it would be simple to clear away the corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, tomatillos, basil, onions, flowers and such and plant my cover crops. As it is, I am digging a couple of feet here and a couple of feet there and gingerly working around the roots of the plants I plan to hold onto as long as possible. My cover crops (this year: buckwheat, beesom clover and rye grass) get planted in dribs and drabs and never really get all over large chunks of the garden. Here's what they look like just coming up:

See the problem (and this is easily the good news too) is that my garden will happily keep feeding us for months to come and maybe all winter if we don't have another hard freeze like we did last winter. Usually, I can keep us in greens and some veggies all winter.

Right now (just after our first killing frost) we are eating parsnips, brocolli, carrots, leeks, three kinds of kale, rainbow chard, collards, beet greens, argula and a few varieties of hardy winter lettuces that I can't remember the names of. All these greens come from Wild Garden Seeds, which has fast become my favorite seed company in the world. I wish I could buy all my seeds from them. The quality (vitality) difference in plants grown from their seeds is astonishing,

Last year, with its month of bone-chilling in the teens or lower kind of frost, was unusual. Greens will stand temperatures in the 20's, even for a few weeks, but they don't like temperaures under 20. We lost our whole winter garden during that infamous icy spell. We also had an ice dam on our mudroom roof that poured water straight into the house and our pipes under the house and to the barn froze solid. That was a first. Guess it really was cold as it felt.

But anyway, I have been digging away and not making much visible progress. Better get at it. If I don't get those cover crops in soon (as in last week) they aren't going to get a chance to grow.

No, No, No

2009-10-20T17:31:00.000-07:00

It's a day of NOs.

No puppy. The folks who have her don't believe in putting puppies on planes. Probably good for the puppies but sad for me.

No baby cow. Brigid wasn't pregnant then, never had her baby and is not pregnant now. The AI guy is on the way but hasn't been able to coordinate schedules with us yet so that process has yet to begun. (It takes a couple of weeks of shots and implants and such to get that going.)

No butcher. He's full up until December so sweet Gilly has a reprieve until then.

What we do have are plenty of sunsets and gorgeous trees glowing in all kinds of colors.

There's fresh honey in jars and autumn flowers are filling vases all throughout the house. And mighty man has been busy building fences so we are soon to have a new area that will eventually become pasture.

We have a happy dog, a determined cat and a boy who always brings a smile. Life is good.

Puppy Love

2009-10-18T20:08:00.001-07:00

If you don't hear from me for awhile, it is because I am lost in puppyland, looking at puppy pictures. After days of searching, here is my favorite. Isn't she cute? And she has the puppy name of my old beloved dog Angie and one of her littermates is named Aidan. Don't you think it is a sign. I do. Too bad she is in New York. Trying to figure out how to make that one work. It is a long way to drive.

The renegade rooster comes home

2009-10-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

This week whizzed by in a blur of weather and chaos. Digging up the onions and shallots I found a beautiful leek blossom. Guess I will have to make some potato leek soup tonight to celebrate the big allium harvest. When I was digging out there this morning the sweetest little green frog hopped right by. It was only 3/4 of an inch long and was bright, spring green. So cute.

The biggest excitemt of the week though involved the chickens. I haven't a clue how but one of our roosters escaped from the chicken run. It was kind funny because he didn't have any idea what to do with himself without his ladies. So all day long, and I mean ALL DAY long, he hung out under one of the rhodie bushes crowing enthusiastically for the girls. They, of course, were happily ensconced behind the fence of the chicken run eating so they couldn't be bothered to even try come meet their man.

He tried all kinds of alluring sounds that sounded like he was saying "Please honey, please honey. Meet me under the bush." But nothing was working. He moped and scratched for food dejectedly, every once in a while taking a majestic stroll around the dooryard. In twenty years of keeping chickens I have never heard more racket out of one bird. If nothing else he was impressive in his amorous longings. Here's what a chicken looks like all mopey.

After five days of constant racket and no response, I found him standing right outside the chicken run fence begging to be let in. I went to open the door, which usually causes a renegade chicken to run fast as possible in the opposite direction, but he waited patiently and ran inside as soon as he could fit through the opening. Poor guy, guess his plans for freedom didn't work out exactly like he planned.

This morning I heard the ladies complaining loudly after our sex-starved friend made up for lost time. These roosters certainly take their duties very seriously.

Winter is closing in.

2009-10-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

The temperature dropped 15 degrees since morning. Strong winds blow. Stepping outside chills my bones. Inside there is a garden stew simmering on the stove--carrots, leeks, parsley, onions and lamb from the farm and a friend's well grown potatoes. Hearty food to feed the soul. I'm sipping jasmine tea with fresh honey from the bees, gathered the last free day warm enough to open the hives.

It's funny how everything can change in a night.

Yesterday I was walking around in flipflops. Today I have on wool socks and three layers on top. Steve's been out working on the fence line for hours, trying to shore it up before it gets too wet to drive the truck out there. Everything around me is saying winter is coming, winter is coming. Prepare.

I love the longer, darker nights, the cool temperatures and drinking tea. But I do miss that last warm day. The one where you lay on the grass and feel the heat rising into your bones, penetrating your very core, The earth's gift to keep you warm all winter long.

Today as I was driving home from town I thought of this haiku:

Gray skies, mountain mists

Leaf sparks dance-red, orange, gold

Winter whispers soon.

Creativity blowing in the wind...

2009-10-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

Nobel prizes going to men who worry they don't deserve them and who then challenge the American people to make the promise of this prize come true, 14 year old boys who use down home ingenuity to change their family's life and end up on the stage at TED. It's a good day to remember we have much more power than we think. Click here to watch this inspiring TED video of a now 22 year old man who, at 14, built a windmill that changed his family's life. Wow. If you don't know about TED, after you watch this video you might want to take a few minutes to wander around. There is some pretty amazing stuff in their archives. And while you are doing that I am off to Salem to hear Miss Heidi Mae sing her heart out.

Why we dig our garden beds 3 feet down!

2009-10-07T13:22:00.000-07:00

I just came in from one of my favorite chores--overturning a double dug bed. I love it because it is so easy. Five minutes and a whole bed is done. Double digging, while a lot of work to begin with, makes future digging a breeze. And I like that.

This spring, Becca, my trusty stunt double, went out to the vegetable garden to start double digging our beds. We used to garden exclusively in double dug beds but when we moved out here and quadrupled our garden size we thought we needed to till. It seemed like too much to dig.

