Slow Cooker Porridge

This is a new favorite breakfast recipe, and it makes an enormous amount that can just be heated up in the microwave during the week. I usually add a poached egg on top, especially now, when we are getting between 8 and 11 eggs every day! If you are not up on your fiber, ease into this---just a word to the wise... This probably has a full day's ration in one serving. Can be halved if your slow cooker is smaller than mine.

Slow Cooker Porridge:
1 1/2 cups mixed whole grains (I commonly use 1/2 cup hard white wheat, 1/2 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup barley, but I've also used rye, wild rice, hard red wheat, whatever is in the cupboard)
1/2 cup dried fruit
1 t vanilla extract
1 t lemon juice
8 cups water

Put it all in the slow cooker, cook on high until the water starts to steam, then on low for 12 hours.

That's it! I find it plenty sweet just like that, but you could add maple syrup when serving. It's dynamite with a couple of poached eggs on top, and there's something about a big bowl of grains that makes my belly happy all the way through to lunch time.

Solace

John let me sleep in this morning, getting up at 5:30 to feed the horses (usually my chore), and leaving me in bed under a pile of blankets and dogs cuddled close to me. It was nearly 8 by the time I rousted myself out, and wandered into the kitchen.

After breakfast (baked bacon with eggs from our hens and home made wheat toast; homemade ketchup and jam; black tea), I wandered out to the barn, and took my time cleaning stalls, prepping pony dinners, adding new bedding, as the drizzle came down, and the gusty wind brought willow leaves sleeting to the ground in bunches. Leaning on my pitchfork in the doorway, I watched the clouds slide around the mountain tops and away to the East through the canyon. The horses moved quietly about, picking through the fallen leaves for a tasty snack. Russell the rooster expressed his opinion of the cold and the wet. A red-tailed hawk perched in the Lombardy poplar at the far end of the property, shoulders hunched and head pulled down between them---like a city dweller in a trenchcoat, hat pulled down, hands in pockets, hurrying along the sidewalk, hunched against the wind, trying to keep his ears warm.

Back in the house, I wiped down the wet dogs, laughing at their laughing faces, and wriggling bodies, wrapped in towels. John had started a project, breaking into the pumpkins, to make them into purée for the freezer, and spicy pumpkin seeds for snacks. (T-day is coming!) I decided to make a pumpkin-corn chowder for lunch, and we spent a quiet couple of hours dancing in the kitchen---moving this way and that, circling the center island, sliding each other out of the way to get into a drawer, offering and receiving a taste on a spoon, passing in and out of the pantry, query and response about where to find the cumin seed or the dried peppers. The simple pleasure of a well-stocked home, filled with whatever you need, to make whatever you want, if you can find it. And someone to share it with.

Before the soup was done, the rain had turned to snow, and John decided to make cornbread to go with the chowder. As he stood in the door of the pantry, a number 10 can of cornmeal in his hands, I smiled, thinking 'three years ago, we would have had to go to the store before we could have made cornbread on a snowy Saturday. We're kind of nutty.'

This afternoon is for reading books and knitting and drinking chamomile tea by the quart as the snow comes down, and the wind blows. After chores, Saturday is candle-light game and pizza night, (the dough is rising, and I'm thinking about toppings for my side of the pizza...).

Our growing competence at all the things that are truly essential to living, our supply of food that means we will not starve, no matter what the weather does, our responsibilities to the crowd of beings that rely on us, our amusements and entertainments, and the quiet partnership of moving in the same space to separate ends; all these things act in my mind and my body so that I find myself comforted, so full of peace and security that sadness becomes a kind of sweetness. And the outrageous joys, that in their own way are so draining and fraught with the fear of a fall, become mellowed, warmer, not so glittery-hard. It's a hard year, this year, with highs that are so high and lows that are so low. Days like this one remind me that the buffeting waves are only temporary and there's ground down there somewhere just waiting for me to plant my feet on it.

The Garden in August

A view from the back of the house. The vegetables are finally taking off, and we're only a little afraid of the pumpkin vines that are taking over the world!

