Test post from new laptop

Suprise!

It's Brother Brett! Testing out the new/old laptop for the sis. She's coming to visit me tomorrow in the big city! I'm hooking her up with my old laptop, freshly installed and fast! As a bonus I've set her up an offline blog program called Zoundry Raven so she can blog offline on location, out and about the farm. That also means, there will be well formatted, long winded posts :), with links and easy to post images!

Yay! Hello all!

Hopefully this test of Raven worked!

Computer problems!

Hey all,
After limping along for for quite some time, my computer crashed and I am without internet access at home. I don't have the money for a used computer but am confident that something will turn up eventually and I can get back online.
In the meantime, I won't be posting much, if at all. I am able to post at the library, but I don't enjoy that nearly so much as posting from the comfort of my own home........

Hope you all are having a wonderful harvest season!!

~Shawna

A homestead visit

from Serina and her gorgeous kids last week- she and her husband just purchased their own little homestead in Schoolcraft on ten acres and are excited to have dairy animals and all the rest.....she contacted me and showed up early enough for milking in the morning, and the kids had a fun time playing too!
You can read about it here:
http://simplyserina.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/farm-visit-weed-dance-farm/

I went to look at a dairy cow this week. I was up at my moms and so she went too. Sounded like a perfect family milk cow from the Craig's List ad.

Yeah, yeah, what am I thinking?
Butter, that's what I am thinking!
Well, this cow was a Brown Swiss and much larger than the Jersey I have been dreaming about.....that's a whole lotta cow there. And there was no way in heck the story the guy who was selling her was matching this cow that stood in front of me. She was big. She was saggy, and covered in poop and there was no way she was on her second freshening. More like twenty second. And the hand milking he claimed she would be a breeze with her?
The guy showing is was like, there she is, you can go in the pasture and look at her. And it did occur to me the there was probably a reason why HE was not going to get her.
So I walk in there and she jumps up like I just electric prodded her, snorts and runs with her baggy ole udder hanging way down and then turns to face me all bug eyed and freaked out like, "Who the heck are you??! Run fast little heathen lest I trample you underfoot" (I was having pretty direct animal communication and thats what I was getting)

I turned to my mom and said, "That ain't my milk cow, lol" and I high tailed it out of that pasture (thank god I wore my rubbers, it was a sloppy mess in there)
and we promptly left.
I knew it was probably not going to be good when we pulled up to this farm and the farmer was standing propped up against the barn, holding a budweiser beer tower (three beers stacked on one) in one hand and trying to pull his shirt around in a way it would cover his butt crack with the other hand.....(unsucessful attempt btw)


I've been having this internal debate with myself for a while. While I truly do believe goats milk is much healthier to drink (as well as having a lower bacterial count than cows etc) I do want butter and more milk for more cheese. Big huge rounds of cheese specifically. I have been on the fence about buying a cream separator for years and usually the fence position is, yes I want to buy one when I don't have the $430 for it, and then when I have that kind of money I just can't seem to handitover (i.e. pry it from my clutched blooddrained hands). If there is anything in short supply here, its money. There is always something else its needed for. We have all these big ideas and yet, no money to infuse them with........
But lately....

Well, its ridiculous to be milking twice a day and not getting butter, I am feeling that thought stronger as each day passes and we go thru butter like crazy!
When I really thought on it, a separator is half way to a milk cow. But wow are cows a lot more to manage. And goats are so much more efficient with what they bring in compared to what they put out milk wise. Plus our land is just not open acres for grazing, its mostly wooded and suited much better to goats that forage upwards instead of downwards. And so the battle wages on and on in my head. I should just get another goat or two and suck it up and just buy the dang separator. Or buy a Jersey cow and raise two more hogs off that extra milk. And make five pound wheels of cheese. And ice cream made with cream not milk. Real cream for my coffee and chaga tea. Whipped cream on my pies. And. And. And.

But yeah. I always have the dairy cow and my little dream of a sweet doe eyed Jersey......we shall see. Certainly I will not have the money to get one anyway until tax returns. They start at about $800.

