saturday review

Possibly the final beansalad of 2023:

With crumbled sharp cheddar garnish.

The most recent example of my lifelong gastronomical experiment loosely titled:

Seriously, what would NOT be improved by adding either cheese or maple syrup?

And you may be thinking, "why not both?" to which I reply, "yes, sometimes!"

The sharp cheddar crumbles certainly enhanced my customary salad of yellow and green filet beans, garbanzo beans, and white kidney beans.

By the way, does anyone have a recommendation for cooking dry kidney beans instead of buying canned? I tried cooking dry red kidney beans in a kettle following the advice on the packet. It took ages - and I had to stay nearby to frequently stir the pot and check the texture of the beans - and I think I still managed to undercook them. Next time should I try pressure cooking?

The grapes have been very productive this year, and I've enjoyed walking under the vines even in the rain.

Earlier this week I went down to the terrace garden with a grocery sack and picked grapes between rainstorms. Of all the tasks I've managed to sprint through between rainstorms this "summer," picking those grapes was my favorite.

To me, grapes are like coffee: the aroma is arguably the best part. Have you ever discovered the presence of wild grapes by the intoxicating aroma? One of those experiences that has probably been providing thrills for humans for as long as there have been humans and grapes in the same ecosystem.

My kitchen smelled wonderful for a while. With a big kettle of grapes simmering on the stove every time I came in from outdoors, it made the rest of the situation in my house seem less overwhelming. Or at least easier to ignore. And now I've got a tub of juice in the chest freezer, and a jar in the fridge that I'll be sipping like wine.

We've just had two days of simply lovely weather - not too hot, not too muggy, not too buggy...not raining. And between the usual round of chores, instead of tackling a few of the extras that have piled up with the wet weather, I spent part of each afternoon just lounging around outside with a sketchbook, keeping an eye on the animals while they kept an eye on me. It was glorious.

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goats and gardens

There's no better feeling for a person raising livestock than to hear an expert say your animals "look good." Last week, not-my-usual-vet came out and did annual shots for the herd. He commented repeatedly on the condition and manners of my goats, which left me feeling pretty darned good. I don't take my goats to shows, and very few of the people who come here and see them are "goat people," so it's rare for me to get this kind of feedback. Rare and sweet.

Tsuga says, "You know he was talking about ME, right?"

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It's taken several years of encouragement, but there are now three separate milkweed stands producing flowers here, and my efforts to bring Monarch butterflies back to my place are ever so gradually paying off.

Last year my Occasional Helper spotted the first chrysalis - which was unfortunately attached to a fence in a high-risk spot. After a lot of thought, I decided it's chances were better in the house, so I had the experience of watching it slowly develop into an actual butterfly. Pretty much everyone I know has had this experience - usually in childhood - but I never did. So it was especially magical.

This year, I saw two Monarchs dancing around the gardens!

And a couple of days ago I noticed one of these, in two of the milkweed stands:

Huzzah!

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Remember last year's zinnias? I started seeds in peat pots, transplanted them into the terrace garden, and they bloomed and bloomed and bloomed and brought me joy every single day.

This year I mixed seeds saved from last year's flowers with a few left in 2018 packets, and seeded them directly into the garden. They have just begun to bloom and it's so exciting to see what colors they are turning out to be. I already have plans to find seeds for zinnia colors I particularly enjoy, and plant even more next year.

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Daylilies!

How I love them.

Sometimes when the very last flower on a stem is blooming,

I bring it into the house to enjoy for it's precious day.

Like this:

And perhaps to draw:

And speaking of drawing...I think I answered every comment in the previous post,

but I want to say a general "thank you" again.

I am so grateful that each of you took the time to reply, and I am pleased as punch that you are not getting tired of the daily markmaking adventure.

You lovely people made me the same kind of happy as the vet who complimented me on the condition of my goats! Thank you so much!

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windfalls

Tsuga looks pretty pleased with her branch.

We've had some strong winds recently,

which have brought down many small - and some not-small - branches.

Fern was perfectly happy with her branch.
Until she saw Tsuga's branch.

At this time of year, I only move branches and fallen trees if I'm going to trip over them. I can't afford the extra leaning.

Fern says, "Mama, why don't we share?"

The goats spend hours nibbling on branches and downed trees.

I believe they find nutrients in the bark, buds, lichen and moss, and even the wood.

