Saturday, 13 July 2013

Berries and Friends

Today was full of wonderful. I spent almost the whole day unplugged and deep in the wooded spots on my farm that have no cell signal.

Surrounded by friends, good food, laughing babies....pretty darn near a perfect day. Thank you and good night!


Berries.





Clearly, a good time was had by all. Seriously though, I made chili and bacon wrapped stuffed figs and 3 jugs of iced tea. Then people started showing up and I walked 5 miles in total today, some of it through really tall underbrush and native grasses. My feet HURT.

The day was full of good conversation and laughter and baby smiles. Nothing better in my world. Oh, and people brought me gifts! I got a new Muscovy hen named Sassy, a bag of almonds, galanga for my Thai cooking, blueberries, a pineapple cake (which I sort of shared, but not really), and Swiss chard. Lots of goodies, I know I am forgetting some! Thank you, thank you all.

Thursday, 11 July 2013

Night Sounds


One of the things that I find most different about the farm from the city house is the noise at night. I am sure if I had thought about it, I would have expected it. Maybe.

In the city I had to have the windows shut and white noise going to be able to sleep. Even that caused me anxiety, could I hear if something outside was happening that I needed to call 911 for? Or could I hear if there was a break in downstairs? But if I didn't have white noise then I could hear the constant cars and street traffic, the noises of people living very lively lives at night, animals (wild and domestic), crickets, birds, dogs barking, sirens, the train, and the buzz of street lights. Fireworks, nearly year round. In the summer add what we call Mexican Polka that plays for about 72 hours straight 3 days of each week. The neighbors' television programs, volume turned up so loud, probably to drown out the outside noises. Window fans. Car stereo systems that heavily favour music with loud bass. The screeching whistle of bad breaks and boom pop rumble of failing mufflers. Good grief. Gun shots, more often than is comfortable to hear gunshots and screaming and not always followed by sirens, which is a creepy lay awake kind of moment. Yay insomnia.

The countryside is just as noisy. Different noises, but just as noisy.

Crickets, cicada, bull frogs, tree frogs, click beetles, owls, oppossums, fox barks, dog barks, raccoons, cats, and the worst....coyotes. Especially when they are near and there are lots of them running.

I can still hear the trains.

Cars still drive by, though it is a LOT less often. There are often, seasonally gunshots, though not at night. The week of 4th of July there are fireworks, but not after midnight.

Mooing. There is a lot of mooing. Especially if the bull is in the pasture. (Blushes at the thought of when I first realized why there was so much mooing......)

Did I mention bull frogs? Creaking of a not shut tight chicken house door creak banging as it swings in a dark and storm heavy breeze, a branch whapping the side of the house in the wind, breaking branches dislodging as a night critter jumps on one in a tree run and knocks a heavy one loose to break those below it as it falls.

The wind and storms are louder here. I'm not sure why.

I guess maybe I had hoped for more silence at night. The constant ringing of my ears has stopped. I thought it was a forever thing, but it stopped a week after we moved here. There are moments of complete silence though if you can catch them.....

After a heavy snow, when the night sky is clear and swept and splattered with stars, the prairies covered in a deep blanket of white. Everything, even nature, for a moment, holds its breath. Silence, like a prayer, embraces everything. Just a moment though and like magic broken, a dog barks or a sheep baas, or a car turns around the bend and makes its way down the gravel road crunching snow under rolling tires.

It is in these moments of silence that I am closest to God in prayer. More so than I ever have been in any chapel or service. Completely in awe at the utter vastness of creation and the powerful beauty of the universe.

"Amen," I break the silence with my own breathe of thankfulness and head back inside to wrangle baby giggles and read bedtime stories. These caught and released moments have begun to teach me to find the same peace in the noise too. The crickets and bull frogs become a choir for my prayers, a reminder that the music of God is not always played on organs or sung by children. The breathing rhythms of my own sleeping babies become the chords of my own music of praise, a daily meditation of thankfulness.

Wednesday, 10 July 2013

Grilled Farmhand Sticks

Again with the easy week night meals! This is a favourite here, very versatile.  We often are in the middle of important farm work at dinner time, losing daylight hours. This is a side affect of working day jobs and coming home to the livestock chores of 4 different kinds of animals. Chad needs something that he can eat quickly, on the go, and is nutritionally dense.

I start with what veggies I have on hand. Load the kabobs with them. Then I cube up the meat to the size of the veggies. I brush with oil, usually butter but coconut oil and lard work well and olive oil is a last resort (temps too high for olive oil and it makes it taste off).

Once oil is brushed on I generously sprinkle with seasoning of choice. Swamp Fire works well. I also like Pensey's Bicentennial and Bavarian. Your favourite seasoned salt will work, but watch the salt quantity.

Grill until the meat is as done as you like, turning a few times while it grills.


Recipe that is shown above:

Grilled Farmhand Sticks

All of these cut into 1 inch cubes more or less:
Zucchini
Sweet pepper
Baby bella mushrooms
Onion slice
Beef stew meat
Butter
Seasoning and salt

I make variations, use different seasonings, use lamb, deer meat, pork, beef.....whatever vegetable is in season. That is why they have yet to get sick of it. You can even use the butter and seasoning that drips and pools into a roux and make a cream sauce for pasta/rice/couscous/quinoa, then serve the veggie and meat on top.

Easy. Prep time is about 5-10 minutes (how fast you are at chopping things into cubes and threading on the sticks) and grill time is about 10 minutes too, but mostly hands off.

Clean up is easier. If you just have the serving platter and everyone eats off sticks there is no need for dishes. Clean up gets longer if you make the pasta version. That's why I don't usually make that- but if I have the meat thawed and the grill going and unexpected guests pop in, the pasta is a great meal expander. I love feeding our farm guests!

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Bottle Calf!

Sorry for missing a day, I've been writing furiously on a post about immunity management for our 22q series, but I keep remembering things to add to it.

In the mean time, twice a day I have to wash bottles and make formula......for a red angus baby heifer calf. She's Lily's bottle calf, to show for Clover Kids at the county fair. We'll raise her up and keep her for breeding or trade her back to the ranch for a beef steer. We'll see. Susan Maribelle Test Red Stamps is growing on us. She's a sweetie.

You know aside from the dreaded cow spit kisses and Lily getting it into her head that Susan can suck her eyeballs out. Lily gets up early and forgoes some evening activities to manage the electric fence, make sure she has water, and feed her the bottles twice a day. It is a big responsibility, but she wants to do it.

When you give a kid a responsibility they ask for and set them up for success, then they often surprise us with how capable they are.

We all have our part in this project. Lily feeds the bottle, I do the dishes and mix the milk, Holly keeps Lily company and is emergency watch (if the cow hurts Lily or Lily needs me ASAP, Holly is the runner).