Grateful for Every Gift

This has been a tough Summer. The Heavy Rains, Storms, Wind have given us drama we did not expect. We had exuberantly developed Garden plans, purchased our seeds and were all set to go. But the Weather has blown us a curve.

We Humans of this Culture seem to expect our plans will be fulfilled just the way we order them. Maybe that is a City Person's expectation. Or someone educated by this Culture. You work hard enough and you make it work. Well, not this summer, and not in this Garden.

Our Dear Garden has taken many hits. We 3 C's have had a difficult time watching plants struggle and go down. Many seemed like they were drowning. They just couldn't breathe. And there was not a thing we could do. One of the hardest things to deal with has been the smell. The last couple of days, certain parts of the Garden smelled like decay. It was better today. We surely have gotten a lesson on what works or doesn't work on an extremely wet cycle.

We had hoped to produce most of the food we will eat over the coming months. We are trimming back on that plan. We have decided to be grateful for every single piece of produce the Garden shares: every tomato, potato, onion and so on. Perhaps that is what we should be doing all along.

Our ambitious plan has a back-up which people did not have a century ago. My Croatian ancestors (Grandpa Kazimir and Grandma Dora Bloskovich) did not have the back-up in 1908. Due to shortages of food in their homeland of Austria-Hungary, they had to leave. Yes, they had to leave. Our back-up plan is also not necessarily available to a lot of other people around the world and for many who live right here in this County. That back-up plan is the Grocery Store.

We could finally get into the potatoes today. Some were rotting in the ground. Others were sticking above the Soil because of the Rains. We have no idea how many we have lost or will lose. We are actually having to take them from the Garden before they are ready. Melanie and Richard washed them. They then laid them out on the floor of the basement. We also picked Peaches and continued the processing. Freezing is the order of the day. Melanie is gathering cucumbers. She will be making Dill Pickles very soon. Richard canned Green Beans yesterday.

Yep. We are grateful for every single one of those gifts the Earth gives to us.

Peaches

I am not quite sure where I thought Peaches came from. I guess I thought they came in boxes all of the same size and mostly ready to do with at my will. After all those years, I am pretty sure I thought they came from the Grocery Store, or perhaps from some Big Shiny Semi Truck which came from way far away at (I now know) about 4-6 miles per gallon. Those Peaches were available generally at my demand during the range of peach seasons in places far away. Somehow my thinking on these things seems like a life time ago.

For the 1st time ever, we 3 C's have our very own Peach Tree. This year, we have watched those precious Peaches grow right here on our Little Farm: from lovely pink Blossoms communing with Happy Busy Bees, to tiny grey green fruit in fuzzy pajamas, to Blushing Fruit on the heavily pregnant Mrs. Peach Tree.

We picked quite a few a couple of days ago. Mostly, they weren't quite ripe. This Rain, Wind, and Hail has made us a bit edgy. We know such things would be challenge to the Tender, Ripening Fruit. We did not want to lose them so began to remove them from the Tree. We tried to be mindful to thank Mrs. Peach Tree and the Earth for these amazing gifts.

On this day, the Peaches are ready to "work". We have 1st separated out the bruised ones, cut them up and placed them in bags for the Freezer (later for Pies, Sorbet, French Toast, who knows what culinary wonders).

We will be calling some Folks to say we have some to share. The Peaches are a bit on the small order. Some have a few little black spots. They are very good. You bite into a ripe one and the juice just explodes in your mouth and starts to flow down your arm. With Peaches in season, they are going fast.

We Haven't Seen Anything Like it

Folks in these parts are talking about the unusually wet summer with Thunderstorms and Big Rains we’ve received. It seems like we have had one deluge and one intense storm after another.

Just last week (July 24-25), we had 13 inches of Rain in 25 hours. During the Night, we had continual Lightning and Thunder with close Strikes all around. Then July 27-28, we got another 2 ¾ inches.

With these 2 rains, flooding has hit places that had not been touched in recent memory. Folks had water in basements. Gardens, Roads, Ponds were stretched and many took hits. This time of Storms was coupled with 3 weeks of heavy rains and storms in June.

Just today, Melanie and I noticed that the ground was wet and soggy everywhere we went. Sometimes we could hear a “sucking sound”.

