Feed Me Farms

Extreme Sadness....Extreme Happiness

2011-02-28T23:10:00.000-06:00

I have found that living on a farm and ranch amplifies the circle of life and death. At first, it's easy to see the negative aspect of that statement. As I reach deeper to find meaning in what I'm about to write, my emotions get the best of me and tears fall, not just in sorrow, but in happiness too. I have found that those two emotions go hand in hand. You truly cannot feel one, without feeling the other.

Last Monday was one of the saddest I have experienced here on the farm, another death, and this time it was murder. Two years ago, I brought home a bunch of day old chicks from the local tractor supply store. I picked out two of each kind they had, so I ended up with a hodge podge breeds. I will confess, I was never a chicken lover. I suffered salmonella poisoning not one, not two, but three times due to chicken. So I can honestly say, I had no idea that I would fall head over heels for these little fluffs of feathers.

One hen, more than any other, stood out from the flock as they grew up happy and healthy running around the barn, pasture and garden. It was not just her striking black and white plumage, or her Polish wig feathers, it was her personality. We fondly named her Cruella Deville, the character from one of my favorite childhood Disney movies due to her crazy looking head dress.

Cruella thought she was more of a dog than a chicken, I'm sure of it. She would come to us when we called her. She would vocalize happily when she heard or saw us , and would want to be picked up and carried around for a free ride from one place to another. She was the queen of the coop. The roosters were even put in their place by her. She was smart, and for those who have had chickens, you know that "smart" is not always a word that best describes them. She is the first and only chicken, I had ever kissed.

Our flock only go into a coop at night for their safety, otherwise, they are free to roam during the day. They love their freedom. You can see them from the back porch and the side porch busily going back and forth, one minute out by the barn, the next up by the cows in the front pasture and then ending their day nearby the coop in the organic garden area. It is not idyllic as we have lost a few of them to everyday tragedy, a drowning in a trough, a raid by a neighbors dog, 2 stray cat attacks and the various mysterious attack from time to time. In the very beginning we even lost a few to an attack in the coop, but we had modified it over the years to make it more secure, but alas nothing is forever.

The murders began last Friday, I came home to find two of my Guineas dead, one near the coop and one in the pasture. We trapped a raccoon in our live trap and thought we had caught the culprit. That night our coop was raided again (we didn't know how) and a few of my hens were killed. Andy worked on the coop the next morning and thought he had found an area of wire mesh where something might have gotten in, he quickly fixed it. We awoke in the middle of the night on Saturday to the sound of our dogs barking...went outside and found another raccoon in the coop. This time Andy watched him run to the back of the coop and pop out the back. He had been gaining entry through the top, where he had managed to undo a wired shut latch.

After securing the coop one more time, we were sure that all was well. We even delivered several dozen of our eggs to friends in the city that Sunday evening, as they are coveted by our foodie city dwelling friends. But alas, Monday morning turned out to be the saddest day of all. Our mare Star came to us with a newborn foal and a surprise pregnancy from her previous home. Our yearling Skully was born last year in February, so I knew the new foal would be here any day. Every morning I would go out and check on her to see when we would need to place her in the barn by herself for the impending birth. I was thinking about the horses on this very windy morning and had no idea what I was about to encounter.

As I walked past the coop on the way to the barn, I saw that there was a cat in the live trap. It was a Persian that we had seen roaming around on our property. I suspected she had been dumped by her city family, as countless other domestic house pets get dumped out in the country. It's a sad situation for all involved. Most farmers shoot stray animals that come onto their property. Lucky for this cat, we have enough compassion to know that this was once someones pet. Instead of shooting her, we were taking her to the local feed store. The owner there would give her a new home to help with mice control in the feed warehouse. I was so glad we had caught her, because now I felt like we had possibly solved the flock murders (both inside the coop and out). People should NEVER dump their animals out in the country, their chances of survival are slim and they can cause heartache to others. More free range chickens are killed by dogs and cats than any wild animal.

I took the trap with the cat in it and moved it out of the wind, Andy could transport her later to the feed store. I then opened the coop and my heart hurt. Cruella was in the bottom of the coop, not much was left of her, but I recognized her beautiful feathers. I never thought I could cry so much for a chicken, but to me she was my pet. I loved her so and she was the life of the flock. Oh how guilty I felt, as we had not protected her enough. How could the coop still be unsafe? It's still so hard to talk about that I'm sobbing trying to write about this coherently. Cruella, you will always have a special place in my heart. You changed my mind about chickens and I thank you for that.

But wait, this entry was about extreme sadness but also extreme happiness. After four days of sadness, a bright spot of happiness emerged on the farm. She came in the form of all legs and long ears. Star had a real surprise for us in the wee hours of Thursday, February 24th. She delivered a beautiful paint filly. My heart once again was filled with love. Love for a newborn, born healthy and full of spirit. Star is a beautiful chestnut paint and so is Skully, her first colt. This newborn completely surprised us as she is a beautiful dark silver and white (possibly turning to black & white), reminding me of another pet that we just laid to rest. The world really does work in mysterious ways.

Welcome Yoshimi translation "Beautiful Reason" in Japanese. We named you for our love of music, an homage to The Flaming Lips for uniting us, for better or for worse. This past week we have experienced both. Extreme sadness, extreme happiness for better or worse and so life and death continues here on the farm.

Our 2010/2011 Freakout Flaming Lips Wedding! Yes, we are THAT couple!

2011-01-31T12:41:00.000-06:00

Michelle Coyne captures our bliss

Miss me? I've been busy for a few months, but I have a fantastic and unbelievable excuse. The last time I blogged I had a different last name. My cowboy artist and I tied the knot over the New Year's holiday. Yep, we did it....not once, but twice! And we did it in a big way, a big flaming freakout way (thanks to Wayne & Michelle Coyne and The Flaming Lips).

My skull and Michelle's

Last January after attending the annual New Year's Eve Flaming Lips Freakout in Oklahoma City, I started the year by blogging about Wayne Coyne and The Flaming Lips http://www.feedmefarms.com/2010/01/inspired-by-flaming-lips-at-feed-me.html and how his words inspired me to write my new year resolutions for 2010. I lived my life (as much as I could) by those resolutions and my year was flaming fantastic. The power of positive thinking is contagious when you surround yourself and others with love.** for 2010 resolutions, click on above link**

Wayne & Andy after plan was hatched

This is not to say that 2010 was a breeze. We experienced a few hardships, a few deaths, the loss of our crops and a very restricted budget. Instead of getting bogged down in what we didn't have, we made due with what we do have, things like : love, laughter, our animals and each other. As I reflect on the past year, it was full of surprises and adventures ~ the biggest adventure, our journey to unholy matrimony!

us as flaming skeletons

How did we manage to get Wayne Coyne to marry us on stage you ask? Answer: we just asked him. That's the kind of man he is. He is the most positive creature I have ever met and I told Andy that if we ever got married, I wanted Wayne Coyne to perform the ceremony. I didn't expect it to be in front of 10,000 screaming fans and broadcast live around the world on rollingstone.com, but hey, it happened!

Our favorite holiday is Halloween and we had promised ourselves that we would participate in Wayne's wild Halloween parade "March of 1000 Flaming Skeletons", so we packed our skull make-up, bought our skeleton costumes and hit the road for the five hour drive to Oklahoma City (a road we know well because of Flaming Lips events).

