Our freezer got a little too full, and we were a little too burnt-out last Summer/Fall to harvest and process our leeks. I also (conveniently!) remembered that leeks can overwinter well with a little straw or leaf mulch. We finally got most of the garden in by Mother's Day, minus our 12 square foot, would-be onion patch, which was still occupied by last Spring's leeks.
So, Bill pulled them, I weighed and processed them. The weight before processing was 24#! I trimmed, cleaned and chopped up 2/3 of that, and threw them in the freezer. The remaining 8# were donated to our local Food Is Free table here in Olympia.
Our take, after trimming them up.
Our next major harvest is likely to be rhubarb, as we have six plants that are HUGE right now. We are so happy to share our abundance with our neighbors, that we have decided to add another tab to our Garden Yield spreadsheet that keeps track of how much produce we have/will have donated to individuals and Food Is Free tables over the coming year.
Life continues to chug along here in the Hollow, though a few things have changed since my last few posts. The kids have grown - a lot! The eldest will be off to college in just 6 months (!) and the youngest is now in high school and badgering us to sign her up for drivers ed. They always tell you that it will go by fast, but... DANG! It really does seem like it was just the other day that the girls were just starting kindergarten. It's been a whirlwind, but it's been pretty awesome - most of the time.
At any rate - it is my goal to try to post more often and more regularly. Things have changed in our family and on our farm since I last posted on a semi-regular basis, and I will try to catch everything up in due time.
This morning, my eldest monkey, who is in charge of keeping care of our flock of ducks and quail, asked me if I would mind taking care of her ducks for her this morning, which is a rather unusual request. Our conversation:
Kid: "Mom, can you let my ducks out of their house later?"
Me: "Of course. Why don't you just let them out now though?"
Kid: "I want to wait because I saw and heard a spotted owl come out of the woods and fly over the bog. It was so cool, Mom!"
Indeed, that does sound cool. We often hear, if not actually see, barred owls calling back and forth in our woods, but a spotted owlis rare.
If you grew up in the Pacific Northwest, then you are probably very familiar with the spotted owl as an enormous thorn in the side of the local logging industry. The owls were driven to near endangered status as a result of habitat loss from massive clear-cuts and harvesting of old-growth forests. When the US Fish and Wildlife Service put extreme restrictions on logging in order to help restore the spotted owl population, the logging industry was hit hard. Displaced, laid-off loggers were infuriated, countering with a macabre campaign to kill the owls and have done with it.
These and other catchy slogans were the logging industry's reply to the USFWS's 1991 court order to prohibit logging in national forests.
I digress, but the point I'm trying to underscore here is how extremely rare and magnificent a sight that a spotted owl, swooping low over our mist-covered bog, must have been for my kiddo to have beheld.
The reason that I suspect that the owl chose our farm for his morning fly-by is slightly less magical - breakfast.
The night preceding, we had a quail jailbreak of epic proportions. Someone didn't latch the door on the hutch and our quail decided to go on a walkabout. By the time the breach was noted, approximately three quarters of our flock were out and about, well distributed throughout our acreage. We literally beat the bushes and climbed through thickets and brambles to try to recapture as many as we could before dusk fell. Upon final head count, we were still 15-20 birds short. Somewhere in the hay field and bog, the little rogues bedded down for the night.
Enter the owl.
The Boggy Hollow breakfast buffet was just too tasty for him to pass up.
At least our loss was a gain for a critter that really needed the help. Not to mention, my kid got what is very possibly a once-in-a-lifetime bird sighting, in her own backyard no less.
So thanks, Mr. Owl, for choosing us for your dining needs. May I recommend a hearty dessert of Norway rat and field mouse?
Fall has very belated and abruptly, finally fallen on Boggy Hollow. The garden is very nearly wrapped up for the year, though not put to bed yet, that being a ginormous task unto itself.
The temperature gauge on my car's dashboard read 39 degrees at 7:00 this morning, so I guess I'd better make it a priority to harvest the last of my hoop-house pimento and jalapeño peppers this afternoon before Jack Frost gets them. We also have a few scraggling pumpkins left out there, but - being volunteer mystery mixes - they're all destined to be chicken and turkey food anyway, so their cosmetic condition is not quite so important. To be honest, I'll be relieved when everything is buttoned up for the season.
I've been keeping fairly good track of our garden's productivity this year, but, as always tends to happen, I slacken off as the growing season progresses. Back in March/April, if we brought in a quarter pound of snap peas, it was written up in the log straight away. Now? We'll weigh one pumpkin and just assume the the rest of roughly the same size weigh roughly the same thing, and scratch it in the journal (maybe) when/if I remember to.
