I peeked at my daughter’s blog this afternoon. She had a big day yesterday:

Today I got a new hair cut called a pixie cut. You have to be very brave to get one.

I LOVE my new hair cut!!

Plus I got toe shoes for ballet! I am finally going on pointe!

I still have to sew the ribbons on.

Are you familiar with the sweater curse? If you are a knitter you are. Another version of the proverbial curse is to attribute the same to family members or friends. You spend hours and hours — weeks, even months of your time knitting some article of clothing or an item that you hope they will enjoy and will offer them a piece of your heart, and it gets relegated to a back closet somewhere or worse, treated with disregard: on the floor, the dog chews on it, you get the idea.

I would like to propose a version of the sweater curse as it applies to organic produce. As a gardener, you spend hours and hours preparing the soil, agonizing over organic, heirloom seeds. Start those seeds indoors, baby them along, harden them off and finally plant them in your carefully tilled garden. Then they are tended: protected from hail and varmints, heat and cold,  and bugs meticulously hand-picked and disposed of. Weeds kept at bay with a hoe — back breaking work, but worth it for the result of wholesome, organic sustenance for your table.

Then comes preservation! Picking, shelling, chopping, pitting, preparing, mixing. Jars to sterilize, boiling pots of water to heat in the thick of summer. The canning, the checking of lids. All in the name of quality organic sustenance for your family.

Eggs! What of organic eggs? The maintenance of the flock, the cleaning of the coop. The feeding, the watering, the doctoring when needed. All for those organic wonders to place in a cardboard carton.

I admit, when I hand over a basket of produce, a jar of jam, a carton of eggs, it is difficult to let go.  This is so much more than mere groceries — it is true sustenance, obtained by many hours of planning and laboring. I am hopeful that the recipient will realize what a gift from the heart it truly is. I know when I am the lucky recipient of such — I take it for what I hope it is worth. I am grateful — excited — wanting to be worthy of such a treat.

To me, the best I can do is to return the favor, in kind. Some of my own produce that has made it this year, a carton of eggs, a few jars of wild raspberry jam. Or even, perhaps, a hand-knitted hat or mittens in preparation for the colder months to come.

*Image by Swedish Folk Artist Elsa Beskow.

We broke down and got a “Have a Heart” trap to get that pesky skunk that keeps skulking around here at night. It’s been set and waiting for a week now. So far we have caught:

2 of our own turkeys

4 of our hens

The neighbor’s cat

I was getting pretty discouraged until Bean came in screaming that there was something in the trap! And it is black and white! Hurry Mommy! Hurry!

I rushed out, not sure what the heck I was going to do about this situation, beings Mark was not home and I am not getting near a smelly critter locked up in the trap. Indeed, the closer I got, the more black and white fur I saw, wriggling around in there.

This is what I found:

Does he look contrite? I am hoping so . . .

One of the realities of living a home-grown lifestyle is eating livestock and animal by-products that you raise for food. Unless you are a vegan, that is. I am not a vegan, obviously.

Realities are, that you will be raising said livestock for the specific purpose of eating them. I don’t currently have the space to raise large animals such as bison or beef. I do, however, have a somewhat intimate connection with either of those animals that we choose to put in the freezer. Call me crazy, but I like to have a look at the animal, know how it was raised, be relatively satisfied that it is healthy. I am not going to turn a blind eye and just pick up a roast or a package of ground beef in the grocery store and not even think about how it got there.

Our bison is harvested by Mark from a local ranch every year. He shoots the animal himself. Our beef this year was not harvested by us, but I did have a look at the animal before he was processed. I feel it is the least I can do to somewhat ensure the quality of meat we are getting and also to ensure in a small way that the animal has lived as natural a life as possible. It is not feedlot meat, it is grassfed, and up until the time the animal is harvested it is living on the range in a herd with its family. No stress there.