On the way there, we crafted a note to give to Wayne if we had a chance to talk to him. We tried to make it short and funny. I tucked it safely into my skeleton costume and waited for the perfect chance to hand it to him. That chance never came, as luck would have it, something better happened.

It's a good thing that Andy and I are the self proclaimed king and queen of costumes and face make-up. Our outfits caught Michelle Coyne's photographer eyes and as she was snapping our photos for her incredible art book projects, I asked for a favor. I told her our crazy wedding request and asked if she could help us out. She smiled and said, just go over and ask Wayne, I think he might like that idea.

our psychedelic wedding scroll

So, armed with a shot of Michelle's confidence, we approached Wayne while he was hanging out by the prop truck. To our surprise, he said "yes", he liked the idea and "did I text?". Of course I said "yes, Wayne I text". He then asked for a pen and paper, wrote down his private number and said "text me, text me alot" and that was that. I texted him. I texted him "not" alot , but enough to hatch the wedding plan. He texted us from Oklahoma to Asia and back. Every time I received a text, I still could'nt believe that it was really him on the other end. Who does this for a couple of fans? How incredible that this was actually going to happen.

We spent the end of November and the rest of December assembling our unusual wedding attire. We had decided that we needed a festive illuminated look for a proper freakout wedding. I settled on a vintage "Dolly Parton on Acid" concoction and Andy a psychedelic cowboy. We ordered hundreds of LED lights (thank you China) and spent hours attaching them to our clothes.

The proclamation

Andy painted a beautiful wedding scroll combining Flaming Lips colors with our hand prints made into chickens (symbolizing our farm life) alien watermelons and Oddfellows imagery (symbolizing our association and commitment of leading a benevolent existence). I wrote a proclamation partly based on the Flaming Lips song "Do You Realize" and partly based on the coroner's scene from one of my favorite childhood movies "The Wizard of Oz".

We drove up the day before the show and got settled in to the beautiful, historic Skirvin Hotel. Wayne asked us to let him know when we got there. He asked if we could do a sound rehearsal with the band and go over the final details. After getting over the excitement of being invited to the rehearsal, we made our way to the back staging area of the Cox center a block from our hotel.

Wayne loves the scroll at rehearsal

Wayne jokes about f&%king up

Wayne greeted us warmly and we unveiled the wedding scroll. We spent the next few minutes pondering Wayne's worries about the nasty commercial chicken farm industry.Wayne re-counted the story of being behind a giant live chicken hauling truck with freezing chickens all huddled up. He was happy to learn that our chickens were free thinkers and free range roamers (btw-I loved this conversation). After we discussed farming and giant disco ball fabrication (trust me, it went with the chicken story), we got down to business. Our initial intention was to get married after midnight on 1*1*11 but Wayne thought the wedding would set the mood of the evening and decided to do it three songs in as a segue to "She Don't Use Jelly" (one of my favorite songs).

Mr. Bear practices being our escort

Wayne also had a few surprises up his sleeve, like adding a bear to the festivities. Yes, that's right, you heard me...Mr. Bear would be our escort down the aisle ~ a perfect whimsical touch, that only someone like Wayne, would think of! And a confetti gun and chords of their haunting "Firebird Suite" as an impromptu wedding march. Magical! We practiced several times and felt like we all had it down.

The harp arrives on stage

That night we participated in all the pre-show preparations and we got to see the immense amount of work that goes into a Flaming Lips performance. We even had cake and sang happy birthday to the sound man's daughter ,who happens to be the Coyne's God daughter and had been born during last New Year's Eve Freakout. Everyone from volunteers blowing up giant balloons with leaf blowers to the roadies were in constant motion, Wayne the grand master puppeteer orchestrating even the minor details.We had a magical moment with the band when the harp was delivered on stage. They all loved it, but Wayne seemed to love it most of all. I snapped my favorite photo of the evening when he sat down to tickle the strings. He was most proud of the bright yellow molded plexi-glass made by a local OKC artist.

My favorite pic of Wayne

After the rehearsal, Andy and I ducked out and grabbed a drink at a tiny local pub in Bricktown. We walked hand in hand marveling at the details of our impending nuptials. On foot, on the way back to the hotel, the skies opened up and a hard downpour of rain and sleet began to fall. We actually took this as a good omen, this same exact thing happened on our first real date three years earlier. We barely slept that night with anticipation.

We went out for lunch the next day and the waitress told us she read about our wedding plans in the paper, turns out a newspaper woman we had befriended during the March of 1000 Flaming Skeletons had put a blurb in the Oklahoma Gazette http://npaper-wehaa.com/oklahoma-gazette/2010/12/29/?article=1124899 in the Chicken-Fried-News section.

Wayne is a perfectionist and delivers the maximum amount of entertainment to his fans, it wasn't a surprise to receive a phone call at 3:00 PM on the day of the show to run over and practice the ceremony one more time. We ran through the proclamation and Wayne joked about messing up on something silly, like a name (a self fulfilling prophecy). Here is the rehearsal footage where he gets it right http://www.facebook.com/posted.php#!/video/video.php?v=488731807851&comments

FOX news interview

All of our friends arrived the next day, and many of them decided to dress up in costume and wear illuminated outfits. We were greeted in the lobby of the hotel by FOX news reporters who had followed one of friends dressed as the silver God Mercury. Next thing you know,we were the lead story on the evening news. This was only the beginning of our incredible night.

the wedding party

we are glowing

The concert began and there was no turning back (not that we wanted to), but the night took on a dream like quality as we were treated like VIPs backstage. There are no words to describe the feeling I had when Mr. Bear came to get us and escorted us on stage. Wayne greeted us with a huge smile and for the moment, it felt like only us and him in the stadium. It was a touching and enchanting moment. We even had to laugh when Wayne fulfilled his own prophecy and called me "Sarah" instead of "Sandra"....oh well, I joked afterward with Andy..you married the "wrong" woman. Later backstage, Wayne hugged us tight and congratulated us just after midnight. You can watch one of many videos that was taken by the crowd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXX9-G77yxk (close-up). Here is the entire ceremony captured by our friend Jason in the audience http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cam62NFYiKw . There were hundreds of videos being shot all at once, including the livestream on rollingstone.com worldwide. Not many people can say they had thousands of balloons and hundreds of pounds of confetti at their wedding reception. We also had the BEST WEDDING BAND ever!

our reception

the moment

We finally joined our dear friends in the audience, who had made the long drive to share in our moment. We got to watch the second portion of the show, the amazing "Soft Bulletin" album set surrounded by friends and well wishers. Every few minutes, fans would come up to congratulate us and ask for a picture. We became instant celebrities for a brief period, even after the concert was over, it took forever to get back to the hotel because of the happy concert goers who wanted to stop and wish us happy new year and happy wedding. Here is an incredible time elapsed video that was mounted at the top of the Cox Center that captures the entire concert process from set up, rehearsal, actual show and breakdown in two minutes (it's amazing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYdUsN8xR00.

the wedding walk

We spent 1*1*11 at a Chinese restaurant with old and new friends (lucky new year tradition) and signed our official wedding document with Jason Cohen, dear friend and universal life ordained minister. It may have gotten a little soy sauce on it, but that just makes it even more special. Our wedding, in our eyes, was perfection. This is an open thank you to all who made it possible (all 10,000 of you).

