Tanglewood Farm - A Pinch of Something Nice

In the kitchen: black currant and wild european blackberry sauce

2012-02-22T07:53:00.001-08:00

(Sorry to double post this - it began as an accident but I figured I'd leave this up here in case you wanted to follow what I'm doing in my bakery kitchen this morning. Visit http://tanglewoodbakery.blogspot.com for more posts!)

Today I'm mixing up several cookie doughs and other sweets but what I am most excited about are the fillings for my tartlets.

This week's tartlets will be extra special as I'll be cooking down a rich and earthy fruit paste made from local black currants and locally foraged wild blackberries (European variety, naturalized).

I expect these to be super flavorful with hints of summer wines. I may yet put them over a chocolate or other base when they're in their final tartlet form. I'm hoping for now that they'll stand alone just fine, as I expect them to.

Alas

2012-02-19T10:23:00.001-08:00

No sap flow today, but I've got half my spiles in and waiting!

I have been so berry busy..

2012-02-18T05:19:00.000-08:00

I was going to apologize for the title of this post, but... nah.

Well folks, it's been a while, and as a consequence I realize I've lost some readers which is a huge bummer... but, but, but! I've been so busy! I go through phases of extreme mania this time of year any time we get a break in the weather, and Michigan seems to be offering break after break after break. It's hard to sit still long enough to write a blog post, unless part of that sitting still involves the comatose collapse after overworking myself in the garden or at the horse farm. We got a dusting of snow the other day; really it was four inches or so, but the next day it was nearly 40º outside so I call it a dusting since it only stuck around for a few hours...

Those few hours of snow were kind of a blessing though because they provided me with an excuse to crash between manic activities. The photo above is of the preparations for our 2012 berry garden. I forget if I've posted on this yet, but I'll be harvesting from seven rows of mature red raspberry bushes (30 ft rows), two rows of mature purple raspberry and two shorter (15 ft) rows of mature blackberry bushes this year. In addition to these beauties, I'll be planting at least 20 new blackberries, 24 gooseberries and 24 currants, in various varieties. This doesn't even begin to touch on the strawberries I have plans for!

While it was warm enough to melt the top few inches of snow this week I was able to get some belated weeding done. We have a serious problem with perennial turf grasses sneaking into raised beds. Ugh, what a drag. We are also plagued by catnip and creeping charlie, or ground ivy (which I find so satisfying to pull out by the arm load, so that's alright!) While weeding, I couldn't help but smile happily at the itty bitty wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) leaves I would find popping up here and there. They are incredibly hardy, but I still tucked them back into bed after I weeded, under some leaves and straw, just in case.

So if you haven't already picked on it, I feel I should point out that I've finally embraced my love for all things fruit and I've decided to replace many of the less desirable points of landscape around our place with fruiting plants. I will still vegetable garden, totally, but I will keep my veggies a little lower key this year, planting primarily things I can direct sow or let self seed. I want my veggies to be a little more... liberated. I'll be interplanting certain semi-shade-tolerant veggies with the berry patches and i'll still have a handful of raised beds designated for them, but I've given myself over to the siren that is fruit gardening, mostly perennial fruit. I've also made plans to convert my cutting green gardens to covered european melon beds, with strawberries interplanted beneath the slanted panels (they'll get crowded out of their sunlight, but not until after their June fruiting season when the melons really take off... at least that's my hope.)

(On a side note, I've recently applied to a government germplasm bank to receive tissue samples of some incredibly old Frageria x ananassa cultivars to use in some kinda geeky research that I'd like to do involving historical vs modern gardening techniques and the antique strawberry - one of these varieties is even documented as being bred at the turn of the 18th century! I will keep you posted on this - even if I don't receive the tissue samples, I have found a few resources for 19th century varieties that I can use.)

Another aspect of my yard that I've decided to dominate with fruit-bearing plants is the West-facing wall that runs behind the long garage. We don't actually have use of the garage; it's used to store golf course maintenance equipment, but I contacted our land lady (who has GOT to be the best land lady ever... and I don't even think she reads this blog so I'm not sucking up here) and she gave me permission to plant espaliered fruits along that wall! I've always wanted to train fruits to a wall, and this wall almost creates a Victorian courtyard feel to our yard, which I really enjoy and want to embrace.

Yesterday I spent hours clearing the wall. It was plagued by some of the largest multiflora rosa bushes I have ever seen (with canes literally three inches thick!) and the image above seriously shows about half of the length of the wall I cleared. The bushes were huge! You can kind of make out the break in the grass (by the loppers) that shows how far they extended into the yard. I also cleared out years of junk that had been tossed behind those bushes, before our time. There were pallets, logs, old industrial wire, plastic... all SORTS of stuff! I threw away the garbage and dragged the rest of it to the windbreak of pines we have at the West side of the yard where I used it to close a few holes in the existing brush where the ducks like to scramble through to the other side of the old fencing.

This is a photo that shows the finished wall. I left an adolescent crabapple tree down at the far end because it provides some awesome crabapples that I like to use for canning and we have a pair of orioles that occasionally nest in it in spring. Apart from that, with a bit more work on the existing stumps, this wall will be the new home to three fan-trained blackberry bushes (maybe five if I can clear out behind my raised beds), two fanned cherries, two espaliered pears and two fanned apricots. (I know apricots are impossible to grow, but I'm hoping that by keeping them against the west wall they will flower later and thus be sheltered from late frosts... hoping). I want to avoid growing many pears and apples because the several antique cousins looming over the property harbor a lot of disease that would make it inevitable that they would struggle. I may give in, though, especially if I find them cheap! I've got all sorts of walls I can train plants to on my house, too! LOL.

So yes, I haven't been blogging, but I've been doing so much more! Learning about espalier and prepping for spring has been keeping me very busy. What have you been up to, readers? Anything to prep for the impending spring?

Spring shouldn't be Springing...

2012-02-02T05:58:00.000-08:00

We've been enjoying the strangest weather here at Tanglewood. This week has offered two days hovering in the mid-to-high 50's, and the rest of the week has been and will be in the 40's. My usual February activities are almost exclusively house-bound, apart from the occasional slogging of hot water to the barn if the hydrant has frozen again.

Last year on this very date we were recovering from a snow storm that dumped feet of snow on us; I had to climb fences to get to my horses, as the gates wouldn't open in the deep snow. This year is in stark contrast, as yesterday I spent almost my entire day in a sweatshirt and muck boots, dividing berry bushes and digging holes for the 87 berry plants I've just ordered (Yikes. That number looks bigger when I type it here...)

Today I intend to spend my time doing the same, taking a break in the mid-day to grab lunch with my brother and then slogging out to tap some Box Elder trees in the hopes that this year produces at least a little sap run despite the bizarre weather.

The crazy thing is, things are actually starting to break hibernation in this heat wave! The peach tree buds have the tiniest bit of swell to them that, if I hadn't inspected them closely last week, I would never have noticed. I have to wonder how this is going to affect our fruit production state-wide, this year. I can't imagine it's going to be good.

Crazier still, when I went outside yesterday morning and checked the pussy willows, they were tightly closed, the buds showing only minimal swelling. By noon, however, six of them had begun to swell so much that they were bursting open! This weather is strange, indeed.

Are you experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures where you live? How are the plants and animals taking it?

(Also, has anybody ever tapped Box Elder trees? I just learned that they produce a delicious sap for syrup and our place is literally plagued by them!)

On Tomatoes and Planning to do Nothing

2012-01-30T11:47:00.000-08:00

You know.. I was thinking the other day. Every year, I have some volunteer tomato plants pop up here and there, and I rarely deter them from doing so. Every year I've been pleasantly surprised by the tasty results of said volunteers... and so this year...

I think I'm going to lay off the tomato planting.

At the end of 2011 I gave up on trying to keep up with the ripe tomatoes. I had planned poorly, staked wimpily and decided pretty much that the slugs could have the tomato plants. There were plenty of heirloom tomatoes out there, rotting on the ground. Thus, the tomato kingdom fell prey to various nasties (though I was incredibly surprised to only find two hornworms the entire season!)

This winter, I've been reading up on winter sowing as well as do-nothing farming, as conceived by Masanobu Fukuoka. I've posted about this before (though I can't find the post to link to it) and I'm thinking this year I'm going to put my faith in the seeds of last year's laziness. :) I was late planting my tomatoes last year and because of that and the terrible lack of fruit-setting heat, I got very few tomatoes before the slugs were strong enough to chase me out of the garden with their slimy sluginess. Ew. Because of all of this, I'm feeling a little pre-defeated... I don't want to deal with it again. Not like last year.

So. Theoretically if I let the tomatoes do their own thing this year I should get fruit similar to the open-pollinated and heirloom varieties I planted last year, right? On vines that sprout when they think it's best to sprout, grow straight from the ground and never know the restricting walls of a cellpack or a seeding tray... right?

If it doesn't work... well, I'll see that early enough that I can probably purchase some more mature plants and catch up more conventionally. I just can't help but feel my anxiety levels begin to creep up as soon as I open the seed catalogues to the entire chapter of tomato varieties that they offer. Hundreds of varieties, people. It's overwhelming. I don't want to plan tomato patches. I want to plan neat little rows of things like lettuce and beets... and long-term projects like the blackberry and gooseberry patches.

So that's my plan. I'll amend the soil a bit with some composted manure in the spring, and I'll till the pathways, weed and thin seedlings... but apart from that, Mr. Tomato, You are on your own for 2012.

xoxo

Hero's First Arena Turn Out

2012-01-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

Today was the day I'd both been looking forward to and dreading; This was the day I had planned to let Hero loose in the indoor riding arena to really see her progress.

It's a scary thing to do because since her ligament injury she has had very little change to walk around, let alone run. Horses with a lot of energy can do stupid things, injuring themselves with a wrong turn or twist, and if she re-injures that ligament she's toast... I'd hate to retire her at seven years old!

So here is the video of her strutting her stuff in the indoor. She only bolted a few times up and down the long side of the arena, and each time she did some fancy turns and stops that made my stomach do flips, but she didn't re-injure herself and she managed to wear herself out after a few short minutes.

What a good day!

O Hai Winter! There You Are!

2012-01-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

Brighid found winter, and so did I! That snow storm was such a nice polite reminder that we're actually in the winter months. I had just been talking to Jeremy about how I wasn't feeling ready to start planning garden stuff and how I was feeling overwhelmed and underenthusiastic.

Then, overnight, we got 5 inches of snow and my attitude changed completely. The snow has covered up everything that had me stressed. I can't see the piles of rubbish waiting to be hauled to the compost pile. I can't see the garden hose in the north garden that I forgot to drain and coil.

All I can see are the gardens in my mind's eye and those gardens look fantastic!

Are you planning your gardens yet? If so, what are you planning?

Hero's Day Out

2012-01-19T04:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a good day, despite some difficult twists and turns. The biggest highlight of my day, and probably my week, was that I got to sit on the back of my horse, Hero, who is recovering from a bad ligament strain (possibly even a tear; we're not sure.)

This Sunday will mark the tenth consecutive week that Hero has spent in a box stall. She originally had an abscessed hoof, and unfortunately the ligament injury was compensatory for that. Poor Hero. The first week or two was really rough. She wouldn't stand on her abscessed hoof and she couldn't stand on her injured leg, so she literally spent more than a week standing on two legs, only setting the tips of her toes down to balance occasionally. She already has leg issues, as she as malnourished as a foal, and her front legs are two different lengths, her right foot being somewhat clubby. The vet, and my own trainer whom I really look up to, told me that she'd be a good school horse but she'd probably never excel at anything. Before her injury, however, she was working on second level movements in dressage including half pass and she was really starting to collect, and she had jumped 3'9" with beautiful form and ease... psh... That's excelling in my book!

I kept a pressure wrap on her leg for more than eight weeks straight, changing it several times a week and dealing with poor Hero's irritated antics (kicking, biting, shoving, head waggling..) because the poor thing is so bored in that stall. She is used to being turned out 24/7, and she took her playing in the field very seriously before this. For the first month, I kept her in her stall in the middle of the barn and she was outright MEAN to anybody or any horse that came by. She would lunge through the opening by the grain bin and try to bite, she would spin and kick if you came into the stall... it was scary. She has been one of the most sweet, albeit expressive horses I've ever known, and this is where she started to make her opinion very clear.

After a month or so I moved her to the very last stall in the barn so that she could see her friends in the field and so they could stick their heads over the gate to visit when they come up for water. There was an instant change in Hero. She became friendly again and stopped some of the neurotic behaviour she'd had before I moved her.

So, flash forward to this week: Hero's pressure wrap has been off for more than a week now and she has been working in hand at both the walk and trot soundly. At one point the other day I went to introduce her to a new friend that she'd be recovering with in the small paddock eventually. When she saw him, she pulled free from me and bolted around the muddy paddock for five minutes, galloping, twisting, spinning and kicking up... all the while this was happening I kept having flashes of her leg, ballooned up, and myself signing her over to a retirement home. Blech. I finally caught her, thanks to a fantastic student who ran out with a bucket of grain, and shoved her in a stall for a few hours while I taught, trying not to think about what she'd just done to her leg.

When I came back to her after teaching, her leg was fine, and she was asking for more! So I gave her a few more days of relaxed hand walking and trotting and then I came to yesterday when I decided I would finally sit on her again.

She has been antsy and slightly unpredictable, since she's such a bored horse, but as my butt sat on her back she immediately put on her game face and went to work. It was amazing! She obviously remembers that working in the arena is her job and it doesn't matter if she's been cooped up for months, if she's doing her job, she does it right. What a fantastic work ethic! I rode her for almost ten minutes, just walking her in large figures while asking her to soften and stretch down so her back muscles would get a good work out. It was fantastic.

I'm hoping this is the start to her coming back into real work. For now I'll be hand walking her 3-4 times a week and riding her bareback another 2-3 times a week. Hopefully after she builds some muscle she'll be ready to go back to work! Before her injury, Hero was a fantastic dressage horse and a very promising jumper. When she was jumping 3'-3'9" with me it was with very little effort, but she really never had the forward drive of a competitive jumper. I always assumed it would come with time, but maybe this is a sign that she shouldn't jump. My plan for now is to keep babying her until the end of February, when I'll make the decision to keep her on as a school horse or to sell her to someone who will use her more lightly to prevent further injury, something I don't particularly want to think about.

Still, that's a decision for down the road. Yesterday was a huge triumph for both of us, and I'm so happy to see that she's ready and willing to go back to work. Horses are really amazing creatures...

Tanglewood Bakery: The Flour (and it's rich historical origins)

2012-01-17T07:08:00.000-08:00

The De Zwaan (meaning the Swan), now standing in the city of Holland, Michigan, has a rich and exciting past. It was first built in 1761 in Krommenie, near Amsterdam, and was moved in 1889 to Noord Brabant. The inspiringly beautiful structure survived wars and natural decay, albeit just barely. In 1964, the windmill was transferred to Holland, Michigan in sore shape. It had been the source of frustration and controversy for the Dutch government much in part due to it's poor condition, and when it left the Netherlands it became the very last Dutch windmill to leave before the government there decided to ban the sale of their precious historical windmills. It is now the only operating Dutch Windmill in the United States.

There have been changes made to the mill over the years. It's original state would've been atop a hill, and it would've been a bit shorter simply because it was placed in an area with excellent winds, as opposed to Holland's Michigan's intermittent mini-gales off of Lake Michigan. Still, the history literally oozes out of it when you step inside. The rich smell of ground wheat permeates the air, even on a crisp autumn afternoon. The interior is a fortified and complicated structure that upon first glance is incredibly overwhelming. Still, as you start to run your eyes across gears and pulleys and levers, you can start to grasp the amazing mechanics of this large beautiful beast of a machine.

I was so lucky to get a full tour from Alisa Crawford, the miller, and her assistant, Dick. They are both so obviously passionate about the mill that it's no wonder it is so well cared for. Ms Crawford is an inspiration herself. She has worked very hard to become the only certified Dutch miller in the Americas, not to mention the only female member of the Dutch miller's guild. Of course in order to do this, she had to learn to speak Dutch, which is no mean feat. She has been working with various historical mills for much of her life, and the De Zwaan seems to have become her baby. You can feel the very strong bond between the miller and her mill simply by listening to her speak.

Did you know that the entire cap of a dutch windmill rotates to accommodate changing wind direction? This spoked wheel is how they do it! They walk along the spokes and turn the monsterous cap to face the wind... amazing!

I was so lucky to be able to buy flour ground on this amazing mill for my blossoming bakery business. It's exciting to know that the flour I bake with comes from technology and mechanisms designed 250 years ago. Even more exciting was the "hook up" that Alisa offered me when she discovered I was interested in historical agriculture and modern sustainability.

De Zwaan actually had taken in some wheat earlier in the year from Primrose Farm in Illinois to grind and return to the farm. Now, I know Illinois isn't as local as Michigan grown wheat, but Primrose Farm is an historical living farm that plants and harvests using their powerful draft horses, and threshes using equipment and technology from the late 19th century. They aren't certified organic, but because they use methods of farming from before the introduction of synthetic chemicals to agriculture, their grains are grown naturally and without sprays.

I borrowed these photos from the Primrose Farm facebook page where there is all sorts of information on their seasonal educational programs and their beautiful produce stand.

When Alisa offered me this amazing flour, which is not only from high quality grain but beautifully ground and sieved, I couldn't say no. I snatched it up and immediately began adjusting my recipes to accommodate the finicky nature of whole grain hard red wheat, laden with high levels of healthy proteins (as opposed to soft red wheat, which is higher in starches). I am happy to sacrifice the simplicity and ease of baking with soft wheat to know that I am using a sustainable and natural product farmed using methods from before my grandparents were born.

Using such amazing flour has really inspired me to examine the concept of modern Craft as opposed to craft. When something is made by a person so intimately involved, you can feel it, see it and in this case you can even taste it. The products that I bake with this flour are often very hardy and tend to want to be heavy, but through careful recipe balancing (and rebalancing, and rebalancing - heh) I've worked hard and produced delicate and delicious results.

(Of course, you know now I'm researching planting one of the back strips in wheat this year... I'd love to be even more involved with the flour I use!)

Tanglewood Bakery: First Market Recap

2012-01-15T07:54:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I set up the Bakery booth at MIX Marketplace in Ypsilanti, Michigan yesterday. I was running late (when am I not?) but we managed to get there and get set up before anybody approached the table so that was nice.

The overall aesthetic of the table was a huge success. We got some fabulous compliments, many people remarking on how they loved the set up and that they'd never seen such beautiful baked goods. I can't tell you how nice it was to hear that, especially after so much last-minute work!

We had TONS of samples for people, and we even had two people stop by, obviously disinterested, shove a sample in their mouths and after walking a few steps, stop in their tracks, spin on their heels and rush back to buy something... A look of desperate sweet-tooth-dom on their faces. I can't tell you how good that made me feel. I've had that moment at a market, and I love that I can give it to others. Nomnomnom.

The bundt cakes didn't sell much, but we didn't have any samples out and I'm confident they would've sold more if they'd either been available to sample or topped with a more visible frosting (people love frosting... I learned that one quick).

