Tired Puppies

We picked up two Great Pyrenees puppies on Saturday.  They are still little roly-poly bundles of fluff, but I could tell that they had grown since we had visited them just two weeks ago.  Everyone was so excited.  Puppies to play with!  We have never had a puppy before, having gotten our previous dog Belle as an adult dog.

We also had a wedding to go to that day, so we didn't get to play with them much when we got them to our house in town.  We made them comfortable in a dog kennel with hay in the bottom, and made sure they had plenty of food and water.

We left the wedding early and let them out to romp and play a little before putting them up for the night.  They are very calm as puppies go.  They mostly sniffed at things and poked around.  They discovered our cat Teasel, who was NOT happy to meet them, and seems to think we have been cheating on her.  There was a bit of yelping as Teasel made everything very clear about her availability as a play-thing, and after that she just sat off to the side and stared aggressively at them.

After an hour or so we tucked the puppies back into the kennel and got them comfortable again, and went to bed.

Around midnight, we were woken by loud whining and yelping.  I ran out to make sure the puppies were okay.  I let them out, and they peed and romped around a little.  They seemed to be lonely.  They have just been weaned from their mother, and I think they are missing her.  I stayed out with them for awhile, listening to a loud game party a few streets down that shrieked with laughter, horrible music, and the stupid things that drunk people shout loudly to each other in the middle of the night.  A surprising number of cars drove by.  After awhile I was tired and the mosquitoes were biting, so I put them back and went to bed again.

It's always hard for me to get back to sleep again after being woken, but I managed to until I was woken out of the middle of an anxious dream by whining and yelping again.  Ethan and I both got up and went to check on the puppies.  We let them out again, and they peed and sniffed around.  We tried putting them back in the kennel after that, but they immediately started whining again.  This time it was the time of night when everything is very, very quiet - except for our puppies.

They clearly didn't want to be in the kennel, and seemed to have boundless energy, so we put them in the back yard and secured the gate, thinking they would be happy to explore.  That lasted about ten minutes back in bed before they were yelping and carrying on again.  At this point, it was somewhere around 5 am, and so Ethan decided to just get up with them.  He sat outside with them and watched the sun rise.  By the time I got up around 8, feeling more sleep-deprived than I remember being with newborn babies, the puppies were exhausted and flopped out on the driveway.  Mirin was up, and tried to play with them, but they moved away from him and went back to sleep.

We took them out to the farm after breakfast, where they napped most of the day.  Just before leaving we tucked them in with the baby goats and drove away, happy with the thought of what a good night's sleep we were going to have without them!

Planning For Abudance

 

Last week I finally got the first part of my winter garden built and planted.  The surviving starts were settled carefully in, and radishes, turnips, and lettuce were seeded.

This year, above all other years, I am planning for abundance.  We need it.  This lean season has felt leaner than any season before - the cows and goats dried off at the same time, chickens moulting, us without an income.

These days are anxious, full days, and the little green glimmers of the brassica seeds unruffling their tiny heart-shaped leaves gives me hope.  Rows of greens, rows of radishes and roots.  I hope that these things will see us through to better times.

The pigs have been a big help in the garden this season.  The summer garden gets so jungly, with impossibly high woody weeds, like small trees.  You have to fight your way through just to walk across, and clearing it is an impossible task.  In previous years, we rented a bushhog (yes, that's what it takes).  But why rent a bushhog, when we have bush hogs?

The rabbits have already been less of a problem because of the open ground.  A few evenings ago, I was milking the two remaining lactating goats at dusk when a huge, old owl flew down and perched on a pine tree that looks over the East side of the garden.

The pigs are also revealing all the cracked 5-gallon buckets I had used to transport compost to the summer garden.  Gosh, I had no idea I used so many.  I recall many times reaching for another bucket from our stack of retired "compost quality" buckets when the one I had been using had seemed to vanish - probably swallowed by the choking gourd vines or something.  Well, now I know where they ended up.

The bare ground will not be exposed for long.  The pigs will soon be moved elsewhere, and clouds of rye, oat and radish seeds will be sown on top to eventually make way for the summer garden of next year, which I am already looking towards with a scheming and thrifty eye.

