Soothing.

I don't feel well so I'm pulling out the big guns.

 

 

 

Ginger lemon tea with homemade honey.

 

It was when I got good and sick last winter I first found myself craving ginger. I'd never had it in my diet before, aside from the occasional ginger chew from Trader Joe's. But suddenly, there I was, feeling like I needed ginger.

 

I guess your body knows what it needs sometimes. Last night I suspected this would be a ginger tea morning and I was right.

 

Usually, I stick with ginger and honey. Today I added lemon juice to my cup. Not loving it like I do the ginger only show, but it's fine.

 

Are some of you still feeling quizzical about my reference to "homemade" honey? Is your brow a little crinkled with your questioning? Well, stop crinkling your brow, it'll cause wrinkles. Did you just widen your eyes and lift your eyebrows? OK, I'll go on then.

 

Yes, we have our very own homemade honey here on the farm, courtesy of Mike's mom. Well, courtesy of the bees Mike's mom brought to live at our place.

This beautiful little jar of honey is the result of lots of hard work pollen gathering in the garden and the alfalfa fields, carrying it back to the hive, and then doing whatever hoobie joobie shenanigans bees get up to inside those simple wooden boxes.

Did you know local honey is supposed to be fantastic for treating allergies? We're testing it out on Macy, our Princess of Allergy & Asthma Land. Sharron pressed the honey from the honeycomb and we encourage Macy to use it whenever she's reaching for honey, to see if we can start eliminating some of her allergies.

Just so you know what we're contending with, here's Macy's back at the allergists office five minutes after the nurse impregnated her skin with a whole host of typical plant, tree, animal and mold allergens to see what she reacted to.

And here it is after 15 minutes.

Turns out she's allergic to everything in the whole wide world.

I think it might take a while to tackle all these allergies.

We may need to get a few more bees.

Love from the farm,
Teri

Three's A Crowd



Meet Wyatt. See him there? All black and white with glossy green tail feathers, just hanging with one of his ladies?  

 

Wyatt is the cock of our walk, the King of the Coop. He's the man.

He's our one remaining rooster.

See, we had three roosters. And three roosters among only eight hens is two too many. (Too bad I couldn't have figured out a way to work in "to" in that sentence, too. That would have thrown any of you who are just beginning to adopt the King's English. Who doesn't like a challenge?)

Anyhoo.

There is keen importance attached to the ratio of roosters to hens in a flock. Just ask the girls. I'd show evidence of that importance, but I respect my sisters and know I wouldn't want to be pictured when I look so bedraggled. Suffice it to say that when there are too many roosters forcing their attentions on too few hens, the girls show the wear and tear. Feathers ripped from their heads, shoulders, lower back and the base of their tails (I don't know what that's about. I've seen the roosters yank their heads back unceremoniously, or grab on tight with their talons dug into the ladies' shoulders, but not sure what the heck is up with plucking their lower back. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.)

Beyond the overuse, though, we had a bigger problem. One day a few weeks ago, my mother-in-law Sharron stumbled on a gruesome discovery behind the coop. Our hen Blackie was dead, appearing to have had her neck broken and the back of her head and neck pecked, well, to a pulp. We considered all the options - had the dogs gotten into the pen? No. Could a predator such as a raccoon or skunk have crawled in under the fence and killed her? Perhaps, but they most likely would have left evidence of a fight (feathers) and drug her away. A coyote? Don't see how one could have squeezed himself into the coop, first of all, and it's more typical he would have a) drug her off to devour at his leisure, b) created a pile of feathers from her initial fight, and/or c) tackled more than one hen, creating loads more carnage while he had a captive audience in the pen. Given the lack of evidence Blackie had put up a fight alongside the aforementioned considerations, we were left with the conclusion that the roosters did her in. A few days later, Sharron saw a rooster hop on one of the hens, then the other two boys came running up and started pecking on the hen's head while the first guy was still...umm...involved. Sharron shooed the other two away and our suspicions were confirmed. Blackie's death was murder.

We hadn't planned on having three roosters, but it was the luck of the draw at the Feed & Seed when we picked up our baby chicks this spring.  We didn't know until the little boogers started getting bigger what we had.

So what happened to other two roosters, you ask?

Well, this.

 

 

Sharron , the fast learning farmer, "took care of" (that's farm speak for "killed") the other two, with Mike's help, while I was off editing film for a video project. Mike helped her with getting the right heft behind the, well, "whack", and she did the rest -- scalding, plucking, eviscerating, cleaning and cutting up the roosters. It's the first time we've killed and eaten any of our own poultry.

 

Before we get into how that was, let me tell you why Wyatt was selected to be the surviving fella.

 

We spend time among our little flock and we observe their habits and characteristics. And, we've been around the block a few years now and have a sense of typical rooster behavior. We observed that one of the two ill-fated roosters was a bit "touched." That's genteel Southern speak for a little off your rocker; simple; oh, let's just say it, stupid. Stupid Roo (we didn't call him that while he was alive, swear; I just came up with the handy moniker for the purpose of distinction during this tale) would sort of wobble around the place, a little off kilter, stumbling here and there. He did not command any respect from the ladies, who would routinely run him off when he came around. Not King of the Coop behavior, whatsoever. Worse, he would dart in to do something mean to a hen if he got a chance, then would run off, occasionally looking over his shoulder and stumbling as he made his get away. Not exactly primo characteristics to be contributing to our future feathered gene pool.

 

Bully Boy, our other now gone rooster also not named that in life, was a meanie. He was more tolerated by the ladies, but he was just rough. He didn't have adoring girls who hung around him; they'd just let him bully them around as he did his business and then would have nothing to do with him.

 

Now, neither of these boys' character flaws were enough that we would have put them down if our rooster to hen ratio was acceptable; they just made the decision easier when it came down to who would get the axe. Or hatchet, as the case may be.

 

Where Stupid Roo and Bully Boy got it wrong, Wyatt gets it right. He has a little group of ladies who hang around him all the time; he's protective of his girls, keeping an eye on them throughout the day and calling to them when it's time to eat or go in for the night. Trust me, the girls like these qualities in their man.

 

Happily, we appear to have made the right decision. Our little flock is calmer and quieter. The ladies are looking less bedraggled. We aren't seeing any signs of unnecessary roughness. All is well.

 

So, how did it go eating the roosters? Well, we left it a little long. Ideally, you want to eat a young chicken. While the roosters just hatched late March, early April, that's still a little old for eating. You want them at 6 or 8 weeks old if you plan to eat them fresh. The chicken and dumplings made from these roosters were tough and stringy. We got a little grossed out and couldn't finish our bowls, but we had some happy dogs that evening.

 

While we boiled the meat for the dumplings, we pressure cooked the other meat that was used the next day in chicken enchiladas. That meat was more palatable. But, I think if we find ourselves eating older poultry again, we'll pressure can it first, which cooks the meat a lot longer and is supposed to take care of the toughness factor. I'm not sure we'll ever do much regular butchering on our farm, as it certainly hasn't been a regular occurrence up to now, but it's good to be learning the ins and outs of regular farm life. (I say this, having been in a nice clean television studio while the deed was done, but still.)

 

Well, there you have it. Another day in the life. How about you? Done any killing around your place lately? No? OK.

 

Love from the farm,

Teri



Thwarted Plans...And That's OK!

(WARNING: There are a startling number of parentheses in this post. I'm not sure where they all came from, but they appear to have hijacked this entry. I hope you'll make it through OK. T-Dub)

Today, I was going to A) sleep in, then B) can up a bunch of chicken and beef I bought on sale this week, then C) go into the office and write a few articles for Wednesday's paper.

That was the plan.

I did Part A.

