Goings-On

 

It's been busy around here lately - getting ready for homeschooling again after our summer break (more on that later!).

We caught two raccoons who were pilfering the barn.  They were extremely sleek and plush.  We've tried so many things already to deter them...locking, rodent-proof bins with cinder blocks on top, metal trashcans tied shut, and finally locked wooden bins with reinforcing.  They are like the super-raccoons from the Pom Poko film.  We released them at a nature preserve several miles away, but there are still a lot more attacking the barn.  A friend of ours loves eating raccoon and will take any we can catch, but they were so cute and looked so much like our cat Teasel, Mirin and Rose insisted we let them go.

We got a few pears for the first time ever from our stone pear trees.  A wild grape vine growing low in a cherry tree on the second grazing line was covered with delicious grapes this year.  They were sweet, but pleasantly tart and had so much more flavor than regular table grapes.  It's amazing how wild plant foods have so many more phytochemicals than domestic fruits and vegetables.  That's why I can't help chuckling to myself when I come across Paleo blogs fantasizing about being cavemen and making grain-free donuts.  All the fruits and vegetables sold in grocery stores are so modern and hybridized.  They are all bred up for things like shipping and storage qualities.  Even with gardening, I have to admit that things like carrots as we know them are a very modern food.

We made pickled eggs by putting cold hard-boiled (peeled) eggs in pickle juice with a slice of beetroot.  It's a nice way to re-use pickle brine once the pickles are gone.

Clothilde was in rare form last week.  She got a tamarind seed stuck up her nose on the drive home from the farm.  It had been a rainy, unpleasant evening, everyone was tired and grouchy, and she had not been thrilled to be buckled into her carseat.  It took us a minute to realize she was crying and screaming because of the tamarind seed, and not because she was cranky and wanted to be home.  In distress, she was not very articulate about it.  Luckily it came out easily once we got her to hold one of her nostrils and blow.

As always this time of year, we start longing for winter.  Rose and Mirin decided we were going to make gingerbread cookies and have a tea party one day.  It wasn't as nice to have the oven going in August as it is in December or January, but it was a fun diversion from the bugs/humidity/heat outside.  This is our version of deep winter - going outside under the wrong circumstances actually can kill you (I almost got heat stroke seeding the pastures in August one year - luckily we had the cold plunge filled up and I just jumped in). Generally we celebrate this season by inventing cold drinks and ice pops, eating watermelon and visiting the springs, but baking cookies was fun.

Despite the heat, the cherry leaves are changing color and starting to fall.  The seasons are shifting.

You've Got To Be Kidding....

The baby goats are two months old now - time to be weaned!  On Saturday we spent hours rounding them up.  We are putting them in the orchard, as it hasn't been grazed in ages, and could use a trim.  Besides, they can all slip through the weaning paddock gate this year.  When we repaired the gate post last fall, I think it got moved over just an inch, and they are easily slipping through.

Luckily, three of them were already over by the orchard, and were easily shooed in.  That left six to catch - Titania, Mustardseed (who is now called Moose because she's so big and fat), Oberon, George, Cobweb, and Mab, who looks part antelope.  All the difficult ones.

Mirin, Rose and I managed to corner and catch Oberon fairly quickly.  Cobweb, who is painfully shy and flighty, took some time to round up.  They were upset to be carried down to the orchard, but once they were in they started devouring the partridge pea, and were very happy.

Next I caught George.  George, Tamlin's twin, is about twice as big as Tam.  He's a brick.  I thought my arms would give out carrying him down.  He weighs more than Clothilde, and wiggles.

Ethan pitched in to help catch Titania.  While Ethan was struggling to get a good grip on her, she flipped around and kicked him in the face, knocking his hat off.  She weighs as much as George, and her nickname is now Titanic.

 Moose was easy to catch - not so easy to carry down.  She has always been a large kid.

Mab was last.  I knew Mab would be a real pain.  Ethan, Mirin, Rose and I all had to help catch her.  We cornered her several times, but she kept slipping past and pronking away after April.  It was like catching a baby gazelle with your bare hands, but finally, after a lot of chasing, cornering, and sweating, she was weaned.

The next day we went out early, anticipating lots of milking and bottle-feeding kids (less for their nutrition, more to make them friendly).  The mama goats were hanging out in the milking paddock that had been left open, with a bunch of smug-looking kids at their sides.

We had to round up Titania, Moose, Mab and George again.  George was right by the orchard gate, and showed us how all the kids had gotten out - just at the point of being captured, he leaped and slipped through the third rung of the gate (there is chicken wire all over the bottom of the gate).  So Ethan wired a cattle panel to the top.  We rounded up and carried down Titanic and Moose.  We had Mab cornered in the old weaning paddock, and with all four of us it didn't take (quite) so long the second time.  When we put Titania in the orchard, she gave the most pitiful hoarse little bleat.  It would have been heart-wrenching had my arms not been about to fall off from carrying her (again).

After the chores, we all went in the cold plunge (what we call a large metal water trough we fill with water - it is large enough to be like a small swimming pool).  We were all cooled off and clean, and just getting dressed for the trip home again, when we saw a bunch of little goats out at the top of the garden, smugly following their mothers.  They had gotten out of the other gate (blocked off with electric netting - but not well enough).

So we will be chasing them again this afternoon.  Ethan wants to put George and Titania in the dog kennel and move them with a dolly this time.

1846 Lace Mystery

I've mentioned before my latest inspiration to learn to knit lace.  One day I spent searching all over Ravelry for knitted lace patterns, and was surprised that there was almost nothing.  I know it must be possible, and was commonly done, because I've read in Victorian and Edwardian novels about ladies knitting lace, but sadly, today, crochet seems to dominate the practice.

I did at last find something satisfactory, called "1846 Point Lace Edging" and was pleased to find that the lady who had created the pattern had gotten it out of a book called Knitting, Crochet, And Netting, With Twelve Illustrations on Project Gutenberg.

As soon as I got some satisfactory yarn, I cast-on and began trying the pattern.

