It's that time of year again - colds and flu

Last winter a high percentage of children's cold medicines were taken off the market or restricted for use only in older children. Here's an article on garlic which tells a few of the things I try when I or my children have a cold before I resort to cold medicines: "Garlic, Again". We also take some immune booster, which I make with this herb mix and vodka. I steep the herbs in the vodka for several weeks, strain it, then it's ready to go. For children, I add boiling water to evaporate the alcohol then add some raw honey. Add a little lemon juice to that mix for coughs. This is best when we can catch a virus right when it first starts to make itself known. The moment we start to feel like we're coming down with "something". After you've been sick already for a day or two it is not quite so effective.

And here's the best recipe for avoiding seasonal colds and flu:
1. No sugar
2. Raw milk
3. Cod liver oil

Based on my experience, this works. "No sugar" is easier said than done I know, but it's really worth the trouble if you can manage it. A little raw honey or pure maple syrup now and then doesn't seem to hurt, though. Best wishes for a healthful winter! And happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Snippets from my life

My husband and I took the family to see Wall-E last weekend. We're a little late, considering it's been out since about what, June? But that's just par for the course for us. It is a great movie. I really thought it was well-done. But ouch. Quite a slam against consumerism. It calls to mind Dana Carvey as George Bush the First on Saturday Night Live in the early 90's when the nation hit an economic downturn. He told us we should "continue to do what Americans do best. We consume." Then he proceeded to turn the broadcast into The Shopping Show. I have read movie reviews that say that Wall-E is anti-conservative and environmentalist, but I saw it as simply anti-consumerist, which is about as conservative as you can get, so I don't know what those reviewers were thinking.

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Did you know that turkeys can roost really really high? Now that the weather has turned cold, I put my beloved red bourban turkeys in the pole barn for some shelter. At night, they are roosting in the rafters - a good 15-20 feet off the ground. A skunk got one of them a couple of weeks ago and had it for supper. At least, I think it was a skunk. Or it could have been a fox (saw one a couple nights ago), and the skunk was just scavenging.

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In related news, my birthday was a couple weeks ago. My husband is so thoughtful, he took me skunk hunting on my birthday. He always knows just what I want. I can't tell you how that turned out or he'll get mad at me. Just wanted to let you know how wonderful he is.

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I could smell a mutiny brewing, so you should know I am no longer the family carb Nazi. When the husband begs for hamburger buns and the kids ask for lasagna with garlic bread for their birthdays, that is when you know surrender is near. No more carb Nazi. Now I'm the egg Nazi.

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So I've started making buttermilk biscuits for them. They seem to really like that. Don't tell anyone, but the secret ingredient is lard. I've made biscuits before, and they always turned out truly awful. Now that I use lard, they are great! It's also good to fry potatoes in. I've heard it's super in pie crusts, but I haven't tried that yet. (Sorry for the commercial.) Lard is probably only bad for your health because you're having a heart attack right now reading about me liking lard. But our family is doing just fine. We're not dead (yet). My kids aren't any fatter or sassier than they were before. They still literally climb the walls and break my eardrums when saying "goodbye" to guests driving out the driveway. No changes there.

In a Bloggin' Mood

Baseball is now over. Boo! Yay! It was a long weekend last week with tournaments. It seemed we spent all our time at the ball field. Actually, we probably did spend all our time there. We played a total of 4 games, 2 of which were postponed one day, and re-scheduled the next. So it was really like 6 games. Since we haven't had any practice this week I am revelling in all this new-found time. Every evening I get a little bit more caught up on dishes and laundry. I'm not there yet, but maybe sometime in the next week, I hope. Woohoo.

We have a varmint picking off our chickens one by one. (*gory details ahead - go to the next paragraph if you DON'T WANT TO KNOW*) Some skinny creature has been breaking into the barn and biting the heads off our chickens. Sometimes he (she?) bites all the way through; other times, the head is just left dangling. Not a pretty picture, I know. We think it is a weasel or another mink. A while back we had the same thing happen and it was a mink. Now, as my husband says, it is an ex-mink.

