Tis the Season!

Much as always, Christmas arrived at breakneck pace. Once it arrived, we slowed down enough to enjoy it. We had one of our chickens baked up in a pie for dinner. And enjoyed Baileys in our coffee while munching on Christmas cookies and watching the first Christmas Day snowflakes to fall in Central NC in over 60 years. I was as excited as the kids. We had about 5 inches of snow here at our house and enjoyed a SLOW December 26th. We putzed around the house, played cards with Flora, cars with Ward, and watched Isabel devour books.

After a leisurely morning (well, as leisurely as life can be with three kids, two dogs, and two cats under foot), we went for a family walk. It was one of those moments in life tinged with crazy making nonsense and sweet, sweet joy. You see, getting ready to head out with three kids is never easy. First there was the timing: everyone fed, napped, bathroom needs attended to. And then there was finding appropriate attire for everyone, shoes being the most critical component. First, Isabel came down with cloth boots on (these weren’t really boots…more like glorified cotton tennis shoes in boot form…they would have been soaked through in 2 minutes) and Flora came down in dress shoes. Shoes take two involved Mommy going upstairs to rummage through the shoe baskets. Out came almost too little rubber boots. 5 coats, sets of gloves, hats and scarves later, we were ready to go outside. We made it to the end of the drive-way before I heard Flora say, “Man, I should have worn socks!” Back inside for shoes take three…lots of drama about sock bumps and limited mobility because of wearing winter gear and Ward on my back found me biting my tongue practically in half before we made it back out of the door. The walk itself was glorious. It was absolutely clear that God had kissed the moment and handed it to me.



Then back home to build a snow-man, play fetch with the dog that didn’t get to go on the walk, and head indoors right as Ward proclaimed he had had enough of this cold stuff. By the time he was unbundled, I was unbundled, the melting snow was wiped up, and soup was well under way and starting to bubble on the stove top, Flora was at the door having a melt-down because she couldn’t get her frozen boots off her feet. Many tears later, she was wrapped in a blanket on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate right as Isabel was at the door also in tears, also with boots frozen onto her feet. It took Eli to pry the last boot off as I popped the cup of hot chocolate into her hands. When she asked, “Does it have cinnamon?” I managed a lie through gritted teeth, “Yes, dear” instead of the “No, but I spit in it for good measure!” that immediately popped to mind. You see, I struggle with these tiny chaos-filled moments. All the work a parent does that is so totally unnoticed and unappreciated by young children. It can wear on me. It can bring out the worst in me. So I struggle to set a good, loving example. Sometimes I do alright, other times not so much. I’m okay with the lie I told. It was better than the one that almost flew out of my mouth. It was an afternoon when I knew full well how incredibly blessed I was and at the same time how challenging it was to keep that mindset of gratitude and thankfulness.

It absolutely is the season to take stock, reflect, and count one’s blessings. I am so grateful. Three beautiful children, a loving husband, a warm house, plenty of critters to keep your feet warm at night, a slumbering garden, and above all, a generous and good God. A Happy New Year to you all!

baby, it's cold out there

I'm up in the wee hours. Mom's All-Night-Dine-In is officially closed for the day and Ward can snuggle with his dad now while Mom gets a break. It is C.O.L.D. 23 degrees here. I've got my plants covered with a light garden fabric though I don't know if that will be enough to save the tender lettuces. We'll see when this cold snap ends.

I've spent the past few weeks really taking it easy in the gardening world. A little fall clean-up has happened but there is more to be done. At this point, most of the spent plants are yanked out and composted and I've even run the tiller up and down a few rows (my first time using the tiller and wow, it's not as easy as it looks). I actually canceled my gardening date with Lisa yesterday because I knew Ward would not tolerate an hour or more out there at 35 degrees. This super cold won't last forever and when it ends, I'll get back out there.

Meanwhile, I've been cooking. Remember all those green romas I harvested? At the time, I wondered if they'd ever ripen. They did! I gave a lot of them away to Fellowship, Blake, Lisa. The ones I kept I made spaghetti sauce with. I still have one small bowl left that I'll probably make some salsa with tonight.


