Sounds of the Season

Picked the last of the apples on Saturday.  Will be drying them probably for the rest of the week. Clothes are on the line and, as I hung them up this morning, I listened to the September sounds on the farm.  Every month or season has its sounds.  Some are from insects, birds, farm machinery,etc., but all are unique to its time.  May is full of bird sounds, The summer begins what I call the hot sounds coming from the garden.  Fall is definitely the time that insect sounds rule with breaks between as combines and tractors roll by.  Night time with the katy-dids and the owls are wonderful.  I am privileged enough to live in the country to hear them and be able to take the time to do it.

What is so fair as an Autumn Day in the Warren County countryside!!

Won't waste time apologizing for how long it has been since my last post.  Life happens.  Went for my walk this morning, came back and grabbed my garden basket and went out to the garden and picked a basket full of beautiful kale.  That stuff just keeps on going even though we just went through the worst gardening season that I can remember.  The kale should keep going until January and can winter over.  If you only have a tiny patch to plant, plant kale. Tonight I am going to make a kale and kielbasa soup recipe that I found in the most current Mother Earth News.  It has many of my favorite ingredients--kale, any kind of sausage, garlic, potatoes, cream, chicken stock---where can you go wrong with that?

Yesterday, I put on my substitute teacher hat and headed to Pine Village School to let the 4th graders teach me things.  Great bunch of students!!  Will see all of them again next week.      

Have been weaving rugs and knitting warm socks in various sizes that are thicker than those you use in your shoes, but great for boot socks (hunting, etc) and wearing around our drafty old farmhouse. The Tri-Kappa Craftacular craft show will be in Attica at either the elementary or high school on November 7 and I will have my handmade rugs and knitted items for sale there.  Rugs take awhile to make, but they are so beautiful and use only re-purposed, recycled cloth. Don't be put off by the price.  They are hand-crafted and will wear forever.  The looms that I use are handmade by my husband Mike and I will be bringing some of those along to sell to people who would like to make their own.  My sister, Dale Van Hyfte will have her fantastic quilts and quilted items, handbags and a lot of other great sewing creations. Great for your Holiday shopping!!  More about this later.  

Go enjoy this day!!

March means Mud, Longing for Spring, Vegetable stock recipe

It is that time of year when we feel like we are coming out of winter hibernation only to find out that if we actually were hibernating, we wouldn't have to pay the huge cost of keeping warm and we would probably be a lot thinner.  Our drafty old farmhouse doesn't ever get much warmer than 64 degrees in the winter so we wear long underwear, 2 pairs of socks, undershirts and over-shirts to stay warm in the house.  We are used to this and generally have very healthy winters, except that this year I got a cold that only lasted a week-- but it is only the 2nd one I have had in 4 years!  Feeling very naked now with only one layer of clothes on.......  Then it thaws and gravel roads are a quagmire only to be ventured onto by the very brave who have 4 wheel drive.  OK, enough griping.  Very counter-productive.  

Good news is that we just purchased a 'retirement gift' for me.  I am now the proud owner of a new troy-bilt electric start tiller.  My first one was bought in 1981 and cost around $800.  At that time, seemed very expensive, but I soon learned that it is worth its weight in gold.  So easy to handle AND the electric start means that I don't have to haul and yank on a rope starter that simply doesn't start for me.  A little extra for the electric start but not near the expense of shoulder surgery which I might need if I keep pulling on those. Now, of course the tiller costs about $1400 and I still need to order the hiller-furrower attachment.  Very excited.  Will make my gardens workload much lighter and do wonderful things for the soil. 

   As many of you know (and are bored silly but, hopefully, well-fed), I preach the gospel of making good stock for soups, etc.  (Making stock, we have noticed here in the country, heats the kitchen very nicely).  Now that I have a few vegetarians in the family, sometimes I use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock and I have found a really great recipe.  (aside:  I like making beef stock also, but the price of beef bones is outrageous, so chicken works for me).  Very cheap to make since, if you follow the 'stock gospel of Jane as you cook', you have saved these vegetable scraps in your freezer for just such stock-making occasions. If you haven't done that yet, a milk carton or container of some sort suitable for freezing is ideal to save the scraps in.  You can use this stock in vegetarian casseroles, chili, rice, pasta, whatever.  If you are making a vegetable soup, I would add 2 cups to 1 quart of tomato juice, depending on how much soup you are making.  If you aren't going to use this fresh, it should be frozen or canned.  Here it is:

Vegetable Stock 

Makes 8 cups  (I can't imagine using all that energy to make only 8 cups--very easy to triple it and freeze or can.  You know, cook once--eat a number of times.  Will keep in refrigerator for a a couple of weeks) 

Perfect soup starts with an excellent homemade vegetable stock. You can use parts of vegetables you might otherwise send to the compost pile (such as peels and ends), which makes it easy on your pocketbook as well.