However (and this is probably my fault) I could not get it to work.  It begins with "cast-on 17 sts" and yet the first line of knitting only has 15!  After failing with it for awhile, I thought I might look on Ravelry for errata and found a link to her blog post about the pattern.

On her blog, she wrote that she had knitted up the original pattern, which looks like this:

Pins No. 19, boar’s head cotton 34, cast on 15 stitches.

1st row—Knit 2, make 1, (knit 2 together twice,) make 1, knit 1, make 1, knit 2 together, knit 2, make 1, knit 1, make 1, knit 3.

2nd row—Make 1, knit 2 together, knit 1, make 1, knit 3, make 1, knit 3 together, make 1, knit 3, make 1, knit 2 together, knit 1, make 1, knit 2 together.

3rd row—Knit 2, make 1, knit 2 together, make 1, knit 2 together, knit 1, knit 2 together, make 1, knit 1, make 1, knit 2 together, knit 2, make 1, knit 4.

ect.  (the pattern continues).


It was a puzzle, because when knitted back-and-forth according to how modern folks would read the pattern, it turns out awful and muddled, and not lace at all.  She couldn't figure it out, and so created her own pattern sort of based on what the original pattern was.

This absolutely intrigued me...a puzzle!  A mystery!  I immediately had a theory I wanted to test out - all the lace patterns I've knitted into various garments always have a row of purling (or knit if in the round) between the lace rows.  Could this old pattern have assumed the knitter knew to purl back every other row?

Having translated so many recipes from the 1930's French cookbook, I know that old instructions assume WAY more knowledge and freedom of thought than modern ones, where people trust that they will be properly led and guided every step of the way (preferably with pictures, or perhaps a youtube video).

I had to test my theory.  I was visiting with a couple of friends, and in the midst of an intense discussion on abortion rights and the miracle of life, I knitted up the pattern several times.

It seemed to work out, actually, only on row 11 (or maybe it was row 9...I've forgotten now) there was a problem.  You end up with the wrong number of stitches to continue. 

My friend, at one point, commented on how I kept frogging it, and so I told her about the puzzle, and how hard it was to find knitted lace patterns.  She answered me by holding up a crochet hook.

"But I don't know how to crochet!" I told her.  She said that was silly, because there are so many youtube videos showing you how.  So I had to admit that actually I was enjoying solving the mystery.

When I got home, I wrote the pattern up into graph paper, and added what was missing from the erroneous row.  Actually the pattern knitted up fine after that.  It wasn't quite as pretty as the lace pattern on Ravelry, but it did work out.  Curious to test it out again, I tried the next pattern in the same book, called "Scallop Edging."

It also worked out until row 13, where you end up with two extra stitches.  Also the pattern is not so clear as it tells you to simply repeat rows where you have more stitches than the row you are repeating, and it is an odd number.  It's not a big deal, but it isn't clear how to center the yarn overs (which I assumed was what was meant by "make 1").

I drew this pattern onto graph paper as well, and made the necessary corrections.  I knitted it out several times so far, as you can see, although it really needs blocked properly before I can show off the pattern.

If I have time (this is a very big IF) I will try to write up the corrected pattern to share next week.

Meet The Goats

We were reading a book that was a childhood favorite of mine - Our Animal Friends At Maple Hill Farm, and it occurred to me that I am always writing about our many animals that to us are familiar and almost like extended family, but that it must seem confusing to anyone who hasn't followed along with us from the beginning, when we only had a few animals.

I thought it would be a good idea to introduce everyone...

This is David.  He's our buck we got last winter.  We were thrilled to find a buck who has also been organically raised, just like our goats.  He was very friendly when we got him, because the guy he grew up with was always petting him and scratching between his horns.  I don't know how he could stand to.  David is always peeing on himself, and he smells so awful.  It's so disgusting watching him pee on his face (he always laps some up), and then he stands up, his beard and face dripping with goat pee.  The last thing I want to do is pet him.

BUT  he's made some great babies, and we really appreciate him for that. 

This is May, and her little kid (well, big kid now) Titania.  They are so cute together, because Titania is just a smaller version of May.  They are always napping together, and Titania always rests her head on May's shoulder.  I was trying to get a picture of it, but she jumped up and ran away when I approached.  Ethan has picked her up and cuddled her too much.

Ellie, our very first goat, was May's mother.  May also had a twin who was born very weak, and that Ellie rejected.  We helped her along until one day she just suddenly died.

May has always been very healthy.  When she was little, she was always getting out and eating where she wasn't supposed to, and she was always the fattest little goat.  She is one of the friendliest goats, too, and it's easy to get close to her, since she's always thinking about her stomach.

This is Cricket, in mid-bleat.  She has twins this year, Tamlin and George, two bucklings.  Cricket is pretty because she has a reddish brown coat.  She is the boss of the herd right now.  We tried dehorning her, but she still has one horn, so she is a unicorn goat.

Here is Tamlin, one of Cricket's kids, resting on top of the broken water trough.  He is named after a romantic  old English ballad about a knight who was caught by the fairies.  His sweetheart, Burd Janet, has to wait by the crossroads on Halloween, the night he is going to be given as a tithe to Hell by the fairy queen, and rescue him.

He is a nice little goat.  His twin, George, is plain-looking but very husky and playful.  I thought I had a picture of him, too, but he was probably too quick.

This is April.  April is May's granddaughter, but they don't get along very well.  We called her April because she was born on April 1st - her mama, June Bug, was born on June 1st.  May, June Bug's mama, was born on May 1st.  It's complicated, but we had this funny pattern going for awhile.  She was from the crop of kids where we desperately borrowed a buck from our friend who was three different breeds:  African Pygmy, La Mancha, and Nubian.  His dad was a kinder (Nubian/pygmy blend) who accidentally got in with the La Mancha goats.  He was very funny-looking with waddles and Shrek ears, but he did a great job breeding the girls.

April inherited the Shrek ears, and the bossy African Pygmy personality, even though she is very short.  She is an interesting little goat.  She is very smart and not very friendly.  She hates being petted, but is happy enough to get in the milking stand for some food.

