Good News, Bad News

Whaddaya want first?

Whenever I am asked that question, I always ask for the bad news first. But I can't make that option make narrative sense, so here comes the good news first:

Yesterday was an absolutely glorious day. The sun finally decided to shine, and it shone brightly and warmly. I think the mercury hit 67 or 68. I could not spend a single minute indoors, my skin was so hungry for sunlight. I stripped to a T-shirt and worked just about all day long in the garden. There was a brisk wind, and large, threatening clouds marched across the bright blue sky. When they occasionally blocked out the sun, the temperature would drop immediately, but as long as I kept working I felt warm enough.

The first thing I did was clear out the greens from several planters. The lettuce was beginning to get bitter and the spinach was starting to go to seed. I picked a giant colander full of salad greens to eat, and gained fresh space to plant. In the sun room, I had a few tomato plants and a few winter squash starts (a variety called "sweet buttercup" that I am not familiar with but am hoping is something like hubbard. These were transplanted into the recently vacated tires.

A couple of weeks ago, on the last sunny day we enjoyed, I dragged one of the garden boxes out beyond the fence that protects the orchard from goats and used my fancy mother's day wheelbarrow to fill it with used straw from the barn. The idea was to let it compost a little and then cover it with topsoil and viola! A new garden bed. I simply laid the square down on the lawn and covered the inside space with empty feed-sacks (they ARE good for something!) before carting several loads of crappy wet straw over. Ooh, my back hurt that night!

When my husband cleaned out the parthenon (Nasty Weather and Unfinished Business), he found a jar of scarlet runner bean seeds. A big jar. I have no idea where it came from. Instead of bringing it into the house, as a normal person might do, he decided to simply empty the jar onto my new garden bed, right on top of the straw. Then, it rained for two weeks.

Well, you can guess, right? Now we have a veritable carpet of bean sprouts all over my garden bed. I'm going to make him build a trellis. I had been going to plant corn in that bed - now I don't know where I might plant corn. It's getting late - if I am going to plant any corn, it should be done this week.

Let's see - more good news.... We got a lot of grass cut. But that leads me into the bad news because I ran over one of the new apple trees. Earlier this spring I planted six trees from Trees of Antiquity, four apples, a greengage plum, and a cherry. All six were doing just fine. Until yesterday, when I misjudged the distance between my blades and the Ashmead's Kernel and severed it completely from its stem. I felt like a murderer. It was perhaps the healthiest and most vigorous of all six trees, and I simply ran right over it like a full-blown idiot. Ah well, what are you gonna do? I never claimed to be a good driver.

The other bad news is about the bees. Two weeks ago or so, I opened the hives and discovered that one of them had apparently lost its queen. They were making queen cells. Consultation with my beekeeping mentor (The Bee-Man Speaks) yielded the plan to check the hives again in two weeks to make sure that one of the new queens had survived her maiden flight and begun laying eggs.

Well, I opened the hives yesterday. I am still a fairly hesitant beekeeper and I am not confident in my ability to correctly observe what is happening inside a hive, but I can be fairly sure that there is still no queen in that hive. I did not see any brood at all. There is plenty of nectar, and some capped cells, but no eggs or larvae.

That's not even the worst. The SECOND hive, the one that looked perfectly healthy last time, also appears to have lost it's queen. I did see some capped brood and some well-developed larvae, but no eggs or tiny larvae. I couldn't find the queen nor could I find any sign that she had recently been active. Nor did I see any queen cells.

This SUCKS! My plan had been, if there were no queen in hive one, to combine the hives by laying a a few layers of wet newspaper on top of hive two and then putting hive one on top. By the time the bees chew through the newspaper, they will have chemically melded and won't try to kill each other. But that plan only works if one of the hives still has a viable queen. With two hives but no queen, I haven't a clue what to do.

Well, I do have one idea. Call my bee-mentor and beg and plead for him to help me. I am not even sure of what I saw - I don't want to make things worse by buying and installing a new queen if there is in fact still a queen there. But on the other hand, I don't know how long a hive can survive without a queen. Maybe they will all die or fly away unless I get on the ball. In short, I need a second opinion, and I need one quick. Maybe I can bribe the man with goat cheese.

God knows, I have plenty of that.

Seasonal Abundance (Greens 'n' Cheese)

The photo is downloaded off the web because I still can't download photos from my camera. And in fact, this photo looks very little like what I actually made, which is Saag Paneer, but that's what it said it was.

What's saag paneer? Only the world's best way to use up tremendous amounts of mixed greens and fresh cheese! It's Indian food, which is one of my favorite cuisines, not only for the delightful spicy flavors, but also because it is so friendly to so many of the restrictions that I occasionally have to follow to accommodate friends and family. Indian food is easily adaptable for strict vegetarians, for the gluten-free crowd, and it is very very budget-friendly to boot.

