Food Promises

A friend came and over and taught us how to make REAL fudge.  Not having been taught by my grandmother, I've not had much success.  My friend grew up in a remote area of northern Alberta where if you wanted candy, you made it.  And she wanted candy. So she made it.  And she learned to do it well.

We got everything boiling until a bit dropped in cold water rolled up into a soft, pliable ball.  We whipped it over to a sink of cold water to cool.  After the pan was just warm, we started beating.  It was smooth and syrupy at first.

We kept beating and stirring and slowly the string off the spoon got thicker.  The surface stayed glossy, but as it got thicker and more difficult to stir, the surface developed a velvety look.  She told us to watch closely, because we needed to catch it just before it was ready to go solid.  We kept stirring, looking at the string off the spoon until it was good and thick.  One last beat and we poured it out on a buttered counter.

As it poured out, she lamented that we had poured too early; it was spreading out too much.  I thought it looked pretty dang good.  After fifteen minutes of cooling, we cut it into squares and tried it.

Oohhhhh... Wow! This is not only the best fudge I've ever made, it's possibly the best fudge I've ever had.  Of course, it has Christina butter and cream.  It is smooth, rich, and the flavor runs deep.  The kids think it's a little dark, which makes my husband and I like it better.  But they still finished it in one sitting.

My friend said she'd come back and teach us to make taffy.  We can't wait!

Those seeds I planted last week have germinated.  Praise God!  They look so good.  In fact, some of the lettuce germinated at a higher rate than I expected and are too full.  Step 1, germination.  Check.  On to step 2, get them past the tiny stage without getting all leggy. 

My friend said that her mother had greens growing under a bank of lights all winter long.  It would be -40º outside and they'd be eating greens.  I think her mother had the right idea.  This flat is a promise of salad at the end of February.  In the meantime, we go without.

Jerky Drama

My daughter was right — jerky is dramatic.  He got his first halter yesterday.  He's eight weeks old, really older than he should be, so we figured we better get started.  We got it buckled on him, and he flopped down, just flopped himself right down on the ground.  The halter is just the part that wraps around his head, so he wasn't tied up at all, he just had some straps on his head.

My husband said, "jerky, we can see your eyes, we know you're not dead."  But he just lay there, and shut his eyes.

After a while, we got him up and he spent the rest of the afternoon backing up and shaking his head.  It was really very dramatic (and funny).  This time Christina wasn't alarmed, but she did show up to comfort him.

This morning he was handling things better.  Then we tied him up during milking to keep him out of the way and it all started again. This time he pulled back as far as he could on the rope and fell over sideways.  He laid there, still, with his head pulled by the rope.

Eventually playing dead got old so he started playing tug-of-war.  He would tug a while, flop over on the ground, then get up and do it again.  It was hard to keep our mind on milking with all the entertainment.

We expect Christina to go into heat tomorrow, but today we'll start watching closer.  I hope we catch it this time.

Saving Squash Rewards

I came across a listing of how long different squash last in storage.  It said acorn squash only make it three months.  It's been almost three months!  My husband got down in the root cellar and pulled all of them out.  Many have turned yellow, which means that rot is next.  We'll cook these up and put it in the freezer.

It also said that you should turn the squash in the cellar every week.  Well, it's been a lot longer than a week, so since he was down there, he did some turning.  Every squash got a new position and most were fine, although a few had gone bad. 

The temperature is 42º down there, while it's been below freezing outside.  That's good. 

We need to get the root cellar into our regular habits.  I guess we need a day of the week for root cellar day, like trash day.  Hmm... I guess we'll start thinking.

It's not really ice cream weather, but it is pie weather, and pie with ice cream is pretty good.  There are a few things that we make from Christina milk that are absolutely unique and spectacular.  Ice cream is one of them.  We use the same old recipe, but it tastes like the best specialty ice cream we've ever had.  I can even forget the vanilla and it's still sensational.

After running through the ice cream maker, it comes out pretty soft.  We scoop it into a tuperware and freeze it hard.  Now it's time to make pie.

When we started this life we knew it was the right thing to do, for moral reasons.  I can't look into the face of the workers (some of them children) suffering from injustice so I can have my processed low-cost food.  I can't face my own children, years from now after decades of fossil fuel burning to transport my food an average of 1500 miles, suffering from a diseased planet.  But we didn't expect the eating to be so good.  Like many things in life, when you do the right thing, God rewards you.  This ice cream sure is a reward.