This is Mab, April's kid.  We were so relieved to see she has normal Nubian ears.   She has such pretty black markings on her forelegs and face now, but she and Titania looked exactly alike at birth.  April and May couldn't tell their babies apart, and it made them anxious.  Occasionally they started letting the wrong kid nurse, so they started cautiously sniffing them first.  Mab is a climber.  She is always trying to climb things.  A few times she's managed to climb up into an oak tree.  We are hoping she will grow out of it, but it does not bode well.

This is half of June Bug, running away from me with her kids.  June Bug was May's baby, but unlike May, she is not very friendly.  Even though May was heavily pregnant, she jumped out of the fence and gave birth in the middle of the paddock where the cows were going to be moved next.  We had to move them back with the rest of the goats, but this was very, very traumatic for baby June Bug.  I carried her carefully while Ethan led May.  She has never liked us ever since.

She is running away because I have been drenching her with worming medicine.  She hates being caught and drenched.  I've been worrying about her, because she is looking pale and thin.  I am planning to give her a B12 injection, too, if I can catch her.  She is a real pain to take care of, because I can't handle her very well.

The kid running behind her is Oberon.

This is Oberon's twin, Cobweb.  She is also not very friendly.  We are going to wean the babies this week, and I am hoping she will get more friendly after that.

This is Twilight Sparkle (my children named her after spending time with my brother, who showed them tons of My Little Pony cartoons).  We usually call her Sparky.  She does have huge, beautiful amber-colored magic unicorn eyes.

She is April's sister, from the same buck, but her mother was Nougat, May's sister (we gave Nougat away to a new home because she was not being very nice around Clo).  She also has little Shrek ears, but otherwise she is a very pretty goat.

She was the one I worried about with kidding this year.  She was so large, I thought she would have twins.  She is a small goat, like April, and David, the buck, is huge.  It was her first kidding.  She actually didn't have twins - just one kid, who was huge.  We named her Mustardseed (after the fairy in Midsummer Night's Dream), but we call her Moose.  She looks part Percheron.

SOUFFLE AU FROMAGE: Cheese Souffle

Given that most things in the garden have so far come to pass (until next season, which is already beginning - time to start things for fall and winter), I decided to try another egg dish.  We might not have any more tender green beans, fresh tomatoes, or cucumbers, but eggs, milk, and butter are abundant.

The recent rains have made the grasses grow and grow - this year there seems to be more grass than ever before (a good thing, since we have more cows than ever before).  Was it the lime we put on last fall taking effect?  The mowing we did last year to knock back the brambles?  The extreme rotational grazing (cows are moved once a day - other people move WAY more than that, but for around here, where constant grazing is the norm, it is extreme).  The pounds-per-acre of livestock pressure we have now?  Waiting to graze during the spring until the grass was well established?  Something seems to be right.

Eggs this time of year tend to be uninspiring.  We just have so many, and it's been like that for several months.  We get sick of things after awhile.  It's part of the cycle.  If you have too much of anything, it loses it's appeal (well, that might not apply to passion fruits or Kajari melons.  I have yet to find out).  We will be so happy to have them back again in the spring.

The souffle was good - crispy on top, tender on the inside.  It was different, and cheesy.  I made it for weekend breakfast and everyone liked it.

SOUFFLE AU FROMAGE (Direct translation)

Melt a pat of fresh butter the size of an egg over a low fire; add a spoonful of flour, mix well, add half a cup of boiling milk, and stir until you get a smooth sauce.

Continue stirring until the sauce sticks to the spoon.

Remove from the fire, and add four egg yolks, incorporating them one after another, and then add the four egg whites beaten into stiff peaks.

Add 150 grams of grated Gruyère cheese, and mix into the batter.

Pour into a well-buttered oven-proof cooking dish, which is deep enough so that the batter reaches only two-thirds of its height.

Cook in an oven that is not too hot; remove when your souffle has begun to rise, after about 15 minutes.

Cheese Souffle (a modern version)

 3-4 Tablespoons of fresh butter

1 Tablespoon of flour

1/2 cup milk


4 eggs, separated

 150 grams of grated Gruyère cheese (It turned out to be about 1 cup finely grated and lightly packed)

A pinch of salt (not mentioned in the original recipe, but it would have been better with a pinch of salt,  in my opinion)

1.  To begin, butter an oven-proof casserole dish with fairly high sides (so the souffle won't spill out all over the oven), and pre-heat the oven to 350 F. 

2.  Separate the eggs.  Keep the egg yolks whole, but beat the whites up into stiff peaks and set aside. 

 3.  In a pot, begin warming the milk over a low fire.  In a sauce pan, melt the butter over a low fire and add the spoonful of flour.  Mix them into a smooth sauce called a roux.

4.  When they are well mixed (no lumps!), slowly pour in the hot milk, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.  Continue cooking and stirring constantly until the flour cooks and the roux will thicken and stick to the spoon.

5.  Remove the sauce pan from the fire, and stir in the egg yolks, one at a time.

6.  Now carefully fold in the egg whites, and then the grated cheese.  Now pour the batter into the buttered baking dish, and pop into the pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes or so (my souffle actually took more like 20 minutes to fully cook).  The souffle will rise and puff up at the top.  The recipe didn't mention it, but I have heard that opening the oven will make the souffle fall, so I kept the oven closed and checked on it through the window.

Serve right away!

Eight Little Piggies

Star had piglets!  Eight little piggies!  They are up and running around now, and there are the cutest little squeaks and grunts coming from that area.  Occasionally there are horrible squealings when the favorite nipple is being fought over (we thought one was stuck in the fence or getting stepped on, but it was only being deprived of the one favorite nipple).

Of all the kinds of babies that are born out here, I think piglets are my favorite.  They are so fun to watch.  It seems like the goat kids are always lethargically napping in a big puddle when we are out there, and the calves are always very flighty.  The piglets are always up to something.

SALADE DE TOMATES: Tomato Salad

{These French recipes are from a French cookbook called La Cuisine:  Guide Practique de la Ménagère by Chef R. Blondeau.  This book was passed down to me from my great-grandmother, who was from Alsace, a North-eastern region on the Rhine river plain in France.  It was published in 1930 as a guide for cooks hired to cook for a family.