Saag means (as near as I can tell) pureed greens (in Indian restaurants, saag means spinach, but actually many greens can be used - spinach, collard, mustard, chard, kale, or any blend thereof), and paneer means fresh cheese. These are things I have a lot of right now.

I am making fresh vinegar cheese (paneer) every other day or so, and I have to use it up somehow because it only lasts about ten days in the fridge. There are only so many quesadillas one family can eat - or should eat - so I had to find other ways of using the cheese. Also, I have three tires and one bathtub out in the garden which are absolutely stuffed full of mixed greens - mostly mustard and spinach. Once again, there are only so many bowls full of raw leaves one can eat.

For the past two years, the Kale Fairy was providing us with crazy-gigantic amounts of fresh greens, and in self-defense I developed a few recipes using as the only criteria how many pounds of greens could it absorb? Top among these is saag. And when you add in the criteria that a recipe must also use at least a pound of cheese, what you get is saag paneer.

SAG PANEER

-two or more pounds mixed greens, washed and roughly chopped. I like a mix of mustard, spinach, and collards.

- four or so cloves garlic

- a three-inch section of fresh ginger, peeled

- tablespoon black mustard seeds

- two or three fresh green hot chiles, jalapenos or serranos

- canola (or other neutral flavored ) oil

- one pound fresh vinegar-cheese (paneer), cut into one inch cubes

- salt and pepper

- cilantro for garnish

In a big stockpot, put all the washed chopped greens with the water clinging to them from washing. Cover and steam until well wilted. Drain well and set aside.

In blender or mortar and pestle, mix garlic and ginger and bland or mash the hell out of it, to a fairly smooth paste. Heat oil in a very large skillet and fry garlic-ginger paste with mustard seeds and green chiles (seeded and minced.). Add mustard seeds and stir for thirty seconds, until mustard seeds begin to pop.

Puree greens in blender until quite smooth. Pour greens puree into skillet and stir to blend. Turn heat to medium low and simmer.

Add paneer about ten to fifteen minutes before meal time. Let simmer. Season whole shebang with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over rice with fresh hot tortillas. Yum!

Nasty Weather and Unfinished Business

I've barely been able to come up for air this past week. It feels like all I do is milk, morning and night. The weather has been absolutely disgusting - cold, grey, and unrelentingly wet - and no matter how careful I am, I always get grubby doing the morning chores. It really puts a damper on your day when you start out chilly, muddy, and smelling of four different kinds of animal shit. I have to get up extra early to give me enough time to take a quick shower after chores and before leaving the house.

It's time to trim the goat's hooves again, but I just can't face the disgustingness of the job right now - I'm waiting until it dries out a little. Seems like many tasks are waiting for something or other - usually for money to become available (ha!).

Several weeks ago, I began a project near and dear to my heart: tearing down the Parthenon (read: falling down shed full of trash) and using its foundation to erect a greenhouse. The impetus for this project was a friend from church telling me that a buddy of his had a huge job tearing out old sliding glass doors on a large condo and was selling the glass panels cheap. We bought fourteen panels for ten bucks each. With the glass in hand (so to speak), we went ahead and tore down the old shed. Many boxes were thrown away, and a few items of value were recovered (like the deed to the property. Yes, I admit I was wrong - never throw away a whole box without looking through it, no matter how long it's been sitting unopened in an old shed.). In one day, Homero and one other guy took the shed down to the foundation.

Now there was a tricky part - I really didn't want Homero to build the greenhouse. I wanted someone who actually knew something about carpentry to do it. Lest you think I am being overly persnickety and/or just plain bitchy, please know that I have PLENTY of hard-won personal experience that informs me without doubt that my husband, accomplished though he is in many fields, is NOT a carpenter (A Handy Man is Good to Find...?).

Instead, I reached out to the trade network. Mr. X is a decent carpenter and willing to accept partial trade for one of our 275 gallon totes. He wanted it for his hydroponic greenhouse system. He had also recently built his own (very nice) greenhouse, so I knew he was capable.

Mr X drew up some rough plans and made a materials list and when he saw it, my husband pulled the plug on the project, saying we didn't have enough money right now.

Then he went and took a week off work to make a totally unnecessary trip to Mexico, which cost us considerably more than the greenhouse would have, without providing any (material) benefit. Such is marriage, am I right?