Rose's Ninth (And A Nausicaa Dress)

Today is Rose's ninth birthday.  She has the last birthday of the year in our family, and it is always so hard for her be last.  I think that's why she always insists on a little extra celebration - like two birthday cakes, instead of one (they are the same kind of cake, at least, so I just double the recipe and use different fruit in the filling - actually much easier than Mirin's ice cream cookie dough cake.)

She set a precedent this year by making a little treasure hunt with clues for Clothilde's birthday, which Clo loved.  Ethan made a treasure hunt for Mirin's birthday so he wouldn't be disappointed (it was at the farm and David the buck ate one of the clues.  We know it was him because the half that was left had buck-shaped teeth marks in it).  So Ethan made a treasure hunt for Rose, too.

She was worried that she wouldn't get any presents this year, since Ethan lost his job.  Luckily, I spend all year collecting ideas for birthday presents, and buy them ahead and hide them away.  I always go with "Something to wear, something to read, something she wants, something she needs."

Usually there are a couple of extra things that land in the "something she wants" category, but it keeps it simple and narrows it down to presents that will be surely loved and used.  I can't tell you how nice it is to have a birthday without the distraction of having too many presents!  (There really is such a thing). 

A few years ago, Rose saw the film Nausicaa, and was captivated by the strong character of the princess of the Valley of the Wind.  This led to her having an argument with some other little girls about what a princess really was!  (The other girls said a princess has to have a fancy dress and a crown, but Rose said that a princess wasn't just dressed-up, it was someone who was a leader of their people.)

She has been reading the Nausicaa comic books by Hayao Miyazaki, and asked for a Nausicaa dress for her birthday.  I haven't sewn anything since Clothilde was born, for obvious reasons (just the idea of having the iron out around her gives me heart palpitations).  I thought maybe this would be like a Disney Cinderella costume that is easy to find and fairly inexpensive.  But no....a Google search revealed that Nausicaa costumes are over $100!!  And they usually only come in sizes for adult women who are into dressing like Manga characters.

Rose insisted I also look up "home made Nausicaa Costume" online, and we found a couple of blogs of crafty mamas who had put together Nausicaa costumes.  One was just different wardrobe items put together, the other was actually sewn from various patterns, one of which was no longer available.

I was going to say sorry, we'll just have to put one together from what we already have, but Rose was SO disappointed.  So I said if she watched Clothilde while I was sewing, I would try.  Besides, we are studying measurement for homeschool, so it was a perfect real-life learning opportunity.

Although my grandmother was an incredible seamstress (to help support her family in wartime France, she left school after 8th grade and worked for a dress-maker), I never learned from her - one of the biggest regrets of my life.  I have had to teach myself sewing.  I am terrible at following sewing patterns, because I learned sewing by copying clothes I already had and drafting my own patterns.  I have a distrust of other people's hem margins.  Every time I've tried sewing from a pattern, it always comes out funny.

This task was daunting.  The costume has a collar, complicated appliqué, belt loops, and a helmet.  I have never done any of those things!  I warned Rose that this could turn out to be a big disappointment, but she (said she) didn't care.

We carefully picked out the right shade of blue fabric, made sketches based on the comic book drawings, and started measuring her and drafting the pattern.

I honestly don't know how I managed to pull it off (no one in my family realizes how incredibly hard of a task this was....they have not hand-drafted and sewn a pattern for a specific person from a comic book drawing before).  The collar was a challenge, the appliqué gave me a headache, and the helmet was only saved from being too small by a few scraps of cloth I had saved out.  But Rose is just delighted with it, and after all, it did turn out to be recognizably a Nausicaa dress.

I'm afraid this might set the standard for birthday presents a little higher than I'd like it to be, but I am glad to have been able to make something she loves so much.  And it was nice to do some sewing again - it gave me hope that my sewing machine and I could collaborate more in the future.