"Run, Jerky, Run"

The cows are recovered from their trauma Friday.  The Vet said that Jerseys often lay down and sulk; that's exactly what they did. Even Saturday morning, jerky was still laying down. My 9-year-old daughters were worried about him, laying down while we milked with blood stains on his legs, but as soon as we opened the gate and said, "jerky, it's your turn," he was on his feet and hurrying over.  The girls visited the steers several times so they had some attention.  By evening jerky was his normal bouncy self and by Sunday his fur was clean.

Sunday morning our 19-year-old son was over for breakfast.  In telling the story about the Vet visit and the multiple snips to jerky's back area, my 13-year-old daughter said, "and jerky was being all dramatic and flopping on the ground."  My son's eyes popped open and he said, "what!  It sounds like he took it pretty good!"  My husband and son kept on about it and we laughed so hard we couldn't breath.

This morning the Vet came back.  Christina's tuberculosis test was negative, so we sent in our paperwork for a raw milk permit.  Jerky got his immunizations.  Today was faster and less traumatic, although as soon as we walked in the door, Christina got up and started walking away, calling her calf.  We figured she was saying, "run, jerky, run!"

Christina also also got a shot to put her into heat. When the Vet did that internal exam on Friday, she could tell that Christina had already gone into heat, which means we missed it.  This shot will bring on heat on again.  We'll watch much closer this time.  We'll also put beefy in with her.  The Vet said the best indicator is that the steer will mount her and she won't walk away.  Some cows moo a bunch, but she obviously didn't.  The shot will bring on heat in three to four days.  Today we'll put beefy in with her and start watching closely on Thursday.  She left another shot that we can use if we need to. 

Today the sky is clear, sunlight fills our southern-facing rooms.  My in-laws, who built this house in 1973, did a perfect job with the overhangs for passive solar.  In late June, at the summer solstice, no sun makes it in at all, but now in winter time, these rooms fill with sunlight and warm up two to three degrees.

We typically get long lasting inversions in the winter.  The sky will be overcast for weeks, haze will last all day, and the already dark time of year is darker.  But this year we haven't had a single inversion.  These sunny January days feel like a gift from God, warming the house and lightening my spirits.  Sunlight is so omnipresent that it's easy to forget its source.  Today God peeked at us from behind the rays of sunlight.

No Munchy Satisfaction

The problem with self-sufficient living is that you have to pre-plan for the munchies.  I want a snack and the cookie jar is empty. Our shelves don't have anything in little plastic trays or colorful plastic bags that I can munch on until the feeling passes.

Dang!  The hardest part of healthy eating, and self-sufficient eating, isn't meal time, it's mid-day when the munchies grip me.  I wander around, looking for something, not sure what it is, but sure that it's sweet.

Well, wandering won't change anything. I have to make something.  I so I whipped out my mother-in-law's old 1952 Betty Crocker cookbook and looked up shortbread cookies.  Don't those sound good?

So I mixed some homegrown, homemade butter with some fair trade, organic sugar.  I ground up some Idaho, organic wheat into flour and mixed that in.  When I rolled the dough out, it didn't hold together well, so I just squeezed together little balls.  After chilling in the frig a while, I slow baked them and now the cookie jar is full!

Well, it's full until the kids find out (actually, a daughter just looked over my shoulder at this photo and said, "aw, I wish our cookie jar was full," and like an idiot I responded, "I just took that picture").  I'm not the only one with the munchies.

Vet Day

We had a Vet visit today.  Christina was checked to make sure her uterus was healthy after calving.  It was.  It's an internal exam with gloves that go clear up to the Vet's shoulder.

We were worried that Christina's hooves were getting too long, but the Vet said they looked alright. 

Christina was also tested for tuberculosis for our permit to sell raw milk.  First she got a shot and then a new earring.  This Christina did not like.

Then it was jerky's turn.  First he was turned from a bull calf into a steer.  He seemed to have a bigger problem with the halter. 

Then his horns came off, which wasn't a big issue, but by the time the Vet was cauterizing them with a hot iron, he had had his fill of being held and Christina and had her fill of her calf getting roughed up.  He squirmed and pulled.  She bellowed.  Finally he worked himself over toward the gate that separates them and Christina could reach through and lick him. That seemed to calm everyone down.

All the while, beefy stood by.  It was only a few months ago that he became a steer and lost his horns. Now he's healthy and completely healed, but the trauma was felt by all. Our daughter spent some time with beefy and jerky, giving them both some affection.

Today they spend in recovery.  Christina has a new earring to show for her troubles.  It looks sore and she's holding her ear kind of a funny.

