My son is crazy

I've mentioned the rat snakes in the hen house before. More than once. Big stinkers. Hungry. Farmer Boy chased one or two out last month, but one time decided the fastest way to deal with it was catch it! He knocked on the back door and here is what I saw! Don't worry, they are not venomous. Is he brave or what?

Beef tongue

WARNING TO VEGETARIANS: This post deals almost exclusively with meat.

WARNING TO OMNIVORES: This post deals almost exclusively with weird meat!

Okay, so I have put it off for a long time. Yes, years. I have had a growing collection of (deep breath) beef tongue in my freezer. Each steer we slaughter comes with a tongue. And various other things like a heart, two kidneys, a liver. We have these things all tidily packaged in white paper in our freezer.

A few months ago I made kidney stew. The Princess and I were reading Mirette on the High Wire as part of our Five in a Row curriculum (which I mostly just use to guide our circle time theme). "Delicious" kidney stew is mentioned, so in keeping with the theme, I found a genuine french kidney stew recipe, and we had kidney stew with crusty french bread for dinner. It was terrible. Ugh.

We have used up our regular frozen beef. We have eaten our last frozen chicken. We are down to the end, and I really don't want to buy factory farm meat at the grocery store.

So I cooked beef tongue today.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to learn how to cook beef tongue these days? Only one of my cookbooks has a recipe (The Joy of Cooking from 1964... and I'll bet the new edition doesn't have it). Online the recipes are few and far between. Seems beef tongue is especially enjoyed in Mexico and the Philippines. But not so much in the US.

I decided to take the Mexican angle today. So I made beef tacos. Note the word tongue is not mentioned... we had BEEF TACOS. Some of us have these bizarre psychological hangups. I'm not naming names.

So, on to the method. I kind of pieced this whole thing together from various sources and made the sauce out of what I had available.

First I (with great trepidation) unwrapped the packages. The tongues looked like tongues. Really big tongues. I decided to spare you pictures, but if you are really curious, look here. I scrubbed them and put them in a big pot, then covered them with water.

I put the pot on the stove, added a few bay leaves, a lot of garlic, about a teaspoon of salt and some coriander seeds. Brought it to boil and let it cook for 3 hours.

When it was done, I took it out and easily removed the skin, then cut up the meat. I sauteed (for 1 min):

2 T vegetable oil
2 T flour
2 T chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin

Then I added:

the sliced tongue
14 oz can stewed tomatoes (with liquid)
1 cup water left from boiling tongue
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder

I mixed the whole thing and let it simmer until dinner time, about 45 minutes.



Here it is, on a home made whole wheat tortilla, with onions, cheese and lettuce, ready to be rolled up:



The meal met with approval, but I still hadn't told the kids what kind of beef we were eating. After Farmer Boy had seconds, I told them they had eaten tongue, and they laughed! I really have the best kids in the universe.

As for me, I would not be sad if I never ate tongue again. I'll confess. I'm the one with hangups.

Recent harvests from our garden

Last week was our first green bean harvest (actually they were purple... Royal Burgundy Bush Beans from Seeds of Change... but they changed to green when cooked!)





We enjoyed wild dewberries in late April and early May, and the early blackberry bush in our garden area put on some huge juicy berries for us all through May:



Last night we ate our first corn:



And tonight found our first yellow tomatoes (we've had a few red ones already):



Soon to come... zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, peppers, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, and lots and lots of blackberries in a patch down the hill. And of course lots more beans, corn and tomatoes. Yum!!

Yet more baby birds

As you know, we live on a farm. We have domesticated animals. We have lots of wildlife. You'd think with all these acres, we would have some "humans only" space, even just right outside the house. Say, on the front porch, for example.

Well...

First there are the dogs. The cool concrete is very soothing in a hot Texas summer. Especially when you've just taken a nice dip in the pond then rolled in the dust.

Then the chickens. Doorsteps are great places to roost on. Rocking chair arms give a fine vantage point for surveying the lay of the land (aka the front yard).

And of course, there's the wildlife. We do have trees, quite a lot for Texas. But as I've written, we have already had a nestful of babes born in a hanging flower basket over the front porch this spring.

Around the time they were born, we noticed some swallows rebuilding a nest that had been inadvertently knocked off the house around Christmastime, probably due to Christmas lights. This nest had had two sets of babies born in it each summer we'd been here, so we were sad. We needn't have worried.

After the first fledglings from the flower basket headed off for adulthood, these scrawny cuties started peeping from the rebuilt swallow nest whenever they heard the squeak of the front door:



That picture was taken on May 21st, from our open front door.