Mr. X took it well enough - I told him to go ahead and come get the tote, and we'd just apply it to his first day's work whenever we DID get it together to build the greenhouse (hopefully before fall planting season). As always on a farm, there are plenty of other unfinished projects - the biggest one is probably figuring out what to do about the rotting wooden floor of the main barn. The horses are starting to put their feet right through the floor. That's not good.

I have an idea, but I can't write about it right now, because it is time to go milk the goats again.

Help, I'm Drowning!

.... In milk, that is. Ever since the baby goats left, I have been milking three goats morning and evening. Each goat gives me about a half gallon (averaged) at each milking, so that means I am collecting about three gallons of milk a day.

Which is a totally ridiculous amount of milk! I took a picture of the inside of my fridge, but my computer is having issues and so I can't post it right now. Basically, the entire fridge is a sea of half gallon jars full of milk. Well, there are also several quarts of cajeta, five pounds of various types of cheese, a half gallon of yogurt, and a gallon of lard. Plus eight or nine dozen eggs.

The lard and eggs have nothing to do with goat milk, but they are farm products in the fridge, so I mention them.

I need to make cheese and/or cajeta every day just to reduce the cubic volume somewhat. I brought my sister a gallon of milk when I went to her house today. "Take it!" I felt like shouting. "For God's sake, just take it away!" Then as I break down in sobs, I moan in a tiny little voice "it never stops... it just keeps coming...."

My hands are going through their annual transformation- getting all bulked up from the constant milking. So far, no troubles with carpal tunnel syndrome, but I'm sure the day is not far off.

I advertised Flopsy on Craigslist, but I was honest about her having had mastitis and nobody wants her. I really really would like to have one fewer goats to milk, but I can't just send her to the auction. It would be wrong. Homero wants to eat her but I absolutely forbade it. That's just disgusting. So, for my scruples, I have to keep milking her.

And oh my God, it's less than an hour until I have to go out and milk them all AGAIN.

Bad News Blues (the Writing on the Wall)

The news has been pretty unrelenting lately. I don't have to tell you. I'm sure you've been listening.

A large part of the U.S. southern coastline is dying. A great sea may be dying. The country's second largest fishery is closed, for the foreseeable future, because all the fish are clogged with oil, dying, and fatal to consume. A not-inconsequential slice of the world's biodiversity is being lost, now - right now - choking on heavy crude, poisoned by toxic sludge. If I think too long about the suffering - about each individual uncomprehending animal becoming sick and then dying in pain, I start to cry.

An entire industry - a major industry - has been utterly destroyed. No-one will make a living fishing in Louisiana for a generation. If Prince William Sound is any guide, the coastline will not recover in thirty years. The effects of the massive loads of chemical dispersant used are totally unknown - but it is known that while oil is toxic at 11 ppm, the dispersant is toxic at 2 ppm. Russian scientists felt compelled to issue a report detailing the possibility - albeit remote - of the dispersant being taken up via evaporation and rained down on the entire east coast in toxic concentrations.

Where the hell are all the people who depend on the gulf going to go? Would you stay, if your home had been ruined - yes, ruined? Would you want to raise your children in a place where you had no livelihood and where it was very likely that the water they drink and the dirt they play in is poison? If there were no chance that they could enjoy the way of life you grew up with and loved?

I sure as hell wouldn't, not if I had anywhere else to go.

My husband just spent a few days in Oaxaca, Mexico, his hometown. Oaxaca is a medium sized city, about a half million people, and fifteen years ago was about as idyllic a place as you'd find anywhere in a developing nation. Sure, there was the usual grinding poverty and shocking living conditions; the corruption and the lack of law enforcement and social services that Mexicans everywhere endure, but even so, it was a beautiful city. American and European tourists flocked there to see the colonial architecture and the pre-Columbian cities, the world-class museums, and to enjoy the shady tree-lined avenues and visit the fantastic open air markets.

Homero hadn't been home in more than four years. He says he didn't recognize the place. There have of course been some changes specific to Oaxaca - political upheavals - but for the most part, the changes are those that are numbingly typical in nearly every sizable city in Mexico, our southern neighbor and ally.

Drought. Municipal water used to be delivered for an hour or two every day (imagine that, already, fellow Americans! Imagine you have to stay home and wait for the water to come on so you can be there to run the hose and fill up all your barrels. Imagine those are the good times), but now service is much more irregular. My mother-in-law hasn't received any tap-water for more than two weeks. Water in ten-gallon jars can be bought for drinking and cooking, but it's expensive and no-one can afford to use it for showering or washing clothes. The water situation is so bad that when my husband arrived, after five days driving, there was not enough water for him to take a shower. He and his mother walked to his grandmother's house to see if they had water there. She had some stored, but only very reluctantly parted with a bucket-full for Homero to bathe with.