Rev. Jason making us legit

Happy 2011! Wishing everyone love, happiness and many Flaming Lips moments!

xoxox,

Mrs. S.B. Emmons

Life, Death and a Little of Everything in Between!

2010-11-06T18:42:00.000-05:00

I have not posted since the end of August...really? I'm shocked at how time flies when you are living life, and unlike most people, dreading Fridays. The last few months of Fridays have proven to be very unlucky, even though not one of them was on the 13th.

The first Friday in question began as a very joyous occasion. Our Sicilian donkey had given birth to a beautiful, although tiny baby Jack. I came home from the museum and found him in the pasture. I knew he was a few hours old because he was dry and perfectly clean. Dusty (the momma) was nearby but was not acting as maternal as she had with Pearl (her Jenny that she had the previous year).

I ran back to the house and got my cowboy to come and take a look. There seemed to be something wrong with this beautiful little bundle of fur. He had extra soft hoofs, a problem with his tiny jaw and he could not stand on his own. We debated what to do, in the end, we scooped him up and took him to the barn, Dusty in tow.

We made him a fresh bed of hay and placed him in the middle. I decided to grab a chair and sit on the other side of the gate and observe momma and baby for awhile. The scenario that I envisioned never played out. The baby never stood up, never attempted to nurse and I knew in my heart that it did not look good. I knew after a few hours that this little boy needed colostrum or else he would die, he also needed a vet but it was 11:00 PM on a Friday night.

We worked throughout the night giving him powdered colostrum with a special bottle (he just would not suckle) and some electrolyte gel. Thank goodness we have a vet 30 miles away who has office visits on Saturday. Dr. Bennett did what he could, taught us how to intubate and feed him goat's milk (second best thing when equine milk is not available) but said he felt like chances were slim. Upon examination he noticed that the baby's mouth was very swollen and felt like he had been injured during delivery (fallen on his head).

Dr. Bennett was right, our little donkey left this earth behind 24 hours after his arrival. Even though he was with us for such a short period of time, it was very hard to say goodbye. To make matters worse, our little Banty Polish rooster, Bad Ass (named for his personality) met a mysterious death inside the open coop in the middle of the day. My tears flowed freely for both, one innocent and one "bad ass" both gone in a blink of an eye.

At sundown, we buried the donkey near my beloved dog P.I.B with all of our donkeys in attendance. We fed all the donkey relatives some treats and included a few in his little resting spot. Goodbye boys, may you both have sunsets in other skies.

The next Friday arrives without a thought. Again, I arrived home from the museum and my ritual is to whistle for all the animals. On a normal evening, they all come running for treats. Our horses are usually in the corral yard and the bottle fed cows in the pasture next to the barn. On this day they were all intermingled (a gate had blown open a while earlier).

this is after the 2nd day

I noticed immediately that Skully, our 6 month old colt was standing out in the pasture with an odd stance. At first, I chalked it up to him being in an unfamiliar pasture but as I observed a few minutes, I just knew something was really wrong. I thought he might have his hoof caught in a hole or maybe a snake had bitten him. We decided to investigate. What we found was horrific.

You have to remember, I'm a city girl and farm and ranch emergencies can sometimes involve mass amounts of blood. This one was no exception. My beautiful handsome colt was in shock and precariously close to passing out, I have to say, so was I. Skully's left upper leg and shoulder were ripped apart. I really thought he had been attacked by a bobcat but later, we learned he had been gored by our miniature bull.

Again, a Friday night, again, no vet. This is when experienced neighbors come in real handy and this night was no exception. Tonya Anderson, a high school friend of my cowboy lives a few miles away and she is an experienced horse after care specialist. She rushed over with her son and took charge of the situation.

She was able to lead Skully to the barn, his injured leg dragging but functional. Skully had never been harnessed, so this was a hurdle for all of us. Tonya instructed us to begin hydrotherapy http://www.equinenaturaltherapy.com/equine_hydrotherapy.htm as soon as possible. She also wanted to apply a product called Pink Lady http://www.shanestack.com/shop/index.php?page=shop-flypage-25778, a wound dressing that would help stop the bleeding and help to heal the injury.

wound after 2 months

I believe Tonya saved Skully's life that Friday night with those two very important instructions. Again, thank goodness for Dr. Bennett and his Saturday morning appointments. Even though we could not take Skully into him because of the gravity of his injury (it would have been impossible to load him on a trailer), he was able to treat him through technology. I took pictures of the wound and rushed over to his office. He gave me a tetanus/penicillin injection to administer and some puffer antibiotics along with wound spray to keep insects away.

We also had another vet who does barn calls come out to look at Skully as soon as he could (which turned out to be two days later). He added edible antibiotic powder to his feed for 10 days and painkiller paste. He said that Skully was one very lucky horse, if he had been gored one inch over towards his artery, he would have bled to death. As it was, Dr. Bonner was very worried about permanent nerve damage. The swelling was so bad in the beginning that it was affecting Skully's ability to walk and all he could do was drag his foot. As soon as the swelling went down (about two weeks, he was walking and cantering without even a minor limp).

So, for the last two months we have been caring for our horse's wound twice daily with the following regime:

1) Administer a tetanus/penicillin shot as soon as you can. Secure the horse to a post near a high pressured water hose. Give the horse a bucket of tasty oats to distract him, add antibiotic powder and painkiller paste if vet recommended. Begin spraying the wound on low and gradually increase the pressure to as much as the horse will tolerate. The goal is to make the wound bleed profusely. This actually helps regenerate the tissue. It's important to hydrotherapy for at least 12 to 15 minutes per session twice a day for the first month. Eventually, it will be harder and harder to make the wound bleed.

2) Apply Pink Lady for the first couple of days after each hydrotherapy session. Once the bottle of Pink Lady has ended begin applying the puffer antibiotics (just squeeze the fine powder all over the wound). Use the wound spray lightly, it is primarily to keep insects from contaminating the open wound.

3) The wound will begin to fill in, although this process can take a lot of time so be very patient. Watch for fever (around the wound or checking the horses ears), infection is the worst thing that can happen. It's normal for some discharge but if the wound looks infected, contact a vet as soon as possible.

We are so thankful for his full recovery!

So that brings us to the final unlucky Friday. No deaths, no injuries, not even a cut or scrape. Nope, this time it was a skunking...yep, a real skunking by a REAL skunk. Let's just say it involved two dogs and one very potent skunk. Bleu and Walter have hopefully learned their lesson, two hydrogen peroxide and baking soda baths later....the white dog is more white and the black dog is....well...a bit more GRAY...and our living room furniture....is going to have to be burned!

Blogs of Note, Who Knew?

2010-08-26T12:47:00.001-05:00

(could not do a screen capture so I tried to take a picture)

Well, I sure didn't. It took a day or two to find out that my blog had been chosen by the Google Blogger staff as a "Blogs of Note". There is no warning or congratulatory message, you just wake up one day and notice that hundreds of readers have logged into your corner of the world. I had messages from readers all over the world, its quite an exhilarating feeling, that is until the spammers find you. I could really do without the spambots, robots, spiders, spamcrawlers,spamnests etc..

But, I realized you must take the bad with the good. I'm so happy to have so many new readers. I hope I can live up to the expectations that I somehow feel that Google has placed in my non-manicured, short, little hands. The good really does out way the bad in this case!