Chickens are something I can raise here and we can butcher ourselves. We do raise chickens for their eggs, but the fact of the matter is, roosters are undesireable to have around, and if a batch of pullets turns out to have roosters, they are going to end up in a pot. Roosters are going to bother my neighbors as they are loud, they are mean, and they beat up on the chickens. When the hens are no longer laying, they too will end up in a pot to make room for younger chickens.

Up until the time the rooster  or chicken is harvested it has lived a free-range life. It is not shut up in a tiny cage with thousands of other chickens only to be fattened for butchering. Take a second and google factory farmed chickens. It is not pretty.

In my opinion,  compassion is being responsible for the meat my family consumes. I have a responsibility to make sure that animal has lived a life that does not cause it to suffer. It is allowed to live like a chicken until it is harvested, and at that point, and yes by my husband with a .22, it becomes food for my family. We choose the .22 method because it is quick, over in a second, before the bird even knows what hit it. Listening to a bunch of squawking birds held down for the blow would only stress out everyone, including the birds themselves.

Once the chicken is processed, disregarding feathers and heads, I use every single part of that bird for sustenance. Feet & bones are used to make stock, meat takes us through several meals from stew, to pot pies to enchiladas. Even the innards are cooked and fed to dogs and cats. There is no waste here.

So, before you decide to climb up on a soap box and lecture me for my “lack of compassion”* for butchering our home-grown roosters for our family food, have a look at your dinner plate and think about where your own food came from. Can you guarantee the kind of life it lived? Was it humanely harvested? Was every single piece of that animal on your plate used for sustenance and not wasted? It has only been in the last 50 years or so that we have been so far removed from our food source. Before you point your finger in judgement at me, have a look at the other four that are pointing back at you. Then we’ll talk.

* I am responding to a comment left here berating me for my “lack of compassion” in “bragging” about shooting roosters for our dinner in a post below, along with a few other choice things, namely about my children which really pissed me off. I deleted the comment because it is my blog and I can and I don’t need that kind of karma, thank you very much. But I felt I owed it to the roosters to explain why we eat the way we do, not that it is any of that commenter’s business. For the record, I write this blog to entertain myself and to communicate with friends I know in real life. If you stumble upon it and don’t like what I have to say GO AWAY!

If you do stumble upon it and choose to stay, I welcome you: all I ask is that you are nice to me.

It didn’t help that Fix was back to square one. Even at 15 years old, when I got on her she was like an untrained colt. Jumpy, shying at everything. I got brave enough to take her out one day for what I hoped would be a pleasant ride. She saw a concrete well cover on the ground and came unglued. Jumped a mile sideways, wrenching my back in half, and snorted and sweated the whole way home. I was shaking so hard I could barely hold my seat. My hands were like ice. This was something I could have handled a few years ago. But now I knew I was done. I untacked her, went out behind the barn and cried. I was that shook up. It was a full-blown panic attack. What a wimp.

I knew I had to make a decision. I couldn’t keep a horse around that I would never ride. I loved her. She was beautiful. But I knew I would never get on her again. I was wrecked. I put her up for sale and it broke my heart. Luckily (I thought) nobody in these parts wanted a high-strung Ay-rab mare. She languished in the pasture again. I couldn’t even bear to go look at her.

A few years earlier Mark and I had been at the county fair and had seen some horses that really caught our attention. They had big, calm eyes. Pleasant faces. Unique color, and what really struck me was their temperaments. Nothing seemed to faze them. Not a bunch of people, loud crowds, four-wheelers zipping around, ice cream trucks, cows, chickens and bleating goats. They seemed to like the attention. They liked to be petted and scratched. I was curious — what were these strange looking horses? Their manes stood straight up — uniquely colored with flaxen on the outside and a dark stripe that ran down the mane to a dorsal on the spine to the tail. I did some research — Norwegian Fjord horses! Wow! This really had me interested considering my Scandinavian heritage.

Mark made me a deal — I find a good home for Fix and he would let me get a Fjord of my own. He knew I wanted one. I knew their calm nature would be just what I needed. OK, I said, I’ll do it. I called a good friend and breeder of Arabian horses. Did she know of someone who might want Fix? It turns out she did, herself. She always had. And Fix and her filly went to the best home I could have hoped for. They are pampered and shown and Fix has a new baby every year — her favorite thing is being a mommy.