The biggest seller was definitely whoopie pies. I'm a little bummed I didn't get my adorable "Gobby Hand Cake" labels on them, but they sold well all the same.

Another item that received very high praise was the dark chocolate shortbread with pink peppercorn and fleur de sel. Chocolate lovers definitely enjoyed this one, and I got tons of compliments on the presentation. One particularly interesting individual told me that they tasted like pizza, fruit cake and Dessert, and went on to say Dessert differed from the usual usage of the word because he didn't just mean dessert, like sweets. He meant Dessert in the sense that it comes after a very good meal and intermingles with the flavors from that meal to create a perfect finish. It was both the most unique and inspiring compliment I received all day! He had some really great things to say about all of the samples, and really taught me a thing or two about my own prejudices against first impressions... I kinda hope he comes back next time!

One thing that people were drawn to more than I expected were the fig caramel and chocolate tarts. I really just made these for myself since I'm a huge fan of figs, but they were received well and with open arms and mouths... :)

So... I can't begin to explain how exhausted I am right now. I'll be at the MIX marketplace again on the 28th. For now, in the slow season, I'll stick to every other week so I can continue to build new recipes on the off weeks. Yesterday morning I was convinced that I'd be burned out and never want to bake again, and this morning I woke up inspired to balance new recipes and learn new techniques, ASAP!

Operation Market Debut: Success!

Prepping for Market: The Display

2012-01-10T04:55:00.000-08:00

It seems like 2012 got here a lot faster than anticipated. I feel ready. Right?

This Saturday Tanglewood Bakery will be setting up at the first market of 2012. It's called MIX marketplace and it's a new indoor farmer's market in Ypsilanti, MI. They had great response from the holiday crowd, so hopefully people will be equally thrilled to visit weekly now that the holidays have passed us.

I've been doing lots of things, both necessary and unnecessary, to prep for the market. First of all, I want a super fleshed out aesthetic for my booth. I want everything to look like it belongs there. To do this, I've been making my own displays (yay basic carpentry!) and I've chosen to stick with my ever-favorite teal, oatmeal and salmon color-scheme. I've been making list upon list of things to do, places to go, things to prep, things to stage and things to bake. It should be fun! (right?)

Here is a quick photo of the cupcake case I made yesterday, in it's salmon and teal glory. I have such a soft spot for victorian kitsch it's ridiculous. I can't wait to photograph the whole booth to show you, when it's actually set up!

So now that I have the bulk of my booth display complete, it's time to get into the kitchen! This is the first time I've prepped for market, so I'm sure I'll be an insane whirlwind of madness, despair and mania. Bwahaha. Wish me luck!

Dark Days: Potato Leek with Bacon and Carrots

2012-01-07T05:01:00.001-08:00

The farmer's markets have really slowed to a crawl here in Michigan, as I suspect they have done all over the northern regions. There are still the staples though, like potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, leeks... I feel like we've almost collapsed into soup season. I find myself craving warm soup almost constantly and I've honestly never been much of a soup maker, so I figured for my latest Dark Days meal I would pull together some Potato Leek soup, flavored with Bacon. We are lucky to have local dairy and I try to keep fresh cream and butter in the fridge at all times, so this was a piece of cake.

Apart from using a recipe to tell me that I should cook my bacon and leeks in a skillet beforehand, I went at this completely recipe-free. I'm never shy about using fats in cooking, and Jeremy and I seem to maintain healthy weights simply by eating in moderation, so please forgive the amount of cream, butter and bacon fat that went into this. You'd certainly forgive it if you'd tasted it yourself!

Basically I boiled potatoes to the mashing point (skin-on) and then took 2/3rds of them and tossed them in a food processor. I then took my potato slop and added enough cream (and a little melted butter) to make them easy to stir and heated them on medium heat while I cooked my bacon and sliced leek in a cast iron skillet. When I finished the bacon and leeks, I tossed them into the pot, adding some of the bacon grease as well (uh, yum...) I then sliced the last of this season's carrots and tossed them in as well. I left this on the stove at low heat for a few hours while I went off to muck horse stalls and teach a lesson, and I assigned my husband to stirring every 20 minutes or so which he did diligently as soon as he learned there was bacon at stake. (Who wouldn't?)

When I returned home from work, I sliced the remaining cooked potatoes, tossed them in and heated the soup so that they would warm. I salted the soup just a bit (not locally sourced, but purchased from a small mom-and-pop spice merchant known for sourcing ethically grown spices) and added some of my own organic thyme and rosemary.

I can honestly say this is a soup hearty enough for giants. I had originally planned to bake up a quick lump of unleavened bread to accompany it (we are also lucky enough to have local flour here in Michigan) but honestly it didn't need it. We quickly scarfed down our single bowls of soup and lay around like gorged sheep for an hour afterwards. Super. Duper. Hearty. and sooo delicious.

This has really inspired me to get cracking on soups. I'd really love to make a sweet parsnip soup and - Woah. It just occurred to me that it's Saturday and the winter market is open! I'm going to go buy some parsnips! :)

Picking it back up again

2012-01-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

In case you hadn't heard via my twitter/facebook selves, I was lucky enough to lose my entire hard drive right before the holidays (note sarcasm). Apart from a few photographs still on my phone, I lost every photograph I have taken digitally in the past six years (the span of my relationship with my now husband, the span of my bakery, the span of many things...) I also lost passwords, programs, financial records, business contacts (like the 100+ addresses we mail camp flyers to each year!) ... oh geez.

It has been really discouraging, and I've hard a hard time coming back to the blog to do anything other than open a blank window and stare, realizing I have no pretty pictures to accompany my posts.

Still, this morning I found myself inspired to pick everything back up and get into it again. I transferred my photos from my phone, and while I'm left without much in the way of garden photos, I can still type your little ears (eyes?) off in a meandering deluge of scatterbrained thoughts and notions. Voila!

The weather has been bizarre lately, and from what I hear it's been strange everywhere in the country. Yesterday we had sun and it was a fair 56º F. It's January, for chrissake. I found myself digging the thawed mess out of the chicken and duck coops with a vengeance, and realized that this means I'll only have half a winter's worth of mucking when it thaws again in spring! Of course, this is assuming it ever truly freezes.

I also spent my morning putting up some new step-in electronet fencing for the sheep to graze in. Step-in. In January. I shouldn't be able to so much as bend a blade of grass, let alone shove fence posts into the ground! Very strange. It feels like I should be planting bareroot plants and setting seedlings out to harden off. It feels like I should be sitting beside the firepit out back, dodging waves of steam as they roll off the maple sap vats.

Obviously this is pre-thaw. I wouldn't be able to put in fencing when there is snow on the ground like this!

That's another thing; what are the maple trees doing in all of this? If we don't get a true deep-freeze when we need it and the trees are forced to lose more moisture, are we going to have a sugaring season at all? I can't imagine much sap will rise if the trees have spent half their winter in a groggy daze. Hm.

The weather is supposed to linger in the low and high 40's for the rest of the week and I suppose I'll make the best of it. This warm snap has reminded me that I need to order my bareroot fruits asap to make sure I get them before the nurseries run out this year. Did I mention I've decided to focus on fruit this year? I love to grow vegetables, and Jeremy and I are teaching ourselves to enjoy them more and more, but my true love of eating fresh fruits reigns supreme and I've decided to give in to my urges and turn our entire south garden into fruits this year by adding another 10-15 blackberries, 12 gooseberries and 10 currants (not to mention a variety of dew berries, boysenberries, and any other bizarre cultivar I can find). I was even considering putting in an in-ground, lined bog to grow cranberries in... Hmm...

I feel like I have to have things all planned and ready to go asap, but honestly I still have approximately 140 days until last frost so.... Wah wah.

Fiber Giveaway Winner!

2011-12-19T05:17:00.000-08:00

Update: We have a winner! Our winner is #6 - Kelly H, who said "I'm a knitter, and wannabe spinner, so I'd be using your lovely wool to learn how. I'd also use some to needle-felt fix a small hole in my favouritest sweater that a moth found last year. We're going to be educating ourselves on sheep farming this winter, with big dreams in mind. What made you decide on Icelandics?"

Congratulations! Be sure to check back for additional giveaways this winter. I've got at least three, maybe four lined up and they're all going to be awesome! (I may do a few more fiber giveaways as I destash some of the bags of fuzz I have amassing in my house!)

In the meantime, here's a photo of our latest visitor here at Tanglewood. His name is Ollie and he is a pure bred grey moorit Icelandic from Queso Cabeza in Olivet. He is a lamb ram who gets to make his breeding debut here with our three lovely ladies...

that is if he can ever catch them!
LOL!

A Wooly Anniversary and A Holiday Giveaway!

2011-12-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

While tossing the last of the windfall apples into the sheep field on Thursday, I had to smile. My ewes now know to line up when I start scouring the ground under the apple trees that are outside their field. They shuffle each other out of the way, grunting and throwing mini sheep-tantrums (they literally jump right up into the air and then STOMP as hard as they can on the ground - all four feet - it's omgSOcute). I can run my eyes across them and gauge their condition (OH they are fat). I can watch the way they interact to know who is the boss today (it changes daily!) and I can spot a runny nose from across the yard.

I have spent the last year learning many things about Icelandic sheep. A lot of these lessons have been hard. I lost poor Ingrid to "grass tetany" or magnesium deficiency in spring. Her darling little lamb, Brighid, bounced back quickly and after a few bottles of warm local goat milk she had decided to wean herself. Brighid grew very close to my other ewe, Gertrude, after her mother's death.

Unfortunately this fall, after a very long, hot summer, Gertrude succumbed to all sorts of complications of white muscle disease (WMD). She hung on for so long and tried so long and taught me so much in the time that she was ill. I have never had to learn so quickly about animal supplements, shots, treatments... and I've never seen an animal fight so hard to live. She was incredibly inspiring.

After that, Brighid was introduced to her two new sisters, Blaire and Nance, who were a little rough with her at first but these days Brighid and Blaire are totally inseparable.

Of course, there have been fantastic moments as well. When Gertrude was around, my heart would leap every time she ran up to me for treats. She was a special sheep with a great personality. There was also Brighid's birth, which I actually got to see! Little itty bitty Brighid nose, poking out... aww... I remember running to the house to get Jeremy and by the time I got back to the barn, Brighy was standing and bleating her first little bleats... Of course, I cried a little from relief. :)

So here I am, a year later, with entirely different ewes and all the mileage and lessons of a year tucked neatly, albeit slightly emotionally, behind me. What better way to celebrate? Playing with fiber!

You can find my wet felting tutorial over at Not Dabbling in Normal!

Do you have any awesome fibery ideas? To celebrate, I have 4 ounces of fuzzy warm Icelandic fleece looking for a new home! (Forgive me, this is my first giveaway!)

One winner will be chosen via random-number-generator on Sunday, December 18th at Midnight and will be posted here the following day. Please make sure you include some method of contact information so I can find you after the drawing!

~~Entries are open through the weekend. If I get more than 50 entries, I'll add a second winner!~~

I'll contact the winner(s) after the drawing and you can let me know what color you prefer your fiber to be. This is RAW fleece, which means it's unwashed, but it'll be prime fleece. It'll be individual locks of Icelandic fiber (tog and thel - it's a double layered fleece) that you can spin, felt or you can use the curly locks for dolls!

~~To Enter:~~

~~Simply comment below, before the cut-off on December 18th, with your favorite fibery project!~~

~~Want a second chance to enter? Post this blog entry to your twitter OR your facebook, and then come back here and comment AGAIN letting me know you did so!~~

~~Only two entries per person, sorry!~~

---

Update: We have a winner! Our winner is #6 - Kelly H, who said "I'm a knitter, and wannabe spinner, so I'd be using your lovely wool to learn how. I'd also use some to needle-felt fix a small hole in my favouritest sweater that a moth found last year. We're going to be educating ourselves on sheep farming this winter, with big dreams in mind. What made you decide on Icelandics?"

Another Dark Days Post, or Why I shouldn't be allowed to take on challenges right before the holidays

2011-12-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

My GOODNESS I'm difficult to keep on track.

I have like 8 projects simultaneously started right now, none of which were a blog post to cover the local meal we had for the Dark Days Challenge this week. I cannot believe how immensely BUSY I've been this past week! This whole handmade Christmas thing might be getting ridiculous. Yeesh. I think I've taken it too far... again.

Of course, I didn't manage to get photos of it, but it was delicious all the same! Wednesday of this week we made some of the best nachos I've ever eaten and they were almost exclusively local!

We are lucky to be able to buy our tortilla chips from the Ann Arbor Tortilla company. They come flavored with natural lime and salt, and their corn masa is never from genetically modified corn. They're the best. Ever. Seriously. If you find them in a store near you, give them a shot!

Atop our wonderful local chips we had chorizo from the farmer's market, corn that I had frozen from the farm stand earlier this year, shredded cheese from Traffic Jam's fantastic dairy in Detroit, sour cream from Calder's dairy which we have delivered weekly, pickled jalepeno and carrot relish (naturally fermented) from the Brinery in Ann Arbor (best pickles ever) and topped off with ... organic canned black beans.

I can't do nachos without black beans and I haven't yet mustered the enthusiasm to cook beans fresh for my mexican food. Ahhhh well...

So I'm feeling like this is kind of a boring post without photos of our nachos. What I CAN share is photos from our recent outing to Frita Batidos in Ann Arbor. Frita is a cuban and honduran inspired sandwich shop known for it's support of local agriculture and small farms. It's owner, Eve, is a big name in Ann Arbor locavore culture, and I cannot stress enough how fantastic the food at this restaurant is.

First of all, they serve their freshly made ginger lime juice in a twisted sandwich bag the same way juices are served on the streets of Honduras, where Eve took her Frita staff to research the cuisine and culture.

Second of all, they offer a chorizo sandwich topped with fresh cilantro lime salsa, sweet chili mayo AND fritas - French Fries! Oh my gosh. So delicious.

The interesting thing is that the chorizo they serve there is actually the same chorizo we had on our nachos at home. How do I know? Well, while we were sitting there eating lunch, the farmer we buy our chorizo from came into the restaurant hauling a HUGE wheeled cooler brimming with pork and wearing his farm boots, woolen hat and insulated carhart coveralls. The cooler had to contain at least an entire pig. Most of the customers stared on in bewildered horror... Jeremy and I just smiled.

Ah, the farmer. Ah, local food.

Christmas Couch-Sleeping

2011-12-12T03:42:00.000-08:00

The Husband and I have been sleeping on our couch. No, we're not simultaneously "in the doghouse" and No, we're not avoiding our bedroom because of ghosts...

We've been sleeping on the couch because in this house, until you get every single window triple sealed with storm window, weatherproofing putty and shrinky plastic, the warmest room in the house is our living room.

The thing that helps is that our couch is an early Victorian sofa with a very unique modern cut, so it's very deep and very long. It's actually more than half the width of our bed anyway, and it's at least 6" longer (we sleep on an antique bed and mattresses - have I mentioned how conventional we aren't?) so the couch works pretty well as a warm-snuggley substitute.

I could see how the necessity of this inconvenience would drive some people totally bonkers. They'd say things like "Why not just get a heated blanket?" "Why not finish sealing all of your windows (thus making the atmosphere of the house something akin to living in a goldfish bowl...)?" "Doesn't it make you squirrely to have to sleep on your couch omg omg?" "What is wrong with you?!"

The truth is, we don't mind. Last night we put up our itty bitty potted Christmas tree in our living room, with the LOTR movies playing in the background and (real) hot chocolate with fresh vanilla whipped cream. Honestly, guys, getting in the Christmas spirit just doesn't get any better than a good snuggle. It's not about the presents or even the mad-dash traveling to see family and friends. It's about finding the inner warm and fuzzy place and holding on to it through the cold weather. We fell asleep with the fire roaring and the Christmas tree lights twinkling, and I didn't even mind when the husband elbowed me in the face when he rolled over.

Now that is Christmas.

Forging through the Dark Days

2011-12-07T04:52:00.000-08:00

In Michigan these days really are dark. At seven this morning it was literally black as pitch out and I managed to stay huddled in bed until at least eight thirty before the dirty, dusky light crawling in through my un-curtained my window. If only we had a layer of snow to reflect the teeeeeensy bit of light we get before eight.

My Dark Days post this week is about preparing for a fantastic Dark Days Dessert tonight, rather than actually executing it. I know, lame, right?

I do (in honesty) have a great excuse though... I had planned my fantastic Dark Days execution for last night, so I could get it just under the wire with my recapper over at Not Dabbling in Normal. Then, in a fit of madness while at work, I helped my barn manager catch a very stray kitten and managed to get a really nasty bite. My evening dissolved into a whirlwind of phonecalls to the health department; a long drive to the humane society; scrubbing, soaking and rescrubbing the bite wound; trying not to think about rabies (which is unfortunately something we have to worry about in Michigan); and finally a small inner war at the end of the night when husband suggested rather than cooking we go to the local health food store for pizza. When he mentioned he would personally go pick it up and I wouldn't have to do anything, I admit, my resolve dissolved... heh. At least the pizza was made using whole grains and rBST free ingredients. *fail*

Anyway, this is my plan for today....

I battled with motivation all morning (literally from the moment I opened my eyes), thinking about dropping out of the DD even before it started. I realized that's seriously silly though. We eat SOLE foods regularly, and just because I hadn't managed to do a write up on any of the meals we've had so far doesn't mean I should give up. Right?

So I walked into the kitchen and suddenly remembered the adorable Bosc pears that I purchased at our local Ann Arbor farmers' market two days ago. Mmm. Pears. The most readily available local ingredients that we have around our house are definitely baking ingredients, so I figured Hey! Spiced Pear Pies.

Well, unfortunately in the dark days challenge I am trying to stay as local as I can, and spices really aren't all that local to Michigan, so I was left trying to come up with a recipe that would add a zing to the soft mute flavor that is pear.

What do we grow in Michigan that is zingy? Well, not much. We don't grow citrus, that's for sure, and spice beyond the brazen capsaicin of simple dried chili peppers is pretty hard to come by. We have native sumac, which can be used as a lemon substitute, but I'm not quite sure how to process sumac into a usable substance yet. I'll get there, I'm just a little intimidated by the large fuzzy spires on the staghorn bushes in the woods.

Then it struck me - another zingy thing that most people overlook - rose hips! They're totally in season now too, having mellowed just a tad from the recent freezes we've had. I googled a bit and found a spectacular looking recipe for rose hip and pear pie (so it's really "a thing"!) so as soon as I finish here and hit "publish" (and I suppose I should try to forward this on to Jen at Not Dabbling so she gets my lame-o cop-out update for this week) I will pull on my wellies and a couple wool fisherman's sweaters, top myself off with a stocking cap and trudge out into the orchard where the wild rose bushes grow.

I don't want to take too many rose hips from the birds, but I figure I can glean a few pounds without affecting them too drastically. Our orchard is literally brimming with rose bushes... hundreds of them. I'm pretty sure they're all multiflora rosa, so they're the nasty invasive type. I'll try to see this as I'm preventing a small percentage of additional seed-fall, to keep the invasive species at bay. Hah.