But anyway - I was talking of embracing the falling of Fall. Apparently a switch flipped and now I'm in hardcore Cozy Mode. In the past few days, I've suddenly rediscovered my love of knitting and have had my food dehydrator running 24/7, trying to put up one last jar/bag of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, calendula, spearmint, chamomile... etc. You name it, I'm drying it out and squirreling it away.
A new addition to my squirrelin' repertoire this year - wild mushrooms. Bill and I have always loved foraging, but were extremely intimidated about the idea of venturing into the world of mushrooms, as there is basically no room for error in identification. After reading half a dozen mushroom-specific guides and psyching ourselves up, a friend finally talked us into giving mushroom hunting a try by giving us the directions to his 'never fail' spot for lobster mushies. It was a bust for us. We've gone on hunts for morels, chanterelles, chicken of the woods and lobster mushrooms, all with ZERO luck. How bizarre it was then, to finally positively i.d. a much sought-after edible, the King Bolete (aka Porcino) mushroom growing in our very own yard!
Teeny-Weeny Porcini!
A very good day's haul
And to think that these have been growing there for years and we never realized - d'oh!
Apparently, they usually wrap up their Autumn flush in November, so I don't know how many more of these lovelies that I'll get before they're gone for the year, so I've been furiously hunting/cleaning/processing/drying them these past few weeks, trying to them all in while the gettin's still good.
Besides knitting and fiddling with mushrooms, I've finally got my baking groove back! Today's bake - a triple batch of Gingerbread biscotti. I've made this recipe several times and it always goes over big with anyone who has tried it. The smell of this in the oven will kick you into Cozy Mode lickity-split!
Lightly sweet and satisfyingly crunchy, Gingerbread Biscotti.
Crunchy Gingerbread Biscotti is easy to make and delicious too. Have your coffee ready!
Ingredients
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp molasses
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 cube Dorot crushed ginger (or 1 tsp), thawed*
2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup sparkling white sugar
4 oz vanilla candy coating, melted
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with sugar until combined. Add in eggs and molasses. Beat in spices, flour, and baking powder.
On a parchment paper lined baking sheet, shape dough into a 12x4 inch rectangle, patting evenly. Sprinkle with sparkling white sugar. Bake for 22-25 minutes. Remove from oven and cool 5 minutes. Slice biscotti into 12, one inch wide slices. Arrange biscotti onto sides, separating them on the baking sheet. Return to oven and bake an additional 6 minutes. Remove and turn them to opposite side, bake another 6 minutes.
Remove biscotti and cool completely.
Once cooled, dip bottom of biscotti in melted vanilla candy coating. Set back on parchment paper until set, about 15 minutes. Store in airtight container. ENJOY.
Notes
For the crushed ginger, thaw on counter while getting ingredients and baking sheet ready. OR, place in a small glass bowl and microwave for 5-10 seconds.
*I (Michelle) actually used fresh grated ginger instead, as that is what I had on-hand.
After what seemed like eons, Blueberry the Muscovy finally hatched out her clutch of eggs. We ended up with 5 adorable, feisty little babies. She and her sister, Drusilla, seem to be co-parenting the brood. It takes a village, peeps.
It's hard for me to believe that almost a year ago to the day, Dru & Blue were the day-old fuzzballs. They grow up so fast!
For your squeeing viewing pleasure -
Proud Mama Blue and her bitty babies, out for a stroll
Mama Blue and Auntie Dru watching over the littles
Blueberry and two of her day-old hatchlings
And last but not least, Mama and Auntie taking the kiddos on a grand tour of the Hollow. Absolute sweetness.
I've mentioned before that creativity is an ephemeral thing for me. When the spirit of the thing is there, I have to write. Likewise, when it's not, I can't. Ergo, the last 6 or 8 months.
Our family, along with another, opened what most folks would define as a "small business" back in March of this year, Eastside Urban Farm & Garden Center. Who is this person who defines a venture of this sort as small?
Without making too many apologies, I'll try to sum up how 2014 has changed my life -
-I went from 14 years as a stay-at-home parent to a business owner who works 60-70 hours per week for embarrassingly low pay. The transition was not a graceful one. -I went from being that-lady-who-never-forgets-your-birthday/anniversary/kids' names to the mommy/aunt/daughter/friend who bails on events at the last minute/forgets to send a birthday gift/etcetera because she is so exhausted that she literally can't see straight.
-I have zero, I mean ZERO social interaction outside my store.
-My house has become Disneyland for dust mites.
