Holy Shit

After two solid days of moving manure piles and getting a good four inches of muck out of the cow shed, it's time for the final detail work.  My husband gets in a scoop and the girls shovel away to fill it up. It's heating up and this isn't pleasant work.  Blessedly we have a swimming trip planned this evening.

Those piles of manure translated into a bigger turned pile than we expected.  When you get frustrated and say, "that's a pile of shit," now you have a visual reference.  What you don't have, unless you come on over, is the smell.  It's not overwhelming, but it is pervasive and unpleasant.  The girls set up fans in the shed while they work and last night we slept with the windows closed. 

While my husband and daughters are outside working, I'm inside cooking.  First I skimmed milk, froze some, and froze some cream.  Then I made bread and started yogurt, sour cream, ice cream, and butter.  I hung a fromage blanc and moved frozen strawberries off cookie sheets and into bags.

My long day yesterday ended with a bag of broccoli for the freezer.  Last year I was lazy and didn't pull the plants and discovered they gave a larger crop in the fall.  So I'll be lazy again and see what they do this fall!

Busy days like these make me wonder about the meaning of life.  Sometimes it seems like life is all work with little interruptions for leisure and relationship.  I am not the first one to think this way.  The ancient Israelites named toil as a result of original sin.  "Cursed be the ground because of you!  In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life" (Genesis 3:17).

Pope John Paul II wrote a encyclical about work that gives a different view, not as punishment or as meaningless drudgery, but as cooperation with God.  When we work, we are creating something new.  My husband and daughters are creating a new manure pile and new cleaned shed.  I am creating new bread and new yogurt.  When we create something new we are creators, but we only do it in cooperation with The Creator.  In that view, work is sacred because God is sacred.  Work isn't something to be endured until "real" life happens, it is real life because God is present.  In fact, work is a fundamental way that we experience God because of the way God is with us when we work. 

Christ spent only three years of his life in ministry, the bulk of his life was spent in manual labor as a carpenter.  Did he feel the presence of God the Father as he cut and carved and sanded?  Do I feel the presence of God the Creator as I stir and bag and knead?  Do my kids feel God's strength as they shovel and scoop?  It's one more reminder that God isn't a feeling, because sometimes I don't feel God, but that's because of my lack of sensitivity, not because God isn't there.

Long Days of Self-Sufficient Living

Those strawberries have been sitting in the frig for three days and many were pretty ripe to begin with.  We've put four of the flats in the freezer, tucked away in six gallon freezer bags ready for fruit smoothies, but the rest had to be dealt with.  The girls started by pulling off the stems.  They set up work areas at the table and worked upwards of two hours.  I kept strawberries rotating through the wash water and back to my smashing-station before they went into the jelly pot.

After heating the mashed strawberries up, I added pectin, kept heating to boiling, and then added sugar.  When the whole thing was boiling again, I ladled the jam into jars. Fifteen minutes in the boiling water canner and they were done.

While we were working indoors, my husband was working with that little Bobcat to clean up the manure.  This is the second full day he's put in.  It has been a big bigger mess than we realized.

After four or five hours on my feet, going hard, we have 24 jars of strawberry jam to show for our efforts.  Tomorrow when they are thoroughly cool, they'll go into the cupboard.

When it was finished, I immediately started a cheese.  Thankfully, cheese begins with warming up and letting it set for an hour.  But then it was over and time to get up and stir cheese.  

By 6pm I was exhausted and my knees ached, but walking out to check on my husband, I noticed the broccoli was starting to bloom.  Ack!  So I harvested everything and tonight I'll have to blanch and freeze all this.  Oh, I'm so tired already.

My favorite book on self-sufficient living says that this living can make for very long days.  Boy, is she right!

Soreness and Surprise

It's cool and rainy today.  It wasn't supposed to be and I had a long list of things to get done outside.  I'm not that disappointed that I have to stay in.

We harvested that surprise broccoli that had been growing on the back side.  Off only six plants we almost filled the harvesting bucket.  After washing them, I looked in the book on how to freeze broccoli.  It recommended soaking them in salt water for 30 minutes to eliminate insects.  Sounds good, so I did that.  Then it was pretty standard.  First I cut them into the sized pieces I'll want when they come out of the freezer.

Then I blanched them.  This old blancher was in my grandmother's things after she died.  It's a pot in a pot.  The inner pot has holes like a colander and nests nicely into the outer pot.  After bringing the water to a boil, I threw it a bunch of broccoli and let them go for three minutes.  After draining, I dumped them into another strainer to drain and started the next batch.  Finally, I dumped the drained broccoli into bags.

It took less than half-an-hour from start to finish.  In the end, we got about a gallon and a half in the freezer.  That's a lot of broccoli when I didn't realize we had any.

That broccoli will taste sweeter because it was a surprise.  And it's a blessing because I'm sore and it gave me something to do today without straining any muscles.

My body has been slow in learning this new lifestyle.  Raising food involves a lot of lifting and physical work.  My body is middle aged and not especially athletic.  Sore muscles have become a regular part of my life.  Last Friday we scooped cow pies and then Saturday I helped my daughter's girl scout troop pick apples, lifting quite a few heavy boxes.  My back is still sore.  But the rain has given me a respite, another day to heal and recover.  I pray that each time I suffer this soreness, God is using it to grow strength in my body so next time won't be as bad.  That's all I can hope for at my age.