Piglets and Puppies

Last week we brought all the piglets to their new home at Full Circle Farm.  They were able to duck under the electric fence, and had been becoming more and more of a nuisance.   It was cute having them drift around like a group of little spotty sausages, but they would get into mischief - they knocked over potted plants, got into the garden, and rooted everything up around the sink.  Ethan had to cut one of them out of the electric netting one day, I had to dramatically scare them away from the milking area on a regular basis, as they could easily slip through the gate.  BAD piglets!

They got harder and harder to shoo away because Clothilde has been gradually taming them.  They used to squeak and run away like the Big Bad Wolf was after them if anyone without a bucket got close, but since she started "scaring" them back inside the fence, they quickly learned that it was no big deal and became bold and fearless.

They were fairly easy to catch by putting a dish of food down inside a dog kennel, but then had to be caught and lifted into another cage in the back of the truck.  I worked the cage door, and Ethan did the really hard part of grabbing them and being deafened by their horrible squealing.  They really don't like it when their feet leave the ground.  Our friend PJ was also helping, and recorded it as a ring tone for when her family calls.

I was worried about the squealing upsetting their mama, Star, but she was busy making more piglets right then with the boar, Tresspassers William.  She was DONE with this particular batch, and had been trying to wean them.  She wouldn't lay down for them any more, but they would still stand up and nurse while she was eating and distracted.

After dropping off the piglets, who seemed none the worse after their long journey (perhaps a little dizzy), we looked at some Great Pyrenees puppies.  We are going to be bringing one home in a couple of weeks as a new livestock guardian dog.  And oh my!  I did not expect them to be so incredibly roly-poly cute!  We have never had a puppy before, having gotten our previous dog, Belle, as an adult.  So much fun to look forward to, but I think the challenge will be to still have a livestock guardian dog, and not a pet.

School and Homeschool

Mirin has so far survived two weeks of his new charter school, and has even gotten to experience a hurricane day.


This charter school has some great things about it:  project based, creative, drama class on Fridays with an old acquaintance of mine, Capoiera instead of PE.  There is a lot of good energy behind this school, and his former homeschooling friend we met at a co-op meeting is also attending.

Mirin was initially very worried about being in school.  His spelling is not good, and he is a slow reader.  He knew we wanted him to have higher standards than he was being held to in homeschool, and more discipline and focus.

He has so far said he really enjoys school.  He has already made friends.  He is delighted that there is actually less discipline and less rigorous academic requirements than in my homeschool.  A lot is done on computers, with games, so he is enjoying this distraction that would not be tolerated at home.  There are copious amounts of junk food he has also been enjoying immensely.

And in homeschool, Rose is now flourishing.  It was always very difficult to try to get Mirin to focus on his studying because he was always provoking the little sisters into fits of rage or tears while I was busy with one or the other.  He would spend all day being a nuisance, would accomplish absolutely nothing except a lot of whining and complaining, I would be completely drained of energy and fed up with him, and the sisters would be fractious and close to hysteria from being pestered so much.  It has been so nice to spend time with my girls.

I also LOVE not being responsible about his education (or actually the lack of) any more.  This was a big issue for me.  We have lots of concerned family in town.  The harder I tried, the less he seemed to care.  I spent hours pouring over books about different education techniques.  I scoured the internet for fun ideas.  I invented stories and games just for him.  Everything was geared to appeal to him as much as possible, to cater to what he wanted, what he liked, and as a result he hated it all and scorned it.

And when he refused to learn, it wasn't his problem - it was my problem.  Everyone came to me - I wasn't trying hard enough, I wasn't qualified.  I wasn't doing enough.  It was my failure, not his.  This was very unhealthy for both of us.  I feel freed from this, and I was glad to hear my dad lecturing him about trying harder in school.

(Another thing I have realized is that my homeschool is actually quite good.  The Math he is learning in school is stuff we were reviewing this year from two years ago.  He claims that what I considered minimal effort for 6th grade level was actually much more rigorous than is expected at public school for writing and thinking.  Maybe instead of Standardized Testing, the schools need concerned relatives breathing down their necks to improve standards.  It gave me such a sense of inadequacy, but it made our homeschool standards sharp.)