Imagine, when water is so scarce that you can't offer your own son a bucket full to wash off the road-grime. In Mexico City - no-one knows how many people live there but estimates range from 11 to 20 million - water has been rationed for years. In the past, rationing was inconvenient. Now, it may be a matter of life and death for the very poor. When Homero was telling me about going to his brother-in-law's house, where the municipal water had recently been flowing, to fill a few barrels and return them to his mother's house in a pick-up truck, I asked him "what do the poor do?"

"God knows," he said.

Beg, I suppose. Beg for water.

Poor is relative, of course. You might guess from what I have described that my husband's family is poor. But they aren't - they are solidly middle class. In the immediate family are two physicians, an accountant, and an engineer. In Oaxaca, doctors can't afford water. In Mexico City, college professors can't afford water.

What would you do?

Yeah, me too.

I don't care how many troops Obama sends to the border - I don't care what kind of hideous, unjust laws we pass (I'm talking to you, Arizona), people are going to come here. From Mexico, from China, from the Gulf-freaking-Coast. If it were your children's life on the line, you'd come too, hell if you wouldn't. You'd break every law known to God and man to provide your children with clean water, not to mention a chance at a decent education, right? I would.

So get ready. If you live somewhere with abundant clean water, a mild climate (temperatures were over 100 degrees day and night in Oaxaca while my husband was there), and decent government services, people are going to come where you are.

What am I suggesting, razor wire and submachine guns?

No you twit, I'm not a fucking tea-party fascist. When I see people in desperate need headed my way, I don't think about how to head them off at the point of a gun, but instead about how I'm going to offer them succor. How am I going to prepare, how am I going to marshall my resources, how am I going to provide for my family while also providing hospitality?

If I, right now, rich as I am, were to show up at my mother-in-law's house - or most likely any other Oaxacan's house - she would do everything in her power to offer me a decent meal and a clean bed. The law of hospitality has been a cultural universal for thousands of years, and the harder the circumstances, the more uncompromising the commandment. Read the bible, if you are so inclined. Honor the stranger among you - that was written by a desert people who knew the value of a cup of clear water.

Alas, I don't have a lot of hope that we, as a society, are going to act ethically and charitably towards the hundreds of thousands of climate refugees who are headed our way over the next twenty or so years. I do not believe (and it pains me more than I can say to have to express this) that our government will extend the hand of welcome - or even the palm of tolerance - towards the needy families who will be asking for help. Current events and current opinion polls show me the very opposite: that freedom-loving American people are in favor of arresting and imprisoning people on suspicion alone.

That being the case - before I slide into bitterness and despair - what can I, or anyone else who wants to be part of a loving solution, do? Admitting that few people give except out of largesse, I suggest we start redefining largesse in a resource-poor world, and planning to produce it.

I'm not a saint - if it's a choice between feeding someone else's kids and feeding my own (or even my own mouth), I know what I'm choosing. So how do I avoid making that choice? Or other, harder choices that I do not want to have to live with? Do you think I am being overly-dramatic? Don't you remember the small-town policemen drawing their service guns on the Katrina refugees who were trying to cross that bridge? I remember. I was horrified - but I wasn't there. The news these days is forcing me to contemplate what I would do - specifically, honestly - if I find myself there.

What will being "rich" look like in the brave new world? I hope it looks a little brighter than simply having enough water to stay clean. I hope it means having enough to share. Enough water, enough food, enough space, enough love.

I plan to be among the rich.

I plan to have enough to share.

I plan to be able to help.

Welcome Home Papa!

Homero gets in to the Seattle airport at 11:30 p.m. I'm going to put the girls to bed and then leave Rowan babysitting while I run down and pick him up. I should get back around 2 a.m., if the plane is on time and if he doesn't have any trouble at customs.

Yay! Can't wait to have my husband back!

One Giant Leap for Cheese

It's been only two days since the last two baby goats were picked up, and already I have run out of room in the refrigerator for milk and cheese. I am frankly stunned by the amount of milk three dairy goats produce daily. Yes yes, I have had three milking does for three years now, but this is the first year that I have bit the bullet and actually sold the kids while they were still babies. In years past, I have kept the kids until they grew up and weaned themselves. Then I sold them for meat.

Sure, theoretically, I knew that each doe would produce about a gallon a day, split between morning and evening milkings. But three theoretical gallons are very different from three actual gallons taking up all the very literal space in my refrigerator. I need to make cheese every day just to reduce the cubic volume somewhat - a gallon of milk makes a pound of cheese, which occupies much less space.