On the positive as far as livestock, the Southwest Michigan Harvest Festival this Sunday was awesome! Each year it gets bigger and better- the organizers sure do a great job. Chris was able to hook up with someone in the area that raises heirloom hogs and sells feeder pigs so we will be able to get our feeders from a really great place next year instead of settling for indoor raised little piggies.
The pigs by the way are growing so quickly! We are going to see between Obama and McCain who grows bigger by weigh in late this fall. Right now McCain is thicker, but his body is shorter and Obama's is longer, so if he fills in nicely, he may just pull ahead, time will tell!

Well, I have a whole bushel full of apples to preserve (and gonna make a mile high apple pie also) gonna chop some wood, clear some garden space, make some bread and yogurt and spend the afternoon in the woods with the goats. If I want to get that all done, I need to get off the 'puter and get to livin.

Talk soon,
~Shawna

On Homeschooling........

Today I was out in the garden pulling amaranth for the pigs (they don't call it pigweed for nothin'), the boys were beside me talking excitedly about their finds as they were digging like "archaeologists" and found surprise oh surprise, more buried trash (a hose, clamps, an old bottle and a shoe).

(Our land has been abused and dumped on, and last year, upon seeing a tiny speck of white in the yard under a clump of grass, the boys decided to pull the soil back and it was like pulling on a ball of yarn- after a two day excavation of epic proportions, they unearthed an entire cast iron bathtub! Made a good pig trough.)
Anyways, they were covered head to toe in dirt in their overalls talking excitedly and our heads riveted at the sound of the bus, it stopping to let off the neighbor school kids and we took a minute to ponder the wide open, curious faces staring at us from the bus windows.
The bus soon pulled away, the boys ran off to another project (building a dragon kite,) and I was left to ponder in the garden.
And I pondered on this simple thought-

I cannot imagine what it would mean to be separated from my kids all day.

What that would do to the fabric of our family. Sure there are days when I want to tear my hair out and leap off a high cliff, but most days, nope, I am right where I want to be, right with who I want to be with. I am not ashamed to admit it- I am way to attached to them. I want to be with them, experience this crazy
life with them, see their reactions, get into long talks, share my work with them....and I haven't bought the premise that an hour of "quality" time at night sandwiched between dinner and bedtime is measurable to hours of quantity. Both is better and easy enough to have when you homeschool.
The meaning of life has to be love. Otherwise, I don't really know what the meaning to life is you know? It has to be love. To give love and recieve love. To be love, to love deeply and freely. Its our human experience. And to grow love you need to spend time with those you love. Its that simple really.

Mostly, I felt and feel blessed and lucky to have this time with them. To live in a state that is homeschool friendly. To be as a family, intimately involved in our own special culture, our own way of opening up to the day, what it presents, what learning we can eagerly sop up and adventures it may include. I feel blessed that they have the time, hours of it, to daydream under the walnut trees, to build maple tree forts, to take off on extended hikes in the woods discovering all the wonders of pond life, and woodland flora.
A big part of the wonder of the natural world is that its unpredictable. By being relatively free, we are free to open to this wonder, and free to follow instinct in a way that a highly regimented schedule of school would just now allow.
Homeschooling is a big part of our lives here on the homestead. It fits into the rhythm of our day, but the learning never stops. We do have and choose to do what I call table work, but the real learning happens in the hours of freedom and the nourishment of instinct.

I think a lot of people who have misconceptions about homeschooling immediately think of two things- one that we are trying to shelter our children.

Not so at all. I do know families like that, but we are about exposing our children to a huge range of diversity in pursuit and people. Sure, some of the values of childhood school culture do not penetrate our walls, and for that I am most thankful (specifically the food values (cafeteria food is a crime) and the value placed on mass consumption/disposable goods, though get me going and I could easily list twenty things I am glad my children are not exposed to. When I was a newspaper reporter I spent hours and hours in schools, reporting on mundane school events, and celebrated ones and was in the schools so much the staff and students forgot I was there. I saw many things that made my stomach twist and turn. Third graders teasing each other about blow jobs. Kids being put in front of Disney movies so teachers could get their papers graded. Children being humiliated by teachers and excluded. Things of that nature. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there are many caring capable teachers out there. One of my best friends is a public school teacher and she is amazing at what she does. But, no, its not for me, for my family- my children are just too precious to me and I saw enough to be too distrustful to hand them over to the institution.)