Then I jumped into Mike's truck, ran to town, grabbed the family a dozen donuts and myself two sodas (one for now, one for the fridge) through the drive-thru at our local donut shop, and got back home without anyone finding out I left home in my jammies. (Except the drive-thru girl, and I think she'll keep it between us.)

All set to start on Part B of today's plan, I went to the refrigerator only to find no chicken. Not a single breast. What happened to my chicken? Then I remembered...I'd put the chicken in the freezer because I didn't want to chance it beginning to get even a little "off" before the weekend. I bought it from a grocer I don't usually buy meat from and I just didn't want to chance it being anywhere near on its way out, you know?

Anyway.

As much as I was looking forward to putting up the jars of meat for the year (we're down to our last pint of canned chicken), I admit it didn't take me long to decide to use the time I'd planned to work on Part B of today's agenda another way.

I hopped back into bed with my favorite Christmas present.

OK, technically, it's Mike's Christmas present, but it is one of my favorites.

I caught up on updates from a few of my favorite blogs on the magical glowing Kindle.

And, now, I'm going to again crawl back into bed next to my slumbering husband (he worked from 6p last night and got home after 7a today) and do a little in-depth studying of a subject I feel the need to master:

Nothing like snuggling up next to your sweetheart on a blustery winter's day, and learning the fine art of letting things rot. So excited! (And by the way, I'm not kidding when I say blustery. I've been watching leaves swirling outside our front picture window the whole time I've been writing this. I love swirling leaves.)

Where was I? Oh, I was excited. Very excited...I can't wait to become a master composter.

(See the little glimpses of bedding surrounding the Kindle and book? That's my VERY favorite Christmas present this year...a beautiful quilt made by my Aunt Carol for Mike and me. I LOVE it! Not only because it is exquisitely crafted -- I'm fairly certain she won a ribbon at the county fair for this, this fall; I'll have to check -- but it's made with love and care, which she imparts in all of her handmade creation. She is such a lovely lady...I adore her. Thanks again, Aunt Carol. It makes me happy everytime I look at it. Every single time. So happy, in fact, for the first time in our 15 years of married life, Mike and I make our bed every day. And, I'm sure that makes my Mom happy, too. And Mike's mom. Our messy bedroom is pretty much legendary. Aunt Carol had no idea how many lives she would touch with this quilt.)

Anyway.

Before I go back to bed with my Diet Pepsi from Donuts Plus (there's an oxymoron), let me leave you with a shot of this little sweetie.

Macy was bringing in firewood and picked this little guy up and brought him in to say hi.

Hi, little rooster boy, who hatched in our home a few weeks ago. Glad to see you! Do you remember this place? Smell familiar? No? That's because you and your aromatic sibs aren't living in here anymore. Still, we love you dearly and are glad to see you growing like a little weed. (Note the lovely natural color variation in Macy's hair. Remember those days, ladies? The days of free color highlights? Those were the days.)

OK, we've covered a lot of territory this morning. I'm going to leave you now and go crack my book open for the very first time.

Don't even get me started on how much I like to crack open a new, never-opened-before book.  Or snuggle next to a sleeping husband. Much as I like Mike's Kindle, I'm a bonafide non-virtual book girl, through and through.

I'll get to Part C of the plan a little later on. Part B was going to take hours. No sense abandoning the plan altogether.

Love from the farm,

Teri

Best Laid Plans

It all started so beautifully...

The jars were sterile and sparkling....

The peaches were plump and blanching...

 

See? Plump? Ripe? Beautiful?

Only marginally distorted in color because I don't have the Nikon and

am using my Droid instead?

The lids were in water ready to simmer....the sugar water syrup was boiling on the stove...the water bath canner was bubbling, awaiting jars of beautiful sliced peaches....

Then, I peeled some peaches and noticed they looked funny. So, I hazarded a taste.

Then I hazarded another taste, just to be sure.

They were gross.

They were slimy, pulpy, flavorless mush.

Ugh.

I was so excited that I was going to fit in a batch of peaches tonight, but it was not to be. Mom had picked up the peaches from a grocery store. They had been good eating peaches, but they went bad....real bad...after the blanching.

So, I placed a call to  my friend Karen who owns the local Feed & Seed and asked if there was any hope of my getting my hands on good peaches this late in the season. She said that it's just possible there may be an extra box or two on the truck her husband is bringing back from Utah this Friday.

Did you happen to hear the faint hum of angels singing earlier this evening? Or notice a flutter of gossamer wings out of the corner of your eye?

The heavens were rejoicing in honor of the news that my peach canning dreams are not thwarted for the year. Not only will I have peaches, but I'll have Utah peaches. Yum.

What is fall without fresh canned peaches, after all? Well, it's just not fall.

So, while I'm disappointed that my hour of preparation was for naught, and that Mom's investment in the lug of peaches went to some very happy chickens, I'm grateful that I have hope of having gorgeous sliced peaches on my pantry shelves by this weekend.

Tomorrow - apples.

Wish me luck.

Love from the farm,

Teri

Hello, Again!

Just checking in real quick to let you know we're back! We were gone a few days to take care of my sister Lynda's misbehaving thyroid, but we're back now. And she's zonked on pain killers. So, everybody's happy. Well, Lynda's really happy, if you know what I mean, since those Percocet can be little tablets of woozy goodness, I'm guessing, based on her bleary-eyed smiles.

Know what happened while we were gone?

These arrived! Yes, they're standing right there in my dining room and I'm about to slide them on to go outside and look at the back 40, where the kids and Mike spent a lot of time doing some spring cleaning while I was gone. For those who like to enjoy a good visual now and then, let me oblige: I will be wearing these with my hair pinned back (does anyone say pinned anymore?) and Adam's checkered grey robe. I will be a vision.

You know what else happened while I was gone? The onion sets I ordered came in and are sitting on my kitchen window sill. I ordered what we refer to around here as "Woodruff Onions," because somehow those Woodruff folk grow the biggest, baddest onions around, so I was bound and determined to get in on their community onion order this year. (Does your community have an onion order?)

Wonder how one onion can really differ much from another? Just take a gander.

Now, excuse the poor photo quality but the onion's long gone so I can't grab another shot. The one on the right is your standard grocery store yellow onion. The one in the middle is a "large" sweet onion, again from the grocery store. That big boy on the left is Cousin Jack's Woodruff-grown onion.

So, you understand the choice was clear. I had to order the Woodruff onions. And, once they're grown, I'll have to invite 6 extra people to dinner every night because there's no way on this Good Green Planet that a recipe that feeds our family of 6 will ever call for that much onion. Still, I'll win. My onions will be the biggest on our road, I'll betcha. And that's all that matters.

For those wondering: bigger than a softball, smaller than a cantaloupe.

Love from the farm,
Teri

Bringing Home The Bacon...& Sausage

We ordered sausage seasonings today in anticipation of trying our hands at our own meat processing late next week. From Columbia Spice company we ordered hot sausage seasoning (for packages of sausage - think Jimmy Dean 1-lb chubs), sweet Italian and hot Italian seasonings. We used the Columbia Spice brands for the sausage last year and loved them. I wasn't a sausage person before we made our own last year and didn't expect to become one, but, oh my goodness, my friends were right when they told us there is nothing like fresh sausage. You have to try it for yourself to begin to understand it. Yum.

I'm still searching for a bacon brining solution. We weren't thrilled with the flavoring we used for the last bacon, so we'll take a stab at another variety this time. We weren't very happy with our homemade hams, either; while I'm looking forward to learning how to cure ham eventually, I'm not going to be able to tackle it this year. So, we'll use the ham pieces and a few of the roasts for canned pork, instead, which is so flavorful and convenient to have in your pantry. (If anyone knows of a good bacon seasoning product, by the way, I'd sure appreciate hearing about it.)

