Wahsega Valley Farm

Gimme!

I received my Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin yesterday. It's printed on newsprint and looks like a small newspaper and has few pictures. It's not much to look at though I do like the masthead...  but, oh, it contains so many of my wants and desires!

There is a whole section of farm machinery that Mike can drool over, but the rest of the paper is for me! There are sections for farm supplies, livestock, "alternate" livestock (usually including llamas and alpacas), feed, seeds, flowers, herbs, bees, mulches, "things to eat" - and more! I get all excited reading what others are already doing and it makes me think about what we want to do at the farm...

We want to have a vineyard for sure and have the perfect place for it where we'd like to grow scuppernongs and muscadines. In that same area we'd like to grow blackberries and blueberries and maybe raspberries. And, not far from that spot we want to grow figs too. I want to start now! That's why we need to move to the farm at least on the weekends. We're hoping to do that this year sometime. This image of muscadines on the vine was painted by Karen Shelton and I love her water colors.

We also want a vegetable garden - a big one, so we can put food in the root cellar that Mike is going to build, and can and freeze what we don't eat. We also want raised beds, like this picture shows. I love gardening and have missed it very much that past seven years. I used to grow herbs of all kinds, tomatoes, several different types of peppers, eggplant and flowers of all descriptions in my front yard since it was the only place in my yard where I had any sun.

And we for sure want chickens for the eggs, their poop and their bug removal talents. And, oh yeah, for their entertainment value and fun-ness. Yep. And guineas too because they are great watch birds and are so funny - moving around in a herd combing the grass for bugs and marshalling the land. The first guinea I met was when Mike and I were looking for some land to buy a couple of years ago. We pulled up to one place and there was a barn on the other side of a fence and some horses hanging out right next to the fence. The horses seemed happy to see us and we walked toward them, but out from the barn marched a little bird, looking quite authoritative. He started yelling like he was asking us what the heck we were doing there. There was a hole in the fence about twenty feet down from us, and that guinea marched right over to that hole, hopped through the fence, and proceeded to come up to us with what appeared to be a pissed-off demand for us to leave. What a little character he was.

Some people look at Victoria's Secret or Tiffany's or even Sears as their "wish book". Mine is the Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin.

Together

I was cleaning out one of my drawers at work and came upon an old book that was my mother's - Poems That Touch the Heart, published in 1941. My mother had written her maiden name, Helen Groves, on the inside of the cover on one of those book labels one can purchase. She loved poetry and I took a look, again, at some of the poems in the book and wondered what her favorites were. Here is one I like:

Together
by Ludwig Lewishohn

You and I by this lamp with these
Few books shut out the world. Our knees
Touch almost in this little space.
But I am glad. I see your face.
The silences are long, but each
Hears the other without speech.
And in this simple scene there is
The essence of all subtleties,
The freedom from all fret and smart,
The one sure sabbath of the heart.
The world - we cannot conquer it,
Nor change the minds of fools one whit.
Here, here alone do we create
Beauty and peace inviolate;
Here night by night and hour by hour
We build a high impregnable tower
Whence may shine, now and again,
A light to light the feet of men
When they see the rays thereof:
And this is marriage, this is love.

   

A face I could love

Just look at this face. It's a face I could easily love. This goat is in one of my Hobby Farms magazines and the people who breed it breed their animals for meat. I don't understand how anyone can raise a sentient creature like this and then sell it for meat. Je ne comprends pas! It just hurts my heart.

I have a feeling that when I have my own chickens I won't be eating chicken anymore - because how is it any different? I haven't eaten mammal meat in many years. People laugh when I tell them that, but I feel such a strong kinship to all mammals. But... I really feel a kinship to all animals whether they be mammals or not. The chickens we buy are supposed to be happy chickens from happy farms. So they say. I really don't want to eat any meat of any kind anymore.

"Those who have forsaken the killing of all; those who are helpmates to all; those who are a sanctuary to all; those men are in the way of heaven."

-Hitopadesa (Hindu)

Illustration:  "Comforting the Animals (work in progress) by Lotus Wilkerson

I'm in the second week of my detox and I don't eat chicken or fish of any kind this week per the plan. Last night for supper I made rice topped with ratatouille (a mélange of onions, garlic, eggplant, green peppers, zucchini and tomatoes) and some baked butternut squash on the side - all topped with a veggie dressing I made (flaxseed oil, apple cider vinegar, dry mustard, garlic, basil and pepper) - and it was so good I almost had seconds. The detox has been very easy for me so far to follow. And I just might come out of it on the other side as a vegetarian once and for all.