 I am translating the recipes from French, testing them out with home-grown or raised food, and re-writing them in a modern format, with notes about what worked for me in the kitchen} 

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The tomatoes are finally succumbing to the drought and heat in the garden, so this is the last of them.  And the last of the onions, too.  For this recipe I had to make a few alterations because we have the tiny cherry tomatoes (no, I am not skinning and de-seeding every single one - they are smaller than grapes!).  Also, it is not parsley season, and the dressing calls for parsley, an herb that grows beautifully in the spring, fall and winter, but bolts in the heat.  I substituted basil, which is still growing in abundance.  I also subbed elephant garlic (actually not a garlic, but a kind of shallot) for the shallots, because I still had some from the garden.

At this point my big kids are "sick" of cherry tomatoes, and won't eat anything that has them in it.  They'll make an exception for tomato sauce, as long as it's been milled and you can't see the cherry tomatoes in it.  Rose helped me assemble this salad, and made the comment, "Wow, this looks good.  Maybe I'll actually try some."

"You're not allowed to," I said, joking.  "You don't eat cherry tomatoes, remember?  You said they make you gag."

"But I want to try this!" she replied. "It's better than what you usually make."

So if that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is.

SALADE DE TOMATES

Remove the first skin on five or six large tomatoes, cut into slices, remove the seeds, and arrange them in layers alternating with sliced onions, with salt, pepper, vinegar.  Allow to marinate two hours, remove and drain your tomatoes, and serve them with a vinaigrette.

SAUCE VINAIGRETTE

 Slice finely together parsley, shallots and onions; add salt, pepper, a spoonful of good vinegar, and two spoonfuls and a half of oil.

Mix well together, serve in the salad bowl or the saucière.

Tomato Salad With Vinaigrette Dressing

5 or 6 large tomatoes (or, in my case, about 2 cups of cherry tomatoes)

1 large onion, peeled and sliced

salt and pepper

vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar, but wine vinegar or balsamic would be wonderful, and could change the flavor and character of this salad for variety)

1.  Peel the tomatoes - I skipped this step as mentioned above, but an easy way to peel tomatoes is to plunge them into boiling water for just a minute, and then immediately submerge them into cold water.  This loosens the skin and it can be easily peeled off once the tomato is cool enough to handle.  Also slice them open and remove the seeds.  Then cut the peeled and de-seeded tomatoes into slices.

2.  Lay some of the tomato slices on a plate or in a bowl, add onion slices on top, and then salt and pepper and a sprinkle of vinegar.  Repeat until you run out of tomato slices.

3.  Allow to marinate for two hours.  Then drain off the liquid (actually I saved it and used it as vinegar in the dressing - it tasted too good to discard).  I think you are supposed to also take out the onion slices, but they were really good as part of the salad.  The vinegar had taken the bite away, and they were just sweet and onion-y.  Do as you prefer....

4.  Dress with vinaigrette:

For the dressing:

 1 tablespoon chopped parsley or basil

1 small onion, chopped fine

1 shallot, chopped fine

salt and pepper

2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon vinegar

Mix all ingredients well.  Serve either on the side, or tossed into the tomato salad.

Mangoes and Junk

I have been slowly recovering from being sick.  Everyone felt better for awhile, and then got very sick again.  I think it turned into a sinus infection for me, and I was sick all last week.  It wasn't until Saturday that I felt well enough to go out.

We had a failed expedition to the Repurpose Project.  I had never been there.  Anything that's actually nice has a crazy high price tag on it, and then there's also lots of creepy junk.  I know that rotting junk is hip - Satchels has made use of it.  It's nostalgic, and has artistic appeal.  For some reason I always think it's creepy.  I don't like looking at decaying seats, leaf-filled toilets and ripped open speakers.  The old dentist chairs looked psychotic, but maybe that's what everyone likes about it.

They had broken heartpine siding, with rusty nails sticking out of it, and lead paint for $2 a foot.  It's not so much for practical projects as artists who make junk sculptures or makeover random things into art; people who want to feel like they have dumpster-dived and gotten some good stuff, but don't actually want to get in the dumpster; and that privileged suburban hipster culture one sees frequenting it.  What the place needs is a tornado to sort it out.  They could never tie down all the stuff, and it would probably destroy the whole East side of Gainesville. *

 On the way back, we stopped by Mango Mike's on Waldo Road in Gainesville (thanks, Selma!!).  He has a mango orchard in the South.  Everyone has their own mango trees down there so it is difficult to sell them in mango season, but up here it is too cold, so everyone is happy for mangos.

We bought about 50 mangoes from him - they were cheap, and between the five or six different kinds that all taste different it was hard to decide.  We planned to freeze some and make chutney, but they got eaten in just a day.  There are only a couple left today, and they are still green.  We only just managed to make the chutney out of Sudha Koul's Curries Without Worries before they were gone.

*I know repurpose project is ultra-hip, and it's probably very uncool to be critical, but I had way too high expectations of it after hearing everyone's glowing praise.  If you want to find junk, there is certainly junk.  But if you are looking for anything useful, you might as well just go to a thrift store.  If you are looking for construction materials for a lower price....look somewhere else.  I'm sure it makes me unhip just to say it, but even their rusting, twisted roof metal pieces were freaking expensive, and honestly had already lived out their useful life.

Chalk Paintings

An artistic friend of mine has recently been making beautiful chalk paintings of flowers.  We used to do a lot of chalk drawing on our tiny blackboard for home school, but I have abandoned that, largely because there is no paper-trail of work that way to show that we have done something other than bake cookies all school year.  I hadn't thought of using chalk on paper.  She has done several very lovely paintings (they actually are called paintings, if they are drawn in chalk on paper), and even has one entered in a gallery in Canada.

The technique intrigued me the moment I saw it.  The colors are so vivid, and they blend together in interesting ways so different from paint, and the movement it captures is so distinct.  My friend has a gorgeous set of chalk she got second-hand at a great discount, because real chalk-painting chalk is incredibly expensive (like hundreds of dollars for a set).