.....but we do not homeschool to limit or shelter them. I want them to experience everything the world has to offer. Except at this young age, I want them to experience it with our family, together.
There is a growing number of parents who have attachment parented and do not want to stop at the magical age of five. In the past, many parents homeschooled because of religious reasons, but lately, there are growing numbers of us homeschoolers who homeschool and religion has nothing to do with the reason. We are interested in being out in the community, getting exposure, experience and soaking up all there is to offer out there- basically on giving our children *more* freedom than perhaps they have at school. Exposing them to a more whole community of people, ages and cultures than they may find in a classroom of thirty or so other kids just all the same age.
And the second thing that comes to people that are apprehensive about homeschool is often academics. They tend to focus so heavily on this big question in their mind (how do you do it? what do you do when you have to teach something you don't know??) In most of their minds they picture us doing *school* at home, kids lined up in little desks while I prattle away spending 45 minutes on each school based subject. Not hardly.
First of all, its amazing what you can get done in an hour sitting at the table with one student instead of heading up a class of thirty. Our table work takes about an hour a day. Second of all, they are completely missing the point as to *why* we choose to homeschool.
Granted, those that choose to homeschool do it for a wide variety of reasons. We are a highly diverse bunch.

But we personally here- we choose it to deepen and strengthen our intimacy as a family. It's that simple.
Homegrown/schooled
kids like homebirth, homegrown veggies, homegrown meat, homegrown music, homesewn clothes, well, I could go on......
it just *suits* us. Homespun.

Its not for everyone, but then again, the same could be said for homebirth. It takes a mama who looks at the situation and says- you know, I don't think I am gonna give this extremely important experience over
to the state or the institution. I think I am gonna do this at home. I think I am gonna do this *myself*, with my family.

And what we learn on this path, this winding homeschool adventure, the years passing by,cannot be measured on state standardized tests, cannot even be explained with words. Its the rich fabric and interconnectedness of our lives and the people we love the most- our relationships with our children and with each other.

Soon enough they may have to punch in from 9 to 5. Give their lives to an institution, someone elses idea on what they should learn, someone else will and might dictate their time, the majority of their day. But not now.
And through this adventure, this journey of school at home, we have time, plenty of it to spend together. Busy time, running around to meet friends and sports games and lessons and whatnot. But plenty of time to spend the whole day curled up with the latest novel, or plenty of time to spend the day getting distracted in the woods with the goats. We have our freedom and our time together as a family to grow deeply together, to create a rich and highly textured family culture, a closeness deepened and strengthened by our hours together. The freedom to learn at our own pace, the joy of a self directed path of learning.
The enthusiasm this fosters.
The ability to be ourselves without peer judgement, without mass herd mentality and the barrage of a culture whose greatest goal is constant and relentless consumerism.
Its a beautiful thing this homeschool.
And as I stood in the garden watching the sweet faces pass me by in the big lumbering yellow school bus, I felt immeasurably grateful at the pace of our lives, the intimacy we have as a family and the quality of life here that we have created. It's not for everyone, but it suits us just perfect.

~Shawna

Rainy day, weed noodles, goldenrod,and half naked rain running

That just might be my favorite blog title yet.

Today, the rain is pouring down in constant motion. It's been rainy a lot lately, and all the homestead animals are a bit depressed about it. The goats especially, feel a bit bored and closed in. Goats hate water. They have a fascinating nervous system whereas they interact with each other in a really rough way- they like it rough. And you can hang all on them and scratch them full body down to the point where you are almost pulling them onto the ground and they dig it.

