Joyeux Noël

 Today we are celebrating two birthdays on the Farmette.   The first birthday is one I think you are all familiar with.  The other is the birthday of a very special 2 year old girl.  (Who thinks she looks pregnant?)

After opening presents and filling our bellies with bagels smothered in cream cheese and caviar, we headed out to sing happy birthday to Noëlle.  She very much enjoyed the attention, though she was a little suspect of the birthday apple offering.

Happy Birthday Noëlle!

Snow Day on the Farmette

All of the critters were a little flummoxed by the ice and snow that stormed into town yesterday.  What I thought was going to be a relaxing half day off from work was spent coaxing and cajoling Noelle and Cody Bear across an icy patch in the pasture to the relative warmth of the barn. After about a half hour, I finally spread hay across the ice and lured them in with treats along the way.

This morning we awoke to a farmette decorated in winter white.  While I much prefer the warm summer months, there is something magical about newly fallen snow.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Tastiest Chicken of Them All?

Here's a riddle: How many chickens does it take to lay three eggs/day?  You guessed it, 42.  Just as the nights become a touch longer than the days, my girls molt enough feathers to fill a mattress. (Yes, the thought did cross my mind but no, I am not going to attempt it. I learned a lesson from the whole saving dog hair to spin into yarn debacle.) The hens also stop laying eggs. No more homemade ice cream. No more breakfast for dinner. I really should have put some quiche in the freezer last August.

I refuse to buy eggs so I have taken to rationing my three eggs like a WWII war bride: "No Prince, we may not make cookies because I need the last egg for waffles in the morning."

A light in the hen house is a simple way to get the ladies laying again, but we have had another group of chickens keeping warm under the heat lamps for the past nine weeks.

A few months ago I took the last of our Faverolle carcasses out of the freezer to make soup.  I have made broth out of a lot of different chickens in my day but nothing compares to the flavor you get from some Faverolle  bones.  While the boys seem slightly ambivalent about eating our own roast chicken, they are downright giddy when I serve up some Farmette Chicken Soup.

The thought of going back to the broth of supermarket chickens was disheartening, but the fact that it was already late August meant we probably didn't have enough time to raise free range  Faverolles, before it got too cold to keep the birds outside and I was loathe to have them sitting in a chicken tractor eating GMO feed for a month or more.

The quickest way to raise meat birds to 4 + lbs  is to raise Cornish Cross, but they horrify me.  Cornish Cross are the poulet de rigeur of the poultry industry.  They are ready to eat in eight weeks or less, compared to twelve weeks or more for most other breeds. They grow so big so fast that many of them suffer leg fractures and become immobilized due to their size.  Imagine the movie, "Wall E" but with chickens.

I did some research to find a faster growing chicken that could still free range and decided on the Red Broiler.  They are slightly smaller than the Cornish Cross, take a little longer to reach a respectable size for slaughter (10 weeks), but they are good foragers which means a more natural diet and less money spent on feed.

From the moment the chicks arrived, I could tell this was a hardy stock.  We didn't lose any birds during transport and only one developed splayed leg.  They were curious and not shy to explore and dine on all of the creepy crawlies and weed seeds in the garden.

Butchering and bagging chickens by hand is a stinky tedious process.  With both the husband and I working full-time plus after school activities for the kids, we knew we would not have time to process the birds ourselves.  Fortunately, we found a small family owned processing facility nearby. They had our chickens cleaned and bagged in a few hours.  The added cost of processing made the chickens much more expensive than if I bought some Perdue Broilers at BJ's, but the taste, quality and humane treatment of the chickens made it a much greater value.

The true test of our Red Broiler experiment came the other night when I roasted the first one. The result was a tender succulent bird with lots of breast meat.  The broth made the next day was gorgeous. Though not quite as silky and rich as the Faverolle, there was not a drop left in anyone's bowl.