On the other hand, he is very, very stressed out.  He comes home snarling and swearing.  He does nothing creative, he only craves the screen and idle distraction.  He has lost his mature homeschooler demeanor for an obnoxious manic blabbering and erratic jumping around that I have observed so often in kids just let out of school.  I was not expecting this change to happen so fast.  I think part of this is because the 6th grade class is notoriously badly behaved, and every day I hear stories of how a teacher just gave up on the class, there was a fight, someone was expelled, a teacher was in tears, he couldn't hear what the teacher was saying because the class was so disrupted.  So while he is not being bullied, like our last school experience, but I am also not happy that he is surrounded by such strong examples of disrespect and disorder.


So we are really not sure about this change.  I am very glad he is so happy and making friends, but it is not providing what we wanted:  more discipline or higher educational expectations.

(I want to clarify that the other grades at this school are reportedly not like the 6th grade at all.  This class is particularly rowdy for some reason, and is giving the staff a big challenge, so please don't form a bad opinion about this school just based on our experience of the 6th grade!  It is a great school, and there are great people working there with wonderful ideas.  I think they will sort it out, but they have only just gotten started as a school.)

Weathering

I am writing from the blustery aftermath of the dreaded Hurricane Matthews.  Obviously, I have power still, which is far better than the last hurricane that came through, although the media excitement wasn't as built up the last time.

Yesterday my mother called me in a panic, insisting that her students were claiming that Matthew was a massive hurricane that was due to hit right down the middle of the state and wipe us off the map.  I managed to calm her down, and reminded her that her students could hardly understand the rudiments of biology, much less a hyped-up media report. 

We did tie down the chicken coop lids this time, and we stocked up on hay and water for the animals.  Otherwise, I am fairly sceptical of the melodrama about storms hitting this area.  Don't misunderstand me - I know the damage was quite bad in other places.  Here in the middle of the state, we tend to be spared the worst.

Since I slept through the whole of "The Storm of The Century" at age eight, way back in the 1900's (ok, it was only in 1993, but I like the sound of "back in the 1900's"), I just don't get that excited about them.  Of course it sucked to have our electricity go out last hurricane, and when Mirin was a newborn in 2004 we had no power for a week - but that was less a testimony to the powerful winds than it was to how pathetic the transformer is on our line, and how incredibly incapable the utility company is when it comes to hurricane preparedness (why are electrical lines not buried in hurricane areas?  It seems so obvious).

The storm was supposed to hit us around 1:30, so we made plans to go out early to do the milking.  Of course we are late everywhere, so the timing turned out for us to arrive at the farm at 1:30, rather than be inside, safe and dry, at that point.

As we got in the car to head out, Ethan turned on the radio to check on the storm announcements.  The voice on the radio was saying how you should not, under absolutely no circumstances, be out driving on the road, and went on to emphasize that there had been a tornado watch in the next county, and anyone who went out driving today was just asking for it.  We shrugged and turned off the radio as we pulled out of the neighborhood.  Ethan did swerve around the road a little while driving, but it was only because he was trying to drink coffee at the same time, rather then because of high winds.  There was hardly any rain or wind, and most people seemed to have taken the radio announcer's advice, so there wasn't any traffic, and I actually felt fairly safe on the way, except for the aforementioned swerving.

At the farm, in the very teeth of the storm, the cows and goats were placid.  The cows were lounging under the oak trees, ruminating, and the goats were all excited about a pine branch that had fallen in their paddock. 

The chores went well - the baby goats were convincingly pathetic from under their shelter, so I gave them an extra scoop of feed.  The worst part was having my head rained on, because I have misplaced my amazing Chinese cooly hat I always wear, and I hate having my head rained on.  We are just getting over a nasty head cold, and my hair gets all musty.

Even during the most exciting blusters, I gauged the wind to be about a 5-6 on the Beaufort scale, which is only "gale" and at least six degrees south of "hurricane".  I am beginning on my second year of helping with weather journalling for homeschool, so I am fairly adept at it now.  I have been out doing the chores in worse storms that were merely summer thunderstorms, and at least it was cool, the rain was intermittent, and there was no lightening.  I don't mind hurricanes, but thunderstorms are terrifying.