I found a beautiful (and affordable) set of chalk at Scissors, Paper, Stone that I invested in.  We just used regular construction paper I got locally.  Everyone loved making these paintings.  After drawing for a little while, Clothilde rubbed her face and turned completely green.  She looked like a ninja turtle and had to be washed off.  The big kids started with garden pictures, and moved on to snow scenes.  I can't tell if they were just dreaming of cooler weather, or if it was to monopolize the much-in-demand white chalk.  Artistically, it is a good opportunity to work with directional line, shading, and how different colors interact next to each other, because the chalk colors don't blend easily like paints or crayons.

Another plus - the clean up and set up were easier than painting, which requires jars of water.  Half the reason we don't paint more (we used to paint every week when Mirin was little) is because Clo always manages to overturn a jar of water, every single time - and she also does unmentionable things to paint brushes that can be frustrating for the older children, who like the paintbrushes to have hairs in them and still work.  I know we will get a lot of use out of these chalks for awhile.

Free Knitting Pattern: Waffle Stitch Dish Towel

I know, I know, cotton yarn, and a non-garment item!  It's not my usual knitting style!  But it's actually becoming my favorite kitchen towel.  I love the soft cotton and the chunky knitted texture.  The garter stitch border keeps the edges from curling, and there is an option to knit on the loop for hanging it up.  The details of how I came to knit this dish towel are here.

 And now for the pattern:

Yarn:  1 skein Blue Sky Skinny Cotton in "Birch"

Needles:  US 5 or 3.75 mm.  I used a 24" circular needle I had on hand, but it was a little awkward as the extra plastic part flopped around at times.  Probably 12" straight needles would be the best.

Other Stuff:  2 stitch markers, or loops of yarn, a spare knitting needle if you are going to knit the hanging loop.

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Cast-on 61 stitches (I knitted them on)

1st round:  K3, place marker, K  until 3 stitches remain, place marker.

Now begin stitch pattern:

R2:  K3, slip marker, K1, *P2, K1* until you reach the 2nd marker, slip marker, K3.

R3:  K3, slip marker, P1, *K2, P1* until you reach the 2nd marker, slip marker, K3.

R4:  Same as R2:  K3, slip marker, K1, *P2, K1* until you reach the 2nd marker, slip marker, K3.

R5:  K all sts, slip markers as you go.

R6:  Same as R5:  K all sts, slip markers as you go.

Continue working these 5 rounds until work is the desired size (I kept knitting until I was finished with the skein, with only a little bit left over.  It made a perfect-sized dishtowel).

Get ready to cast-off after R5.  I used a stretchy cast-off:  K2tog through the backs of the loops, return stitch from right needle back to left needle and repeat.

Hanging loop cast-off option:  Begin on R 5:  K3, remove marker, K to 2nd marker, remove marker, K3 and turn work.

Next Round: K3 and turn work.

Continue knitting the same 3 sts and turning the work until you have a loop about 2" long (I counted about 18 rows of garter st on my loop) on one end of the work.

Slip the 3 loop stitches onto the spare needle, and turn the work as if you have just finished R5 and are going to begin casting-off on R6.

Grafting the loop on:  K1 from the spare needle (SN), then K1 from the main needle (MN).  Pass the 1st loop over the second (cast-off).

Now K1 from SN, and pass that loop over the one on the right needle.

K1 from MN, and cast-off as before.

K1 from SN, and cast-off.  That should be all 3 stitches cast-off from SN.

Now continue casting off normally.

 

SAUCE TOMATE

{These French recipes are from a French cookbook called La Cuisine:  Guide Practique de la Ménagère by Chef R. Blondeau.  This book was passed down to me from my great-grandmother, who was from Alsace, a North-eastern region on the Rhine river plain in France.  It was published in 1930 as a guide for cooks hired to cook for a family.

 I am translating the recipes from French, testing them out with home-grown or raised food, and re-writing them in a modern format, with notes about what worked for me in the kitchen} 

*     *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

That's tomato sauce, in case you couldn't tell....as I have mentioned before, I only had a few large tomato plants this year - mostly we have gotten by with Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes (15 of them).  They are much more work to pick (and you have to pluck off the green tops, too), but they have so much flavor, and are so much less work as far as keeping the caterpillars away.  Usually every evening after I milk, I am in the garden picking army worms off of the tomatoes.  They are a numerous foe, and generally I win the wars but lose the battle (I would still rather hang out in the tomato jungle and find lots of caterpillars to feed the happy chickens than use sprays, even "organic" ones like Bt).

We get a few of the horn worms that everyone always complains about, and I would much rather have them.  They do very obvious damage on the plant, and get very large and easy to see, and turn into a lovely moth that I have always admired.  I usually relocate them to the wild nightshades when I find them.  Army worms are sneaky - they are small for a long time, and hide in the foliage.  If you disturb them, they drop off and hide in the mulch.  They target the fruit, and make ugly rotting holes in perfectly good tomatoes.  They also ate up my cabbage, collards, potatoes and calendula this year.  It was very annoying.

Somehow the Matt's Wild Cherry is resistant to them.  Either they have stronger biochemistry, or the army worms can't keep up with the loofa-vine like growth habit they have, but we have been slammed by cherry tomatoes this summer.  We have to spend about an hour picking every other day to keep the vines picked, and even then there are some that are missed and spoil.  This yields a shocking amount of tomato, and you can only eat so many tomato salads, even if they are creatively put together!  So naturally we have been making sauce.

SAUCE TOMATE (direct translation)

 

Wash six large tomatoes, cut them in pieces, put them into a pot with a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, a head of garlic, and an onion cut into rounds.

Cook over a low fire, without water.

Watch over the pot, and stir the tomatoes minute by minute, so that they don't stick to the bottom of the pan.

When they have given up all their juice, pass your sauce through a strainer with a pestle, to remove the seeds and skins.

Put back over the fire : add salt, pepper, a pat of butter, and leave to simmer for twenty minutes.