Here they are on June 3:



You can imagine what the porch underneath the nest (yes, almost directly in front of our door) looks like.

Today I went out and they were gone. All "growed up" in a whopping 2 weeks. But never fear! We are not baby bird-less yet! For we have another hanging flower basket. Yes, now it too has a nest therein.

I sneaked a peak, and look who's ready to get a-growin...



So if you come to our house and wonder why we have two completely dead flower baskets hanging over our porch, now you'll know it's because they are actually bird nurseries, and bird mamas don't take kindly to having their babies' rooms flooded.

Planting flowers

The big kids and I took advantage of Little Guy's nap one Saturday and planted more seeds in the cut flower beds.



I think we are weeding in this picture. This day we put in zinnias; right behind me are two rows of cosmos that were a few weeks old. And obviously we are surrounded by unbroken ground (loads of grass and weeds). Think of the possibilities!

Irrigation

Stephen has been working hard to get water into the garden for me. He dug a 3 foot deep trench in the back yard and ran piping out to the garden fence. Then he installed a faucet inside the garden.



At the moment we have a series of regular hoses and drip hoses hooked up to the faucet, but we need more already. The flower beds still have to be hand watered, and I am starting a new area for a second corn patch.

If you give a 6 year old a camera...

... your iphoto library will look like this...











My personal favorite came with this gleeful explanation, "My bedroom floor was actually clean so I took a picture of it!!"



A portrait of the artist as a young woman:

May wildflowers

In May I made up this bouquet of wildflowers I found in our yard and garden. The picture doesn't really capture the amazing variety of color.

The trouble with allowing forklifts at the table...

... is that they are bound to lift your lunch...

Catching up

Been away from the blog for quite a while, so I will be posting lots of small entries to update things. Thanks for understanding the whimsical nature of being a mama, homesteader, and well, me. ;-) I suppose I shall have to someday post my musings on the problems of being rebellious about schedules.

Wildlife

Lots of recent sightings of interesting wildlife lately.

Stephen found this gray tree frog on a gate by a downed tree that he thinks had been the frogs home:



He also found two rat snakes in the hen house (here's one):



To give you a perspective on its size, here it is next to an adult's hockey stick:



We'll add the snakes to our reasons for declining egg production lately. The extreme free-rangedness of the chickens is yet another. Here's a nest of about 10 eggs that Stephen discovered by the road! We eat all the eggs from newly discovered spots ourselves and only sell eggs that we gather fresh from known laying spots.



I also found a snake in the dog house. When Stephen went to move it, it slithered away. In his search for it, he uncovered these gulf coast toads who had been hanging out under a piece of plywood:



Last night I went to water some hanging plants and to my great surprise, a baby bird flew out of the plant. I had seen some activity in this plant some weeks ago, but had not seen any birds around it for quite a while (not even when watering). I counted 4 Carolina Wren babies in all. They are all fledglings who kept fluttering around on the front porch and wall nervously while their mama watched vigilantly.

Here's one on the front window screen (you can see the plant in the upper left corner):



This one is SO cute! I just love the "eyebrows". It was on the step of the front door:

Farm update

Well it has been a while since I have written about the farm, and lots has been going on.

Stephen finished fencing in the back yard and the 1/4 acre garden. All the posts came from trees he cut down, stripped, hauled and sized himself. This is the garden:



I have been working sporadically (thanks to the usual demands of homeschooling, home making, and TODDLERS) on putting in and caring for the garden. We have veggies in for ourselves and I started putting in a cut flower area in the hopes we can make it to some farmer's markets this summer. I am just going to keep planting until I run out of space, again, with the hopes of trying out selling veggie surplus at farmers' markets. I hope I actually get to the point that I run out of space, but my pace of planting is painfully slow.

Here are some sprouts from a few weeks ago... first one of beans, then a baby tomato:





Our chicken situation, as always, is in flux. We have had a bit of chicken loss lately, mostly due to coyotes, but in one very sad case, due to a chicken getting into the car when the door was open and not being noticed. I found her a few hours later when I went to get something out; it had gotten too hot for her, and she did not survive. This was especially sad as she was one our favorites, and had a name (you may remember that we rarely name animals because we know how easy it is for them to leave us).

The free range chickens are all laying hens, except for our dear rooster Louie, who has been with us since 6 weeks after we moved here. Our dogs haven't even lived here that long! Here is proud, beautiful Louie:



A number of hens tried to hatch out clutches this spring. One successfully hatched two out of the 10 or so she sat on, but we have not seen the chicks since they were 2 or 3 days old. We suspect coyotes again. We let this girl sit for more than three weeks and not one of them hatched. When Stephen finally kicked her out of the box he disposed of some very rotten (chick-less) eggs.



