thoughts from trees

Life goes on. Some ups, some downs, some navigating and some meandering.

So sometimes, I sit and just look and listen. And it's pretty nice how shifting from 'doing' mode to 'being' mode lets you find new truths that you've walked by and hurried past more times than you can count. So when I stop, I get these little moments.

And now I shall fling them into the interwebs.

From a couple of weeks ago:
The leaf at the top of a tree is the work of a season, but is only where it is because of the many seasons of growth and strength and resilience that have come before it. Likewise I, relatively new to this big ol' earth, am who I am in a cumulative sense. I make my choices but am only in this exact place at this exact time because of choices made by those who came before me in addition to my own choices.

And today, the corollary:
That leaf will fall, as many that have turned their brilliant reds and oranges are doing now, but the tree remains. Our choices can be good, or can be bad. But with that tree still present, there will be more leaves. And with a solid foundation that I can hold on to, I can always make a new choice. There are second chances. And third, and fourth, and fifth ones. There's always next spring.

look down

Looking down is usually associated with submission, with buckling under, caving in, and giving up. We're encouraged to look up, look around, look at, look in the eye, be alert. I usually try to do that on the farm, checking on things and looking for critters. Today, though, I chose to look down. And what treasures I found.

Looking down slows your stride. You don't make good time. You don't engage other people, you engage the earth. The rocks, the dirt, the insignificant things we seem to think we are meant to step on.

Having spent several days tilling and planting, I decided to go for a walk. Puppy was rather happy at the idea, too. 

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY WALK TIME

No agenda (except a faint hope of finding wild mushrooms, which still elude me), just a walk. Utterly unproductive and absolutely wonderful. Looking down. 

I found flowers.

Marsh primrose

Violets?

Even this flower was looking down.

I found sedum? Really? I thought that was a garden-only plant. Maybe it escaped from a garden into the wild to become feral sedum. It seemed to be making friends with the horsetails.

"I'm freeeeeeeeeee!"

I found a chunk of quartz with reflective parts that caught the light.

I found baby ferns unfolding their curled ends.

I did look up, and marvelled at the size of the cedar trees here.

Seriously, that's a huge tree.

Then I saw this tree that has decided it wants to be its own tree and grow in whatever direction it wants. Straight up is too mainstream.

I DO WHAT I WANT

I looked up when we flushed a mallard pair and a blue heron. They flew away, annoyed with me. I apologized.

I noticed Titus sniffing at something. He almost always looks down. And I saw... metal gear teeth? So I found a thing. And I assume it's to do with a tractor or something, but I really have no idea. It's currently called "this thing I found".

Next time I'm out, it's back to work. Gardening is nice for that, though. It encourages looking down too. As I churned up the field to make a new plot, I sifted the soil through my hands and wondered who'd last worked it. Then I sat down and thought some more. I am seriously not the most productive farmer anywhere.

yes i did finish

I didn't blog each of the thirty days toward my goal, but: I did it! 

 The farm's projects for the year have been shortlisted. A few more details to come, but we've narrowed things down. It's nice to already know what's doable and in these short, cold days, the thought of getting my hands into cool soil again is heartening.

We're increasing last year's field garden by about 50%, most of which I tilled last fall. In addition, I'm going to break ground on the far side of the same field for another field garden. That field will have two large garden plots, with the chickens in between in their mobile pasture. The whole field will, for the first time in who-knows-how-many-years, be in use producing food. With more space out there, the smaller garden closer to the house will become a home mainly for herbs and baby greens.

Planning like this has let me think more practically. The garden farthest from the house will have things like winter squash and potatoes that don't need as much frequent attention. We're going to plant a couple of rows of corn along the north side of the lawn. Why? Two reasons: lawns are, food-wise, wasted space, and a narrow strip of corn won't cut into our use of it. Second, once the corn is picked, those stalks in winter will be a natural, low-tech windbreak against the frigid northern winds that we are currently enjoying (by 'enjoying' I mean 'hiding from'). Closer to the house, we'll have the produce more often used or in need of protection from critters. Less ground covered while caring for all this will add up to be a real time-saver.

