Category: Farm

The Circle of Life

Last summer, two does stayed on or near our farm and each had twins. One doe had a thicket behind our barn and we would often see her leading her spotted fawns across the driveway and into the thicket. Sometimes, they would cross the road and go up on the hill behind our mailbox. The other doe was hiding out lower on the property with her two, but occasionally as the fawns got bigger, we would see the two does together with all 4 fawns tagging along.

The other evening, I was socially distance visiting with our neighbor who grew up here in the mountains, hunted, and loves to watch the wildlife. He has taught me so much about behaviors both of the animals and those that hunt them. I asked him when the does would run last year’s fawns off and he said they usually birth their young in May and if they have last year’s fawns still with them, they will separate from them just prior to having the new fawns.

As we were sitting down to dinner, I spotted 4 young deer coming up the field from the hay field, across the upper field and around one of the many huge rock piles. One by one they came through the tall grass right up into the area I just mowed yesterday and walked along the edge toward the creek. It appears that the 2 pair of twins have joined up for now as they finish learning the ropes into adulthood.

I waited to get up and take the photo until I was sure they wouldn’t spot my movement in the house.

In early spring, the flocks of turkey are large. We have seen up to 22 or 23 at a time. The toms strutting around posturing, other toms either challenging or moving away as the dominant one tried to get a hen.

The hens have all gone to nest now and we don’t see large flocks. One hen comes out of the edge of the woods, closer than these 4 were early spring when I took this shot, she feeds in the now tall grass then disappears back in the same direction. She must have a nest nearby. A pair of toms wander around in that back field feeding and if you are outside, you can hear them gobbling down there or over in the woods. The neighbor says a hunter will listen for them and move quietly toward them. This is “Gobbler” season, when they can hunt for the males, easily distinguished by the beard you can see on the one far right. Soon, we will see the hens herding a brood of poults along, cute as chicks when they are small and gangly and scruffy as they become adolescents.

As soon as it is warm enough to sleep with the windows open, we will hear the coyotes as they hunt for food at night. There will be lots of noise some evenings and we have been told they will often run male pups from last year off in the spring, though most coyote packs are matriarchal.

With spring, flower shoots sprout, the perennials filling out and greening, then buds form and flowers bloom. This morning, our first Bearded Iris bloomed, the old fashioned blue ones.

We no longer have a rooster, so we won’t have any chicks this year, but we are seeing nests of songbirds and some fledglings being fed on the porch rails, fence posts, or down in the yard.

It won’t be long before we see fawns and turkey chicks.

Cool, rainy days

Looking ahead at the next 10 days of weather, it looks like frost may be behind us. Today is much cooler than yesterday, but tonight the temperature doesn’t fall but a couple of degrees. Cool, rainy days are bread days. There is a loaf and a half of homemade bread in the freezer, but no more rolls for sandwiches that call for a roll rather than a slice. I pulled out the mixer and the dough bowl and made a batch of the sandwich roll recipe, dividing it into 8 rolls instead of 6 at the recommendation of a friend that made them after I did a couple weeks ago. They are a much better size. I also used half whole wheat flour with the all purpose to make them heartier an healthier.

And pizza dough rising for dinner.

My walk in the drizzle up to check for mail revealed the beautiful Dogwood at the top of the drive in full bloom, though they aren’t really, as it is just the colored modified leaves showing now, the real bloom in the center hasn’t opened yet.

On my way back down to the house, I saw the Momma Wren fly from her Barberry Bush nest so I took a peek.

Though the one in the garden failed, this wren has 5 hungry babies hidden away. I will leave them alone as I can see the nest from the utility room and will see as they get ready to fledge.

Yesterday, we went to the local nursery and though I tried to start my own pepper and tomatoes, they look puny and leggy, so I purchased my pepper and tomato starts for the garden. They are under the grow light with hardening off time when the wind and rain permit. I have tried numerous times to start my own starts and never had good results. The 14 starts are healthy and strong and cost less than the 4 packages of seed. I guess I should just plan on buying them each year. I wore a mask and was pleased that all the employees and other customers had on masks. They didn’t even handle my debit card and I had taken my own container to bring them home. Another couple of weeks and they will go in the garden. In the meantime, I need to finish the weeding and prep.

Return to Simpler Times

I have blogged in the past about being a bit hippy in the sense that I have always had a garden, been a recycler before it was popular or required, used up/reused before throwing away. Long before I met my husband, I cooked from scratch, baked my own bread, and was vegetarian by choice, though that aspect is more limited as he is a definite omnivore and cooking two different meals is too onerous. We do have meatless meals occasionally, I do make sides such as macaroni and cheese or au gratin potatoes that I can eat as my meal and he as a side. During my earlier days of omitting meat from my diet, I read several books, bought a couple. Only one of them has stayed in my library, a nutrition guideline and recipe book full of vital information and anecdotes of the lifestyle changes of the authors. The book is “Laurel’s Kitchen.”

My copy is 2 years older than our marriage, 4 years older than my eldest child, well worn, well loved, and cherished. Though I rarely refer to a recipe anymore in my cooking, it is still pulled off the shelf to check my intuition when returning to cooking something I have let lapse over time.

One of those processes that lapsed after the kids were grown and less bread consumed, was bread baking. By that time, artisan loaves and whole grain breads could be purchased in the grocer or at the Farmers’ Markets. With us at home and away from others, bread baking has returned to my routine. The internet has a wealth of recipes and instructions on “how to” but I love my old book. Yesterday, I blogged that with our Natural Foods Store doing email orders and no touch curbside delivery, I bought the fixings for a meatless Mediterranean dinner, but needed to make Pita. When I first moved into this home with hubby still working across the state, Son 1 and his family were living here with me and still doing interior work on the house. They were very amenable to meatless meals and both very good cooks, so we would buy Dolmas and olives, they would make hummus and tabbouleh, and I would make Pita bread and we would feast. I haven’t made Pita in at least a dozen years, but knew that when I made them then, the recipe did not come from the internet, but from my beloved book. This morning, I pulled it back off the shelf to refresh my memory. The recipe in the book makes 24 Pitas, or if half of the dough is formed into a loaf, a dozen Pitas and a loaf of bread. I may go for half a dozen Pitas, a loaf of bread and half a dozen sandwich rolls.

When I was making bread for our growing family, hubby bought me a giant pottery bowl.

I would mix up 3 or 4 loaves of bread, beating the dough with a large wooden spoon and breaking a few of them over the years as the dough got stiff. Kneading in more flour in the bowl by hand until the dough was not sticky and turning it on a floured board or counter to finish kneading it. At a craft fair at some point, hubby bought me a wooden dough bowl.

The final kneading and rising could be done in the bowl. It was all done by hand, but alas, a wrist break, wrist surgery, and arthritis make if nearly impossible to do the entire process by hand anymore. I can do the artisan type breads, but that dough doesn’t make good rolls or Pita so we bought me a Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

It is not a commercial grade one and it struggles toward the end of kneading dough, so it gets the bread started and then I turn it into the wooden dough bowl to do the final kneading and proofing. The dough is proofing covered in that precious wooden dough bowl as I write. Later it will be divided and prepared for baking the bread for dinner and meals later in the week. A slow down in time, a return to a simpler life. There is some good come from this staying at home.