-I have had a very hard time finding the time and energy to do the things which bring peace and health to my family, animals, land and spirit, i.e. - making the majority of my family's foods from scratch, having unhurried bonding time with my kids/husband/critters, being a good and faithful steward to our little farm.
As the demands of the business, the farm and the seasons are constantly changing, I have not yet found a real workable work/life balance. My core goals for myself and my family haven't changed - to live a simple life full of genuine experiences. A few mixed blessings along the way have made it a little harder to achieve that goal, but it remains. I can't say exactly when I'll resurface from this immersive new experience completely to return to something that more resembles my ideal life, but I'm learning and working out how to tread these waters a little more effectively with each passing week.
Nanny Granny Chelle needs to get her booty up to goatlandia to take more pictures of the wee ones, but, in the mean time, I hope these photos and the linked video at the end will satisfy your baby goat adorableness quota until the next installment is available.
Chardy's babies, Cocoa & Fiona, 2 days old
Scarlet & Evangeline, 1 day old
Elodie, Mama Sidney, and Evangeline
Elodie & Evangeline, 1 day old
For your viewing pleasure: A video of some very skeptical baby goats. For the life of me, I can't get this thing to upload normally, and so... viola. The magic of the facebook at work, ladies and gentlemen!
Fear not, my friends. The scary-looking pink stuff is just some lard.
That's 200-odd pounds of meat, including 17 packages of bacon. This is where the nexus of homesteading nerdess and foodie bliss lies, right here in this little freezer. :)
In our other little chest freezer (holy crap, we need two now!) gently rests our Summer/Fall harvest of veggies and fruits. I feel pretty pleased with our progress this year in raising an ever-increasing percentage of our overall food supply. Besides a little seafood and beef/buffalo now and then for variety, I think that between our eggs, roosters, turkeys, and pork we're nearly set for protein for the coming year.
Whether we undertake the raising and harvesting of another pair of piglets next Spring still remains to be seen. It will depend, in large part, on how this pork tastes, so a lot is riding on tonight's dinner - waffles with pears and whipped cream and a large side of bacon. We'll see what the consensus is on effort vs. reward shortly thereafter. Fingers crossed that we didn't spend 7 months on something that ends up being meh.
Our trio of piglets, Baykin, Proscuitto and Porkchop (aka Chopz), are rapidly approaching their date with the abattoir. I find myself eager, relieved and a little sad too, but mostly, relieved.
Back when they were still cuteish.
These three little piggies joined the Boggy Hollow crew back in mid-March, just eight weeks old and weighing in at about 30 pounds each. Ever since that moment, it seems to have been their primary mission in life to eat us out of house and home. We have no real way of knowing what they weigh now until the deed is done and their hanging weight is pronounced, but if they're not at least 200-pounds each, I'm a monkey's uncle. Specifically, asad, angry, idiot-who-spent-her-last-dime-on-pig-food, variety of monkey's uncle.
The ideal weight and age for harvesting a hog is 225-270 pounds, more or less, and at around 6 months of age. These three are nearly 8 months old, and hopefully 225 or better each, so the time has most definitely arrived for them to move on.
Even if they're short on weight, there are others issues in play that make this the right time to harvest. At the top of our list is that Winter is coming.
Can I get a what-what for my Game of Thrones peeps?
More specifically, mud season is on it's way back, and slogging 40+ pounds of feed per day through shin-deep liquid clay mud has limited appeal.
Secondly, the pigs are eating an outrageous amount of food these days. Their rations have been increased to one 40# bag of rolled barley per day, all of our (and our friends') windfall apples (5ish pounds more or less per day?) and anything coming out of the garden that is past it's prime/less than perfect, such as blimp-sized zucchini, mouse-nibbled cantaloupe, corn stovers and aphid-ravaged kale, plus their daily ration of our fresh, raw, goats milk. In the past, we've supplemented their rations with bakery outlet bread products, but the failure of many grain crops this year and last has made laying hands on previously unwanted leftovers nearly impossible most months.
I'm competing with cattle ranchers, chicken farmers and food banks for the day-old and otherwise not-fit-for-sale (often utterly perfect), increasingly scarce calories, and so, with "terminal" stock that is near harvest anyway, I gladly bow out of the fray.
Lastly - flavorful, clean, humanely raised pork (and all meat for that matter) is expensive. Our family of four eats about one pound of meat/protein per evening meal, at an average cost of $8 per pound. That figure factors in that we've been eating a fair amount of grass-finished ground beef (at around 5.99/lb) and occasionally a nicer cut of beef, lamb or pork (up to 10.99/lb or so) with our own wild-caught seafood (salmon, crab) sprinkled in the mix to spread things out. Conservatively, that puts our monthly meat budget at around $240 per month, for just a single 4-ounce serving per person, per day. The pigs are presently eating one $13 bag of barley per day. Alas, the time to pay the piper has arrived.