We are going to get one, maybe two hives of bees started. So those little oddities of livestock will be joining us. Odd, because unlike all other types of farm animals, we don't generally control what they eat or where they forage. Instead, we protect them, give them a place where they can do their thing, and let them go to it. I'm looking forward to this one, inevitable stings and all.

We're going to get a couple of pigs to raise for the summer. Sourcing has yet to be finished, but their pasturing and housing has been figured out. Same for turkeys. We'd like to try a half-dozen. Location's figured out but there's housing to be built. Of all the shortlist items, this one's at the bottom - if one thing doesn't happen this year, it's turkeys.

It was a huge help to have the goal in front of me every day, with little suggestions to attack the bigger goal piece by piece. So, continuing on with planning those items is the goal for this month. That, and getting myself in better shape. All of this farm stuff (and June's Spartan Sprint race!) is going to require physical ability. Staying faithful to the physio and strengthening exercises for my shoulder is a must, as is getting the overall strength and cardio back on track. Come spring, I'm going to need that to wrangle the tiller and lug food and water for all of those planned animals.

30 days, a few more days

It's been a week since the last post, but I haven't been inactive - I promise!

Day 9 involved cutting the goal down to make it more manageable. But I was on track so while I could see the merit in it (really, in the flush of the new year, who hasn't set an unrealistic goal and then tanked on it later?), I didn't cut back on my goal.

Day 10: Identify what stops me short and trips up my goal. For me in this goal, it really came down to distractions and feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of what we have in mind, and the realization that we have no firsthand experience in this. Farming has been quite a learning curve.

Day 11: using "if-then" statements to counter those obstacles. For me, it was if I was feeling overwhelmed, then I'd remember how far we've come. I'd power through distractions as needed. The research needs to happen. Granted, it's not too hard when I'm enjoying the learning.

Day 12: data! Getting data to help track goals. While I can't measure this in terms of pounds lost or website hits, I talked to D about streamlining the excel spreadsheet I use to track info on the farm. I used one last year but am not the spreadsheet guru that he is. He enjoys it. For real. So I'm enlisting him to make something less clunky for this year.

Day 13: remembering that someone has gone through something like this before, and learning from them. We've been reading books along these lines, so that's covered. And hooray for online forums where asking "why is my chicken doing this?" are actually answered!

Day 14, reading up on my goal, obviously meshed with this. For now I'm reading the practical how-to guides about the things we want to do, but a huge inspiration for me was The Dirty Life (not as kinky as it sounds) by Kristin Kimball. Her story of starting a CSA farm is funny, touching, and inspiring. I've read it twice now and will be going back for more.

And now we are at Day 15: half way through. Today's question was, where am I in this? 

So. 

I have read several books and determined a few things for the farm this year. Some yet to come, but we have a starting point and will have a well-researched shortlist by the end of the month.

Bees have made the list. I'll have to figure out a lot more, but the two books I read have encouraged me that we can do this. There's such an art about it that I know I will be learning and getting stung, but I'm looking forward to the learning (not the stinging so much).

Pigs have made the list so far. I have to source the beginning and end of the process, but the raising will be well within our ability.

Turkeys are looking possible. A book to research more on this has come into the library today, so I"ll be picking that up.

The field garden will be doubled. We'll repeat many of last year's new crops and add a new one: sweet potatoes.

A greenhouse, which I'd love to have, likely won't make it this year. Oh well, as the farmer's credo goes, there's always next year.

30 days, day 8

The idea of today is to visualize. To think ahead to what we want the goal to look like. Tapping into another sense to refine and solidify a goal that can feel like threads that waft through the air and slip through fingers.

My goal, a shortlist, isn't very visually exciting. But what that list makes possible? That excites me. 

The fact that the goal takes place during summer days, surrounded by warm brown earth and cool green plants, is a bonus when outside everything is white, windy, cold, and icy. On a day when D left for work unsure whether the 4WD pickup could blast through the drifts that had blown into our laneway, thinking of peeping chicks and ducklings and getting my hands into the soil are especially nice images.

So today while I'm doing the mundanity (not really a word but I just made it up and it follows grammatical rules of suffixes. So there) of research and such, I'll hunt for some photos of things we're thinking of. I'll sit with a cup of tea and leaf through the seed catalogue that arrived last month and fill my mind with reminders of sweet peas right off the vine and baby carrots pulled and brushed clean.