Today I made cheddar, and yesterday I made black pepper chevre. The day before that I made paneer. The trade network will be able to absorb some of this excess, but not all of it. As I am not a licensed dairy, it is illegal for me to sell cheese or even milk. I am not entirely sure of the legality of selling milk "for animal consumption only" but I advertised it that way on Craigslist nonetheless.

What I really need is a way to reliably age hard cheese. I can make cheddar, but without a "cheese cave" - a climate controlled area - I can only keep it for a month or so before it begins to mold. It's delicious young, but that's not the point. The point is, how can I store my summer excess for winter?

This is hardly scientific, I know, but my best idea so far came from the "Little House" books. Ma Ingalls used to paint her cheeses with wax and then set them to age in the root cellar, turning them every couple of weeks. I can buy paraffin cheaply at the craft store. It's worth a try. I don't exactly have a root cellar, but I have a crawl-space and a lockable cooler.

The other possibility is convincing my husband to have a go at converting an old half sized fridge we have sitting out in the garage into a cheese cave. What I need is a box that will maintain a temperature of between 45 and 55 degrees, and a set humidity which I'd have to look up. He likes to tinker, so getting him to give it a go isn't too far fetched. Getting him to maintain interest long enough to make it actually work, though...

The last possibility is training myself to look upon my astounding surplus of milk as a golden opportunity to experiment with tricky cheesemaking techniques and obscure products. I'm dying, for example, to learn how to make Oaxacan quesillo - a delicious kind of string cheese. My husband would absolutely swoon if I succeeded in making quesillo. I haven't attempted it before because it's difficult and I would certainly fail a few times before I succeeded.

I am rather a miser when it comes to milk (and eggs) and I find it very hard to launch an experiment which might very well result in the loss of a few gallons. Nobody knows what an investment of time, sweat, and tears those gallons represent but me. I am the same way, actually, with paint and canvass. Lord knows the masterpieces I might have created if I could just get over my fear of wasting materials.

Whaddaya say - shall I risk a little milk in pursuit of new and superior cheese? Some gourmand said (I read in a book of quotations) "Cheese is milk's leap toward immortality." If immortality isn't a goal worth risking a little raw material for, well, whatever is?

Aimee, All Alone (Top of the World, Ma!)

Day three of running the whole shebang by myself. I know that there are plenty of women who run larger operations than mine by themselves, day and day out, and who do it admirably. If any of those women are reading this blog, bully for you, babe, I salute you, but it's kicking my ass!

It's unfortunate that Homero's unscheduled vacation (he spontaneously decided to drive to Oaxaca) coincided with the beginning of milk-around-the-clock season. I am getting up a half hour early to milk and get everybody ready for school, and what with one thing and another, I pretty much don't sit down until bedtime.

Then I don't sit down, I fall down.

I never realized there was so much slack in my schedule before. I felt pretty busy a week ago, too, but it wasn't even in the same league. One thing's for sure - if I ever have to be a single mother (touch wood), I sure ain't milkin' no three dairy goats every damn day. Homero, if you ever entertained thoughts of leaving me, give it up! You ain't goin' nowhere!

This morning was particularly rough. When I went out the the barn to do chores, it was raining lightly. I realized I had left the brand new bags of chicken food and goat food out last night because I can't maneuver my way through the chained gate and operate the latch on the barn door while carrying a 50 pound feed sack and fending off four frantic goats without help. Well, I couldn't do that any better in the morning than I could at night, so I cast about for something to cover the bags with. I spied the 75-gallon rubbermaid water trough, which thankfully was empty. I lugged the tank over, then tried to pick up the sack of goat feed and put it on top of the sack of chicken feed. It seems, however, that the light rain had already weakened the paper and the sack split in the middle spilling all the grain on the ground. So, swearing, I ran around looking for a couple of five gallon buckets and some sort of scoop. At least the ground is dry and hard and so I didn't lose any grain to the mud.

Scooping up the last of the grain, I decided to sprinkle it over the hay in the new fence-line feeder that Homero built for me. The fence-line feeder is basically a big box into which you put a whole bale of hay on the OUTSIDE of the pasture. The goats can stick their heads into the box but they can't trample the hay. It was a massively heavy hinged wooden lid on top to protect the hay from rain. I lifted the lid and started to sprinkle grain. Then I noticed four eggs in the hay (the chickens can get in the feeder and love to lay in there). As I bent over to get the eggs, the lid fell on my head. I don't know why Homero made it so heavy, using both plywood AND

T1-11. He could have just used the siding.

Then I went in to milk. These days I carry two half-gallon glass jars to milk into - between the three does they both get full. While I was milking Flopsy, the last doe, into an almost-full half gallon jar, she kicked and made me spill it all over myself. "Oh you horrible goat!" I shouted. "I hate you!" And at that moment, I truly did. I hated the goat, my husband who left me here all alone, myself, and basically the whole world.