8 cups filtered water
1 large carrot, roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small leek, chopped (most of the green part included) and washed well
2 ribs celery, chopped
4 stems parsley
7 black peppercorns
Bay leaf

Optional:
1 cup fresh nettles, chopped spinach, turnip greens, kale, swiss chard

Bring all ingredients to a boil in a large stock pot over high heat. When the water boils, turn down heat to lowest setting, and skim off any foam that rises to the top. Partially cover the pot and let simmer for 45 minutes to an hour so that bubbles just barely break the surface.

Strain the stock through a colander lined with several layers of cheesecloth or a few paper towels.

Bloggers block over, retirement a work in progress

Not sure why it took me so long to write again.  Adjusting to retirement, I guess.  Besides getting back into the blog mode, I also started walking today after 6 months of telling myself that today is the the day, then tomorrow is the day, then.........So this retirement thing is a whole new world.  My life no longer revolves around weekends.  Except for those days that I substitute teach, I can actually plan on doing things on a weekday!  After almost 30 years of structuring everything around weekends, it is a very liberating feeling.  AND my blood pressure has gone down 20 points since I retired (although when I think of the financial problems that could happen because our income is now somewhat reduced I am sure it could go back up again).  So, I am doing a lot of more writing (working on sort of cookbook and a book of family stories to pass down ), more rug weaving, more knitting, more time to plan next years garden with my husband and dreaming of the new TroyBilt Pony Tiller with electric starter that is coming my way before spring, and more time to study traditional and new uses of herbs for cooking and medicine (began with my grandmothers' knowledge and just went from there).  All kinds of ideas to raise more for the farmer's market.  This fall when the major part of the garden work is done, I am going to create a website to sell my rugs, knitting, soap, etc.  And now I have the time to do it. 
     My sister and I were at the Tri Kappa Craft Show on November 8 at the Attica High School.  It was well attended and there were a lot of vendors.  A lot of talent in our area!  Since it was our first public show, we didn't become rich, but we learned a lot and got to visit with friends.  Dale is a sewing machine wizard as well as just plain spectacular with her handbags, baby accessories and much more.  Amazing!!  I brought my soap, knitted items and rag rugs.  Looking forward to doing it again!!
         Hope everyone saved their turkey carcass from Thanksgiving.  I put the carcass and a chicken carcass in the stock pot a few days ago along with a few raw carrots, a large onion (cut in half, skin and all) and a few peppercorns.  Add enough water to cover the chick/turkey bones, etc. Do not add salt.  You can add that later in the whatever foods your are preparing with this.  Let it come to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, let cook 4-6 hours, strain, put in quart jars (I got 7 quarts of stock from this).  See a previous blog for a more detailed description of the process.  Nothing less expensive of better for us in the winter than good homemade soup or vegies cooked in stock.  Lots of flavor and nutrition for pennies.
     Yesterday I made a batch of soap to start curing (2 months) for us and for the farmers market.  In a month I will make another batch and continue through the winter.  Too much to do in the summer to stop to make soap and I want to be sure my customers and family have enough.  Chickens still laying well so noodles will also be in good supply this winter.  
     I am going to take some time as soon as I sign off here to cut up some fabric squares that we use for 'paper towels' now.  I now have the time to make a real dent in our ecological footprint.  We are gradually getting rid of paper products and commercial cleaning products and replacing them with handmade simple products made with non-toxic ingredients. More on that later.  
     

RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY....

Yes, when it rains it pours—every day for a few weeks it seems.  We may begin to rival Washington State as a rain forest if this keeps up.  Of course, better now than when harvest comes.  Trouble is, it doesn’t follow our wishes.  It is, after all, the weather.  And there are still those out there that tell us that we haven’t caused these weather extremes along with ‘the world is flat and only 6,000 years old, you can grow a snake with a long horsehair in a dish of water, etc.’ Anyway, we need to really keep on working on solutions to climate change that last—wind power, water power, nuclear (carefully), and certainly solar.  And that means paying for what we have done—can’t avoid it just because it is going to be hard and take sacrifice. 

     Just finished a big batch of noodles for the farmers market and orders and they are in the kitchen drying on the racks.  Will probably make almost 6 lbs. dried which uses 2 dozen eggs.  Lots of eggs right now and if you are going to stock up for the holidays/winter at the Attica Farmers Market, I will take orders for noodles that I will deliver locally during the month of October.  5 lb. minimum order.

     Had my first day of substitute teaching on Monday.  I used to do that about 30 years ago and I am delighted to be doing it at the same great school that I went to and that my children also attended.  Big advocate of the small school and certainly public schools.  Not so keen on home schooling.  Not sure what information parents want to keep from their children and I certainly know that very few parents have the skill and training to prepare their children for the world today.  I substituted for 2^nd grade and WOW do those kids have energy and imagination—2 things that add to their ability to learn.  A subject we talked about that had to do with a few pages we were reading was animals.  We talked about how it takes all of an animal’s time to do survival tasks—hunting for food, water, shelter.  When I began to compare that with the human animal (us), I had several children express shock that we are animals too!  That erroneous thinking can lead to a lot of complications, and one little girl said that we couldn’t be animals because animals don’t go to church!! Another little guy said that we were descended from dinosaurs! Hope we never stifle imagination, but we do have to make sure they have accurate information.  Long way to go, but they are only 2^nd graders!!    