It is good to remember that someday this...

... will return to this. That I will walk out and feel the grass under my toes and hear birdsong on the wind that today merely howls angrily.

And I will have to remember that while I spend the two hours needed to snowblow this.

30 days, day 7

Today's task finished the line of questioning to define and refine my goal: WHO? (making me wonder what's next, as we've worked our way through all the questions). Who will keep me accountable, push me when I need it, and celebrate with me?

D. Unquestionably, unequivocally, him. The man who suggested buying property because it was a long-ago dream of mine, who raised the subject again when I was in the throes of losing my dear kindred spirit, and whose job financed the move to this place where I have healed, grown, struggled, and dreamed for these past almost-ten years.

teamwork.

The girls are, to a lesser extent. They are wonderful at helping here, but also have their own busyness with school and friends. There are loads of things that simply couldn't have happened here without them (including being the inspiration for starting to raise our own food, when I wanted to be giving them the very best I could), and they each bring joy to my days in their own way.

He listens to me ramble on about bees and pigs and sweet potatoes, sometimes asking critical questions to help me clarify, sometimes looking frankly bemused at my ideas. He knows when to draw the line so that we can be practical. He's the engineer who makes my air-sketched projects become physical reality. Even more, he's the one I can count on. He gets frustrated here, like I do. He's realistic. He knows what goes into planning and organization, and so is good at keeping me on track and reminding me of the big picture. He encourages my gourmet adventures and very happily eats the results. So from ground to plate, he's in on the process.

That's my who.

30 days, day 5 & 6

a.k.a, the weekend hit so I'm amalgamating posts.

Back to the focus question-type goals, with day 5 being identifying the WHEN and today the WHERE. These are a little nebulous for me. Since the goal requires research, it's something I can do just about any time. As to where, it's sort of the same.

That said, I can pinpoint times and places where my work will be most efficient. My mind likes to go happily skipping away sometimes, especially when faced with reading dry and/or confusing material. So, I will make sure to focus time each morning when I'm most mentally sharp to read up on the dreary, dry, regulatory things. The parts that interest me (side note: bees are, simply, fascinating. The more I'm reading about them, the more amazed I am.) become my evening reading, in the after-supper lull. After lunch? Forget it. The physical work is fine then, not so much the mental.

Where? Come spring, it will all be outside, gloriously outside.  The coop, the field, the garden, the land. This image is, to me, especially appealing on a day following a night of freezing rain and with the temperature plummeting downward to a flash freeze. 

Where for now? The research part will be in two main places: the computer upstairs, and the kitchen table. The table's a must when I'm studying from books. I am a sprawler. Always have been. That person in the university library who took up the whole table as if there was a study group, but it was just one person? That was me (sorry).

And by way of follow-up, yesterday's class at Le Cordon Bleu was amazing. I do love going there to learn. Two hours flew by watching the chef make macarons and fillings, asking questions, and getting to try the divine concoctions. I've got a first practice batch on the go right now. It's likely going to be messed up as the technique was one I found challenging - but the batter tasted good! 

I'm learning through these classes to focus differently on what I'm making, learning to identify things by texture, sound and sight rather than just by timing. And the privilege of being able to see both ends of the food production scale is gratifying, too. I can see potatoes and chard grow out of the soil I turned, raised the chickens from chicks, then make a galette and a gratin to go with the coq au vin. It's nice.

30 days, day 4

I spent two hours last night reading about bees. Research! Biology, how the colony works, why hives are designed the way they are and the important parts of a hive, etc. I found it fascinating. They're incredible.

But on to day 4. Hello, Saturday! Today's goal was a little different: "Today, figure out a way to add some fun to whatever it is you’re working on for the next 30 days. It doesn’t have to be amazing or dramatic, even something small can make a big difference."

And, turns out I'd already scheduled something like that. Yay for happy coincidences! The farm goals lead to the production of food, first in its raw state right from the ground or the animal. But I love to take it farther and do amazing things with it. If you've looked through this blog, you'll know I've been dabbling over the last few years into different types and techniques of cuisine, especially French. 

Our ducks become prosciutto, confit, cassoulet. The chicken is ballotined. Eggs become soufflés. I've gotten the hang of curing pork belly to make my own pancetta/bacon. I find these silly kitchen adventures fun as well as delicious.