It was not difficult to change the recipe to also accommodate cherry tomatoes.  I tried for Estimated Tomato Volume (I eye-balled it).

The sauce was very good, and, not totally surprising, reminded me of the little pizzas we had bought at the market in Nice when we were there (when I stayed there when I was a child, my aunt always cooked and we hardly ate things like that).  It was the herbs, I think.

Also, a Foley Food Mill, which is what I imagine the "strainer and pestle" refers to, is invaluable not only for this recipe, but also for anything that requires straining/puréeing.

Tomato Sauce

6 large tomatoes, washed and chopped into pieces

A bay leaf

A sprig of thyme

1 head of garlic, peeled

1 onion, sliced into rounds

salt and pepper

1 teaspoon butter

1.  Put the tomato pieces, bay leaf, thyme, garlic and onion rounds into a pot, and cook over a low fire.

2.  Stir often, to keep the tomatoes from sticking.  Cook until the juice has been released from the tomato pieces, and they are soft.

3.  Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprig.  Put tomatoes through a food mill (see above), or you could try using a wooden spoon and a fine-mesh strainer to remove the seeds and peels.

4.  Put the resulting sauce back into the pot over a low fire.  Season with salt and pepper, and add the butter.  Cook slowly for twenty minutes more.

Public Nuisance

David, our buck, has been such a nuisance lately.  He's waited for months until his girls were no longer pregnant, and now he is in rut again, although no one will be in heat until the fall, and they run away from him (you can't blame them). 

He's started to pee on himself and stink again, and has just been obnoxious - harassing the girls non-stop, sticking his tongue out, and making the "whro-whro-whro" courting noise that sounds so idiotic.

The baby goats are huge, and more playful than ever in their little gang.  I've been having everyone out grazing since the babies are so big now.  They have been jumping fences and going where they please, and only show up to be milked.  Twilight showed up with four babies skipping around her yesterday, and there was nary a sign of the other goats.  She was pleased to be milked first, and tried to nurse Mustardseed afterwards.  Oberon tried to get just a sip, and she showed him what-for.

One of Allan Nation's book reviews in The Stockman Grass Farmer caught my eye this week.  It was about a book called The Serengeti Rules, by professor Sean B. Carroll from the University of Wisconsin.

Carroll studied the ecosystem of the Serengeti to try to find out how it worked. He identified three distinct habitat zones that were constantly changing based on how the animals were using the land.  Populations that used the land differently (such as grazers like the buffalo versus the browsers like elephants and giraffes) altered the land as their populations pulsed.  Periodic droughts pulse the population to low numbers that allow the plant growth to recuperate.

One of the observations was that healthy ecosystems all start with large ruminants.  They were the ones (along with their predators and population controls) that were the basis of the ecosystem, and it was their impacts that created the habitats.  I found this so interesting, as there is so much in the environmental movement against domestic ruminants.  If mismanaged by human beings, they can destroy, but it is only our misunderstandings and lack of insight into the workings of nature that cause them to be destructive.

Pumpkin Harvest

 

The pumpkins are coming out of the garden now.  There are Seminoles from seeds I saved last year, a few Galeux D'eysines, some delicata (didn't make the pictures), North Georgia Candy Roasters, Jarrahdales and Marina di Choggias.  There are also a pile of Zucchino Rampicante from one vine that seeded itself and has taken over a quarter of my fairly large garden.

  Curiously, in my Seminole patch I have a bunch of the green-striped pumpkins with golden splashes.  They look like cassaba pumpkins, and taste like cassaba pumpkins.  I saved these seeds from pumpkins the pigs had "planted" when we put the seeds and stringy insides in the piggie bucket for them to enjoy.  Last year all the pumpkins we got were from the vines in the pig yards.  I did buy some cassaba pumpkins that winter, and threw the seeds to the pigs.  They must have grown, bloomed, and crossed with the Seminoles (they are the same species - I've checked.  There are four different pumpkin/squash species that won't cross with each other).  I didn't get any cassaba pumpkins last year, so they must not have set fruit, but they certainly flowered.

It's not good for pure seed saving, but I actually really like cassaba pumpkins mixed in.  My Seminoles, having been pig-planted in the first place, also have Tahitian Melon traits.  There are good things about all three of these varieties - Cassabas are just delicious, with thick-walled flesh, but don't keep.  Tahitians are very, very sweet, and keep, but not as well as the Seminoles.  The Seminoles are hardy, grow like crazy, and keep for almost a whole year at room temperature.  They are my most useful pumpkin, and are really a staple crop for us.  My favorite winter dinner is:  a roast, a baked Seminole pumpkin, and a huge salad from the garden.

I figure I will use them in order - the cassabas first, not being good keepers, the ones that have a Tahitian look next, before they lose their sweetness, and the hardcore, Florida native Seminoles last, because they are wonderful like that.  They keep their sweetness even being stored so long.  If we end up with a really variable pumpkin, I won't mind, since I like all three of them.  Maybe I'll plant a blue or red Kaboca pumpkin to blend in, too - as long as they are fairly distinct, I think I'll be able to tell which order to use them in.  It would be a fun experiment, anyway.

It's interesting to me that the French pumpkins I've grown (Rouge vif and Galeux D'eysines) are both very watery pumpkins.  My French cookbook only has one recipe for pumpkin - soup.  They make very good soup, but it seems so boring.  I put pumpkin in all sorts of recipes - we always have so many.  It seems the Seminoles were selected more for roasting than for soup.  You have to work with what you have, I suppose, so if you have soup pumpkins, you make soup.

47 so far have been pulled out the garden and are covering whatever surface is available in the living room.  It's another Pumpkin-A-Week-Challenge year, as Ethan calls it.  There are more still in the garden ripening.  Of course it never works out to really be a pumpkin a week.  Sometimes I don't cook pumpkin, and sometimes I roast several at a time, because they are good leftovers.

Sick Days and Baking

Note: The two cake pictures were from the "Dad Bake-A-Thon", and you can't really expect anything to be put away or the table to look clean.

