Great article by Joel Salatin

I drink raw milk (sold illegally on the underground market)

Joel Salatin, "This industrial food experiment, historically speaking, is completely abnormal. It’s not normal to eat things you can’t spell or pronounce. It’s not normal to eat things you can’t make in your kitchen. Indeed, if everything in today’s science-based supermarket that was unavailable before 1900 were removed, hardly anything would be left. And as more people realize that this grand experiment in ingesting material totally foreign to our three-trillion-member internal community of intestinal microflora and -fauna is really biologically aberrant behavior, they are opting out of industrial fare. Indeed, to call it a food revolution is accurate."

Future Farm Patio Furniture

We found this Find at the El Junque store on Western Ave in Chicago. It is a guy that deals in cash only and buys from scrap trucks that cruise the alleyways of Chicago.

I've been wanting a two person glider for quite a while. Every time we drive past, we keep our eyes peeled for what is on the sidewalk. And one day there it was! Asking price $25. We ended up paying $18. It doesn't glide but Bill will fix that.

A week of reflection

Our first Farm Beginnings class was amazing. I feel more confident that we can do this than ever. I also feel justified in calling ourselves future farmers. Since Bill is also starting a small business (that we hope will help with income once we live in Chicago) we have decided that we are definitely partners in this farming venture - but it is my 'project' so to speak. While in class we did an interesting exercise in which we were forced to pick our top 10 from terms relating to Values. (Examples - just picking some randomly: Accomplishment, Achivement, Arts, Affection, Honesty, Financial Gain, Public Service, Trust, Money, Truth). Then we had to cull that list to 5. Then further to 3. My remaining 3 were: Independence, Meaningful Work and Nature. I think that is very interesting that they are about as far away from my day job in Corporate America as you can get - shows how unfulfilled I am right now. Anyway - we then use that exercise to write our Goals and Values and then turn that into a Objective for Business. This is the hard part of business planning that no one does. But wow, it is a useful exercise! I have been thinking, reworking, rewriting and reflecting on it all week. I am greatly looking forward to the next class.

And the best part of the class? Oh my gosh. Meeting the others that want to do what we want to do! Bill and I are often the ones that no one seems to understand. "you want to do what?" "You make your own bread?!" "You can just buy bread at the store." "You want to live in the country?" We were surrounded by like-minded folks. And there was every age group represented: young parents, some fresh out of college, father-daughter teams, pre-retirees and plenty of mid-lifers looking for a change (like us).

We took Friday off and spent the weekend in Wisconsin. Our accomplishments were pretty minor but fun.

Our insurance company is threatening to not renew our policy for the farm/church-house if we didn't put railings on the steps. We have made steps out of huge local boulders (3 to 4' in length) - many stacked on top of another. Bill wasn't wild about the idea of taking away the beauty of his natural steps - but you gotta do what 'da insurance man' say.


He stopped at one of the many architectural salvage stores around our neighborhood in Chicago. He found some cool victorian iron scroll work but gheesh, it was over $400. No way.


So we drove up on Thurs night without much of a plan but we did have a bunch of tools. He kept saying - we'll just go over to the farm in the morning and I'll poke around the junkpile. (Every farm has a junk pile, right?)


Friday morning at the farm junk pile, he pulled out two rusty large farm fence posts that were all bent up. He also found two cedar branches. He fashioned a lovely railing out of these found objects for FREE! The man is destined to live on a farm.



















I also learned to chop wood. Yes, with a splitting maul. I definitely do NOT have hang of it yet, but I did OK. It wasn't pretty and I was incredibly slow, but I got some wood (box elder, certainly not oak or elm) split. I will work to increase my confidence in my swing as the winter progresses. This will be our last year buying wood. We just haven't had the time on the weekends to fell, split, season, haul and stack wood while trying to fix up multiple places - especially when we can get a large load from the neighbor for $75 (and he has lots of wood and needs the money).





I am roasting a local acorn squash, wedge fries out of potatoes from my garden and a large green salad from the greens of the last Platteville Farmer's Market. Hello Fall!

Cookbooks

I love seasonal cookbooks that use fresh, local produce. In making supper tonight, I was leafing through a few to get ideas. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Vegetarian Suppers by Deborah Madison

The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters

Baking Illustrated - Cook's Illustrated

The Real Dirt on Vegetables by Farmer John

Edible Earth by Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko

Dinner ended up being:

Baking Powder biscuits from Baking Illustrated. No milk on hand so I thinned some of my raw milk yogurt.

Browned Brussel Sprouts in Parmesan Crust from The Real Dirt on Veggies.

Quinoa with Carrot and Garlic. I found this recipe somewhere online but I can't find it so I made from memory.
1 C of cooked quinoa
1 large carrot, diced
Some ginger - I used about 3 T
~3 T of flour
Salt & pepper to taste

While the quinoa is simmering, warm and slightly soften the carrot and garlic. Pull from the heat. Cool quinoa in a bowl until it is comfortable enough to handle. Stir in the carrot mixture. Sprinkle with flour and mix well until the mixture sticks together. Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet. Form the quinoa mixture into little patties (approx 2") and fry in the olive oil. Serve warm, room temp or cold. I drizzle with some yogurt with fresh herbs. They are delicious the next day for lunch too.

Handmade hula hoe

This is a paw print of our dog that we had to put to sleep two years ago. Bill recently mounted it in a piece of old timber that he found in the belltower of our church. We have two of them - one in the Wisc church and one in our Chicago house.

This is a handmade hula hoe that Bill made me for me for my 4oth birthday. It is a white oak sapling.

This is the handle. He left part of the bark on the end. The silver band is a piece of metal from a can of dog food from our dog. He turned under the sharp ends with a metal bender and had carved out a section of the handle where the metal fits. Also, he hand punched a message on the band - it says 3 Flat Acres.

This is the top of the handle. It is hard to see but he carved a silhouette of our dog. When he gave it to me he said, "I know you miss her when you garden, so I carved her image so that she can still be with you."

Weekend accomplishments

I woke up on Saturday not feeling well, so I went back to bed and slept until 2:30. I must have been tired!

I made up for it on Sunday by:

• Doing three loads of laundry and drying them outside
• Baking 2 loaves of whole wheat bread
• Turning the compost pile
• Pulling up the Chicago garden and putting in the aforementioned compost pile
• Spreading leaves over the Chicago garden and covering with moldy hay
• Harvesting lots of mint and drying it in the food dehydrator for mint tea
• Cleaning out the garage
• (we did get the homebrew bottled on Friday night)

It was a lovely day.

We start Farm Beginnings this weekend.

Weekend!

This will be the first weekend that I won't have to work in over a month. Two days off in 28 days is not good for one's well-being.

I am going celebrate by:
bottle some homebrew
Chicago yard clean up
bake bread
husk the black walnuts if they are dry