As I've mentioned before, we were thrilled with the quality and flavor of the pork we raised last year (ham and bacon being the exception due to the flavorings we used, not the quality of the meat.) We are eager to enjoy and share the pork that will soon be coming our way, especially in light of the ever-increasing costs of store-bought pork that is shockingly low on flavor. I can't believe the way I had to doctor a flavorless pork roast lately in order to bring any savor to the pot of green chile I was making from it.

My Grandma Potts introduced me to canned pork when I was a young girl, and I haven't had it since my early teens, when I moved away from Grandma's pantry. The memory of how good that pork was has stayed with me, though, and I can't wait to try it again. We do enjoy ham around here, so I'm disappointed we won't be curing our own. Knowing prices may simply keep going up, Mom and I are going to buy some extra Easter hams while they're on sale next month, and I'll can them, using a method I just read about early this week. I like the idea of having meal-sized portions of ham, instead of having to figure out how to use up all the leftovers of a full-sized ham each time I bake one. I'll share the canning recipe and the results after Easter, for those who might be picking up a few extra hams of their own.

The man we purchased our pigs from this year offered to butcher them for us, but let us know several weeks ago that pressing responsibilities had arisen that wouldn't allow him to help, after all. We certainly understand how that goes. The last time we processed pigs, our friends who had some experience, tools and a book on butchering helped us. We're not going to ask them to guide us through the process this year, however, because one of their little guys, a 3-yr-old cutie pie named Diesel (yes, you read that right), just had brain surgery a week or so ago and I'm disinclined to ask anything of that preoccupied family at this time.

So, Mike and I are going to go it alone. And, actually, we did ask to borrow our friends' butcher knives. But other than that, we're going to process these big fellas on our own, enlisting whichever kids are interested in pitching in. We'll haul the pigs over to the butcher next week, he'll slaughter them and chill their carcasses for three days, then we'll pick them up and set to work.

I'm going to ask the butcher to save the fat so we can make lard, and I'll be sure to let you know how that process goes, too. I'm a little intimidated, I have to say. I don't know why - probably just the thought of dealing with all that hot grease. Still, I'm going to forge ahead and hope I complete the process unscarred.

Now, I have to go take a pick axe to the chest freezer so we can get it cleared out to welcome all that fresh, flavorful meat soon. Then, I guess I better check the library for a picture book on butchering.

Love from the farm,

Teri

Good Morning!

Just a few quick thoughts before I start my Saturday chores:

Remember a few days ago when I mentioned checking into a raw milk source for butter and yogurt making and hubby pleasing? Well, the source said yes so I had a moment of great excitement. Then suddenly, I heard knocking on the inside of my skull and a little voice said, "Uhh, excuse me, Einstein, but isn't your son immunesuppressed, making him vulnerable to any stray little bacteria or virus that the rest of the family's strong immune systems might otherwise scoff at?" So, I figured I better check into whether Tan can have unpasteurized anything (including the goat's milk). Our online kidney guru pulled up a report stating that unpasteurized or raw is on that advisory council's no-no list, and my initial Google search pulled up the same. I'm going to check with Tanner's kidney doctor, who I trust implicitly, and will consider hers the final word. While it would be lovely to bring fresh milk into our home, I'm certainly not willing to take an unnecessary risk with Tan. If we have to wait until he's off the immune-suppressing meds, really, that's no big deal. We'll wait. I'll let you know what we learn.

Gertie let me scratch her behind the horns yesterday. It was fabulous. Then she stomped on my foot. One step forward....

Mike has pink eye. I've been grateful the past few mornings to be able to pop open my baby blues without degooping first. Fingers crossed these clear-eyed mornings will continue.

Adam's missionary application is sitting in front of Church leaders who are deciding where in the world he'll go. Will we be buying pea coats for England or short-sleeved white shirts for Central America? Or a banjo for him to do some front-porch pickin' in Kentucky? We'll know soon!

My friend Debbie said we can go scoop poop from their horse barn. Yee haw!

One of the pigs bit me yesterday. That was a first in two years of having pigs. I was dumping a can of kitchen scraps into their pen and one of the big fellas was ever so excited so he tried to take the can from me and chomped down on my thumb and hand. It was a blunt-edged chomp and broke the skin from the tugging motion, not from any razor-sharp teeth. But the throbbing, fevered, bleeding thumb didn't bug me nearly as much as the gobs of slimy goo he left all over my hand. Let's just say he was primed to properly masticate whatever food entered his strong jaws. Before you think I made some comment like, "Yeah, you'll get yours, buddy!" just know that I didn't. While I'm grateful for the food these pigs are going to be providing us soon, I'm not lighthearted about killing them. I thought being a farm girl now I'd take the butchering in stride, and to a degree I do in terms of not brooding over it, but mostly I just feel grateful for these animals' lives, not entitled to them.

Looking forward to seeing what the heck this "super moon" will look like tonight. It's been really bright around the farm the last few nights, and last night's moon was freaky, because it had a wide red ring around it. Creepy! But really, really cool. Wish the kids had been here to see it. They were in the Valley with family, where you don't see the stars, you see the soft glow of street lamps.

My kiddos are coming home today from their cousins' and my mother-in-law will be bringing them here, so soon our home will be filled again with some of my favorite people in the whole wide world. Guess that means I better go take a shower and get on my chores.

Love from the farm,
Teri

Favorite Home & Cooking Discoveries

I've always loved to cook and do things around the kitchen, but it's only been in the last few years that I've really been able to concentrate any significant amount of time on all things homey.

Here are a few of my favorite discoveries:

• Rubbing your hands with a couple teaspoons of salt then running them under cold water will get rid of painful onion and aromatic garlic oils. Many a time my children have found me, mascara streaming down my cheeks, eyes clenched tight, furiously scrubbing my hands with salt. They've quit asking me if I'm OK; they know that within moments I'll be happily cooking again.
• You shouldn't add liquids to any dry good mixture containing baking powder until the last possible moment before mixing, so whatever you're cooking will have the perfect texture and height. This goes for your pancakes, quick breads, biscuits and any other item in which you include baking powder.
• Baking cornbread in a cast iron skillet. I don't know why I love this so much, but it makes me happy each and every time.
• Canning. Magical. It's hot, long hours, and don't even think about doing the cost analysis between the amount of time it took you to plant, grow and can the food compared to what it would have cost to go to the Piggly Wiggly and pluck it off the shelf. That's not what it's all about. It's about staring at the beautiful jars on your shelf, knowing YOU did that, knowing none of the goodness was cooked out - it's all sealed right up there in the jars; knowing there's nothing artificial or mysterious in those jars. It's love and health and security all gathered under a shiny, sealed tight lid.
• Using honey in place of sugar in cornbread, pancakes and homemade buttermilk syrup means your family will be calling out to you from the table, singing your praises with their mouths full, while you're still pulling the last batch of pancakes off the griddle before sitting down with them. Usually, we wait till we're all sitting down to bless the food, but this is one meal where we bless the food before I'm done cooking, because once the syrup is done and the plate is piling high with pancakes, my crew can't stand the suspense any longer.
• Grinding popcorn for cornmeal. It's beautiful, fresh and so full of flavor. And a cost saver: I never throw away ancient, half-used boxes of expensive cornmeal anymore. I buy regular popcorn, grind a small handful at a time and throw any extra - no matter how little is left - in a baggie and into the freezer. Then, I use the remnants for tossing on a baking stone before popping rustic bread or pizza pies into the oven.
• Oatmeal pancakes. They must be served with homemade syrup, which is easy to whip up while the pancakes are cooking. Served alongside bacon and perhaps fried eggs, it's the best breakfast ever. But you better get those kids off their tushies and engaged in some strenuous project right after they eat, or everyone will be heading off for naps following this carb-packed meal.