It was a long, long spring with our cow, Ruby. We were first-time cow-milkers, she was a first-time cow milk-ee. She kicked. We kicked back. She developed mastitis, we stayed up half the night doing things to a cow we never dreamed we would ever do. Now I'm going to be honest with you. We've been getting farmier by the day over the last 3-4 years, but this experience was the first time we ever thought to ourselves, "This is just too much. Where do we go to resign?" We were also thinking, "I wonder how a humungous miniature jersey would taste as hamburger?" OK, we're just as human as anyone else. It was TOO MUCH. But we stuck with it. My thought was, maybe the worst is behind us, and we would be fools to give up now. So, we still have Ruby and "Buttercup" (a.k.a. T-Bone). They're both quite healthy now. But I'm not milking Ruby, either. That's because once we got her better, the calf started taking all the milk. That was fine with me, too, I needed all the time I could get for other things. This is a drama still being played out. Stay tuned for further updates.

I am, however, still milking two of our goats, which is providing our family's milk needs right now. It is just barely enough for the kids to drink, and not much else. I did make some great ice cream tonight, but I don't usually have enough to do that.

In gardening news: my spinach and lettuce have bolted. I've pulled the spinach, and am in the process of pulling the lettuce. Having been so busy over the last two months, I only just now got out my tomatoes and beans, and still haven't planted any peppers or zucchini. I do have some nice looking beets and cabbage, though. And chard.

The new guys: we bought a beef cow this spring - "Blackie". She is an angus/jersey cross. We also have a dozen Red Bourbon Turkeys, which I love. They are a heritage breed. That means they aren't profitable enough for the industrial turkey farms to raise, so they are becoming rare. I am hoping they will naturally breed next spring so that we don't have to buy our turkeys from a hatchery any more. That would be really cool. Plus, we are helping a rare breed keep from going extinct. I just hope they're tasty too, or all will be for naught.

Hopefully more blogs will be forthcoming. Baseball season is over and I feel like writing.

Feast or Famine

I'm posting a flurry of blogs today, because I know it will be a while before I get to again. Things are getting really busy. On top of the usual, normal, every-day sort of busy-ness, now we also have 6 hours a week to spend at the ball diamond for my boys' baseball practices. Which is fun. I like baseball. I wouldn't change it. But stacks of dishes at 11:30 pm are not so fun. So, my computer time is now being curtailed. This is the time of year when our already late meal times get pushed back from 7:30 or 8 to 9 or 9:30. So here you are, a feast of blogs. This is to fill you up in preparation for the blog famine to come.

Speaking of feasts, the season for farmer's markets is upon us! I imagine ours will be opening up sometime in the next few weeks. My first big purchase will be a large quantity of asparagus to blanch and freeze. The day I get it I will also make asparagus soup. Good stuff.

More Spring!

I have to admit, I'm getting a little nervous. I've been milking goats for over two years now. But a cow? If a goat steps on your foot, it hurts, sure, but is not that big of a deal. A cow? If Ruby stepped on my foot it would smash the bones in there to smithereens. Well, maybe not. But maybe yes! Ruby is due any day now. Pray for me! We don't even have our stanchion yet! But we will. And I'm so excited about CREAM. Here's our WonderCow, maybe only a day or two before L&D! ;-)

Remember our baby bottle goat kid? Well, now her favorite past-time is terrorizing the chickens. Loads of fun. Nothing more hilarious than watching frollicking kids.

My garlic is finally up. I must have planted it a little deep because it took longer than I thought it should have to sprout. But here it is! I think it should be ready to pull around the end of June.

And here's the peas, lettuce, and spinach I planted a few weeks ago. It's up too! I guess you can barely see the little sprouts in this picture, but they're there if you look closely! I also have a few baby asparagus shoots poking up out of the ground, but they are too young to pick this year. It will be another year or two before we can enjoy that.

Finally, some daffodils and forsythia. We're having beautiful weather this spring. No big ups and downs like last year. Hopefully that will mean a better fruit crop this year!

You might be thinking right about now: Gee, Amey, you do about everything! Heh heh heh. Boy have I got YOU fooled. You don't know how many dishes I have piled up in the sink or how many "stacks" I have about the house. If I measured the laundry needing to be done I would have to weigh it by the ton. But my boys have been to ball practice, my animals are happy, the refrigerator is well-stocked with eggs, and I read to my children today. All is well with the world.

Early Spring is Here!

It's been a long time since I've had to use one of these. Our "senior" doe (Daisy) had her babies on Saturday. One of them was extremely weak and underweight. Her mother would have nothing to do with her, so we have to bottle feed her.