Speaking of hands, I'm sure that many of you have no real idea of who I am, or what really makes me tick. Take a peak through the key hole for just a moment, I will give you the penny tour of my life and times and how I got here, writing this entry. Sometimes, I wonder myself!

I am American by birth , a Texan by choice, but really grew up in South America, my motto when I was younger was "my body is American, but my heart is Brazilian". I actually lived in 4 countries by the time I was 8 , I lived in Brazil the longest and all of my schooling was there. I was more Brazilian than American for a good portion of my life but alas, I returned to the U.S. as a young adult in my late teens and have been here ever since. I went from a life of priviledge to the real world.

I spent many years discovering who I am and found out that in reality, I still don't know! I did find out that I am a strong, opinionated woman who is adaptable to almost any environment. Life is ever evolving and that in order to survive and thrive, I have learned that I must evolve with it. One year I was a translator, another I was working for a radio station, a few years later I was in the mutual fund business and moonlighting in the photography and modeling business.

Throughout all those years, I was always known for my cooking and dinner parties. September 11th, 2001 changed my life forever. I was living in the largest city in Texas, working in the mutual fund industry and unhappy with the corporate world. I knew there had to be something else than the endless rat wheel of traffic, office, traffic, home, traffic...etc...

So, I cashed in my 401K, got married and moved to a little, tiny town and opened a restaurant. It was the hardest thing I ever did but also the most rewarding, I was praised in magazines and periodicals for my cooking and for the vision of keeping a dream alive. An opportunity came along to move the restaurant to a bigger small town with a University campus. So, not once, but twice I went through the unbelievable experience of starting something incredible from scratch.

Fast forward a few years later...the marriage had crumbled (owning a restaurant will do that), the economy was faltering, food prices were skyrocketing and rents were rising. My life as I knew it, was about to come to an end.

As a phoenix rises from the ashes, so does a stubborn woman! A new relationship developed with an old friend (if only we had realized how great we were together back in the day, it would have saved us years of romantic heartache), but yet again, looking on the bright side - we now appreciate each other and know what true love can be. It is truly amazing to find a real partner in life. That more than anything, is the secret to real love.

Fast forward a few more years, a few more grey hairs and a few fine lines around the eyes. I now live on my cowboy's family farm, mostly happy, healthy and evolving as usual. Instead of receiving food deliveries, we now produce it and it goes directly from farm to table. Instead of dealing with traffic, I deal with wild hogs and deer crossing the road. Instead of pouring over recipes, I am pouring over seed catalogs and wildlife course manuals.

I have not transitioned completely to country life, I work in town as the county curator for the history museum, we have taken up ghost hunting as a hobby (the museum happens to be haunted) and I still cook elaborate meals, even if it is just for two. In the coming months we are attempting to get a few new ventures off the ground, leading us closer and closer to a sustainable life style.

Here is a bit of what really makes me tick: I love Halloween, I am not so much about Christmas, I love true and unique individuals, I hate conformity, I love different cultures, I hate bigots, I love New Orleans, Rio, and New York but I love small towns and the rural life too, I hate urban sprawl and ugly strip shopping centers, I love history, I hate wrecking balls, I love wine, I hate light beer, I love real butter, I hate margerine, I love maple syrup, I hate artificial sweetener, I love Indian food, I hate fast food, I love art, I hate sports, I love television (I think I am smarter for watching it), I hate video games, I love speaking my mind, I hate having to hold my tongue (which happens too often). I love sunsets and the in between hour.

I'm not rich in cash terms and probably never will be. I have mastered the mystery of money does not equate happiness. You must learn to bloom where you're planted, or else you will wither on the vine.

Please forgive me if I don't blog regularly. You will find that I only blog when I really have something to say.

I really would like to thank Google and Blogger for choosing my blog, to all my old friends for reading this, and to all my new readers for following along on the next adventure.....

Wow, Blogs of Note, who knew?

Stay tuned!

Shutterbug: Cosmic Hitchhiker & Kali

2010-07-31T14:27:00.000-05:00

Sunset on the farm, a beautiful ending to a long, hot July. This is one of Andy's small sculptures. Our alien greeter is one of the many things that makes Feed Me Farms unique. Andy is adept at taking old discardable junk and breathing new life into it. One day, we hope to open our place to other visionary artists and visionary art enthusiasts. I wish this Kali gate was going to stay on the farm (because the cows really seem to like it), but its a commissioned piece destined for an old Victorian home in town, (The Dentage) right on the main road, at least we will get to see it everyday!

Bird's Nest on the Ground

2010-07-26T18:18:00.001-05:00

"A bird's nest on the ground" describes some thing or some situation that is rewarding to the owner in a very big way. Another similar phrase: "low hanging fruit." Meaning a task that is done easily.

I don't know about tasks done easily but here goes:

This is the first post in almost two months, but Feed Me Farms is back with a new look and an even bigger vision. All this after a very disappointing summer growing season.

It's very hard to admit failure, but I admit, we failed miserably this summer with our farm venture, but the best lessons learned are the ones that are built upon failure. So as we come to the end of this season (much sooner than we anticipated), we look ahead to fall, winter and 2011.

What happened? We are not sure, but we know that this years crops were nothing like last year. Last year we grew beautiful heirloom tomatoes, greens, okra, peppers, melons,squash, tomatillos to name a few. This year we have been lucky to coax a few tomatoes and squash off our vines, and our okra although plentiful, is nothing like last years bounty. We believe it had to due with a number of factors : late winter, dry spring and summer, early heat wave, unbalanced soil...farmer error (our timing), the list goes on and on.

But, have we given up? No, in fact, we are more determined than ever to have a viable, sustainable and ethical food production operation. We want to grow clean, nutritious and incredible tasting food for ourselves and for others. We want to be good stewards to the land, the animals and the impact that we can make with it.

In our quest to take care of this bird's nest on the ground ,we now know that there will be many trials and tribulations along the way. We know too, that this way of life is a grand experiment and that flexibility and resilience must be two virtues that farmers and land stewards must possess in order to survive. Our ancestors had to possess these amazing qualities, and we too, need to embrace these two little words.

There is a tremendous learning curve and we have found ourselves at the very bottom, and now know that there is much to learn and from many different sources. We have also learned that diversifying the risk means we must open our eyes to more options, but where to start?

Luckily, we live in the great state of Texas and we have discovered that there are others out there just like us (in our way of thinking) and are willing to open their gates and share their knowledge and expertise. I think farmers and ranchers are some of the most generous people to work with in the world, they seem to love to share their own bird's nests on the ground.

Even though Andy always has and always will be an artist, he was also born into a family of farmers and ranchers and their love of the land left him and his sister with this beautiful patch of Texas soil. I think somewhere in the back of Andy's creative mind, he always harbored an idea to bring this patch of soil back to life in ways that would honor his ancestors. I know this because, as I was cleaning out a book shelf one day, I found this old ,yellow, faded copy of East Texas Farm & Ranch News from March, 2006.

I almost threw it away but the cover grabbed my attention...it was a picture of an old cabin with raised vegetable beds surrounding it with the caption " Roots Farming, East Texas farmer growing plants the natural way. Inside it highlighted the work of Moon Swanson, who shares a similar background to Andy's (more of a music loving artistic soul than a traditional farmer), now I knew why he had kept this article for so long.