Then I was on a quest. To find the perfect Fjord. I searched and searched. I finally came across a mare on a website with a gleam in her eye and a pretty head. I emailed the breeder. Her name was Fancy. Perfect! Fancy was the horse for me.

We drove for two days to Northern Montana to get her. Once there I started to feel a little trepidatious. Fancy was a little more high-strung than I had expected. She almost ran me over coming out of the stall. But I had my heart set. We had come all this way. I was going to get her. At the last minute Mark suggested we buy Fancy’s full sister — a yearling named Fiona. Fiona to me looked like a dog. She was in that awkward yearling stage. OK I said, if you like her she can be your horse. We left the farm with two Fjords in the trailer.

We got home and on my first ride my fears were confirmed. Fancy was waaay too much horse for me. Mark took her in hand. The two of them matched perfectly. Fancy loved to bull-doze her way into everything. Mark has a heavy hand, heavy enough to keep her in check. Perfect match.

So what about me? Well, I was left with the doggie-looking horse Fiona. Yuck. I was used to Fix with all her glamour, her stop- and stare look-at-me attitude. Fancy had that too. Fiona most definitely did not.

But something happened. Little by little I gained a rapport with this ugly duckling of a filly. She began to look for me over the fence. She would nicker when I would walk outside. I would climb on her back for a few moments to get her used a little weight and she would just stand there and reach around to smell my feet. She would follow me. I taught her tricks — how to do a full-on bow. She would stay in the bow for a long time, waiting for me to hand her treats. She would lay down in the pasture, napping, and not care if I came out and sat with her to braid her forelock — she would just stretch out broadside, grunting. She turned two and then three. It was time to ride her.

I won’t pretend I wasn’t scared. I rode her around the paddock. Then I made a very wise, important decision. I decided not to try and start her on my own, but to send her to a trusted trainer, the one who had started my kid’s ponies. Fiona came back with a stellar report card — the sweetest horse they had ever worked with! Never a wrong step! Always pleasant!

Now it was my turn to ride. And guess what? I did it. I didn’t shake. I didn’t sweat. I did work through a battle of nerves, but Fiona just walked on her merry little way. We trotted, we cantered, we jumped! She even crow-hopped a few times, not out of meanness, but out of exuberance, and I didn’t get scared. I knew deep down that this horse wanted to give me a pleasant ride. That she knew she belonged to me and didn’t want to mess that up.

And something else happened. Fiona’s body caught up to itself. Her face developed refinement. Her nose has a little dish and her forelock is long and thick over big, brown liquid eyes. She turned into a beautiful little mare. Perfect for me. And every morning when I walk outside she hangs her head over the fence and nickers for me. Just like a horse should. A horse that is a perfect match for its person.

Thanks, Fiona! Thanks for giving back to me something I would have sorely missed if it was taken away forever.

** quick aside– Melinda, my friend who now owns Fix, just called to tell me that Fix (at 20 years old) had a beautiful bay colt this morning, and that her last filly that I had with her is going to show dressage at Scottsdale! That’s some accomplishment!**

Step one:

Wait for a huge blizzard that shuts down the entire state for two days.

Step two:

Drive your dad nuts because he is home from work and you are stir crazy in the house because you have been cooped up for two days.

Step three:

Get your dad to start telling you stories about the BIGGEST BLIZZARD EVER that hit when he was a kid and they had a blizzard that BURIED all the CARS and they couldn’t EVEN SEE THEM! They had to dig down into the pickup box to get the shovel to dig themselves out! You could SKI up to the second story window!WOW!!!

Step four:

Listen bug-eyed to your dad’s story.

Step five:

Start talking about how COOL it would be if the snow COVERED THE HOUSE!

Step six:

Get bundled up all the while talking about the BIGGEST SNOWMAN EVER in the Guiness Book of World’s Records.

