I feel like this is a spring in my life…

So many new beginnings… it makes me feel young again.

I remember how difficult it was to leave my old farm behind – even afterwards more and more things from my old life have been shed or liquidated.

It feels so distant now, like the bad memory of a very hard winter long ago as I watch the fruit trees I planted last year leafing out with vigorous growth, and the flowers blooming, and the babies, and all the new projects being built up.

I am really enjoying my CSA garden and being able to share all kinds of beautiful and delicious vegetable varieties.  The brilliant roses are covered with blossoms. Each morning I walk out in the dew among the flowers for a few moments before beginning my day. I could never have had so much joy and beauty in my old life! And it makes me feel really, truly at home to have the flowers blooming in my garden again.

I’ve been hosting some really nice young people and a very sweet family with two young children. This is something I could never have done in my old life, at my old farm. There were always so many unfriendly restrictions and an isolating energy.

My old life was almost always me alone outside, working in solitude, carrying heavy buckets around and struggling with exhaustion.

My campers have helped me so much over the past few weeks that all the spring work that usually takes me so long and i often don’t get it done is finished and done well! And best of all, I have so enjoyed our days together – the mornings when we all wake and greet each other, and the evenings when we will talk around a bonfire and share food.

And the children…I have missed young children in my life. I love hearing them talking and yelling like little birds in the early morning. They come inside and jump on our bed and read books with me and Clo, and we do cooking projects together. I realized I never want to not have children in my life!

We’ve had a beautiful abundance of eggs and greens in the garden. One day for lunch I was going to make omelets with spinach from the garden. I had already broken so many eggs into a bowl, and Clo started complaining about how tired she was of eggs and vegetables – and difficult predicament, since this is what  I have to eat right now!

I looked at my bowl of eggs and big bunch of spinach, and thought… how hard would it be to turn it into pancakes? Savory pancakes, served with grated cheese? All blended up (and making use of 5eggs! Yay!), so she won’t even notice the vegetables? Not hard at all!

I put all the wet ingredients in the blender, so it was extremely fast and easy! And there is something really fun we found about green pancakes… they fluffed up very high and were very green, and we decided to call them Green Monster Pancakes!

For the next batch, we used whole wheat flour and soaked it overnight with the sour milk to make it more nutritious. I have two versions here:

GREEN MONSTER PANCAKES (soaked flour version)

2 cups of whole wheat flour (freshly ground for best flavor!)

2 cups of sour milk

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 big bunch of spinach (you can pack so much into these pancakes! I added about 2 cups chopped spinach)

1/4- 1/2 cup chopped parsley, dill, or cilantro (optional!)

5 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons melted butter

Butter, ghee, or lard for frying

Grated cheese or sour cream to serve!

Quick version:

1. In a blender, blend together the spinach, eggs, sour milk, optional herbs, and apple cider vinegar.
2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour,  salt, and baking soda.
3. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and beat up with a whisk for a minute to make sure the batter is smooth. Stir in the melted butter.
4. Fry in butter, ghee, or lard like regular pancakes. Serve with butter, sour cream,  and/or grated cheese.

Soaked Flour Version:

1. The night before,  In a bowl or a wide mouthed jar,  mix the flour and sour milk together.
2. In the morning, add the flour and sour milk mixture to a blender or food processor. Add all other ingredients and blend until smooth.
3. Fry in butter, ghee, or lard like regular pancakes. Serve with butter, sour cream,  and/or grated cheese.