At 7 1/2 months old, they still look kinda cute, right? After you nearly lose a few fingers to their eager maws, maybe not so much. Their charm fades pretty quickly after that...
The bottom line is, it's time for us to stop feeding the pigs, and time for them to start feeding us.
With any luck, our 1 piggy (the other 2 are going to our Mamas) will yield us enough pork to put beautiful, high quality meat on our table until this time next year. Whether or not we'll find ourselves raising and harvesting our own pigs at this time next year depends completely on how this pork tastes, and how the numbers shake out when all is said and done.
I do offer my thanks to these odd little (huge) critters for the nutrition and sustenance that they will provide for my family, and for the experience that we've had with them this Spring and Summer. Our critters help us grow as farmers and as people. They teach us so much.
Many thanks, mis puercos. Update 9/21/13 - The butcher shop called, the piggies' hanging weights were 170, 170 & 207 pounds. Using my marginal math skills, at a total cost of about $1300 (initial purchase price, feed, kill fee), divided by the estimated final "wrapped" weight (70% of hanging weight - 547 x .7= 383lbs) equals roughly 3.39/pound. Not a huge win, financially, but when compared to the average cost of the cheapest cut per pound of organic/non-CAFO pork that is commercially available, (which is usually the ground, unseasoned pork), we'll enjoy a savings of about $3.40 per pound. On the "nicer" cuts, the savings go up.
Speaking strictly financially, this was a worthwhile endeavor for us. We'll be keeping just one of the pigs for ourselves, the 207-pounder. The other two are destined for the freezers of our parental units.
So, based upon my voodoo math - 207lbs x .7 = 144.9 (the "wrapped weight"), times our cost of $3.39/lb = $491.21. Our year's supply of pork will have cost us $491 instead of $983 - a $492 savings. :)
Not having been raised in a farming family, I've had to glean little morsels of folksy, hand-me-down farm wisdom wherever I could. Things like:
-Tomato plants go in the ground on Mother's Day weekend -Don't cut hay before the 4th of July -Fresh cream won't whip unless it's at least 3 days old -Turkey poults are constantly on the lookout for new, more exciting ways to die -Foxes and coyotes are at their murderous peak during the full moon
And maybe the most apropos bit of wisdom re: a Western Washington garden - if it isn't planted out and well established by mid-July, your crop ain't happening.
Our Summers are short here and typically have just two weeks or a month of any kind of heat, which is not always enough to make many garden favorites happen. I've learned the hard way that, short of using a greenhouse; hot peppers, watermelon and anything else that takes more than 90 days to grow or a month's worth of heat to ripen, isn't meant to grow here.
There are exceptions, of course, a few of which are merrily growing away in my garden right now. My short-season corn is looking amazing, and well after I'd already resigned myself to the fact that in the land of mold and hungry raccoons, there would be no homegrown corn for us, ever. Behold the beauty (and note that the tassels cometh!) -
Yukon Chief Corn, day 37 (direct sown on 5-30-13)
Minnesota Midget Melons (Cantaloupe), day 70 (started indoors 4-27-13)
These melons are supposed to only take 70 days from seed to fruit (hence their appeal), but were held up on account of my delay getting them out in the ground, and their very rough (nearly fatal) transition from indoors to out. I'd love to see our first melon harvested before July is out, but I guess we'll get what we get when we get it.
Toma Verde Tomatillos, day 70 (started indoors 4-27-13)
Giant Greystripe and Miriam Edible Sunflowers, day 42 (direct sown 5/24/13)
It may not look like much, and honestly, it's not, but to me... how do I put it? I get a sense of pride and nervous excitement when I think about my little garden, and all of the stuff that is growing beautifully there in spite of it a) being grown in soggy/unsunny/unpredictable western Washington, and b) being grown by a lady who is still learning to speak and understand the language of plants. So far I haven't screwed this up. Suffice it to say I'm pleased.
In addition to all of the up and coming beauty and bounty in the garden, there are a few other foodie delights coming our way shortly - wild blackberries and the opening of crabbing season in the Puget Sound. Happy days are here again!
If you're interested in learning more about any of the varieties of seeds/plants that I've mentioned here, you can read more and/or purchase some of these same seeds through Victory Seed Company and Seeds of Change. By the way, this is not a sponsored post - just one farm nerdess gushing about her garden. :)
Normally, I wouldn't want to make a thing out of anything to do with me personally, because I'm just not a big-whoop kinda gal. But today is a pretty major milestone for me - one year since my accident.