I love my Job

2011-11-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

I have some of the most adorable horses in the world. Esme, the chestnut on the left, has found a new home and will be leaving theoretically tomorrow to go live at Willow Tree stables with her new owner. I'll miss her, but I totally adore her new owner and I know she'll be happy and well cared for.

It's been rainy here in Michigan. This time of year, rain = mud... LOTS of it. I was unprepared yesterday for the sludgy sloppy mess at the horse farm, but today I will be trekking out in knee-high rubber boots. Take THAT Michigan mud...

...And while much of the rest of the employed world is sitting in chairs and typing on keyboards and planning and discussing and presenting various real-worldy kind of things, I will soon be at my job, where I am essentially paid to play in the mud with big, friendly fuzzy creatures while teaching others to do the same.

I love my job.

Busy busy like a bee

2011-11-26T06:27:00.000-08:00

I have recently found myself super motivated to do anything but sit at the computer. I've come out of a funk that I hadn't even realized I was in, and I'm planning gardens, cutting firewood, preserving seasonal food, baking like mad and pretty much running around like a crazy person.

It's nice to be a crazy person again.

?

Anyway, this morning I found myself inspired to make cranberry syrup so that I can freeze it and use it to flavor various things (spritzer, wine, sugar, bread, cookies? Oooh the possibilities are endless!)

Have you ever made cranberry syrup? It's super easy!

Simply take cranberries and bring them to a slow boil in just enough water to cover them. In this case I used 13oz of local cranberries (isn't Michigan cool? We can grow everything from cranberries to kiwis!) and 3 cups of water, with a sprinkling of sugar and a pinch of meyer lemon zest. I'll boil it until it looks right and then I'll strain it through cheese cloth, let it cool and package it up for freezing. I might freeze it in ice cube trays! Oo!

The best part of all is listening to it boil as the cranberries Pop Pop Pop!

It's very satisfying.

To be Thankful

2011-11-24T06:18:00.000-08:00

(Alright, I'm shadow-posting this from my Not Dabbling in Normal post this morning. Sorry folks!)

I am Thankful (this is my thankful face^).

In the past, I've felt like writing the whole "I am thankful for..." thing was ridiculously primary-school. It always felt forced and stuffy. I am thankful for my dog and my house and my Polly Pocket.

It really wasn't until this year that I realized that listing what we're thankful for isn't just listing; It's committing. It makes the writer bear a part of them self in a concrete way and it makes the writer really ponder the things in their life.

If you still feel like its primary-school-like, well... too bad.

I'm thankful for the bountiful harvests that occur around me each year, both naturally and cultivated.

I'm thankful for the beauty in the world, and my ability to pause and take it in.

I'm thankful for the silly in the world and my husband's neverending ability to make me laugh harder and longer.

I'm thankful to have been born into a supportive, albeit strange family, and to have married into a family just as supportive, albeit a little more "normal".

I'm thankful for my life, my passions and my endless daydreams.

I am also thankful to be part of a blossoming digital community that comes together, via blogs and social networking to discuss, learn, challenge and inspire one another.

Thank you readers and NDiN contributors.

With love, Emily

Silent Sundays: Winter Molting

2011-11-13T05:14:00.000-08:00

An Afternoon at the Horse Expo (and a brief history of Cowboy Ben)

2011-11-12T06:19:00.000-08:00

I spend a pleasant afternoon with some great friends yesterday, old and new (I can't tell you how exciting it is to have a new friend... life gets a little stale as a homesteader, especially if you're prone to hermit-like behaviors like I am). We went to lunch and then over to the big expo center in Novi for the Novi Equestrian Expo - Michigan's Finest Horse Equestrian Expo. This is kind of a misnomer, as the Lansing Stallion Expo in March is far better as far as programming, setup, turnout and venue, but I digress.

We wandered the shopping areas and I managed to talk myself and some friends into buying new Roeckl riding gloves (mother of god they're expensive!) and I found the perfect cowboy boots for my little brother, Ben. I call him my little brother (speaking of misnomers) because he's six years younger than I am, but he's probably ten inches taller than I am, too.

Ben used to have this bizarre alter ego as a toddler where he'd wear a cowboy hat and run around pretending he was a cowboy. If you called him "Ben" he'd correct you; "Cowboy Ben" he'd say. We'd have to ask him when "Ben" was coming back and eventually he'd go "Well I'm gonna get going" and leave the room. When he returned without the hat on, he obviously was "Ben" again. Oh, I bet I'm gonna get some flak for posting this. Anyway. These boots totally rock, and I'd love to see Cowboy Ben riding his dusty mare in them... perhaps this time in more than little-kid-tighty-whities and a hat. (Oh yes, I can see the approach of the end of my life, now... He will kill me. Tighty Whities. Bwaha. I <3 you, Ben! I'm an older sister, this is what I'm programmed to do!)

I also picked up some of the best machined socks I've ever worn. They're from a local alpaca farm (Williamston Alpaca Shoppe), and the woman raises Suri alpacas (super soft fiber), barters for Huacaya fiber (stronger, less soft) and has it combined, milled, spun and machined into boot socks which she sells at her store and at various expos and fairs. They weren't cheap, but I can tell you that they definitely beat out smartwool socks any day, and they were comparable in price. Plus, they're local!

After milling about the vendor areas, we meandered over to the demonstrations and sat. It's hard for me to go to these expos and take pleasure out of the demos, usually. There are a couple trainers in the area (who I will avoid naming, obviously) that I think are outright terrible. In particular, the one trainer bills herself as being a centered, balanced and gentle trainer; Her horses look stiff, there is no bend and no grace, and because this woman has shown at upper levels she has a massive following.

Let me hop up on my soap box for a second and talk about the Golden Curse.

My trainer, growing up, often talked about the Golden Curse. When people who have lots of money they often buy the horses with 10 out of 10 star movement. These are horses that have Olympic, or at least Grand Prix potential.

These same people then want to get to the highest levels the fastest, so they employ a huge battery of methods to do so. This includes using gadgetry, strappy-tie-down-thingies, working the horses too much too fast, developing the wrong muscles, and basically creating the equivalent of over-processed horses (think McDonalds food - Fills you up, leaves you unhealthy).

They started with 10 star movement, and because these horses are so amazing, naturally, their crappy training brings them down to 7-8 star movement and they still go to the top levels. They score well because the judges are looking for horses in a certain "frame" and despite the fact that these horses don't have the muscle or balance to be in that "frame" correctly, they do well at shows. Unfortunately, like any athlete trying to perform above their body's capabilities, these horses often break down by ten years old. You rarely hear of horses in the Olympics competing beyond the age of ten, and when you do, they're the horses that clean up and continue to come back year after year because they are correctly trained.

Cut to trainers like me. My horses have average movement. 5 star. I can't afford anything more. With slow, balanced, light and correct training my horses have the capacity to be ridden with 6, 7 or even 8 star movement. We all average out, but because most judges see the 10 star horses moving at 80% capacity consistently, they get the better scores. Never mind the fact that the horses have pinned ears and swishing tails, or that they have severe bits or cranked nosebands. They look miserable. The one trainer had a student riding her horse like that. The horse easily could've moved out into a fantastic gate, but was stuck in an outright abusive bit and had developed an S curve (swan neck) to it's neck. Ew. Ew. Ew.

Gosh.

Definitely hopping off the soap box.

So we watched the demos and gritted our teeth. I found where I used to giggle at the silly training mistakes some of the demonstrators would make, I now cringe and watch the horses bear everything simply for the love of their owners. They're simply amazing animals.

The last demo we watched was a cowboy with his overo (type of spotting) trick horses. He had the loudest colored Fresian I've ever seen - 50/50 black and white pinto. The bizarre thing is that usually when you see a rare-colored horse (Fresians are almost always solid black - in fact I don't think the spotted horses can be registered as purebreds) they are built like mongrels, and their color has come about from poor choices in color-genetic-focused breeding. This guy was actually considerably more "correctly" built than most, so I totally swooned over him. Of course then I learned his name was "Crusader" and that his owner is a "Cowboy for Christ" (his other horses were Apostle and Pastor...*PalmForeheadSmack*) I'm not atheist or anything, but GEEZUZ. Crusader? Really? I lost interest quickly, after that.

The expo was a nice way to spend an afternoon away from home. I get so caught up in things around the farm that I get a little too "in my head" and find myself talking to plants and musical instruments and stuff, so this was a mental health day for me - that's for sure!

Dark Days of Winter Challenge

2011-11-09T05:03:00.000-08:00

Well, the Dark Days of Winter Challenge, hosted this year by Laura from Urban Hennery and the whole crew (including myself) over at Not Dabbling in Normal, is getting ready to kick off... It begins November 27th and will run through March 31st, so I hope you're ready for some serious SOLE scavenging! SOLE stands for Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical - the four main principles guiding this challenge.

By signing up for the Dark Days Challenge, I am committing to cooking at least one SOLE meal a week. After that, I'll be posting about it here on my blog, and then weekly or biweekly we'll be recapping all of the participants' posts over at Not Dabbling. It's going to be intense! Last year there were tons of participants, and this year we're trying to work together to get even more!

I've been preparing by freezing local produce and eggs. This morning, my lady-chickens actually had left five eggs for me! This is a record. I think they loved the slightly sunny, warm weather we had yesterday so they went into overdrive. I had been getting an average of one and a half eggs a day, so.. Woo!

Some of my girls lay the most beautiful green and blue eggs (they're Easter Eggers - poorly breed Americaunas - mutts); the others lay light and chocolaty brown eggs, and the recent influx of nice-weather-at-the-end-of-the-season eggs means I have enough to freeze. I'm also planning to blow these eggs (as well as freeze the innards - dual purpose!) to use to make some Christmas presents. They're such pretty colors, it's hard to resist!

This leads me to my next question: Are you planning an ethical Christmas this year? Do you plan to do your holiday preparation and shopping Conscientiously? If so, I have another challenge that we'll be announcing soon - Stay tuned!

On the mastication of bones, and mid-night brainstorming

2011-11-08T04:40:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I decided to go to bed fairly early last night. We had planned to go to a movie but, upon completing a mediocre dinner out, we gave in to our old-fogey-ness and skipped the movie to go home instead (after a quick stop at the bookstore).

He has just returned from a comic convention in North Carolina, and his returning flight was such that he'd been up since the wee hours of the morning (after some late and ruckusy comic-book-geeky nights previously) so he was ready to crash. I was fairly wired for the trip home but as soon as my eyes spotted the nice warm covers I was a slave to sleep. It was nice to get some rest... while it lasted.

Around 3:30AM (which is the time that my brain likes to wake up and be super manic if I so much as stir while sleeping) I heard a loud crash from across the room. I listened quietly to discern which animal had done what terrible act and sure enough, moments later, I heard a very low "Mrrrrrrerrrremrrr..." This is the sound of our tomcat mumbling a growl around carefully mouthed, fuzzy body of a mouse. I'd know that sound anywhere.

Harrison often loses his mice while trying to play with them, so I figured I'd let it play out a minute. Unfortunately I started to drift off to sleep again (all the while my brain going "Hey! You're falling asleep again! That's cool, you can't normally do that this late in the wee morning. In fact, normally you're stuck thinking about what you need to do today, and just think of all those things you need to do today... you need to teach later, three lessons, what are you going to do in each lesson? hmmm..." et cetera...)

Just as I hit that critical moment of sleep that accompanies brain-shut-uppedness, I hear it... "Scrunch, squish, crunch, crunch, squish..." To anyone who has ever done small animal taxidermy, this is the high tambered, gristly sound of a rodent skull being slowly cut into... or masticated, in this case, by Harrison. He doesn't normally eat his mice, so the shock of this was jolting enough that I quickly found myself out of bed and chasing him around the room, mouse body complete with stringy brains hanging from his mouth and dragging all over the floor. Finally I caught him and shook him around a bit until he spit the poor ragged body out onto one of my sweatshirts. Ew.

My cat: The Zombie.

Anyway, after this, attempting to sleep was pretty futile for a while. I lay in bed quietly daydreaming of pastries and sweet, of how I'm going to arrange my market booth and how I'm going to display my baked goods. It wasn't a bad experience, but it definitely would've been more welcome at a time other than four in the morning. I eventually managed to get back to sleep right before the sky began to lighten, and then of course I was greeted by the Bremen town musicians chorusing below my window, complete with ducks, roosters and sheep.

Now that I'm awake I have decided to spend the morning scribbling my own personal recipes onto index cards, denoting whether they are cake base, frosting, cookie, confection or tartlette recipes in the corner for quick and easy recognition. It's been a while since I've done anything with index cards. I admit that laying them all around me after I've completed them is a satisfying way to quantify how much work I've put into developing recipes so far, since beginning this whole baking endeavor. I refuse to use recipes from other people unless I've done quite a bit of tweaking and altering. Instead, I've been reading up on baking chemistry and taking inspiration and ideas from other recipes to sort of set me in the right direction. The one exception of this is probably the Miette double chocolate cake (Oh god. So good.) but it's not likely to be a cake I actually get around to selling, as I have some excellent alternatives to it that are slightly less labor intensive. It's more of a cake to show off to your friends with... :)

Tanglewood Poll: What would you consider buying?

2011-11-06T06:26:00.000-08:00

Tanglewood Baked Goods: Signage

2011-10-31T04:40:00.000-07:00

I spent some time this morning working on the design for the sign I want to use for my bakery stand at markets. I know I want it to have a sort of Art Nouveau look, so I gave it a rounded top. I'll be making two signs: one for hanging and one to top a chalk board easel-style sign for venues that I can't hang things.

So this is my first sketch. I took the thistle design directly from a piece of jewelry, so I won't be using it exactly, but I liked the gesture and shape of it so I put it in as a place holder until I sketch up something a little closer to what I want the finished thing to be.

What do you think?

Tanglewood (_______ Baked Goods)

2011-10-29T06:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I know I've been slacking over here on the blog lately and that's in part due to the fact that I've been diving into bakery prep with the intensity of seven suns, though some days after a complicated mistake it feels more like seven weakly lit flashlights. I've made cakes, cookies, candies; frosting after frosting; and I've been designing my aesthetic and display. (I've also been researching correct, non-traditional ways to use the semicolon; please forgive me.)

Through my various attempts at charming-sweet-tasties I have noticed one thing. This one thing has become my focus and will likely be a way that I separate myself from other home bakers. It'll keep me challenged, help me feel less guilty about eating the things that I make and dangit - it's cute!

Miniatures. I love to bake miniatures. I love the extra detail I have to add and the care and delicacy of it. I've always had a thing for miniatures, and I've always liked the look of a whole-buncha-tiny-colorful-things put together. I blame it on Richard Scarry's Busytown. Richard Scarry was the kid's book master of itty-bitty-eye-catching and I remember looking at the pages showing the busytown market and bakery and thinking WOW! I wish apples were that tiny...

Okay, I know, that's kind of a weird thing to admit, let alone base a baked goods business on.

This kind of strange love of itty-bitty-detail may also come from living with my husband, Jeremy Bastian, whose comic book art is known for its bizarre and almost impossible detail and minuscule size.

Okay, so I'm not going to be baking "toy" sized (to borrow from the world of dog breeds), just more like bite sized. It may sound totally silly to some of you, but it really does have some valid bonuses to it. I often find with baked goods - cookies in particular - that I either really only want a single bite of something sweet, or I want a variety in my few sweet bites. The nice thing about baking small is that while you can eat only one small bite of sweet, you can also eat multiples. They make great novelties for kids and for parties, and I like to think most people will recognise the extra care that goes into decorating a miniature cake or cookie. Plus... I mean... come on. They're totally adorable!

In order to keep things catchy, I'll take at least one mini layer cake to market each week. Mini in this case means either 3, 4 or 6" in diameter, and at least three layers deep. I'll take orders for traditionally sized baked goods as well.

I'd love to thank everyone who has offered their support and guidance (namely Julia, who is a font of baking information and troubleshooting!) I'm hoping to have a mid-winter tasting party over here at Tanglewood early next year, and if you've spent any time around me lately you've likely had sweets shoveled into your mouth as a taste tester.

So now I am left trying to come up with a sub text for my signage. I plan to just use the name "Tanglewood" rather than "Tanglewood Bakery" since I don't want to imply that I have a storefront elsewhere. I'd love to have the subtext read something like "Conscientiously Baked Goods" without sounding so verbose. I intend to use as many local ingredients as possible, and I have already sourced specialty flours, dairy, spices, herbs, etc (though I'd love to find a local source for non-GMO beet sugar if anyone knows of one!)

I also intend to use only biodegradable, recyclable packaging, and only from the most local sources I can find. I want my baked goods to taste amazing, so I intend to buy amazing ingredients. I also want to feel good about selling them to people, so I don't plan on putting anything into the business that I'm not completely sure about. So far, my display consists of garbage picked shipping crates and signs made from scrap wood, but that is a post for another day! I guess if this whole thing fails, I could always be an astronaut... (thanks Ben!)

Anyway, I'm going to set up a giveaway this weekend so be sure to check back soon!

Any words of advice for someone trying to set up their own baked goods business from home? Is it legal to sell home baked goods in your state?

Fall Shearing Day (part two: In the Barn)

2011-10-16T06:46:00.000-07:00

We started by shearing Brighid, thinking that since she tends to be the super nervous lamb it might help to have her done before the other girls so she didn't stress out and get more and more aggravated watching the other girls get done before her. Oh boy. Now it seems so obviously silly to get the "easy" one out of the way first!

She was so docile! She has a perfect blend of her parents' personalities - personable and curious like her father, and wise and cautious like her mother, and she has such loft and crimp to her fleece! It was like Christmas, seriously. She has grown up so much since Gertrude died, and her personality has finally been able to come through. She's not as skittish and neurotic as I thought she was - she's cautious and sweet. <3

She even handled the less dignified positions with grace.

We did let her up part of the way through since she was being so well behaved. Half-shorn sheep look hilarious!

Blair was next and she was, predictably, a fighter. We didn't let her up to rest between positions, she just escaped from us over and over and over. What a turd! She got away from us so many times, and we found the best way to shear her ended up being in a head lock between my calves, braced against the wall. Ugh.

Even if we thought Blair was bad, she was a walk in the park compared to Nance. After trying all sorts of restricting positions for her we found the best way to shear her was gently. We let her stand, and I stood at her shoulder, one hand under her chin and one behind her head, just in case she tried to move. Eventually we had to get her belly, and it was nearly impossible. We finished her with scissors. LOL!

All in all, the day was exhausting and I am pretty beat up. At one point yesterday I was trying to head lock Nance with my legs and she managed to shove through and bolt across the barn with me riding her! I landed on my butt with my elbow naturally in a pile of sheep poo, laughing hysterically.

The sheep are now bald and I have three pillowcases full of beautiful fleeces - Much nice than Gertrude or Ingrid's were. I can't wait to get to spinning this stuff! The sheep will be happy to go out on the grass today. Now that they don't have fall fleeces on them, I don't mind sending them out to the field to find the last few burrs of the year.

Overall I'm happy with their conditions. The older ladies both have just a bit of fat over well muscled bodies, broad backs and wide hips. Brighid is a bit thin, but Laura pointed out she's still growing so her body is sending nutrients to bone and growth rather than layers of fat. She's still decently muscled too so... hooray!