During these past few years, I have visited with many people who make their homes in other parts of this Beautiful Earth. Similar themes resound. Weather Patterns have changed. Storms seem more frequent and more severe. Winters don't seem to last as long. Migratory Birds are sighted far out of range, sparking trips by enthusiastic Birders to remote spots. It's easy to get caught up on the details and to forget to poke a little deeper on the "why" of these things.

People talk about these changes sometimes in vigorous and at other times hushed tones. Often the conversation touches on awe. Other times it is inconvenience. Sometimes there are glimpses of fear. What is going on?

"Global Warming" comes up. Many are quick to discount it, particularly those with vested interests in another agenda or those who prefer not to look at tough questions of life style changes needed by Humans.

But the data on record by scientists worldwide is coming in hard and fast. Global Warming is real and it is happening at a faster pace than originally thought. Those data carefully recorded by scientists are being confirmed by people watching dramatic shifts in weather patterns in the place they call home.

We just received the Summer 2008 issue of the Leopold Outlook, a publication of the Aldo Leopold Foundation. This courageous and insightful publication arises out of the work of esteemed conservationist Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) and is designed to "reaffirm our connections to the land, and to explore what we could do individually and in partnerships to conserve the health of the land that sustains us all" (Buddy Huffaker, Executive Director, page 3).

An article by David Orr strikes a chord. Orr sites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the 1000 plus scientists who study climate from positions of authenticity, replicability, data, facts, and logic. This esteemed group, a recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, sites that a hotter world will have many consequences, with rising odds of (page 5):

• More heat waves and droughts
• More and larger storms,
• Bigger hurricanes,
• Forest dieback,
• Changing ecosystems,
• More tropical diseases in formerly temerpate areas,
• Rising ocean levels probably a lot faster than once thought,
• Losing many things nature once did for us,
• Lots of things becoming rare, like Vermont maple syrup,
• More and nastier bugs,
• Food shortages from drought, heat and more and nastier bugs,
• More death from climate driven weather events,
• Refugees fleeing floods, rising seas, drought, and expanding deserts,
• International conflicts over energy, food, and water,
• And eventually, runaway climate change to some new stable state most likely without humans.

Global Warming isn't happening as an accident of Nature. Rather, Global Warming can be traced to one species: Humans. Us. It can be traced to Humans who treat the Earth as object, the Earth as endless resource. It can be traced to Humans who use the Earth and Her resources as if we are independent of Her Laws and as if there will be no consequences of our actions. Global Warming is traced to those industrialized nations whose affluent citizens aspire to a material lifestyle which fulfills their insatiable wants.

O.K. It is easy to point fingers. But it is far more important to look at how our individual actions contribute to Global Warming and take on practices which will change them. That is the bedrock of our decision to move to this little Farm. We want to lessen our footprint on this Earth. We want to develop a more sustainable life style. We want future generations to look back at us and know that in the face of these things, we tried.

Is that easy? No. But we 3 C’s believe it is the foremost work of our time.

Heavenly Angel Food Cake

Today is Rachel Long's Birthday. We invited she and Eric Bell to the Farm for a Birthday Dinner. His Birthday was yesterday. As is custom in our family, the Birthday Guest (and in this case Guests) get to decide the meal. Eric said he wanted to make a special dessert he remembered from his Grandma. That requires an Angel Food Cake.

So he and I have been making an Angel Food Cake this afternoon. Such desserts present a number of challenges and they were surely from Kitchens of Wizards of Considerable Skill. You can't buy the old Angel Food Cakes which were standard fare of those Cooks just a few decades ago. Today's store bought mixes, eggs which don't hold volume, and store bought cakes just don't cut it.

In this case, we used Grandma Crawford's (Ethel May Kirkpatrick Crawford) Recipe, which is above. I got this from her in about 1966. I can tell because I wrote "Mrs. Crawford", which was before Richard and I got married in 1966. I loved to cook and I was busy collecting recipes then.

As I think about Eric and my little experiment today, I smile. Somehow, I think his Grandma (whom I have never met) and Melanie's Grandma would be pleased.