Weekend report

The weekend was a blur... lawcy, how time just flew... painting and working at the condo, cooking, pottery class, grocery shopping, doing laundry, cleaning house as best one can in about an hour, more cooking... sheesh. I missed my being-at-home time - and felt like a top just spinning around. I love the expression on this girl's face; it looks like I feel. What I want to know is how can time move so slowly on one hand yet so quickly on the other? It just don't make no sense (that be hillbilly talk).

Image source:  Time Flies by Chris Young at chrisyoungart.com

Mike and I talked about the possibility of moving to the condo when it's done and renting the house we're currently in. It would certainly prepare us for the small size of the cabin at the farm. I'd be up for it and it would motivate me to start getting rid of things I rarely use. I'd prefer that we sell the condo, but with the housing in the turlet, we can't tell how it will go. We need to prepared for a variety of possibilities. I can go with the flow.

There is a bit of a storm on the horizon. Mike has a stalker. I think she must have a terribly strong crush on him as she is out of control and Mike is downtown getting a restraining order put on her. She is sending him messages that are over the top inappropriate. She even got long, blonde extensions because she knows I have long hair and Mike likes it. It's a horrible situation and she won't leave him alone, calling him incessantly and leaving text messages. She knows where we live, where the condo is and where he is currently working. It's creepy.

Time trippin'

I received one of the Dan Fogelberg's CDs recently - that I ordered shortly after he died - and have been listening to it driving in to work while it is still dark outside. It takes me back so many years and it's funny what I remember most while listening to it. Painting. Painting the walls and trim in the 1929 less-than-a-thousand-square-foot house I owned and lived in for twenty three years. Painting and thinking and dreaming. It was where I raised my son, Jesse, and spent most of my unattached (to a man) years. I listened to records at that time since cassettes didn't even exist then, and I remember putting a stack of my favorite ones on the turntable and just letting 'em go while I painted or did housework or cooked. Music was so important to me then. The records included Dan Fogelberg, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell and the Moody Blues - and many more. Music for me, more than anything, brings back memories.

When I received the Fogelberg CD, Mike asked me who the songs would remind me of. He meant which men. I spent so much time alone during that time in my life that the songs don't remind me of any man. Mike liked that. But they do remind me of one fella - my son, Jesse. A lot. He was such a good kid and we liked hanging out together. We were best buds. I miss that now that he's an adult and has his own life. But, of course I'm happy he is independent now at the same time.

The last I saw my old turntable was when I was giving it to him years ago. He's a musician and thought he could use it. While listening to Souvenirs, the album I just received, I didn't have sad memories of men or heartbreak, but it was bittersweet going back to a place that no longer is. I found myself looking through some old photo albums and remembering when. Here are a couple of pictures. What a sweetie pie Jesse was.   

Earth laughing

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska
Carr Flifton/Minden Pictures
Mother Earth News, February/March 2008

Patience

In my impetuous youth I remember my mother telling me many times, "Patience is a virtue" and "Don't wish your life away" when hoping something would hurry up and happen. But I just couldn't wait and made some terrible choices because of my eager and itchy wants and desires - especially in the world of men and "love". Hoo-boy. And, I remember cooking so quickly in my early twenties that it never tasted very good. I just wanted it and I wanted it now. As I grew older, I became quite patient for many reasons. And, I like this quote from Elizabeth Taylor:

"It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater capacity for waiting."

But the problem now is that I'm not patient anymore. Since we bought the farm, I've been quite impatient because it will change our lives for the better on so many levels. I am ebullient with anticipation and excitement because the farm is something I've wanted so bad since I was little and playing with the roly polies in the back yard. I feel like a racehorse stuck in that little cage they're in before they let them out to run. Only I'll be in that cage for two and a half more years!

Mike told me to put some beans in a jar for how many days we have left before we're at the farm - and take one bean out each day. Kind of like the Christmas chain we used to make out of construction paper as kids. We'd take one chain off each day until Christmas arrived - and for kids it was good to see a visual. It calmed us down for a minute or two. Maybe that visual would help me be more patient too. Watching the beans disappear from the jar would be kind of fun. I could layer the beans that I use for my bean soup to distinquish the months (black beans could be February, kidney beans could be March, etc.) to really make it a visual. So this week I'm going to set up a Moving-to-the-Farm Bean Jar.