We were keeping the baby in our kitchen full-time right after she was born. Now she's starting to spend all day in the barn and nights in the laundry room in a laundry basket. This is a picture of her. For some reason in the picture she looks like the goat from outer space. Don't worry, her eyes are actually normal. For goats. Yes, I have a goat in my laundry room.

This is Rose. She's next - due to have babies sometime between this weekend and the middle of next week. She had a difficult delivery last year. We hope she has an easier time this year. It's hard to tell from this picture how big she is, but she is getting huge. Don't tell her I said that.

These are some birch trees we planted between our house and the pond several years ago. Our trees are finally starting to grow to be a nice size. As you can see, the grass is brown and the trees are bare. For now. Six weeks from now, things will look a lot different.

We spent a lot of time outside today because it was so nice. Things have been very muddy so far this year, but it is finally starting to dry out a bit. Although I hear we are supposed to get more rain tomorrow. I did something wild and crazy this afternoon. I planted some peas, lettuce, and spinach. This is a picture of the bed I planted them in. I got this idea from Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew. We'll see how they grow. I have never planted this early before.

FAQ

Q: Where is the owner of this blog? Is Amey still alive?
A: Yes, I'm still alive, just been too busy to do much writing.

Q: Is there any hope that we will hear from you soon?
A: Yes, in fact I am working on a series to post hopefully in the not too distant future. Can't you just sense the anticipation building?

Q: What season is it there on your little farm?
A: Well, there are 5 basic seasons on a farm: spring, summer, fall, winter, and mud. This week it was mud. I think we're gearing up for a little more winter now. I have read that in the Inuit language they have a zillion different words for snow. It is my opinion that we should have a zillion different words in our language for mud. What's the word for partially-frozen "crispy" mud? I really like that kind. It doesn't suck the boots off your feet, yet it is also not completely frozen solid to where you're slipping and sliding all over the place. Plus it has a unique feeling when you step on it. Kind of like walking on glass, only not so dangerous.

Q: So what have you been reading lately?
A: The most recent issues from Mother Earth News and Wise Traditions, as well as Children of the New Forest (a school book). Not to mention the seed catalog (I like Baker Creek Heirlooms) and various interesting articles on the web.

Q: What do you make of the political scene these days?
A: What's up with John McCain? I can't believe people are voting for this guy. If only Giuliani were still in the race, that would split the vote and lower McCain's delegate count. I still like Ron Paul and plan to vote for him. At any rate, politics is a nice diversion. Something to get your adrenaline going. But political solutions will never be The Answer to the world's problems. So there you go.

Lux Venit

Today is the first day of winter. The darkest day of the year. The last few years I have taken a few moments to wax philosophical on the solstice. This is the moment to celebrate the light breaking into the darkness. We thought all hope was lost. It kept getting darker every day. Until the solstice. The "turnaround" day. Hope! The light is coming!

I just read a book by Jessica Prentice, New Moon Feast. I don't agree with everything she writes in this book, but what she says about Christians celebrating the solstice seems to hit the mark:

Christmas has become secular and commodified, but this was not always the case. In the traditional Christian calendar, the Moon of Long Nights corresponded to the period of Advent, which means "coming." Advent was a time of penitence, abstinence, and prayer. For those of the Christian faith, the period of long nights is about the expectation of a miracle: the coming of the light. It is not an accident that Christ's Mass - the celebration of the birth of the Son of God - corresponds to the winter solstice - the rebirth of the Sun.

She makes the point that since the arrival of electric lights, this season has become one of hurry and busyness. But in the old days, it would have been a time of slow, quiet reflection. Long nights with no light means more time literally in the dark! Imagine complete darkness with perhaps only the moonlight to see by. Can you imagine the pent-up expectation for light? And what comes along three to four days after the solstice? We celebrate Christ's birth - the light has come. Daylight returns and we can see clearly again. I love it.

One of the classic Christmas cd's in my collection is the first Micheal W. Smith Christmas recording (ok, so it was a cassette tape when I first heard it. Now I have the CD!) The song "Lux Venit" was included on it - translation from Latin:

Lux venit: "the light has come"
Sursum corda: "look upwards hearts"


Lux Venit Lyrics

The solstice is a time to celebrate that even in our darkest hour, God heard our cries and sent a shining light into our darkness - Jesus Christ. Look upwards hearts. The light has come.