For those of you who might not have been around when the accident happened, you can catch yourself up, if you so choose, here.
These past 365 days have felt like a thousand at least. Crawling back toward normalcy has been painfully, frustratingly slow. I have healed from my injuries, but still carry many scars, both physical and emotional. My flashbacks and panic attacks have, mercifully, passed. The first few months after the accident, the sound of a low-flying helicopter or of a buzzing saw or lawnmower induced a heavy-breathing, adrenaline out-of-nowhere anxiety response. The helicopter made sense, but the saw and lawnmower? The best we could figure is that it must have sounded something like the jaws of life did, opening and pulling my car apart.
It took one extremely painful plastic surgery, and three months of daily bandage changes, debriding and antibiotics to put my scalp back together, but I now have no more exposed skull, no more infection, only a few bright-pink patches of scar tissue that my stylist and I are trying to find creative ways to make less noticeable. It is a far better outcome than anybody in their right mind could have imagined upon seeing the mess that was there right after the accident, not to mention the secondary mess made by the staff at the first hospital I was treated at having hastily stapled my scalp back together with large amounts of my hair and the floor of the Mojave desert still caked within my wound. The infection that followed presented a greater and more immediate risk to my health than the accident itself had. The threat of MRSA, a very real and terrifying possibility for someone with a wound that takes 3 months to close, never left my mind. The near-daily wound care appointments and the copious antibiotics kept it at bay though, thankfully. Thank heaven for strong antibiotics! I will say though - three months on antibiotics of any sort, no matter how carefully managed and counter-balanced with probiotics, does NOT do a body good.
Some of the smaller, slower to resolve things left over from my accident are a wicked case of anemia that has been dogging me now for the entire past year, regardless of how many protein/vitamin/mineral supplements that I eat/drink/swallow. Maybe the worst thing of all though are the brain issues. By brain issues, I mean the classic Traumatic Brain Injury complaints - amnesia, irritability (stemming in part from my lost ability to multitask and concentrate well), poor short-term memory and poor word-recall. I have good days and bad days. Being tired seems to aggravate my symptoms, and by the end of the day, I find myself fishing for simple words. For someone who has always been a voracious reader, and who fancies herself a bit of a word-nerd, it is particularly painful to be without words.
So I didn't get out of this mess unscathed, but I did get out of it. I'm here with my husband and my kids because I couldn't give in to it all and leave them. I've been working my way back toward being fully-functional one inch at a time. I'm getting there.
So, scars and all, I want to celebrate. My homegirls, my sister and I plan to go out tomorrow for a drink to mark my now having one year "post" under my belt. I never took my life for granted, but seeing it almost go, followed by a year of kicking my own butt to get back where I need to be, and watching my husband cover for me with our girls, our farm and a zillion other little and not-so-little things while I took the time to get myself back together, well, it increases your appreciation for what is real and good and true in your life, exponentially.
Tomorrow we'll bust out the champagne and rock out some karaoke, because that's my happiness in a nutshell - being free and silly and fearless and sappy with the people I love - and I absolutely plan to take advantage of every single second I'm given with them.
Not that this has anything to do with anything farm-ish, but I've been missing my Grandmas lately. I posted this on my personal FB page, then thought I might like to share it with y'all too. MJ I've been noticing that the name "Ivy" is increasing in popularity all of a sudden. I grew up not loving my middle name, learned to appreciate its uniqueness and it's significance (named after my Grammy) and now suddenly feel very protective of it. Don't screw this up for me, Beyonce. At least mine is spelled a little different! This is a pic of my Grandma for whom I am named, Ivie Loretta, being held by my Great-Grandma, Ruth Piety Julian Ford. Grandma's twin sister, Avie, is being held by my Great-Great-Grandma. ♥ Miss you, G.G.!
Great-Grandma Ford and 7/15ths of her eventual brood, and her mother-in-law. Raising fifteen kids during the great depression - can you imagine? I come from some tough gals! :)
All signs seem to point to an early Spring this year -
The Forsythia has just started blooming, and the Snowdrops have been up for a few weeks.
Scarlet has personally tended this impromptu clump of snowdrops for a few years now, calling them her "fairy forest".
The years first kidding went off without a hitch by first-time freshener, Valentina. She delivered twins, a boy and a girl, on the sly. Scarlet and her Grammy discovered the babies yesterday upon a visit to the back forty. We think that they were delivered the day before.
Lunch!