Apple butter

I made apple butter yesterday because I like it and it's included in my detox diet. I have to satisfy my sweet tooth somehow and it does the trick. It, plus agave on pancakes. I ate so much sugar over the holidays that I think I must have taken leave of my senses. I don't know why I became a sugar glutton. I know better! For the apple butter I used agave for the sweetener and it turned out great. Maybe a bit too sweet for my taste, but once on pancakes or non-gluten bread, it's swell. I also wanted to make some applesauce, but ran out of time. Maybe one night this week I'll do that. The photos are of the apple butter taking shape: first cut and in the pot, cooked through and right before putting into the blender, with the added ingredients (that light thing is lemon zest), and the final product after cooking for almost four hours. The apples really cooked waaaay down.

It remains cold here and the snowmen are still smiling in our front yard. In lieu of our normal hazelnut coffee that I'd be drinking to warm up my hands and just feel cozy, I am drinking some South African rooibos tea, which in truth, I probably like better than coffee anyway. But I love the smell of coffee so much that I finally gave in and started drinking it in my late forties - and Mike has a killer coffee machine that produces the best I've ever had. But I'm off caffiene for the next 28 days, so tea it will be. I like peppermint tea too; it reminds me of my old hippie days. Not that I was a real hippie, but I reckon I looked like one some of the time.

We worked at the condo today... me painting doors and Mike laying the tile around the fireplace. Next he'll build the mantel and then we'll finish up that room. We are so close to being done! When I'm there working on boring tasks (painting door after door), I just keep thinking, "farm" over and over again...

Snowmen in the yard and food in the kitchen

We went food shopping in the snow and it was fun and so pretty. You have to remember, it doesn't snow here much, so when it does, it's special! Right now there are kids in our front yard making snowmen and it's still snowing. Woohoo! And, it's the soft, fluffy kind that I love. Here is a picture of the portly snowman they just made. He's a friendly lookin' fella. And, here is also a picture of my last two tomatoes from this past summer - ha! The snow is supposed to stop soon and the only fear is that the water on the roads will turn to "black ice" tonight. My pottery class is tomorrow morning, so I'll have to wait and see if it will be drivable. I want to go, but wouldn't mind a stay-at-home-cooking-all-day day because we sure got some purty food today. It's in great contrast to the predominantly black and white outdoors. Here is some of it:

If you look closely on the first food picture to the right behind the garlic, there is a yellow cauliflower. I've never seen one so had to try it.

I love the show on BBC called You Are What You Eat with Gillian McKeith. She has no qualms about telling people that their breath and their poo stink - and I must admit that some of the food the people eat on that show makes me queasy just to look at it. She made something called Butternut Squash Bread that really piqued my interest, so I got ingredients for it today and can't wait to try it out... it's very simple and non-gluten, so will fit into my detox well. I'll be starting the detox tomorrow since we're having dinner with friends tonight. I'm ready!

The cupboards are bare

There is no food in the house! Well, there is a ten-pound frozen block of some sort of fish in the freezer that was given to Mike a month ago. And, I managed to scrape up some of Bob's Red Mill Brown Rice Farina for breakfast (that I know was at least a year old) with dehydrated blueberries, leathery raisins, walnuts, almond rice milk and cinnamon - along with some hazelnut coffee with cinnamon sprinkled on top. It was quite tasty, I must say - for being remnant food. We did have a grapefuit left, so I squeezed it first thing. But now, the cupboards really are bare. And, since they are predicting sleet and snow, we must go get some food. I remember weather so bad here in the past that stores were closed for days at a time. So, I'm a bit concerned. Getting holed up with only some unknown variety of frozen fish and canned goods that always get shoved to the side because nobody wants to eat them sounds awful to me. Mike has a 4-wheel drive Ford 350, so he thinks he's invincible (plus he is from Pennsylvania and is winter weather "experienced") and we'll be able to go wherever we want regardless of how bad the weather gets. What he doesn't understand is that while that might be true, it won't matter a hoot if the stores are closed. So, when he gets back, we're off to the market to get lots of fresh fruit, veggies - and all the things on my list to get me started on my detox - instead of going to the condo to work. Finally!

And maybe we'll get some fluffy snow again today. That would be nice. But, so far all I'm seeing is sleet...