But after ten years watching our soil not be as delicious as we like, we decided to switch back to our old reliable form of preparing the soil--double digging and cover crops.

Here's the thing, rototilling is like running your soil through a blender. All the little friendly microbes and soil beings get turned on their heads and chewed up (so to speak). What's on top ends up on the bottom and vice versa. In the short run, rototilling is a quick solution to a big problem. But in the long run it destroys healthy soil biology which is the essence of soil fertility. And soil fertility is what determines how nutritious the food you grow is and how healthy the plants are. Healthy plants have a lot fewer pests and problems. Here's a picture of what soil looks like when it has had repeated rototilling. This guy is getting a shallow turn

instead of a deep dig like the turn of a fork would give. Most likely his soil has deep level compaction.

Ten years of rototilling has created more and more problems in my garden. Even with regular, hefty doses of biodynamic compost, leaf mulch, and all the other lovely soil building things I do, the texture of our garden soil was not improving. It dried out easily and parts of it were like a rock mid-summer--the same parts that looked gorgeous after the rototiller went by in the spring.

When I did the ultimate test of soil fryablity (throwing a fork in the ground and seeing how far the tongs descend), my garden failed abysmally. This isn't surprising, not after what I have been learning about soil health lately. But it took experiencing it first hand for me to really understand the full extent of the damage rototilling was causing to the soil.

Now don't get me wrong...our soil was fine. Way better than most, its just that I have big ideas. I want the best.

Hence my resolution to go back to double digging not matter how long it took us to dig the beds. Becca worked hard whenever she could this spring and got about a quarter of the garden dug. What a difference. Here's what the garden looked like in the beds she dug. AMAZING growth, bad picture. It looks like mayhem rather than a garden but trust me we have been eating out of this patch of garden every day for 6 months and there is no end in sight. Here's a kale plant that was as tall as I was and delicous too.

You may be wondering how to double dig a bed. I'll explain but first let me explain what the term double digging means. It refers to digging at least twice the depth of the blade of a spade, or in some cases twice the depth of the topsoil (that is if you have a LOT of topsoil). We learned to double dig from a great book by John Jeavons--How To Grow More Vegetables. He is THE urban/small plot gardening guru as far as I am concerned. I have had his book since the early 80's. Mine is in tatters from so much use, but you can still buy it new. It's a classic.

Anyway, back to the digging, after years of double digging we kind of have our own system that is reminiscent of John Jeavons but we made it our own and boy does it work. This is what we do:

You will need a spade, a fork, fresh cow manure, and some leaves or other organic matter.

1) dig off the topsoil and place it in a pile near where you are digging but out of the way.

2) keep digging through the subsoils and put that soil in a separate pile (important because you want your topsoil to end up on top)

3) dig about 3 feet down, making a straight sided pit (this is deeper than traditional double digging)

4) layer 6-8 inches of fresh (if possible, bagged if not) cow manure across the bottom of the pit I have tried other manures and in my opinion, it is worth the effort to find cow manure.

5) add 6-8 inches of organic plant matter--sometimes I use leaves, sometimes rotten hay, sometimes things from the garden, my favorite is leaves.

6) layer the subsoil back on carefully knocking any clumps apart with the fork

7) layer the topsoil back on top, carefully declumping as above

8) layer 3-4 inches of biodynamic or other organic compost on top of the bed

9) fork the compost into the topsoil

10) shape the bed into a nice rounded shape

11) plant as soon as possible with either your garden plants or a cover crop

Using this method, you will soon have a couple feet of gorgeous topsoil. Loose, fryable, and ready to grow anything.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but if it gives you tender brocolli shoots like these every night of the week it's worth it. And then the next season, when all you have to do is lightly turn it over with a fork, then it is REALLY worth it!! If you are skeptical, just dig one bed at a time and see what you think, Bet you will be convinced. This cabbage was more than enough to convince me. Biodynamics and double digging are my garden heros.

Chicken butts...

2009-10-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I saw the funniest thing. Well, at least, I thought it was funny.

When I looked out the kitchen window when I was cooking dinner I caught sight of a chicken butt disappearing through the back fence. That fence is just a simple cedar rail fence, easy enough for a chicken to hop through. But what made me laugh was the way the chicken hopped up on the rain and leaned way over the rail. Hanging on with its chicken toes, the entire bird was head down on the fence rail. Looked just like a gymnast doing a trick on the high bar. All I could see was its rump feathers tipped straight up in the air as it hung, almost suspended in mid-air.

Wonder if that was as fun for the chicken as it was for me?

Chickens are better than Netflix, ever so entertaining

Quiet, quiet morning

2009-10-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

It is perfectly quiet here this morning. No roosters crowing, no sheep baaing, no cows mooing. The only sounds I can hear are the gentle noises of the fire coming from the woodstove.

I always wonder what makes the difference between mornings. Why are some so quiet and others so raccous? I try to take the cue from the animals and adjust my day accordingly. If they are quiet, I allow a little extra space for quiet in my day too. It's nice.

Today, I have a long list--apples and more apples. Plus the last of the peaches and nectarines to process. But for now, I am going to let this quiet soak into my bones. There is plenty of time later for activity.

Just a little cow update...

2009-09-30T19:26:00.000-07:00

It is Wednesday evening, there are no new baby cows and I haven't reached Andrew the AI guy yet--our schedules are exactly opposite--hopefully I will get him tomorrow. And I didn't call the butcher. All that worry and no action. Such is life in a busy week. Tomorrow, I vow, tomorrow I am going to get to the details.

Cows on the brain...

2009-09-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning thinking about cows. Well, more truthfully, I was thinking about what to do about cows.

You see, we have Brigid the mama cow who is dreadfully late having her baby and I am beginning to think she might be experiencing a hysterical pregnancy. I need to call Andrew the AI guy (that's the artificial insemination specialist in cow lingo) and see if we can get him out here to see what is what. My problem with calling Andrew is that then I will know that she isn't pregnant and that it will be almost another year before we have a baby cow and fresh milk again. The thought of that makes my heart go thump. I have been so excited about this calf.

I think I just don't want to know the truth. I keep giving Brig the benefit of a doubt and waiting another week. This is sort of like the parent who doesn't want to face the facts about their child flunking out of high school. Denial doesn't do anyone any good at all.

I gotta call and I gotta call on Monday.

Just for the record, Brig sure looks fatter than when he was here last November and stuck his hand way up in there while she was kicking about as fast as she can kick! And let me tell you, that guy has lightening quick reflexes.