But one tiny drop of rain or bug on their back legs and they will jump four feet in the air. Its like pushing them around is good, little drops of water is like an electric shock or something. No, they do not like rain one bit. So, they sit in the barn and look miserably out the door, just out of reach of the drizzling rain.
The pigs are more game. They come out and roll and nuzzle the mud for a while before retreating to the straw in their hutch. The chickens look miserable too, hunched in the rain, all their feathers plastered onto their bodies making them look much smaller than normal.
The boys, our most celebrated homestead animals, took to putting their bathing suits on this morning and running down the hill and launching themselves onto the grass and flying down the yard like it was a slip and slide. Which it was, and the lawn is literally in a pool of water. We have this whole little clan of frogs and toads that for some reason or another likes to stick to the side of our house by the front door.
Each night you can go out on the deck and see three or four of them plastered on the wall in various positions taking in the warmth of the light. Well, during the day, they become play friends for the boys who take them on all of their adventures (froggy go on the slip and slide, WEEEEEEEEEE! Froggy take a ride on the goats backs, WEEEEEEEEEEE!) and then gently deposit them back on the front house wall. Its a miracle they are still alive with all that handling.
Last night Chris came home from work and they were perched on top of the light like a little gang, The big fat toad out front, the rest flanking in the back in an almost perfect triangle, their throats pulsating and just staring. He called me out to the back deck and we just stared at them for a few minutes. Huh.
So, there my boys are rolling in the mud and puddles covered in mud from head to toe, in the driveway and the mail guy stops by and shakes his head and laughs. Ha, I want to tell him, just a couple years ago they were caught by our then mail lady peeing on our mailbox completely naked.
So I think this may be progress??? (this is how a mother measures progress I suppose)
Either way, I looked at them in the mud, just completely alive with the physical sensation of pouring rain, mud and rushing water and I had a longing to throw on some swim trunks and roll in the mud with them. Remember mud pies? I baked them a lot as a girl.
In my early twenties I made it a point to run shirtless in the rain every single summer at least once or twice, privacy permitting. I don't know when I stopped doing that or why. Buts its just the BEST feeling. I may slip back in the woods today and give it a go!!
For someone like me who tends to emote so much in the head and through the mouth (nice way of saying I jabber a lot constantly both in my head and vocally as well) its incredibly important I have learned to immerse myself in physical sensation. Make time for it and create opportunity for it, because it causes me to be incredibly present and feel fully alive, instead of constantly thinking ahead. It slows things down to the present moment, and gets me to be flexible in that moment and focus on it. I call it play time, and its really important for me not only to cultivate my wild self but to just become more in my body and in the moment......kids don't really have a hard time with this at all, we could all learn from them in this way.......

Rainy days make me think of wood fires and comfort food. Its not cold enough for a wood fire, so I settle on comfort food. Noodles are one of my favorite comfort food, and weed noodles are the best of all. Just a simple bowl of weed noodles with some really great sharp cheese grated on top with lots of butter and a clove of minced garlic- perfect for a day like this.
To make a batch of weed noodles just cook up your greens- I usually use amaranth or lamb's quarter because that's what I have a lot of- take a pressed 1/2 cup cooked, puree it in the food processor and combine it with 3 eggs, a tbs of melted butter and enough flour to make a dough you can roll out. Roll it thin as you can, fold it into fourths, and cut long noodles from that. Let it dry out a bit and then throw in boiling water until its done.

All around us the goldenrod is blooming- have you put any up yet for the winter? Just dry the flowering tops for winter tea. I find it to be helpful for bluesy type conditions such as S.A.D. through the winter, and its also helpful for soothing and nourishing the nervous system, and general strengthening all over. In fact its genus name comes from solido, meaning to make whole or strengthen, isn't that cool? This ability is also specific for all bladder and kidney issues as a tonic.
The plant itself is just happiness and pure joy. You ever have those friends that you just want to be around all the time because they emanate and radiate contentedness and joy? (little neurotic basket cases such as myself are really drawn to these people, fascinated by this calmness and radiance) well, goldenrod is much like that friend.
I feel so immensely soothed and comforted drinking this tea and using this plant in oil. It personifies sunlight, not only with its color but with its bright energy which is a patient, calm, deep sort of energy. Play with her, you will see.
You can also make an amazing infused oil with this herb which will do wonders for stressed, pulled, and tight muscles. Its the oil of choice for regular back and foot massages here at the homestead and works very well for relieving tension in muscles and tension headaches as well if massaged on the neck and even onto the scalp.
Some people think that goldenrod is responsible for their seasonal allergies. Not so. Its pollen is not wind bound, and you are implicating the wrong plant. Most likely, the true culprit is ragweed which flowers around the same time as goldenrod, but hey its not shocking yellow, but a demur green and it is not noticed like goldenrod and so can just do its thang and the flashy girl gets the blame.

