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Happy Thanksgiving!

A huge rainbow sprang up this afternoon. Just another reminder of God’s mercy and how thankful I am to have it.

Just a view from the leaves.

“Oh give thanks to the LORD for he is good! His mercy endure forever” 1 Chronicles 16:34

In my family, Thanksgiving consists of lunch at my parent’s house. My mom’s family and my siblings + offspring invade the house from noon till dark. Everyone consumes way too much food, stories and jokes are swapped, and strategies for 5 a.m. shopping are planned for the following day. Each year I fail to recognize several cousins, because last year surely they were still infants. Staples like chicken and dumplings, broccoli and rice casserole, the ever-present turkey and some form of green beans and white rolls are always present.

At the risk of sounding avant-garde, turkey is not my protein of choice. Meat rarely finds itself onto my plate, and when it does it has to be really, really good. Like free-range, grass fed organic good. My tastes/preferences/food awareness has expanded such in the last couple of years that traditional thanksgiving food has lost its once hallowed luster. I have huge aspirations of revamping thanksgiving dinner.

But thats more of a dream and less of a reality.

However, my mother purchased a ham for this Thanksgiving, and happily turned it over to my willing hands. I love a nice piece of pig, and I feel that it is quite the overlooked fare. I will now bodly assume that most people just get a ham, pop it in the oven, and expect it magically turn out good without doing anything to it. Perhaps they assume that the (presumably) underpaid worker who packaged their meat treated and smothered their ham with something delicious, and it will not turn out bland and dried from improper cooking? (shudder)

That kind of thinking is exactly what I want to run fast away from. Sprint away from actually, wearing metallic-gold shoes. Thanksgiving is the one holiday dedicated to the blessings that the merciful Lord has provided to us in the form of food, and I feel that culinary prowess is put aside way too often for the convenience of the overly-processed.

However. That can be avoided when you use The Glaze to turn a ham into The Pig.

That is the only picture of The Pig that made it. It was gobbled up (HA. thanksgiving pun.) really fast and left only the Pig Bone. What made this Pig so tasty was The Glaze. The. Glaze. Wow. I really enjoy things that taste good, but this was on the side of staggeringly good. I’m sure it would be great with pork loin, or a nice addition to a pulled-pork sandwich. Either way, this will make people who don’t even like Pig (otherwise know as ham) really like it.

I can’t remember how I came up with this recipe. It was a result of some internet skimming, word-of-mouth from my mother, and a conglomeration of things we had on hand and past experience. Regardless, this is so. good.

Pig Glaze

1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar

juice of 1 lemon

juice of 1 orange

juice of 1 can + half the fruit of a can of pineapple

2-3 tbsp of dijon mustard

1/2 tsp of ground cloves

1/3 cup of fruit preserves (I used cantaloupe + mint jam I found in the fridge)

Put everything in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Let everything boil a couple of minutes, then turn off the burner. Use an immersion blender (I’m sure a food processor/regular blender will work fine, you just might want to let it cool first) to blend the bits of pineapple. Store in the fridge till ready to smother The Pig with.

Cook The Pig according to the directions indicated for its size. We had a “whole” ham, the equivalent of about 8 pounds. Otherwise, follow these: Cook Pig covered for 1 1/2 hours at 275 degrees. Take The Pig out, put 1/2 of the Glaze on Pig. Back in the oven, uncovered, for 15 more minutes. Remove Pig, then baste in its own juices. Put the rest of the Glaze on the Pig and cook for another 15 minutes.

By this time everything should be nice and flavored. I’m sure basting again, and leaving in a warm oven for more time couldn’t hurt anything.

This Pig was enjoyed, make sure you save those tasty drippings for other delicious things!

Here is a link to some video of some goats and chickens I posted on facebook. I was unable to successfully post them here, but everyone should be able to see them. They are cute animals, totally worth the viewing.

Backstory: the chickens in the video (and in the photo below) were donated to the farm by a lady who buys milk here. Apparently they were “dumped” in her backyard. These are not puppies or kittens, so I’m curious as to how one ‘dumps’ a chicken. They are very nice looking birds though.

And the goats are just happy.

These photos are from the new garden, of some cantaloupe that I planted that came up very nicely. I’m proud.

Happy times at the farm. The majority of this blog will be used to write about how I am a college student and feed myself at the same times. Truly a miracle. Stay tuned.

This is what was made at the Jam Party:

We made Cantaloupe Mint Jam and Strawberry Honey Lemon Vanilla Jam. Both were delicious and really simple to make. The Cantaloupe Jam was very sweet, and the mint complimented it so well. We used frozen strawberries for the other, and it had a delightfully tangy, not-too-sweet taste. Both are delicious on anything you can think to put them on.