We have had a few successful hatch outs here in past years. This girl's birth Mama was a Black Australorp, and her Papa is Louie. If I remember correctly, her adoptive Mama was a Buff Orpington (maybe even the one above; this breed tends to be broody in spring). I think the mix turned out really cool in her feathering:



We got another round of meat chicks 4 weeks ago. Here they are on day 1, oh so cute:



And here they are a few days ago, almost 4 weeks old and getting pretty ugly as their feathers finish coming in:



You are seeing them in the porch of their brooder house. They will soon move to pasture in a portable hoop house, allowing them fresh air and fresh forage daily, while still protecting them from predators.

A few weeks ago the cows alerted us to a coyote sitting on the edge of some trees watching the chickens longingly. This was around 9:00am... pretty late in the day for a coyote.

The picture is a little odd, I know... the coyote can be seen in the upper left corner, and you can just make out a line of cows facing him (the playscape is what is in the way... it was impossible to get a clearer shot). Stephen estimates the coyote was about 150 yards away from the house.



We have had two more calves born in the past month. That brings the total for 2008 up to three. The most recent:



Our horse Joe discovered that Stephen had changed to chicken feed storage location. He broke the door in, helped himself to the feed, broke the feeders, and ate most of a bale of hay that was in the chicken house. Here's the door-less chicken house:



And, being spring in Texas, we've been enjoying the wildflowers. This year the field between our house and barn is filled with evening primroses:



Here is a close up of one my favorites, the wine cup:



With all this going on, you can see why I haven't done much posting lately!

Ouch!

Stephen "added a notch in my Texas belt" today when he got stung by a scorpion on the finger. Yes, been here for 13 years and it was his first scorpion ambush. He was helping Farmer Boy start a fire to cook some fish that FB had just caught when he got zapped in the hand.

His main concern? "I don't think I'm going to be able to play the piano tonight." But of course he did, because there isn't much that will keep him from the piano.

My dad is 73 today!

Three years ago I posted about my dad celebrating his 70th birthday on the road in the Outback of Australia.

Well, they're at it again, so happy 73rd birthday Dad!

Here are some adventures from a recent email. Keep in mind that he is celebrating his SEVENTY THIRD birthday...

"We have finally emerged from the remote outback, and this is the first chance we have had to get on the internet in about 10 days. We had a marvelous trip across the never-never.

The weather stayed quite good for us, although it had rained a few days before we went through, and we had to cross a few wet and watery places. We had seen some water mirages of the type we always see when it is hot on the roads in Texas, and as we were barreling along I said to Mom, 'There is another mirage,' and as we got closer it still looked like a mirage until SPLASH! - it wasn't a mirage! Fortunately I had suspected it might not be just before we got there so had slowed down enough that there was no problem.

The real outback part went from Warburton to the Carnegie Homestead, if you have your maps. The part up to the Heather Highway was very good, and the first half of the Heather was good too. Then when we made the turn onto the last half of the Heather things began to deteriorate quite fast. The corrugation was terrible. The track split in places in up to 4 different tracks trying to get less corrugation, and we'd try different ones, never sure we were on the best one. We hit a number of washouts where we would simply have to stop and get out and try to figure out what was the best way to get across them without tipping the campervan over - the angle we were in at times was quite scary. Usually Mom would get out and survey the place, break off branches if necessary, knock down parts of the bank so we wouldn't get hung up and then watch to see if I toppled the van over as I drove across. It was very exciting a number of times.

In places the spinifex grass was up to 4 feet high, both on the sides of the road and in the center of it, so you could hardly see the road at all - it was just 2 small tracks across the spinifex. In that area we averaged about 10-12 mph, and when we would get up to 18mph (30kph) we would be ecstatic.

In a distance of about 900 Km we passed only one vehicle. We know there was also one vehicle going the same way we were, but a day ahead of us. We never came across their bodies, so we assume they made it too. We stayed overnight at Everard Junction on that really bad stretch (it is circled on the map). It was amazingly lonely out there - no station or any organized life for at least 150 miles in any direction. That was the junction of the Gary Highway and the Gunbarrel Highway, but it was certainly unlike any highway junction you have ever seen - just grass and 2 small tracks as far as one could see. There were lots of holes in the ground, which were clearly homes for unknown creatures, and once it was dark we definitely did not venture out of the camper until it got light the next day.

The first few hours the next day were like the end of the previous day - very slow. Then about 100 Km before Carnegie Homestead the road got much better (the road we had been on up to then was "built" in the 1950s and had had absolutely no maintenance on it since then). At Carnegie Station we were able to get fuel (it costs about $8/gallon out there!), could take a shower, etc.