While I'm waiting for the cornbread to be done that I'm baking to go along with Mike's beans for work tonight, I'll share our favorite oatmeal pancake recipe. I'll include a buttermilk syrup recipe, too, but I have to confess, it is good but it isn't our favorite. I believe finding our favorite syrup recipe will be a reward the housecleaning fairies will bestow upon me for cleaning off the top of the refrigerator.

But first, my final favorite discovery - not one I learned in recent years, but from my Grandma Potts, when I was a little girl: drop a slice of homemade cornbread in a bowl, cover it in fresh cream or milk, and sprinkle with sugar. It's a ridiculously rustic, country little treat and I've never eaten it without being transported back to Grandma's little single-wide trailer up on the hill in Pottsville, sitting at the rickety table looking out the kitchen window at Grandpa's beloved roses.

Love from the farm,
Teri

Oatmeal Pancakes

1 C flour (we use 1/2 C wheat, 1/2 C white)
1 C quick oats
2 T honey (or sugar if you don't have honey)
2 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

1.5 C buttermilk (I always just add a teaspoon or two of vinegar to regular milk and let it sit for a few minutes to sour)
1 egg
1/4 C oil

Sour milk and set aside. Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Add buttermilk (or sour milk), eggs and oil (and honey, if you have it); mix well. Cook on a hot griddle or frying pan.

It'll Do Buttermilk Syrup
(this is good, but as soon as I find our favorite syrup recipe, I'll replace this)

2 C sugar
3 T honey (or white Karo syrup)
1/2 C butter
1 tsp baking soda
1 C buttermilk or sour milk (see above for how to sour milk)
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients in a large kettle or saucepan (think deep! The syrup boils up high). Bring to a rolling boil for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Serve over pancakes or French toast.

Keeping It Fresh & Frugal

I find we're living closer and closer to the earth and the community the more we aim to keep it simple, healthy, fresh and frugal around here.

Last week, Mom and I decided to sign up with a produce co-op that delivers boxes of fruit and veggies to a neighboring town every two weeks. $15 a box. Even if I need to get 2 boxes to keep up with our family of 6, that's still quite a bit less than what I'm paying at our national brand grocery store for produce runs. You don't know what you're going to get in advance with the co-op, but the people I've talked to say they've been completely satisfied with the quality and freshness of the produce, with one gal telling me her lettuce kept nearly two weeks. As much as I want to support local businesses - and I do, in as many ways as I can - I have been increasingly disappointed in the quality of some of the produce available at our local grocery store.

In the gap between now and when our garden is producing, I hope the co-op will be a good alternative. My aim is to build a small greenhouse or hoop houses so I can begin growing produce year-round for our family and not be faced with this quandary in years to come.

Today, I sent a message to a family that has a milk cow to see if they're selling milk. I'd love to begin making our butter and yogurt, and Mike would like a little more milk fat in his glass. I hope to learn that 1) they are selling, and 2) that they're raising the cow without hormones and on feed that is all natural and organic.

I also sent a message to my friend who owns the local flower shop with her Mom, to see if she's still selling eggs. Since I'll be picking up new chicks that won't be laying until late summer, I'm back to buying eggs. Again, I'd rather buy from a local source, and thankfully, we have a few from which to choose. (Oh, how I just wanted to say, "to choose from," but I know it's poor grammar. Problem is, the correct way just sounds so darn formal. As much as I love words, at times I loathe grammar. It makes me nervous. At other times, I love grammar. I'm a bit perplexing.)

Anyway.

I'm also going to ask a neighbor if she has extra goat milk to spare that she'd be interested in selling. I've heard from far too many folks about how easy it is to make goat cheeses, and I think it's time to learn. After hearing from a produce worker at Safeway that they were told to expect 50% increases in grocery prices, the more I can make from scratch, the better. Plus, we love feta and goat cheese, so why not make it ourselves? It's bound to be amazing, as homemade usually is. (For those who are wondering, Gertie isn't a milk goat. We'd have to breed her, let her have the babies, let her nurse the babies, and fight the babies for the milk. Even if we didn't have to fight the babies for the milk, we'd have to convince Gertie to let us milk her. As quickly as ring-side seats might sell for that event, I simply don't have the constitution to take her on.)

As we finalize plans to butcher our pigs, I'm looking forward to filling our freezers, our larder and our parents' freezers with hormone-free, antibiotic-free pork. Good, clean food. With our son Tanner's kidney disease, I've become keenly aware of what we're asking our bodies to filter from our systems, and I just want everything that we're taking in to be as clean as possible.

With that in mind, today I fished out the last of the pre-packaged pasta and rice dishes that have been hanging around in the pantry to mix up and give to the dogs because we're out of dog food and I won't make it to the feed store until tomorrow. Not that I think the dogs deserve preservatives, because I don't, but it was nice to see that there is nothing left in the larder that is packed full of mystery ingredients. Plus, the dogs will likely love this rare, warm treat. They get the same old food, day in and day out. I've read with interest lately about how these folks are making home made food for their dogs and I wonder if there isn't some wisdom to that. Since I'm buying quality but not top-of-the-line dog food, I'm not at all convinced they're getting the best of nutrition, which I'm not comfortable with ("...with which I am not comfortable," she said regally, while gesturing to the butler, Jeeves, to refill her wine glass.)

Seriously though, we have stewardship over these creatures in our care, and I want to treat them well.

Speaking of cooking dog food, there was a funny moment today while I prepared the pups' food. I decided to add a couple of eggs to the noodles and rice to give the pups some protein. I found that, for some reason, the eggs had frozen in the fridge. I cracked them, pinched the slushy frozen oval masses from the shells and they plopped into the pot, egg shape intact. When I went back to stir a little later, I was surprised to find the eggs bobbing around the pot, now appearing to be nothing more than peeled, boiled eggs. I thought for sure those eggs would warm up and lose their shape before cooking through. It was an amusing little occurrence. Little white Weebles wobbling across the pot.

OK, I'm obviously just chatting here, so I better wrap it up. Suffice it to say, I'm enjoying choosing local, clean, quality and from scratch. It's good for our health, our community and our pocket book. When I get to start working in my garden, it'll be even better for the soul.

Love from the farm,
Teri

We've Got Some New Voodoo Around Here

I'm not saying we're about to embark on some weird, hippie-dippie adventure around here or anything, I'm just saying that my shopping list yesterday had things on it like this:

• Xylitol


• Amaranth


• Spirulina


• Senna leaf powder


• Apple pectin


• Green clay powder


• Psyllium husk


• Marshmallow root


• Skullcap


• Wormwood


• Walnut hull


• Mullein leaves


• White oat bark


• Wheatgrass


• Feverfew


• ...and more

I couldn't pick these exotic little packages up at Safeway or Bashas'; no, I had to go to the quaint little Sunshine Herbs cottage in Show Low to collect these unusual new members of our household.

Why, you ask, did I stop at this paltry list? Why not pick up eye of newt and cobweb strands while I was at it?

Because, in spite of it sounding like I've got a cauldron bubbling back at the farm, what we've actually got brewing are plans to undertake a major lifestyle change.

One that involves my stopping drinking Pepsi.

I'm scared.

Yet resolute.

And scared.

But really, really resolute.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck.

Love from the farm,
Teri

(P.S. I realize that for the mildly health conscious person, these are not exotic items at all. I know this and am ashamed. Because it points to just how far outside the "natural" health world I've lived. Ah, well. There you have it. Now, I need to go water some moss.)

Healing With Food

Last night, we had this yummy pasta dish that you can find here. It was scrumptious!

What is it about garlic, fresh lemon and spinach that makes you want to stomp your feet in ecstasy? (Am I the only person that stomps in ecstasy? Somehow, closing my eyes isn't expressive enough.)

My sister, friend and I got together last week to swap recipes. Our aim was to come away with 3 weeks' worth of menus that we can all try at home, then compare notes on which recipes are keepers and which are throw aways. Some of the recipes are family favorites, others we've found in favorite cookbooks and blogs.