I am hoping to hatch our own meat birds next time around with the help of a new rooster.  Money will be saved and genetics known, but most importantly putting a meal on the table that is comprised solely from food you grew and nurtured: Beautiful red carrots and pale yellow onions that grew from the carrot seeds and onion sets you saved from the previous year, tiny garlic cloves from last Fall that turned into giant garlic heads this September and a chicken you raised naturally, with kindness and care from the day it hatched, is a magical experience and one of the greatest gifts you can give to the people you love.

Zuccotti Farmette

Ahhh, Friday night of a long weekend.  Time to relax and watch a movie with the family.  Oh wait... That's right.  I live on the Farmette.

Friday is always the most exhausting night of the week.  Even though Saturdays are filled with soccer, grocery shopping and farm chores, Friday nights are when the frenetic pace of the week hits me like a ton of bricks.  The fact that I could look forward to three days of sleeping past 5:30am made this Friday fatigue even more severe.

When I arrived home Friday afternoon, the dogs were in the house and the Husband was outside finishing the first coat of stain on the back deck in anticipation of the long, cold, wet winter.  Since there was a no pooches allowed rule until the floor dried, Prince and I brought the dogs outside on their leashes for a wee.

These are not well behaved dogs on a good day, but add a leash to the mix and you might as well tie them to a sled and enter the Iditarod.  They jumped and pulled and panted their way into the backyard.  Athena got down to business pretty quickly because she wanted to go back in and curl up on her pillow.  Pepper did the semi-squat about a dozen times but was always distracted by a sound or the sight of Athena mocking him from the back door.  The sun was setting and the futility of my endeavor was apparent so we headed inside.

Dinner was made.  Laundry was started and I was all set to fall asleep while watching, "The Million Dollar Arm." The dogs came down and were wiggling and whining to go out.  Since the deck was for the most part dry I decided to release the hounds. I called to them about five minutes later but they were nowhere to be found.  Hmm. Unusual. I started shaking the food bowls.  Still no sign.  A few pieces of food sprinkled in their bowls and they came barreling up the stairs.  I opened the door and was assaulted with the most noxious aroma.  It was pine tar, raw onions and fresh asphalt all rolled into one:  Skunk.

I had laughed with a woman from swim lessons who told a story about getting sprayed while trying to get her dog out from under the porch one night.  Her tale had that amusing, "In retrospect it wasn't so bad" air that is usually reserved for stories women tell about giving birth the first time.  Getting sprayed by a skunk is bad.  It is awful.  I sobbed. At least when you give birth you get a cute baby out of it.

I filled the tub and collected every soapy substance I could find in the bathroom. Prince held one dog as I scrubbed the other.  Every towel in the house was wet and stinky, as was I. The stench was merely masked by the perfumes in the shampoos. I was convinced my olfactory receptors would be forever stuck in skunk mode.

I dragged myself upstairs.  Sniffling past the living room, my swollen eyes caught sight of the end credits of the movie.

It is actually pretty amazing that this was the first time the dogs had been sprayed.  Since the incident with the chicken killing skunk a couple of months ago, the husband has trapped no fewer than a dozen.  He drives them ten miles away and releases them where they probably become someone else's problem. It was starting to seem like some sort of skunk civil disobedience in response to the shooting of one of their own: Occupy the Farmette.

Putting the chickens in at night has become a real challenge.  For the most part our occupiers have taken a non-violent approach to their mission. They just like to hang out by the chicken coop munching on whatever leftover feed is scattered on the ground. Oh, and don't try to scare a skunk. It doesn't work.  It just pisses them off and they go into spray position.

One night when Prince went out to close up the chickens, he came rushing back to the house because there was a skunk holding vigil by the door to the chicken house. The husband was away so I grabbed the BB gun. The other two boys were not going to be left out of the adventure so I held them back and instructed Prince to shoot at the skunk and not the cats who somehow always avoid getting sprayed.  The first shot got his attention.  The second shot made him charge.  The four of us went running and screaming into the house. I then had Prince cover me (I watch way too many cop shows) as I jumped into my car and flicked on the high beams and honked the horn wildly to scare him away.  It worked and the chickens were closed in safely.