Our newest blue-eyed babies, little girl (in the back) and baby buckling (in front)
I was relieved to have a lactating doe and a pair of healthy babies join our herd, but also a little bummed that this year will be the first time that I haven't been able to attend the births. Being a goat midwife is one of the sweetest gigs on this farm, and we may have as many as seven more does due to deliver any day. Heal fast, bionic knee! My girls need me!
For all that I'm missing out on, I should be able to manage at least a few early Spring farm chores, like starting seedlings on the heat mats and under grow lights, in anticipation of the new raised-bed garden that Bill is firing himself up to build.
I'll also hit up some of my usual, easy-to-reach spots to see if the stinging nettles have started to pop up yet. Nettles are some of the first greens of Spring, and we're all in need of a little spring green tonic to chase away the months of grey. With the hens now laying well again, I anticipate that we'll have some nettle egg noodles for dinner soon.
Another sure sign that Spring is near? The frogs o' the bog, singing their little green heads off. The collective sound of a thousand or so frogs singing Are You Lonesome Tonight? in unison is pretty intense, though they blend together to make a sort of wall of white noise (This is a wav file of somebody else's frogs. Ours sound like this times about fifty.) It's one of those sounds that might make for a great track on a nature cd, along with waves crashing and rain falling on a tin roof. One of the previous owners of this house once told me that someone associated with some tv or movie production came out and recorded our frogs for use on some soundtrack. I have famous frogs!
I've been chipping away at this post for long enough now that an additional FIVE kids have arrived since I started. HOLY GOAT FERTILITY, BATMAN!
Gotta go pace a hole in the rug over these babies that I can't see. :\ More pics forthcoming asap!
As an adult, have you tasted a food that you haven't eaten in a long time, and experienced a sort of sensory-fueled time warp that brought you back to some sunny day in your childhood?
I have a lot of food associations, both good and bad. I remember that Grandma Gwen loved deviled ham on Wonder bread, which, to me, looked and smelled like nothing so much as a square of cat food-smothered foam rubber. Blech.
But Grandma was raised in the long shadow of the Great Depression, and probably gained a fondness for potted meats and smelly cheeses from both her mother's German heritage and her exceptional resourcefulness. Feeding 15 people on a lumberjack's wages required a little creativity and an open mind when it came to meal planning.
But food at Grandma Gwen's house wasn't always so odd, in fact, looking back now, I see that we routinely ate like kings, without having any notion of our privilege.
That time-travelling bite that I mentioned earlier? That's what brought this whole train of thought about. I popped a handful of hazelnuts while standing in my kitchen the other day and felt instantly present in my Grandma's back yard, circa 1982, cracking open the few filberts that we were able to pick just ahead of the hungry, cranky Stellar's Jays. We had a system that we'd learned from the birds - if you dropped the hulled nut against the porch, and it bounced, it was empty inside - move on. If it landed with plunk, there was a nut inside. We used a caveman-style approach from there and clobbered them with rocks until they either gave up their goods or went shooting off into God-knows-where from an ill-placed whack.
We had similar semi-feral country kid gorge-fests on English Walnuts, crab apples (big mistake!), red huckleberries, black caps and blackberries. Sometimes we'd be sent out with a dented old MJB coffee can and told to fill 'er up with blackberries or huckleberries, with the promised payoff of pie for dessert.
Besides what we could glean ourselves, we were also spoiled with the fish and game that Grandpa brought home. A Navy man and a Pisces, Grandpa had an incredible affinity for fishing. He was an avid fisherman, bringing home limits of salmon and steelhead, which he'd smoke or Grandma would bake or fry-up for dinner. We had salmon so often that we kids actually grew tired of it and would say "Again?!" when told that salmon was on the menu for supper.
Grandpa fishing for tuna(?) off the coast of Guam, 1957/58.
We also regularly enjoyed venison, catfish, trout and occasionally, crawdads that we kids took great fun in catching from the nearby icy-cold Nisqually river. The kind of groceries that would set you back a pretty penny these days were standard fare for us. If you'd have said to me then that king salmon and hazelnuts were considered "fancy", I'd have had a hearty chuckle at your expense.
Along with all of the great foods that I experienced as a kid were also those not-so-great foods of a 1980's latchkey kid - Salisbury steak dinners, blue box mac & cheese, Fruity Pebbles, etc. And to some extent, I'm sure that those foods would evoke memories for me too, though not necessarily great ones. I'm glad that I spent time outside of my neighborhood experiencing wild food in situ, because those are the flavors and experiences that have stuck with me, and shaped my foodie-geek palate. I love rustic. I love full flavor. I have a special place in my heart for DIY, "seed-to-skillet" food, and I have my Grandparents to thank for that.