Our ultimate aim is to work our way towards developing menus with recipes that a) use ingredients that are in season, b) use primarily whole foods, and c) are meatless, for at least one main dish per week. (Once we get into the spring and summer, we'll reduce the amount of meat even further, in keeping with counsel that proscribes eating meat only in winter, when plant-based, nutrient-packed foods are less plentiful, or in times of famine.)

This first round of recipes that we shared didn't quite hit our mark, but I know we'll be refining as we go. In our defense, among the three of us, between the time we met for lunch on Monday and set a date to get back together on Friday, we had a little guy who had multiple seizures resulting in consultations with docs about moving forward with the brain surgery this 3-year-old's family had hoped to avoid; a child with heart issues that landed him in an ambulance then off to the cardiologist 4 hours away; a girlie undergoing her first anesthesia experience for an endoscopy and colonoscopy; and one broken toe. Collectively, we didn't get as much time to prepare for our menus as we'd hoped.

Still, we didn't cancel (well, we rescheduled in the midst of the heart and seizure drama), because the aforementioned health issues in our kiddos were the catalyst for our getting together in the first place. So, while we didn't meet that Friday, we made sure we got together the next.

We feel strongly that we're going to find that a focus on diet and nutrition is going to help our families become healthier. We want to cook clean, seasonal meals and learn more about the antioxidant, immune-boosting, heart healthy, alkaline-encouraging foods that will move our families to greater health.

In another post, I'll detail the many maladies our families need to overcome. Suffice it to say we're taking steps now to break the chains of poor health by treating with diet, even as we work to educate ourselves about other natural health-boosting methods.

We're looking forward to establishing a legacy of good health and healthy habits that will be ingrained in our children from their earliest memories, so healthy living will just be what they do. What better gift could we give our families?

We'll keep you posted on our progress. But for now, take a look at just a few of the yummy dishes we've had this week:

First, let me start off with our guiltiest pleasure. Would any menu be complete without a Pioneer Woman recipe these days? Here's PW's beef stroganoff that we greatly enjoyed during our coldest week this winter. Mike said he would have been happy to leave out the beef and just have the rest, it was that yummy. Mine turned out a little thick - I would thin the sauce next time. Now, this dish doesn't get great marks in the heart-healthy category, but I tell you what, this dish would definitely power you through a day of woodcutting! It's a sturdy meal, for sure. What's awesome about this dish? It doesn't use canned Cream of Anything soup. Decadent, yes, but not full of preservatives.

Early this week we had this Thai pumpkin soup from 101 Cookbooks, whose blog I could happily eat my way through over the next year.

We used more curry paste than she called for, and a little more brown sugar, because if it doesn't taste like a dessert soup, then is it really worth it? ;) Just kidding, we love our non-dessert soups just fine, but it was just so easy to go over the line on this one on a cold winter's night. The kids and I loved it. Mike declared it baby food - but he didn't try the extra brown sugar version, so I'm not sure he made a fair assessment. What I loved about this soup was that I got to use acorn squash, which are just such fun to have riding around in your grocery cart. And, I got to use my new toy, which I know any self-respecting cook has had around her kitchen for years, but I just got mine last month.

I picked up this inexpensive Hamilton Beach hand blender for under $25 at WalMart. This cheapie will do just fine...for now.

After the soup, we tried some quesadillas my sister brought to the table, with spinach, white beans, chicken, whole wheat tortillas and mozzarella cheese. This version of this Southwest favorite was baked rather than grilled or fried. I've misplaced the recipe or I'd include the link here because they are definitely worth trying.

Tonight, we had these Sesame green beans with our Sunday dinner. Soy sauce, sesame seeds, peanut butter, tons of fresh garlic and, yes, brown sugar coating crisp green beans. I decided I could eat these beans for every meal, for every day, for the rest of my life, and be happy. Fat, but oh, so happy!

I am looking forward to making this scrumptious dish tomorrow from the maker of the Thai soup above:

See what I mean? We haven't quite refined our recipe picks, as asparagus isn't in season yet. But, they had some at Safeway yesterday, so I figured all's fair in love and food. (Plus, it's seasonal eating in Australia, right?!?) I'll let you know how this quinoa dish is received. The roasted walnuts and carmelized onions alone have my mouth watering. To be true to the seasonal eating goal, we could trade the asparagus for a roasted root veggie and probably have the same blessed savory experience.

If you haven't guessed, my kiddos have pretty liberal palates, which is a big plus in this culinary adventure. They're up for just about anything, so we'll be able to incorporate lots of new flavors and textures in our diets without anyone clamping their lips shut and refusing to pick up their forks. I know it's going to be fun and I expect we'll be getting healthier along the way.

Happy eating!

Love from the farm,

Teri

Guess What I'm Up To....

I discovered this amazing place called "the public library" today and brought home all these goodies.

Wonder what I'm going to do this weekend? Oh, OK, I'll tell you.

I'm planning our garden: seed inventory, calendar for seed starts, layout, etc. In fact, I ran into a friend at Safeway today and let her know I am going to hit her dad up for some of his fantastic, black, rotting poo to spread over my garden. She said, "Well, git on it!" in her darling ranch-girl drawl. And I only realize now that it's a testament to us all being steeped in country life that she didn't for even a millisecond look startled that I was going to ask her dad to give me some of his, well, you know...she immediately knew I was talking about the black gold steer manure that sits in a huge pile behind his corral, and which I've visited before.

So, I'm planning my garden. And I'm also working on a menu that holds to the ideal of eating foods in season. I'm going to tell you more about this new adventure my sister, friend and I are undertaking soon related to healthier, clean eating and other lifestyle improvements.

It is soul-soothing for me to immerse myself in these kinds of projects, focused on the good and abundance. After a week of more hospital time for two of my kiddos and adding a heart condition to my kidney kid's kidney troubles, and trying to get to the bottom of a sweet girl's ongoing tummy issues, I'm not sure I could be more focused on clean, healthy, pure living.

I know we'll only be improving on a life we already love, and that's already pretty darn good, so only great things can come from this time of focus and planning.

By the way, I think I'll be spending MUCH more time in that lovely library - how have I gotten to this age without truly grasping how cool libraries are? I sense I'll be wearing the edges off my library card in no time.

Now, will it be rows again or raised beds this year? Or both.... How to improve my wildly inefficient watering system? Which heirloom varieties will I try this year? What color should my gardening boots be?!? Off I go!

Love from the farm,
Teri

Gertie Is A Manipulative Shrew

Just today as I was lugging a pressure canner of chicken to the camp stove outside I thought, "Hmmm, Gertie hasn't been up to the house in a few days. It's unusual not to see her out the front window more often."

So, it was with a touch, a touch, of delight that I saw her rotund little goat belly jostling its way past the door a few minutes later. She banged against the door a few times. "Ahh, that Gertie...," I chuckled, "There's my girl."

Now it's evening and I just went out to pull the last canner of the night off the outdoor stove and Gertie saw her opening. Taking advantage of my cumbersome burden, she sneaked in behind me and darted out of sight, and I was almost to the counter with the canner before I heard her telltale clip-clopping letting me know she'd made it in.

There she stood in the kitchen looking from me to the cereal cupboard expectantly. Expectantly! She knows the crunchy treats are kept in that cupboard and she had no intention of leaving until she'd scored some. Grumbling that I couldn't believe the indignity of bowing to a goat's demands just to get said goat out of my house, I grabbed a handful of Corn Chex and began the game: give her a Corn Chex (or Triscuit, or Melba Round, or potato chip...) and take 2 backwards steps toward the door, give her a treat, take two more steps, and continue till you lure her right out the door.