Searching And Working

Last week some huge changes have hit our family.  The first one came last Tuesday, and it was that Mirin was accepted to a new charter middle/highschool.  He had been #2 on the list at the beginning of the year, but we didn't expect him to be accepted so soon.  He started Monday for the first time ever at a "real" school experience.

The second and biggest change came on Friday (exactly like the Fox in Chanticleer).  Ethan was laid off from his job.  Usually his pay is cut back during the winter, but this came as a complete surprise.  He has worked there for eight years, and has been heavily involved in designing the systems his company marketed.  It wasn't, as is to be expected of the corporate machine, personal.  They also laid off most of the other people in his department.  He was told to leave immediately, and had to return hours later after the rest of the lay-offs had been to the chopping block with HR to get all of his tools he had been letting the company use for years and say goodbye to the friends and co-workers.

We have spent the past four days trying to process what has happened, working as hard as possible on all the work that we have been behind on with the farm and around the house.  We have been enjoying being together, feeling grateful for each other.

Now we find ourselves facing survival in the face of the unknown.  A death of our old life.  With growing our own food and being very thrifty, we were fairly comfortable with our upper-poverty-class lifestyle, but in many ways we wanted this change, but it was the fear that held us back.  We have three children we are responsible for, and their experience of childhood is important to us.

We are trying not to get stuck in the shock part, not to be stuck in the anger, frustration and fear.  Instead, this is a freeing opportunity, a cleansing moment, a step onto a new threshold from which we can't turn back.


One thing seems clear - our old life is gone.  We will never have it back.  This is not the time to be looking over our shoulders and mourning what we have lost, but to be looking forward and drawing on our experiences and skills.  When old things are taken down, when old structures are shattered, when the routine is broken - what is left but to love each other, be grateful for what we do have, and to delight in the way that anything could happen. 

Showers of Blessings

We finally got some rain yesterday evening as we were doing the chores.  It was ominous and cloudy all day, but for some reason the rain gods seem to prefer to shower us with their blessings exactly when we are out doing the chores.  Every day for ages there have been huge thunderstorms crowding around, but alas not actually raining on us.

The rain was more welcome than you might think - it has been so dry.  The cows are at the end of their pasture rotation, and the grass in the beginning is dormant and there is no regrowth.  The plan has been to put them on hay at the top of the garden - expensive, of course, but not deplorable, as I need hay and manure to start building the winter garden.

The most I have started on the fall/winter garden are some pathetic-looking starts.  I started early this year, back in August, but the hurricane that came through was not good for them.  I replanted again a couple of weeks ago, and everything has popped up right away.  The funny thing is that the replanted starts are at about the same stage as the older ones.  I don't know how people actually get kale in the ground on September 1st, as all my starts seem to hate growing when it's so hot.  I am wondering if it is even worth starting things until September if the later-planted starts catch up so quickly to the early starts.

The pigs have been in the garden, and have cleared out a good portion of the back of it.  It's about time to give them another section.  Things are (finally!) moving along a little.

The Week of Birthdays

Every day is so full of things to do, I am always working on something.  There has been no time for involved cooking projects, French translations, knitting or writing.  I have also been too busy to enforce the chore lists for everyone, and most of the time end up doing it myself because it's easier.  It's funny how the busier I am, the lazier my children are.  This has been very bad for Mirin, especially, with his "lazy constitution", he is getting up later and later and spending so much time loafing around on the sofa or in bed reading stupid comic books (there are some great comic books out there - he is reading stupid ones - if you don't believe me, just flip through a My Little Pony comic book and you'll see what I mean).  The chore chart has been untouched for a week.  I am just realizing this and feeling the need to do something about it (= Mama Monday Chore Crackdown).

There is just so much going on these days.  So many big projects, so much catching-up to do....and we were just hit by THREE birthdays within a week - Clothilde's fourth birthday (I can't believe my baby is already FOUR!!),  Mirin's twelfth birthday (last year before the teens!), and my little brother's 26th birthday.