Fall Shearing Day (part one: In the Kitchen)

2011-10-16T06:02:00.000-07:00

Let me just open this post by declaring that Laura is the BEST.

Yesterday was our first fall shearing here at Tanglewood. When we got our sheep it was in December so we had missed the fall shearing by a 6-8 weeks (not that you could tell - they looked fully fleeced when they arrived!) This year I was lucky enough to have Laura, our sheep's breeder, offer to come shear our sheep for us in return for "something tasty".

Ooh, I do love a good barter. Something tasty? I can do that.

This was an exciting day in the kitchen for me because I got to taste test some things on someone new and I got to play around with gluten free baking for the first time. I decided to make GF plum and blueberry clafoutis, and hazelnut tarts with GF sweet crust (pâte sucrée). Gluten free is... interesting.

The clafoutis, upon first inspection, came out beautifully. It looked just great! Of course when I went to remove it from the pan it absolutely refused to budge and became more of a lumpy, gooey mess. Of course it still tastes great - It's just not something I could sell without some tweaking. Then again, who sells clafoutis at markets? Hm.

The surprising thing was the tart recipe. I had heard that working with gluten free pastry shells was incredibly difficult and frustrating. I quickly learned that the recipe that I used for my pâte sucrée doesn't like to be as cold as it does when it contains wheat flours. When I chilled it, it quickly became an unyielding mess more like a croquet ball than a ball of dough. I set it on the stove to warm it a bit and when it came to just cooler than room temperature (which you must realize is only about 60-65º in our house) it became workable. It baked beautifully, and had a fairly delicate flake to it, and just like the clafoutis, it refused to budge from it's ban. I did have some luck with the mini-tartlettes that I made in a mini-muffin pan that was non-stick. Apparently if I use butter to grease my pans it gets absorbed into the GF dough. If it's non-stick, it releases fairly well. I've got to remember that.

I just realized I forgot to take photographs of any of the tart stuff. Damn. They were pretty, too.

The sheep were definitely ready for shearing. Brighid was beginning to substitute as a snuggy for the chickens.

The other girls were looking pretty hairy, too, so it was a good thing Laura was able to come get those gorgeous fleeces off of them so that they can start growing their fleeces for the winter.

When Laura arrived I was still finishing up the tarts, so we stood in the kitchen for a while and caught up. As soon as I finished with the work in the kitchen we headed out to the barn to start shearing. Later, during breaks between sheep, we enjoyed hazelnut tarts on the couch and chatted about life. There's nothing like sweets to take one's mind off of aches and pains, flailing hooves and biting wind waiting in the barn.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

Fall has Fallen

2011-10-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

The leaves are changing and the winds feel restless as they blow rain and storms our way. This past week has been an amazingly clear and beautiful respite from the chill and damp. We've had our indian summer, with temps in the high 70's and nothing but sunshine. It's been a fantastic farewell to summer.

The Virginia creeper is blazing in shades of red and fuchsia.

The blueberries are a rainbow of intense hues.

You can hear the leaves falling like rain today. I keep thinking it's sprinkling outside and then I realize it's a shower of box elder leaves, spiraling towards the ground. The maple trees have yet to change, but I'm sure it's just a matter of days. We're nearly at peak color here and I'm finding myself at peace, despite the insane number of tasks in the garden that I haven't completed. I've managed to remember this year that I have until the ground freezes to pull vegetable plants - It's not the end of the world if I don't get everything pulled by hard frost... I can take a deep breath and enjoy this farewell to summer while we have it.

Are the leaves changing where you are, or are you already enjoying the crunch of falls frosts?

Hard at Work in the Kitchen (rather than on the Blog)

2011-10-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

I have been using these past few weeks to experiment. Like a mad scientist in a frilly floral apron, I have been pouring over books and manuscripts, researching ingredients and methods... and at last I have come to the conclusion that...

Yes. I could see myself truly pursuing the art of making sweets.

I am uncertain of whether I should say I'm pursuing baking, pastry arts, confections or just "nummy things". I'm certainly not ever going to be a pâtissier, simply because at this point in my life I can't afford the cost or the time it would take to pursue full pastry chef schooling. Still, I'm pursuing sweet and dainty things that have a specific aesthetic... alluding to childhood sweets, appealing to subtle and refined tastes. Within these sweets I intend to combine the freshest and most local of ingredients possible - Michigan grown/milled flours, home grown fruits, local honeys.. I even found a supplier of locally grown, GMO-free soybean oil, for those times that really call for vegetable oil rather than less processed fats.

I have been truly experimenting, starting with base recipes and making serious alterations. Baking batch after batch after batch until I have a recipe of my own that is up to my standards.

The best thing is, I'm having a great time doing it and I've accepted that sometimes it's best to just throw the whole thing out and try again! It's almost liberating to be baking for baking's sake, rather than for a person or an event. If it doesn't turn out, nobody has to eat it.

So far I have tried several cake recipes, cookie recipes, tea cakes, frostings... I've even been working on a sweet skillet bread (spotted dick - yes, that's what it's called) that is moist, crusty and fantastic! I hope you understand that I'm not going to pretend I'm something that I'm not. I am not a trained professional; I am a dabbler. Still, baking has sparked a passion and obsession in me that I haven't felt since I started training horses so I would imagine this is going someplace good.

To take good, fresh ingredients and to make them into something that invokes a physical and emotional response reminds me of when I was in school for art. I've always loved to create things, but I've always made art for myself and cringed at the idea of doing it for the pleasure of others. With baking it's totally different; I bake because I want to share the experience of my finished piece with others.

I've been taking samples to pretty much any gathering I can, to shove into the mouths of unsuspecting friends, family, students and clients... It's awesome to see their responses, and people have been very honest with me. I can't wait to share more of my adventure with them and with you... like a mad scientist I cannot wait to take over the worrrrrld! (or at least a few of my local markets...)

Woolies and their Woes (part two: New Friends)

2011-09-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have left things on a sad note, there.

We picked up Brighid's new friends a week ago and I admit the first few days were interesting. Poor Brighid had no interest in holding her own against her new evil aunties, Blair and Nance. After closing them in "the Chokie" or "the Squeeze" for twelve hours they were slightly nicer to each other. The Chokie is where you squish sheep into standing-room space (I used pallets to do this) so that they are forced to touch each other for hours on end without food. Once they are released, they smell alike and they are so hellbent on getting to the food that they theoretically stop attacking one another.

It worked to some degree, but Blair was still picking on Brighid so I separated her and I let Brighid and Nance get to know each other a little better.

Now they're more or less alright with each other. This morning they weren't letting Brighid hang out in the stall, but she didn't seem to mind much. They're really just bullies but my guess is once the leased ram shows up this winter they won't be thinking about each other much.

Still, what's important is that when it comes to feeding times everybody is willing to set aside their differences and dig in together!

Woolies and their Woes (part one: A Farewell)

2011-09-27T05:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how many readers follow my social networking accounts as well, but I'm sure some of you have heard that poor Gertrude didn't make it this past week.

Gertrude, her first week with us.

On Wednesday of last week I got up extra early to check on Gert. When I found her she was lying down, panting and grinding her teeth as if in pain. I knew it was time. The sparkle was gone from her eye and she looked at me with a very sad and calm expression that I hoped I would never see on such a spunky creature. I knelt beside her and scratched her cheek, and while she took some comfort from it, it was obviously through the kind of thick haze of lethargy that clouds someone on death's door. I tried to get her to stand, to nibble some alfalfa, to sniff a dandelion (which had been the only thing she would eat with appetite the day before)... she was only interested in letting the inevitable run it's course. I tried giving her a final dose of Banamine to ease whatever pain she was in and quickly found that she didn't even have the strength to swallow. The paste sat on her tongue where I knew it would do at least a little bit of good as it absorbed through her mouth.

As I walked to the house I dialed the vet and scheduled him to come out to the farm to help her on her way. Gertrude was definitely a pet sheep and as such she deserved to go quickly and quietly with the aid of the "big pink syringe".

I trudged up the stairs to our bedroom and flopped down beside Jeremy, who was still dozing, and told him that she wasn't going to make it. It was a sad realization, but it wasn't surprising to me. This poor ewe had been battling illness for more than eight weeks. I rolled over on the bed and propped myself up on my elbows so I could see her from the window.

After a minute I saw her shudder and her back legs spasm and I sprang from the bed. I don't even remember traveling from the house to the field. I can't even tell you if I used the gate or hopped the fence. Before I knew what was happening, I was kneeling beside her again, just as she gave a deep sigh and was gone. It was hard to watch the residual electrical impulses from her brain wrack her body after that. I knew she was gone. Her heart had stopped, as had her breathing, and her pupils had relaxed, but each time she twitched there was this unreasonable hope in my heart that she had decided to continue her fight. As her body finally settled I realized that more than anything, I was left intensely inspired by her determination to keep going as long as she did. Eight grueling weeks spent battling mysterious illness and bizarre symptoms, fighting what we're nearly sure was a genetic predisposition to white muscle disease as the damage to her heart and diaphragm slowly weakened her - She could be a poster child for the Icelandic sheep: Strong, Independent, Persistent and ultimately Stubborn.

We left her body in the field to try to keep Brighid as calm as possible while we made preparations to pick up a new companion for her. It's funny how, despite being incredibly sad, one's brain can make the smooth transition from one crisis to another. Brighid was going to realize sooner or later that she was alone and it wasn't going to be pretty. She spent the early afternoon snuggled up with some chickens near Gertrude's body. It was such a sad thing to see. Poor Brighid had already lost her mother earlier this year to grass tetany, and now she had lost her best friend.

Finally we removed Gertrude's body and buried her beside Ingrid's at a friend's house down the road. Of course the spot we picked to dig was clay and rocks which we had to chuckle about; nothing with Gertrude was ever easy.

We put away the poultry for the night and got in the station wagon, bound for Olivet to pick up a new companion (or two) for Brighid...

NDiN: Collecting Simple Pleasures

2011-09-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Do you collect anything? My husband and I collect a lot of antiques and one of my favorite things to collect are antique spoons. You can find me blogging over at Not Dabbling in Normal today.

View my post about my antique spoon collection Here.

Gertrude

2011-09-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

My dear sweet Gertrude appears to be in a slow and bumping downward spiral. I think that I have finally figured out what it is that has been causing all of her symptoms. It was staring me in the face the whole time.

White Muscle Disease.

The white muscle disease can affect any skeletal or cardiac muscles, and in severe cases can cause damage in the heart and diaphragm. The symptoms of these complications?

Persistent Fever
Edema (presenting at first like bottlejaw)
Irregular and raised respiratory and heart rates
"Grunty" sound in the throat when breathing/eating (likely due to edema)
(This also showed up in Gert as "mumblebaas" as my brother put it. Mumbled bleating)
Frothy white or clear nasal discharge
Stiffness of gait

Of course all of these can be caused by any number of bacterial or viral infections, but after three courses of antibiotics and administering two weeks of anti-inflammatories (despite the recommended max being five days), there has been little change in Gertrude's overall condition. It was with the help of a couple vets as well as Gertrude's breeder and another sheepy friend of hers that I was able to come to the conclusion. It's a difficult conclusion to face, too, because if it is her heart there is little chance at recovery. My vet has said that it is possible the WMD affected her diaphragm more than her heart and that if this is the case she will likely strengthen over time, though never completely recovering.

We do have a day here and there where she appears to be 100%. Her edema will clear up, she'll head out to the back pasture to graze and glean windfall apples, and her bleat will sound normal. This doesn't seem to last for more than a day or two. Three at most. And then she deteriorates again... swollen face, not bothering to go out for grass, etc. She has been eating, which is what has kept my hope up, but yesterday there was a change.

I had run out of their previous grain and was switching them to a new bag - the same stuff they'd been eating, but a different batch. When I poured their grain into their feed pans, the two sheep came running - Gertrude even managed a lumbering gait, herself. They stuck their snuffley faces into the pan and immediately Gertrude pulled her face back out. She is just disinterested. It's almost like she was expecting something else and was disappointed. Brighid was confused by Gert's lack of enthusiasm and munched less enthusiastically (I think she likes the tussle for grain).

This morning, even stranger, she was that way for her hay, too. If I throw her some new hay she gets super excited, lumbers over and shoves her face into the green leaves. Within a few seconds though she pulls her head back out and appears to lose interest. I had thought that maybe she had lost interest because she had been stung by a bee while foraging for apples, but it seems like after almost 24 hours she should be comfortable enough to eat again.

I'm kind of stumped for now. As in many cases with failing livestock, it's become a waiting game. I have been out in the barn every few hours to cheer her on as she eats a bit. If I hand feed her the grain or the hay she seems to have renewed interest. She'll munch from my hand for a minute or two and then trundle over to the hay bin and eat there for a minute or two on her own before lying down again. All I can hope is that when I leave the barn each time she continues to eat on and off, and it's not just with my encouragement that she takes food. Through all of this, she has always had appetite. This change makes me think we may be nearing the end...

If she gets much worse, I will have the vet out to help her along on her way. My hesitation is not only that she still has a glint of determination in her eye, but that she is the only companion for my other sheep, Brighid. Brighid lost her mother earlier this year - I don't know how she would take losing her only other companion. I do intend to get at least one other sheep, but I was hoping to wait until November to do that.

So yes. Waiting to see whether the downward spiral continues, or whether Gertrude can get herself turned around... I'll keep you all posted.

This Morning's Chores

2011-09-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share my morning with you so far. I tried to sleep in a bit, and managed to stay in bed until 7:15, which is a pretty big feat for someone usually up by 6.

Unfortunately, the addition of our second duck coop, right beneath our bedroom window beside the first coop, makes it pretty difficult to sleep in. The young ducks are used to sleeping all in one coop, and they're a little nervous about not being able to see each other at all times. I like to imagine the ducks in one coop whispering "I can't seeeee you!" and then the ducks in the other whisper back "I can't seeeeee you eeeeeither!" and of course then the first coop says it a little louder "Quack quack quaaaaaack quack!" and the next, and so on and so on until they break into full alert, panicking because they can't see each other. Inevitably one of the mama ducks will put an end to the ruckus with a very loud lady-duck call in her loud trumpeting voice and it becomes quiet for a few minutes... until... "I can't seeeeee you!"

Now, while this is going on, the sheep like to start chiming in. When the ducks get to their full volume, the sheep will run to the fence closest to the duck coops and Baaaa towards our bedroom window. They know that the ducks make a lot of noise when I come out to feed in the morning, so they want to express their need to be fed as well...

So the first thing I did this morning was let the ducks out of their coops (directly below the window of my sleeping husband - I'm sure he appreciates it.) They get a bit of organic, locally grown grain each morning more-so to shut them up than because they need it. This time of year they spend almost the entire rest of their day out in the orchard cleaning up windfall apples and eating various buzzing insects.

After the ducks, I let the chickens out of their coop. I have two coops for them, the large coop and the nursery coop. For now the Ameraucanas are the only ones laying, and they live in the large coop with the accidental Cochins. What's left of the Buckeyes and Welsummers (after the mink invasion) stay in the smaller nursery coop. I let everybody out together and normally if the big rooster seems like he's going to be quiet he gets to stay out. If he's trumpeting and being aggressive with the girls he gets to be out for a few minutes and then I chase him back into the large coop where he spends his morning attempting to crow through the barn window. Once the afternoon hits, he's a little less feisty and he can come out and be with the other chickens. Mind you, this rooster's name is Dinner. He's particularly rough with the too-young hens, so we're not on the best of terms these days. This morning he immediately jumped on three different hens and then paraded around screaming his head off so I chased him back into the barn. ... Boys..

I fed the chickens who also get a bit of organic, locally grown grain (I love our local grain mill!) and tossed the sheep some grain as well. I really don't like the idea of graining livestock, but I do like the idea of happy (quiet) animals in the morning, so everybody gets just enough to make them complacent. Ha.

There is always a little bit of a scramble between the sheep and some of the Ameraucanas because apparently fighting off animals 10 times their weight is more fun than crowding the chicken feeders. What weirdos. The sheep like to head-butt the chickens across the barn, too, so it's not like it's an easy breakfast!

After I fed the sheep some alfalfa and mixed grass hay I figured it was time to collect eggs. I'm getting 4-5 eggs a day now, and I hadn't pulled them in three days so I picked up fourteen eggs this morning! They're beautiful shades of olive green and pale blue, and they're organic which is obviously a bonus. Gosh, I keep thinking I could do some sort of fantastic sculpture or installation with these beautiful, natural colors. They're such calming and gentle colors. I could stare at them for hours.

The Buckeyes, Cochins and Welsummers will all have varying shades of brown eggs. Supposedly the Buckys will lay a chocolate brown egg, but that's one of those make-or-break breeding characteristics that doesn't always get passed along. My guess is that only one of my Buckeyes is a hen anyway, since the other two are getting green tail feathers. Ah well. They're supposed to be tasty little boogers anyway, so it's not a waste to raise them, I just wish the mink had taken out the young roosters rather than some of the hens.

After counting my eggs I came outside to check water levels and found two of the Ameraucanas having a discussion on the fence. They like to sit on the fence because that's the first place the sun lands in the morning. This is "Dracula" on the left and "Caliophelia"on the right. Dracula is the most spastic of all of our chickens. She (yes she - Jeremy named her) acts completely normal when you approach her, but as soon as you lift her off the ground she screams like she is being eaten alive. Ah well. She also has the creepiest face of all of the chickens. She looks like she's constantly glaring and plotting against you. Hence the fact that she got the name Dracula.

The last thing that I did this morning before I came inside to feed the dogs and cat was take a quick glance around the garden. I've been reeeeally slacking in the garden this past month. The mosquitoes are worse than I have ever seen them and I've been so busy with other things that I've let the weeds go completely mad. I don't really mind having a weedy garden though. By this time of year pretty much everything is established and the weeds don't stand much of a chance anywhere but in the walkways between beds.

Anyway, while walking back up to the house I happened to glance down at my Mara des Bois strawberry patch. They're covered in blossoms and half-ripe berries! I've been missing these little guys because I took the fence down earlier this year, after the first crop, to use elsewhere. Because there is no fence around them, the ducks have been helping themselves! As of today, however, the fencing goes back up and the ducks can just deal. Strawberry shortcake in October will be a fantastic treat. I just have to remember to mulch and put row covers before the nights get cold!

So my final task for this morning is to work my way through the thirteen pounds of peaches, six pounds of nectarines, four pounds of (California) figs, five pounds of plums and five pounds of blueberries currently hiding in my refrigerator. This doesn't even begin to encompass the massive amounts of ripening pears and apples outside my front door! I need to get this stuff prepped and frozen asap so that I can continue to experiment with local fruit based pastries this fall and winter!

I know what I'll be doing the rest of this busy late summer day, do you?

Balaton Cherry Chocolate Hand Pies

2011-09-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted a recipe here or over at NDiN, not because I haven't been baking, but because I haven't been blogging nearly as often. I even try to keep the recipe posts to a minimum because I know you're here for a whole slew of topics, not just how to satisfy your latest sweet tooth, but as I've mentioned before, my sweet tooth is such that I can't help but post sweet recipes.