How will I do that today? My lovely parents gave me a gift certificate for Christmas to a local cooking school, which happens to be one of Le Cordon Bleu's international campuses. Today I'd already booked a demo on macarons, delightful French cookies that have a reputation for being fussy to make. So today, I get to attend a gourmet class and think about the end result of my digging in the dirt and caring for chickens.

Who knows, maybe I'll find a way to sell fancy cookies from the farm, too :) 

30 days, day 3

The house is quiet this morning after a not-so-quiet sleepover last night as the girls and their best friend enjoy the last few days of Christmas vacation.

Day 3's goal wasn't unexpected - after 'what' and 'why', I figured 'how' might be coming along soon. One nice thing about being intentional on the what and why has been that I've already started sorting through the how a bit. 

Continuing with yesterday's analogy (because I like analogies and all that), if WHAT is the compass point and WHY the engine, HOW, with its breakdown of the larger goal into smaller steps, is the GPS telling me to "turn left here" (thereafter saying 'recalculating...' in that condescending voice as I miss the turn because I was distracted. Which is when I start talking back to it, likely to the confusion/amusement of people who see me talking to myself).

Day 3: In January I will accomplish my WHAT (shortlist farm plans for 2014) for the WHY (to maximize its potential and not waste resources). HOW?

1. research each of the brainstormed options as to: location on the farm, impact on what we're already doing, sourcing of materials/livestock, and practicality of our effort and the inherent learning curve.
2. research government regulations as to potential sales and how they might work.
3. research costs involved and look for any cash breaks or incentives/grants.

homework.

Yesterday's research got me laughing as I looked up hemp as a crop. Hemp (Cannabis s. - yes, that cannabis) has been grown for millennia for use of its fibers in rope, but was outlawed in Canada in the 1930s due to the other properties gained through smoking some varietals. It's been re-allowed under close supervision - including background checks for criminal records, and only using seed of varietals that don't have the medicinal/recreational ingredient in them. 

The idea of it amused me, but it's also apparently a great crop to grow organically for fiber and for the seed, which is a nutritional powerhouse. It was looking promising until I read that seed is only sold for plots of 10ac or more. We're not up to that yet. Oh well.

30 days, day 2

"A WHAT goal is great. It’s a fun start, but it’s not enough. We need a WHY goal too.

What’s a WHY goal? It’s the heart of the reason you actually want to accomplish that goal."

It felt good yesterday to sit at the table and brainstorm. We won't get to a lot of the things we dreamed about, but with no destination we have no direction. The WHAT gives us the compass point, the WHY is the engine.

So. WHY should we sift through things and ideas, research annoying regulations and back-to-basics how-tos? My WHY is, because if we have no shortlist then we drift. This place is so big, had been let go so far, that there is literally no end of stuff to do. It is not static. Things grow, need tending and husbandry; fences get more decrepit; weeds and regrowth reclaim. If we don't focus our time, energy, and resources, then we are not going to accomplish nearly as much.

The larger goals for our farm - removing dependency on factory-produced food and giving others the opportunity to do the same; giving ourselves and our children a great place to live; reconnecting with creation - need those smaller goals to happen.

Day 2: Why? I want to do this so that the farm can approach its full potential and we aren't wasting our limited resources (time, energy, and money).

We want to make the farm live again, to be productive. This while D has a full-time job, I homeschool M in grade 8, and A&R are at high school every day. This will take focus. I don't want to reach May realizing I should have put in a permit for something or figured something out in March, thus nixing that project.

Today, continuing in the little steps: get a google map of our property into line form so that my funny-looking scribblings of "beehives could go here, pigs could live here" are actually made more legible and we get an overall picture of how things could shape up. And keep that WHY in front of my mind.

(Secondary goal-that-really-feeds-the-primary-goal: Spartan Sprint at the end of June, and a shoulder injury's had me laying low. Physio is this afternoon but I want to be fit for (a) farm work and (b) the race.)