Last weekend I watched one saunter out of the barn at dawn after enjoying a cat food breakfast. I called for the husband who grabbed the shotgun and headed out in his boxers and muck boots. Stinky had taken off.  War was declared.

James Dean and I pulled into the driveway the other night after play rehearsal. I scanned the area for glowing eyes before I turned off the headlights.  All clear. The lights were off downstairs in the house. As we walked toward the front door I heard a whisper, "Do you smell skunk?" I looked toward the house and saw the Husband's silhouette in the dining room window holding his gun.

Earlier in the evening the Husband had found one skunk in the barn eating the cat food. He took aim just as another came from the direction of the chicken coop. He shot the one coming toward him as the unfazed cat food thief continued munching.

Knowing there was a skunk around, I made sure Pepper was wearing his perimeter collar when he went out to pee that night. He came back a few minutes later with his head low and his tail between his legs. This time he had been sprayed right in the face. I took a deep breath, grabbed the hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, baking soda and gallon jug of vinegar and headed outside.  I learned after the first spraying that a solution of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap helps to get rid of the oily skunk spray.

I added the baking soda and soap to the big bottle of peroxide and dumped it all over the dog. I lathered him up and sprinkled more baking soda over him and poured the vinegar on. The science experiment bubbled all over his back.  His body seemed to be clear of the stench, but his face reeked. I wiped it as best I could with the solution without getting it in his eyes.

After showering and starting another load of skunky laundry, I lit incense and broke out the Yankee Candles I had won at a raffle.  I have a new angle for the kids who sell Yankee Candles for school fundraisers: "For use in homes with dumb ass dogs who keep getting sprayed by skunks."  They will make a fortune.

Four days later, Pepper's face still stinks and the husband has reverted back to trapping and relocating the skunks.  Cleaning up a dead skunk is way more work than the Have-A-Heart method.  Last night he set a trap in the barn with a bowl of cat food as bait.  This morning the food was gone but there was nothing in the trap. Touché Pepe le Pew. Game on.

Sisterhood

Most women know about the phenomenon of menstrual synchrony.  No, it is not The Police album from the 80's.  It is when a group of women who spend a lot of time together, all end up on the same menstrual cycle. I have personally experienced this with  friends, coworkers, and female roommates. A freshman floor of college co-eds  with PMS is not a pretty thing.  Since I tend to be a follower in the menstrual hierarchy,  I am all over the calendar depending on who I am spending the most amount of time with. To this day, I am convinced that synching up with my friend Jane,  is the reason I ended up pregnant with Scrappy Doo.  That and a lack of birth control.

PMS is not a pleasant experience as the Husband can attest to.  I tend to get moody and weepy and after 30+ years of getting my period, I am still surprised every month when I realize why the cute kitten video I watched a week earlier made me sob uncontrollably as I shoved carbs in my mouth.

A couple of weeks ago I came home from school and after devouring half a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips and seething with rage because one of the boys had spilled a drop of chocolate ice cream on the table cloth, I went outside to check on the animals. Noelle came over to the fence and started mooing at me in a pathetic pleading tone.  I just assumed she had missed me, since  I have not been around very much to lavish her with love and attention.

Just as I ducked under the fence to scratch her ears and give her some mama love, the husband walked over.

"I think she's ready."

"For what?"

"To get knocked up.  She's been mooing all day and I think I saw some discharge."

"Are you sure it wasn't poop?"

Since I last wrote about our bovine estrus issues, we decided to let nature take its course and leave Noelle with our neighbor's bull for a month. The thought kind of terrified me since she hasn't really spent a lot of time with other cattle, but our neighbor has a small herd of Hereford beef cattle and this option seemed a lot less complicated than AI.  Still,  I was afraid they might rough her up.

The husband was convinced we needed to seize the moment and bring Noelle for a visit, so I fetched the harness and we spent the next half hour trying to get it on her.  I have never had a mule, but "Stubborn as a cow" seems to be an appropriate statement as is, "Clueless as a couple of city people trying to harness a cow."