Daily Grind: Stuff That Got Done

- Goats got milked at 8 am. That's pushing it, and I can only do it because each doe still has one baby on her. Starting tomorrow, it's 7 am at the latest. Got about 3/4 gallon all told. Together with yesterday's take, I had enough for

- Cheese to get made. Just paneer, but I like it more and more. It's soft, mild, easy to make, and the kids love it.

- Potatoes got hilled. Since I planted my potatoes so early - back in mid february - it's already time for them to be hilled up. I hilled up the 40 foot row while watching the

- goats and ponies get grazed. On nice days when I have a little time, it's important to let the goats and ponies out to eat outside the main pasture. It spares the pasture for the rest of the season.

- Brownies got baked for a party that it turned out we missed entirely. Somehow we thought it was an evening function, when in fact it was a luncheon. During the baking of the brownies,

- garden got munched. The G*&%$!@ goats took advantage of the five minutes I went inside to pop the brownies in the oven to eat most of my snap peas and half of my runner beans.

- Poppy pony got a little bit of training. While tied out to graze, I brought out a blanket and waved it around and threw it over her back and leaned on her for a while. God I love that pony. What a doll.

- goats got milked again at 6 pm.

- dishes got washed and dinner got made. Everybody got fed tuna melts and brownies.

- Blog got updated. This is it. Now we are caught up to reality.

I just learned that I will be holding down the fort alone for much longer than I thought. Homero is gone to Mexico and has decided to stay with his family for a few days before heading home, so it's just me here for probably a whole week. I'm not thrilled about it, but I think I can handle it. I'll keep you all updated on how it goes.

"Chatelaine" - New Recurring Feature

In trying to keep better track of the products of the homestead, I've decided I should invent a new category here on the blog. It will include all aspects of food production - garden, meat and eggs and milk, honey, and orchard products. It will also detail what I am doing with said products - processing for home consumption, trading, selling, et cetera.

In the past, all this sort of thing has been chopped up into the categories of self-sufficiency, preserving, finances, gardening, and the like. I will still use those tags so that people can search by them, but I think I will add a new tag called "Chatelaine" (Thank you Sharon Astyk- The Chatelaine's Keys). I love the concept of the chatelaine - the word is so much more romantic than "housewife" though the duties are actually much the same.

A chatelaine oversees the stores. She supervises the garden, the orchard, the apiary, the coop, the stables, the dairy, and the kitchen and pantry. She keeps the books describing what supplies are on hand and what are needed. Such supplies would include, for example, not only human food but animal fodder. They would include preserving supplies such as salt, jars, sugar, pectin, and cheesecloth. Also fertilizer, garden tools, wire and rope and all the various necessities of farm life. The chatelaine knows the state of health of every animal on the spread, when it is time to turn the compost pile, how many bean seeds to order, and how the chickens are laying.

She maintains the trade network. She knows the neighbors, and what each of them needs, wants, and has to offer in trade. She walks the pastures and knows the state of them. She inspects the barn and knows what repairs need to be made. She maintains contact with the veterinarian, the farrier, the orchardist, the guy with the big tractor, the mechanic, and the butcher. She oversees the state of the kitchen equipment, maintaining and replacing as necessary pots and pans, sieves and colanders, brooms and mops and soap and dishes and silverware. She shops for the staples of dry goods (pulses, grains, canned goods, and spices). Whatever is needed, she knows if you have it, how much, and if not why not and how to get it.

I believe I may have already combined the office of chatelaine with that of overseer or foreman, but even so, I have not yet begun to describe the duties of the housewife (which is to say, my duties). The housewife, in addition to being responsible for procuring the supplies necessary to the baker, the cheesemaker, the cook, the maid, the gardener, and the governess, does in fact actually perform all of those duties herself - myself.

I am the chatelaine, the accountant, the goatherd, the flock-keeper, the beekeeper, the cook, the gardener, the baker, the housekeeper, and not to even mention, the freakin' mother of the children and the wife. I am responsible for everything I have described above, plus the education and well-being of my children, the satisfaction of my husband, and possibly the survival of civilization as we know it.

I feel I have strayed into sarcasm, which was not my intention. I actually do admire and aspire to the office of chatelaine. It is a pretty good word to describe a large part of my job. I'm going to claim it and use it. I'm actually going to to try and fulfill the office - well, I have already been trying to do so, and let me tell you, it's not an easy job. Especially when you your other job is "housewife."