I also stewed one of the chickens. My intention had been to do so right away, but life got in the way, then we were blessed with a lot of venison, and then it was so close to Thanksgiving and I knew I'd be doing all that stock making, etc with the turkey remains. So, finally, this past weekend I spent an afternoon slowly simmering one while we decorated for Christmas. I have to admit that while I was cooking it, I did REALLY think about what it was I was doing. It was not some abstract food that had no connection to me. I was fully aware that I was cooking this animal I'd cared for and taken hot oatmeal out to on cold mornings. Fortunately, I married the man I did, and he kept the mood light by coming in and re-enacting the whole chicken killing experience.

I made chicken and rice that night and then last night used the remaining chicken to make a pot pie. I followed Evelyn's recipe and man, it was perfect. I've always tried to wing it on the filling before and have never gotten it quite right. Last night's pot-pie was perfect. So from one chicken, I froze roughly 5 containers of stock for making soup later this winter and made two dinners from which there will be leftovers for lunches for several days. Pretty good.


While I was stewing the chicken and decorating, it snowed. A December NC snow. It was perfect. The girls were over the moon with excitement. The holiday spirit is thriving in this house. Life is good.

Harvesting

Well, it's that time of year. Last Saturday night (11/6) we got below freezing. So I spent Saturday afternoon harvesting all the basil, peppers, eggplant, and green tomatoes. I packed my last CSA order the previous Friday. We've eaten a lot of eggplant and pesto this week. Time to start in on the green tomatoes. I'm looking forward to a few months of a slower pace out in the garden. Time to regroup, check my records, think back on the past season and plan for the season ahead. I'm sure I'll be posting more about that in the weeks ahead.

In addition to harvesting vegetables, we decided it was time to say goodbye to our current chickens. They were getting to be old girls and their egg production has been spotty for a while now. We also really want to increase our flock this spring and start fresh with a whole new group of chickens. So in anticipation of trips to the coop to break the ice out of the water dish and collect zero eggs, we decided to go ahead and cull our four chickens. This has been an act I've thought about since the day I decided I wanted to have my own chickens.

Aaron and David came over to help. We each killed and processed a chicken. I feel really good about the whole process. I was a good owner to those chickens. I took them hot leftover oatmeal on cold winter mornings and cold watermelon rinds on hot summer days. They had a yard to roam and scratch in. And only periodically were traumatized by kids who wanted to play chase. When I think of the life of a factory raised chicken versus my girls....well, it makes me happy for mine. They had a lovely life. And I've now gotten up close and personal with the reality of what it means to be a carnivore. I'm anticipating slowly stewing one of the old girls this weekend.

Eggplant, sweet potatoes, birthdays

It's early October and the garden is still producing. We had eggplant curry tonight with some of the eggplant from the garden and last year's canned tomatoes. The weather continues to be erratic. We had weeks of zero precip and finally it did rain but we got an entire month's worth in two days which waterlogged everything. I actually had crop wilt from too much rain. Things have dried out now and we are yo-yoing with temperatures. It was upper 80's yesterday and today but should return to more fall like weather tomorrow. The really bad thing about the super hot weather of a few weeks ago is that most of my lettuce bolted. It's not supposed to be in the 90's when you grow romaine.

The most thrilling news is that we harvested sweet potatoes. Lisa was over and I said to her "I just want to take a peek, I am curious if there are sweet potatoes in there". I'd never grown them before and everything I read said to wait till the first frost killed the vines to harvest. Well, we started poking around and oh my goodness. It was time to harvest. There were sweet potatoes the size of new born babies. I got positively giddy with the first one I harvested and didn't realize until Lisa commented on it that I was stroking the sweet potato like a baby. The kids got wind of what we were up to and came to help us out. They were so into it. I remember loving to harvest potatoes as a kid. It's like digging for gold. It was a lot of fun to watch them. One patch of sweet potatoes yielded 80 lbs and I've got one more patch to dig.

The eggplant continue to produce like crazy. I was demonstrating which bugs to squash a couple weeks ago and reached out and practically touched a snake that was wrapped around one of the bigger plants. All macho "I'm-so-cool-I-can-squash-bugs-bare-handed" bravado was dumped as I squealed long and loud. I am now harvesting eggplant with my body as far away from the plants as humanly possible.