I have been fated from the age of seven in my family to carry out birthday celebrations for everyone.  For the children, this is a special dinner of their choice (Clo wanted hotdogs, Mirin picked baked fish) and a homemade cake of their choosing.  My children literally spend all year deciding what kind of birthday cake they want.

Clothilde wanted carrot cake, so I made the soaked-flour carrot cake from Nourishing Traditions.  Mirin wanted a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cake  - one of the more involved cakes I've ever made, as I also had to make ice cream.  It was really, really good though - being made only of chocolate chip cookie dough and homemade vanilla ice cream.

For my little brother's birthday, the children were going to make a cake, but were too lazy (see above) to even pick one out.  So I ended up making cream puffs - I really am fated to do it - instead.  Unfortunately Ethan was reading something aloud to me (very interesting that I wanted to hear) while I was measuring the recipe, and I measured twice as much butter as necessary for the 3x recipe.  I only realized the error when I added the flour, and it didn't thicken properly - and horrifically we were out of flour, so no correction could be made.  My mom scrambled around and found some Einkorn flour I added, bringing the recipe up to 6x the original 8 puffs.  It turned out OK, except that my oven could only hold four baking pans at once - the cream puffs were abnormally large in compensation, but they (mostly) turned out ok!

Looking forward to a more leisurely week this week - but we'll see.  What is it about this time of year that always seems like busy madness?

Out Of The Dark

It's interesting that whining seems to be almost a universal offspring behavior.  The little goats are successfully weaned - for the most part. We are still bottle-feeding a few of them - not because they need it, but because we were trying to tame them.  The bottle-fed babies are not just tame, but will actually attack you if they think you have milk.  If you walk by, they bleat with the same persistent, high-pitched, piteous and annoying sound that Clothilde makes when she wants something and feels ignored.

A terrifying thing happened to me and the girls last week with David.  We were walking up to bring the cows their salt and minerals.  The sun had set, and it was that in-between time of evening when it is so difficult to see.

The cows were on the last line, and Ethan was milking Matilda way down at the milking shed.  I had started pouring the salt and minerals into their dishes when Rose suddenly said, "Something is coming!"

We peered into the gloaming.  There was a faint rustling along the path, and suddenly David, huge and black in the failing light, loomed out at us.  Oh no! I said.  He can walk through all of the fences, and was heading straight for us.  He has attacked me and the girls before, but I had a stick handy and had managed to protect us.  Clothilde leaped into my arms, Rose huddled behind my back and I quickly scanned the ground, trying to see if there was a stick, a fence post, anything.  The ground looked grey and homogeneous; there was nothing. 

David walked through the electric fence, towards us, bleating a small, psychotic bleat.  We dropped the mineral scoops, and backed away carefully, hoping that would distract him.  There was a grove of small pine trees we went into, hoping that if he couldn't see us he would find something else to do.  I looked around desperately for a tree to set Clothilde in - and then help Rose up. I knew I could scare him away if they were safe - but with one child in my arms and the other clinging to me, I felt so vulnerable.

David left the scoops and started coming towards us, bleating small bleats, almost like he was hunting us.  I saw a huge pine tree through the small ones, and thought maybe there would be a low branch.  Clothilde started screaming for Ethan, which attracted David more, and seemed to excite him.  I shushed and shushed her, while directing Rose to hide behind the tree.  David followed, getting closer and closer.  I tripped and fell over one of the pine's roots, David loomed over us, his ears raised, ready to come cracking down on us, perhaps killing us.  I screamed at him and forced myself up again, and backwards.  The large pine tree had huge branches that had fallen all around - I hadn't been able to see them from a distance.  I ripped Clothilde off of my side, handing her to Rose, and picked up two large branches just in time to bar him from pushing into us.  No longer unarmed and vulnerable, the situation had turned.