W

What is that feeling?
When the summer storm comes
With thunder and lightning and drenching rain,
And you take hay to the animals,
One by one
To show them the way
Out of the rain.
And you are soaked to the skin,
Underwear slipping down,
But you take the time to teach the young one.
And shake your head at the old one.
Back to the house, shivering with cold, wet to the skin.
Dropping wet clothes on the laundry room floor,
Grateful for hot water and dry socks.
And then this feeling comes.
Like the world spins a little more upright on it's axis,
Like all the flatware is in the right place in the drawer,
Like the copyedits are done, and all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed.
Like this is what you were made for:
Taking care, teaching, looking after, setting right.
And now your spine can relax, and lengthen,
And you can sit and listen to the rain.

Tastes like chicken

Ever since we got our first three chickens, oh, maybe six years ago, we've been talking about what has to come at the end. One of the big ideas we used to rationalize our chicken acquisition was the idea that "if we don't like having chickens, we'll just eat them.". Easier said than done, of course, for a couple of gen-Xers who had once made a mess of killing a sick, half-dead mouse.
I
And for the last few months, we watched the twelve new chicks get bigger, taking more and more room. The ten old ones slowly decreased production, with fading feathers. We knew the clock was ticking.

Because here's the thing. These animals are the backbone of our civilization and our entire food supply. It's obvious that eating meat requires the death of an animal. Other things, not so much. Maybe you think that eating eggs doesn't kill a chicken? Then you've never wondered what happened to the male chicks that hatch. And you've never wondered what happened to 'spent' hens. And you've never seen hens in battery cages, absolutely, positively stark raving mad; like Rochester's wife in Jane Eyre, they'd set fire to the place if they could.

And maybe you think that drinking milk is ok, or eating cheese, or yogurt. No cows get killed to bring you dairy products, you think. But then you've never connected the dots between pregnancy and milk production. And you've never wondered what happened to the calf that is born each and every year to each and every dairy cow. Hint: think milk-fed veal. A surprising number of really smart people that I personally know, have never made the connection between milk and babies.

Or maybe you think veganism is IT. You'll just eat plant products. But you never wondered where fertilizer comes from. And you never asked about the danage to the soil from heavy crop rotations. And you've never wondered about the best way to help a field recover from years of heavy crop rotations. And it never occurred to you these systems evolved, (and were bred, in some cases,) to support each other. The animals and the plants all form part of an inter-connected set of loops. If you pull out one piece, the whole thing becomes a rat's nest of tangles, like when you accidentally start the yarn skein by pulling the wrong turn. This is what the dust bowl taught us---that animals and plants go together. Modern, out-of-the-box thinkers like Joel Salatin are proving that imitating the intensive grazing of bison or antelope results in dramatic increases in soil fertility, crop production and animal health. That putting animals on the land is the BEST way to rejuvenate it. And then what?

All of which may be seen as a rationalization for what we did today, or as a genuine conversion, over several years, to a different way of thinking. To a vision of the connectedness of the world, in which I play a significant part in the life and death of its creatures. I could hide my head, and pretend I have no responsibility and no part to play. I could let all of my sustenance be gathered by underpaid, overworked people in horrible working conditions from animals living in conditions that I would not allow to exist inside my toilet. Or I can be vegan, and eat adulterated soy products, full of salt, and unpronouncable chemicals, made from soy obtained from farmers at prices that don't produce a living wage. Or maybe i could be vegan and eat only beans and rice, grown with petroleum-based fertilizers and huge carbon inputs in the form of tractor fuel, pesticides and herbicides. Or maybe I can be vegan, and eat only beans and rice produced on organic, sustainable farms. In which case they'd better have some animals around for fertilizer, and I'm back where I started... Or I can open my eyes, walk in the world, and be as humane as possible, as grateful as possible, while still realizing that infinity chickens is bad for everyone. We can't keep them all when they are done laying. Death comes to everyone, and it's not clear to me that it's more humane to let them get sick and suffer and THEN die.