Toys and Garlic Soup

It is virtually impossible to find toys at a store that are not made in China. I went Christmas shopping this week. I definitely could not find what I wanted. Everything I looked at said Made in China. The only catalog I know of that sells nothing made in China is this one. I like their stuff, but there's not a lot of variety in it. The stuff for girls especially. Not much there for a 4-year-old girl.

I tried a new soup last night. Garlic soup. (side note: I've been fighting off a cold recently, so garlic has played a big part of my life this week). It was delicious. I got the recipe from this book. Every soup recipe I have tried from this book has been excellent. I've never been much of a soup person, but I think that was because I was used to canned soups. There is no comparison. The key is to start with homemade stock. If you use canned stock or bouillon cubes you will not get the same delicious, healthful results. Other good soups from this book that I have tried: coconut chicken (only I used turkey), black bean, french onion, asparagus, and mushroom soups. My favorite stock is turkey. It seems to have a richer flavor than chicken stock, although of course chicken stock is good also.

Soup is a healthy, light, nourishing food, good for all of humanity; it pleases the stomach, stimulates the appetite and prepares the digestion. -J.A. Brillant-Savarin

My Sentiments Exactly

No one has yet really decided that controversy about whether the hen or the egg came first. If it was the hen, there must surely have been a bleak period before the first eggs were laid. -Cooking with Mrs. Appleyard

That conveys my sentiments exactly. I think that eggs are pretty much the perfect food. About a month ago our chickens went from laying nine or ten eggs a day to one or two eggs a day. That didn't scare me, though. I had stockpiled my eggs because I knew this was coming. Hens will moult in the fall (they don't lay eggs while moulting) and laying also will significantly decrease due to the smaller amount of sunlight we get so close to the shortest day of the year. I had six or seven dozen eggs taking up space in my already crammed refrigerator. How long do you suppose it took for us to use up that stockpile with an input of only one or two eggs a day? Less than three weeks.

I told myself not to panic. I put eggs right up there on a pedestal along with breathable air and potable water. Air, water, eggs. Three substances necessary for life. So, you will all be relieved (but not as much as me) to know that our pullets (a.k.a. the teenage chickens) started laying this week! Now we are up to an input of six eggs a day, which is still a little low (especially considering they are quite small eggs), but I do believe we can scrape by on that. So, praise the Lord, and pass the salt and butter.

Finally

Well, we finally had our first frost this morning. I don't remember ever having the first frost so late! We still covered up our tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini. They're still producing! We covered them again tonight, but I know eventually we'll have to give it up.

I also had my first big post-farmer's market grocery shopping trip this weekend. I hadn't bought any vegetables from a grocery store at all since last May. It's been great! We were able to cut our grocery shopping trips to once every 2-3 weeks. We'll have to start going more often now, but it was great while it lasted. Next year hopefully I can preserve more produce so that even after the season is over we still won't have to shop every week. The only problem with that is we only have so much freezer space.

One thing I really enjoyed doing this year was growing our own celery and then drying it. We can't stand to eat celery just plain (raw), so I just dried all of it. I use it in recipes and in making stock. So my jars of dried celery should last us all winter.

One neat thing about the farmer's market is that you feel daring enough to try new things from time to time. This year we tried chard and kohlrabi. The chard especially is very good. You cook it much like you would spinach, but its flavor is a little milder. It's delicious with a big slab of butter melted over it and a little salt.

Long Time No Write (which gives me license to ramble)

Well, it's been awhile since I've written here, so I thought I'd check in today. Time has been flying by. I'm not sure where September went. It zoomed past at the speed of light. Now here we are finishing up the first week of October with nary a frost in sight. We're still eating zucchini casserole once a week, and the tomatoes are still blooming. I brought in the rest of my cabbage last weekend to make our family favorite: cortido (Latin American sauerkraut). This weekend I am drying chopped celery from the garden. Despite all this good eatin', I've really been neglecting my garden dreadfully. I haven't been watering it like I should! We've had very little rain this year. We have a volunteer squash plant in the old garden where we throw the compost. I think it might be a butternut squash. The biggest one isn't ripe yet, but I'm crossing my fingers. The big question is: when will we get that first frost?

