Difference of Good Tools

The life of pulling weeds and hoeing hard dirt got us thinking, again, about spending some money on a good wheel hoe.  We've heard good things about Valley Oak Tools, so we ordered from them.

The hoe arrived a few days ago and we've been using it each morning.  It's really miraculous how much we can get done with this tool.  Our daughters can use it even on stubborn weeds. 

Here my daughter worked an area for about ten minutes.  I think the same area would have taken me an hour with a hoe.

I did three furrows and cleared two bed in about 15 minutes.  It would have taken me over an hour to do all that.  The wheel hoe takes some strength to push, but no more than the same amount of time with a hoe.  My arms feel it, but my back doesn't feel it at all.

Praise God for the smart people who come up with these tools that make our life sustainable.

Fresh Eating

I tried a new recipe, Butternut Squash Lasagna, from Mother Earth News. It took a while to make, but it turned out really good.  Of course, we used homemade whole wheat lasagna noodles with homegrown/homemade mozzarella.  The kids liked it as well as we did.  The squash gave it a creamy quality.  Next time we'll use more cheese and add meat: hamburger cooked up with onions, peppers and spices.

Lamenting the pour word, squash, for this fruit, my cousin suggested that zucca is the Italian word.  We like it!  So last night we had zucca lasagna! It has a nice ring to it.

I've been hungry for something fresh, and lamenting that I didn't do a better job getting things like lettuce, spinach, and cabbage planted for a fall crop.  Then I remembered some carrots hiding under those huge broccoli plants.  They've been out there a while, probably over the heat of the summer, so I was figured they would be dry and woody.  But they weren't.  They were sweet and crisp.

While I was out there, I walked in the furrows, even though nothing is growing in the beds.  Some weeds have grown up so I didn't look too closely.  Then I realized that I was walking on spinach!  These must be from seed that washed into the furrow and waited for good weather to grow.  There was enough for a nice salad.  Fresh carrots and fresh spinach!!  Praise God!!

Vanilla beans are on sale for the holidays.  A friend of mind told me how easy it is to make vanilla — soak vanilla beans in vodka for six months.  I got the beans at Costco and sliced them open before putting them into jugs of vodka.  She said to put three beans in a flask, so I figured ten beans in the big 1.75l bottles would work.  Next May I'll pour them into smaller bottles to use.  In the end we probably spent as much as buying the vanilla straight, but I'm hoping it will taste better.

My older daughters are studying solubility in Chemistry.  This slow dissolving of the vanilla flavor was a good illustration of solubility level.

We are eight days from Christina's due date.  Her udder looks slightly less empty to me, but nothing else has changed.  We are all watching her closely.

Keeping Body and Soul on Speaking Terms

I’m reading Christy by Catherine Marshall.  My teenage daughters will read it later this year for their homeschooling.   It is set in 1912 when a young woman goes to teach at a mission school in Appalachia.  When she arrives a kind woman feeds her and afterward asks,  “have you eaten well enough to keep body and soul on speaking terms?” 

What a potent question.  It makes me ask myself the same thing.  Have I eaten well enough to keep body and soul on speaking terms?  I think that actually they've maintained a polite distance for most of my life and are just beginning to get reacquainted.

I've already noticed that food tastes different when I cook it.  Perhaps it's because I pay attention in a different way, wondering if I would change the recipe the next time.  Eating food that we have raised has taken on a similar quality.  There is a depth to the experience beyond flavor and texture and chemical calories.  Every time I eat our own food, part of me is thinking, "I did it!"   I marvel at the way I contributed to its production and at the same time am in awe of God’s creative power.

A month ago I tried to plant lettuce for a fall crop but it was too hot and few of the seeds germinated (the weeds did fine).  So I started some in the basement under lights.  Today I put them in the garden for their final month of growth. 

When I went out, I discovered that God had a similar idea.  A plant I had let go to seed had fallen over and under its head was a forest of little lettuce plants.

Today we spin another rotation on a cycle of the land.  Chickens need lots of calcium for all that egg laying.  We can buy crushed oyster shells, but that can get pricey over time.  Instead, we save our egg shells, toast them in the oven, crush them, and give them back to the chickens.  We could probably give them the shells straight, but I don’t want them looking at their freshly laid eggs with hunger.  I’m told that happens sometimes.  So we toast and crush (and still occasionally buy oyster shells).

toasting egg shells

ground egg shells
Now I just need to find a little girl to take it out to the chickens.

Tonight at 3am is the fall equinox and with it comes the official beginning of fall. We will celebrate this mid-point in God's seasonal design with strawberry rhubarb pie and ice cream (homemade and mostly homegrown, of course). 

Salty Coffee

Weird.  Raising food means dealing with what you’ve got.  The milk and cream from Christina’s last milking tastes like somebody spilled salt in it.  We have milk and cream in the freezer, but it won’t be thawed until tomorrow. So this morning I drink salty coffee or I skip it.  That’s OK.  I can deal with a little salt.

One-and-a-half gallons of salty milk...hmm... I’ll make yogurt and see if it’s OK.  If not, I guess it’s chickie food.  (check out Recipes Page for making yogurt)

Usually home grown food is better than what we’re used to from the store.  The watermelon we ate yesterday was perfection — sweet, juicy, and crisp — picked right off the vine.  Well, the second one was perfect.  The first one had a dot of rot on it, but I figured I’d just cut it off and the rest would be fine.  The knife sunk in and all at once liquid flooded the counter.  I whisked the fruit to the sink and we threw down towels.  After the crisis was over, the twins took the rotten watermelon to the chickens, who swarmed it.

We don’t count eggs anymore.  We used to count daily and be amazed that we just had to go get them.  For free!  But now our chickens are laying a dozen a day and we are having trouble keeping up.  The books says that hens will lay a lot less when it gets winter dark, so I’ve been freezing some.  This morning I found almost 4 dozen eggs in the frig.  Too many.  While breakfast was cooking, I broke 5 eggs in a bowl, beat them, and poured them in a one-cup tupperware.  After I filled three, I took them out to the freezer.  Tomorrow I’ll pop them out and store them in a bag for winter.  We still have two dozen left.  I need to cook something that uses lots of eggs.

Homeschooling amplifies every parenting issue.  I got hit by that stick again.  I found out that the twins have been skimping on the work they do by themselves — only reading half of the assignment, only doing half of their Rosetta Stone, only doing half of their recorder practicing.  I think back to yesterday afternoon and the barrage of “Mama, can I...” that flooded me while being assured they had finished their work.  It makes me so mad (and hurt).

When the kids were in school, if they didn’t do their work, I was frustrated and worried, but not personally hurt.  Now that I’m the one giving assignments, their laziness feels like a personal insult.  I’m not good at separating my hurt feelings from an impartial analysis of their educational situation.  It’s one more instance of my poor mothering.  Now I taste salt and despair.

The conflict unearthed, contrite faces look at me as they go through their work.  I’m still upset, but they are so cute.  Reading about magnetic fields, a simple experiment was explained and they looked at me hopefully.  We laid down two books with a bar magnetic between them and paper over the top.  We sprinkled some iron filings and there it was.  OK, now I’m not as upset with them.