ALL this adds up to this:

. . . so you can build the BIGGEST SNOWMAN EVER!!!

This was on my neighbor’s front porch this morning. Looks like I’ll be running indoors on the treadmill for a while!

This is my brother’s dog. This is my husband, rated #1 heavyweight wrestler in the WAC for the Wyoming Cowboys “back in the day”. He was the number one rated heavyweight wrestler, slated to go to the olympics instead of Rulon Gardner who did go and take gold– except my poor husband got sick and was in the hospital during the big wrestling show-down. He coulda been a contenda! Except he got sick and now is reduced to wrestling with my brother’s dog.

Side note — one reason my husband and I ended up married is because I had a small moment of being nice to someone, and even though we barely knew each other I brought him chocolate chip cookies while he was sick in the hospital. That clinched it for him.

Here is me, sitting and knitting in my brother’s only piece of furniture — the camping chair*** — while the crazy dog is looking for something new to chew up.

So yeah. This dog of my brother’s. I felt sorry for him so decided to take the big dofus running with me. The dog, not my brother. So we are running along and all of a sudden I am tripping over his big yellow feet and falling, not running. I don’t even realize what is happening until I am sliding across the pavement on my face.

I can tell you I really look like a princess now. Big ole black eye. Road rash all down my left side and my leg is positively purple.

And the dog? He had a great time licking my face and wagging his tail while I was laying there deciding if something was broken.

So tell me I am crazy as I have agreed to keep the dog for my brother while he is getting settled. As long as he doesn’t kill chickens and our own dog, Lena a.k.a. Devil Dog, a.k.a. LenaHalloweena doesn’t kill him.

*** the camping chair was my favorite place at my brothers. I just parked it in front of the fireplace, set myself up with hot chocolate and my knitting and sat on my butt for a solid week. It was nice!

This homeschooling thing has been doing some weird things to our schedule. For example: for all the rhetoric you hear about the demise of the family dinner table, and I am inclined to agree, we have found that we each like to have our own space for dinner. Truth be told, I am not a big dinner eater. I don’t sleep well with a blob of food in my stomach. Lately dinners have been largely vegetable based: stirfry or soup or a simple salad. I will usually add some buffalo — be it a steak or meatballs for Mark, but I am content with my vegetable plate. Last night I ate a giant plate of steamed carrots from the garden. And I mean a GIANT plate. That was all I had. And they were gooood!

So instead of the family dinner, we have more or less begun to congregate as a family at breakfast time.

Lucky for us, our lifestyle allows for a large breakfast. We loll about the breakfast table as a family, talking about our plans for the day: organizing who is going what, where and when. Bean always has some story to tell, and Lula makes it a point to dance in ballerina twirls from the breakfast bar to the table and back again.

I started to feel guilty tonight as I sit in front of the computer with a salad, Mark is hanging out in the kitchen with a giant bowl of meatballs and rice and the twins are watching a DVD of Grease. But then I realized, we have been on top of each other all day. It’s kind of nice to have this little bit of alone time.

I have a batch of Cranberry-Pumpkin rolls in the bread machine this evening. I’ll leave the dough to rise in the fridge overnight so I can pop them into the oven in the morning. Omelets made with fresh eggs with ham and a green pepper from the farmer’s market.

As Mark leaves the house early, and it is still dark, we will have breakfast by candlelight and ease ourselves into our day. To me, that is a family meal.

There is nothing the twins haven’t had a chance to tell me about today. And if they remember something I absolutely need to know, we’ll all be around the breakfast table tomorrow.

**Image of a painting by Carl Larsson, the quintessential Swedish Artist painting the quintessential Swedish kitchen. I am not sure what this particular work is called. I had to put away my Carl Larsson prints after my dad died. But I took them out again. I’m glad I did. I missed them.