Well, we made it across the kitchen and the dining room and I had just butted the door open and stepped outside when I noticed her shift her weight, plant her feet and crane her outstretched lips just as far as she could towards the Corn Chex, not daring to lose her step and stumble forward. Sensing I was on to her, her eyes suddenly widened, her fur flew straight up down her back, and she turned and bolted for the kitchen.

I couldn't believe her gall.

Nor could I believe that I was reduced to walking back into the kitchen, scooping out another handful of Corn Chex, and starting the charade all over again. With no intention of being outsmarted again, I lunged for Gertie's collar and just managed to snag it although she'd already tried to duck away. I was (jerked about a few times) now fully in charge and drug Gertie skidding and grunting out the front door.

Seriously, what did I do to deserve that darn goat? And why do I love the silly little turd?

Gertie aside, I mentioned the pressure canner. Turns out, you can eke out 62 pints from 80 pounds of chicken, and that's mighty gratifying to see all lined up on the table. And the counters.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must say Lynda was not squeamish, rather she got right to trimming fat and stuffing the cold meat in the jars. And, to give her credit, if she hadn't convinced me to borrow a couple of additional canners and the aforementioned camp stove from a friend, we would have surely been at it all night. The prep part is fast - it's the processing for 75 minutes per batch that does make the project drag on.

So, the jar lids are plinking, the goat is outside and the fire is burning. All is right in our world.

Hope it is in yours, too.

Love from the farm,
Teri

Chicken In a Jar

If you're looking for me today, you'll find me canning 80 pounds of chicken breasts at our big farm table.

An Aside: When we lived in the suburbs of the Phoenix metropolitan area, calling it a "farm table" made all the sense in the world. Now that we live on a little farm, it kind of seems like calling it "Chinese food" in China - don't you think there they probably just call it "food"? Still, it's really long, it's made of wood and there's a bench. It really is a farm table, and for descriptive purposes I've opted to call it that. Just to be clear.

OK, back to the chicken. My sister and I will be canning the chicken today that we got through a bulk order with other community folks yesterday. I don't believe Lynda has canned chicken before; I'm rather looking forward to what I anticipate will be her squeamish reaction. Since she eschews so much of farm life, this should be fun. Of course, if I really wanted to trigger her gag reflex, I'd have her around to butcher our own chickens and prepare them for canning, which I promise you would be a much messier proposition than the clean, trimmed breasts we'll be handling today. Truth be told, I haven't yet had an un-squeamish reaction to butchering day, and we haven't technically had one here on the farm, so I guess my mockery of my sister may be a little hypocritical. Not that I'm going to let that stop me, mind you.

"Hello, Kettle, my name's Pot, and you're black."

In addition to the chicken canning, Adam will be shredding a 40-pound block of cheddar cheese that we'll put in gallon bags for freezing. We were able to get the cheese for about $2 a pound, and the chicken for somewhere around $1.50 per pound or less, so we couldn't pass up the chance to shore up our food supplies.

I was nervous about canned chicken, I'll admit, when my sister-in-law Kammy first mentioned it to me several years ago. Then I tried it and realized it's just like the canned chicken you buy in a store to use in salads and enchiladas and the like. I use ours for those purposes, plus for tostadas, chicken and dumplings, and really anything else I would put shredded chicken in. I can tell you it's a lot more flavorful and a lot less expensive than the store version, and it is the easiest thing that I've canned, so far.

Now excuse me, I need to go get the pressure canner and a bunch of pint jars out of the summer kitchen, then go in search of rings and lids for the jars. I already have my apron on, so really, I'm half-way ready already.

(Remember my promise to have more pictures? Well, ok, if you're going to get technical about it - any pictures? They're coming, soon, I promise. Again.)

Love from the farm,
Teri

I'm Thinking...

...about a few changes around here. Not only here at the little farm, but also HERE, on this little corner of the e-mosphere.

It was when I was pulling on a quilted denim jacket to take the kids to school this morning in our big red truck that I had another one of those moments when I realized how dramatically our life has changed over the past few years. And that I'm as comfortable in this new life as I am in this quilted jacket.

In our old life, I was dressed in "career clothes" most days - or I was making a mad dash to Macy's just before a meeting to buy new career clothes to frantically change into before a meeting. Because my life was so chaotic, I didn't think of these as "new" clothes so much as "clean" clothes, because I never seemed to get around to taking any of my other perfectly suitable clothes to the drycleaners. This is a very expensive form of wardrobe management that I do not recommend to others.

Most days, I was off to meetings and off-site offices, and could go days without seeing my four sweet kiddos. I'd leave before they awoke and get home long after they'd gone to bed - if I came home at all. I'm embarrassed to admit, I'd pull all-nighters sometimes because I was so unable to figure out a balance between a busy PR/marketing career and a young, growing, ever-changing family. I entrusted the care and raising of my children to my sweet husband and a fantastic nanny, and I squeezed in cherished moments where I could.

I also made myself good and sick, missed out on moments I'll never retrieve, likely left gaps in my children's experiences that only a mother could adequately fill, and was jealous of every moment I could eke out with my family. We were making a good living, but our life was out of control and we felt almost frantic to change it.

If life was a movie, then the rare moments when I was in my kitchen on a Sunday morning before church, donning my apron and pulling out the wheat grinder to make steaming loaves of homemade bread would have been a prime example of foreshadowing. You know, those little scenes in a book or movie that tip you off to a major plot line still to come?There was something magical about putting on that apron, and seeing my little ones' excitement as they'd peer into the noisy grinder, watching the wheat kernels rumble their way down the chute. I felt more like a mother at those moments than at any other. I felt grounded and like I was doing something right, though I didn't know why.

I've since discovered why.

It's because I was meant to live a simpler life. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the city and the good people who I dearly loved and worked with. I enjoyed my work, I was good at it. But, truth be told, I became less and less able to get it done well or dependably as the years went on. My life in the city and in a demanding but sometimes glamorous or intensely important career, slowly ground to a halt. I had known for years that I wasn't living the real life for me and my family, and eventually, I couldn't force the two opposing identites to keep going any longer.

Now, I wasn't thinking all of these things at the time - these are realizations I made as time has passed. At the time, I only knew things weren't whole or complete and that I was getting more ill, and we weren't reaping the rewards of all of our hard work. And if we didn't make a change soon, our family would suffer in sad, small, half-life ways.

So, things fell into place in odd little inspired ways and we took off to a rural setting. We live just outside the city limits on a back county road. We have nearly 3 acres of what used to be a larger homestead. We live in a hodge-podge home originally built in 1927, and it needs a LOT of work. The property has a weathered old barn that I find beautiful, beat up outbuildings and bays, and appliances dotting the landscape that span the decades that have passed since the house was built.

Since we've been here, our fortunes have changed. Our youngest boy fell dramatically ill with a kidney disease that knocked me out of the 9-to-5 world at about the same time the U.S. economy REALLY crashed in 2008, taking most of my clients with it. My husband left a great job that made use of his incredible skills for one that would offer the substantial health benefits we'd need to cover our son's medical requirements. We had already ripped up all of the old carpet in the house and were looking forward to digging in and turning this place into a beautiful little farmstead in the country when we found ourselves suddenly trying to get by on 1/5 of our previous income.

So, two years later, we still have a concrete slab (complete with a crack) in our front room, and plywood flooring in the living room, and few noticeable improvements to the property. (Although, we have made a very handsome chicken yard, if I do say so myself.) I chuckle when I think about the budget I drew up when we first bought this place. I included a monthly home improvement line item of $3,000, which we figured we'd easily accommodate at the time. Well, that was then, and this is now.

I love now.