Anyway, after pondering the Brigid pregnancy dilemna, I moved onto Gilly, her baby. He'a a big fat oaf of a cow. Big and fat, that is, for a dexter cow. They are much more petite than the usual cow which makes him the perfect size for us. He's happy to hang with people, cows or sheep and has even made friends with the goat. He's always in a chipper mood and is ever curious about what is going on the other side of the fence. Gilly is just a great guy. He's the kind of guy you would have for a drinking buddy. You can tell him anything and he never tells a soul.

I really need to call the butcher regarding Gilly. But he is such a sweetheart. He eats raspberries straight out of my hand without getting a bit of cow spit on me. He lets me scratch that hard spot right between his horns without ever flicking me with them. He follows me wherever I go and I don't even have to bring food. He's my baby and he knows it.

Gilly will be our first cow that we raised from day one, much less had butchered so that call is a big deal. It's on the board for next week too. It takes the butcher a long time to get out here because of hunting season so I need to get on his list. Sigh. Guess I should be glad for the list.

Once I got done fretting about Gilly and the butcher, I only had Joey the Jersey steer calf to worry about. Only, he's no worry at all. Growing like a fat little piglet, he has a plump round belly and there's barely a rib in sight. Which after knowing him as a four day old is reassuring. He was one scrawny little guy when he first arrived. Our job with him now is to love him up, feed him a couple times a day and wait. I figure the more love we can pour into our food the better it is for all concerned. So far that theory holds. We'll see after the butcher comes for Gilly. But in the meantime, I love watching Joey bounce around the fields chasing bees and butterflies. The only thing odd about Joey is he still thinks Gilly is his mother.

I know I sound like I anthropomorphize everyone around here. It's true, I probably do. It's just that my animals ARE like people to me. They have personalities. They respond to my emotions, and I respond to theirs. I love them and I know they love me too. It might make me less of a farmer but I can't help it. I talked for the cats when I was five. So did my mom, maybe it is genetic.

Anyway, getting back to the cows. The problem is what to do about Brigid and that hysterical pregnancy situation. It would be fine to have the AI guy out again and get her pregnant for real this time. But I don't want to wait nearly a year for fresh milk again. Raw milk from your own cow is the BEST. And if you do it like we did--milking once a day and keeping the calf with the mom--it isn't even so much work. About a half an hour a day, maybe an hour if you have a cow that gives more milk that Brigid does. That's not a bad exchange for all the peace and relaxation milking provides. I swear, milking is better stress relief than a massage. And it's free, if you don't count buying the hay.

Here's a picture of me milking Brigid last winter when Gilly was a medium sized little guy.

Thinking about Brigid's new baby makes me excited to make kefir and cheese again. If she isn't pregnant (which is the rational conclusion any logical person would have come to by now), I don't want to wait another year. This thought led me to the shocking realization that I have been nursing fantasies about getting a new milk cow, a bigger one with a bigger udder. A cow that gives more milk.

I feel so disloyal. When we were looking for Brigid we knew nothing about cows except that they were BIG and had brown eyes. I read about breeds and got all interested in Dexter cows because they are known to be good for small holdings like ours. Dexters are small cows that give a managable amount of milk, produce just the right amount of meat for a small family and are good at pulling. (Not that I could ever figure out how to get Brigid to pull something besides me when I naively think I can lead her around.)

So when I saw the ad for a Dexter/Kerry heifer who was pregnant by a Dexter bull and about to give birth, I thought perfect. And she was. I even loved her name. The only downside with Brigid was she wasn't halter broken (now there is a story for another day) and she was more than a little wild. We've tamed her (mostly) and we love her to bits but all the things that made her so attractive a couple of years ago as a first time cow owner, make me long for a different cow today.

I want big, I want milk, I want babies with some extra meat to sell.

See, I like making cheeses and kefirs and yogurt. Right now when (if) Brigid's milk comes in, with the way I want to milk her, we don't get enough milk to make all the things on my list. I keep dreaming about a pretty Jersey or Guernsey cow who'll give me oodles of creamy white milk full of butterfat. My friend Jacqueline has a Jersey/Brown Swiss mix and she has cream frozen in chunks in her freezer. That's enough to give a girl serious cow envy.

The problem is we don't have enough space for too many cows. So I have to think about this carefully. How much is making more cheese worth to me? Is there room for two mama cows around this place? These are the questions that kept me in bed. And so far, I don't have any answers. Only a list of cow chores. Guess I better get at them.

Scary Noises and Chicken Nightmares

2009-09-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

It was a bad sound that woke me. A chicken screaming in the night. Sending a jolt of adrenaline through my body, that was a sound I would be happy never to hear again. That sound makes my heart wince because I know exactly what it means.

My chickens have fantasies. In their minds they not the pampered domesticated pets that they are. They dream of being free. They imagine that they know how to care for themselves. They feel the ancient DNA of their wild ancestory beating in their hearts. I think it is this feeling that makes them rash. A feeling that says they are safe when they don't return to the coop at night. The coop where they are locked up tight and are free from predators. They fly up into a tree or a brushy bush and roost, still as stone. In the morning they hop down and return to their usual chicken behaviors of pecking and scratching and running to the coop with that certain look of urgency that means an egg is on the way.

The problem is that if they are out of the coop they are likely targets for raccoons and possums and sometimes even coyotes to snatch them in the dark. We know that happens when we hear that horrible scream.

See the thing about chickens is they have NO night vision. Not a bit. The second the sun goes down they are down for the night and no amount of convincing can change their minds. They don't have rods--the part of eyes that allows people and animals to see in the dark. Predators tend to have extra rods so they see even better in the dark.

Without rods, chickens are sitting ducks (or well chickens, if you want to get technical about it). Wherever they go to bed is where they stay until first light cracks the dawn and they can see again. And this is fine if they go to their beds and their people come and shut the door to the coop. But if they remember that tiny bit of wildness living in their hearts and roost on a branch, things don't always turn out so well.

Chickens can find an amazing number of ways to die. I have seen chicks peck the wrong thing and drop dead 30 seconds later. A bout of diarrhea can leave a chicken dead in a couple of hours. All kinds of things eat them--hawks, dogs, coyotes, bobcats, cougars, possums and raccoons to name a few that we have seen. They have strokes and die on their roost. Sometimes they even fight each other so brutally that one will die of peck wounds. Keeping chickens is not for the faint of heart. They are so easy to love and just as easy to lose.