Wednesday of this week was my birthday so I had originally planned to have a small group of friends over last night. Despite all of my efforts, however,the nights 's festivities have ended up put off by everything from migraines to thunderstorms to pizza dough malfunctions. I ended up throwing in the towel, telling everyone I'd reschedule, and having a quiet evening with my husband, my brother and his partner. The only thing I did manage to pull off was the dessert, and so at the end of the night I was left with more than a dozen hand pies and some wonderful imported beers and ales gifted to me by my brother's partner. Yum. I chomped into a mini pie and immediately knew I had to share the recipe. It was much better than I had anticipated, and considerably easier than I had foreseen, too (especially after dealing with a finicky dough that was too-warm, too-sticky, too-crumbly in various stages. *grumble grumble*)

I'm not all that happy with the dough I used with these, so I'm not going to include that portion of the recipe. You can use whichever pie dough you like, as long as you're careful as you fold them over and stretch them. Some people add a bit of sour cream to their dough to increase the elasticity a bit. I just bought a new dough cutter and I'm very unhappy with it. It bends when I try to cut cold butter, which is maddening.

Anyway, part of the success of this recipe is in no doubt due to the variety of cherries I used. While at the farmer's market this week I talked to "the berry man" about the beautiful deep red cherries he had displayed on his table. Isn't it kind of late for such nice cherries? No, these are Balaton cherries.
Balaton cherries are apparently a fairly recent introduction in the states from Michigan State. They originated in Hungary and are technically a tart cherry, being prized for their deep red juice. They are supposedly the highest ranking tart cherry on the brix scale (the scale used to determine a food's sugar content using a saccharometer <-I like that word.) Because they are still technically a tart cherry, rather than a sweet cherry, they are juicier and better for cooking, and they develop an almost wine-like taste when cooked. I was a bit skeptical, but the berry man was so excited to tell me about them that I couldn't help but try one fresh.

Oh Yes.

They were delicious. I promptly bought every cherry he had left and left the market with a grin on my face.

I didn't know what I'd be making with these cherries, but I did know I wanted to work on some hand pies. I have it in the back of my head that I'd like to open my own pastry and confections business next year, selling at markets and festivals (can we say sweet tooth?) so I like to experiment when I can. My husband, Jeremy, suggested I try a chocolate cherry pie. It sounded mediocre to me, as I've never really been one for anything but pure fruit pies, but I figured I'd give it a whorl.

The results were fantastic. Subtle, melty chocolate with deep balaton cherry goodness, oozing out of an only-slightly-better-than-mediocre crust. Okay, apart from the crust, this was heaven. I'd like to apologize to our more health-sensitive readers. I've tried to cut down the sugar in my diet, and I've actually succeeded to... sort of. I've cut out all artificial sugars, and I only bake with cane sugar and honey. I guess more than anything I'm just more selective about the sugars that I ingest, rather than cutting them out of my diet. Anyway, I really like sweets. Sorry, folks.

And so, I share with you:

Chocolate Cherry Hand Pie Filling

Ingredients:
Approximately 1lb pitted Balaton cherries (or other high-sugar tart cherry, like Montmorency) You may want to chop your cherries. I didn't, and it's still delicious, but it would be juicier if I had chopped them first.
1/3 cup crumbled chocolate - I used half dark and half milk and pulsed them in the food processor until finely chopped
1/2 cup cane sugar
1-3 tablespoons flour, if desired

Egg whites and Demerara sugar to top the pies

Combine the ingredients in a large bowl and set aside to macerate for approximately 20-60 minutes
In the mean time, prepare your dough. Don't forget to let it chill before making your pies. The cooler you can keep your dough, the flakier it will be. When your dough is ready, roll it out until 1/8th inch. Using a bowl, or cutting freehand, cut your dough into the desired shapes. Circles beget half circles, triangles beget triangles, squares beget rectangles, etc.

Dribble a bit of the chocolate cherry mix in the center of your dough-shape and fold the dough over, stretching carefully. This takes a bit of practice, especially to keep the dough from tearing. Using a bit of water, wet the edges of the dough and press them together. You can use a fork or a finger or something else to create a decorative edge on your hand pies at this point. I used a fancy dough press that my parents gave me for my birthday. It worked surprisingly well!

To finish off the pies, brush their tops and edges with egg whites and sprinkle Demerara sugar over them (the big, natural sugar crystals) to your taste. Bake your pies according to the directions of your pie crust. I think mine baked a little bit faster than predicted, so watch them carefully. Super dark crust isn't always bad tasting, but burned chocolate just isn't pleasant, especially not in a cherry pie.

Serve warm, with home made ice cream (or whatever you can come up with), and enjoy!

Are you enjoying the last few weeks of berry season by baking or cooking?

Sorry for the double post over at Not Dabbling! I really wanted to share this recipe both places!

A Deep Breath, Before...

2011-09-05T04:48:00.000-07:00

Alright, folks. Brace yourselves... this one is long-winded.

Have you ever wanted to make a change in your life? Okay, obviously you have. The thing is, even little changes have a tendency to be daunting. Something as simple as switching the kind of shoes you wear when you go out can be unbalancing. Big changes can seem outright impossible, and so very often we sit back and think about them rather than actually making them happen. Sometimes this is a bad thing, but sometimes there is some good in it as well. Call it planning, rather than procrastination.

I have been a horse trainer and horseback riding instructor for nine years now. It's a consuming job that you really have to throw your back (and pocketbook) into in order to really do things correctly. I am the happy owner of eight beautiful school horses, and I have enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, the lifestyle immensely. I won't give it up, probably not ever, but at the same time it's a very emotionally intense job. Teaching anything, when done correctly, takes a lot out of the teacher. I pour my very heart and soul into ensuring that my students are progressing, helping them find balance and confidence with their horses. When the economy crashed several years ago, I found myself struggling but still positive.

Of course part of any self employment is finding ways to ensure growth. In the current Michigan economy, and with many students' parents working in the car industry, the last few years have been a struggle to find new students. Obviously it's important to have new students/clients in order to continue to grow my business. Horseback riding, like a lot of other leisure activities, saw less of a decline than some things though. People don't always need high-end material items and so retail really did suffer a blow, but people do need their respite from the stresses in life. I found that a lot of my students have been able to continue through much of this depression (yup, I said it) simply because it is what they do to escape. I was lucky to be able to keep my head above water like I did.

This past year, however, has been a deadpan staring contest with a stone plateau. Each time I find new students, a few more head off to other things: college, other riding disciplines, boys... It's difficult to watch, but obviously I'm happy to have taught them in the first place. I've always just kept my chin up and forged ahead...

Lately though, I've had a sort of... itch; I feel as if I'm at a turning point. The past few weeks have been an interesting internal struggle for me. This itch is to do something new. I've felt it before, and usually I can satiate it by picking up a new hobby or a new book, but this particular itch refuses to be scratched. It reminds me of the way I felt just before starting college. Change.

At this particular junction, I can either give the horse industry another big ol' heave-ho and risk straining my back (and my bank account) or I can back down just a little bit and give myself time to rest. I am not leaving the horse industry. I am not giving up students or even really changing my business model (apart from selling a couple of horses). I still intend to forge ahead, throwing every bit of myself into my students' education... I am simply changing the way I think about the future.

Horses have been my career for a long while now, especially when you consider I've been doing this for 1/3 of my life. Even before I taught I was running my own horse photography business through much of high school and into college. It occurred to me recently that this is obviously my career, but that doesn't mean it's the only career I can have. I'm fairly sure that, just as easily as I stepped out of the retail world, I can easily step into the world of having multiple careers. I'm pretty sure that's what I need, too: something else to balance me out. Something creative, but perhaps in a different way.

What else do I want to do with myself? I've been thinking a lot about it, and I just can't decide. I could see myself studying patisserie, or maybe simply baking. I would love to do something in food, though I like to make my own rules so I'm not sure how that would work out. I could see myself doing something adorably silly like selling birdhouses and kitschy wildlife watercolor paintings at the weekly artisan market... This could be as simple as opening an etsy shop, even. I just need something else. Something to provide a bit of extra sand beneath my feet as I ponder the ocean of possibilities in my future.

So this is where I've come to lay out my thoughts in type and to sort through some things in a more concrete way. It's frightening to think about starting another career. I have lots of interests, but how does one make something their career without first putting hours of time and work into it? And how does one even know they want it to be their career before those hours are spent?

This is the pause before the break in silence, the plugging of my nose before cannonballing off the diving board. Before I dive into another career I should probably make sure I know how to swim.

Do they make little career arm-floaties?

Have you ever thrown yourself out there to begin a new career?

Alternatively, has anyone ever worked in pastries before and do you have words of wisdom for someone seriously considering trying to get into patisserie? Schooling? Apprenticing?

Late summer Foraging

2011-08-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to find time to forage some beautiful Michigan fruits this past weekend. I found some fabulously lush bunches of grapes along the rural roads where I live. These plants were so thickly dripping with grapes that I didn't even make a dent when I picked almost five pounds of them!

It was particularly satisfying to pick clumps of 20-30 grapes per stem and I know that if I need more they're just right out there, growing on their own, and there is no way I could pick enough to dent the current supply.

The last thing I picked before heading home was elderberries. I found a spot on a rural road only a few miles from my house and the berries were hanging so heavily that with just a touch the hollow, pithy stems would just *snap* off into the bucket. How fun! Of course what was not fun was picking each little teeny berry off of the stems before making syrup.

Are you harvesting anything from nature this time of year?

On another note, do you prefer the filtered photos I've posted the last few posts, or the more color-accurate photos I was posting before? I'm a huge fan of the filtered photos but I can't tell if it's appropriate for the blog or not....

The late summer and (geeky) distractions

2011-08-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

Well I guess I lied. I've been terrible about posting this week! What a funk I can go into, and all it takes is just a little head cold to put me there. Ick.

Anyway, I've been keeping busy here on the farm. I admit, a lot of my spare time has been going into sitting on my butt catching up on the new Doctor Who (10th doctor). We just finished the final David Tennant season so I feel like now I can get back to my normal life. Have I mentioned I'm a total geek, and I'm married to a man who is a geek to rival even myself? Yeah, we're pretty bad. I have tried to avoid the new Doctor Who stuff like mad, but it finally seeped into my awareness and I'm totally hooked. I watched a lot of Tom Baker and Peter Davison when I was a kid, but I never dreamed it'd come back with such force! (Yeah, so hooked.)

So aside from Doctor Who devouring my entire life, I've been up to some pretty serious harvesting. We've got tomatoes finally coming in, the summer squash have picked up again and the second planting of beets is threatening to take over my life. The best part of all of this year's harvest is that I've been able to sell a number of produce boxes to friends and acquaintances, so I'm able to start building a seed fund for next year's garden. Mwah hah hah.

These boxes have been a lot of fun to pick, especially because if I know the person I'm picking for I can cater to them and their tastes. Jalepenos for the spice lovers, cucumbers for the picklers... etc.

I've harvested two itty bitty peppers so far. I just don't know why the peppers are struggling this year. They get flowers, the flowers appear to be pollinated and then the flowers fall off and nothing. Huh. I guess they're doing better than they were, we just missed a lot of earlier peppers...

The other disappointment this year has been the cucumbers! I had quite a few at the start, but they were shaped all strangely. Now the vines are all drying out and miserably gnarly. I just don't know why this is, especially because the melon plants seem totally fine and they're in similar areas of the garden. Hmm... curious..

Oh! We've also had a beautiful visitor in the brassica patch, living atop one of the sunflowers.

Right, so what's going on in your late summer gardens? Is your harvest in full swing, or is it winding down?

Patience for pears

2011-08-21T14:47:00.001-07:00

Ah! Pear season is almost upon us and I cannot help but daydream about pear tortes!

Looks like the Bartlett will beat the Seckle this year. The Seckle are looking kind of small and ill this year. Bummer.

I'll be adding the pears to produce boxes as soon as I am able to get enough. For now I'm trying to locate a good ladder to use so I can harvest from the geriatric and dreadfully humongous trees we have.

Crabby apples

2011-08-21T05:07:00.000-07:00

Found some beautiful gem-like crab apples at the Ann Arbor farmers market yesterday. Their blushing red hues were simply so gorgeous I couldn't avoid it. Now to make some tart apple marmalade!

Have you ever used crab apples in baking or cooking? What did you make with them?

Friday Favorites: Ameracauna Egg Song

2011-08-20T06:51:00.000-07:00

I know it's totally cheating to post a Friday Favorite on Saturday, but I just had to share this with you. Our ameraucana chickens have started laying! We are getting at least two eggs a day, beginning three days ago, and this morning I found three!

My Friday Favorite is really the ruckus that accompanies the egg laying. Each time a chicken lays an egg, she stands up and struts around, telling the whole world about her achievement. This is the sound they use so often for movies and television... the "Bok Bok Bok Buh-kawk!" sound we associate with chickens. It's such a sweet sound, despite the fact that it sends the dogs into a tizzy, convinced the farm is being invaded by coyotes or something.

I'll be using the eggs today to brush the tops of my hand held mini pies that I'm planning.

Do you have pets, poultry or livestock that have endearing routines?

The End of Camp

2011-08-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

I apparently cannot maintain both the blog and the summer camp simultaneously. It's like they cancel one another out. When I have a week of summer horse camp, try as I might I cannot bring myself to blog. It's an exhausting, albeit satisfying job and today is our last day of camp for 2011. Whew.

I really didn't think I'd make it through another year, but I have. I've been running the Bucklebury Horse Camp for six years now and it's become both easier and harder with time. We have routines, and groups of counselors/instructors that work very efficiently together. We have returning campers every year that provide a sigh of relief in moments of confusion. We have horses that know their jobs and accept them (almost always) gracefully.

Summer camp always teaches me a bit more about myself each year. This year I've learned that I need to take care of myself just a bit more than I have been by limiting the weeks of camp we run and by delegating. I was severely in danger of burning myself out on camp this year, but the fact that we pared the weeks down to four from six really helped me focus on keeping camp a fun and exciting experience.

There was a point at the end of last summer's seven week run that I was seriously considering closing things down. I was sick of horses and kids and paint and tiedye and everything else that I had to deal with on a daily basis. I wanted a job where I had a boss that told me what to do. I wanted to go into zombie mode and rest my brain and take orders like so many other people in the world do.

My dear husband stopped those thoughts in their tracks, pointing out that I've never been very good at following directions, especially when I think I can do things more efficiently. I suppose he's right. Ah well. Until next year, I suppose. I just hope I can remember how to delegate in 2012.

So my goal for the next few weeks is to get back into the swing of writing here. Hopefully with a little work I can show you all of the changes that have happened around the farm while I've been "checked out" for the summer camp season. :)

Sheep and The Stresses of Summer

2011-08-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Sheep.

I had to choose sheep as my first venture into livestock. Of course then we're hit with the hottest summer we've had in years and I, a lowly newb of a shepherdess, am so over my head it's not even funny.

In case you haven't heard, Gertrude is not doing well. She had what we believed to be white muscle disease and over the past ten days had made a fantastic recovery. Then yesterday morning I went out to find her with the very beginnings of bottlejaw, which is a sign of severe anemia. The strange thing is I had just wormed her, and I'd been treating her with all sorts of supplements and vitamins. The bottlejaw showed up much faster than I'd ever heard of, materializing into a massive lump within just hours. By the afternoon heat, Gertrude was lying flat, still in good spirits, but very, very lethargic. The evening showed a bit of improvement, as she was up again, and walking around the field.

Then this morning she was flat again, this time in the cool morning air. Her ears were lower than usual, and her eyelids, in a sort of drunken lethargic stare. I gave her a bit of vitamin B and started the phone calls. There are so many vets in this area that don't treat sheep it's ridiculous! I finally found one who would be able to see her, but their mobile unit was in the shop for the day so they asked me to bring her in. Yeesh. Have I mentioned I love my station wagon?

We brought them into the vet and within a few minutes the doctor seemed a bit stumped. When he heard that she had a miscarriage earlier this year he began to suspect perhaps Gertrude had only miscarried one of twins and that she might have a mummified fetus internally.

Out came the ultrasound and after an interesting struggle, all the while with Brighid trying to stand on top of Gertrude to protect her, we were able to see that Gertrude has a massive amount of fluid in her abdomen, which is connected to the bottlejaw. What the vet unfortunately could not see was anything indicative of a mummified fetus. Of course this didn't rule out the possibility. As with all ultrasounds, it just meant there just wasn't a mummified fetus on the screen.

Basically we're giving her antibiotics and anti-inflammatories in the hopes of getting her through the hot weekend. She did have a fairly high parasite load of worms that are not covered by the Levasol and Safegard that I had given her, so we treated both little ladies with IM Ivermectin. I can only hope that those treatments, combined with increasing her vitamins B and E, her protein, her trace minerals, her selenium and her grain we can get ahead of whatever it is that she is suffering from. What a day.

So if you'll excuse me, I intend to finish the rest of my grouchy, grumbley day in my pajamas, on the couch, watching Dr. Who on DVD... eating junk food.

Foraging for Wild Berries

2011-08-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

A day spent foraging in the woods for food can be a real nightmare. I've had those days, where you start out thinking what a beautiful day to collect nature's bounty! You head out, basket in hand, and within minutes you are soaked through either with sweat or with rain from a freak midsummer monsoon. You're covered in bug bites, your head aches from dehydration. Ick, right?

My most recent exhibition into the surrounding fields proved to be just the opposite. It seems like I had grown so used to the miserable foraging experience that I truly didn't know such a wonderful and pleasant day could exist!

I left for the horse farm, which backs up to more than 80 acres of deciduous and coniferous woods, wetland and open meadow, shortly after seven in the morning. I'd never foraged at the farm before, simply because it's where I work, and as I'm always working when I'm there I tend to associate it with a certain level of responsibility and routine. Still, once I headed out into the woods with my baskets I found myself free of all of those feelings of obligation. These are places that have may have been cattle fields many years ago but have been reclaimed by mother nature in more recent times. Apart from the places that we ride the horses there are no trails except those of the deer and cottontail. There are no indications of direction apart from the sun and the direction of the wind.

I took Connor and Basil with me and they had a great time romping with each other, snapping at flies and chasing red squirrels up trees. The trail was dotted with an incredibly diverse array of ripe berries. There were the rich and juicy wild blackberries nestled beside the small unhappy end of the black raspberry crop. There were draping tendrils of dewberries that tickled some intangible memory of my grandfather in the back of my mind. There were even a few bizarre blackberry-like plants that made me think maybe they were a sort of wild Loganberry, a raspberry/blackberry cross.

Most prized to me were of course the hardest to spot and the most vicious to defend themselves. Wild Gooseberries! They may be silly looking, with viciously sharp thorns not only on the branches of the shrub but on the berries themselves. These tart little berries pack a major pectin punch, and I was able to forage a few (responsible) handfuls to use as a natural source of pectin in the wild berry jam I was planning. I admit I also took a couple careful cuttings to try to root so that I can try to grow them out back in the old orchard at my home.