Well, I've been incredibly busy with preserving the harvest. I am still working my way up to my 100 quarts of tomatoes, half done, and did a bunch of pears this week (pear and ginger pie/turnover filling with raisins), and banana peppers Italian style for pizzas, and salsa, pickled sweet onions and such.
I switched completely over to pressure canning my tomatoes this year and am digging that because of ease of use. I just food process pulse them into a chunky puree and pack them into the jars and am good to go......
Here is a little tip, when you do fruit sauces like pear or apple, if you cook them down in a bit of water, this becomes a sort of juice and if you strain it and boil it rapidly with sweetener and cinnamon, it becomes a sort of juice/syrup which is really good for making soaked coffeecakes or pound cakes etc and such for the winter. It does not get as thick as syrup but its thicker than juice. Just poke your cake with little tiny holes and pour it over it.
Its also really good as a flavoring for steel cut oats or other whole grain porridge that cooks in the slow cooker overnight for breakfast, just replace some of the liquid with it. So, I did a bunch of that too, pear and apple.
We managed to pull out all of our potatoes and onions, and glad to do that right before all this rain. Chris finished the root cellar too! All it needs now is shelves and it is getting much cooler in there, its pretty cool to feel the difference in the morning.
We also bought a smoker, and are trying to read up on how to smoke our own meat for when the pigs get butchered. We found it at a resale shop for $25, and it holds 50 pounds of meat at a time which will be plenty. I am also looking into smoking my goats mozzarella, and think that sounds real nice.

Happy rainy day everyone,
Shawna

Two best fresh tomato sauces

These two recipes are a couple of my favorite pasta/whole grain sauces when its fresh tomato season. They take under 10 minutes to prepare.

10 Minute Tomato Sauce:

Cook your whole grain or bowtie pasta in salted water (always cook pasta in salted water- 1 tbs to 1 pound, much more flavor)
Three big fat tomatoes from the garden, cut them horizontally and over the compost bucket squeeze gently until the seeds and liquid squeeze out. Dice and put in bowl. Toss with 1/2 cup of best fruity olive oil, 1/2 cup kalamata olives roughly chopped (pitted), two tablespoons of chopped mint, salt and pepper. A squeeze of lemon juice is good if you have it, if not that's fine too.

Toss your drained pasta in. Let sit a minute or two, then toss in 6 oz of feta (I use homemade goats but any kind is good) Let sit while you prepare a big salad to go on the side, or also its really good with chicken marinated in lemon and thrown on the grill.

That's it! It really captures the fresh tomato flavor. You can also take a baguette of bread, (the recipe I gave for soaked fresh ground and soaked whole wheat or spelt works great as a baguette loaf as well) slice it diagonal, put a dollop of goat cheese on it, then spoon some of this on and bake for 10 minutes for some brushetta. This with some fried or stuffed zucchini makes a really great lunch.

Uncooked Putanesca (I think this is adapted from Jamie Oliver)

Dice or half moon a zucchini, salt it, and set it in a colander to drain.
Cut three or four tomatoes as above and squeeze dry.
Mix in once again, about a half cup of kalamata olives, pitted and roughly chopped
2-3 tbs of fresh basil, cut in ribbons
about a half of a cup of olive oil. Toss all with salt and pepper and season with lemon juice until it tastes good. Garnish with some really good sharp grated cheese.

And here is a great fresh tomato potato salad to use up those tomatoes and potatoes that are ready-
Cook and cube 5 pounds red potatoes.
For dressing combine:
1/4 cup good herbal vinegar (I like tarragon or basil here) or if you don't have it use a rice vinegar
3-4 tbs olive oil
pinch of salt and pepper

Pour dressing over your potatoes. While that is sitting:
peel and chop one cup of cucumber
1 cup of sliced red cherry and yellow pear tomatoes
1 1/2 cup chopped red and yellow bell pepper
1/4 cup of chopped green onions or scallions
handful of good chopped olives

You can chop egg over this as well.

-Toss all and then season to taste.

Enjoy!
~Shawna

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