All in all though, I think the fun of chickens is well worth the pain of occasionally losing them. They keep me entertained every day. I love looking out my window and watching them do their chicken business. They can always make me smile. About the only thing they do that drives me crazy is poop on my back stoop, but that really is my fault if I let them run around the yard. Where else are they going to go to get out of the rain?

We keep heritage and unusual breed chickens here. Old varieties that are prized for their genetic diversity and interesting characteristics. I like having these kind of chickens for all kinds of reasons but most of all because many of them still have personalities.

For example, I love the white orphington who always seem to be first to the food and tried so valiantly to be a mama this summer.

I also enjoy the gentle black and red speckled girls who prefer a worm over any kind of food. They hang back when the grain is passed out but rush out the coop door towards the compost pile to dig and scrape their way to the worms. We even had a couple of them be successful at hatching chicks this year. A very exciting development.

She has that look about her...

One of my favorites is the cuckoo maran who lays chocolate brown eggs (rather unreliably I might add). And I love the black minorcas which lay a beautiful white egg and have the prettiest black plumage with a little white patch right where their ear would be if they were human. Plus they are just the cutest little chicks I have ever seen.

I suppose to be honest, I'd have to say that if I think too closely about chickens, there are plenty of things to get disgusted about...like the fact they only have one hole down there and everything (and I mean everything) comes right through it. Or the nitty gritty of eggs, I won't even go there.

But they are so sweet and I have such fun watching them hunt and peck and chase each other. I really could go on and on because I love my chickens. So, on days like today, when I have to mourn the loss of one of my little friends, I like to remember the happy moments because I know that invariably, if I keep chickens I will be dealing with death.

If you want to know more about chickens and chicken breeds, check out McMurray Hatchery. I could spend hours on that website debating the merits of my next batch of chicks.

Who's been eating them apples?

2009-09-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

There is a mystery going on in our orchard and I can't quite figure it out. Somebody has been eating my apples and leaving half eaten apples on the tree. The apple looks like it was snapped in half. Literally. Here's an example of what I picked off the tree this afternoon.

We've never had a problem like this before. Occassionally a bird will peck at an apple or pear and leave something that looks like this:

Or a slug will nibble one near the ground. But we've never had apples that are bit right through the core. A deer is the obvious culprit, but we have a good deer fence, and the orchard has never been bothered by deer.

Still there is no denying the facts. Yesterday when I went out to pick this box of apples for making sauce, ten apples were eaten in half. And the fence was bent over and wound up into the branches of the walnut tree. It would really surprise me if a deer could have jumped through that mess, much less made it. It looked more like a bear sat on the fence on his way over the top. Don't ask me how the walnut tree branches were threaded through the weave of the fence.

And this all happened yesterday. I was out there the day before eating apples and checking on things and everything was fine. No halved apples and a perfectly intact fence. hmm.

We have been seeing oodles of fresh bear scat all around the place, in the woods, in the blackberries, on the hillside above the road. Looking at that fence made me wonder...could a small black bear crawl over the fence? They do love apples.

I looked all around the trees scouring the orchard for scat. Didn't see any. But still. What else could bend down a six foot high fence and mangle it like preztel baked into a walnut tree. Something big must have done that.

Either it was our friendly neighborhood Bigfoot or our busy local bear. Guess I ought to be glad whomever it was had the courtesy to leave me some apples. They sure taste good!

2009-09-21T13:51:00.001-07:00

Unmoored in midnight water,
no waves, no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight
by Eihei Dogen (1200-1253)

breathe, me.

Lazy, Lazy sunshine

2009-09-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

I thought that nice afternoon sunshine was going to find me digging up cowhorns (more on that another time). I thought it was going to make me ambitious and I would get that list done. But oh no, it made me wander out onto the front lawn and plop down on the grass.

All that warmth made me realize how bone tired I was. And how nice it would be to just do nothing for awhile.

So I laid on my back, in the itchy, scratchy grass and relaxed. I covered my face with my arm and soaked in all that radiant warmth. I could feel my muscles melting into the grass. And when that frontside was properly roasted I rolled right on to my stomach and toasted my other side.

It wasn't like I was tanning or anything, haven't done that since I was about 14. Besides, it wasn't that warm. I was wearing layers and wool socks.

It's just that it was so perfect. Out there in the sun, doing nothing, Just being. Feeling the earth, breathing in all that fresh air, watching the redtail hawk soar up high riding on the thermals, listening to the chickens clucking and scratching in the weeds nearby. This is it, I thought. And I rolled right over on my back again.

Something about the light captured me, those radiant, soul-nourishing late September rays. Charlie sensed it too. He laid right next to me, head on my leg. It wasn't too long before his silky head was HOT. I kept petting him, letting the heat ooze into my fingers. It felt so good.

The heat of the air had that kind of desparate feel to it. You know the one where you can feel the chill of winter hiding in the shadows, waiting. Meanwhile the sun shines

down shouting, "Soak me up, must soak me up. You need me. Winter is on the way." My body understood that if I don't fill my bones with heat now it is going to be a long, long time before they feel this way again.

And so I laid there, doing nothing for a long, long time. Actually, I was doing a little something--talking. Becca came over for the day and had the same idea. She was out there too laying on her stomach roasting her back.

So there were the three of us, doing nothing (or maybe it was everything), laying in the sun, feeding on the heat, soaking in the beauty. It was a good thing.

This morning when we woke up it was 40 degrees F.

Happy Raindrops

2009-09-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning to gentle whisperings, raindrops on the roof, the stream rushing a little faster, the rooster crowing in the distance. Felt like the cloud cover hushed all the usual sounds and made the whole world softer. Nestling into the covers I laid in bed just absorbing. Nothing to rush towards, nowhere in particular to go, I could just feel the rain, breath the rain.

When I finally roused myself out of bed there was an interesting email waiting in my inbox. It was talking about the relationship between the endocrine system and the sinuses and how our nasal cavities have these special sensors that inform us about the ionic state of the air and how that in turn affects our attitudes and our day. Negative ions=happy days, positive ions=cranky days.

Laying in bed this morning, and even now sitting here on the couch, I can feel that sense of happy hormones being released in my body in response to the fresh air smell of the rain. If you want to read more about this nasal chakra idea click here. It's kind of cool.

But besides releasing all those nice negative ions, I like rain because it makes my world softer. I lose my expectations of big jobs in the garden. I think of tea, of making jam out of those ever ready plums. The sun creates purpose but the rain creates space. And sometimes it is nice to have a little extra space.

