Saturday, June 22, 2013

New Finds on the Farm

We've been busy this spring, and particularly the last couple weeks.  Here are some new things you will find on the farm...




A new group of piglets arrived in early May
 Guinea keets arrived four days ago


Katza, a friend's mare that is hanging out with us.  Oliver, my 20-year old bachelor gelding, doesn't quite know what to make of this new pasture-mate. 
 Shameless plug for the Farmers' Market.  It's a new sign!  Wednesdays, 3-6p.m!  www.flycreekfarmersmarket.com or like us on Facebook.


Our new roof that was put on last week! I'm truly excited about the flashing around the dormer and the chimney.  Really...
A new basic-model lawnmower we bought earlier in the spring.  Yes, we do not own a ride-on mower even though we live on a farm.  It's even self-propelled (yes, this is a treat for me). 
 Oh look, a new toilet was put in last month!  My mother will be particularly pleased since there is now a toilet upstairs that flushes! 

You can't see it really well, but there is actually baseboard and ceiling trim in the kitchen.  Plus, the color is a flat, very pale blue and not shiny-shiny white (which I couldn't stand).  My darling husband worked his tail off doing this kitchen make-over and it looks fabulous! While it will always be a country kitchen, the trim adds such definition to the room. 

Monday, April 29, 2013

Fires and Mice

A confluence of events over the past several days "sparked" my interest in the following poem: A friend and I were having a conversation about Billy Collins; the waitress at dinner casually mentioned that her husband almost burned down their house; and even though it's late April, our wood-burning furnace is still being put to good use, despite not having much more quality wood to fuel it.  Oh, and the fact that we do share our 200-year old home with plenty of mice.

The Country
Billy Collins

I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice

might get into them and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed. 

Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of the one unlikely mouse
padding along a cold water pipe

behind the floral wallpaper
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner, 

the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam, 
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time--

now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.  
Who could fail to notice, 

lit up in the blazing insulation, 
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants 
of what once was your house in the country?


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Child's play

It's been a long winter.  Now that daylight savings has begun and it doesn't get dark until 8 o'clock, my internal clock says that it must be warm outside.  Oh no.  We've had at least snow flurries pretty much every day since October and the temperature may have peaked above 40 degrees once.  But it can't last forever, right?

In the meantime, aside from brief forays outside for spontaneous sledding parties and dodgeball in the snow, Bud has kept himself occupied with the normal 10-year old activities.  Mainly this is reading, and I think he has gone through all of Rick Riordan's books (the Percy Jackson series and its offshoots) at least once.  

On the car ride back home from Taekwon-do, he and his buddy were playing with their i-pods.  It's funny how the games they enjoy most are variations on word and picture games (pictionary, guesstures, etc) that we grown-ups used to play with a board, paper and pencil.  But I don't think he's actually familiar with the actual board/card versions of these games.  How times change.  Then, at the dinner table tonight, the following conversation occurs:

Bud: I learned this really cool game.  I really want to play it with both of you.
Us:  Okay.  What is it?
Bud:  Well, you act out a word and people have to guess.
Us: You mean charades!?
Bud:  I guess.  But it's really cool.

He could hardly sit through the rest of dinner he was so excited about playing.  And for a half hour, the three of us played charades.  One of the first charades he did though, which my darling husband figured out, was a scene from the old black and white film, The General.  I continue to be surprised with how the ten-year old mind works.

Here's looking for spring...somewhere.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Brownies and bartering

First, the brownies (chocolate takes priority after all).  Christopher Kimball of Cook's Illustrated fame wrote about how nothing can compete with the boxed brownie mix in terms of texture.  I recall he came up with some complex way to replicate that texture from scratch, but I'm sure its more complex than the recipe I found on food.com.  When I have a craving for brownies, I generally do not have a box of brownie mix sitting in the cupboard, but I generally have the ingredients needed to make them from scratch. And this recipe is simple (and uses only one pot!).