30 days

I'm an introvert who is blessed beyond measure yet still manage sometimes to struggle with both the intensity of anxiety and the quiet fog of apathy. Weird extremes. I love to create, but dislike self-promotion (which makes being a success in music a bit tricky). But talk to me about something I love, and you're doomed to listen to me ramble about it. Things that stress me out, I tend to internalize. I recharge in solitude and am happy to sit and involve my mind in the way the dew on a spiderweb catches the sun's early rays, or watch the consistency of the sauce I'm making thicken into yummy smoothness. Problem is, those things will distract me from getting much-needed things done.

But then I signed up for '30 Days of Hustle' by Jon Acuff, a writer who's made me laugh AND think deeply over the years. The project: spend the next 30 days working toward a goal. So that's what I'm doing. Today's goal was to define the WHAT of the goal. So here goes.

Day 1: in the next 30 days, we will shortlist the plans for our farm this year.

With many options and only so much time and money, the short list needs to be workable. It requires research into cost, benefits, impact on our current farming, permits, and all that stuff. This will be the challenge for me. 

I enjoy learning about the how of farming. What's the best housing for bees? Where should the hive go, and what precautions should we make? Can that old set of discs in the barn be retrofitted for out current tractor, since the hitches are different? What's the best housing for turkeys? The best alignment for a greenhouse? I'm finding that I love low-tech solutions and learning the old wisdom of farmers.

Where I bog down, zone out, and run away looking for something pretty and shiny, is in the legislated side of things. We are producing food, first for our family, but with the goal of producing extra to sell. And once you're selling food products, you enter the area of government regulations. Reading these makes me dizzy. Remember how the adults always talked in the Charlie Brown TV specials? That's how my mind reads legalese.

So: next 30 days? Research enough to make that shortlist. Not every item on the list will happen. My dream for a small orchard will likely be stymied by the house needing work on the roof this year. That costs money, and so do apple trees. But the list will be there on paper, research and groundwork done, so that before the ground thaws and we start to do something, we've already got our feet pointed in the right direction.

little red

We have drama in the henhouse. Bullying, even. And it's all my fault.

When I ordered my last group of chickens for meat, I decided to try a new breed. I'd always gone with the Cornish white rock birds, who love to eat and will get to roaster size some eight weeks after hatching - though we deliberately slow this down by encouraging them to be outside running around and eating grass. It seems to keep them healthier, and I prefer to take ours to market around 10 weeks of age. This new breed was supposed to reach similar weights but take more time to get there.

She knows sitting on me is a safe spot.

Turns out, it was going to take far too long to get there. By the time the group of 70 birds was ready to go, the three of the new breed were all still almost too small to make it worthwhile. The two males went anyway to make two rather small roasters, but the female I decided to keep so that she could live to lay eggs and join the hens. The little red hen moved over to the field coop.

I call her Little Red, but I've been informed by D that her name is Kqabawwie. It's a deliberately confusing, utterly mangled spelling of R's first pronunciation of 'strawberry' when she was a preschooler.

And the other hens, my lovely ladies who purr and run over to see me and take treats from my hands, have been mean to her. Harrassing her so that she hides in a corner. 

When I go over, the hens all run over to see if I've brought them a treat. Once they're milling around, I'll hear the cheep-cheep (she hasn't started clucking yet) from the coop and Red will poke her head around, see me, and run over. It's really quite adorable. 

I know it's part of the pecking order and all, but I feel bad for the little girl. She will fit in, I know, but we go over a few times a day to make sure she gets a chance at food and water. She'll sit on my lap or weave around my feet while I tell the others they really should know better and be nice. They just look at me funny, but maybe it'll sink in.

a ham story

Once upon a time, I bought a whole ham, bone-in. It cost about $16. So I decided to make a week of it. Because it's the sort of thing I like to do, often for no apparent reason. This is the story of the ham. 

The eponymous ham.

Day 1 
The whole ham would be roasted in all its glory. I cut off the plastic to find cheesecloth around the whole thing. I've never seen that before, but cheesecloth has a sort of small-scale artisan-created sense about it when it's around food (though I could be biased, having just wrapped some duck proscuitto in cheesecloth to cure). So in a completely arbitrary way, finding cheesecloth around the ham was encouraging. But I figured it shouldn't be roasted so I removed the cloth, scored the thick skin, and popped it in the oven. Uh... 375F for a couple of hours? I forget. This isn't a recipe. 