Baby Goats Go Bye Bye Bye

Yesterday some folks came and picked up their baby goats. Tomorrow two more are scheduled to be collected. I will be down to one baby goat, from an original eight. The only unsold baby goat is Django's doeling, who is kind of runty and not really very cute. For a baby goat. I think she will probably end up as meat. That's her in Paloma's arms, on the left. Shhh.

Django and Iris each have one kid left, and they were used to feeding triplets. So they need to be milked twice daily. This morning was the first milking, and they each gave me about a quart. After the last babies are gone, that will go up. Time to start making some cheese!

Flopsy, on the other hand... sigh. She still has one baby on her too, and apparently that's all she can feed, because she never has more than a cup or so for me. I am leaning more and more strongly towards selling her as an in-milk doe as soon as her babies are gone. I am torn - she's one of my healthiest goats, she doesn't have the parasite problems that Iris and Django do, and she throws the most incredibly beautiful kids! However, she is Storm Cloud's mother and so he shouldn't breed her and I am committed to using him as my buck for at least one year. Also, Flopsy had mastitis as a first freshener, and although she made a full recovery and has had no reoccurrence so far this year, it does tend to recur in the same animals over and over.

Maybe I'll advertise her - disclosing the history of mastitis of course - and see is anyone bites.

Meanwhile, we have a whole year to go before more baby goats!!

Appliance Recycling

We have terrible luck with appliances. Really just very very bad.

Last December, the furnace died in the middle of the one and only cold snap of the year (Freezing My Tuchus Off). The toilet in the second bathroom (a toilet counts as an appliance, right?) is apparently possessed by evil demons and finds it amusing to erupt for no particular reason two or three times a month. Two different plumbers - plus my husband - have failed to fix the toilet. My refrigerator died for the third and final time on Thanksgiving Day last year ( A Fine Day).

And then there's the washing machine. When I moved here, I was all exited about the chance to buy a fancy-schmancy new energy and water efficient machine. I spent a ridiculous sum on a brand new washer/dryer set - the first time in my life I had ever bought brand new appliances. Turns out, that might not be such a great idea.

I am thirty-eight years old. I moved here three years ago, when I was thirty-five. Thanks to a generous Grandfather, I bought my first house when I was twenty-one. Twenty-one to thirty-five is fourteen years. For every last one of those years I enjoyed the services of a single washing machine, a single dryer, a single stove/oven, and a single fridge. The washer and dryer were in fact inherited with the house and I don't even know how old they were. They were avocado green, so that says pretty old to me.

Back when appliances were built to last in other words. My new washing machine - a front loading, energy star rated Kenmore - lasted all of a year and a half before it began to break down. Homero fixed it three separate times, each time (so he claims) for a different problem. Finally we became to frustrated with the evil machine that we beat the hell out of it and threw it off the front porch.

Then I went to the used appliance store and bought the very same model that had served me so well for so long back in my old house. For one sixth the price of the new one.

Homero is using the old one to make a centrifuge to clean waste veggie oil for biodiesel processing. His biodiesel processor consists of an old recycled water heater and now an old recycled washing machine. Plus the old dead furnace is in his shop waiting to be converted into something that can run on biodiesel.

Here's hoping that the embedded energy in the broken appliances can be reaped in one way or another into the future.

State of the Season, 49th parallel, 2010

This was such a strange year, what with the warm winter and the bizarrely early spring, that I decided to begin keeping track of the timing of the change of the seasons here on the farm. (It's Called "Phenology!") It seemed to me that a years-long record of the dates of the first and last frost, the timing of fruit tree blooms, and the leafing out of the trees is the sort of thing that might be useful to future farmers of this little plot of land (my kids and grandkids, if I am lucky.)

My sister, when she bought her house, inherited from the former owners - who were avid gardeners - a detailed garden journal spanning some fifteen years. Besides it obvious practical value, it also happens to be a beautiful work of art. Well, I'm not going to create anything like that. I'm not much of a gardener, truth to tell, but I am a fairly keen observer of the small slice of the natural world here on my doorstep.

Even in such a short span of time, it has become rather clear that I am not such a great recorder of all the little details, but I hope to compensate with a nice photographic record. With commentary.

The pink dogwood tree in maximum bloom. This was taken yesterday. Such a pretty tree. What more is there to say? Oh yes - if you want to plant one and have goats, be aware that dogwood is like crack cocaine for goats. They will jump fences, crawl under fences, and sell their hairy little souls to eat dogwood.

On a walk today I saw these California poppies in bloom. I usually associate these with mid-summer. Other flowers which are blooming now but which in my head are associated with July are Oxeye daisies, lupine, and Scotch broom.

Looks like we might get some cherries this year! These are Rainiers, and the tree was planted three years ago. This will be (knock wood) the first crop.