I decided to keep the article and knew that one day, maybe Andy's and Moon's paths would cross, and if not, maybe I could hasten the process. It took four years but that day finally came. I knew from the article that Moon's family owned one of the oldest operating old fashioned basket companies in the United States and it was less than 60 miles from here in Jacksonville. I also knew that Moon's farm was even closer, in a little township called Neches just outside of Palestine.

We decided to take a day trip with Andy's mom to purchase some vegetable harvesting baskets and some display baskets for our vegetable cart (at the time, we still had high hopes to be selling our bounty at a farmer's market this year). On a hunch, I asked the woman behind the counter if Moon was there. She replied no, I explained that I really wanted to meet him. A few minutes later, she came out of the back office with Moon's cell number.

I called it and left a message, a few minutes later I got a return call. I explained to Moon that we had just moved back to the family farm and ranch and really loved the old article that had highlighted his methods and the next thing you know, we were on the way to his place.

We passed through the gates of the Diamond B Ranch and knew that we were looking at our future. What a serene, picturesque setting, even more amazing, this garden of Eden was feeding many locavores in Jacksonville and Tyler at their weekly farmers markets. Moon, his father Martin and their families have done an outstanding job blending traditional methods with modern conveniences (drip irrigation systems, decorative but functional arbors and hoop houses, even a beautiful old fashioned chicken coop surrounded by a modern predator fence system). He assured us that this was a long and ongoing process and that he was lucky enough to have his father's guidance and some additional help.

It was wonderful experience sitting on the old seed cabin porch, munching on fresh white peaches picked right from the orchard and talking fresh vegetable feasts with Moon's lovely wife, and their toddler son, happily playing with a fresh tomato. Andy's mom was savoring the taste of her peach and marveling at the fact that it was grown without pesticides. We sat for a while and found that we shared many similarities and that they had done what we so want to do, feather our bird's nest on the ground.

Thanks to the Swanson's, we have a renewed outlook and a vision. We do not have the additional help so we know now, that this will not be as easy as picking low fruit from a tree. We are going to have to stretch ourselves and learn to grow in more ways than one. But we need to consider how lucky we truly are to have this bird's nest on the ground!

* besides our empty farmers market trailer, all of these photographs were taken at the Texas Basket Company & The Diamond B Ranch*

Shutterbug:Learning to Fly

2010-05-24T10:44:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite annual events is the return of our swallows each year. They have made their nests on our porch for years. There is a nest in each corner of our wrap-around front porch, they have now spread to the back porch and the tractor barn as well.

My favorite nest is the one right by our front entrance, the generations of swallows who have filled it are not afraid of us and the babies like to watch our comings and goings. As they begin to fly, they like to swing on our wind chimes. This year we have noticed that the butterflies like to chase the little swallows as they dip and dive through the air. I love their chatter outside our windows and their patterned flights over all the pastures and barns.

The swallows stay all Summer helping with insect control and then, just as they appear overnight, they disappear one morning. We will wake up and they are gone and I'm sad for a day or two, but I know in my heart that they will make their way back again next year. Swallows will always be welcomed guests here at Feed me Farms. In fact, we will always keep the porch light on for them.

I'm a mother too... ..

2010-05-09T20:46:00.001-05:00

it just happens to be to 100+ furry, hooved, feathered, two legged & four legged babies.

Today is a day to show love for your mother and oh, how I love my own mother. I have a wonderful mom, she imparted many lessons of love to me, including the love of animals and all things great or small. Fate would have it that even though I always thought I would be a mom, it just wasn't in the cards for me. But, ever since I was old enough to have a pet, I did. I was lucky enough to grow up in South America so besides the usual cat and dog, our menagerie also included at any given time such creatures as spider monkeys, sloths, marmosets, Macaws, parrots, iguanas, snakes and even an anteater.

As I grew older and moved out of our family home, the trend continued. I have never been without at least three or four balls of love at any given time. So, am I a mom? Well, yes, I think so.

I have bottle fed, spoon fed, force fed them. I have cooked for them. I have cleaned for them. I have sat up with them when they were sick and have held them for hours when they were injured. I have kissed them, petted them, rubbed their bellies and necks till my fingers went numb. I have bathed them and doctored them. I have cleaned up their little accidents and their spills. I have assisted with their births and their babies births.

I have laughed at their antics and cried at their mistakes. I have worried sick over them when they were not where they were supposed to be. I have rushed home from work to care for them and make sure they were safe. I have canceled plans or trips when I felt they should not be left for one reason or another. I have worried sick about them when I left them in the care of others, for fear something would happen or they would not be cared for as I care for them.

I have been with them from the beginning of their lives and I have felt the deepest sorrow imaginable when their time here on earth came to an end. My heart has loved and my heart has been broken.

What have I received in return?

I am greeted every morning with smiling faces and wagging tails. I am serenaded with squawks, barks, meows, chirps, braying , neying, mooing and purring. I am followed to every room in the house and every corner of the pasture. I can't even be by myself in the bathroom most times, because one of my little balls of fur wants to be with me. I am licked, cuddled and nuzzled to death.

Who else jumps up and down, howls in delight or runs along the fence line when they see me?

Is it any wonder that I have found real happiness on a farm surrounded by animals, where any given minute I can find unconditional love right beside me? No, I think that the farm life really does require a mother instinct regardless whether you have had a flesh and blood child or not.

So on this holiday, remember the women who take care of all creatures, great or small...

Happy Mothers Day!

Shutterbug: Training Day

2010-04-14T13:56:00.000-05:00

It's training school for me and Skully. We get to learn together. This is my first attempt to train a horse from birth. I grew up around my dad's race horses in Brazil and they came pre-trained. I used to exercise them on occasion. Back then I weighed only 90 pounds and at barely 5' 1" the other jockeys thought I had potential. My mom put a big stamp of "no way" on me becoming a jockey. She felt it was too dangerous. Damn, I could have put my shortness to use! Now it just comes in handy when climbing under fences.

Lucky La Moo Wins This Round

2010-04-12T23:01:00.001-05:00

Lucky La Moo has survived her health crisis and is back to her sweet self. It started almost exactly a month ago, we noticed late one afternoon she was straining while trying to defecate. By that evening a part of her rectum was hanging out. My cowboy was calm, separated her from the herd of misfits and valiantly disinfected her backside area and placed it back in. I could barely sleep that night because I knew there was an underlying condition causing this and knew that she was going to have a rough time surviving this. By the next morning, she had a prolapsed rectum. It was a horrible sight, I thought she was going to die.

Our vet made a barn call and said he had seen this over a hundred times. He even said it was common after weaning (and we had weaned her just a few weeks before) . We have weaned four others and never had anything like this happen, but there is always a first for everything. Instead of feeding her for almost 4 1/2 to 5 months, I weaned her at 3 months according to a very famous bovine care book. Another farm lesson learned, don't always listen to the experts and follow your instincts sometimes.

The vet gave her an epidural (to stop further straining), an antibiotic injection and then corrected the condition with minor surgery and stitches. Her back legs were paralyzed for almost 12 hours. It would be touch and go for the next few weeks while her intestinal illness waged a bacterial war inside her. He told us not to get our hopes up too high.