On the critter front, our little farm hit its maximum number of occupants towards the end of August. Now those numbers are dwindling. We butchered one group of chickens the end of August, and the second group will be done in another week or two. Our two steers and one lamb went to the butcher last week, and we've also done 3 turkeys. Besides that we have lost 4 ducks and several chickens to outside causes. One of our ducks got hit by a car during an unauthorized road crossing (serves the bird the right for wandering off the property). Of course, we'd rather eat them than have them get hit by cars or devoured by wild animals, but there's not much we can do about them going across the road. Other than...eating them before they cross the road.

School is humming along, and I am making the necessary adjustments for the new school year. I gave it three weeks, found some things that needed changing, and we're working on that now. We just finished Week 4 of our school year. We have school for three weeks, then take one week off. We do have school in June and July, but then we take August off. That makes 36 very full weeks of school.

I enjoy having my kids home with me every day. That way I can micro-manage their lives. Just kidding! No, actually what I like is that we are putting into practice something that I have always felt intuitively but never really fully realized until fairly recently: that is that the healthy home should be one in which all members of the family contribute to the household economy, and there is as much producing as there is consuming. As Americans, we are all already very good at consuming (that is after all the American way). What we need more practice at is producing. You know, being productive. Making needed things and maintaining what you have so that you don't have to buy another one.

Speaking of being productive, I feel really productive these days. I usually get up at around 8:00 (anything before 8 is TOO EARLY). Now with our daylight hours dwindling, when I get up in the morning and go out to milk the goats, the sun has just risen over the horizon. It makes me feel like a real farmer, up at daybreak, and doin' the chores. Yee haw.

Well, I guess that's enough rambling for now. Back to what you were doing. Something productive, I hope. ;-)

Meat Freezer Solstice

This morning was the first dawn after our Meat Freezer Solstice. Allow me to describe to you the contents of our meat freezer yesterday morning: one big bag of medicinal herbs, two freezer bags of turkey backs and wing tips (for making broth), one small bag of duck hearts (for making ???), and 2 pounds of tough, teeth-challenging ground beef. That freezer was never so empty. We finally got our first batch of meat for the season yesterday afternoon: pork.

I went through a time when I wasn't sure pork was o.k. to eat. Back in the good (really) old days, God commanded the Israelites not to eat pork, and I figure there was probably a pretty good reason for that. But as time went on, I weakened. When I first went on my low-carb diet, breakfast became the greatest sticking point: what's eggs for breakfast every morning without bacon? And aside from bacon, how about some sausage? You can see how the weakening process began.

So when we had a chance to buy some pork from a reputable local farmer, I got right in line. I like to hear what they feed the animals, because I think at least part of the problem with hogs is, they will eat literally anything. There are some things that I would just rather not have animals that I eat, eating themselves, if you know what I mean. Personally, I think we found a really good source of pork.

So yesterday afternoon I drove home with a trunk full of locally-raised frozen pork for my pitiful little forlorn freezer. That freezer still is not even a fraction of the way full, but it will only get fuller as the season progresses. Next up will be the chickens we raised for meat, and maybe a turkey or two. Then in another month we'll have beef and lamb. Before you know it, our freezer will be packed full, and we'll be ready for a long season of good eatin'. The tide has turned. Isn't this how holidays get started?

More About the Weather

If "Accuweather" is accurate, (side note: in our house, when we refer to Accuweather, we put the accent on "Ac-cu" and we give the entire word a rather sarcastic slur) it is supposed to get up to 41 degrees on February 14. "Weather" or not that means anything to you, I don't know, but there is hope, somewhere, somehow, that the temperatures will one day again rise above freezing. And isn't it consoling that we have more sunlight now and the sun is coming down from a higher angle than it was a month ago? OK, maybe not. Sorry I mentioned it.

I was talking with an Amish woman yesterday. No matter what you say, you cannot get the Amish to complain about anything, much less stuff like the weather. I mentioned how cold it was and how I was more of a "warm weather" person myself. She said something like how we can all be grateful that we have a nice warm house to be in when it gets this cold outside. Wow, didn't I feel like a heel.

Yes, I am grateful and blessed to live in a nice warm house. But...YOWZA, I still hate this cold.

Please, Take Me Someplace Tropical

Over the past 10 days, the change in the jet stream has been quite dramatic. Instead of coming from the Pacific the flow is coming over the top of the world straight from Siberia. This is bringing extremely cold air southward into the United States. The cold weather pattern will persist into February and the worst is yet to come.

Thank you, Accuweather, for that oh so encouraging weather update. I'll let you know when I come out of hibernation.