Iris has found a little stick All For Her Own Self!

Or so she thought.
Brother Rocket decided he would like that stick.

Tansy found a nice branch, but then reconsidered.

"I'll have my timber 'straight up' today!"

In other goat nutrition news, I had 1400 pounds of hay delivered yesterday.

This made me deliriously happy.

It's in two massive bales.

Each one is 8 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet.

They were delivered in about 10 minutes with a skid-steer:

up my ice-covered driveway and straight into the roundtop.

It was beautiful to watch.

Unlike standard bales, which are carried one by one from the roundtop to the barns and then opened up and distributed to the paddocks,

these bales will have to be opened in the roundtop and then large amounts of loose hay will be transported over ice and snow and - soon - mud.

I hate wasting hay, and loose hay is...loose. I don't want to leave a long trail of hay everywhere I carry it, twice every day.

So I'm going to try to come up with one all-season transport method that will be effective, efficient, and which I hope will not require buying anything.

Fortunately, I don't mind a challenge. And there's a weekend ahead.

What new fun are you planning this weekend?

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ice

This morning when I stepped outside to pick up an armful of stovewood, I was delighted to find the air warmer than expected. Maybe as high as 20F, I thought. Almost balmy.

I can generally estimate the temperature within a few degrees, so on the way back inside I checked the thermometer by the door: 11F.

Eleven.

Balmy.

After a series of very cold days and nights, I apparently need to recalibrate my internal thermometer!

There is ice everywhere, and most of it is now under six or more inches of powder. This is not a great situation, and I've been very careful going from house to barn to workshop to stilt barn and into the paddocks to fill water buckets and distribute hay.

There are de-icers in both big water buckets - huzzah! - but I still use smaller buckets at times, and they freeze quickly. If they freeze overnight I can't just break the layer of ice on top - I must thaw the ice enough to get it out of the bucket. Here's how, in case you've never done it and ever need to: turn the frozen bucket upside-down and slowly pour a little warm water over the bottom and sides. Listen for the sound of cracking, and then one quiet thud. Lift the bucket off with a boot - to keep dry gloves off the wet bucket - and find a wide-based crystalline vase of ice, with a core of water that trickles out and leaves an huge ice goblet.

Last week I took photographs from inside these hollow cores, looking out through the curved walls of ice. There's one at the top of this post, and here's another:

Winter can be hard. Why miss an opportunity to have fun?

Today I actually had to leave the place for the first time in a week: get in the truck, deliver the recycling, pick up a book from interlibrary loan, and do some grocery shopping. When I got home in the afternoon it was still very cold but not too windy and off-and-on sunny, so I decided to take time to visit with all the goats and then do evening chores early.

Tsuga says, "Yes, do come visit!
And do you have something good in your pocket?"

While I was sitting in the barn waiting for the last goats to finish their grub,

Rocket discovered bootlaces.

He'd never seen them before, because I usually wear pull-on rubber barn boots. But today, since I had just gotten home after being out In Public, I was wearing my "nice boots" which I bought last month. They are like calf-height, waterproof, insulated slippers with rubber soles. And very long laces. Rocket took one look and knew what had to be done.

Here are Azalea and her little boy Mallow - not so little anymore! - hanging out on a bench after having their buckets of oats. Everyone gets a little something extra to help stay cheerful in this ongoing cold, snowy, icy snap; extra oats, with a little sweet feed on top, and carrot pennies for afters. Even my careful rationing of hay - I feed multiple times in smaller amounts each day instead of the total amount all at once, to reduce waste - has gone by the boards for the time being. In weather like this, I believe it's more important to have hay available to everybody, all the time, than to avoid waste.

The sky looked like this for just a few minutes,

as I was coming back to the house after chores.

I'm so glad I didn't miss it!

The forecast says the weather is going to change tomorrow.

Warmer.

And then warmer.

I'll definitely be wearing the pull-on rubber barn boots.

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catching up a bit

Well. The laptop is back and, after a couple of initial hiccoughs, is being put through it's paces, bit by bit. Photographs have been uploaded. The optical drive has been tested with an audiobook on CD and soon - since a trip to the library this morning - a movie on DVD. So far, so good. Time for a little blog post.

Let's see. What's been happening? Well, there's been weather.

Fog.

 Snow. And more snow.

Also sleet, hail, freezing rain, and warm sun.

