Daily Dinner

We are going to visit family in Groveland for Thanksgiving number two!

Here is what we are bringing up to share.
I am trying out making dinner rolls.
Not pictured are three loaves of bread with home ground wheat and oats.

For the family talent show on Friday Em and I performed a dance to a song that we sing in Kindergarten about the vowels.

Kate, Queen of the Poultry

Daily Dinner

More venison from Bob. Hooray for Bob! He is hunting in South Carolina this week, and we are rooting for him. Also mustard greens steamed with thyme and oregano, and sweet potato quesadillas. I wish we could grow sweet potatoes...

Daily Harvest

Daily Harvest

Daily Bread

All of my family was coming into town this weekend. I worried about what they would eat while they were here. Dried beans? Mustard?
I bought an amazing amount of cheese and kept making bread. This loaf is made from the rest of the wheat that I ground with Rosalie.
Then it turned out that all of the relatives just wanted to take us out to eat for every meal anyway. Jonathan and I got to eat all of the bread ourselves. All the better for us.

Daily Harvest

Rosalie and I ground some flour in her mill on Friday night. We ground half hard wheat and half soft wheat to make all purpose whole wheat flour. I used two cups white flour, three cups whole wheat, and about a cup of rolled oats for these loaves. It's hard to see in the photo, but the crust is crusty and the insides are soft and fluffy.

Daily Dinner

Jonathan's friend Bob is a hunter.

He traded us venison for green tomato chutney.
Tonight we are eating his venison alongside wilted arugula, on home made noodles, with Dirk's wine.

The flowers on the table are from Kim's garden, I made the vase, the candle holders and platter were made by cousin Peter. Let's not buy anything ever again.

Venison: it runs around, has friends, does not create too much of a strain on our environment, there too many of them, and it's yummy. Thank you Bob!

Daily Harvest

There were two eggs today, and one went into the noodles, hence the noodles in the photo.

Work Party!

In return for breakfast these friendly people helped us dig out all of the tomato plants, rip out a ton of bermuda grass, and finish up a path that we had been waiting for the rainy season to dig out.

These folks were undaunted! They came over! They dug! They were awesome! They also took home mustard, herbs, and a million ripe and green tomatoes in return for their labors.

Thank you Deepa, Gautam, Greg and Jen!!!!!

Daily Dinner

Squid stuffed with basil pesto on a pile o' arugula, with carrots from Kim's garden. The squid do not come from our garden.

Daily Harvest

Jonathan used this basil to made wonderful pesto. He then stuffed small local squid with the pesto and served them over a bed of wilted arugula. We invited out friend Kim over and she brought tomato, lettuce and carrots from her garden for salad, the dressing for which we made with our home made vinegar. We drank Zinfandel that Dirk made in his garage with gleaned grapes.

Bread

I made these loaves last night - whole wheat and oats.

I had this bread for breakfast with butter and honey from our bees and for lunch with green tomato chutney, and for dinner with soup that didn't come from the garden and with pesto and arugula that did.

So, why are we almost out of bread again?

Foul Play

Last night at 3:30am I woke up to sounds in the yard. I ran out in my all-together to chase these four big raccoons off. I was throwing sticks and charging around the yard, ass to the breeze. Then I saw that one of the quail was out of the coop. I scooped it up and took it back to the cage. The raccoons had ripped open the chicken wire on one corner of the coop. They got one quail- see exhibits A (feathers on the coop where the raccoons got in) and B (bit of said quail found on the grass this morning). Now there are five.

Where do the eggs come from?

Here are three of our four ladies!

Not pictured: Dr. Wanda, dirtiest chicken this side of the Mississippi.

Did you know that chickens are the closest living relative to the T-Rex? Look into their reptilian eyes and tell me that you that you can't feel that in some ancient caveman part of yourself. Your DNA remembers being prey.

What the garden looks like

I realized we didn't have a picture showing the yard overall. Here it is from about a month ago. Dang, we love it so.

Daily Harvest

Daily Harvest

The avocados that grow on our neighbor's tree and hang into our yard taste like licorice.

Daily Harvest

I only noticed this lone last apple when petunia the chicken tried to peck it. And there were some ripe ground cherries, which we hadn't had since early August or so.

Daily Harvest

After school snack:

Sour dough starter from my dad

Rye flour ground and given by Rosalie

Daily Harvest

Basil for election night party pizza. Obama!!!!!!!

Tomatoes for the Winter!

I think the tomatoes are done for the year- except for a few more green ones maybe. Here are all the frozen tomatoes we stockpiled. I dipped in to the stash tonight to make piza sauce for our election party. Obama!!!!!!

Daily harvest

Daily harvest

We munch mustard

spicy, bitter, tender
melts in a sizzle
vivid and unkempt

-Jonathan

Daily harvest

The porcelain clink
bone on bone
settle in the bowl together
elegant geometry shattered-
breakfast

-Kate

Daily harvest

Daily harvest

Mustard-
young tender sprouts appearing: fall

old spicy dinosaurs crouch in winter rain

in spring appreciation and avoidance

Thank you mustard for your calendar.

-Kate