Lucky's backside got better but she was dull and seemed to be getting weaker. We fed her milk replacer, scour ease and electrolyte gel but she was just not getting better. We called the vet after two weeks and had him come back out again, he was surprised that she was still alive. He said we must be doing something right as many calves do not survive the intestinal illness and infection. He gave her another round of antibiotics and this really seemed to help her fight off the internal infection.

We did not give up on her either. We made sure that she drank large two bottles of milk replacer mixed with the electrolyte supplement that seemed to help keep her energy up. We had her segregated from the rest of her calf friends and her mom , but we decided it would be better for her to re-join the herd. We would just have to make the pasture trek to bottle feed every day. My cowboy had to rope Nandi the little bull calf that shares the pasture with her, otherwise he would fight for the bottle. Lucky was finally feeling so much better on Easter that she even came up to watch my God son's Easter egg hunt.

Our calf box that we keep stocked with essentials came in handy through this crisis. I highly recommend having an emergency box stocked with powdered colostrum, milk replacer, scour ease and electrolyte gel. I also recommend having wound cleanser, clear iodine, medicine droppers, clean bottles and latex gloves handy. We replenish it every time we make a trip to the tractor supply and feed store. Emergencies tend to happen when everything is closed and a few hours can mean life or death.

Lucky's voracious appetite is back and she is up to her funny antics in the pasture. She has really lived up to her name. We are SO happy to have you back Lucky La Moo! You really are one lucky little calf.

Shutterbug: Just in Time for the Hunt!

2010-04-03T13:15:00.000-05:00

Wow, the Easter bunny delivered just in time for my God son's visit!!! My hens had slowed down egg production in the last couple of weeks and I just attributed it to their cycle. It looked like there was going to be a shortage of eggs for Easter weekend. I had planned on having a big Easter egg hunt for my little God son (he just turned two). But the hens and Guineas were just not cooperating, or so I thought. Imagine our surprise when we moved some fence posts that had been leaning on a wooden rail. There was a hidden nest that had been receiving deposits for about a week.

Looks like Easter after all, and because some of my hens lay green, blue and pink eggs - no need to even dye them this year. Have a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, laughter, Easter eggs & lots of chocolate!

Shutterbug: Happy Horse Day

2010-03-27T14:09:00.000-05:00

The day finally arrived. Our beautiful mare and handsome colt have been delivered. Star (named for Lonestar because of the unique shape of Texas in her markings) is a beautiful 5 year old mare that came to us from a good friend who breeds and trains wonderful horses. Star is so well behaved that she will allow you to hunt off her back and is steady on trail rides (even near busy highways). Skully is her handsome colt who was born a few weeks ago right after a late snowstorm here in Texas. Skully (his nickname for obvious reasons) will get a new regal name for his registration. He has to be regal as he is a direct descendant of one of the top horses at the famous King Ranch here in the lone star state. We're in love with them both. What a way to welcome Spring!

Lessons Learned and Still Learning

2010-03-23T22:49:00.000-05:00

Mother Nature fooled us last year. You know the saying "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" from those old margarine commercials? Well , we're turning the tables on her this year! As I sit outside on my laptop enjoying this lovely Spring afternoon, my cowboy/artist now turned farmer sits on top of his beloved tractor carefully tilling the many black soil rows that he is designing along the old terraces used by his ancestors. Our Guineas happily following along behind him nabbing each and every tasty bug that surfaces. But lest we forget, it was only a few days ago (the first day of Spring) that we had a freak snowstorm that put a damper on all those poor gardeners who were so eager to play in the dirt a couple of weeks ago. All those poor little pansies and cucumber vines that went in too soon, may have been all for not. We learned our lesson the hard way.

One of our dear neighbors and best friends passed away earlier this year and we are so saddened by his loss. He was a life long farmer/rancher and taught several generations of farmers around here how to grow and prosper off this land. Last year we were trying our hand at our first large scale vegetable garden and we were so eager that we planted at the beginning of March because the weather had been so beautiful. Our old friend found out that we had already seeded the garden and stopped by our place to tell us that we should have waited till after Easter here in Central North Texas. To soften the news, he brought us a few wonderful vegetables out of his Winter garden. Oh was he right! A few weeks after our plantings were popping up everywhere, a late March freeze came and killed about 30% of our vegetable garden. Hard lesson learned. If only we had sought his wisdom out BEFORE planting, but again lessons learned.

To curb our hastiness this year, we entertained ourselves over the Winter by pouring over colorful seed catalogs (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Landreths and a few others) and power reading a few good books (Good Bug, Bad Bug, Seed to Seed, Carrots Love Tomatoes, The Have More Plan). Last year we waited until February to order seeds and found that many of the varieties of heirlooms we wanted were sold out. Lessons learned. This year we started our ordering in January and even then, missed out on a few things we wanted. Another valuable learning experience.

That's the great thing about gardening and farming, there is a constant learning curve. Every planting season and harvest teaches us a new technique or trick. This year we are trying a new technique that our local Sheriff imparted to us. He learned it from his neighbor who learned it from the Japanese when he was a POW in a Japanese work camp. The sheriff patiently drew out a diagram of tomato cages fed by a compost tea IV contraption when he heard we were getting into heirloom vegetables. Ironic that something learned by the enemy during the war would bring several generations of joy and great harvests to him and his neighbors and now he was passing his knowledge on to us. That's really what I love most about farming. It breaks down age, ethnic and economic barriers. I have seen a room full of gardeners who would otherwise have nothing to talk about because of their different lifestyles, but you get them talking about their garden secrets and you can't get them to stop.

I have noticed something else about farmers and gardeners. There is a bit of gambler in all of us, sometimes it feels like the odds are stacked against us battling weather, natural disasters, wind, heat, cold and bugs. But once we bite into our first tomato or saute up some fresh greens, we know that our gamble has paid off hitting the gourmet jackpot.

So as we watch the weather report for tomorrow, we find out that there is more cold and rain on the way. Easter is only a week away and the tangy taste of a Cherokee Purple tomato is yet a few months from consumption. But patience is a virtue, and that too, is a lesson well learned out here on the farm.

Happy Planting Everyone (but not till after Easter)! This years planting is dedicated to Don Tolar, a thick neck Czech who could grow anything. We will miss you and your wisdom Don. Wise lessons learned.

.

Redneck Snow Day

2010-02-28T15:17:00.000-06:00

O.K. I know I talked about snow envy earlier this month and then lo' and behold the snow deities delivered a few inches so we would not feel slighted. Well, I'm not sure how my wish went haywire, but obviously those same snow deities got their geography messed up this week and decided to deliver a second storm that dropped a record 7 1/2 inches here in Texas. You know, that place where all the retired RV roaming Northeners go to , to get away from the stuff.

Now, we could have gotten down in the dumps about our Winter crops failing, our animal chores increasing and the fact that we were without electricity during the night but instead, we chose to have a "snow day". A "snow day" is what kids pray for back in the North East, so we rolled back the clock for a day, and did a few things that adults wished they could do on a Tuesday during the beginning of their work week.

My cowboy artist went into town to get his childhood sled that was stored away in his mom's shed. Unfortunately, he found out that she had sold it during last year's annual citywide garage sale, thinking it would never see action again since her children were all grown up and over 35... undaunted, he looked around and spied his old basket ball hoop that was out by the pool. Now he hadn't shot hoops with that thing in 20+ years, but, he did notice it had this great plastic base that even had a place to put your feet. I can see the light bulb glowing over his head as he turns a basketball hoop holder into a mean sledding machine.