The Husband managed to get the harness on and drag her out of the gate and into the front yard.  She dug her hooves in and flopped down onto the driveway.  I followed behind with a stick to tap her butt. She slowly rose and started to move. I yelled, "I need to go change out of my boots!" as the husband pulled and cajoled her.  I was really going for the iPod because how could I not get this on film?

When I came back out they were 100 feet or so down the street but now it was the Husband splayed on the ground as Noelle stood terrified at the sight of another neighbor's steer.  I ran after them with the camera rolling hoping I was not about to record footage of the Husband being trampled to death.

Once we got past the steer and the barking dogs, she started walking along agreeably.  She didn't catch sight of her destination until we reached the bottom of the hill.  She stopped, stared at the other cows and greeted them excitedly.  The husband brought her over to the gate and I ran to get our neighbor.  By the time I returned, Noelle was already inside the fence surrounded by some very curious companions.

The bull soon came over and liked what he saw or smelled. I am by no means a prude but it was quite shocking how quickly he got to work again and again and again.  Poor Noelle seemed quite bewildered and not very pleased with the attention.

Our good humored neighbor has been raising cattle for quite some time. He assured us she was accepting the bull's advances.  It would seem we brought her down at just the right time.  Since none of us wanted to end up 10 feet in the air from the impact of a bull's head, we decided to leave her there for a few days until things calmed down.

The boys and I stopped every day on our way home from school to check on our Noelle.  The first day she ignored us and stood alone in the back of the pasture.  I feared she was being bullied and needed to come home, but the husband assured me he had been down to visit earlier and she was just fine.  The next day she came right up to us and accepted a few scratches before turning to go pal around with a cow who must have outweighed her by 200 lbs.

By the weekend, we decided to bring her home.  Noelle trotted over to us as her friends stared warily from a distance.  The bull did not take his eyes off of our activity but he stayed put.  The husband slipped into the pasture and Noelle obediently dropped her head as he put the harness on.  She was obviously ready to come back to her little horse and comfy barn.   I stood at the gate watching the rest of the herd as they started to meander closer to the husband.   The bull started to trot over a little quicker and I screamed, "Hurry Up!"   He got Noelle through the gate and I fumbled to lock it in place as the bull closed in.

Noelle walked back up the hill on her leash like a well trained dog.  Cody Bear greeted her with excited whinnies and she somewhat reluctantly joined the horse behind the fence.  I headed toward the house with an all too familiar crampy bloated feeling. "That's why I ate an entire sleeve of crackers slathered with cream cheese last night!"  Just as I climbed the back stairs I noticed a spot of blood on the deck where our dog had been sitting.  "Holy crap!" The dog, the cow and I had all synched our menstrual cycles.  Impossible!  Dogs only go into heat about twice a year, cows every 21-24 days and humans usually every 28-30 days, but somehow the unspayed mammals on the farmette had all managed to get on the same schedule.

I am sure many people will shake their heads in disbelief of this crazy interspecies female synchronicity, but it just demonstrates the power of the female bond and how amazing nature truly is.  If all goes as planned, we should have a little bovine bundle of joy this summer, and then a couple of times a year, the dog, the cow and I will share a few pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, some BBQ potato chips  and a bottle of Pinot Noir while tears roll down our cheeks as Lucy Honeychurch declares that she has loved George Emerson all along.

Intersection of the Ice Bucket Challenge and Ferguson

I accepted the ice bucket challenge to help raise money and awareness for ALS.  I dumped icy cold water over my head and wrote a check I probably wouldn't have written otherwise.   My 12 year old son challenged me.

 On the same day I was challenged, another boy just six year older than mine, was laid to rest from another disease that plagues our country, so I am writing a second check.  This one is for the National Urban League.

Many Americans thought we entered into a new era of racial harmony when we elected an African American President, but that is obviously not the case.  I would bet money that if Barak Obama had not become President and was just an ordinary black man, he would have trouble hailing a cab.  I bet if he decided to go buy his wife a present in an upscale department store, he would be followed around by security guards.  I bet if he was driving through a predominantly white neighborhood, he would be pulled over.  I have seen all of these things happen to black men.  I am sure there is a myriad of other injustices they face on a daily basis that I cannot even fathom.