The following day, I carefully and lovingly combined my berries with local honey and a bit of organic cane sugar to create a simple and wild-tasting blackberry jam. I haven't actually tasted this since it set, but I admit I slipped many a quick teaspoon of it into my mouth as I waited patiently for it to set. It has a flavor that speaks of the four hours I spent picking. It has depth and musk and a sort of expansive taste, rather than tasting specifically identifiable as blackberry. It tastes like a cool, misty summer morning of foraging.

When I get around to tasting the final product I promise I will post the recipe. The jars are just so small and so few that I'm hesitant to crack them this early in the season! I hope you understand.

Have you ever foraged for berries? Which varieties? Does it feel like something foraged is more or less dear to you?

Keeping an Avocado Fresh

2011-08-02T06:50:00.000-07:00

Now, I haven't Googled this to see if it's common knowledge, so forgive my naïveté if it is, but last night I stumbled across the simplest way to keep an avocado fresh and green for at least twelve hours.

I'm a huge fan of avocados. Though I often forget this fact, when I do manage to remember, I find myself gorging on their subtle sweet slimy goodness as often as possible. My favorite sandwich in the whole world is fresh turkey with a good hunk of crunchy lettuce, a thin slice of fontina and half of an avocado sliced and laid out. The problem is, I don't often eat more than half an avocado (some fats are good, I know, but they're still fats) and my husband can't stand them, even after my repeated insistings on guacamole taste-testing (poor guy).

Anyway, last night we had some truly delicious and simple microwave nachos for dinner. It's hard to bring one's self to cook anything when the heat is as bad as it's been here in Michigan. I made my nachos with some corn, pickled jalepenos, tomatillo salsa, cheese, black beans and topped it off with a beautiful half avocado (I love California's summer fruits, even if they have to travel a long way to get here!) and found myself staring blankly at the other half. What was going to happen to it? So often I waste the "other half" simply because it goes brown and mushy within a few hours of being cut open... I'm picky, I admit, and won't eat a brown mushy avocado.

So I stood there staring at the half avocado and then at the shell of the half avocado skin. It suddenly occurred to me that if the avocado wasn't exposed to anything other than itself it might (for lack of better words) think that it was still whole. Okay, I know this is a totally silly notion, but ah well, I tried it. I took the shell of the skin and set it over the avocado to make it look like it was whole again and left it on the kitchen counter for the night.

This morning I went to check on it more than twelve hours later and Lo and Behold when I pulled off the empty half the other side was green and as fresh-looking as it had been the night before! I could remember some vague concepts from science about the ripening of fruit and oxidation speeding along various enzymes... or something... It's been a while. That's where my thought came from and I'm glad I was right to try it out!

So yes, I know I'm a total dork for giving this a shot, but Hey - It worked!

2011-07-30T07:24:00.001-07:00

Sitting on a log in the middle of the woods I was suddenly reminded of the fact that I haven't posted on either blog in days. Crap.

Well, I'm currently foraging for wild berries, so that's a bit of an good excuse! Found a sea of wild blackberries this morning, as well as several large wild gooseberry shrubs. Yay!

This is the haul so far!

Produce Boxes - What's Available July 26, 2011

2011-07-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

It's finally time to get into the swing of summer harvesting! This week I have lots available, and lots more on the way! This is the first time I have posted about produce boxes publicly (rather than just to friends) so if you have any questions I have posted all sorts of information at the bottom of this entry.
Comment here or contact me directly to order a fresh produce box!

Just a reminder that all of our produce is grown from heirloom seeds. Our farm is not certified organic, but we grow using only organic practices and we use sustainable methods when possible. This means: your watermelons will have seeds but they'll be worth it; your beans may be curvy but they'll have flavor; your pears will have spots but they'll be richly flavored and sweet... You get the idea. I wouldn't grow these things if I didn't think the end produce was utterly worth it.

Currently harvesting:

traditional zucchini
heirloom light green zucchini
yellow squash
slicing cucumbers
purple string beans
yellow string beans
green string beans
leaf lettuce (green leaf, red leaf, forellenschluss)
Baby spinach
Basil
Cilantro (nearing it's end!)
Snap peas
sunflowers
cut flowers
borage
nettles
purslane
lambsquarters
Beets
Radishes
raspberries (limited)
duck eggs
mini sweet onions

Coming soon:

Heirloom tomatoes! All colors, shapes and sizes - cherry, oxheart and paste!
Heirloom and rare french charentais and cantaloupe melons (10 varieties!)
Homegrown garlic (heads are small and flavorful this year!)
Indian cucumbers
Sugar baby watermelons
Golden Midget watermelons
Butternut squash
Ground cherries
Carrots
Brussels sprouts
Elderberries
Delicata Squash
Lady Godiva Squash
Additional winter squash and pumkins
Mixed fingerling potatoes
Organic pears (yes they'll have spots, but they're delicious!)
Organic apples (yes they'll have spots, but they're delicious)

How do produce boxes work? They're just like a pay-as-you-go CSA (and all proceeds go toward next year's produce operation). You may order a small or large produce box and I will fill them with whatever is available. If you have specific requests, I'll do my best to honor them. Boxes will be filled with diverse produce and will represent our fruits and vegetables at their best.

Here is an example of each size box and what they might contain:

Small produce box - $15

1-2 lb heirloom tomatoes
1 pt heirloom cherry tomatoes
3-4 mixed summer squash
1 bunch lettuce or mixed greens
1 bunch basil or other herb
1-2 heads garlic
1 bunch foraged greens

Large produce box - $25

1-2 lb heirloom tomatoes
1 pt heirloom cherry tomatoes
3-4 mixed summer squash
2 bunch lettuce or mixed greens
1 bunch basil or other herb
1-2 heads garlic
2 bunch foraged greens
2-3 cucumbers
1 butternut squash
1 delicata squash
1 bunch mixed cut flowers
1-2 charentais melons

Examples of other extras you may find in your box, depending on how my season goes are:

jellys, jams, preserves
pickles
fresh oyster mushrooms
tomato sauce
fresh baked goods
easy-prep pizza crusts (i'll include recipes)
perennial plants (if desired)
granola

Also available, beginning today: Purebred Khaki Campbell Ducklings

Our ducklings are finally 4 weeks old and ready to go to new homes. They are purebred, upright, excellent foragers and great at mosquito control. They are also the most efficient laying heirloom duck breed, and make fast-growing meat birds as well. With a little work, you can even acclimate them to handling and coming when called.
Our birds have been great about not getting broody when you pull eggs every day or two, but if you wish them to brood and hatch simply leave them their eggs and they'll set until hatching. They make great mothers as well.

Khaki Campbell Ducklings - $8 each or 3 ducklings for $20

Nearly time to go home!

2011-07-25T14:30:00.001-07:00

I have so much to share with you and no real Internet connection! Ugh!

My brother has had an encounter with the mink and I have stories to share (though I'm hoping Ben will share them himself as a guest blogger!)

No worries, though... I'm home tomorrow and I'll have two weeks off of camp so it'll be back to blogging and gardening asap.

A Tart and Tangy Tedious Task

2011-07-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I managed to convince my very own Jeremy to go gooseberry picking with me. If you've never picked gooseberries, you might be under the impression it's a simple and relaxing endeavor. However, if you have I'm sure you're no huge fan of the overwhelming evil thorns that guard the jewel-like translucent berries. Where blackberry canes prickle at you in a sort of offensive "I'm gonna get you" way, but gooseberries are sly coming at you from below and gripping as if their lives depend on it. They seem to slap your hand away from their almost phosphorescent fruits. Despite these defenses, we managed to pick 5 pounds of gooseberries and we escaped with our lives. My arms, however, are covered in war wounds (whereas Jeremy's are not) because I tend to dive in any time I see a good lookin' berry, regardless of it's defenses. Ouch! Jeremy's the more tactical, careful type.

Thus, most of yesterday and this morning were spent tediously plucking stems and blossoms from each and every gooseberry (this is called "tailing"). Every time I work with gooseberries I regret it as soon as I start tailing them.

Then, almost as if by magic, as soon as I begin baking or canning with them my regret turns to utter appreciation as I smell their unique almost citrusy-bright juices. They may be the most tedious berry I've ever worked with, but it's totally worth it. Yum.

Are there any fruits that drive you bonkers to work with? Is it worth it in the end?

The Cutest little Menace

2011-07-17T03:55:00.000-07:00

*Siiiiiiigh*

We have had our defenses breached by a sly, devious menace. He slips in and out leaving no trace of his presence but the thick destruction of poultry. Mr Mink is a bastard. He first killed on Thursday night, making quick work of every single quail in the pen. He killed every bird, then lined them up and proceeded to decapitate one of them. Was he sending me a warning?

I couldn't help but think GEEZ what a jerk.

So I've been diligently trying to trap the little assassin for the past few nights. Last night he struck again, taking two buckeye chicks. He had the audacity to drag one off, right in front of my face!

I'm pretty irritated about the whole thing. I could handle a raccoon, or a opossum, or maybe even a fox just by beefing up security a bit... but this little guy can get through any defenses. They're small enough to squeeze through spaces that are less than 1" in diameter. How am I supposed to compete with that?! Ah well. Such is life on the farm. Mr. Mink probably has a family to provide for, and I respect that, but there are lots of critters he could bring home without decimating my poultry...

Have you ever had to deal with a devious predator? Did you ever trap/kill it, or does it still terrorize your barnyard?

Update July 16th: Alas, the mink struck again and took out two of our buckeye chicks. It's like he's systematically going one by one from rarest breed/species to least rare. Ugh.

Update July 17th: One of our chicks is a serious badass! After an entire 24 hours hiding god-knows-where, one of the chicks presumed dead actually turned up in the barn yard unscathed! I'm so happy to have her back, I just hope the mink doesn't strike again any time soon...

Update July 18th: This morning I first checked on the chicks at midnight, then again at three. When I went out at three one of the traps was moved like something had gotten caught but then dragged itself out of the trap. It gave me a flicker of hope...

I went out again after getting up around 8 AM to check on everybody. The mink has been mostly striking an hour after dawn or an hour before dusk so it seemed like a good time to check. Well, there wasn't a mink in any of my traps, but of the eight traps I set (I'm desperate, folks) I could only find seven of them! One of them was missing, and as all chickens are unharmed and accounted for I'm assuming it was some other critter that got caught. I'm hoping that the mink has dragged itself and the trap off to an undisclosed location to die, but at the same time it's almost worse now knowing whether it's alive or not than it is knowing I have to watch out for it.

Ah well... hopefully that's the last we've seen of him for a while. I'm a little bummed I can't taxidermy him for a little warning plaque to go on the barn wall... (or, as my brother suggested, a fancy Victorian-style hat!) Mwahaha.

The Waxing of Summer

2011-07-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

Like the slow phases of the moon, the summer harvest season seems to creep into existence every year. Spring harvest always feels like a little miniature firework, with peas, salad greens and other cool spring crops all exploding into readiness with amazing speed, giving way to a torrent of each, but Summer?

Summer harvest is more like the distant approach of a thunderstorm. You can see it on the horizon, and hear soft rumbling as it echos across the land, heralding the onslaught of overabundance. You know that you planted your tomatoes to close together again, or your cucumber trellises will never stand up to the size the plants have gotten. You know that you're going to have more than enough produce, and yet there's always this uncertainty. As the storm comes ever closer and closer, you might be plagued by cucumber beetles, or a sudden drought (or both, thank you very much, 2011!) and your confidence waivers until at last *KAPOW!*

It's here!

Tanglewood Farm is currently harvesting:

Lemon Boy Tomatoes
Baby Cucumbers
Lettuce, Lettuce, Lettuce
Spinach
Shelling Peas
Snap Peas
String Beans
Beets
Carrots
Raspberries
Late Strawberries
Black Raspberries
Radishes
Swiss Chard
New Potatoes
Quail Eggs
Duck Eggs

Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh My! This is just the beginning, but with the crack and crumble of the breaking of the flood gates (Gertrude Stein?), summer harvest has begun and it won't let up until frost!

Are you ready for your summer harvest? What are you currently harvesting, and what are you looking forward to in the next few weeks?

Just a reminder, we sell our produce locally from our farm. Not all of the things I listed above are available in great abundance yet, and I tend to covet our berry harvests for preserves, but if you are looking for a local resource of no-spray, heirloom vegetables let me know and I'll be happy to hook you up!

Friday Favorites: Ducklings

2011-07-08T05:26:00.000-07:00

This week's Friday Favorite (FF) is definitely ducklings! They're less messy than grown ducks, unfathomably soft, adorably clumsy, hilariously independent and they can provide literally hours of entertainment for anyone who cares to sit still and watch them.

You may remember when I posted (on twitter and facebook, I believe) that I was letting the lady-ducks set on their nest a few weeks ago. We had hoped to get at least few ducks. I personally had my fingers crossed for at least three since last year only one duckling made it after the cold snap (and unfortunately he turned out to be male).

Last week the eggs began to hatch, and out popped eleven glassy eyed, confused little puff balls! Yes, eleven. I had no idea there were going to be so many ducklings. It's honestly more than I had wanted to care for, but since the mom's do most of the work I'm not too worried about it. I just have to muck their coop more often and fill their water a few times a day, really. Obviously it's worth it to see a little flood of ducklings trailing around after their mothers like wake after a boat. The first few days they stayed inside mostly. The mothers were (and still are) incredibly protective so I have very few photographs.

Finally after the babies were old enough to venture out, the mothers started taking them out into the world. I've never heard of poultry raising their young together, and I'm pretty sure Fleur and Tonks are unique in that they work together to care for their little fuzzballs.

After a few days of outdoor acclimation, I was able to get close enough to the ducklings to snatch a few and check for health. They're all bright eyed and feisty (perhaps a little much so) and I couldn't help but snuggle a couple against my cheek as they peep-peep-peeped to their mothers.

All of our ducks are named after members of The Order of the Phoenix, from Harry Potter. Actually, that's kind of a stretch. We named last year's duckling "Neville" since he was always getting picked on and I know Neville wasn't technically a member of the order, but he was a member of the D.A., so I figured he totally deserved to have a duck named after him. The other ducks are Fleur, Bill, Tonks and Remus. We'll be looking for other female Order names in a few weeks when we're able to tell which ducklings are male and female. Unless there are a plethora of female ducklings, we'll be keeping them all and finding homes for the males (or else they hit freezer camp in a few months).

For now the moms are taking excellent care of the ducklings. They take trips to the low water pan that I have out for them, and whenever the ducklings get tired the moms tuck them into a little bundle and sit either on or beside them, never sleeping. Sometimes they hide in the tall grass, especially after a close call. I saw a perfect example of this earlier this morning; I ran out after hearing a commotion and found the mother ducks scolding an over-zealous bluejay who apparently had tried to make off with a duckling. It's got to be a tough life, but they know what they're doing.

Do you have a favorite baby farm animal? Have you been able to resist the temptation to pick it up and rub it against your cheek? :)

Today is Friday, so I'll be blogging over at Not Dabbling in Normal in just a little while here. Be sure to check out today's post on my recent introduction to sour cherries and cherry jam!

Dreaming of Summer Harvests

2011-07-06T04:05:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a fantastic dream:

Jeremy and I had just made some new friends and we were going to their house for the first time. When we got there, I noticed they had a fantastic pear tree in their yard and it was covered in itty bitty ripe pears. I asked them about the tree and they said it was a rare variety that begins to ripen early in July. They said they'd always wanted to do something with the pears but had never really known what to try. Naturally I suggested picking them and canning them in light syrup!

The next part of my dream was an amazing 80's style montage of us canning sliced and whole pears to Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels". Their kitchen was fantastically retro and we were wearing aprons. The very end of the dream (just before Gertrude woke me) I remember asking them to let me take grafts from their tree and then having to explain a graft to them. Explaining grafting to a "new friend" in a dream is pretty difficult, so I'm glad I got out of that one when I did!

Anyway, this was my first canning dream, and I can't imagine I'll have a lot of them. Still, I find myself daily thinking about all of the pears we'll have late this summer. Seckle pears are by far my favorite and it may seem silly but I sit here amidst harvests of snap peas, black raspberries, red raspberries and more, having just woken from a dream of pears, and all I can do is day dream about them now that I'm awake!

Is there anything you look forward to harvesting so much that it invades your dreams?

Summer is here (and I'm out there!)

2011-07-04T06:54:00.000-07:00

Well folks, you may have noticed my posting has become drastically reduced since the summer hit. Things have gotten too busy to bear around here, and unfortunately that means that blogging has taken a bit of a shove to the back burners.

I will still be posting as often as I can find time to - no worries there! I just wanted to post quickly to let you know that when I'm not in here posting I am probably outside: pulling weeds, dragging hoses, building new poultry runs, picking raspberries, training horses... or maybe I've found time to sit quietly in the mosquito-netting-ed shade with a glass of elderflower spritzer and a book.

What is keeping you outside these days?

Waiting for Raspberries

2011-06-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

It may be that I'm just more aware of it than usual, or maybe it's that I just desperately crave fresh raspberries, but the time it's taking this year's raspberry crop to go from little green berries to the plump juicy gems I crave seems like it's moving in slow motion!

If we get a bit more rain, I anticipate that this year will be the best raspberry harvest we've ever had. The cultivated red, yellow and purple patches and the wild black raspberry thickets are full of unripe berries to the point of flopping over. I've never seen so many! I just hope we continue to get this nice weather with a bit more rain. In the past we've had promising looking seasons that have ended in misery when defeated by drought. I'll be at the very least soaker hosing my cultivated beds, but the black raspberries are so delicious I'd hate to see them fail!

I've already started researching some various recipes and I can't wait to have fresh raspberries and ice cream.

What are some of your favorite raspberry uses and recipes? Do you prefer them baked/preserved in some way, or fresh from the cane?

My Constant Canine Companions

2011-06-23T06:29:00.000-07:00

This morning while sitting on my porch this morning, listening to our quail cock call with his adorable raspy voice, I glanced outside to see my dogs lying in the yard, both carefully oriented so that they could watch me with little effort. It suddenly occurred to me (and overwhelmed me a bit) how dreadfully I take our dogs for granted. They are always present while I'm outside, and even when they find the urge to explore they always check in every ten minutes or so just to see what I'm doing.

Connor and Basil, February 2011, pictured above.

We have two dogs living with us. Connor, our runty German Shepherd, is roughly seven years old. I adopted him from a rescue in Flint, MI between my junior and senior years of college and he is the most amazing dog I've ever met. He has an amazing ability to pick key words out of complete sentences, and to read body language and voice inflection, such that I can talk to him like I would a human. I'm not kidding. This morning I told him "Hey! I really want you to stay on the porch this morning instead of muddying up the house..." and he came back onto the porch from the house and lay at my feet. He helps me round up the ducks and the sheep and knows several herding commands.

This is Connor's first puppy photo, the day after I brought him home.

The other dog we share our home with is Basil. She also came from a rescue and was considerably damaged when we brought her home. She came from out of state (one of the Carolinas I believe) and the regulations on the shelters and pounds there are nauseating. She had been kept in a "kill room" which I understand to be a room that they stuff all of the random dogs and cats slated for euthanasia. The only state requirement for these rooms is that the animals be provided with water. The person who euthanizes the animals comes once a week and poor Basil spent three days in this room before she was rescued by a collie rescue from Ohio. They pulled Basil and her four siblings from the shelter and placed them in foster care as quickly as possible, but a lot of damage had been done. Her foster mom had been great at keeping her healthy, but she had also allowed her to hide under the end table most of the time and catered to Basil's neurotic behaviours so she had no reason to learn to adapt.