He came back out to the farm all proud of himself and said "look what we have, it's a redneck sled, I'm going to tie it to the truck and we're going to Antioch (the part of the farm that has hills). I thought he was crazy but having a little cabin fever, decided what the heck, let's go redneck sledding!

Not only did we go sledding but also built a snowman for his mom's yard, went around town snapping a series of Texas snowmen built by locals and just enjoyed this very rare occurrence. I say "rare" , we will see what March brings us !

Last year we started our plantings in March but this year we may postpone until April based upon the Farmer's Almanac and other weather forecasters. We are not out of the woods, or possibly , the snow until then ~

Shutterbug: Fun with Double Yolks

2010-02-28T12:48:00.000-06:00

No boring egg sandwiches around here. This is our newest quick farm lunch favorite. We have named it "The Sleestak" for obvious reasons, instead of the eggs sizzling, they just hiss! Land of the Lost was one of my top 5 childhood television shows (right up there with H.R. Puff'N'Stuff , Lidsville and the Banana Splits) hhhmmmm banana splits....we need to plant some banana trees!
Sleestak Sandwich: Good crusty bread like Ciabatta, slightly toasted with a little butter and melted shredded sharp cheddar topped with heirloom tomatoes, avocado & fried Pancetta & egg. HHmmmmmmmm! Hisssssssssssssssssss!

It snowed back East, East Texas that is!

2010-02-21T12:31:00.000-06:00

Even though we had high hopes for a Winter garden this year, our dream came to a tragically beautiful end a few days ago. We had been keeping our eyes on the Dallas news stations as snow began to fall, and fall...and fall. I had to admit that when the weatherman said some areas were going to receive up to a foot, I actually felt snow envy.

We are about an hour and twenty minutes South East of the Dallas area. As the Dallas/Ft. Worth area was becoming a Currier & Ives postcard, we were becoming an ice cold rainy mess. I cursed the weather report and told my cowboy artist that I would gladly trade this horrible, muddy, ice cold rain for a few inches of snow. The "jazz hands" weatherman (we named him that long ago because of his absurdly exaggerated hand movements and overly excitable personality) kept pointing out the fact that the big snow event was going to miss our area and head further North East.

No snow day for us, or so we thought. Oh a few big flakes and some ice pellets hit our metal roof throughout the evening but we were convinced it would all be gone by morning. The last radar report before bed, showed the snow line well above our area and heading off where it was supposed to go.

I woke up early the next morning and listened to the silence, no early morning traffic along the road, no bellowing from cattle, not even our roosters were crowing their morning hello to the day. I jumped out of bed and looked across the frozen landscape and was sure that I had woken up possibly back East, not East Texas. Our rain gauge was no longer measuring rain, it was completely covered by SNOW!!

Our Winter challenged garden was now officially declared a disaster area! Instead of cursing Mother Nature - we embraced it, savoring a little slice of winter wonderland, if only for a day or two. We spent the morning enjoying the quiet whiteness, giving extra feed to the animals, walking through my cowboy's family cemetery and enjoying this peacefulness that only a snow blanketed landscape can provide. It was a magical day.

This Tuesday - they are forecasting another snow storm for North East Texas. Surprise me Mother Nature! Even though it causes disruption of the farm routine and a little more work later, I'm secretly keeping my fingers crossed that we get another Currier & Ives moment. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Inspired by the Flaming Lips at Feed Me Farms (10 for 2010)

2010-01-31T15:48:00.000-06:00

How can a man (Wayne Coyne) and a band (The Flaming Lips) inspire us here at Feed Me Farms? It all began on New Year's Eve. We decided to take a well earned break from the farm and drive through snow and sleet to see The Flaming Lips play their hometown of Oklahoma City on this celebratory evening.

As soon as we hit the city limits, we began to see the positive influence that this band has had on their hometown. Instead of heading for the bright lights and big time status of living in L.A., New York or any other glamorous urban setting, they have chosen to stay in Oklahoma and help their States tourism and economy. And what a great job they've done. Wayne and his band mates have turned the ordinary into extraordinary. If more people did this, the world would be a much better place to live. No matter where in the world that might be, from small rural farms to big urban sprawl.

I picked up a local paper in the lobby of our hotel upon check-in and to my delight found an article called "10 for 2010". To my surprise and delight, the first person listed was Wayne Coyne and his 10 for 2010:

1. To see U.F.O.s come down and enlighten all humans
2. To see all humans be kind to animals
3. To see religious fanatics disappear
4. To see the Pentagon levitate
5. To see Global Warming stop
6. To see marijuana de-criminalized
7. To see humans give love instead of taking it
8. To watch the Oklahoma (or in our case ,Texas) sunset more often
9. To sleep late
10. To accept things we cannot control

I was immediately drawn to Wayne's wonderful philosophy and decided, right then and there, what my new year resolutions would be. I would adopt his and add 10 for 2010 of my own:
1. To live every day with no regrets and fill our life with art, music, entertainment and laughter
2. To think less of what I want and need
3. To think more about what I have and can do with it
4. To savor the smell of fresh hay, freshly turned dirt and green pastures
5. To savor the joy in finding a hidden egg or newborn farm animal on any given day
6. To really love those around me - be it family, friend or animal
7. To make things grow so that I can feed the minds, bodies and souls of those around me
8. To enjoy the simple pleasures of fresh food, a good bottle of wine and the time spent preparing it with the
one I love
9. To embrace middle age and what it really means to be happy with yourself
10. To BLOOM WHERE YOU'RE PLANTED!

So as we begin a new year here at the farm, these 10 + 10 will play a role in our philosophy here. It may not be the most glamorous of lives and it's not what I ever dreamed of when growing up, but it is where I've landed and I really love it. I have come to realize that life is what you make of it, not what others make for you. I want to find the EXTRAORDINARY everyday in the ORDINARY everyday.

Thanks Wayne!

Shutterbug: Winter Vacationer

2010-01-07T16:34:00.000-06:00

We were out near the barn prepping for the single digit weather that is taking over for the next few days (a rarity in Texas). We were surprised by this visitor swimming in one of the tanks. Seems like this pelican is taking a 300 mile inland vacation. Not a good time to leave the coast, if you ask me!

Do Cows Know It's Christmas?

2009-12-25T10:32:00.000-06:00

Probably not, or else they would have not behaved so badly these past few weeks! It all started innocently enough...my cowboy and his business partners (mom & sister) decided it was time to move the herd from the farm where we live, to the wide open spaces of the Antioch property. In anticipation, all the border fencing had been repaired except for an area that was considered swamp and flooded. There was fence back there, it's just that a normal human being would have trouble getting to it, so the assumption was...so would the darn cows.

The night before the herd was to be worked (branded and ear tagged) and moved, we were able to trick most of them with sacks of treats and corral them into the barn. This would make it much easier once our hired cowboys (former NFL football players) would arrive the next morning. Brahmans are good cattle till they think someone is about to corral them, they become as agile as gazelles and nothing keeps them in. BUT, so far so good that is, until the other cowboys arrived.