I love that I've learned to be thrifty and frugal in ways I never imagined I could. I love that I am drawing on the example of cheerful hard work that my Grandma Potts modeled when I was a young girl working by her side. I love that I am making a home instead of visiting one in the wee hours. I love that I'm with my kids throughout the days and running a flute to the school when it was forgotten, and smoothing a brow when it needs smoothed, rather than calling a much-loved nanny to make sure she does it for me. I love that I can't wait for school to get out for summer, so I can soak up even more time with my kids.

We didn't anticipate our stars would change so dramatically when we made this move, but we are in exactly the right place to make the best of this new alignment and I'm grateful for our new circumstances.

After more than 2 years of adjusting, learning, paring down, doing without, humbling ourselves and being humbled, I think we're ready to begin building up again. Not moving up, but enhancing this place that we love, even in all its dilapidated glory.

Here is where we'll share what we're doing and the progress we're making. We're going to be working on many fronts: becoming expert gardeners, turning this house into a home, doing what we can to improve the health of family members, getting a better handle on the animal part of farming (the local coyote population will miss their fast-food offerings from our little farm), and making our property beautiful and abundant. I'll continue this thrifty and frugal lifestyle, continue to emphasize homemade, from-scratch cooking, expand my preserving and "putting by", and do what I can to promote buying local.

I'll tell tales of Pottsville and Gertie the Goat as we go along, I'm sure, because all of those experiences color the life we have here.

All this means I'll have to get busy with the camera, so you can expect more than just reams of words (do I hear a great big hallelujah?!?).

I love our life. I love that after more than 2 years of intense learning and concern and some sorrow over the sorry lot our sweet boy has been handed, I feel a weight lifted that signals we've learned how to embrace this new dynamic in our family and find joy not only in spite of it, but also because of it - for the wisdom and blessings and increased appreciation for small moments that has been part of this unexpected and cumbersome package.

I love the promise of spring and new birth and growth that refreshes the world and our senses, if we'll let it. I'm ready to let it and I know this place, and our family, is going continue to be renewed.

Now, I'm going to go figure out how to use our camera then we'll get going.

Love from the farm,
Teri

A Bit O' the Bubbly

'Twas a blustery day today in northeastern Arizona. Just ask my pal Em, who witnessed the car door slamming shut on me as I shrieked like a little girl. I'm sure she was checking to see which appendage was stunted; all I can say is it's time to cut my hair.

Nothing like having a chunk of hair unceremoniously yanked nearly out of my scalp to send me reeling back to 1974 when all the teeth in my head were still babies, my hair was more than halfway down my back, the summer was hot and muggy, and the back window to the station wagon was down. Then it started to rain.

I closed my eyes and tilted my chin up to catch the refreshing cool offered by the rain drops, so I didn't see the window inching up, taking my hair right along with it. Dad wasn't quite as sympathetic as Em when I shrieked lo those many years ago. Remember the shag haircut? Yep, that was my style of choice after that little fiasco. I won't be going the shag route this time, but there's no question that a haircut is on the horizon.

The gale-force winds put the kibosh on our plans for the day, which included trips to the dump (imagine my sorrow at putting that chore off). So, instead, I enjoyed a nice little visit with Aunt Barbara who brought us our onions for the garden. We talked about our gardening and canning plans, admired the beauty and aroma of the pickling spices Mom and I recently ordered, and then I shared with her the laundry soap recipe that we've been using here on the farm for awhile now.

After errands in town and a few chores around here, I made myself a batch of the bubbly brew while I worked on supper this evening. (For those of you who do not have family hailing from the South, "supper" is the word that most of those living to the right of the Mississippi use for "dinner". "Dinner" in the South usually means the mid-day meal. Just a little down home Kentucky trivia for you.)

So, since I teased you once before about my laundry soap recipe, here it is for any intrepid soul who would like to undertake this quirky little task. All I can say is it's septic safe, it gets rid of all manner of farm grunge, and it lasts about 4 months with our family of 6. And, while I used to spend about $20 a box on my beloved Tide with bleach every couple of months, I spent about $7 on the ingredients for the homemade soap when I made my first batch, and that was 3 batches ago. And, I still have enough ingredients remaining for at least 2 more batches. Just a little thrifty and frugal tidbit for you.

Thanks to my sweet friend Tracy for sharing the recipe. And for being a perfectly normal, bra-wearing, makeup-donning person, so I don't feel as though I've gone too far down the backwoods babe route (or if I have, that at least I'm in good company.)

Laundry Soap
1 Bar of Zote soap
1 C Borax
1 C Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
5 Gallon bucket

Put 4 cups of water in a large pot and place on stove over medium-low heat. Grate Zote soap into pot. Heat until soap melts, stirring frequently. (This takes awhile - grab a book or plan to do some deep thinking.)

When the soap is nearly melted, fill the bucket about half full with piping hot tap water. Add melted soap to water and stir briskly (I use a whisk). Stir in Borax and washing soda. Fill bucket the rest of the way with hot water, give it another stir. Cover and let sit undisturbed overnight.

Resulting detergent will be a lumpy, watery gel. If desired, add a few drops of your favorite essential oil.

Use 1/4 c per load.

________________________________________________

Friend Tracy said her sister fills an empty liquid detergent container (like an old Tide bottle) half full of the finished soap mixture, then fills the bottle the rest of the way with water, giving it a good stir with the whisk when mixing initially, and giving it a vigorous shake before using at laundry time. The sister lives on a horse ranch, so her family sports some impressive dirt, yet she maintains that she gets great results with the diluted mixture.

I haven't wanted to mess with funneling the soap into a smaller container so I just use it full-strength from the bucket and have no complaints.

The only drawback of making the soap is that now I don't have an excuse to avoid laundry any longer. With this wind whipping around, I certainly ought to save the energy on the dryer and hang my clothes outside too, if I wanted to be a super thrifty and earth-conscious human being. But, I'm not gonna this month. I'm going to use my dryer until the nighttime temps are consistently above freezing. Hey, I'm cleaning clothes at about a penny a load, if that. - I think I've earned the right to a little (temporarily) extravagant living with a dryer and a Bounce sheet.

Love from the farm,
Teri

Gearing Up For Spring

We continue to have fun on the farm, especially as animal antics keep us laughing (or blushing: good grief, it's been a love fest - cats, dogs, poultry... these critters are all about Valentine's Day, I tell you). But, as the days grow longer and we have more and more hours when we can go outside without a coat, winter is easing back to reveal spring just around the corner, and it's going to get busy.

In addition to the animal antics, there's lots of hard work to be had around here. Here's the realities of farm life - both what we're doing on a daily basis, as well as what's on the horizon:

Daily, we:

• Feed and water: 17 chicks; 1 rooster; 1 hen; 3 cats; 2 horses; 3 dogs; 1 lonely goat; 6 people
• Gather egg (come July, that will be amended to read "eggs")
• Wash tomorrow clothes (I haven't mastered laundry yet)
• Take care of the feeding, cleaning, brushing, gargling, dressing, medicating, transporting, hugging, kissing and homework assisting of 4 kiddos and 2 adults

Every other day, we:

• Replace the straw in the chicks' brooder box
• Clean up the poo in the horse corral (the other horse's owners clean the poo on alternating days)

This week we also:

• Took a (most-likely pregnant) cat in to the vet to have an abscess treated. While Noodle was under sedation, Abbie the Vet also cleaned out her ears and treated for mites
• Which resulted in the plan to bring the other two cats in to be treated for ear mites, since this is a condition they like to share with one another. We were supposed to drop off the cats at the vet this morning, but for once the usually clingy cats were nowhere to be found. Mike and I roamed the farm for awhile but had to get into town, so the mite extermination will have to wait
• Made an appointment for Abbie the Vet to come out to sedate Buddy the Horse and take care of some man issues for him next week
• Will check with the gardening folks in Woodruff to see if they've made their annual community onion order, which we're hoping to get in on this year. Those Woodruff farmers grow the biggest, sweetest onions you ever saw and I've been coveting them for a couple years now. Every so often, I call my Aunt Barbara and say, "Have you ordered the onions yet? Don't forget me." I actually went to bed last night and woke up today worrying I might have missed the onion order. I'll be calling right after finishing this little update.
• Took a quick trip down to Phoenix in back for doctor appointments and whole food shopping.