I've included a photo of Ward's birthday gift. We set up one corner of the garden with a sandbox for him. It keeps him busy for a little while. His favorite garden activity continues to be ripping out seedlings. Ah, life with kids.

My Little Rabbit

It’s been a long while since I last wrote, mainly because I can’t seem to keep up with the speed of life. I suppose the biggest demand on my time at present is little Ward who seems intent on harming himself every minute of every day. In fact, I sat down to write this during his nap and in the 45 minutes that he was asleep, I handed off a bag of produce and chatted with a customer, sent an email to one of the teachers at the girls’ school, answered the phone, and chatted briefly with a friend who stopped at the door. Then he woke up. So now he is cruising around the dining room emptying every basket and box that has the contents of our life corralled. I will pay for this little indulgence.

In garden news, I’ve taken on three new working shares. I’m delighted beyond words to have help. I’ve gotten the fall crops in: lettuce, arugula, turnips, mustard greens, radishes, beets, carrots (which don’t seem to be germinating), kale, and chard. I’ve got more seeds I’d love to get out, but honestly, it might not happen. I’ve been thinking about the summer crops and want to get this down so I don’t forget. Four rows of eggplant are enough for 8 families. Two rows of okra are barely enough. I think one more row is needed. I had two rows of field peas, I could easily double that. I had three rows of potatoes, and I could easily triple that (if I could keep up with the darn hilling). The tomatoes … who knows … it’s been a bad year … the worms are driving me insane. It feels like at this point in the season every other ripe tomato has been eaten before I can get it off the vine. The green beans are just now really starting to deliver and they have also been devastated by insect damage. I have heard other friends who garden say they are also really battling with bugs this year so perhaps it is the extreme hot/dry conditions? I had two and half rows of cucumbers and they delivered way more than we could eat. Next year I need to stagger plant them so they aren’t all ready at once. The cantaloupe were delicious but one row wasn’t nearly enough. The watermelon, while it looked gorgeous, was a huge disappointment. The full size ones weren’t sweet enough and the little sugar babies were fuzzy in texture. I’ve uploaded a photo of me and the first watermelon I ever harvested. I was so stoked and felt like a real farmer. Then I ate it and felt a little like a poser. Oh well. Live and learn.

I’ve also uploaded a photo of an often seen occurrence: a very dirty, very tiny outfit hanging on the fence. Every time I see it I think of Peter Rabbit running from Mr. McGregor and losing his jacket. My little rabbit is every bit as mischievous. Speaking of, I had better run. He has scaled the stairs and is in his sisters’ room doing God only knows what.

wanted: one farm wife, please

I need to place a want ad. It should read: Wanted. One Farm Wife. Job duties include watching, entertaining, feeding three small children, nursing baby, cooking from scratch, cleaning, laundry, errand running, tending of pets, other duties as needed. I also need to place another ad: Wanted. Bookkeeper. Job duties include tracking of farm receipts, filing, invoicing customers, paying of bills.

Seriously, think about it. In all the kids' books you read, the farmer has a wife. I want a stinking wife. I NEED a stinking wife. Thank goodness Eli's big camp is just about over. I've missed his help with the kids and the house. He's still not a wife. No where close, but I'll take what I can get.

In garden news....the deer found us. They have munched on the okra, the chard, the cantaloupe, the beans, and kicked the baby watermelons off the vine. In deer repelling efforts, I've cut Flora's hair off and sprinkled it on the beans, enjoyed an evening of beer drinking and weed pulling with my buddy, Denise, culminated in communal urination around the perimeter of the garden, tuned into a loud FM station on the radio that resides in the center of the garden each night, and tearfully implored Eli to work on finishing up the deer fence. He and Chris busted their butts on that task last weekend and got it 2/3 done. I think the efforts are working for now. I hope to finish the fence this weekend.