Day 1 meal

 Some maple syrup and brown sugar were added later for two reasons: 

1. to glaze the ham, and 
2. maple syrup needs no reason. It's sort of like liquid bacon that way.

This made a dinner for five, a slice of the ham along with small red potatoes (boiled and then sauteed in a bit of duck fat for flavour) and Swiss chard (sauteed with bacon and mushrooms) from the garden. 

And then the once-majestic ham looked like this: 

Not so pretty any more, are you.

Day 2 

Ham on rye, a.k.a. cliché sandwich.

After a chilly night in the fridge, the ham came out to be sliced. Cold slices on dark rye bread with grainy Dijon mustard and some baby greens gleaned from the garden - spinach, chard, and beet greens - served with boiled corn on the cob I picked from the field. 

Corn! When it's picked mere minutes before it's boiled, the sugars in the plant haven't yet converted to starches and OH the sweetness. Yum. Simple but so good.

The ham is disappearing fast. 

Day 3
Due to popular request at supper last night, I sent ham on rye for three work/school lunches.

Pasta took the lead tonight, penne with an alfredo-style sauce (basic white sauce with garlic and Parmesan) and chopped ham warmed up in the sauce. This served four, with leftovers for D to take to work tomorrow. So altogether, five meals this time.

I forgot to take a pic of the meal. DON'T JUDGE ME. Here's the ham after, though.

Day 4 
Two more sandwiches, this time on homemade whole wheat bread, for school lunches. I'm having to get creative now while I slice it, to avoid the bone that runs through it. 

going, going...

This evening - omelets. Bright yellow thanks to eggs from free-range hens who are loving the grass on their pasture these days. With, for a change, ham. We're at the end of this puppy. If the ham was a puppy. Which it's not, to be clear. 

Speaking of the puppy, he has watched the ham decimation with marked interest.

I SEE YOU'RE HAVING HAM. I LIKE HAM.

Day 5 
Waste not, want not, and all those proverbs. The ham bone went into a pot of water with onions, a few cloves, peppercorns, and a bay leaf. And there it simmered, leaching the last bits of its flavour to make stock. Onions were cooked in bacon and the stock added, along with potatoes and dried split peas. Cozy soup was a great finish to the week.

Split-pea soup with homemade sourdough bread.

Our meat purchase for the week (30 servings, between suppers and lunches): $16. Not bad.

And puppy was finally happy.

~ fin ~

serendipity is sour but tasty

Serendipity 

(ˌsɛrənˈdɪpɪtɪ)

- noun. - The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

The farm has been busy, birds (136 in all, right now) growing and laying eggs and all that sort of thing. The summer has been such a contrast to last year's drought, and the garden with almost no help from me is lush and productive. Which includes the weeds, but that's part of the job.

Yesterday on going out with the girls for a couple of errands, I glanced at a shrub-tree thing that grows at the front edge of one of our fields. We pass it almost every time we head out. I've never paid it much attention, really, but yesterday a flash of red on it caught my eye. I hit the brakes, backed up, and stared at it. 

Crabapples. It was absolutely covered. How did I miss this, all this time? All these years? Beautiful little red apples all over the until-now-ignored tree. I decided to come out later and harvest them. 

So this morning, puppy and I headed out to the road and I started picking. And picking. And picking. And straddling the electric fence line that keeps the cows in. That I managed to not get zapped was no small feat, but I am covered in scratches from the branches as I weasled my way in to reach all I could.

I picked them by the handful. By the double-handful. They were perfectly ripe, and have a perfect flavour - tart but tasty. 

As I picked I thought about how lovely it is that so much can happen without any of my intervention (interference?). Sometimes, I think I just get in the way. And this little tree did its work, likely helped by the local bees, and gave us a bounty that we had no part in making. Some of life's simple blessings are these unlooked-for surprises. 

I bet the cows knew all about it all along and didn't tell me, wanting to keep the secret to themselves.

A half hour sufficed to fill the washtub with all the apples I could reach. 

I had plans for today. But serendipity sometimes means tossing all that, being thankful for the discovery, picking the apples you find, and making some jelly.

miscellany: beef tongue

Yes, really. 

Soooo... yeah. Here goes.