These are the quiet, laid back days on the farm.

Here's what's starting this weekend and running into next week:

• Meet the farrier at the horse barn, for the horses' regular hoof trimming. Gotta keep Buddy's nails trimmed so he stays in sturdy health.
• Inventory the leftover seed from last year
• Develop the garden plan for this year; map out new plots of land to be plowed and improved to allow for expansion of the garden
• Complete the rehab of the new, used rototiller Mike brought home last week. Thanks, Uncle Rich!
• Determine from which plants we'll want to save seed at the end of the harvest, and research heirloom varieties. (Seeds from hybrid plants will not sprout; you must save seeds from heirloom, or open-pollinated, plant varieties. Growing heirloom varieties allows you to help preserve old strains of seeds. I was moved to tears when my Uncle Rich stopped by to give me a quart jar 1/3 of the way filled with colorful, precious bean seeds from our old family farm in Kentucky. I can't wait to get this little piece of our family's heritage transplanted into our Arizona farm.)
• Review countless seed catalogs and get new seeds ordered for this year
• Check on the onion order again
• Read up on how soon we need to start sprouting potatoes for this year's potato planting
• Make seed-starter pots from newspaper
• Plant seeds in the starter pots and begin growing seedlings in the house for eventual transplant into our garden
• Find out the source of compost you can buy by the truckload somewhere in Snowflake
• Move the chicks to a larger brooding box; they've outgrown the crib, but aren't quite ready for the coop. Think of this as their toddler bed stage.
• Fix the neighbor's fence the horses leaned over to get to the munchies on the other side. Apparently, they too believe the grass is always greener over there.
• Try our hands at making the "mother" for sourdough bread, per dear friend Emily's insistence

When warmer days are firmly upon us, here are the other things we'll be engaging in:

• Tearing down the rickety old horse corral
• Finishing the covered chicken run
• Cleaning out the chicken coop and putting down fresh litter
• Cleaning the hay off the barn floor at the neighbor's and bringing it over to the farm to use as litter in the chicken run. (Once Adam starts yard work for my Mom and Dad again this spring, we'll bring the clippings home to use as litter, as well. Since we can't let the chickens free range because of aggressive predators, we don't want them scratching around in a barren, depressing, dirty run. We'll refresh the litter in their run often with green clippings, giving them clean, new stuff to munch on and scratch around in. I can't wait until we can afford to properly predator-proof the exterior of our property, thereby allowing us to allow the chickens to roam free again. They're happier, fatter, their feathers are glossier, and they eat more natural, less commercially produced, foods when they free range. Their yolks are darker, too.)
• Finding a source for new piglets
• Building a new pig pen, with a dedicated water source
• Plowing, plowing, plowing, plowing the garden area
• Planting grass seed in dusty areas surrounding the house, to cut down on the flying dirt
• Asking our hay farmer friend if we can again relieve him of some of the decaying steer poo on his property, to spread on the garden
• Bolting the lifting tin strips back onto the barn roof and the back of the storage buildings at the front of the property
• Renting a huge dumpster to haul all of the scrap metal, extra refrigerators, rolls of carpeting and various other leavings of the previous owners of this nearly 85-year-old homestead
• Stocking up on straw for the straw bale fencing that Mike will be constructing around the house, marking the start of our property renovation. We just spent hours last week in a Barnes and Noble, poring over courtyard designs, outdoor cooking areas, lighting plans, landscaping - we're overflowing with ideas.
• Laying the tile in the house
• Replacing the rest of the windows in the house
• Starting the kids' egg selling operation
• Buying and raising additional chicks so the kids will have a decent-sized egg selling operation
• Planning our Walker Family Summer Road Trip; our big 12-day adventure in July that will be our last hurrah before sending Adam off for two years to some as-yet-undisclosed location, somewhere in the world
• Tearing out the pantry cupboards and replacing with open shelving
• Inventorying all of the food stores we have and developing a rotation plan so nothing goes to waste
• Improving the watering system for the garden
• Establishing a composting system
• Developing and planting an orchard area, or at least getting a few fruit trees in the ground
• Making more laundry soap
• Reclaiming my bread making prowess
• Developing the 3/4-acre pasture that we have not yet put into production
• Spending hours upon hours weeding, coaxing, and relishing the garden
• ....and oh, so much more.

The lazy winter days are about to give way to some serious work around here. In fact, if you don't hear from me until October, you'll understand why.

Love from the farm,

Teri

Laundry Confessions (Email Classics)

Written July 12, 2009

I'm a bona fide weirdo, I've decided, as I have unearthed yet another little startling revelation about myself this summer: I LOVE hanging clothes out to dry on the clothesline. Who knew?

I love any excuse to be outside, and there's just something delicious about hanging the clothes. Feeling the hot breeze instantly cooled when it hits the damp clothes and hearing the wind snap the clothes like an ornery jock popping his buddy with a towel in the locker room. It's just lovely for some reason. I can't explain it. The caveat is that I am certain I will not enjoy doing it in winter, so I will go back to using my dryer.

I suppose while I'm confessing, I should also confess that I actually made homemade laundry soap a few weeks back and I'm loving that, too. For about $7, I made enough soap for 600+ loads. And, I have enough supplies left over to make at least 2 more batches. Sure beats the 90 loads of Tide I was paying $20 for, plus this stuff is easier on our septic system. And, if my family had extremely sensitive skin, which we don't, it'd be easier on our epidermis, too. With farm laundry for 6, this is the best investment I've made yet! [laundry soap recipe to come]

Apparently, at some point in the past year, I died quietly in my sleep, and my Grandma Potts' industrious spirit decided to have a second go at life, this time in my body. If I begin telling stories of ant families and insisting my kids dance an Irish jig when we plant potatoes, call for a priest because it will be time to give Grandma the heave ho. There were times when I wanted to hide Grandma's stupid Reader's Digest "Back to the Basics" book with all its coffee-can-cheese-making, lye-soap-boiling, cottage-cheese-curdling nonsense. Now I love all that stuff. My poor kids.

Below is a little ditty about clothes lines.

Love from the farm,
Teri

(P.S. Oh, one more reason I love hanging out clothes? Because, when I bump open the screen door with my hip to carry the heavy basket of wet clothes out to the line, I get to hear the door SLAM behind me. And that, after all, is one of the things that sold me on this place. My slamming screen door. Which Mike has promised that he'll never replace as long as we both shall live. I'd like to exact the same promise from my children, for after we've passed.)

THE CLOTHES LINE POEM
Clothes line was a news forecast to dry.

It also was a friendly link
For neighbors always knew
If company had stopped on by
To spend a night or two.
For then you'd see the 'fancy sheets'
And towels upon the line;
You'd see the 'company table cloths'
With intricate design.
The line announced a baby's birth
To folks who lived inside
As brand new infant clothes were hung
So carefully with pride.
The ages of the children could
So readily be known
By watching how the sizes changed
You'd know how much they'd grown.
It also told when illness struck,
As extra sheets were hung;
Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,
Haphazardly were strung.
It said, 'Gone on vacation now'
When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, 'We're back!' when full lines sagged
With not an inch to spare.
New folks in town were scorned upon
If wash was dingy gray,
As neighbors carefully raised their brows,
And looked the other way.
But clotheslines now are of the past
For dryers make work less.
Now what goes on inside a home
Is anybody's guess.
I really miss that way of life.
It was a friendly sign
When neighbors knew each other best
By what hung on the line!

~Marilyn K. Walker