We spent Saturday and Sunday at the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs. It turned out to be a beautiful weekend, and one of the best festivals we’ve attended in all these years. Ethan first attended the FFF when he was about seven weeks old, and our children have been there every year except last…
Author: toadstoolsfairyrings
A "Real" Milk Cow
Geranium waiting to charge in and be milked (note the crazy gleam in her eye) We are always talking about whether or not Geranium is a “real” milk cow. Our Jersey, Matilda, usually walks in demurely, swishing her tail in an easy-going, coy way, and starts eating. She is easy to milk and makes it…
Almost
Silver-spangled Seminole Pumpkin Leaves A fiery orange Cosmo blossom A ripe ground cherry (shhhh….no one else has noticed them yet) Calendula blooming Little cucumbers! I wish that I had more time to write today, but I just don’t. There’s too much else going on, so this will be short – and…
POMMES DE TERRE AU LAIT OU A LA CREME: Potatoes With Milk Or Cream
This recipe is very simple and made a good accompaniment to a more complex, saucy main dish I had made that same evening. The mild seasonings bring out the earthy flavor of the potatoes rather than cover it up. The potatoes are first boiled with their skins on – or as R. Blondeau puts it…
POTAGE AUX ORTIES: Nettle Soup
This IS a recipe, but I have a story to tell first: The summers between 5th grade and 7th grade I stayed with my great-aunt and great uncle in France. They lived in Nice, in the same tiny apartment that my grandmother grew up in. On the weekends we went and stayed at their chalet…
Homeschooling At The End
It’s the end of the school year – and the end of our home school year. Some families home school all year round, but we usually take a break during the summer, for several reasons. First of all, it gives me a break, and a chance to do some planning and research for next year. …
Wolves
This weekend we got some much-needed work done of re-locating Ethan’s junk pile (for the third, and hopefully, last time). We came across these interesting creatures. The top one is a Rosy Wolf Snail – a predatory snail that eats other snails. It was the largest snail I’ve seen in Florida – although nothing special…
POMMES DE TERRE AU LARD: Potatoes With Bacon
Lard actually means bacon in French, rather than the rendered pig fat that the word means in English. This can be confusing sometimes. The word for lard in French is saindoux. With all the potatoes in the garden, and the bacon curing process finally finished, I decided to give this recipe a try. When…
Bacon
The bacon is finally finished curing and air-drying. It turned out quite good this time, and we got almost 20lbs of bacon from one pig, after curing. This means it was probably originally 25 or so pounds fresh. When bacon is cured traditionally, salt and a small amount of sugar, spices and seasonings are rubbed…
Chameleon Butter
Almost as soon as Explorer came back to us from the farm where he was breeding more cows, the grass was ready to graze for the first time. Several cold fronts had showered us with rain, and the warm weather that came afterwards made the grass wake up, shake itself, and start to grow. We…
POMMES DE TERRE A LA MAITRE D’HOTEL
In the garden, the potato plants have keeled over and turned brown, a sign that they are not going to grow much larger, and are ready to dig. They are not as large as they have been in other years, perhaps because it has been very dry and I haven’t irrigated them. But they taste,…
Chicharrones and Pork Pie
The Chicharrones (or, as they are called here in the South, Pork Rinds) are just the pork skin sliced and baked for awhile. In general, we scald and scrape our pigs, not only because cured hams must have the skin-on, but also so we can save the skin for these delightful, crunchy…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 