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Grease 9x 13 inch pan (I just lay greased aluminum foil down for easy cleanup)
3. Melt 3/4 cup shortening (crisco) in a large saucepan over low heat, then stir in 3/4 cup cocoa
4. Remove from heat
5. Mix in 2 1/4 cups sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla.
6. Mix in 4 eggs, one at a time (this is where the bartering connection comes in--see below)
7. Stir in 1 1/4 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, and (optional) 1 cup chopped nuts
8. Bake for 30 minutes
9. Cool completely before cutting

Okay, so the four eggs in the above recipe...we had a glut of eggs as the days are getting longer and the hens were laying again.  On the flip side, we were running out of hay for the horse and our sheep (first time this has happened in 7 years).  What to do, what to do?  At our last monthly farmers' market meeting, our hay farmer mentioned that he would be happy to barter.  Eggs for hay! (for all Settlers of Catan fans, sound familiar?).  So, we were able to get 40 bales of hay in exchange for 40 dozen eggs (a dozen a week, of course).   Bartering goes way back, but we really don't pay much attention to it these days. Instead we rely on the symbolic exchange of cash or credit. What value does the paper money actually have?  None (or very little).  You could find oodles of information in the social scientific literature about bartering, but I'm just not going there right now.  Instead, suffice it to say, that when bartering, the value comes from the intrinsic worth it has to both parties.  In this case, our hay farmer has thousands of bales of hay; giving up 40 of them was certainly worth a 9 month supply of eggs.  To us, when we have a glut of eggs (and often end up giving them away) and no source of hay on our farm, the trade is priceless.  Both parties end up happy.  I hope in the future to establish more bartering relationships (firewood is another area of need for us).

Some progressive cities such as Portland, Maine, have established time banks which works on the same principle (I'll babysit your kids for 2 hours, if you could mow my lawn).  Just imagine how much simpler (and affordable) life could be if we relied more on this principle. Until then, enjoy the brownies.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Powering Through

It's been a while since I've written.  Honestly, I've been overwhelmed with nursing school.  When I was in a whining mode a few weeks ago a friend (and former colleague) mentioned that I should try to shape the experience in a positive light and I've been consciously trying to do that since then.  A neighbor (who has been a nurse for years) asked me just the other day how I was doing, and before I could give her an answer she responded "Powering through?" and I think that is the best description I have heard.  It's not that I dislike school; I simply have no time to process.  My schedule is full and unpredictable, thus throwing my family in disarray more often than I would like to admit and relying on my darling husband to manage the household and farm (and his wife's frequent bouts of irritability).
 
So, in light of all of this a few random thoughts that I've collected over the past several weeks. Most could be developed into a blog post of their own, but it's not going to happen. In random order:

Kids grow up fast.  I can clearly remember when Bud was a toddler, and now he is a lively, 10-year old who is able to rationally defend an argument and offer valuable contributions to a conversation.  This is a fun age.  At times he can be trying (think 10 going on 15) but he really wants to do good and be good and still insists on a hug and kiss each night before bed.  This afternoon he even hung out with me at a quilt show. 

It is true.  Dogs become depressed too.  We lost Belle in early December, and Daisy spent the subsequent weeks dazed and confused.  She's recovering now, but there was certainly a transition period.

Kale survives snowstorms just fine.

Discussion post questions on Blackboard are completely overrated; and far more bearable to write with a yuengling in hand.

The best brownie recipe I've ever made uses melted Crisco as the fat.  And a heck of a lot of sugar.  But it's quick and easy and you can find it here.

Nuclear family vacations are important.  My darling husband, Bud and I traveled to Belize over Christmas; it was our first real vacation without extended family members and we had a blast.

Social media soundbites are going to be the death of this nation.  A group of people picks up on a single phrase pulled out of context and suddenly a "new cause" is taken up and the gulf widens between groups.  Apparently, it's cool to be polarized.  Unfortunately, that means that nothing will ever be accomplished.  If only people would take a moment to breathe, understand different perspective and the roots from which those perspectives came, and engage in intelligent, thoughtful discussion...