In addition, you'll see above the amazing mustache shaped eggplant I harvested this morning. The squash bugs are reaching a frenzied level and the plants are checking out one by one. Even though that's the case, I'm calling the squash a success this year. Typically we get just a few before the bugs win. This year, so far, I've harvested at least 40 pounds. I say "at least" because that's just what I've recorded that I've given to customers. I'm NOT calling the tomatoes a success yet. I'm actually really bummed that I'm not getting more tomatoes at this point. I'm not sure if it's because I planted fewer, or I staggered the plantings, or what? I just know that I'm only getting half a dozen or so per day and that seems ridiculous considering where we were last year at this point. Hear that tomatoes? It's time to start delivering! I think we are on the brink of a cucumber fest. Lots of little babies out there that should be ready to harvest soon. I'm thinking cold cucumber yogurt soup. Blessed relief from these hot, hot summer days. 102 at the beginning of July. Come on. Really?

I've included photos of Flora blueberry picking at a local berry farm, Ward inspecting and eating more dirt, and a morning harvest. I must jet...I hear Ward doing something awful in the next room.

thinning, weeding, mulching, squashing....

This month has been all about trying to stay a step ahead of the bugs, the weeds and the lack of rain. We've been enduring a really hot spell with 99 degree days. I've been trying to get out to the garden by 6:30, sometimes earlier, and working till 9ish when I'm forced inside due to heat and Eli leaving for work. I'm pleased with how much more time I've had for gardening since school ended. I still never feel like I get enough time out there, but I'm averaging about 2-3 hours a day the past two weeks. I hope to ramp that up in the next couple of weeks to get the garden to a really weed free status before we head to Michigan at the end of July.

I planted another round of tomatoes last week. I plan to get a couple more rows of beans put in this week. I'm hoping that staggering the planting like this will guarantee some beans and tomatoes into the fall this year. The tomatoes I'd planted in the spring are finally starting to deliver. I've been putting them in the CSA bags for a few weeks now but have done so at the expense of not having any on my personal dinner table. Last night we enjoyed a tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil salad. Yum. We also enjoyed a raw chard salad (the chard is all riddled with holes at this point but I hate to take it out because I always crave greens by the end of summer...hopefully the cooler weather coming this week will give it a chance to recover), cucumber slices, and rosemary roasted potatoes. I love having a table full of food that I've grown myself.

I've included a photo of Ward helping me thin and weed cucumber plants. He had a terrific time until all of sudden he was DONE. At that point I had no choice but to bring him in and wash him off in the kitchen sink. That kid has eaten more dirt at this point than Isabel and Flora combined. I'm looking forward to the 80's on tap for this week because I'll be able to have all the kids in the garden with me at any point during the day. Maybe I'll get some more artwork out of the girls.

I've been dealing with a round of bursitis in my right knee. I noticed it was swollen and that I couldn't kneel on it around the 1st of the month. I waited, hoping it would resolve on it's own, until last week at which point I went to see my GP. She drained it and told me to compress it with an ace bandage, which I did for four days until I realized the swelling had moved to my ankle. I took the bandage off and iced the ankle. Thank goodness it went back to normal the next day but my knee is swollen again. Occupational hazard. Oh well. I continue to ice it at night in hopes that it will not get worse. It's not painful unless I kneel on it. So I'm just using my little garden cart and scooting around the garden on that, like I did when I was pregnant. It works.

I've exhausted my kids' patience for blogging. It's almost cool enough to get out to the garden now anyway. Yay!

Remembering

The end of the school year has kept us really busy. I’m so glad it’s over! Between school events and squeezing in work for the garden, I’ve not had a free minute to keep this updated. The biggest garden news is that we opted to take a two week break in filling orders for the last week in May and first week in June as our spring crops were caput and our summer crops not quite “there” yet. We start back up with our orders this coming week and I think we’re on the verge of a real bounty out there. The plants are loaded with blooms and almost ripe fruit. I’ve been top-dressing with composted horse manure and applying fish emulsion. I plan two or three more weeks of setting out the second round of tomato plants and bean seeds. Hopefully this staggered planting of tomatoes will make the harvest more manageable. We had some waste last year because there was just more than we could process.