Jerky is without his boy hormone producers and without horns.  The little stubs look sore but not inflammed.

Monday the Vet comes back to read Christina's TB test and to give some more shots.  My husband says we should not mention to them in case they run away.  We'll let it be a surprise. 

Poor cows.

A Learning Lifestyle ... or... Why We Homeschool

This week we started back homeschooling after a nice holiday break.  When we started homeschooling it was because of problems at school.  But after several years, it's no longer about problems at school for us.  If the local school was stellar, we'd still homeschool.  It's not about anti-government conviction either.  If that was true, we'd be okay with private schools.  It's not about religious formation.  If that was true, we'd be okay with Catholic schools.  Our conviction about homeschooling is about something much more central to our family life and the well being of our children.  It's about the rich environment of learning at home with people who love them and are invested in their long-term future.

Homeschooling provides a rich learning environment.  Because my kids skip all the time used in organizing and managing a classroom, their education time is concentrated and potent.  As a result they are able to study more without additional time or energy.  Because I've had kids in school, I have a general idea of what is covered.  In addition to what they would learn at the local public school, my children study foreign language beginning quite young, religion and Bible, history and science everyday, and read a lot more.

Homeschooling provides individualization.  Lower classroom sizes are the hallmark of excellent education.  Our classroom is pretty small — only four, plus a preschooler.  It allows us to individualize and customize based on our children's interests and aptitudes.  Our eighth grade daughter excels at math and decided to study both Algebra II and Geometry this year.  Our tenth grade daughter has a harder time with math; once she got to the end of a chapter and failed the test.  We simply went back to the beginning of the chapter, did it again, and the second time she did much better.  This same child finds foreign language nearly effortless — she's studying Spanish and French and intends to add Japanese and German next year.  Our fourth grade twins are interested in Biblical Greek so now we're studying it.  They are studying both Idaho state history and early American history.

Homeschooling sets up realistic expectations for adult life.  I remember the transition from the school calendar to a working calendar in my young adult years.  Suddenly I was working over Christmas break and spring break and summer break.  It truly was a shock to my system, and I realized how my expectations had been skewed by my school experience.  Our homeschool schedule is year-round with breaks for projects like spring planting and harvest, with only occasionally vacations.  Learning has become an intentional part of everyday living.  Because my children don't have the physical shift from home to classroom, a homeschool day isn't significantly different from a break day; we're just working on different things.  When we do truly have vacations, like over Christmas, they savor the time.

Homeschooling is about healthy family relationships.  My children treat their siblings like friends, which seems different than the average family.  It's not because they are inherently nicer kids.  It's not because we are exceptionally better parents.  It's because they spend their days with their siblings.  Their brothers and sisters are their peers at "recess."  They have the time and motivation to develop strong relationships.  They have become each others best friends.

Homeschooling is about better parenting.  Because my husband and I are with our children so much, it's made us deal with problems in our parenting.   We've had to deal head on with minding, follow through, and being good role models.  You don't have to be with children 24/7 very long before lack of minding just has to be dealt with.  If my children were off at school and day care and activities, I think we could have avoided dealing with those problems and just complained a lot, as I see some others doing.  But homeschooling has made us resolve these issues and we are all happier as a result.

Frankly, it's not all about the kids.  Homeschooling is a lot of fun for me.  I'm reading really good novels that I never read when I was young.  I'm learning history again as I go through it with my children.  I'm watching eyes light up as they figure out math problems.  I'm sharing the joy of discovery in science experiments and the joy of creation in art projects.  And I'm spending my days with the people who mean the most to me in the entire world.

Since we have started homeschooling we are are happier people and happier with each other.  My children can explore their interests and know they are safe in their weaknesses.  In the end, no one is as invested in our children's future as those of us who expect to be part of it.

Water — Flowing and Frozen

Our battle with getting water to the cows continues.  For the moment, the freezing temperatures are winning and our water system is stopped up in a solid state.  Twice a day we do the water brigade.  The girls run buckets of water out and hand them over the fence to their Daddy.  He runs them the last bit over to the cows.  Christina, as a lactating cow, needs lots of water.

We have plans to modify our system so that even in the cold we'll have flowing water.  The first step was to get a real stock tank.  We'll cut a hole in the fence and slip it in between so the cows can drink from either side.  Then my husband will build a solar box around it to capture as much solar heat as possible, but we'll also run heat-tape along the pipes just in case.