Well, both my cameras broke. So I can’t take pictures right now. No idea what the deal is but they won’t hold a charge. Either of them. On top of that Dell sent me a new computer, which broke and they sent a replacement which is different than the computer I ordered – albeit better – however none of my graphics programs will work on it because of the accelerated graphics card. So now I have two new Dell computers, one broken, one nice but not useable. Dell keeps calling me every other day to tell me my real replacement is “in production.” Remember what I said about Dell a while back? Well, let’s just not go there right now m’kay?

I have 40 lbs. of peaches sitting on my counter. The twins are insisting on “honey spiced peaches.” Which is fine, I like to make them happy. And it does sound yummy. But, remember all that big talk I had about not doing any more canning. Well, let’s just not go there EITHER — m’kay? Luckily my mother-in-law has given me all her canning stuff. I have the goods, the equipment and the eager diners.

Yesterday I put up about 16 lbs. of freezer pickles. I must say, they are scrumptious. But now I have no freezer space.

No pictures! But here are recipes:

Honey-Spiced Peaches

Makes about 3 (32-ounce) quarts

What you will need:

8 pounds peaches (about 24 small)

1 cup sugar

4 cups water

2 cups honey

1-1/2 tsp whole allspice

3/4 tsp whole cloves

3 sticks cinnamon

3 (32 oz) quart glass preserving jars

Directions:

1. PREPARE boiling water canner. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready to use. Do not boil. Set bands aside.

2. WASH, peel and pit peaches. Leave peaches in halves or cut into slices, if desired. Treat fruit to prevent browning.

3. COMBINE sugar, water and honey. Cook until sugar dissolves. Add peaches in syrup one layer at a time and cook for 3 minutes.

4. PACK hot peaches into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Add 1/2 tsp allspice, 1/4 tsp cloves and 1 stick cinnamon to each jar.

5. LADLE hot syrup over peaches leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center hot lid on jar. Apply band and adjust until fit is fingertip tight.

6. PROCESS filled jars in a boiling water canner for 25 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.

Moving on to pickles. I went out to the garden and found bucket after bucket of cucumbers ready to go. The twins have been eating the cucumbers right out of the garden like bananas — so I had no idea I had this many ripe cukes. I went to work finding a good recipe, and I wasn’t in the mood to do another canning bath so I researched these freezer pickles.

Surprisingly, these pickles are really, really good. Better than I thought they would be. I cut down on the sugar by two cups. Doesn’t seem to make a difference. And I did use organic turbinado sugar. And red onions from the garden.

4 pounds pickling cucumbers, sliced

8 cups thinly sliced onions

1/4 cup salt

3/4 cup water

4 cups sugar

2 cups cider vinegar

Combine cucumbers, onions, salt and water in two large bowls. Let stand at room temperature for 2 hours. Do not drain. Add sugar and vinegar; stir until sugar dissolves. Pack into 1-pint freezer containers, leaving 1-in. headspace. Cover and freeze for up to 6 weeks. ( I think they’ll keep much longer than this) Thaw at room temperature for 4 hours before serving.

What I did was use up every empty jar I had in the house that had a lid. Vlasic jars, salsa jars, jelly jars. Which is nice because it doesn’t take expensive specialty “canning jars” with special lids. Courtesy of Mother-in-law I got a ton of jars to use for this. Thanks Charlotte!

Mark and I went for a nice ride last night. He rode Loki the new big boy and I rode Bean’s mare Stella who is as sweet as pie when she is out with other horses. Alone she is horribly barn sour and no fun at all. I need to work on that.

Yaya, the dehydrator was a cheap Nesco one. I tried to find it on Amazon but they don’t carry the same one. I think it was made specially for the big box store where I got it, and as such will not hold up for very long. I have my eye on a really nice one from Cabelas once I can save up my pennies! I really think dehydrating is the way to go and I am dehydrating about 10lbs. of these peaches. I’ll use them in granola for the twins over the winter.

Edited to add:

This is my bad — I wasn’t very clear on this and Yaya’s comment made me realize it. I didn’t freeze the odd jars, those are in the fridge for quick eating. I did use the can-or-freeze jars that I had handy to freeze. I also found some recipes where they just did ziplock for the freezing of the pickles and that worked for them.