My mistake. So sorry bees.

2009-09-18T08:35:00.001-07:00

Ever have days when you are just not paying attention. Days when if you had your mind on what you were doing you could saved yourself a whole mess of trouble. I sure do. Like today.

I woke up this morning thinking, I gotta' get that honey out of the hive before it gets cold. Seems kind of rude to me to take the roof off of some-body's house during the cold months. So I got up bright and early, forgetting everything I know about working with bees and ready to work--yep, it was a gorgeous, gorgeous day. Check it out....blue sky, wispy clouds, and the freshest air.

I was loving it.

The second the guys left for school and work (around 7:20 am), I went in search of all my bee gear (which had been relocated out of the barn to make room for camp this August). It took me a while to find it, even though Becca had neatly stacked everything right in the place she told me she would. I just didn't see it the first couple of times I looked (maybe this was a hint, don't do bees now!) Eventually I found everything, lit my smoker, piled all the gear into the garden cart and went off through the cow pasture.

Inadvertently, when I was pulling the cart through the first gate Gilly almost barged out. Phew on that one cuz he doesn't wear a halter and it could have been an all day project catching and herding him back behind the fence. I think I must be big and scary because the second I glared at him and said "NO, Gilly", he trotted right back inside the fence looking very contrite. Thinking back on it now though, I think Gilly might have been clue number two--don't do the bees now. Usually, he is sooo well behaved.

Then when I was opening up the second fence that led right to the bees, the sheep went ballistic and started charging the gate, the fence and me. Clearly this was very unsheeplike behavior. Gilly followed suit and came racing up behind me and charged right back at the sheep. This was unnerving, to say the least, as he is a big boy and has big horns and seemed fighting mad. Hmm, hint number three, not that I was noticing.

After I navigated the charging sheep and the fence, Brigid came tearing around the corner of the barn and decided to charge towards me too. (Hint four. Are you paying attention yet, she seemed to say.)

I started to think somebody painted a red bulls eye on the back of my bee suit that I can't see. Charge here, it seemed to say. She won't mind, in fact she won't even notice. Luckily before Brigid gored me, she spied her beloved boy Gilly and was so happy to see him she stopped short and went right up to nuzzle him up. They were so happy to see each other after spending a couple months on opposite sides of the fence.

By this point, I was starting to wonder what was up with everyone this morning, but it was early and I probably wasn't thinking straight cuz it didn't stop me. Still determined to get that super of honey out of the hive and into jars, I kept at it. It was a really nice day and I had enough time to do it. In my life it's hard to find a day with both of those characteristics.

So with as much peace in my heart as I could muster after being charged at by 20 animals, I walked up to the hive and took off the lid. Hmmm, thousands and thousands of bees were sitting right on top. That is unusual but I thought I can deal with this. Though I really wasn't sure how. I gently smoked the hive which usually causes the bees to settle down further into the hive and protect the queen. Not this time, hundreds of bees rose up and flew right at my face. Hmm, that's interesting I thought. They don't usually do this.

I could have stopped at this point. A smarter girl might have. But there I was, I had the time, the equipment, the will and the sunny day. Nothing was going to stop me.

So I kept at it, quietly, gently. And the bees just kept being crazy. When I finally got a single frame out to look at the honey, I saw what the bees already knew. It was not quite done. They were still fanning the nectar and evaporating the excess water out to make the honey. All those hundreds of bees were sitting on the top of the hive for a reason. They had been making late season honey from the Japanese knot weed, which is many people's favorite honey. I just hadn't given them enough time to finish.

Now that I got it, it was easy: just put the hive back together and try again in a couple of weeks when everything is done and it is another nice day. So I lifted the super to carry it back to the hive but by this time the bees are pissed. Royally pissed. Queen bee throwing a tantrum kind of pissed.

Every time I lifted the super hundreds of bees flew at my face. They were crawling on my arms and my legs, on the netting by my nose. It took a great deal of focus to stay calm. And if there is one thing I know, you have to be calm when working a hive.

Every time it got really bad I put down whatever I was doing and walked away allowing the bees to settle down. I walked around the pasture slowly, hoping they would fly away from me and go home. Eventually, they flew back to the hive and I would slowly walk back and try again. Must have done this five times.

It took awhile, and three stings (which is more than the total number of stings I have gotten in all 4 years of keeping bees) but the hive is back together. The bees have calmed down and things are ok.

Next time I feel like being that industrious at 7:30 in the morning, I am going to pick tomatoes and make tomato sauce. I am going to leave working with the bees until the sun has warmed the hive and they have had that second cup of coffee.

No doubt about it, early morning honey gathering is just plain a mistake. Mea culpa bees. So sorry. Sometimes I learn things the hard way. Even when everyone (and I mean everyone) is trying to warn me.

15 minutes to heaven...

2009-09-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

People are always asking me how I do so much and I am always saying "Huh? What do you mean?" Because I really don't. It never feels like I get much done at all. And I certainly don't get near as much done as I would love to.

I seldom spend big chunks of time doing stuff. This is for lots of reasons--being busy with kids, short attention span, but mainly because of some funky health issues that mean I am kind of screwed in the long-term energy department. To adapt to how my life is (as in really is, rather than how I want it to be) I have developed this odd way of dividing tasks in little spurts of time. Five minutes here, ten minutes there, I seldom do big crazy long pushes anymore. But from looks of my pantry, I guess these efforts add up.

For example, one morning this week, I had a big pile of tomatoes sitting on my counter. I was thinking about grinding them up to stick them in the freezer for the beginnings of fresh tomato sauce but I only had a few minutes and I knew that would make a mess. I hate leaving a mess behind when I leave in the morning so I opted to salt-dry some tomatoes instead. They only take a minute to clean up afterwards.

This whole process took literally 7 minutes to slice and place the tomatoes on the dehydrator trays, salt them and put the trays in the dehydrator, start the machine and clean up. Then the machine ran all day while I was in and out. Later that night I checked on them and decided that they needed more time and let it run all night. In the morning, it took another 6-7 minutes to take them off the tray and stick them in a jar for the winter. All in all, I preserved about 15 pounds of tomatoes in as many minutes of work. Nice. And the best part is they will be delicious in any recipe I make that has tomato sauce in it.