We have been so, so sick.  The kind of sick that strikes you down and crushes you so you can't move.  Clothilde spent four days lying in bed, sleeping.  THAT kind of sick.  I haven't seen her so still since she was newborn.

Last week, when we were just starting to feel a tickle in our throats, I had to have a big cooking day.  There was cream to skim, butter to make, tomatoes to boil down to sauce, stock to set on and an overload of eggplants from the garden and eggs from the chickens.  And not to mention all the goat milk.  Every day I am draining more cheese. 

I've been lately been spending a lot of time working on things with my children - we've been doing chalk paintings, reading, playing board games and needle felting to amuse ourselves while it is so hot and awful outside.  But there had to be a cooking day, so I pushed them outside and took over the kitchen.  It was a  busy day, but so much got done.  And then, to my amusement, the very next day became a Baking Day.  I got pushed out of the kitchen, the cookbooks came out, and a baking contest began.  Rose made pretzels, Mirin made cake.  Clothilde hindered in a helpful way.  I helped decipher recipes and offered advice, but mostly I stayed away and knitted.  It was fantastic to see all of them working away in the kitchen together.

The day after that Clothilde was sick.  Then Mirin was sick.  Now I am sick.  I am just now feeling well enough to be out of bed - the sooner, the better.  Everyone has missed me so much, it's hard to say who misses me more - Ethan or the children.

Clothilde was up horribly early, energetic and chirping after four days of rest.  The big kids were up soon after, squabbling with each other and playing wild games on the furniture.  They needed breakfast, the dishes had to be put away, the floors swept, the milking equipment boiled and set up, the milk skimmed, the jars washed, the laundry sorted, washed, and put away.  And Clothilde played a game in which she locked all the doors in the house and Ethan had to search for the key to the back room so we could get to the phone.  Just the usual, but if you aren't used to someone else's work, everything goes slowly, and if you aren't used to doing things with three children bouncing around, it can be distressing.  I was accused of being secretly amused by it all when I came out briefly to lay on the couch and see how things were going.

By mid-morning the children sent in a delegation.  They said they were being neglected.  Rose wanted to bake a cake (correction:  she wanted someone to bake a cake with her), and Mirin was insisting on chocolate chip cookies.  Rose gave a long-winded speech complaining that "Daddy is so horrible"  (that was basically what she said), and Mirin claimed that I needed to get better immediately because, "It's daddy's job to sit in a chair at work and make money.  It's YOUR job to take care of us."  He said it was all they could do to survive.

However, they finally went away to do better things and Clothilde and I got a nap.  Ethan did bake cookies and cake with them, and everyone survived.  I'm feeling slightly better, and I hope to be back to my usual duties tomorrow, which apparently I am irreplaceable for.

Yarn Along: Cotton Waffle Stitch Towel

I have finally again picked up some knitting.  I haven't had a knitting project on the needles since the spring.  I had a sudden inspiration a few weeks ago to try knitting lace.  I've knitted lace patterns into things, but never lace to be sewn onto something else.  I have two yards of beautiful yarn-dyed linen, and I thought a simple skirt edged with knitted lace would be lovely.

I bought cotton yarn - something I've only done once before - I really didn't like knitting with cotton the first time I tried it.  It seemed to want to stick to the needles.  This yarn (Blue Sky Cotton) seems to be easier to work with, but it is too thick to be lace yarn.  I've since ordered cotton lace yarn, and am putting this to use knitting a cotton dish towel.  I am always running low on dish towels since I culled out the ratty ones with holes.  My last cotton knitting project was a washcloth, and I have always loved the soft chunky texture from the knitting.

I wanted a sort of waffle-weave texture, so I made up a stitch pattern for it, that seems to be working well if I don't forget where I am and add an extra row (or two).  It's a very forgiving pattern, being a rectangle and very repetitive, and a good thing to knit when we are all recovering from whatever awful illness Mirin brought back from scout camp.  I will try to write it up in a pattern form when I am finished and share it here.

We've been reading a lot of E.M. Forster lately.  Ethan just finished Howard's End, and I am trying to get him to read this one now.  I love Forster's writing style, and how he writes so well from a feminine perspective.  Passage to India is less philosophical than the other books of his I have read, but it has a lot of interesting situational commentary on imperialism.  Living as I do in a country that makes its fortune largely from imperialistic policies, this book has just as much meaning now as it did a long time ago...almost more so because the practices are the same, but the specific justifications are slightly different.  The excuse of "keeping the peace" for the violent natives while siphoning off all the wealth seems to be a very effective line.

When we were talking about it we got into a discussion on how the different countries implemented imperialistic policies.  France, for example, tended to try to obliterate any local culture and make everyone "French" in their colonies.  England, in contrast, liked to play upon the differences that were already there, and destabilize the culture in that way.  Ethan mentioned that the Caste system in India was on the decline when the British took over, and they brought it back because it was useful for keeping people from getting together and organizing for their independence, and it also matched their own social system closely.  Having just finished reading a lot of Jane Austen, I found that comment very interesting, particularly after reading Emma, which is all about social status (all of her books are, really).  I can very much see the similarities between the English class structure and the Caste system.

Nature Finds: Infinte True Things

A wasp with it's caterpillar prey

a chrysallis on blueberries

I don't recognize this little insect - sort of a cross between a robber fly and a damselfly....but it reminds me of a fairy.

Mirin got safely back from Boy Scout camp on Saturday, taller, tanned, and repeating nerdy jokes and bad songs.  My dad had planned the whole thing, keeping the packing list top secret until the very last minute when he burst in, barking orders and was angry because they were late.  Mirin dragged his feet.  This was the first sleep-away camp, and he wasn't really ready.  My dad had signed him up without consulting us first, and when he announced the news, it was with a defensiveness I decided not to argue with.  We parted last Sunday hoping he would have a good time, and trying to convince my dad it was too late to give Mirin the stupid haircut he insisted on giving him just before they drove away.

He is back, sick and coughing, but he enjoyed himself, despite the cafeteria food and lack of sleep.  Rose is also "sick," and they are both clamouring for a day in front of the TV with My Little Pony screeching at them.