The volume of the Cake is everything. Egg Whites are the base for volume and they must be treated very very carefully. Some little tricks of the trade to enhance volume would include:

• Use Farm Eggs from Free Range Chickens (like Grandma Crawford raised).
• Use Eggs that are not too fresh, but rather a few days old.
• Make sure all equipment is clean, as oil, specks of food will reduce volume.
• Use cold or cool Eggs as the yolk will more likely stay intact.
• When you separate the Egg whites from the yolks, do not allow any Egg yolk (even specks) into Egg whites.
• Let Egg whites stand to room temperature and then begin to beat.
• Follow Grandma's instructions (above) for adding ingredients.
• Use Cake Flour, not regular flour.
• Triple sift flour before measuring, and later the flour and sugar mixture. We do not have a Triple Sifter. In fact, I have not seen one recently. We use a strainer with wire mess instead.
• Fold in flour and sugar very carefully. Use a spatula and a "cutting motion". Do not over-stir.
• Do not oil or grease Angel Food Cake pan. This allows the Cake to "crawl up" the pan as it rises.
• When removing Cake from oven, invert Cake to cool.

I chuckle when I think about all of these details. The Old Timers knew such things and they followed them to a "T". When they were making these sophisticated culinary treasures for their families and friends, they were also busy gardening, canning, freezing, tending their kids, feeding their families, making quilts for those they knew, reading the Capper's Weekly, and keeping up with their extended family, friends and community. We think we are busy.

Getting back to the Cake of the Day, I hadn't made an Angel Food Cake in years, until we moved to this little Farm. You can't have a Farm without making Angel Food Cakes. I have to admit that this cake had the highest volume of any I have made this past year. I attribute this to the triple sifting of the flour prior to measurement and the flour and sugar. Before this, I thought I could sneak by.

As the Cake was cooling from its prestigious inverted spot on 3 cups, the beautiful cake fell from the pan. Eric watch it and heard it go thunk. This was a 1st for me. I have never had that happen before. I am wondering if the cake was not quite done...

My family is very forgiving about such things. They stand beside me as I continue my experimenting. They are ready and able for the next time I am ready for a test. This cake is actually just perfect for Eric's recipe as it calls for breaking the cake apart and putting it with Chocolate Pudding and Whipped Cream. Melanie and Eric are making the Chocolate Pudding from scratch as I write this Blog entry.

Yummy... The Slow Food Movement is alive and well on Butterfly Hill Farm. (Resources: 1, 2, 3)Happy Birthday Rachel and Eric!

More Rain

We had Thunderstorms last evening. We had Rain most of the Night for a total of 2 3/4 inches by 9:30 a.m. this morning.

This is another of our Multi-Functional Rain Gages with our Multi-Functional Handy Dandy Measuring Device. Some folks have to have a Fancy Schmancy Rain Gage which means they have to head to some shopping event to buy something that will break in no time. Not Us. For a lot of things, we just like to make do. It's fun. It's creative. It's cheaper. We get a big smile out of it too.

A lot of places on this vast Earth are drought stricken and that is very serious stuff. People in these parts talk about the drought of the last few years. That seems to be over.

We 3 C's know that Weather and Climate Patterns of this Great Earth which is our Home have shifted due to Human Activity. In a nutshell, that is Global Warming in particular. For our Friends in areas of drought:

• We try not to complain about the Rain.
• We know everything has a purpose, for which we may have no clue.
• We know that we are here to learn and grow.
• We try to be open to the teachings.
• We limit our behaviors so that we contribute the least to Global Warming.
• I hope you Folks out there are doing the same.

Enough

In the midst of challenges of this growing season (including the heavy Rains last Thursday and Friday), I look at our Garden and I see all the things that could have been. We had a plan and Nature had another plan.

Many of the Sunflowers are tilted or down. Many of the Potatoes are exposed from their tidy homes in the Soil. A small percentage of the Tomatoes don't have the leaves they need to protect their fruit from the Sun. We have lost to wilt some of the Cucumbers, Brussels Sprouts, and my decorative Gourds. I guess some things are just not meant to be.

Why is it that People in my Culture always focus on wanting more? We seem to driven to go after more, more, more. Big, bigger, biggest. We seem to hold as sacrosanct our Human plans. Why cannot we simply feel and say: "I am deeply grateful for what I have." "I have enough."