In honor of Father’s Day, I thought I'd share something I wrote at the end of May. I was feeling really pretty overwhelmed by the garden and was upset that I needed to take a two week break on filling orders. I'd had an idea that I wanted to write about this since March, but just hadn't sat down to do it. So, anyway, here it is:

My dad grew up a farm boy working side by side with his parents in the fields. He went on to more white collar work but returned to the farm in his retirement and loved nothing better than tooling around on his tractor on his daddy’s land. My dad was a smart guy and he could fix just about anything, the product of growing up on a farm and having to be frugal with what you hired done. After retiring, he did truck farming for a few years and then came down with lung cancer. I believe the lung cancer is probably another legacy of his farm childhood. Most folks working tobacco do indeed end up smoking said tobacco….it is smoke and develop a tolerance to the stuff or work in it, not smoke, and puke as a result of the build-up of tobacco in your system.

Last spring he was at UNC for many weeks and I’d go up to see him in the evenings just to talk to him, help him have some connection with the outside world. It was hard. My dad was a large, fit guy, always on the move, always outside. And to see him pale and small and weak was really hard. Dad and I had huge holes in our relationship that we’d only been patching up since I reached adulthood. We also were on opposite ends of the political spectrum and since coming through the fevered 2008 election season, we’d learned to avoid any conversation that might turn to social policy. So there were a good many things we just didn’t want to talk about in such heavy circumstances. Especially because Dad couldn’t talk. He had a tracheotomy in place and when he could communicate at all it was in whispers or written word. So I chit chatted about general day to day stuff a lot and dad listened. I talked about the kids, about his grandson that was growing inside me, about the garden.

I talked a lot about the garden. He was a conventional farmer and didn’t really get the whole organic thing but he had tons of wisdom to impart, like how to properly plant potatoes for easy hilling. When to plant sweet potatoes. You get the idea. So last spring I talked about all the weeds were battling and I remember him eyeing me sternly and writing “You let it get ahead of you didn’t you?” “Yes, yes Dad, I did”. And when telling him about my battle with flea beetles and squash bugs his recommendation to use Seven Dust and my “but Dad that’s not organic” and Dad’s “Well, I don’t know what to tell you then”. Yeah, I know. I don’t know what to tell me either. Maybe that I should charge more money for the freaking organic squash because they are so hard won.

Dad died very shortly after Ward was born. Family politics being what they are I found myself mired in Jerry Springerish crap. And knee-deep in adjusting to life as a family of five. My grieving process was incomplete for sure. This spring I’ve thought so much about Dad and how much I miss him. As I’m out in the garden spraying my weak little organic concoction on the flea beetles and manually squashing the life out of squash bugs I think of my dad and his sage advice to just use Seven Dust. It would certainly be easier. I think of him as I try to stay one step ahead of the weeds. I find myself occasionally overwhelmed with the urge to call him or email him and then I remember. Gosh, I sure do miss him. I’m so thankful to have developed the relationship that I did with him, to have him whispering his advice to me as I stake up tomato plants. I guess the main point of this post is that I’m trying really hard to not let it get ahead of me. With three kids, one of whom is a baby, it sometimes feels like I’m on the verge of a colossal failure out there, but I keep putting one foot in front of the other and praying I’m just a step ahead.

Baby birds, greens, and mid-May madness

Wow, I feel like I've been treading water trying not to drown. Soccer is finally over, as is Isabel's drama class. Last week we had 4 games, 2 rehearsals, 2 plays, and a field trip to the zoo. While last week was probably our busiest, it seems like the past month has just been really intense. I'm looking forward to a summer of less structure and more time to enjoy our yard.

In between all the kids' activities, we've enjoyed watching life unfold around us. The baby birds that nested on our porch all hatched and learned to fly. Our cats didn't manage to eat one despite their earnest efforts. I actually caught our 17-year-old blind cat, Roland, stalking one that had landed in a bush close to the porch. He could hear it and smell it but not see it. I carried him inside so the baby bird had a chance to get away.

The garden started offering up daily meals for us as well as our CSA customers. I started picking and packing orders the first week of May. So far we've had lots of salad greens, kale, chard, spinach, chinese cabbage (plagued by earwigs and slugs), radishes, carrots, turnips, beets, and just enough peas for me to grab a handful and snack while I'm harvesting at 6:00 am. It's been tight trying to harvest while it's still cool out and manage to get the kids ready for school at the same time. Isabel has done a good deal of baby sitting and helping me pack lunches in a rush this month.