I love classic literature and it seems that without fail, when the genteel folk had a picnic or cold lunch (oops, luncheon), one of the items on the list is cold tongue, or jellied tongue, or tongue sandwiches. Which sounded weird. I've never eaten, let alone cooked, one.

This is pretty much my face throughout.

This will go down as the first time I've spent a cooking exercise at least mildly repulsed by what I was working with. My general reaction throughout is summed up as, "ew". So eloquent.






So it starts with, yup. A tongue. A big, greyish-pink, flabby tongue that the farmer we buy our beef from tells me is worth more per pound in Europe than the rest of the cuts of beef. Interesting. Oddly enough, she included the tongue for no extra charge with the rest of the large order of beef I was picking up. Hmm, wonder why?

Ew.

While I taste it, can it taste me?

IT HAS TASTE BUDS. I can't get past the tongue-ish-ness of this thing. I had read to scrub it and then soak it for a few hours, changing the cold water frequently. The whole time I scrubbed, feeling the rough taste buds, I thought... you guessed it. Ew. 






It did not help matters that while it soaked, the cows who spend the summer here got out. While they stood looking at me before they got shooed back into the pasture, one put out her tongue and then STUCK IT UP HER NOSE. Yup, cleaned her nose with it. Did I mention ew?

The onions look good. 

After soaking, it went into the pot with fresh water, peppercorns, bay leaves, and onion, to simmer gently for several hours. It can't be cooked fast as it would basically end up like a tire. So it simmered away, smelling pretty good actually, but still looking like several kinds of nasty.

Titus: "NOM NOM NOM!"

Once it finished, I was supposed to peel off the outer layer. Oh, good, I thought, that will take off the taste buds and it will be less like what it is. But just removing the outer layer of the whitish tongue left me with... a greyish-brown tongue. Ugh. 

At least Titus was enjoying the process, and loved every little bit he got.

I'm still not convinced.

But, I'm happy to report, once I cut down through the next layer, it looked more like a pork tenderloin (wishful thinking? Perhaps). Hooray! A piece of meat I've dealt with. Into the fridge it went to chill.

Today for lunch: cold tongue sandwiches. Thinly sliced tongue on dark rye bread with yellow and grainy dijon mustard. And...

But... yeah, it tasted pretty good!

It was pretty good, actually. It tastes like, well, beef. The texture is the oddest thing about it (once you're past the IT'S A TONGUE thing. Which I am not past yet, for the record) as it tastes like roast beef but is much, much more tender than any cold roast beef I've ever had.

It's still kind of weird.

help wanted, sort of

There is no end of things to do here. Literally. Our dream for this place is so easily expressed: "bring the farm back to life", yet there is so much in there that changes, and adapts, then changes some more, only to find that there's more to do.

Regular maintenance eats up a great deal of time. Housework? I try to keep up with that in summer, but outside is constantly clamouring for attention. The hens. The ducks. The garden. The meat birds. Oh, and the cows just escaped. And was that a fox we just saw? Check the hens again. Why isn't the tractor working? Top up the chicks' water. The roof is blowing off the back of that barn we never use. The ducks need more pool water. The beans are ready to harvest and the potatoes need hilling.

I saw a quote about farming that it wasn't a matter of what you had to do that was your priority, it was what you had to do NOW versus what could wait until tomorrow. The tyranny of the immediate calls. I can plan to do things, which pretty much guarantees that something will change and throw the schedule to the wind. During all of this, D works. Full-time and (some weeks) then some. Much that needs doing can't be addressed as quickly as we'd like.

So, I decided, we need a handyman. "We need to hire someone who could do all those maintenance and fixup things around here," I suggested to D as he and I worked to build the mobile chicken coop for the pasture.

"That'd be great, except we can't pay anyone."

"I know. Which is why we'd need to hire someone certifiable: they would work for room and board, that's all."

"But there's no place for them to live."

"In the chicken coop."

"The chicken coop? Yeah," he said with a laugh, "I don't see that going over too well."

"Ah, but it's all in the spin."

"The spin?"

"Yup. Here's how the ad goes: 

Wanted, handyman to work on farm. 

Gourmet meals provided. 

Accommodation in separate dwelling 
to be shared with 30 single females."

I figure we shall be deluged with applications.