Instead of attacking us, he rammed his horns into one of the small pines very close by and savaged it, ripping off shreds of bark and shaking the whole tree.  The girls were screaming again, I begged them to be quiet.  If only they would be quiet, and not antagonize him....I wasn't so sure how the weak pine branches would hold up if I actually had to fight with him.  I had once tried to fend him off with a sturdy-looking branch that snapped right away and left me weaponless and having to keep him away by kicking at him with my feet.

I held my breath while he ripped at the tree, obviously trying to show us what he was capable of - trying to make us afraid.  He was distracted, so we backed farther away around the tree, out of the clearing.  I had both branches in hand, Rose carried Clothilde - always best to consolidate your vulnerabilities.  We headed for the open, so we could clearly see him coming towards us, ready to fight.

Just then we heard a heavy tred.  Matilda was back!  I felt relief.  Matilda takes every chance to make sure David knows he is smaller, weaker, and therefore pathetic.  She is like the guard cow.  Ethan was there, too.  He had heard us screaming, but was busy with the milking.  He found a fence post in the grass (alas, we would have had to walk towards David to find it at the critical time), and ran David off onto the next line.  The girls and I ran down to the barn while Ethan walked behind us, keeping David back.

When we reached the barn, Ethan yelled, "He's coming your way!" and we rushed for the barn and shut the door.  Then Ethan said he was holding him off, so we ran into the car and shut the doors.  David ran past, back to his girls who were up by the milking paddock.

When Ethan opened the back of the car to put in the milk, he teased us by bleating (he has not been in the situation having two children cling to him while he fights off David, so it didn't seem very serious to him).

We couldn't figure out why David followed us all the way across the farm when his girls were at the other end.  He is up for sale with "make an offer"!

Back To Homeschool

We started homeschooling again last week.  It is nice to be back to fall structure rather than the loose, unplanned summer days.  I realized we actually do homeschool year-round, but with different styles.  Very structured schooling in Fall and Spring, unschooling in Summer.  It seems to work well that way.  Beginning of summer, the children and I alike are glad to shake off the daily rhythm and have some freedom.  September-wise, it feels sort of like putting things back together again.

This year Rose is in 3rd grade, Mirin is in 6th, and Clo is in a difficult age where she can't quite join in, but doesn't want to be left out.

I put off planning for most of the summer, and did it all in a few desperate weeks in beginning of August.  I was trying to figure out what we were doing.  Now that we are not Waldorf homeschooling, I felt a loss.  I thought last year I had it all figured out, but I found myself back to the drawing board.  I haven't had enough time to study, figure out, and implement anything else.  Running out of time, I went ahead and planned 3rd and 6th grade by taking the things I liked the most from the Waldorf plans, adding my own stuff, and finding some new interesting things that we never would have found if we had been still stuck in the Waldorf rut.

For 3rd grade I chose the things we had enjoyed when Mirin was a third-grader.  The Native Dwelling series by Bonnie Shemie are fantastic.  We loved studying the Native Americans, so I kept that as part of the curriculum.  We are also studying the great civilizations of Central and South America.  These blocks include Language Arts, culture, and history.

Science in 3rd grade was Weather - and we are keeping that.  It was fun and interesting to keep a weather journal, and included honing observational skills, measurement (inches, centimetres and temperature), cardinal directions, graphing, data analysis, and weather phenomenon.  It is a very rich subject.

I found a beautiful cursive practice book that includes beautiful artworks.  After the basic letters are taught, the lessons center on finding and describing things in famous classical paintings.

Looking around this same website, I discovered the Life of Fred books that intrigued me.  I bought a few to see how my children liked them.  I got the first book for Rose, thinking it would be a good review, and I got a more advanced one for Mirin.  We ended up working through the first one and are starting the second.  Some of the content is very easy, but it also has things that we have never done before.  I looked through the harder book and decided to just start them both at the beginning.  So far we are really enjoying it.  The story is entertaining, and includes much more than just math.  I particularly like the way the negative effects of sugary foods and television are worked into the story!  How great is that?

For 6th grade we are working on Geometry, Greek Myths, studying the planets, stars, and solar system.  I planned it very lightly, because Mirin balks at lots of planned, structured schooling.