I am refusing them that, offering instead books, games, tea and rest.  It doesn't do to sit in front of a screen when you are sick - it only makes you feel worse in the long run.

I was watching the little goats playing a few days ago.  I have never had a TV, but I understand why people watch so much of it.  The truth is, our lives here, while filled with unimaginable comforts, incredible physical wealth, and convenience - are lonely.  In town I live surrounded by people, and hardly see them all day.  We make an effort, and have a fairly good social life here, but from travelling I have seen how much more social people are in other places - places where good friends drop in suddenly for company every evening - something that would be very forward here.

TV is entertaining without revealing truths,  gives you social situations without making you a part of them, allows you to be comfortable and still feel you are experiencing life.  Generally, when people hear I don't have and never have had a TV, they are shocked.  Surprised.  They suggest I am cut entirely from life and the world, because to them TV is life and the world.  It has become their Truth and Perspective entirely, and to offer up the idea of not possessing these, they think there's nothing left.

I get the same feeling watching the animals as other people do watching TV.  You get to see their social interactions - sometimes cruel, sometimes humorous, and judge on them.  Was that out of hand?  So-and-so has such an obnoxious personality!  I reflect on the people I know who also act the same way, and how, honestly, we are not so very different at all.

 In fact, we all think about mostly the same things - the little ones think about how they are growing, exploring the world, what their mama is up to, and whether or not she cares for them.  The big ones think about keeping safe, their stomachs, sex, and their status in the herd. 

And afterwards, rather than feeling fed a perspective on the world, I feel like the world has spoken to me, shown me infinite true things that I can hold on to.

GATEAU AU FROMAGE: Cheese Pie

{These French recipes are from a French cookbook called La Cuisine:  Guide Practique de la Ménagère by Chef R. Blondeau.  This book was passed down to me from my great-grandmother, who was from Alsace, a North-eastern region on the Rhine river plain in France.  It was published in 1930 as a guide for cooks hired to cook for a family.

 I am translating the recipes from French, testing them out with home-grown or raised food, and re-writing them in a modern format, with notes about what worked for me in the kitchen} 

*     *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

There are so many eggs this time of the year, that any egg recipe is most welcome.  I have my own version of cheese pie, or quiche - which usually includes whatever vegetables is particularly abundant at the time, and lots of home made goat cheese.  Sometimes it has a crust and some times not - I prefer the crustless quiche because I like things to be all homegrown, and also wheat does not quite agree with me - however, my children are the opposite.

The crust recipe for this quiche is interesting because it includes egg.  And it turned out very nice, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I usually use flour, butter and cold water or cream, but I think I liked the La Cuisine crust given here better.  It is rich and flaky.

The only thing was that it seemed to make more crust than I could fit in my tart pan....it looks like a large tart pan, but perhaps it is actually small.  I used all the pastry, just to be fair to the recipe, and the crust turned out rather thick.  When I make this again, I will probably make a thinner crust and use the extra pastry for crackers, or blueberry tart or something.

Naturally, this recipe comes in three parts - first the crust, and next the filling (which is for a regular quiche), and last the modification to add gruyere:

QUICHE

 Line a buttered baking dish, three centimetres deep, with a dough made as follows:

500 grams of flour;

250 grams of butter;

8 grams of salt;

2 eggs.

Bake your crust in a hot oven for 10 minutes, remove, allow to cool, and fill with a half litre of cream, 100 grams of diced butter, four whole eggs, beaten; add salt and pepper and mix it well.

Let cook in a gentle oven for 10 minutes and serve the quiche well browned and toasted.

GATEAU AU FROMAGE

Prepare as above, but replace the cream with 250 grams of grated gruyere.

baked, but not filled

filled and ready to bake again.

Cheese Pie - a modern version

For the pastry:

4 cups of flour

2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons butter (2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1.  Preheat the oven to 400F while you mix all ingredients into a dough.  Roll out on a floured surface and line a buttered tart pan (about 3 centimetres deep).  Or, if you are lazy like me, press in the dough in as evenly as possible, and crimp the edges.

2. Pre-bake the crust for 10 minutes.  When you pull it out, turn the oven down to 350F.  Let the crust cool for a bit while you are preparing the filling....

for the filling:

7 tablespoons of butter, diced

4 eggs, beaten

salt and pepper

3 cups of grated gruyere

1.  Mix all the filling ingredients well.  Pour into the pre-baked crust and put back in the cooler oven for about 10 minutes.  It should be well browned and toasted when it is done.

Notes:  OK - a confession for this recipe - I did not have enough gruyere for three cups (it's so expensive if you go for the real imported stuff!!!!) - only about a cup and a half, so I added half the amount of cream to make up for it.  It took about twice as long to bake and be browned and pretty, so perhaps it had to do with the substitution.  Still, it turned out rich, creamy and flavorful.  There are no oven temperatures given in the recipe (I think they were probably assuming you are cooking on a wood stove) so I gave a good guess.

Solstices

I realized the other day that I always feel overwhelmed at the solstices - at the winter solstice mainly because everything looks brown and dead, and the lack of life, the dryness, the dark and the cold. 

The summer solstice is exactly opposite.  It's hellishly hot - our version of deep winter - and the weeds are over my head.  Life abounds in plenty to the point of oppression.  In the long days you would think you could get a lot done....and surely you could if it were 75F.  But it is not.  The humidity weighs terribly, and undone work cries out everywhere, becoming swallowed in the ungrazed grass.  You try to work on it and end up bathed in sweat, your head aching from the heat and the sunshine, your movements like someone underwater.  You hardly do anything, and yet you end up exhausted.

The fifteen cherry tomato plants are bursting with fruit, not unlike the flood of milk and the crush of eggs.  They are harder to pick than the big tomatoes, of which I hardly got any around the army worms - it was a bad year for them and I didn't have the time to pick them off every day.  These little tomatoes are sweeter, more flavorful, more vigorous and productive than the big tomatoes.  The challenge is keeping up with them.  They are dripping off the vines by the hundreds, and they must be picked, in the spirit of thriftiness and to honor the season of plenty.