I learned about salt dried tomatoes a couple of years ago when we went to visit our friends in Switzerland. Sean is Steve's and my old skiing/climbing buddy from back in the old days--you know, college, when doing something fun was way more important than anything on the "list". Anyway, Sean apparently was studying in addition to having fun because he went on to be this very prestigious professor of geology (even inventing some kind of famous theory about the birth of mountains). He's now the Geology department chair of the Swiss version of MIT or something grand like that and has a house in the alps and Italian sweetheart Guiditta.

Guiditta, who is also a geologist, grew up in a hotel in the Dolomite mountains of Northern Italy. Her mom was super busy running the hotel so her virtual nanny became the hotel cook. Seeings how the cook was supposed to be busy cooking, not watching Guiditta, Guiditta learned to cook early and from a master. On our visit, she taught me all kinds of things about making delicious pasta sauces.

One night she searched the hidden back corners of their food cupboard and took out this little teeny, tiny jar of salt dried tomatoes that a friend had brought to her from the southern tip of Italy. (I think she might have been hiding them from Sean. He LOVES salty things.) Anyway, she explained all about their particular properties and handed me one to eat (oh my gosh, it was divine!) and then she dropped a few in the sauce she was making. Did I say I almost died of heaven eating that sauce?

Anyway, when we came home I immediately set to work figuring out how to make them. And every year since I have been salt drying tomatoes to add to fine sauces. If there is one ingredient that takes a sauce from good to out of this world, it is these...and as you can see they are EASY. I love things that rock my cooking world and take 15 minutes to make. Thank you Guiditta.

So here's the scoop on what I have learned about making them. After three years of experimenting I still don't have an exact replica of Guiditta's little jar...probably because my tomatoes are not grown in the heat of southern Italy and I am drying my tomatoes in a machine. But I have learned to make a pretty good imitation.

My first trick is to be liberal with the salt. It looks like a lot but you are only going to be putting a few in a whole batch of sauce so the salt gets absorbed. It should look like this when you put it in the dehydrator.

Secondly, spend the money on good salt. You can make salted tomatoes with Morton's, but they are ever so much better with a delicious mineral salt on them. Yes, even salts are worth spending money on. Did you know that some research links good salts to longevity?? That is something to remember when you are paying $5.69 a pound for a little stash of salt.

So far, my two favorite salts on these tomatoes are a himalayan pink salt which I can buy in the store but some people might have to special order it from a place like Tropical Traditions and a course celtic sea salt that I grind with a mortar and pestle (and yes, this time is figured into the 15 minutes).

Thirdly, dry thoroughly but not over much. They can burn and then aren't as tasty. Here is what they look like before, during and after drying to get an idea. Sorry the picture isn't so great.

Lastly, use the very best tomatoes you can find. A good tomato makes the difference between a decent and fantastic dried tomatoes.

So what is the point of drying them? Drying makes the flavor rich and the salt does something magical. The tomatoes end up almost like dried tomato chips...sometimes I steal a couple to snack on when I feel like something salty. They have the same crispy salty deliciousness as a potato chip without the fats. Yum. Here's what a jar of tastiness looks like.

If you aren't into having salted tomatoes, I just learned another dried tomato trick. Slice tomatoes and dry them halfway (about 10 hours in a dehydrator) and then throw them in ziplock bags in the freezer. Either pre freeze them on cookie sheets or throw in recipe amounts into individual ziplock bags or they will clump together. Partial drying dramatically cuts the cooking time for fresh sauce by wicking away much of the moisture and gives the sauce some of that same rich dried tomato flavor. Yum!

Now bring on winter, I can't wait to make spaghetti!

Mighty Man Makes Hay!

2009-09-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

I think of Steve as my mighty man because he is always doing things that I would love to see done but would never or could never do. He hacks down large patches of blackberries and chain saws through fallen trees to build new fencelines in the mosquito ridden woods. He erects beautiful grape arbors, and trellises and hoophouses, fixes the septic system, digs zillions of fence posts holes straight down into glacial till in a weekend (which is no easy feat) and he seems to think this is fun. Me, I cook dinner, and play with plants. He chops a cord or two of wood and brings it home in the truck, I build compost piles.

His efforts build monuments; it's the work that fill woodsheds and keep us warm all winter or keep the cows in from wandering in the woods. He does these things that I really don't want to do and he enjoys it. I really don't get it. But I am glad.

So when he has what seems like a goofy desire--say wanting to get a scythe from the nearby feed store, I don't question him, I know he has an idea. That's what happened last year. When the scythe came and he tried it, we soon had hay drying in the field and then stacked in the barn. Pretty cool. But I didn't think a whole lot about it. It seemed like an awful lot of work for a small amount of hay and besides I kind of like the red-necked hay guy that delivers both hay and philosophy to the barn. He's a kick.

But apparently scything was brewing in the back of Steve's mind because earlier this year I found scything pamphlets hanging around his office. His friend Joseph was scoping out the scything info at a a country fair for him. (Do these guys talk about things like scythes when they get together? hmm...)

Should he order the handmade one from the guy in Tennessee or get the really exotic one from Austria. Are these the thoughts lurking behind those blank stares I get when I ask him to take out the trash and he is too busy to do it?

Always up for a sustainable adventure, Becca joined his scything team when she sent him this gorgeous scything video of a 14 year old girl scything in the most beautiful way possible. It is almost like she is dancing...in barefeet and a skirt! A more techy person than I would have this showing up a classier way but this is the best I could do. The video is on the the right hand side of the home page of this site--you probably don't want to watch the whole thing but give it a minute or two to see what she does. It's incredible. I especially love the end.

Videos like this give a middle aged man a sense of possibility. Soon he was signed up for an all day scything workshop where he learned about snaths, hafting angles, and the lay of the blade. He learned to peen the blade and came home with a nifty tool to strap on his belt for quick blade tune-ups out in the field. This scything is technical stuff.

He was barely home that night (on our anniversary, I might add!) when he out headed to the shop where he banged and whacked and came out of there with a whole new hafting angle, or was it the angle of the tang? I don't know but what I do know is he went straight to the field to try it and seldom have a I seen him happier. This scything is cool stuff.

Luckily for him, that day we were running low on hay and the hay guy was busy for a few days. New purpose filled Steve's heart. The animals might be hungry (no matter that it is late summer and there is still food in the fields). Look at these guys--don't they look hungry to you? Every night when he got home from work he rushed outside to try out his new skills. Gilly and Joey would watch through the fence with big mournful eyes that just seemed to say "Hurry, I might just die over here if you don't get me some of that juicy green stuff right now!" Scything for an hour yielded a couple of loaded garden carts of fresh green hay for the cows and a lot of sweat on the man. Guess it would take a while to make it look as easy as that barefoot girl did.