The Wax Party:

We took the leftover bees’ wax, chopped it into pieces, melted it down with olive oil and coconut oil and made chapstick! I also made what is called a ‘relaxing salve’ (think lotion, only thicker and more oily) by adding essential oils like lavender, chamomile and rosemary. That is also a picture of some homemade lavender soap that a friend was kind enough to share with me.

And yes, those are baby food jars. And yes, we bought baby food, ate it (not exactly what I’d call an explosion of flavor) but this was all for the greater good.

This picture isn’t very pretty, but this stuff is great. Me and my friend Amber made homemade deodorant! (the recipe is here) It is also incredibly easy to make (10 minutes tops), smells great and works great. We used the essential oil known as citronella. One of my favorite things I have made here. This is an excellent alternative if the deodorant you buy makes your armpits itch. (hand raised).

And those are a couple of the lovely peppers I used to make lunch this past monday. I used them in the recipes found here and here. They went great with foccacia bread, and pleased a large crowd. Great summer salads and a break from hot food.

That is a finished product jar of honey. All of the past Wednesday (8 am to 5 pm) was dedicated to the honey harvest, and it was by far my favorite thing I have done at the farm. Its a lot simpler than I thought it would be, and I took pictures of almost every step.

Step one (shown above): suit up and go to the hives. The lovely Jessica is pictured here. The combs are on rectangles stacked on their sides in a hive, and hives look a lot like big white boxes files are kept in. The combs that are judged as ‘ready’ are put in tupperware and brought to the processing building.

These are a few of the boxes we brought the combs in

^^ A close up of pre-harvested goodness ^^

After bringing it inside, the rectangles are ‘trimmed’ so no big chunks of comb are sticking off the sides, as shown here by my friend Katherine. It is also scraped with a sharp brush-like instrument to open any closed honey portals. (honey portals? sure.)

Next the trimmed combs are put into this device. It pretty much looks like a huge ice cream maker. Inside two combs fit standing on their side, and are spun using the crank pictured above. Each side is spun for 4-5 minutes, turned, spun again, turned then spun a final time. (between milking and honey harvesting, I’ll have some boss forearms when I leave here)

This picture shows me and Elise scraping the combs mid turn. The honey flows out of this large metal structure through a spout, and into a (pre-sanitized) bucket covered by a filter.

After the bucket gets full, they are switched out and canning begins. Basically it looks just like this.

A shot of some of the nice bees who made the honey for us. Seriously, how cool is that?

(note: nobody processing is wearing any protective gear, obviously. There really weren’t any bees that came in with the combs, just a handful of sneaky ones. The ones that did get in weren’t aggressive, they could easily be blown/flicked away. All in all, I think only two stings were sustained that day)

This is some really pretty comb that we brought back, it didn’t fill the entire rectangle so it wasn’t spun, instead we cut it and put the nicer-looking combs into some of the jars.

Honey filled comb that was put into the jars.

The finished product is shown above (1st picture), and here is the label:

Hat tip to my eldest brother here, rumor has it he altered the WHRI logo specifically for honey harvest.

Apparently we harvested roughly 20 gallons of honey, over half of which has been sold already. I purchased the limit (4 jars) to bring home.

After harvest I got to suit up and take the rectangles (sure, they have proper names, but who knows what those are?) back to the hives and mingle with all the bees. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done, I felt like an astronaut.

(pics coming soon of that adventure)

Tonight we are having a ‘wax party’ with some leftover bees’ wax, making candles and such.

Happy!

Its very hot here. Unrelentingly hot. Hot comes and stays. Hot sets up a permanent camp. Hot repeats. Hot the Sequel. Hot the Third. Hot Returns. The Son of Hot. Hot: Revisited. Hot Unleashed. Hot and the boy band 98° come together to make an acoustic album: In the Heat of Summer.

It’s that kind of hot.

So I baked a cake:

(with a side of Wendell Berry. Its probably the farm atmosphere…)

Craziness to turn on the oven in the middle of a Texas July. Especially here. But this is a special cake. This cake smells like Fall. All kinds of spices fill the olfactory glands to bring sweet remembrance of cooler temperatures, spice-filled food, and brilliantly colored landscapes of oranges, reds and yellows. Tasting this cake reminds me of Thanksgiving, scarves, and my parent’s house filled with all my family. I could almost, (oh, but not quite, darn you Hot) feel a slight breeze with a hint of crispness float through the kitchen as I added the spices and poured in the honey.