Basil is the little one in the middle.

When we brought her home she would hide in any corner she could fine. We effectively made our living room round with the aid of sheets of cardboard and we forced her (literally clawing and crying) out from any hiding spot she found. We literally forced her to be our friend, and I can still remember slumping down after a long day, head in hands, wondering if this had been a huge mistake. I like a challenge, but I can't stand neurotic dogs.

Basil is such a patient dog, and has calmed down a great deal since we brought her home.

Now, two years later, Basil is a totally normal (if slightly hyperactive) dog when she's around us. She still gets squeaky and nervous around new people, but she is proving to be a wonderful companion and she loves to cuddle (where Connor is above the notion). She is the silly to Connor's serious. They compliment each other perfectly.

Can you tell I like skinny-built dogs with pointy ears? :)

These two buddies of mine follow me around the yard, happily wagging their tails when I toss them weeds to shred, chasing imaginary squirrels when I point up at the trees, breaking up fighting drakes and getting head butted by ornery ewes. They are amazing guard dogs and I have watched them launch after scouting coyotes with a terrifying fervor that any predator would think twice about invoking twice. They keep the bunnies from my veggies and the raccoons from my chickens. I don't know what I would do without them, and now that I've really thought about it I don't think I'll ever take them for granted again. My farm would be a disaster without them!

Do you have any four-legged or feathered companions in your life that you just couldn't do without? Do they help you in your day-to-day activities?

Improv Recipe: Strawberry Rhubarb Biscuits

2011-06-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

I spent a lot of yesterday in the kitchen, working on various improvised recipes. For breakfast I made strawberry rhubarb biscuits (using goat's milk instead of buttermilk) with a strawberry rhubarb honey compote. The biscuits weren't terribly sweet, which allowed the compote to really stand up to the hearty flavor of the wheat in the biscuit. I started with a basic biscuit recipe and altered it to accommodate my needs. The compote was almost an accident when I realized I'd sliced too many strawberries and didn't want to waste them!

If you have strawberries that are just at that point where you're not sure you're going to be able to use them before they go bad, this is a great recipe. These babies were bruised and abused before being turned into a fantastic breakfast!

STRAWBERRY RHUBARB BISCUITS

Ingredients:

1/2 cup fresh strawberries, sliced
1/2 cup fresh rhubarb, chopped
4 Tbsp brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flower
1 cup whole wheat bread or pastry flour - something finer grained
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 Tbsp baking soda
6 Tbsp cold butter
2/3 cup goat milk (could substitute buttermilk, whole cow milk, etc)

Before doing anything else, toss 1/2 cup of your sliced strawberries with 1 Tbsp of brown sugar. Then spread them on a cookie sheet in a single layer and pop them in the freezer. Adding frozen berries to your biscuit dough will keep the batter from getting overly tacky as you mix it.

Next, combine all of your remaining dry ingredients and sift together. I used a food processor for this recipe and it was amazingly fast and easy to make. After sifting add your cold butter, one tablespoon at a time and pulsing between tablespoons, to the food processor. If you're doing this by hand, you should use a pastry cutter to chop the butter into itty bitty bits before adding it to your dry mix. The goal is to get a consistency similar to course cornmeal once the butter is mixed thoroughly in.

Now it's time to add your milk. Do this bit by bit, only adding enough milk to slightly moisten the whole mix. If you add too much milk you'll end up with very sticky, hard-to-handle dough - especially once the strawberries begin to thaw.

When your dough is moistened and clumping, add your rhubarb. I ran the food processor just a bit extra after adding the rhubarb because I prefer not to ahve big chunks of rhubarb in my biscuits. If you prefer big chunks, by all means leave them that way! Same goes with the strawberries. Add those next.

Run the processor until your strawberries and rhubarb have the consistency you prefer.

Now if you're not able to cut your biscuits quickly after you finish mixing the dough I suggest you refrigerate it until you do. This dough can be very tacky and as the strawberries thaw it becomes increasingly so.

When you're ready to bake your biscuits, have your oven pre-heated to around 450º F. Knead the dough until it's smooth-ish and pat down (or I suppose you could roll it with a non-stick rolling pin) until it's around 3/4 inch thick. Use a 2" biscuit cutter to cut 16 biscuits and place them on parchment paper. This recipe has enough butter that if you like a thick crust on the bottoms of your biscuits you probably don't need the parchment paper; I didn't use it.

Bake for 12-18 minutes, checking them around 10 minutes to make sure they're not baking too quickly. I've found that with recipes that use high heat and short baking time it's very easy to over bake things.

While they're baking, make your compote!

STRAWBERRY RHUBARB HONEY COMPOTE

Ingredients:

1 cup strawberries, sliced
1 cup rhubarb sliced
3 Tbsp Honey

Combine the three ingredients in an oven-safe pan (I used a shallow ceramic crock) and pop it in the oven (at 450º) alongside your biscuits as they bake. I left it in for around 10-15 minutes so if you time this correctly you can be moving your biscuits to a cooling rack while your compote finishes up.

All that's left now is to drizzle compote over your biscuits, eat and enjoy! This recipe isn't terribly sweet, so I've been eating it as a breakfast food, but if you up the sugar/honey just a bit you'll be able to enjoy this with fresh clotted cream or sweetened whipped cream as a strawberry rhubarb shortcake!

What are some new ways you're enjoying this year's strawberry harvest?

Friday favorites: Dish Towels?

2011-06-17T12:07:00.001-07:00

Well, I haven't posted a Friday Favorite since back when I was blogging about horse training. I figured I'd start back into it with something fantastically mundane.

Dish Towels!

I washed every single dish towel I could find this morning and I can't begin to tell you how satisfying it was. I plan to pickle radishes later today and it's always so nice to have a fresh, clean dish towel to mop up spills and wipe jar lids.

My favorite dish towel is the flour sack dishtowel. It's soft, absorbent, cotton and inexpensive. You can even use it as a filter for syrups and cheese curds. In fact, it's exactly the same texture and weave as functional old fashioned cheese cloth, as opposed to the wimpy wispy cheese cloth they sell for crafts nowadays.

Do you have a favorite type of dish towel?

Poultry Photo Shoot, Spring 2011

2011-06-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

Sooooo... I did a photo shoot with my baby chickens and quail. I know it's hokey, but they're so cute!

Sleepy buckeye chick

Another adorable buckeye chick

A welsummer chick!

A white Cochin (with adorable feathered feet)! Of course, I didn't order white Cochins. They sent them to me on accident, intending to send me Cornish. Ugh. They'd better be cute!

I can't get over how cute young Coturnix quail are! (Yes, that's poo.)

The breeder made us try a young Texas A & M quail too.

Here's our single cinnamon coturnix quail chick. I'm hoping this one's a female.

Saying Goodbye to Ingrid

2011-06-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the dead air, folks. I've been in a bit of a funk the past two days (as you can imagine, I'm sure) but this morning brought about a fresh spring rain and some time to spend indoors.

Saying goodbye to Ingrid has been tough for me. We're still in our first year of keeping sheep, and there have been a lot of trials. There's a little part of me that can't help but feel like I'm just no good at it, between Gertrude's stillbirth and Ingrid's bottlejaw and sudden death, but at the same time I'm fully aware that they're difficult animals to keep. I'm keeping my chin up, and I'm not quitting sheep yet.

In case you missed the previous post, I woke Tuesday morning to discover our oldest sheep, Ingrid (I believe she was close to nine years old) on the brink of death. She was laying splayed flat, legs rigid and forward, twitching and barely conscious. Laura, from Queso Cabeza, had warned me that grass tetany was a possibility in sheep and that it made them twitchy and sensitive. Grass tetany is basically a metabolic disease that stems from the ewe having severely depleted magnesium. The way to treat/prevent it is simply to dose them with milk of magnesia. Unfortunately in some cases the disease can progress quickly, often leading to death within 90 minutes of the first presentation of symptoms. Ingrid's bottle jaw (anemia caused by barberpole worms) earlier this year had stressed her system, and between that and her being six and a half weeks out from lambing and lactating, it isn't terribly surprising that it was she that was affected.

Gosh. I'm feeling ranty.

Farming is so intensely about learning. I think that's the first lesson for anyone who decides to undertake it, either as a hobby, lifestyle or career. If you're unable to learn quickly, and to accept that mistakes often result in emotionally and morally crushing blows, you may want to start slow. It could be the death of an animal, the failing of a crop, the collapsing of a structure...

As first generation farmers, we do so many things requiring a HUGE variety of skills that in this day, raised on modern technology and "conventional" education, are not provided to us readily.

These are skills that used to be ingrained in the very fabric of humanity - passed down through communities, down through families. Survival skills, the ability to adapt quickly, and to improvise - the best resource for all of this these days is the internet, rather than spending time observing and learning from someone nearby. Even then, you have to be willing to just dive right in and get your hands dirty. Unfortunately, the consequences to being undereducated, even just a little bit, can be pretty severe.

I guess what I'm getting at is that despite improvements to farming through modern technology, there are a lot of new hurdles on other levels for new farmers. This spring has taught me to be a better observer of my animals, and to accept that crop failure due to cruddy weather is something I just can't do anything about. The best thing I can do for my farming future is try to obtain the skills that would've been more easily provided to me as a young farmer 100 years ago (Okay, okay. probably not as a woman!) I can research, stay informed, improvise when necessary and above all continue to forge ahead, no matter how discouraged I feel when I roll out of bed in the morning.

We buried Ingrid on a friend's farm, way out back. It was satisfying to bury her in a lush, grassy field. Our friend asked us to put some sort of marker where we buried her, so they wouldn't accidentally dig her up at some point in the near future. I tend to lean toward opposing the marking of graves - I have some fairly strong ideas about mourning and the whole cemetery thing - but I transplanted a willow whip to her grave, feeling intensely sentimental about this skittish ewe that taught me so much in her short time with me.

A sad day.

2011-06-14T07:19:00.001-07:00

Just to let you know, Ingrid died this morning from grass tetany. It's a quick-to-kill metabolic condition caused by magnesium deficiency. Brighid has already decided the bottle of goat milk is an OK substitute for her mum's milk, but she's very stressed to not have Ingrid there. Gertrude is a good sport tho and is taking care of her.

We still don't have a new modem but I'll be posting more when we do.

Late Spring around Tanglewood

2011-06-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

Spring is coming to a close right before my eyes. The first snap peas are nearly ready for harvest. I'm so close to finishing planting all of the gardens that I'm beginning to feel claustrophobic. I'm constantly obsessing: I only have 3'x5 left to plant this crop or that crop, or maybe I can stick a row of spinach in under that trellis. Really what dawned on my yesterday is that this is the time of year I get a week or two to relax.

The summer horse camp that I run begins at the end of this month so if I can get everything in the ground and decently weeded in the next week I will manage to have a few days to do very little with myself apart from water beds, spray a little fish emulsion here and there and ride horses to prep them for the slew of little kids that will be riding them this summer. That sounds nice, I think.

Anyway, here are some late spring photographs from around the farm.

Cajeta and fresh strawberries. I posted the recipe for cajeta over at Not Dabbling this week!

The mock orange bushes are threatening to take over the entire yard. They've at least doubled in size since we moved in. This year they are sweeter smelling than ever, and at least 25'x15x15. Huge!

Our lady ducks are sharing their nest again. We've decided to let them hatch a few eggs since they spent so much time lining the nest with soft down. They are definitely better at setting this year than they were last year!

Okay, I'm super embarrassed by the awesomely sloppy job I did of shearing my sheep this year, but I figured I'd post a photo of Gertrude, giving me the "yeah, you prolly should've sheared my neck dumby" look... She was so done with standing nicely that I gave up before finishing her neck. Ah well. She'll live.

Brighid is getting to be humongous, and she is still harassing the chickens, though one of our hens has started hanging out with Ingrid more so she's had to adjust to that. The chickens have such big personalities, it amazes me that I can tell them apart by the way they act (since nearly all of them look alike).

Ah yes, and the itty bitty planted-super-late tomato seedlings have been planted out. They're still small, but they're strong. They'll be getting a big dose of fish emulsion today since the weather is sunny and cool.

And of course harvest will begin in summer as usual, right smack dab in the middle of camp season and I'll be left scrambling around before 8AM trying to get produce in and gardens watered before the heat of the day hits and I am stranded in a barn with 12 little kids wondering if my peas are going to get sunburn. I try not to think about that this time of year. :)

Neville

2011-06-10T08:11:00.001-07:00

Never name a duck after a character known for being picked on. At least he's smart enough to adapt to hiding in hard to reach places!

In the Kitchen

2011-06-06T08:13:00.001-07:00

Between yesterday and today I have put up a half gallon of rhubarb syrup and almost a half gallon of cajeta. I'll be posting a cajeta recipe later this week for sure!

Cajeta is a very dark goat's milk based caramel. This stuff is for serious caramel lovers! It is very similar to dulce de leche, but made with goat milk rather than cow. Next time I make it, I'll try adding more spices!

Have you ever made cajeta, dulce de leche or caramel? What are your favorite recipes/methods?

Predictions and Patience

2011-06-05T05:39:00.001-07:00

You know for sure that the spring has been poor for planting when the old farmer next door comes out to farm on a Sunday. He's a very old fashioned guy (well, if you don't count the amazing profanities that spew from his mouth in every conversation) and I can say easily that I have never seen him on a Sunday.

This spring has taught me a lot about reading weather and being patient. I find that the more I switch to planting seeds directly rather than seedlings, them more I have to be in touch with what the world around me says about the weather. Seedlings can bounce back to a certain degree, but seeds will rot, fry or even wash away if not planted in the right conditions.

The other day I had planned to plant dill and a few other very superficially planted seeds. We had been hearing storm warnings all day, but the previous two days had been full of storm warnings and had yielded not a sprinkle of rain. When I went to the garden to plant my seeds I noticed the birds seemed quieter than usual. Sure there were a few cheery robins and a nuthatch singing, but even they were singing from shelter in the bramble thickets.

I decided against planting the seeds and worked on weeding instead, and within a half hour, huge black clouds had leapt out from behind our windbreak and were poised above me, rumbling grouchily. The downpour we got was enough that it would have washes my seeds away, had I planted them. Songbirds to the rescue!

Yesterday was hot and sticky and the air was full of electricity when I got another storm warning. This time however the warblers were singing, as were the sparrows and orioles. You know if the orioles are out the weather will be fair. They're wimps.

I planted my seeds and we never got a storm - not even a dark cloud! By late afternoon I decided it was definitely necessary to run sprinklers to keep my semi-established seedlings and the newly planted seeds from frying in the near-90 degree sun.

It's fascinating to me that a little extra attention to the world around you can make you a better farmer or gardener. Some use the sky as an indication of weather (red sky at night, sailor's delight...) others use the smell of rain or the birds.

Do you use any old fashioned methods to predict weather?

New Additions

2011-06-02T14:46:00.000-07:00

What is the size of a mouse and chirps like a cricket? ...

Baby Quail!

We are now raising ten baby quail for at least the next few months; Nine of them are Cotournix quail and one is "Texas A&M" which just means it's a white cotournix. They're so tiny and quiet it's amazing! The smallest one is literally no bigger than a baby mouse and they're all surprisingly calm and fascinating to watch.

Having ground-dwelling chicks is taking some getting used to. They don't like to be picked up from above and they certainly don't perch. They seem irritated when you make them perch, in fact! They prefer to be on solid ground which means no picking up and carrying around, but if you set your hand in their cage they'll let you "hang out" with them... Hopefully I'll have at least one suitable mating pair so I can hatch my own little quaillettes in the future. These little guys will provide eggs and meat for us, as well as some interesting conversation topics. Their housing has to be fairly special - draft free (to prevent quail piles... piles of quail in which they often kill each other), low ceilings (to prevent them from flying up, hitting the ceilings and breaking their necks) and very tiny mesh cage wire (these guys are so tiny they can fit through 1'x1 wire mesh... chicken wire even!)

It's amazing. These little fluffers only incubate for 17 days! In fact, within 5 weeks they start laying the next brood, and at the same time they reach "market weight" which is literally only a few ounces. :) Plus, mature quail only really need 1-2' sq feet per bird once they're mature. Mwahaha. I am Quail Girl!

Tanglewood's First Farm Party

2011-05-30T04:36:00.000-07:00

The weekend kicked off with an amazing gathering of friends and students out at our homestead/farm. We called it the Tanglewood Detangling Party. Folks showed up with gloves, shears, loppers and serious work ethic. I didn't get a single photograph of the detangling crew in action, but we had no less than ten people working down in the orchard to clear away the invasive vines that have been choking the geriatric apple trees. Before our party, each tree was skirted by 10-20 feet of multiflora rose vines, virginia creeper, grape vines, poison ivy vines, box elder trees and more. The poor trees were literally being drawn and quartered by the various vines!

I can't begin to explain how grateful I am for the wonderful people that came to help, Saturday. There was so much accomplished in such little time! All of the brush and vines removed were dragged to line the fence along the edge of the property. Hopefully this will help deter the deer this fall, especially since the one spot with the most brush is also the spot they cross most commonly into the orchard to nibble on the trees as well as my raspberry patch.

I had daydreamed of having the orchard cleared ever since we moved in, but I never thought we could do it. It's amazing what good friends and the promise of home-made pizza can do!

While the majority of friends and students worked down in the orchard, I had a small ground of younger students (some as young as 8!) that came to help too! Of course I couldn't have them up to their knees in poison ivy and nettles so I found various other jobs for them including planting out over 150 lettuce seedlings! One of the lettuce varieties, Forellenschluss (an Austrian variety) was particularly fun to teach them to pronounce.

It was awesome to see them daintily plucking the seedlings up and planting them. I taught them each how to measure planting distances with their hands and they made very quick work of it. They also planted all of my marigolds and calendula out in the north garden and weeded some of the raised beds.

I think my favorite moment with the younger students was when I told them yes they could go in and see my antique taxidermy/skull collection. I'm not sure any of these kids had ever seen taxidermy in real life before. Their faces were priceless. One little girl in particular has become fascinated by skulls lately and we had a chat about how it's fairly socially unacceptable to go around saying "I like dead things"... hahaha.

The evening came to a close with a fantastic feast of homemade pizza (with asparagus, oyster mushrooms and pesto), fresh rhubarb lemonade (the best ever), salad with maple/balsamic dressing and various other potlucked pasta salads, brownies, cupcakes... it was amazing!

I'll try to post some more about the various foods/recipes soon.

Folks wandered in and out all day, and when the food was ready we all gathered up by the house to eat. The weather held out until most of the people had tapered off in the evening, and then it began to sprinkle. At the very end of the night we were left with my three closest friends, chatting in the living room about horse-related nonsense. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Tanglewood Detangled

2011-05-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

So it's nearly 2 AM and I need to get to bed, but I wanted to post quickly to show you what we've been up to this weekend. Yesterday we had a whole slew of friends and students come to our homestead/farm to help us pull out the terrible mess of invasive vines and plants that have been choking the antique orchard we live next to. It was a huge success! I'll be posting additionally about this, but I wanted to just put up a few photos really quickly before bed.

