On Monday Ethan was off of work, and we met some friends at the park. They brought along an out-of-town sister-in-law with two children, and we had a mass of children running all over the park, along with what seemed to be two bus loads of disaffected high schoolers, for reasons not entirely clear, as…
OEUFS DUR AUX CREVETTES – Hard-Cooked Eggs With Shrimp
With Valentine’s day just behind us, all the stores seem to have seafood on sale. Ethan found some good shrimp for me. Shrimp was my favorite childhood food. Ethan was always crazy about salmon, but he feels funny if he eats shrimp. On the rare occasions we get seafood, it’s invariably salmon, not shrimp. So…
The Hoggetown Medieval Faire 2016
Last week we took advantage of the Medieval Faire’s cheap school-day rates. I was hesitant, because we almost went with some friends last year, and ended up not going, and then it was in the paper that some 15-year-old girl was attacked and raped by a convict who was working at one of the greasy…
Free Knitting Pattern # 2: Little Hearts Mitts
It’s been ages since I had picked up any knitting, and I had a big bag of lovely yarn staring at me from my knitting basket on top of the piano. I just wasn’t inspired. It was just too hot in December to think about knitting. When the cold weather hit at last, I remembered…
POTAGE AU POTIRON (Pumpkin Soup)
Here is the next French recipe from “La Cuisine,” featuring two things we’ve got from the farm: Pumpkins from last year’s summer garden (I still have six! The Seminoles keep so long!) and milk. According to Chef R. Blondeau (the author), soup must be served at the beginning of dinner if it is not part…
Soaking and Fermenting Cassava
I started growing cassava three years ago. My friends and fellow gardeners Paul and Ginny Campbell gave me the first stalk. Cassava is propagated that way – by saving the stalks to plant the next season. The trick is to store them until the spring without them drying out or molding. Some people wax the…
Planting Potatoes And Sharing Beans
This morning my great uncle called. Years ago he had passed along a bag of long beans that he had grown. He originally got the seeds from my great-grandfather, and has been growing them ever since. He was calling because his basement was repainted last fall, and in the muddle of re-painting, his collection of…
POULE AUX OIGNONS
I have an ambitious idea for this year – and I hope that you will also be excited about it. My grandmother was French – she was born in Nice, France, but immigrated to the US after meeting my grandfather while he was there as a US soldier in WW II. She passed away when…
Crazy Goats, and the dangers of being too close
David has had his work cut out for him lately – three of the girls went into heat in quick succession. Little April was the first to cycle. Her dad’s African Pygmy genes came out in her, so she is very short compared to David. It would have been comic if goat foreplay didn’t look…
Alive
Yesterday we got out to the farm and all the cows came running over and shouted at us. They had hardly touched their hay, but they looked thin. We couldn’t figure out why at first. Just before I got Matilda for milking, Ethan discovered someone had tripped over the water hose and yanked it so…
In the garden: Purple Carrots
My purple carrots were small and stunted this year – I don’t think they liked all the heat. They still tasted good. The garden has had a hard time of it lately. One evening when we drove up the cows had busted in somehow. I thought everything would be eaten to nubs, but they had…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 