One night as I was going to bed I noticed I light out in our orchard bouncing almost spinning around. Huh? I thought, what the heck is that...and then I remembered Steve saying he would be back in a bit, he just wanted to check on something. Believe it or not, he was out there armed with his headlamp and his scythe at 11:30 at night. That right there is why I call him the mighty man. He's going to learn to scythe well no matter what. Me, I would much rather sleep. And I guess that's the difference between us two.

Did you know that there are serious scything competitions? People travel all over the world to race each other as they chop down grass in a field. The guy Steve learned from is an expert. A World Champion. I'm impressed. But I was even more impressed with what Steve could do with his apparently inferior scythe (a new one is coming) and its super inferior blade...apparently feed stores are NOT the way to go when buying such a tool.

So if this peak oil thing happens soon, we know how we will be getting our hay. I got the man, and he has the tool! In the meantime, I think I will keep gardening and cooking dinner.

And maybe even growing a few flowers on the side. I hope you get a chance to go outside where it is easy to remember that life is good.

All's quiet on the home front...NOT!

2009-08-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

Last week might have been the busiest week of the year. We had a full house of Summer Wind Day campers (12 Woodland Elves to be specific) and their parents, grandparents and siblings wandering about. This doesn't affect me much, except for the parking issue and it is hard to snag an extra popsicle at the end of the day.

Becca, their fearless leader, kept the campers busy building forts and fairy houses, making magical lanterns and playing crazy games. And that's not to mention snacking on plums. (Thank you, Becca!) Many plums, "heavenly plums', so said the campers. One even wanted to plant a tree at her house. I warned her mother. A 600 pound plum crop can be a bit intimidating.

Two of our favorite campers, Lucy and Alice, spent the night on Thursday. This was very fun except that they wake up at 5 something in the morning and well, we don't. I took them out to feed the cows. They like waking up early too.

But back to the week. So we had the one girl finishing up camp, cleaning up the barn and getting the hell out of dodge and back to her real life, the life where she is writing a novel and NOT living with her parents.

And we had one girl getting ready to go back to college where obviously life is better than a summer spent at home where the biggest excitement was breaking your arm skating (well, and maybe getting a new boyfriend). She spent the week making desserts (black bottomed cupcakes and lemon sponge cake--yum!) and abandoning her room. Oops, I mean packing. She and her friend from up the road barely, and I mean barely, fit their two bodies and their stuff into an Honda Element. An Element without the backseat. An Element that can seriously haul a LOT of stuff. Their rooms are on the third floor of the dorms, no elevator. I wonder if they rethought their position on stuff when they were unpacking. Did you know it is almost impossible to go to college without nine pairs of heels? I didn't know this. It's a good thing I already have my degree since I don't own a single pair.

The other girl spent the week swimming in her own vat of drama but that is a story for another time.

Lastly, Aidan, fondly known as "the boy" diligently cleaned his room in an effort to make room for high school. He also shopped for shoes for these enormously long, skinny things he calls feet and finished enduring a LOT of testing. That last little comment meant we parents spent much of the week enduring hours of meetings regarding the test results and then spent many more hours in serious contemplation about what to do with what we already knew--very smart boy who has some significant learning challenges. We went back to the brain lady (she's working on undoing the snowboarding accident when the said boy fell off a cliff and knocked his noggin a good one). We had more meetings with teachers and counselors and speech pathologists and neuro-psychologists.

And did I mention that the garden was coming in strong.

Like, I mean, really strong...Just this week we picked gallons of plums, blueberries, blackberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans. Smaller, yet still predigious amounts of kale, tomatillos, collards, carrots, potatoes, late strawberries, onions and leeks. We ate, dried, salt dried, canned, froze, pickled and sauced as much as we could every day. And sorry to say, it wasn't enough. there is still a BIG pile of produce on the counter.

Just yesterday Steve and I, with a little bit of help from Becca who was avoiding cleaning the barn, canned 49 (yes, count them-49) jars of spicy plum sauce, plum chutney and dilly beans.

We froze and dried two lugs of fruit. The day before it was 7 quarts of tomato sauce, and lots of blueberries picked and bagged for the freezer. Steve smartly rewarded himself for all his work with a delicious gluten free black and blue pie. I, on the other hand, had had enough of the kitchen and had some Ben and Jerry's. Did I say we were tired?

If just that was the week, I think we would have managed, but there was problem of the broody chicken who produced two beautiful chicks only to squish one when it was four days old. These things happen but unfortunately a very sensitive camper found the poor chick, who literally had turned her toes up. The chick had a lovely funeral complete with a procession, songs and a gravestone that reads " Here lies Sprinkels." I was asked by three different children to keep fresh flowers on her grave.

And then there is the cow who is now a full two weeks late having her baby. Is it time to induce? Do they do such things to cows? Do I need to call the vet or give her castor oil? Oh my. And the hay is giving Aidan hives, which makes it hard for him to do his chores. And squirrels beat us to most of the nuts--hazel nuts and the walnuts. I think we were too busy picking the plums.

The house is the dirtiest it has been in a long, long time and let's not even think about the weeds. The cat has been throwing up, the dog is in mourning because his girl abandoned him for college. And four campers of the small boy variety decided that jumping on the compost pile, the one with a dozen thoroughly rotten eggs hidden in it, would be a good idea. Days later, we are still recovering from the smell. Did I mention the flies?

All in all, it was one of those weeks that everyone is glad is over. Most of all, me.

Joey's sucking on what?

2009-08-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

It was quiet out in the barnyard this morning. When I went out at 9 am to feed Joey (the 6+ week old Jersey Bull calf) all the animals were still laying around. Brigid (the soon-to-be mama cow) and Gilly (her 17 month old first child) were on opposites sides of a fence backs touching. Joe, whose mama lives on another farm, was alone in the cow pasture asleep by another fence. Even the sheep, the early risers of the bunch, were still laying down under the barn awning.

I like quiet mornings when not much is happening yet. The stillness feeds something in me as surely as my breakfast does. As far as I can figure there isn't enough silence to be had.

We don't keep usual farmer's hours around here. Since we aren't farming for a living we figure it is just as good to feed everyone at 9 and 9 as it is to feed them at 6 and 6, or gasp, 5 and 5. I am sure that somebody who knows more about these things would argue but so far our leisurely mornings work for us. And nobody is starving to death out there so I figure it is working for the animals too.