So we killed a chicken today that we knew well. We knew her waking and sleeping habits. We knew what she was like when she was brooch, and when she wasn't. We knew that she would invariably peck the younger chicks fiercely on the top of the head when they tried to get to the water. We killed her. Then we ate her. She was a tough old bird, so we made broth and chicken salad out of her, and it will take us at least a week to finish every (truly flavorful) morsel. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't pleasant, and I would not say I enjoyed it. But it was the responsible, grown up thing to do. And there is satisfacton in knowing that she did not suffer. She had a really good life, and about 3 really bad seconds. I should be so lucky.

'NATURE is cruel. But we don't have to be.'---Temple Grandin

Flies

Once, when i was a graduate student, John and I lived in an old observatory that was infested with flies. (terrrible living conditions, but free!) There were so many flies that you could smell them (a kind of sickly sweet, rotten meat kind of smell). We would vacuum the windowsills, and fill the vacuum bag. EVERY DAY. We had an exterminator come out, and he said they were in the cement block, in the mortar, under the tile floors, infesting the entire structure, and nothing he could do would get rid of them, the only thing to do was to tear the building down, scrape away the ground, and start over. There were so many flies that they formed a kind of self-sustaining, Soylent-Green ecosystem. Other people went out of their way to mention the swarms of flies in Amityville Horror to us, which was funny for them, i'm sure. So that was a miserable experience, which has left me with a lasting impression that flies are an indicator that something is wrong somewhere.

This year, we have virtually no flies on our farm. That's unusual, and clearly something unusual is going on. It's by design, and I'm so excited that it's working, I am going to tell you all about it!

1) Cleanliness: we are devoted to keeping the entire property absolutely immaculate. We have only 2.2 acres here, so it's not that hard to do. At least twice, and sometimes three times a day, we run poop patrol in the paddocks, picking up manure. When the horses are in at night (just now, they are turned out all the time), one of these pickups is mucking stalls. Jo does a run (or two, or three...) in the afternoon. Most of these runs take just a few minutes, And it's important to keep ahead of the poop, and it never sits on the ground around here for more than half a day.

2) Composting: we have one central location for the compost bins where all that manure goes. As it begins to compost, it heats up, killing weed seeds, bug eggs, and fly larvae. The resulting compost is beautiful and rich, giving us the best garden we've ever had, despite the late spring.

3) Fly Predators: one central location means that we are perfectly set up for a relatively new biological control known as Fly Predators. These are teeny-tiny wasps that eat immature flies. The company that sells them delivers a box of bugs via UPS periodically throughout the summer, and all I have to do is open them up and sprinkle them on top of the compost heap. They are sterile, which is good for the company, and relieves any worries about the law of unintended consequences. It means an ongoing expense of about $40/year, but that seems worth it to me!

4) Other Predators: our ecosystem is healing, since the abrupt ceasing of petrochemicals last spring. This happened at our old house too---we stopped the pesticides and herbicides, and for about a year, the weed and insect populations roared back, one intense wave after another. I should have another post about that... But here, now, we are seeing the birds come back, as food and habitat comes back. And birds eat flies. So we couldn't be happier.

5) Other Animals: our other domestic species on the property at the moment are dogs, chickens and goats. We don't yet know what's going to happen with the goats---their poos look like a little handful of raisinets, and are un-pitchfork-able. Interestingly, when I peer at them with my little eye, I don't see flies hovering around, like they do around the horse manure. Perhaps because goats are ruminants, so their poop is sort of pre-composted by the time it leaves their body? I don't know, and the Internet seems unconcerned about the critically important issue of flies and goat poop! The dogs must be making piles, but most of the time we can't find them. Sometimes we will find a bunch of piles in one spot, and we pick them up with the horse poop. The chickens are deep-bedded---we start with straw and/or old hay and/or shredded paper and/or old weeds and/or fallen leaves more or less six inches deep. They poop in that, and stir it around, and add more manure, and stir it around, and so far, it hasn't smelled at all, and the chickens dig out all the flies and fly larvae, and turn them into tasty, unbelievably yellow eggs. We are about at the point where we need to scrape out all that newly formed chicken compost, and begin again. But first, I want to finish their new portable coop, so we can just put them in there while we clean out the old bedding. That will make it so much easier that it's worth waiting for.