Normally, I do these end-of-year and end-of-season posts sort of like a tally; the wins on one hand, the losses on the other. Suffice it to say that no one wants to read that jolly list, myself included, and so, I'm going to focus on the things that have me looking forward to 2013 in Boggy Hollow.
We're getting piggies!
Homegrown pork is out-of-this-world delicious, and raising pigs is just about the most complete form of waste-food upcycling that there is. They'll eat our leftovers, excess or sour goat milk, windfall apples, bakery outlet leftovers and imperfect, unsold produce from our local grocery store, and maybe some dumpster-dived restaurant leavings.
Besides the pork for ourselves, I'm looking forward to the stellar manure that these guys and gals will produce that will fire up our compost heap.
We're going to have a garden again
Bill is taking the reins for garden planning and building this year, which has in no way dampened my zeal for browsing every seed catalog that lands in my mailbox, and buying and coveting interesting and old seed varieties like other women covet new pairs of heels. Yeah, I scored a couple packs each of Hungarian Blue Bread Poppy and Slow-Bolt Cilantro seeds. It's probably more than I need, but I figured I'd splurge a little... Bees!
I bought my Boo a beginning beekeeping kit and a few books on organic beekeeping, and he's pretty fired up about it! We're leaning toward trying top bar hives, at least initially, as they produce more wax than a traditional Langstroth hive, which would be useful to us in soapmaking and candlemaking, among other applications.
According to what we've read, the bees will venture out as far as three miles to gather nectar for their honey. We live in an area that is well known for its blueberry patches and bogs, so the flavor of our honey is likely to reflect that. I don't think I've ever even seen blueberry honey available, so I'm looking very much forward to tasting our first batch. :)
We're also excited to see what impact keeping a hive or two on our property will have on our garden and fruit trees' productivity.
The Grand Opening of our Farmstand
A lot of kinks are still being worked out with regard to how we'll realize this goal, but I feel pretty confident that we'll find a way to make it happen, hopefully in time to take advantage of the increased traffic that comes our way when the blueberry bogs and Christmas tree farms open for business.
Among our offerings will (hopefully) be goats milk soap, eggs, produce, flowers, handicrafts and honey. If I am able to acquire a cottage food license between now and then, I may also sell jams, jellies and baked goods.
So now you see why I'm not willing to look back, even for a day, at 2012. 2013 holds so much promise for us - I can't wait!
But as for today, it's snowing at a good clip, and I have a half-finished knitting project in my lap. Noses will not be put to the grindstone just yet - this next little piece of Winter will be reserved for dreaming, reading, preparing and resting up for the big Spring that we have planned. :)
Wishing you all a Happy and Fulfilling New Year -
Billy, Michelle, Livy & Scarlet, and the Critters xoxo
Finally! The giveaway I've been promising is here at last!
This humble little box of goodies contains a combination of stuff that I, myself, have made, and foodie delights that I'm crazy in love with.
This box includes-
*1 bar Orange Cream goats milk soap
*1 jar Sweet Orange bath fizz
*3 knit cotton washcloths
*1 adult size pair wool bike helmet earmuffs
*1 jar each of tomatillo salsa, raspberry peach jam and spiced peach jam
*1 Theo chai chocolate bar
*2 whole organic vanilla beans
*1 package smoked sea salt
Approximately $70 worth of stuff. And you never know, I might pop a little something else in there too. :)
Enter by simply leaving a comment on this post. Make sure that you provide me with a way to contact you in the event that you win.
Please feel free to share this giveaway with others. The more views/followers that these giveaways generate for this lil' ole blog, the more likely I am to do them! I'll accept entries until 12/9/12 at midnight, my time. A random winner will be chosen and announced here on GGG on 12/10/12.
Tomorrow, Cici goes home with her forever family, a wonderful couple from British Columbia. Yep, our Great White pup is headed for the Great White North.
Bringing Celeste home, just off the transport from Texas.
We met Cici's new family yesterday, and they are amazing people. She's going to be an only dog in a home with woods to walk in, and visiting grandkids who will lavish love on her. Her new Mama sees charity work in Cici's future, as a visiting therapy dog for local hospitals. Honestly, she will have the kind of life that no one could have expected for her, based on where and how she started life. It's maybe a little bit like watching your daughter leave home to marry a wonderful man. You know that she's on promising, amazing new path, but you are still a little sad to see her break away from your fold, your emotions oscillating between pride, joy and gut-wrenching pain, each in their turn. That's my baby right there.