Joey came to us by way of a favor. Though now, 6 weeks into this adventure I am not exactly sure who the favor was for. My cow mentor George has a beautiful herd of Jersey and Brown Swiss dairy cows who reside in that famous of all dairy towns Carnation, Washington. They are gorgeous girls, all well loved by George. Modern science allows him to make sure that 90% of the calves born to his herd are heifers (girls) that he can raise to be the new milkers. Joe, was part of the unlucky 10% destined to leave George's comfortable farm by way of the butcher. Unfortunately for Joe when he was born, George's mom was in the hospital for something ominous and his wife's mom was due to be admitted the next day for surgery. Feeding a calf that wasn't going to help out the herd added unnecessary work to an already chaotic situation. Hence the call we received that nice morning in late June..."You guys want a Jersey bull calf?"

Being a softie at heart (both for people and animals), I didn't take a lot of convincing. Steve took even less than me. Aidan, smart boy that he is and knowing that the lion's share of the work was going to be his, had a list of objections. Poor boy, we barely even listened.

From the outset, I knew that Jersey's don't make the good meat cows. They tend towards the scrawny side and take a long time to flesh out. Their meat is marbled with yellowish fat that is not well considered by the average American eye. But what the eyes don't know is the meat tastes wonderful and the calves are sweet-tempered.

Now that he is settled in on the farm. Joey is considered a happy addition by all concerned. Even reluctant Aidan has been won over by the sight of a happy calf dashing across the pasture for his bottle or a few pets. Every morning and night we feed Joe his bottle. It's actually fun. He's so appreciative, and grows so fast, it is hard not to enjoy the process.

Farmer George told us to buy a bag of milk replacer and start feeding him grain as soon as he would eat it. I couldn't do it though. We've done well with raising our other cows on grass and their mama's milk. It doesn't take too much thought after reading the ingredients of calf milk replacer to realize if you feed a calf that stuff your soon-to-be grass fed, organically raised meat is going to have its formatives weeks spent drinking GMO infused milk.

One look at that bag of milk replacer had me running to the store for real milk; which, trust me, is NOT the most economical way to raise a cow. At first I was buying organic milk but at $5.89 a gallon (and he drinks a little over a gallon a day) I quickly switched to non-organic whole milk from Costco that I topped off with a half a cup of cream to make it more like the cream heavy Jersey milk his mother would have given him. I get it, processed GMOs in liquid form, but somehow it was the compromise I could live with.

Joey likes his milk, so apparently it is a compromise he can live with too. I am sure he would rather have non-homogenized, non-pasturized raw milk sucked from his mother's teat, or worst case scenario straight from the milking room at George's. But George lives a half an hour away and his entire supply of milk is promised to Darigold. So we all have to live with this compromise. I do admit to calling George and asking via his message machine if we could buy fresh, raw milk for Joey. He didn't return my call, which I was sure his way of politely ignoring me when I do something that he thinks is crazy.

But getting back to Joey. Every morning and night we heat his Costco milk on the stove and carefully pour it into his bottle, which is almost the size of Delaware--see the picture which I can't seem to put here and is instead at the top of the post. Joey happily jugs our concoction down in about 47 seconds, stopping once or twice to catch his breath. By the end, his nose is covered in a creamy white froth and his doe eyes are the essence of contentment. Every once in a while he drinks too fast and chokes. But that doesn't happen very often. Usually he is done so fast he hasn't gotten his requistite sucking time satisfied and goes off in search of Gilly. Gilly though, is never far away as he is more than a little bit envious of that delicious smelling bottle we offer Joey day and night. "Where's mine?" his little baby cow eyes seem to ask as he looks at us from inside a giant cow sized body.

Gilly misses his milk a lot. We recently weaned him off of Brigid so she would be ready for her soon-to-be-born calf. We still have to separate them or he would try to nurse once again. So when Joey comes sniffing around hoping to 'nurse' for a few minutes longer on Gilly's sadly missing boy parts, Gilly is very indulgent. Who knew cows had such empathy. For awhile, Aidan thought that Gilly had grown an udder until he figured out what was what and became thoroughly disgusted. Oh well, life on a farm.

In the end, Joey is growing like a weed. When we got him he was the size of our dog Charlie and now (less than 7 weeks later) he is about the size of a six-month old deer. Here's a picture of him somewhere in between those two sizes. Gilly is on the ground next to him, guarding his privates from wildcat nursing calves.

Weird smells and slug slime....

2009-08-14T15:37:00.000-07:00

A couple of minutes ago, Aidan walked in the house and said "It smells weird in here." Yea, I bet it does. Silently, I remembered what I had been doing for the last couple of hours...blending tomatoes for freezer sauce, drying hot peppers for use later in the year, making the syrup for plum fruit leather, drying cherries and crisping the sliced cukes in salt water for making bread and butter pickles later today. With all those projects, I guess it was bound to smell weird. Hopefully when the smells settle down, it will taste good.

As you can tell, the garden is coming on strong right now. Just about everything is ready to eat, can, pickle or dry. Keeps a girl busy when she might rather be at the river soaking up the rays. Luckily, today is cool and rainy so the kitchen sounds just fine.

Earlier when I went out to the garden to harvest all that said produce, I knew it had been rainy because I saw about 157 slugs and their mothers. When it is hot, the slugs vacation in the forest but when it is cool and wet, they lounge in the garden eating beans and cucumbers and tomatoes and looking more like pigs than slugs. Ever seen a snout on an overfed slug? Trust me, it isn't pretty.

I try to be charitable about the slugs, figuring they have to make a living too; but sometimes their over-zealous appetites get the better of my cheery disposition. Like a couple of days ago when I went out to pick that gorgeous red tomato I had been watching ripen all week. I reached my hand out to pick it and my fingers went right through to the slimy front. YUCK! Those buggers had secretly been eating their fill from the back. Such a disappointment. Luckily for the larder, there are more tomatoes out there or I might have to complain.

I wonder, do the slugs have some kind of hierarchy to lodge complaints with? I can just imagine the unsympathetic slug king munching on a throne of bean plants (surely one of their favorite foods). "Sorry, Mam. You are gonna have to get by. A slug is gonna do what a slug gotta do." Munch, munch. Guess I should be happy that I already harvested enough beans to make a couple of batches of dilly beans and some dinner. They really are sharing my garden with me.