I got the recipe from here. It didn’t turn out quite as moist as she describes, but still good. I also cut back on the sugar (her suggestion) which really lets you taste the spices, and the beer, but you have to be looking for it. I chose this seasonal favorite to add to the cake:

The recipe only calls for one, so that means you can share the other 5 with friends and start a Star Wars Episode IV viewing party. (In the air-conditioned apartment, on the new -donated!!- big screen, high-def TV)

Despite its lack of promised moistness (I blame the too-hot oven) the cake was still delicious, and I have every intent of baking this during the fall season…

-Side note: I attempted to make my own whipped cream. It didn’t work out, and somehow I got butter instead. So I went and bought a tub of cool whip. (as seen above) Totally worth it.

Is being white(er) really that important to those from darker ethnicities? Interesting, very interesting…

If you go to a church that is more, how do you say, modern? ‘relevant’? you may not want to watch this. Otherwise, hilarious.

Awesome post on how to host a jam party, and recipes to match.

And last night: found a spider in the bathroom roughly the size of a small bell pepper. He was definitely armed and probably had a posse somewhere in the shadows. I thought about just giving him the bathroom, but the only other toilet is across the yard. A full can of cleaning solution tossed at him from a safe distance made him scurry away. So no worries.

See that electric fence? I helped build that. Basically it involved driving T-posts (the post in the foreground) into the ground about every 60 feet. One of the hardest tasks I’ve done at the farm is drive T-posts. Then every 20 feet rebar posts are driven into the ground with hammers (those are the little skinny ones). Plastic wikis (not a technical term) are placed on all the posts in pairs for the wire to run through. The bottom layer is strung on first, then the top layer. A gate is also installed. And by gate I really mean a square piece of fencing tied with wires to a T-post that opens and closes. After double checking for evenness, the fence is then wired from a power source (in this case, the dairy) and tested. I throughly enjoyed doing this, and four of us got it all constructed in one work day, leaving only the wiring to be done.

The purpose of this fence is to build a temporary structure for the goats to graze in. That way, when they clear a field of all edible grass -which doesn’t take long at all- they can be moved and the fencing reused for another pasture. Its not a perfect boundary, they’re are a couple of little ones who love to break out regularly, but it does the job and discourages predators from mingling with the goats.

Now, about milking…

Milking.

Milking is an involved process. When I was oriented to the milking process, we started at 6 (in the AM) and finished at ten. Thirty. Epically long. But I appreciated the thoroughness.

The process (roughly):

The first thing to do when you enter the dairy is to check this board. This is where Jessica (the current livestock intern) writes important messages pertaining to the goats and the milking process. My first time was in the morning, so it involved these steps:

(This is abridged version. There are a million steps. This is just the gist)

6 am. check board. wake up goats. person #1 cleans the pails, prepares the bottling room. person #2 prepares the milking room. goats get brushed, utters/teets get washed. goats are milked. milk is bottled. goats are put back in yard behind dairy. pails/milking room/bottling equipment cleaned and sterilized. goats are herded to appropriate pasture. milk is taken to the ed building. Usually this process takes less than 2 hours.

Also something I thought was cool: Each goat that is milked has its own stanchion, and each goat knows where to go. All you have to do (usually) is call that goat’s name and she will come right through the door and hop into her stanchion. They look like this:

The process is basically the same for the after noon milking, which happens at 430. Which is when the epic fail (concerning herding) happened.

The Epic Fail.

Goats are nice creatures for the most part. They like attention. They can be your friend. But sometimes, they get rowdy. Herding them can be an impossible task, especially when its 2 on 35. Sigh…

This happened in the afternoon. It was really hot, not a merciful cloud in the sky. This is the 2nd time I have ever milked. I am milking with a guy named James, a nice dude who really loves the goats. Think about the way most people interact with dogs that they love, that’s how James is with the goats.

So first we must herd them. James grabs the feed bucket, calls the goats and leads them away from their pasture to the pen, roughly 50-75 yards away. I’m bringing up the rear, goading along the stragglers. As I am guiding a couple of older kids, prodding them to catch up with the herd, something happened. First, they got distracted by some luscious greens along the way. Then, apparently, a few discovered the (closed) bags of feed lying exposed in the kid barn. Visual: Several large goats charging towards the 50 pound bag of feed, eyes glazed over in a feeding frenzy. James, who is shorter and skinnier than I am (ie, not an effective goat barrier), tries to take one for the team and stop the goats, using his body as a blockade. James does not succeed. The goats push past/plow over him, so by the time I reach this gathering, all I can see is Jame’s head and shoulders sticking out of a pile of frenzied goats.

Valiantly did I charge in, sweep down and scatter these animals, and with the strength of my arms and voice, herded them successfully into the pen.