So that's why we don't have any flies. Because we are looking at this little farm as a whole system. We are making biology work for us whenever we can. We are always on the lookout for some way to rebalance the system. You don't get swarmed with flies in the woods, (in general). You don't get swarmed with flies when walking across the prairie (in general). You don't get swarmed with flies when walking on the beach (in general). To me, that means that swarms of flies are a symptom of an ecosystem that's broken, and needs to be fixed. All of those "in generals" above refer to the fact that sometimes you DO come across swarms of flies in the woods. Usually swarming around a dead deer. If there are swarms of flies, something is dead and decaying. NOT composting, but rotting. While that's a really good way to take care of dead deer in the woods, I don't want it here on the farm!

Canning season begins...

With 15 half-pints of strawberry jam, thanks to Jo, who brought us the berries from her yard. This is almost like filling the hay barn. If there was a jam barn, it would now be more than half full, including enough to give away! I don't even have to think about strawberry jam again until this time next year. I just open the cupboard, and oh, there it is!

It's nice to be sending the jars back to the pantry from the garage, when all winter, we've been sending them the other way, from pantry to garage.

Stocking Up

After considerable nervous watching of the weather, multiple phone calls to Jeremy about how the hay is coming, much nail-biting when it was clear weather for three, but not four days, Jeremy called on Saturday. He wanted to bring a couple of loads of hay.

Jeremy, his brother or cousin (I can't remember!) Casey, Jeremy's father, and four children ranging in age from 5 to 13, showed up with the hay wagon. One of my favorite things about Jeremy is that he lives about 2 miles from here, so he and all the kids were riding on top of the hay---grandpa and Casey were using all the room in the truck. Oh, my really favorite thing about Jeremy is that he delivers and stacks. Because he does it all summer, it's much easier for him than if I did it---just once a year!

The kids were troopers, pushing bales off the trailer, and shoving them along to grandpa, who slapped them on the elevator. This stretched horizontally into the hay barn, where Jeremy and Casey waited for each bale, picking it up and swinging it onto the stack, four bales high. All told, they delivered 3 loads of 133 bales each. That, along with the 127 they brought a week or so ago, is all the hay we need for the year. So it's nice to have the barn full, with a bit more than 500 bales.

The price of hay is up, by roughly $1.25 per bale. I suspect everything will be more costly this year. We have flooding and record rain, cool temperatures and snow here, cutting into the farm economy. But it costs what it costs, and it's up to me to figure that out at my end. Jeremy needs to beagle to make enough to stay in business, make great hay for me, and buy pink cowboy boots for his little girl.

I sent him away with my thanks, and $40 extra to get the kiddies some ice cream. He said, 'No, I'm going to pay them.' a little offended, and I said 'I know you are, and I'm going to buy them some ice cream!' offended right back at him. So he laughed, and took the kids for ice cream. They earned it!

Tree trimming

And just one more today, lest you think i'm a total slacker. I trimmed a few branches from our trees that hadn't been pruned in forever. Just, you know, one or two little twigs... ;)

Also, in pony land, Trisha has started teaching us passade turns, which are used to teach collected canter, which is the prelude to flying changes and canter pirouettes. Trinket has decided she loves it so much she doesn't want to do anything else. I think she's just so delighted that I'm asking her to do something she's good at (as opposed to stretching, say, which she detests) that she just can't get enough of it!

And Chapter Five page proofs are done, and I've seen the cover of the book. That made the finish line seem right around the corner!

We had people come and put new gutters on (squirrelly had drilled holes in the old ones---Squirrelly!!) aside from putting the gutters on the garage backward (so they drained into the barn, rather than the driveway---I caught it early, so they fixed it), they did a terrific job. But then they left a gap in the fence. So multiple times today, I found my dogs outside the gate, with no idea how they got there! Silly gutter guys. Always close up a fence if you have to open it! That's the first rule of fences!