Yes, we 3 C's have enough and we are deeply grateful for what we have. We have each other. We have this beautiful little Farm. And a whole lot more.

On the Gardening side, Farmers always have plans. Nature also has plans. When these plans are in conflict, Nature always holds the winning cards.

I look at all we have in the Garden and I smile. Mrs. Peach Tree is loaded with beautiful Fruit which is beginning to have that lovely fresh Peach aroma which signals the hot summer season. We have sampled a few on the ground and they are wonderful. If all goes well, we should have Peaches for freezing, canning and sharing in the coming days.

We have a variety of Potatoes and they are simply great. We have had enough Peas to munch on for snacks and to have stocked in the freezer for the coming days. Most recently, we have lost some of the Blackberry crop to the heavy Rains, but we had the best pie last night (with Vanilla Ice Cream and Lemon Curd Sauce). And we will have more Blackberries to freeze and make into syrup and jam, assuming all goes well. That's a biggy: "Assuming all goes well".

Melanie has a load of Peppermint drying in the dehydrator. We will be having some wonderful tea. The Zinnias are a riot of color. We have plenty to enjoy and share.

From this beautiful bounty of our Garden and the Earth, we are deeply grateful for all that we have and will have. We have enough.

Rain, Rain, More Rain

July 25:Yep... Our Official 5 Gallon Pickle Bucket Rain Gage recorded an unofficial 13 inches of Rain on the fence just outside the Little Rooster Pen from daybreak July 24 until 7 a.m. July 25.We are told more official Adair County records in Kirksville (some miles away) showed 12 inches. Whatever you call it, that was a long Day and an even longer Night.

We are pretty certain of the accuracy of our Accidental Rain Gage. Of course there is some margin for error. The Rain Gage sits on the fence outside the Little Roosters' Pen. In this location, it is away from Trees, Structures, and such which might influence its recording. We feel affirmed that reports from this end of the County received higher amounts than in town. For your information, the Accidental Rain Gage is actually a 5 gallon Green Pickle Bucket which has a multitude of other uses, unlike conventional Rain Gages.

Most of the Rain came Thursday night and Friday early in the morning. We surely must have been in a long line of Thunderstorms that continued to dump on the area. Folks tell us that such volumes of Rains are highly uncommon in these parts. In fact, late July usually has little Rain and thus a late Summer brown color.

During the night, it poured. Sometimes we would have a lull with lighter Rain, but very shortly thereafter, the Skies would just pour. The Lightning was intense and actually quite beautiful. It was continuous, Cloud to Cloud, and Cloud to Ground. We had several Strikes and Thunder Booms almost simultaneously. There was little Wind, until the end. Wind is especially problematic for Plants who are tall or can't get a grip in Soupy Soils. It was a Night of Little Sleep, at least for me.

We did some walkabouts in the Garden in the Morning and Afternoon. We had full buckets in the Garden verifying similar results. Preliminary looks in the Garden show some damage but it really is too early to tell. It will take a while until we can get out into it. We are exceedingly grateful that the damage was not so great.

• The Sorghum Cane looks very good overall. Again, roots are exposed. Some have taken a tumble but most are upright. Yea! (Photos 1 & 2)
• The Soil is back to the Chocolate Pudding stage.
• Open Soil shifted "downstream". That which was covered by Plants and protected by their extensive roots stayed pretty close. (Photo 3)
• Some Onions are about washed out of the Soil. (Photo 3)
• Paths in the Garden worked well to channel water, seemingly decreasing damage.
• Sunflowers took a hit. Many of their roots are exposed. Some will be OK. Others we will lose. This has definitely not been a Sunflower year, at least so far. (Photos 4 & 5)
• We had wilt with the Brussels Sprouts but they perked back up when they were out of the Sun.
• Some Potatoes are exposed. (Photo 6)
• We will not know the complete effects until the coming days and weeks. Nature is resilient and robust. Damage to roots and sitting in damp Soils can set up challenges. We are here to learn.

Notes: The 2 pictures are especially intended for Hollis and Deleta. This is Sorghum Cane, one of 2 crops the Crawford family will be using for the making of Molasses in September. So far, the Cane looks pretty good. Again those fine roots are exposed. More Rain is predicted the next few days. Time will tell. I guess, as always, it really is out of our hands. We will do the best we can.