The first is a photo from last fall to show you what the orchard used to look like.

The rest are photos of the orchard after yesterday, as well as a quick snapshot of just part of the brush pile that was formed along the edge of the property-line fence. This brush will help keep the deer out as well!

Brighid the Troublemaker

2011-05-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

As if I needed a lamb sired by Herb-the-mischievous, mothered by Ingrid-the-skeptical and chaperoned by Gertrude-the-devious.

Brighid is a trouble make through and through. She is often seen kicking up her heels at Gertrude - even going as far as butting heads with her. She tries to climb through fences, loves to sleep on the ant hills and funniest of all she loves to chase the chickens! If they won't run, she'll charge them and baa repeatedly until they flutter away. They have even gone as far as trying to hide from her in the barn but Brighid is too smart for that!

The best thing is that this morning I saw Gertrude call the chickens. She was at the other side of the field and saw them come out of the coop. She let out a mighty baa and the chickens all picked their heads up and raced toward her! I've never seen anything like it. WOW. My sheep have interesting relationships with the poultry, that's for sure!

(Maybe she won't find us here!)

Comeer Cheekins!

Whaaaat? I wasn't doing anything!

(Sorry for the poor quality; I was totally unprepared for this hilarity!)

Rain, rain, Go Away!

2011-05-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

I was able to finish tilling the North Garden this past week. I was so excited to have a few days to work outside in the sun. I planted all of my beans in this bed - eleven varieties in several rows with various trellises and structures. It was hot, but it was dry enough to till so I really didn't have room to complain, especially considering what was in store...

The North Garden is flooded and I seriously doubt my beans are going to germinate where I planted them.. This photo was taken around halfway through yesterday's rain. We actually ended up with 4" of rain, and our driveway was impassable. Lucky for us we have access to the neighbor's driveway, or I would've been swimming to the house from the road.

The area that I just planted in fruit trees is under water. Six fruit trees and three hazelnuts, submerged- in some cases with only a couple of inches above the water. I know this photo is terrible, but I was snapping photos with my phone while dodging raindrops.

This last photo is the best example of how intense the flooding was. Within only a couple of hours, the entire Northwest corner of the orchard was completely flooded. At it's deepest it was at least five feet deep. This is the same water that extended across the driveway and out onto the golf course next door. We really need to get a canoe.

Were you affected by any of the wacky weather that swept the nation this week? How did your gardens hold up?

Tea for the Tillerwoman

2011-05-22T07:24:00.001-07:00

Ahh. At last I can relax. My darling tiller (who still has no name. I should remedy that!) broke down this week. Of course, there were two days of sun forecasted before literally ten days of rain and rain and rain, and it broke down on Friday leaving me a ticking clock of anxiety. Each hour was an hour I was losing, and the danged North Garden (50'x30) needed to be tilled asap for planting.

So... I opened her up. At first I was super excited because after a quick examination I was able to find the problem. The forward drive belt had slipped off of it's pulley (I have forward and reverse on this baby!) so it wasn't a huge deal. I slipped the drive belt back into place, revved up the engine and got it to till another three feet before it slipped again. Poo.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered the drive belt was split. No problem, right? I thought I'd just be able to head to the store and pick one up. Wrong! This particular model is so adorably ancient and geriatric that it uses an itty bitty non-standard belt. I was able to find one on ebay and ordered it immediately, but unfortunately the store I bought it from is closed on the weekends so it won't ship until Monday. I seriously started panicking. Monday is when the slew of 80% chance of rainy days began.

Then, yesterday morning, in a fit of madness, I started calling local small engine repair shops. My tiller is so old that there isn't even a model number on this guy. I think it's actually the first model of Junior Troy Bilt there was. I described the belt to a few different mechanics and they all said it was too small and they didn't have GW-9095 in stock (the part number). Finally I called a place that ended up being very close to us and the guy said he thought he'd have something that would work. I drove into town and TADA! He had a drive belt!

So yesterday evening was spent alternating between cooking carnitas for some friends and tilling patches of the North Garden. By 7 oclock I had finished not only the best carnitas I'd ever eaten (recipe to follow!) but I'd finished a final pass of the garden and wrapped up my tilling for the night.

Lucky for me, the forecast has shifted and we have sun and 80's today so I get to do another few passes with the tiller before the rain sets in. Thanks Michigan!

Spring Clouds

2011-05-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

These cloudy days are getting old! If you live anywhere near us, you're probably struggling with the same weather. Rain and cold... and then it warms up and clears just enough to make you feel like you should be outside doing something but sheesh - it still isn't what I'd call pleasant out!

Brighid is doing well. She's much more independent this week, but every once in a while she will wake up from a nap and not see her mother right away. When that happens, she will leap up, cry out and run around like a little pinball machine until Ingrid utters a little "Nuhh" grunt as if to say "Chill out. I'm right here." Ingrid's bottle jaw has cleared up and her FAMACHA scores are better. She is still right in the middle, so I'll be sending in fecal samples to check for additional parasites this week or next. This will allow me to figure out exactly what worms she has and which wormer to use to target them best.

The currant bushes are enjoying the clouds, and they seem to be flowering more than they ever have before. I'm not sure if this is weather related, stress related or maybe it's just that they've just become established this year.

You know, now that I think about it most of my perennial fruit plants are flowering more than usual. I think it's probably because they're established now that they're mostly enjoying their third year in their new homes. I think my favorite things in my gardens are always the fruit plants: strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, currants, serviceberries... Is that it? Maybe I should grow cranberries too. Hmm...

After setting up my hand-me-down popup green house, I moved my tomato, pepper and melon starts out. My tomatoes were planted two weeks late this year, but I'm hoping they'll catch up by mid-June. They're almost all up at this point, other than the San Marzano which I planted late since I picked up seeds after the ladies at Not Dabbling suggested I try them as a good heirloom paste tomato.

Anyway, here's hoping for a sunny weekend!

How are your gardens growing? Are you enjoying a sunny spring, or has it been as dreary as ours?

Also, be sure to check back soon. I'll be offering my first giveaway as soon as I get shipping figured out with my local post office! It will probably post this weekend. :)

Chicken Coop 1.0

2011-05-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

Until now, our chick(en)s have been living inside a small cage on our enclosed front porch. They spend their nights in there and their days in their run outside and it has worked surprisingly well, but for the clean up. Chickens scratch. Ducks dabble. I guess all poultry have their "thing"... and scratching chickens makes for a very littered porch!

So this week I decided it was time for them to move to the barn. Of course then I got slammed with flumageddon so it didn't happen as soon as I wanted, but today I finally finished the indoor chicken coop, but for the hinges on the door (which are currently in the trunk of our station wagon, a couple of towns over... boo).This will look a lot nicer when (if) I get around to white washing the interior of the barn this summer. Please excuse the mess, as well. I tend to keep my barn tidier than my house, usually... I put the pallet in there for the chickens to roost on for now. I'll be building perches (as well as another little project I intend to reveal in the next couple of weeks) just as soon as I get around to it. That little chicken-sized door is the door that Gertrude (my ~80 pound ewe) leaped straight through the other day. What a weirdo.

This is a shot of what will be the outdoor chicken run. It looks pretty ridiculous right now (and will probably continue to do so, honestly) but it'll work! I'll be putting in a door at the close end, and then screening the whole thing with deer netting and zip ties. These little pvc-pipe enclosures work well, and we've had our one for the ducks for over two years now with little wear. This run will be the more "permanent" run for the meat birds. It'll house the birds that have little interest in hunting/foraging. I have another run that I'll be putting on wheels that I'll move around for the egg ladies.

Do you have any improvised livestock runs or pens? How did you build yours?

Taking it "Easy"

2011-05-12T04:04:00.000-07:00

This week has been difficult for me. I've had a really nasty bug and have had no energy or balance all week. Poor Jeremy has had it even worse than I do, and developed a whopper of a cough and sore throat on top of it all. We blame it on some poor unsuspecting nerd at the last comic book convention he visited. Heh.

Anyway, despite being sick in bed for several hours of each day, I can't seem to stay away from work. I can't sleep, for obsessing over what I should be doing outside. I shouldn't be lying there; I should be planting strawberries, planting rhubarb, starting seeds, building a chicken coop, installing new electric fence in the orchard for the sheep, picking violets, weeding everything, hauling hoses, building shelves in the pop-up greenhouse, handling sheep, teaching riding lessons, making cheese... etc. And you know what I did? All of those tasks. I'm sure I'm paying for it by exhausting my body, but come on, man! It's SPRING!

Besides, I was totally taking it easy. I should've spent my week hauling a few yards of compost, mucking the sheep stall, pruning apple trees, tilling and double digging new beds and biking, but I kept myself to the simple, less strenuous jobs. Often I would just let the sheep out on their grass and sit under the apple tree, watching them munch quietly.

If your options were stay in bed and force yourself to sleep, or head outside to see this adorable face, which would you choose? Look at those amazing little face markings! They get more prominent as her coat comes in. I have to get a photo of the back of her ears, too! They have little black eye spots, like a wild animal!

Brighid is definitely growing. She has gone from a waif-y little fuzzball to a thick little spitfire in just the past few days. She's starting to be more independent from Ingrid, but still panics occasionally if she wakes up and mom has gone from her sight. Ingrid is doing well, despite battling with bottlejaw (a condition accompanying anemia from internal parasites). Gertrude is loud and obnoxious as ever, especially now that she thinks she gets to demand to go out on the grass whenever she likes. Yeesh!

The chicks are definitely chickens, and unfortunately they're not all the lady-pullets I was told they would be. I caught my favorite pullet crowing the other morning! Uh Oh. I hate to say this (especially since I know not everyone digs the whole farming chicken thing) but her/his name has become dinner. Bummer. I've accepted it though, and this means that we'll have home-grown, organic chicken several weeks before we anticipated, so that's a bonus. I figured we'd get at least one roo in our first batch, but never thought it would be the one chicken I'd grown attached to! Ah well.

I'm going to try to get some more photos in, here. I have a whole slew that I took while I was wandering around delirious with fever (jk?) earlier this week, but my computer seems to be incapable of opening my editing software this morning. Alas, to own a geriatric Mac is to develop patience for such things. This puppy is going on 5 years old, and computers are supposedly obsolete after just 3! (Can you hear the thick irritation in my voice?) I'll see what I can do. *mutter mutter mutter*

My current view: the pop up mini greenhouse

2011-05-09T10:34:00.001-07:00

My mother gave me her old pop up greenhouse a couple of years ago. It has been beaten by the sun over the years and is starting to deteriorate with age but it still lets in the sunlight and holds in the heat so it works!

I moved my as-yet-ungerminated tomato starts out today, as well ad my cukes and melons. The grand tally for melon varieties is 13 for this year, up from five last year. :) What can I say? I dig melons...

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

2011-05-08T06:18:00.000-07:00

Ha Ha Ha. We are carefree and young...

Shit! Is today Mother's Day?

How could you let me forget?!

Uhhhh....

...

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Love from Ben and Emily.

(And yes, I'll email you copies of these photos.)

Local Spotlight: Silver Moon Farm

2011-05-07T06:28:00.000-07:00

Meet Gen! She's a fantastic alpine doe from Silver Moon Farm, a local goat dairy where I currently have a goat share. The really interesting thing about Gen is that she only has one fully functional udder. She unfortunately had mastitis as a dry yearling and as a result she has a large clump of scar tissue and a malformed left udder. No problem there, though. She is a very heavy milker, with great milk fat for cheese, and I can't wait to learn to milk her myself!

Renea over at Silver Moon has been very patient with me as I learn a bit about goats. With a goat share, I basically "own" Gen for a day and if I want, I can go out and pet and scratch her or bring her treats, I can watch her bully her way through the farmyard or I can learn to milk and handle her myself. As a bonus, I can ask Renea to milk her for me and thus I receive fresh goat's milk from my goat! Goat shares are very sticky business in some states, but Michigan has been nice to us so far. To be honest, I've been pasteurizing my milk anyway because I use it for cheese.

Anyway, Silver Moon Farm is a wonderful small dairy and as far as I know they still have a couple of shares open! Are you local-ish to Pinckney? Check out Renea's web site!

Singing quick praises (reprises?) for the Mara des Bois

2011-05-06T05:23:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'll get to a longer post soon (hopefully a couple of book reviews!), but my life is currently dominated with the mad scramble that is spring-in-full-swing. I have been pruning and digging and planting and weeding and tilling and amending and hauling and shoveling and... you get the idea, right? That compounded with the mysterious lost blogposts and the fact that my father has been in town this past week and I've been spending time with him has made posting here pretty inconvenient.

I wanted to post quickly to sing praise again for the Mara des Bois strawberry. I wandered out into the yard yesterday to discover my Mara des Bois are already blooming! Not only that, one is already swelling into a small green berry! This berry was the last to produce last year and will be the first this year. Not only that, it was one of the heaviest producers and by far had the tastiest berries of any of the six varieties of garden strawberry that I grow. Mmm...

Have you ever grown Mara des Bois? Did you have luck with them?

Be sure to check out Not Dabbling in Normal today for my post on going shampoo free!

A busy week with little writing to show

2011-05-05T17:09:00.001-07:00

Ahem... Err... I haven't forgotten about you, no. I have been having trouble with my computer crashing and losing posts. After losing several posts in a row it's easy to say "Forget this! I'm gonna go dig in the dirt!"

Rest assured I'll be posting regularly again soon. In the meantime you'll have to be satisfied by a photo of my currants and my garlic. Wah Wah. ;)

The News

2011-05-02T00:32:00.001-07:00

"I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain

Chicks vs Chickens

2011-04-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

When do baby chickens stop being chicks and start being chickens? Hmm...

Our little ladies spent the entire day outside in the sunshine today. They really seemed to enjoy being able to run around like crazy, flying three feet in the air and having little squabbles here and there.

It was especially fun to watch the chickens interact with Fleur, our most adventurous and friendly duck. She would walk up and try to check them out and the chickens would absolutely flip out, torn between terror and territorial rage. It was pretty hilarious.

As a quick aside, while my father (who is visiting from NH) was doing laundry yesterday he discovered Fleur had come into the house (we have to run the washer hose into the yard through the back door). Apparently while I was out tending sheep he was chasing Fleur all over the house! Hahaha. I wish I'd been in here to see it. It wasn't until later we discovered she left us a present behind one of the chairs in the living room. LOL. Never a dull moment!

Tanglewood Farm's First Lamb! Congratulations Ingrid!

2011-04-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

My lambwatch has been very lazy this week. I had been checking around 8pm and again when I get up around 8am. I had a sneaking suspicion Ingrid would lamb this week since Laura from Queso Cabeza warned me she likes to lamb in inclement weather.

This morning I woke at 5am after a restless night of storms and wind, and I had this weird gut feeling that I needed to go to the barn. When I got there, the sheep were lying down and Ingrid was breathing a little more heavily than usual. She often breathes hard when I am around because she cautiously sniffs the air.

She didn't really appear to be in labor, so I told her "I really want a little ewe, Ingrid... just so you know..." and I went back into the house and to bed. At 8:15am I woke to Gertrude's little baa coming from the barn. She often bleats once or twice if someone goes past the barn so I lie very still and listened.

Within seconds, she was bleating almost continuously. I rolled over and poked Jeremy and told him something was up and stumbled from the house in his boots and my comfy sweats.

When I got to the barn, I found Ingrid in full labor with itty bitty white toes sticking out and Gertrude in an outright tizzy! Gertrude was seriously concerned for her friend and would run back and forth to sniff me and then to sniff Ingrid.

While I watched, Ingrid had another contraction and I was able to see a little black nose as well! I shot a quick phonecall to Laura and asked a few frantic questions and she reassured me that things sounded like they were going well. I opted to head back into the house to give Ingrid some space, and when I returned ten minutes later it was to the soft "Mehhhh" of a little lamb!

She was very strong right from the start, and as soon as Ingrid had licked the afterbirth off of her she was standing!

She is a gorgeous little badgerface ewe. What more could I ask for? How about hilariously adorable little black ears! :)

Her little face is heather grey, flecked with white hairs from her badgerface markings. She's primarily white and has her dad's big personality already! She had a hard time figuring out where to nurse, and she would walk right up to her mom's face and bleat at her like "I'm HUUUUUUNGRY!" At one point she tried to climb right into the low hay feeder to get her mom's attention.

She finally figured out how to nurse, which is when I was able to finally sterilize her umbilical cord and sex her. I couldn't believe my eyes when I discovered she was female. Holy cow!

We're assuming at this point that Ingrid doesn't have any other lambs this year, since she hasn't shown any additional signs of labor. I'm definitely happy with a single lamb, as my hopes were pretty low after Gertrude's mishap earlier this month. I have a name in mind, but I'm going to keep it to myself until I get to know this little lady a little better (and until I feel more confidently that she is going to make it).

The first violets

2011-04-27T15:36:00.001-07:00

I picked my first handful of violets today!

In the Works

2011-04-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

I've got another boring garden update for you this morning. :)

Above is a photo of our south gardens (as opposed to the new north gardens). It's in total disarray but things are starting to come together slowly. In the top right corner you can see my south veggie garden, roughly 12x24. I re-tilled it last night to a nice crumbly depth of 4" and it's ready to plant! It had been starting to grow grass earlier this year, and I've been plucking and pulling and whacking at the grass trying to get rid of it. Last year I let the grass kind of do it's thing and it really helped the seedlings establish. Unfortunately I found that the grass harbored a lot more pests than usual so I'm going to try to keep it under control this year. Does anyone else think grass is the worst weed? I'm morally adverse to it. ;)

In the foreground are the white buckets that I planted in last year. They're standing in as place-markers for where I plant to till, enrich and slightly mound the ground to plant winter squash. Last year I planted the winter squash in the very narrow three sister's garden that I planted. While I plan to incorporate the 3 sisters in another bed, I don't want to till huge swathes of land to accommodate the squash. This year I'm going to plant them in little plops around the field, allowing the vines to clobber the grass in the field.

In the back left you can see the raspberry bed (kind of) where the fence has totally flopped over. Alas, I'll probably be replacing this altogether since the fencing I used seems to have deteriorated considerably after just half a season. Ah well.

Other than what you see above, I've finally got my peas planted in the cinder block beds (at left), and I hope to get some onion seedlings planted out today to make room for the tomato seeds I need to start. There's always something to be done!

How is your spring prep coming along? Are you planning anything new this year?

Potato Trenches: Check!

2011-04-26T05:37:00.001-07:00

We finally finished digging potato trenches! We got 11 pounds planted on Sunday after a few days of sporadic digging. It sure feels good to check that off my list!

Do you plant potatoes? What method do you use?

What tiny sweets would you consider purchasing from a Market Bakery and Confectionary? (Please select your top 3-4 choices)
	miniature single layer cakes
	miniature three layer cakes
	miniature cookies
	miniature fruit pies
	miniature chocolate or nut tartlettes
	miniature cupcakes
	fruit candies
	chocolate candies
	freshly made marshmallows

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