Tonight I get to watch some ridiculous sic-fi film about Venus, so I can be the expert commentary when they play it on tv---FUN!! The things I get to do... Who'd a thunk it?

Fortress update 2

Baby chicks, happy and healthy (this is actually the following morning, when the were awake...)

That's 1 for Mr. Weasel, 1 for Dr. Primate. Hooray for opposable thumbs! The fortress stands strong!

Fortress update 1

Friday morning, at 12:15 am, I started awake, with a picture of a hole under the coop in my head. I rolled out of bed, shoved my muck boots on, grabbed a flashlight, and headed out to the coop. This is what I found. (don't worry---I don't think I'm psychic. I think I heard the rocks hitting the metal barn wall in my sleep, and my clever back brain interpreted it correctly!)

I looked inside the coop and found...

Surprise After, Take Two

Here it is from the outside. I think it's just beautiful. And we finished it just in time, because Jeremy came today with about 1/4 of our year's hay---127 bales. And that was the whole reason we need the feed room. To clear more room in the hay barn so we can buy all our hay at once, because I'm guessing it's going to be in short apply later in the summer.

Surprise After!

So my team of crack construction women helped me put this door in. It took only one trip to Home Depot. And one argument with the pontificating fat old man there who thought he knew I couldn't possibly be actually cutting a hole in the side of a garage myself. Idiot.

Several jigsaw blades later, (1/30 the price of a Sawsall) we had cut a hole in the metal siding and the wooden crossbeams. About five minutes of fitting the door, hammering down bits of metal, shaving a little wood here and there, and the new door was in. It was also level, plumb, and true!

Surprise Before!

I have been so busy that I was starting to think I wouldn't get a surprise done before John came home. But I did, in fact, get to John's surprise, although I then proceeded to tell him about it, so it's no longer a surprise...

Here's a corner of our back garage/workshed that backs up to the passage between the barn and the garage. It's also immediately adjacent to the hay barn. So it's a perfect corner for a feed room! If only it had a door... (prior to this picture, there was electrical wiring running through this corner. So the first thing we did was move the wires. You can see the new junction box high on the wall on the right, where we spliced the wires in. Jo is now a master electrician! Call her up anytime you need to make a wire longer!

Laundry

After a year without it, I finally got my laundry line back! A house just isn't a home without a clothes line. It took me a long time to figure out where to put it, but in this spot, I can see it from the kitchen, so I can't forget I've got laundry on the line! Well, I probably still will once in a while, but not as often as if it were somewhere else!

Yes, I have plans for the stacks of bricks and cinderblocks we inherited with the property---over the weekend I was at the Mother Earth News fair, and learned to make an earthen oven!

The Fortress

So, Mr. Fox or Mr. Weasel, or whoever you are. You think you can just waltz right in and steal my chicks? Think again. This is the new, improved, chicken fortress. With 100% more repurposed concrete block, 100% fewer access points, and infinitely more peace of mind!

And After

When it's raining, clean the garage! Especially of you've got two little boys hanging around wanting to help with any jobs you have to do! Welcome Stockton and Bracken, to the Bellwether Farm never-ending to-do list! Good thing you are a couple of horse-crazy little boys...

Oh, and by the way, we are ready, in case the rapture happens tomorrow, apparently at 6pm. Much room for loot in this newly-cleaned garage!

And we've finally got the garden in (everything but corn, pretty much), and went to a U-Pick place to get 18 pounds of asparagus for $1.50 a pound. All spring, I've been saying that I wonder what it would be like to get to have so much asparagus that you'd be sick of it, and WANT it to end until next spring. Maybe I'm about to find out...

Home again...

While the tree guy was here, he ran his bucket all the way up as high as it would go, and used his phone to snap a couple of 'aerial' photos of the ol' homestead. Here you can see the garden beds going in, along with a tree that had to come down (at the center of the semi-circle, John working on his arbor, our neighbor Dale's house, and the last of the pile of bricks, etc. that Squirrely left us and we still haven't decided how to use. At the moment, they are stacked against the back of the house.