Cici was born on a ranch in East Texas, and along with 36 other dogs, was surrendered to a kill shelter by the ranch owner. She was rescued by a network of compassionate, tireless individuals within the SPIN (Saving Pyrs In Need) and the Great Pyrenees Rescue Society organizations. She was significantly underweight, and had had very little direct interaction with humans, and was therefore untrained and totally inexperienced with the concepts of love, trust and security. The vets who saw her upon intake at the shelter estimated that she would reach a maximum of 60 pounds, full grown. Her undersized adult weight will be a life-long reminder of the insufficient nourishment she received in her infancy.
Her previous experiences in life had taught her that food was a scarce and extremely valuable commodity, and so she would eat until she was full, but continue to guard her food bowl, even going so far as to sleep by her dish, lest Rex (or us humans) try to take her food. It was heartbreaking to see.
She was absolute sweetness personality-wise since day one, but the trust and training were much slower in coming. Pyr's are incredibly intelligent dogs, and so the bulk of Cici's "training" actually came from following Rex's example. We also used positive reinforcement ("atta girls" and bribery via treats) to teach her very basic concepts like sit.
She's been with us for about 6 weeks, and has grown tremendously, emotionally and physically. She's gained a good 5 pounds, started growing a new, healthy winter coat, and works and plays in lock-step with Rex; barking at bicyclists, deer and the UPS man, checking in on the welfare of the chickens and goats, and competing for the prime, pre-warmed-by-Mama's-butt, spot on the couch. She feels like this is her place too now.
And it has been. She and Rex have been a great team. Joggers smile and say hi to the pair of sproingy, giant white fluff balls each time they pass. People ask us about the breed all the time now, Great Pyrenees being a fairly uncommon and heretofore relatively unknown breed in Western Washington. The resurgence of urban homesteading and hobby farming has made the Livestock Guardian Dog a relevant consideration for families and individuals who want to raise their own food and food animals in cities and towns where raccoons, rats and coyotes, among others, have adapted to our urban sprawl and set up shop quite efficiently, gobbling up backyard chickens and bunnies like drive-thru hamburgers. These pups earn their keep, keeping the predators at bay, while respecting your livestock and totally running away with your heart. To me, they are dream dogs, the perfect breed.
So I guess I'm a sort of Pyr evangelist. Which is one of the things that I must remind myself of every time I think about Cici moving on. She might be the first Pyr that a lot of folks meet, in her neck of the Canadian woods. Her finding her forever home means that we will have room in our home for another dog who might otherwise be euthanized due to shelter overcrowding. This is the best possible outcome for everyone involved, especially for Cici. That doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.
Safe travels, Cici-beans. You've made your Mama so proud.
We made it! Three years and 25,000 pageviews later, this little blog is still kickin'.
As promised, there will be a celebratory giveaway! Right now I'm still building my basket of goodies. I want to load it up with my favorite food-nerd, locally made and generally-nifty stuff, but I have to do so on a budget, so I'm pecking away at it.
I will make a big, honkin' deal out of it when I finally do post the giveaway though, so stick around. :)
Thanks again for reading, guys & gals. It means more to me than you know. Chelle
When our family moved to our little farm just two years ago, we had a laundry list of things that we'd hoped to accomplish. We wanted to own livestock beyond backyard chickens, we wanted an epic kitchen garden, a towering orchard, and honestly, just to simplify our lives, clear away the clutter and return our focus to the tasks and pastimes that nourish us, emotionally and physically.
We moved forward in our progression toward "real" farm life - we built a herd of happy dairy goats, expanded our flock of laying hens, and harvested as much produce from our own land as our clumsy attempts at gardening would allow. But our true benchmark for success, our pie-in-the-sky daydream was to raise and harvest enough to feed ourselves - well.
It seemed like a pretty far-fetched idea, considering where we started and the road blocks that we've come up against, but somewhere along the way, by trickle and drop, we made it here.
This shocking arrival of providence dawned on me last week as I was sitting down to dinner. We had a pork roast, raised by my husband's Aunt & Uncle, our Greek salad was made from tomatoes and cucumbers grown by my friends Lisa and Jen, respectively, and we drank our fresh juiced blackberry-apple cider. When it occurred to me that this food was all produced by people we know and love, an immense feeling of lightness and happiness flooded over me. We didn't get here alone, but, we are here.
:)
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
This is our little wood pile, cut from a massive chunk of an apple tree that fell during this past Winter's ice storms.
As much of a bummer as it was to lose such a large piece of our biggest apple tree, I can't help but smile when I see this log's little heart, and know that it was in there the whole time, and it was only on account of losing that limb to the ice storm that we were ever able to see it.
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