Rain---yes!!!!

As I write, I note that my internet connection is very slow this a.m.  so I will publish this when that is available—hopefully later this a.m. 

    Good weekend---it rained!!!  Still raining a bit this a.m.  Now maybe our watermelons and muskmelons (ok, cantaloupe for all my non-Hoosier readers) might plump up now.  My middle daughter and her partner are off to Tennessee for a few days so we have the ‘granddogs’.  Very small and so far happy in their portable dog kennel.  Got to see Shanna Schneider on Saturday.  She and her family (which includes a new one, Harold—beautiful little boy with smiles all around) had moved to Iowa recently after she had been a vendor for the last few years at the Attica Farmers Market.  Very happy in Iowa. 

     Spent yesterday afternoon rejoicing for rain and cutting strips of fabric for my next 2 weaving projects.  Have another order for placemats (just finishing a set today that was ordered in April!) and I am starting on a full size rug to build inventory for the Tri-Kappa Craftacular in November that I have mentioned before.  Would like to take 4 full size rugs to the craft show and we are getting down to a little less than 3 months to go.  So, during all my cutting yesterday, my Scissors finally started squeaking and getting really stiff.  Olive oil to the rescue.  Worked some into the screw area that holds the scissors together and now as good as new!  I would have reached for 3-in-1 oil only it was upstairs in my sewing machine supplies and I was too lazy to run up there. 

     This morning I was going to make noodle dough to rest overnight and do the rolling and cutting tomorrow morning, but my husband told me I had 5 more lbs left in the barn freezer so I guess that might be enough for next week’s farmers market.  So I am putting noodle making off until next week.  Trying to find as much time as possible to weave and knit to get ready for a craft show.  My sister Dale and I are sharing a space and it will be exciting to see what she brings.  She is an absolute wizard with a sewing machine and does incredible stuff.  Her handbags are incredible as well as anything else she makes.  I think she is working on some baby accessories with an owl motif which is popular right now.  Hope to have my daughter there with some organic lotion bars that she has been working on.  My granddaughter has started working on some paper beads that are just beautiful. Maybe some of those elastic bracelets that are trendy right now.....becoming a family affair.

One month into Retirement--Loving it!

One month into retirement.  As I have heard others say, 'How did I have time to work'.  I am sure they meant 'how did I have time to work at 'other' employment' because I am certainly still working, --still need to make money, but more of a choice of more creative ways to do it.  Yesterday, I took my granddaughter to two doctor's appointments to get her ready for the new school year (don't even get me started on how early in the summer that kids go back to school--maybe that helps the less than honest unemployment figures since they hardly have time to get a job).  Anyway, between appointments we had time to go shopping.  Not my favorite thing to do, but Liberty makes it fun.  Hope she liked it to.  (Went to Salvation Army--what a great place to shop.  If you have not donated or shopped there, give it a try.  You will be pleasantly surprised.  Many times we forget that we should look for and buy used clothing, etc as a way of recycling.)   So, I got to spend time with her, kept my daughter from having to take time off from work, and made sure Lib got the appointments done before school started.  That's what grandparents are for.  Too bad so many children grow up with grandparents that are too far away.  We do have a significant role to play in the raising of our grandkids.  And what fun!!!
     Recently received my Indiana State Substitute Teacher certificate so I am ready to do that for 2 elementary schools in the county.  Would like to do that a few days a week during the school year.  Lots of plans for next spring with meat rabbits, chickens, and milk goats. 
    Farmers Market continuing.  Knitting and weaving like mad for the Nov 8 Tri Kappa Craftacular in Attica.  Made another batch of soap last week to be sure to have enough inventory.  My soap is aged for 2 months before I put it out for sale.  Cucumbers are ready to crock for pickles, sunflowers are 7 ft high (the seeds are super protein for our chickens--part of the reason our eggs are so healthy) and winter squash vines showing tiny baby squashes under the blossoms--another source of good food for both the chickens and ourselves.  Swiss chard prolific as always.  So glad we decided that chard is a much better route to go instead of spinach.  Tastes like spinach (both raw & cooked), but just produces and produces all summer long and well into the fall.  Both Chard and Kale have immense vitamins and minerals.  From reading everything coming out about Kale, you would think it had been newly discovered.  England and Europe have been growing it for hundreds of years for its ability to last almost all the way through the winter and provide them with the only 'green' during those months!  As they say 'what's old is new again'. 
   Off to my loom.