It's such a hassle right now to keep the cows in water.  We're hoping this is a single season problem, one of the many things we'll get figured out and built this first year.  I have to remind myself that last winter we were walking water out to the chickens several times a day but now we only give them water once a week.  We got that figured out.  We'll get this figured out.

Grinding flour has become a new part of our routine.  Our youngest wanted in on the action.  His sisters got him a stool and he got some good cranks in.  The girls are becoming stronger and more efficient at grinding flour, as am I.  At first they could only go a minute or two, but now they can last upwards of five minutes.  If I leave the grinder set up and full of wheat when I go out to milk in the morning, it will be mostly finished when I come back in.  What good, strong girls!

The Growing Season Begins

We planted our first vegetables of the season — cabbage and lettuce.  The cabbage can go 10 weeks inside before being put out in the garden in the middle of March.  Last year I started them in February and wished I had started them earlier.  They didn't head up until well into the heat of the summer.  This year we hope for cole slaw in mid-spring.

I'm thinking we may grow the lettuce entirely indoors.  Last fall we did a lousy job of growing green stuff to store over the winter.  I've never grown lettuce to maturity indoors, but I'm hungry for salad so we're giving it a try.  This batch should be ready to eat at the end of February.  I'll start another batch in a month that I'll plant outdoors after 30 days and should be feeding us by mid-spring.

For now they sit under grow lights in the basement.  I used slices of old milk plastic milk jugs for labels.  Last year my seedlings didn't do well, got too leggy, but I'm too cheap to buy the expensive grow light bulbs.  Someone at the store suggested I use a cool bulb and a warm bulb, and I've read somewhere that it will work.  We'll see. 

Now the challenge is to not abandon them.  These plants are in the basement in an area I don't walk by regularly.  They are too easy to forget.

Our mouse trap is earning its keep.  It's an electric one where the mouse climbs in a little hole and gets zapped.  It does about 25 zaps per battery charge. 

We're getting a mouse about every two days.  Ack!  We knew there were mice in the garage, but we weren't expecting that many.  A few have been a little smaller, which tells us they had set up house-keeping.  So we keep the trap charged and going. 

Yesterday we visited the "magic" house, friends of ours who have been inspiring as we've learned this life-style.  There is something so compelling about people who have walked the path ahead of us and aren't overwhelmed.  It makes everything seem possible.  While these folks have had a milk cow longer than us, they haven't done as much cheese-making.  We put together a "cheese kit" with most everything they will need to start making cheese, along with advice on how to avoid many of my mistakes.  It was satisfying to be able to give something back to people who have been so generous with us. 

Over the past two years, there have been many people who God put in our lives just as we needed them.  I continue to be surprised by how consistently it happens.  And grateful.

Itty Bitty Grocery List

Our grocery list has condensed to only those things that we can't grow — coffee, chocolate, vanilla, peppercorns, salt, baking soda, tapioca, celery.  There are other things that we just haven't ventured into making or growing ourselves — sugar, molasses, vinegar, vegetable oil, and honey.  We also get toiletries and cleaners.  The list is pretty small.  When we made the shift to home-grown food last summer, we re-did our grocery routine to monthly shopping.  After going six weeks without a trip to the grocery store, we decided that bi-monthly shopping was sufficient.  I just love not spending time walking the grocery aisles.

We still eat alot that we haven't raised ourselves, but we're committed to buying local, in season, and organic.  Our fruit trees were just planted last summer and haven't started producing.  So last summer we bought boxes of fruit in season from local producers to simulate growing ourselves.

We'll probably never be able to grow our own grain, but we got enough wheat for a year last August when the harvest was fresh, and it was local and organic.  We buy oats in 25 pounds bags, also local and organic.  Our beef this year was bought as a whole beef from a local grower.  It is Jersey raised on grass.  Next year we'll be tasting our first homegrown beef.

Our grocery budget has shrunk right along with the list.  We used to spend about $700 per month for our family of eight.  Now we spend about $400 every two months.  If we amortize in the beef, fruit, and grain we bought last summer, it works out to $700 every two months, still a significant decrease.

Soap is something I'd like to figure out.  A friend of ours gave us a recipe for home-mixed fabric softener.  Mix 2 cups hair conditioner (like the dollar store 16 oz. bottle), 5 cups vinegar, and enough water to top it off.  The original recipe said 6 cups of water, but our container will only hold one additional cup, so we just use half as much.  It works great and costs about $1.50 instead of the $5 we were paying.  To use the solution as dryer sheets, just soak some wash clothes in the softener, ring them out, and throw them into the dryer.