I don't think the police officer who shot Michael Brown woke up that day and thought, "I am going to kill an African American kid today." But I do think he had a much more negative opinion of African American teens than he did of their white counterparts. I also wouldn't be surprised if Michael was disrespectful. Why should he be respectful when he was so seldom shown respect, just as Eric Garner, just as Trayvon Martin and countless others whose names we never hear? This institutional racism is a disease that beats people down and all too often kills it's victims.

There are no easy answers here.  If there were, the disease would have already been eradicated.  So, I am sending some money to an organization that  will use it to help find a cure.  Our country desperately needs one and we all need to join the fight. So talk to your kids about what happened in Ferguson.  Talk to them about the history of racism.  Talk to them about how racism still permeates our culture. Point out to them how TV, movies, and video games all too often portray minorities as criminals who should be feared. Let them know this is wrong.

Not all popcorn bowl memories are good ones.  Sometimes they are sad and hard to face up to, but hopefully these are the memories that help to foster change.

Day 7: Just Freeze Them!

I made it through my week of blueberries.  Today I get to go on vacation!  A whole week at the beach with no blueberries! Whatever will I do?  I am not going to say I will miss them.  But I will be bringing some jam and barbecue sauce to share with family and friends.

No time to bake today but I will share with you a trick my dear friend Carol taught me: How to freeze blueberries.

Clean and air dry 1 quart of blueberries. Spread berries in single layer on large cookie sheet.  Put cookie sheet in freezer for 30 minutes.

Loosen frozen berries with your fingers and pour into 1 quart resealable plastic bag.  Store in freezer.

I can tell you from experience when the leaves have fallen and the temperature drops to ungodly lows, you are going to pine for the day when those blueberry bushes are bent to the ground heavy with fruit again.

While you pine, you can bake your favorite blueberry treat with your frozen berries or better yet, enjoy a bowl sprinkled with sugar or a dollop of whipped cream.

Day 6: Curried Chicken and Blueberry Salad

The Popcorn Bowl memory my kids are going to take away from "A Week of Blueberries," is that Mom did not feed us all week.

I have been so busy mashing, baking, canning, and storing blueberries, not to mention trying to tend to gardens and greenhouses and getting the farmette ship shape for our friends who are coming tonight, that the boys have definitely gone ferrel. I find cheese stick wrappers and empty cracker sleeves all over the place.

Prince spent the night at a friend's yesterday, so I decided to take the opportunity to step away from the sweet side of blueberries and incorporate it into the main course.  Prince is a real meat and potatoes kind of kid, but his brothers are a little more adventurous when it comes to food; the perfect candidates to try a new recipe.

One of my favorite salads is curried chicken with green grapes.  I could eat pounds of it.  For my week of blueberries, I decided to change it up a bit and add blueberries instead of grapes.

  We used up all of our own chicken a couple of months ago so I had to settle for the broth injected Frankenbreasts from the grocery store.  They were so big that two boneless breasts were plenty for the four of us.

Recipe:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1C fresh blueberries
1/3C mayonaise
1T apple cider vinegar
2T curry powder (I like a lot of curry so you may want to start with less and add more if so desired)
salt and pepper to taste

Place each chicken breast in 6" aluminum foil square.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and top with sprig of tarragon.  Fold aluminum into a little packet. Add a splash of white wine or broth and close packet up tightly.  Place chicken packs in baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Remove pan from the oven.  Carefully open one of the packets.  Be careful.  The steam will be hot.  Cut half way through breast.  Meat should be white and juice clear.  If there is any pinkness, wrap packet back up and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

While chicken cools, combine mayo, curry powder, ACV, salt and pepper in large bowl. Whisk to combine.

Cut chicken into bite size pieces. Add chicken and blueberries to curried mayo and gently stir to cover chicken evenly.

Can be used for sandwiches or pile it onto a bed of lettuces for lovely summer dinner.