The answer to the riddle was Cassava.  Sorry, I kept forgetting about it. Yesterday I kept meaning to sit down and write here, but life was too busy – dealing with all the cream and butter has me feeling chained to the kitchen.  Not only that, but there was a very involved chicken liver pate,…

  Much progress this week.  The piglets are weaned (so I think that technically makes them shoats), and the baby chickies are out.  The piglets have been much more graceful about weaning than the calves.  No dramatic squealing or hoarse complaining at all.  Star seems extremely glad about the whole thing.  They were starting to…

The peaches and early rabbit-eye blueberries are coming along – it looks as if it will be a very good year for blueberries, and a very poor year for peaches.  The very late, only frost we got was at the worst possible time for them.  The Florida King trees have a few, and Snow Queen…

At last, a picture of Flora’s new calf!  We’ve hardly seen him.  He hides until he has to nurse.  They are both doing well.  It’s hard to tell now that the other calves are so grown up, but he seems like a rather large calf. And speaking of them…. They are being weaned (again).  Yesterday…

Ethan’s Birthday cake from last week – and probably the nicest birthday cake out of my kitchen so far – four layers of grain-free cake, whipped cream with cherries and cherry filling, chocolate ganache icing with toasted almonds…. Wow last week was crazy.  There must be something in the stars.  Weaning babies.  Unweaning babies as…

When we first started out at the farm, the whole place was dominated by blackberries, bahia grass, cactus, and weedy laurel oak trees.  The bahia isn’t so bad – the cows can eat it, and it isn’t thorny.  But it seemed so monotonous.  I missed my favorite little herbs and wildflowers.  It stayed like this…

I don’t know why anyone worries about Friday the 13th.  To date, nothing awful has ever happened to me on Friday the 13th.  Monday the 13th, I think, ought to be the worst.  With Friday, you at least have the weekend to lick your wounds, but on Monday you have the whole week to suffer…

For an April Fool’s joke, Ethan told Mirin that he would get him a bazooka if he watched the baby while we did the chores.  Mirin hardly ever watches the baby, so this was a big request.  There’s a family joke that he needs a t-shirt that says, “Big Brother Ain’t Watching You” with a…

This week began with a major advance in technology for us.  As the cactus has been fading from the pastures, wickedly sharp-thorned blackberries have been taking over.  While we very much enjoy the berries from these bushes for a short time during the year, they also tear our clothes, scratch us and the animals’ udders,…

  The  biggest news is that Rose is minus one front tooth now.  It had been loose for awhile, and despite lots of wiggling and even dreams that it would come out, it didn’t manage to until Mirin accidentally kneed her in the teeth, and Clothilde bashed her in the mouth with her forehead during…

Man, I’ve been sick.  It wasn’t one of those colds that allow you to still shuffle about your day – it was one that knocks you out.  But I’m better now, and resting was enforced.  It’s been awhile since I’ve been so sick. I went to the farm for the first time this week yesterday. …