The next day we drove into Wiluna, the first town in almost 3 days - we were going to stay there, but it was not at all a friendly looking place so we drove another 180Km on unpaved, but good, road to Meekathara, which was a marvelous town of 2000. About 50Km out of Maakathara we came across a car stopped with 3 aborigine women and 2 men there. They asked us to stop, which we did. They had run out of fuel. They needed gasoline and we had diesel, so we could not help them. They had no food, so we gave them a half loaf of bread, a jar of peanut better and a large can of beans, which they really seemed to appreciate. They had plenty of water. We told them we would tell people in Meekathara about them, and as soon as we got into town we found the police and told them. What they did about it, I don't know, but the police thanked us for being so concerned and kind, and that made us feel a bit better.

We were then on pretty much paved road for the next almost 1000Km, except for a stretch of about 150 Km. Kalgoorlie is a big (30,000) town with all the comforts of home. We are going to celebrate our birthdays with a dinner in the best restaurant in town later today, and also we got an ensuite site at the campground (it has its own bathroom right outside the camper door). So we are now living it up! Kalgoorlie is a gold mining town, and we just visited the most huge mining pit I've ever seen. We've got pictures, etc. So that's about it for us. We've had great adventures and hope for a few more to go, but the worst (or best) is likely over."

Do I have the coolest parents or what?

Hymnal Project

Stephen has started a new project this week, recording hymns from the Episcopal hymn book. You can read about it and hear our first attempt at his new blog!

I will not doubt

This past year has been a year of much loss for our little family. We lost our income in July. We lost our beloved church home in August. We lost a precious little baby in September. We lost a restaurant opportunity that we had been working on for months, this February.

None of these things is yet resolved.

I was recently talking with some friends and one of them said to me, "Patti, you work harder than anyone I know. Yet your goals all seem so far away." She said it with the utmost love and compassion. It was true, and yet immediately I knew there was something not quite true about it.

And it hit me, so I said, "As hard as all this has been, my REAL goal is to end up in the arms of Jesus forever, and He is ever with me. No matter what has happened, or will happen, no matter how I feel, God is God is God is God, and He is constantly with me."

That is what I meant when I chose the title of this blog. My long journey is home into His arms. The adventures along the way are the stuff of my life.

I read this poem today and wanted to share it with you. It speaks so much to my heart and my circumstances, that I kept saying "Yes! Yes!" out loud as I read it:

I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea
Come drifting home with broken masts and sails;
I will believe the Hand that never fails,
From seeming evil works to good for me.
And though I weep because those sails are tattered,
Still will I cry, while my best hopes lie shattered:
"I trust in Thee."

I will not doubt, though all my prayers return
Unanswered from the still, white realm above;
I will believe it is an all-wise love
That has refused these things for which I yearn;
And though at times I cannot keep from grieving,
Yet the pure passion of my fixed believing
Undimmed will burn.

I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain,
And troubles swarm like bees about a hive.
I will believe the heights for which I strive
Are only reached by anguish and by pain;
And though I groan and writhe beneath my crosses,
Yet I will see through my severest losses
The greater gain

I will not doubt. Well anchored is this faith,
Like some staunch ship, my soul braves every gale;
So strong its courage that it will not fail
To face the mighty unknown sea of death.
Oh, may I cry, though body leaves the spirit,
"I do not doubt," so listening worlds may hear it,
With my last breath.

L.B.Cowman

Biscuit Brothers

On Wednesday evening we drove into Austin to the Biscuit Brothers' CD release party at Central Market.

The Princess, normally outgoing, was quite shy when she met "Buford", "Dusty" and "Buttermilk". I asked her about it later and she said, "Well, I was shy at first, but as soon as I said something I felt fine." Which was true. She got a signed cd, ate dinner and jammed out to the live music. A fine time was had by all.

Butterfly Boy

This past weekend, our friends invited us to join them at the annual Zilker Garden Festival in the Austin Botanical Gardens.

We had a great time, bought a bunch of plants, and snapped a colorful picture or two...

My love/hate relationship with chickens

Why I like having chickens:











"Did someone say 'Roadtrip'?!"



But sometimes, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Our front "flower" bed (that mulch used to be on the bed, and there isn't a single one of the dozen plus flowers the Princess planted left):



The front walk (note the POOP, and the ants... chickens don't eat ants, wah!):



Obviously (do a little math on the number of pictures I posted) I like chickens. But man are they frustrating sometimes.

If I could just get these animals to read the rule books!