It's February. Anything can happen.

I've been trying to get things done, indoors and out.

Little by little.

Emptied and washed the kitchen cupboards, then reorganized.

Rearranged the stilt barn, so there is room to sneak just one goat out into a little private dining area for a special bucket of grub.

Got some of the construction disorder under control.

Made two long trips to pick up goat supplies.

Started my first seed list for the 2018 gardens.

Took hundreds of photographs.

Della - a rare portrait!

Wednesday was in the high 60s (it snowed on Thursday, hailed on Friday) and my Occasional Helper was here for three hours. We got a few things done, which is good because he is taking the month of March off. I sometimes don't see him for a couple of weeks, but a whole month in Spring will be quite a difference. I may have to pull my socks up and work harder. Or look for a Very Occasional Helper?

No, probably that first thing.

I've continued with the Daily Markmaking; last night was #54. It's a watercolor based on a photograph of Sambucus in a recent snowstorm.

Some nights I suddenly realize I am dozing off and haven't done any markmaking. So I grab a pen or brush and look for something I can work on without getting out of bed. Like the knitting basket on the porch table, or the last winter squash on the windowsill.

Here, Moxie is closely observing the start of a watercolor sketch:

Hope your weekend is going well!

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today in pictures

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ginger beer for supper

Tsuga enjoying a black birch sapling, delivered fresh to the paddock.

Thursday and Friday were perfect days for outdoor work. And it's great to have a builder who is happy to add little bits and pieces to his work plan as time permits. Thursday, for example, when my Occasional Helper was here removing fenceposts for relocation, Builder Matt didn't mind taking a few minutes to use his front end loader to lift out a couple of posts that wouldn't budge.

Yesterday, when the tractor was going to be idle for a while, I asked if Matt would park it by a pile of wood and stone that has been a thorn in my side for a few years. It's one of the most frustrating kinds of mess: the ones created and left by previous hired workers. Part of this one was my fault, because I had covered some firewood with what I thought was a tarp but which turned out to be a "pool cover" that disintegrated, shedding fragments of plastic which rendered the wood unburnable. But while I was figuring out what to do with that pile, a barn-builder with a skidder pushed thousands of pounds of old foundation stones into it.

What. A. Jumbled. Mess.

Since the new fenceline will run right through the center of that mess, yesterday I took a deep cleansing breath and began dismantling it. I pulled out individual pieces of wood, tried to brush off every bit of plastic into a rubbish container (on the left in the picture below), then added the wood to the tractor bucket (on the right, below). Whenever I came to a rock buried in the pile, I pulled it loose, picked it up and carried it to a corner of the fence.

Then, when Matt had a free moment, he drove his tractor  about 30 feet to unload the wood. I had outlined a space with sections of a white birch that had been too decayed for stovewood when the tree was taken down two years ago. It was a big tree, and even decayed sections were heavy. But it was worth the effort, because just like that (imagine finger-snapping there) I've got the base of my second Very Raised Bed. VRB2 was very much a backburnered project, due to the intensity of labor required. Having a tractor available to make one part of the process much easier was an opportunity not to be squandered.

I carried quite a few rocks, and filled the bucket with wood twice, but Matt eventually needed his tractor for the main job. I'm probably only halfway through the pile but it's a good start. I have to admit that after a couple of hours, it was really clear to me why I don't attempt this kind of thing anymore. Between the wood and the stones and later wrestling alone with rolled sections of 6-foot fence to temporarily block off a 50-foot opening so the cats can go outside this weekend...

I feel a lot like this squash leaf, but with less color:

It's been a productive week, and lots of good work has been done by the builders, with lots more to come. This is really a three-part project - not counting the little things that come up along the way, or the planned "20 minute" task that took nearly four hours and all hands on deck. I've got more research and decision-making ahead this weekend, but today I made my usual Saturday morning trip to the dump and the library, and that may be IT. I am exhausted, and all I want to do this afternoon is sip cold ginger beer and watch the cats climb through piles of roofing detritus while the autumn sun shines gently through the trees.

I hope your weekend is off to a great start!
Is anyone going to Rhinebeck? Usually right about now I'd be feeling a twinge of wish-I-could-be-there, but right now if I was magically transported to Rhinebeck I would probably be flat out on the ground, moving only enough to eat fried artichokes while watching sheepdog demonstrations.

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morning on the upper west side

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