Except thats not what happened. Instead of doing anything helpful, I doubled over with hysterical laughter, barely able to catch my breath from laughing so hard. Luckily, James emerges, screaming “You crazy goats!” By this time, the 7 or so goats that obediently went straight into the pen had heard the commotion, and ran to join the pack. The bigger goats were feasting on the bag of feed they had torn open, pushing and shoving one another. The older kids were perched on top of the adjacent hay bales, and I’m pretty sure there were either 1. laughing at us humans or 2. contemplating dive bombing into the middle of the feed.

In the end, we dragged all 35 extremely resistant goats by hand into the pen. James would pull them away from the pile, I would pull/push/ride/yell them to the dairy and through the door. Which got even more involved when they crowded the door trying to get back out again. So all in all, when every last goat had been manhandled into the yard behind the dairy, we went inside, soaked through with sweat and covered in mud/hay/goat poop and drained half a gallon of water.

At this point I was still laughing, mainly because it was all I could do.

Even after all that, goats still are really cute. Here is some baby goat pictures to warm your heart:

This pretty bovine is one of the five steers on the farm currently. There are four in this pasture, and a 5th in his own. The sequestered one resisted being moved, and it took 2 1/2 days and four men (ahem, ‘cowboys’) from the farm to wrangle the frightened-into-violence beast into the right pasture. He has warmed up to people though, in the last few days.

Some Snapshots:

These are just a few pictures of some flowers growing on the farm. I’ll come back and write more about the goats and how to milk them in the next couple of days.

These smell delicious, and they grow right by the Ed building.

Even though this flower is dying, the colors I thought were beautiful in an antique sort of way. This picture simply does it no justice.

A lovely bud

This guy is one of the most perfect flowers I’ve ever seen.

This guy is really happy looking (as most sunflowers are in my opinion) and he was all by his lonesome enjoying the sunset.

Now, thirty people may or may not sound like a lot to some. And in some cases, it may not be. If these were 30 mild-mannered air-conditioned suburban office workers, this might not seem like such a task. But these are 30 farmers. People that have spent the past 3-4 hours working in the hot July sun, leaving them ravenous and electrolyte deprived. Not to mention the men who sit down for the noon meal here tuck in and put away more in one sitting than I do in an entire day.

I’ve never cooked for such a volume before. Usually when I make meals its for 4 or 5 people. The most I’ve ever cooked for is 15, and thats really pushing it. Plus, when I plan a meal, I make lists. Oh the joy of a shopping list! After I spend a significant amount of time searching for what I want to make, I then spend a significant amount of time searching for the ingredients. No such luxury here. I must put to use what is already in the farm kitchen, which is a beast I’ve never faced before.

As I was musing on what to prepare, I found out that there would be a troop of girls coming for a few days, about 10 or so. So the guidance I used on the volume of food to prepare was more or less a stab in the dark, and I found myself petitioning the Lord to intervene in a loaves and fishes type manner if I happened to not make quite enough.

The farm kitchen (like almost all of the other buildings here) is not air conditioned. There is practically no ventilation, so the 3 1/2 hours I spent in there was one of the most intensive workouts ever. Really all the mechanical work required by one’s body to produce sweat in there is standing and breathing. Plus, I have the habit of running around like a crazy woman when I cook under normal, no pressure conditions. Here is what the kitchen table looked like after about 10 minutes:

Luckily I was able to procure a couple of chopping assistants, some young girls who were part of the volunteer group who came to work/’experience the farm’ for a couple of days. Extra mouths, yes, but they were really skinny and didn’t eat much. They were a huge help and chopped almost all of the peppers seen in this picture:

This picture (and a couple of the rest of these) would have probably been a lot better had I not smeared olive oil on my camera lens. Its a job hazard ’round these parts. They tasted excellent though.

Does this look like a hazard? Thats what happens when you have to improvise to open a can of tomatoes. Basically I found myself in a frenzy of not being able to open my cans of tomatoes of my spaghetti sauce, so this can (plus four more 28-ounce ones) looked a lot like this. Thanks again to one of my assistants for know how to do it “the old-fashioned way”. We decided it would be prudent not to recycle them.

I made this bread also. Its a really simple but delicious focaccia bread recipe found here. I follow the recipe pretty exactly except I use bread flour (it calls for all-purpose I believe) and that makes all the difference in my opinion. This was the 3rd time I’d made this bread since I came a week ago, and its been a quick favorite. I also added cheese, which I highly encourage.

That was the final result, a buffet line that included pasta, spaghetti sauce, hummus (about 20 pounds of it, all eaten) peppers and bread. There might have been a little sauce left over. Everybody seemed to like it (or at least parts of it) and I was very pleased. In the end I was sweat drenched and a little dazed, but it was totally worth it and fun.