And of course I had to include Clothilde in my plans.  Every week we are trying to do some cooking together, some art together, and some small lessons - like counting and listening to stories.  Every day we do a seasonal verse (one of my favorite things I learned from Waldorf - I have always loved poetry and awareness of the seasons).  We also have a break between different parts of the lesson and do yoga stretches from a wonderful book written for children, picture-book style.  Often Clothilde will get the book out and do the stretches herself - even at age 3 she can do this because of the very simple format.

While I was planning, I remembered drawing shapes with my mom when I was about Clothilde's age.  I recalled being so pleased learning to make stars and hearts especially.  Last week, while Mirin was plugging away at Math and Rose was working in the cursive book, I got out drawing paper and crayons and tried to draw shapes with Clothilde to keep her occupied.

To my surprise, it wasn't just the casual, "Oh, we'll just play around with shapes and colors" that I had expected.  No, Clothilde takes things seriously.  I started drawing a few circles, which she tried to copy, and was quickly screaming and sobbing because her circles were not exactly the same as mine.  Simultaneously, Mirin got frustrated with his Fractions review and was clamouring for my attention.  Rose got angry because during the excitement, the table was jostled and messed up her letters that she was painstakingly working on.  We ended up with everyone screaming and crying - not exactly what I'd had in mind!

After the older children were done with their lessons, I got out the crayons and paper again, and sat down with just Clothilde.  I thought my approach was wrong.  I didn't remember this sort of thing being such a crisis when I was drawing shapes as a child!

Instead we opened the crayon box, and I told Clothilde to pick three things.  She picked:  a girl, a dog, and a horse.  I drew them on the paper, and began making up a story about the three of them, drawing as I went.  Halfway through, she pulled the crayons away from me and began drawing confidently, making up the end of the story on her own.  I found it fascinating to watch her creative process with this, and how a different approach can completely change a child's reaction to an activity.  My structure of drawing a circle did not inspire her, as I had expected, instead she became focused on how her drawing was not the same as my adult drawing, and felt inadequate.

When the process was freed up to her creativity, she became inspired, the flow of the drawing and the story came bursting out.  After she was finished and went off to play, I quickly jotted down the story on the back of the picture. I am imagining making a little book with her drawings and stories.

It was an intense week back to schooling, and I am having trouble finding time to write here, or work on French recipes.  My garden is very weedy, and my fall seedlings got slammed by hurricane Hermine over the weekend (and we lost electricity for two days - no joke when you have chest freezers full of your year's supply of meat!).  Dinners are usually a scramble and end up being something I pull desperately out of the freezer at the last minute - usually steak (not complaining, I love steak).  But I will try to write at least once a week until things settle down.

In The Garden: Late Summer Foods

The summer garden is winding down - even the eggplants and okra have slowed down and are looking stalky.  The bushel gourds are still ripening, but the last of the pumpkins have been pulled out of the garden.  Half the garden is fenced off with electric netting, and the pigs are helping prepare it for the fall/winter garden.

I planted the melons late this year, and we just recently got a few melons from the neglected vines.  The orange melon with green stripes is a rare melon from India that was so good.  I will certainly grow more next year (and hopefully save seed - I have tried many different melons, but this one was the best).

Ethan discovered that the sweet potatoes were ready to pick.  This looks like a record harvest this year.  They are huge.  It's funny because I was sure we wouldn't get any at all.  I planted the slips and then got so busy with everything this year I barely even watered them  They are so weedy, you can hardly tell there are sweet potatoes growing.  I think this actually helped them develop, because it kept the vines from rooting in other places while they were struggling with sunlight competition with the weeds.

This was also the first year I didn't build special compost beds for them.  The compost beds seemed to encourage pill bugs, which ate them to pieces.  So apparently planting into bare sand, no weeding, and neglect is the secret to big sweet potatoes!

Foods from the garden now are:  pumpkin, sweet potato, eggplant, okra, cassava leaves, sweet potato leaves, malabar spinach, peppers, passion fruits, wild grapes, melons.  Not too bad.  The roselle will be ready soon.

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} 

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

 
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.