Flora witnessed Stella (one of our cats) kill a rabbit in our garden. This was a hard life lesson but valuable none the less. It made me sad to see what Stella had done but I know she's just doing her job and if she weren't patrolling our garden I'd be feeding more rabbits than people.

The Wards got baby chicks, sex-links, a couple weeks ago. We took the girls out this weekend so they could see them before they got past that cute stage. Oh, it really makes me want my own little chicks. That said, it's probably a good thing I can't rush out and get my own. I think the girls (okay, Flora) would accidentally kill them if I weren't super diligent. Or maybe the cats would kill them. I think the girls would probably try to introduce the chicks to the cats. Maybe we need more hard life lessons before I go the chick route. Anyway I don't have time to be super diligent right now.

I'm still planting like crazy. We have 65 tomato plants in the ground, three rows of eggplant, two rows of okra, four rows of squash, one row of beans, and one patch of cucumber in the ground. I have so much more to get in. I plan to really double up on my gardening efforts this week and next since our extracurricular schedule has lightened up.

Now if only Ward won't figure out how to crawl before I get the rest of those plants and seeds set out. He's right on the verge of being one mobile little boy. Heaven help me.

Reality Check

I believe that we should be honest about where our food comes from. I was a vegetarian for over 10 years. The story behind my carnivorous conversion is not something I’m going to write about now, but I’ve long felt that if you are going to eat meat, you need to be honest about what it is you are eating, where it came from, and how it came to be on your plate. That isn’t always possible, unless you make it the focus of your day to day life. Maybe one day I will raise my own meat, but for now I just try to call it what it is and treat it respectfully.

Eli and I have always been really straight with the girls about what they are eating. Today, I had a moment when I questioned our logic. You see, tonight I served beans, elbow pasta, kale, and venison stew for dinner. The kale was from our garden, the dry beans and pasta from the store, the venison from NoNo’s freezer. She had more than she could use and blessed us with it. A friend of hers, a hunter, had killed and butchered a deer that he shared with her. Well, as Isabel walked to the table with her steaming bowl, her belly growling from a full day of outdoor play, I heard her comment “Yum, I’m gonna eat you deer, you won’t be able to eat our vegetables now.” I was a country kid growing up…barefoot and playing in the dirt and helping out in the garden every summer. But I vividly remember being distraught learning that venison was “Bambi”! And here is one of my kids eating it with gusto!

In addition to the overheard remark about our dinner, a friend who volunteers in Isabel’s classroom told me that the kids were discussing persuasive writing this week and along with that were discussing a passage about spring and whether or not it was the best season. The kids were asked to share their opinions. Was spring the best season? Isabel answered that spring was NOT the best season and when asked why she offered “because it is planting time.”

Despite my offspring’s deep appreciation of the reality of where food comes from, the weekend did hold some of childhood’s magic. Saturday was a lovely day. Our neighbors were having a party and you could see the balloons they’d strung up while standing at the entrance to the flower garden. It was magical. The photo I’ve included doesn’t do it justice. The girls got out the acrylics and spent an afternoon making art for the garden. They also finished Alice Jr., our resident scarecrow. And, they spent an entire hour clutching their money jars and waiting for the ice cream truck to show. We heard the truck way off in the distance and they nearly worked themselves into a frenzy anticipating its arrival. Isabel and Eli got orange creamsicles, Flora got a chocolate nutty ice cream bar, and I had a childhood favorite, the strawberry vanilla crunchy ice cream bar. I don’t remember the name of it, but it was just like I remember it from when I was little. The fact that the ice cream truck comes through our neighborhood thrills me to the core. I lived so far out in the country as a kid, the only ice cream truck I’d ever seen before I moved to Durham was on the tv. The existence of one in my neighborhood is on par with discovering fairies under the hydrangea bush. And the best part is, the girls are happy to do extra work around the garden and house to earn a little money for the ice cream man.

In between visiting the ice cream man, cleaning up acrylics and loving my babies in the hammock, I did manage to do a little gardening. I got almost a whole truck load of mulch put out (boy it doesn’t go far!) and all the tomatoes planted and caged. I wish the days were twice as long!