The very very first red clover bloom on the property, as far as I can tell. I am eagerly anticipating the clovers because it means I can stop feeding the bees. Right now, even though the weather is gorgeous, there just isn't a lot ion bloom for the bees. The trees are done and the dandelions are done, but clover and blackberries haven't started yet.

It's funny, on a side note, to see which pollinators like which kinds of flowers. One thing which is blooming now, strongly, is my rhododendrons and azaleas. I don't actually like rhodies and azaleas much, and I have considered tearing them out for garden space, but I can't do that when I see how they are always thickly covered with native mason bees. The mason bees just adore the rhodies! The whole bush just hums the whole time it is in bloom. Yellow jackets like them too, and apparently even paper wasps like them - but not honeybees. I've spent quite some time watching, and I've never seen a honeybee on a rhododendron.

Weird.

Opening Day

Canning season has officially begun.

Saturday, I traded four dozen eggs for eight pounds of asparagus at the farmer's market. After we ate our fill of fresh steamed asparagus with lemon mayonnaise (recipe to follow), there were still about four pounds left over. Yes, we can eat a LOT of fresh steamed asparagus.

I've never make pickled asparagus before, but I sure like it. It's the kind of thing I never ever buy because it is just too ridiculously expensive and not really what you might call a staple. I mean really, when are you going to use pickled asparagus? On an antipasto plate, sure. In a bloody mary. Okay, so if I'm planning an Italian themed brunch hour cocktail party, I can see how I'd want some.

And now I have some. Two quarts and a pint - all I could find of wide mouth jars at the moment, and wide mouth lids were the only kind I had new. The reason I don't have any wide mouth canning jars is that my husband keeps stealing them for making test batches of biodiesel. There are about twenty completely ruined jars out in the shed, full of various grades of biodiesel.

Also, I couldn't find my tongs for removing hot lids and jars from boiling water. I had to use a long handled spoon and a carving fork. Clearly, I am not prepared for canning season, but so what? It's still May. I have plenty of time.

Hahahhahaha who am I kidding? I am going to be inundated before I know it.

Fresh steamed asparagus with lemon mayonnaise

Whenever you come into a lot of nice looking asparagus, this is the first thing you'll want to do with it. Wash and trim (by bending the asparagus until it snaps on its own) at least a half pound per person. Place in a large pot of cold, lightly salted water and bring to a boil. As soon as the water begins to truly boil - not just simmer - remove from heat. Let stand two or three minutes and then drain and rinse with cold water. This depends a little on the asparagus - if pencil thin and tender you will want to drain and shock immediately. If thick and older, let stand a little longer before draining. Asparagus should be bright, vigorous green.

In a regular bowl, mix a bog glop prepared mayonnaise (big glop = three or four tablespoons) with the juice of three lemons. Beat with a fork until smooth and creamy. Should be fairly thin, pourable. Season with plenty of fresh ground black pepper and a strong dash of cayenne.

You could serve this with anything, or even alone as an appetizer. Accompaniments that spring to mind are pasta with butter and pepper, tabouli salad, fresh baked bread, a big bowl of steamer clams, or any kind of fish for that matter. Oh heck, I really can't think of anything that doesn't go with fresh steamed asparagus and lemon mayonnaise. Steak? Sure! Roast chicken? You betcha!

Just be aware that anything you serve with this will be relegated to second place.

The Bee-Man Speaks

My beekeeping mentor called me after my frantic e-mail asking what I should do about the missing queen and the developing queen cells in my hive #1. It wasn't what I thought. He said I should wait - if they are making queen cells, then yes, my queen is dead or gone. Soon, though, one of the queen cells will hatch and that queen will go around and kill all the other developing queens. Then she will take her "maiden flight."

Before an old queen dies, or departs to start another hive, she lays an egg in a large queen cell. The nurse bees feed the larva a diet of only royal jelley, or bee's milk, made from a gland on their heads. In only 16 days a new queen emerges. She seeks out and destroys any rival queens, because there can be only one queen per colony.

When 10 days old, a new queen takes a high maiden flight, pursued by drones from nearby hives. In about 13 minutes, she mates with 7 or more of them, storing their sperm for the rest of her life of 2 years. She produces chemical scents which regulate hive activity.

If my new queen successfully mates and returns to the hive, then there shouldn't be a problem and my hive will go on as before. But apparently, many queens don't make it back from their maiden flight. If that should happen, then I will need to either a) buy a new queen for $20, or b) combine my hives. Hives are combined by laying a couple layers of dampened newspaper on the top of one hive and then putting the second hive on top. By the time they chew through the newspaper they will have gotten used to each other's smell and chemically become one hive.

I hope I don't have to do that, though. I hope my new queen lives!