We had a plan or so we thought. The bottle fed babies were going to stay with us at the farm. The young bulls were on the way to the sale barn and the calves that needed weaning would stay on the farm too a few more weeks but then join their mommas at Antioch along with our breeding bulls. Seems easy enough...

Not so, my cowboy's sister all of a sudden gets sentimental and does not want some of her registered ones to go to the other property for fear of theft. They get a reprieve and get to stay in the back pastures. So now we are splitting the herd in half and only some of them will be placed at Antioch.

So now we switch gears and concentrate on working them, separating them and hauling them. By the time it was all over, one large bull had jumped a 6 foot corral fence and some of the younger ones decided to skip the gazelle move and just run right through it. Keep in mind it's made of foot thick posts and heavy gauge wire. They also managed to tear off two gates and pretty much trash the 35 year old barn.

To add insult to injury, the herd that was taken to Antioch managed to find the only bad place in the fencing (way back in the flooded swamp) and make a clean break for it. Half of them came back on their own but the other half are now happily residing with one of my cowboys cousins cows in their pasture that backs up to Antioch.

The half that came back on their own are happy as can be roaming around Antioch with two big lakes and many tanks, lots of hay that was baled during the summer and still some coastal grass to munch on until real Winter hits. So you might say, they got their Christmas gift.

The half that took off and did not come back through the only opening of 800 acres of fence is having to rely on the kindness of kinfolk till we can get them separated and brought back. You could say that they are getting coal for their gift.

Then there is the misfit bottle fed babies that are staying with us at the farm. They will all be getting fresh hay and carrot treats for their holiday gift. I never knew how much I could care for a cow until I had to raise 5 of them from birth. I love each and every one of them. Each time one gets weaned, I get just a little sad and wistful because I miss my twice daily ritual of their feeding. Therefore I consider the newest calf (Lucky La Moo) my personal gift from Santa (albeit a little early). Thank you Santa!

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve and be sure and kiss the little calves in your life, in a blink they will grow up to be ornery cows!

Shutterbug: All Ears!

2009-12-17T12:49:00.000-06:00

Here comes Lucky La Moo (born on Friday the 13th). She was playing out in the pasture until she saw her milk bottle. She has a very healthy appetite and kicks up her heels when it's bottle time.

Shutterbug: Mootherly Love!

2009-11-18T16:52:00.000-06:00

Here comes the sun, what a beautiful day! Our adult miniature Zebu Beauregard, using ZZ Topinha, one of our baby bottle fed Brahmas as a pillow.

A Love Letter To My Cowboy (13 is our lucky number)

2009-11-13T16:22:00.000-06:00

Two years ago today (November 13th, 2007) a small kiss changed my life forever. Funny how two people can know each other for years, live parallel lives, run in the same circles, share many of the same friends and not realize that they should have been together all along. But then came a kiss and the deal was sealed or as he would like to say...we pitched some woo and the deal was done.

I had no idea that pitchin' woo could be so wonderful, considering I thought he was referencing a barn activity (and looking back now, I guess it actually could be..hee...hee..hheeeee).

I never thought that two years later, we would be living on the farm and settling down into a life of love, laughter and finding the little things in life are what is most important. He is the best thing that ever happened in my life and I thank my lonestars every day.

Four nights away from the farm and my cowboy have made me realize how much I have grown to love my new rural life. The city life is no longer an option, I cannot wait to go home. I miss the clucking of the chickens, the mooing of the cows and the sweet nuzzles and waffling that the little donkeys like to greet me with whenever they see me.

Most of all, I missed my cowboy. I missed drinking coffee in the morning and contemplating the day based upon the weather outside. I missed having lunch together, we make it a habit to drop what we are doing and meet for a bite to eat at the old kitchen table or in town at the museum I curate. Most of all, I missed our evenings together tucked away snugly in our little farmhouse, just us and the four dogs and two cats who share the same little four square at night.

It's funny where life takes you and who it throws in your path. Like I said, we had known each other for years - before we REALLY knew each other. I think I knew somewhere deep inside that we loved each other right there and then on that fateful night of November, 13th.

So 13 to us is a very lucky number indeed, so lucky, that we made it permanent - in ink, on Friday the 13th no less.

So, the question is now - what are we doing next year?

Stay tuned!

Shutterbug: Have you kissed a chicken today?

2009-11-07T12:15:00.000-06:00

The old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" really resonates with me. I am old school and prefer a real camera over my telephone one, so I actually carry my camera wherever I go. This makes for a sore purse shoulder but the additional weight in my little black bag (or whatever else I am carrying that day) is well worth the muscle pain. I have decided to share glimpses of our life through our photography (mine and my artist cowboy) whenever the shutterbug bites us. Sometimes they might make you laugh, other times they might make you smile and some may transport you to the farm, if only for a minute.

Edible Folk Art (or Cookie Decorating 101, Sugar Skulls)

2009-11-05T11:27:00.014-06:00

What is better than looking at Folk Art? The answer is Folk Art that you can look at and then eat! Up to this point in my life, I always considered cooking as my artistic expression. Now I have found a way to combine my love of cooking with my love of folk art.

By definition, Folk Art is a result of ordinary people expressing themselves through their creation and construction of utilitarian objects that convey meaning and value to themselves and to others within their culture. A Folk Art object's final form often carries a certain beauty that elevates ordinary objects into the extraordinary.

This year for Halloween, we decided to go as Dia de los Muertos sugar skulls. To complete the look, we decided to make edible sugar skull cookies to pass out to party guests. My artist cowboy is well known for his zany, whimsical visionary art and I'm known for creativity in the kitchen, so this seemed like a perfect match.

I have said this before and will say it again, I am not a baker by choice. I love to cook and create savory dishes and cakes, cookies and desserts have never been my strength. But it's time to push the envelope, think out of the box, get the old KitchenAid mixer off the shelf and just go for it.

I went in search of the perfect cookie recipe and found a beautiful website called Sweetopia.net, I only hope to be as half as creative as Marian (the Sweetopia blogger). Her blog has great tips, artsy themes and I consider her a true cookie folk artist! So I tip my cookie decorating squeeze bottle to her.

My Go To Every Time Shortbread Recipe (For Decorated Cookies):

6 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp kosher or sea salt
( Optional: For a more Mexican flavor I added in fresh grated orange zest and about 1/2 teaspoon of Chipotle powder )

Directions:

Cream butter & sugar until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time and continue to beat. Slowly add each extract flavor and cream till blended.
Put dry ingredients through a flour sifter and blend well. Mix dry ingredients with creamed ingredients a little at a time until the dough comes together.

**Culinary Tip** Roll out your sheets of dough between parchment paper and stack in refrigerator on a cookie sheet. This eliminates the step of adding more flour and rolling after chilling. The cookie dough will be ready for the cookie cutters in 1 hour, once chilled in the fridge. This recipe made about 5 rolled sheets (about 50 cookies).

Heat the oven to 350 and allow to heat for one hour before placing the cut cookies in to bake. Bake the cookies on parchment paper till light brown around the edges, about 8 -10 minutes. Cool on racks.

Perfect White Royal Icing:

3/4 cup warm water
5 tbs meringue powder (egg white powder)
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 bag (2 lbs.) powdered sugar
1 tsp clear vanilla or almond extract

Hand mix the warm water with the meringue powder till blended and frothy . Add cream of tartar and hand mix another 30 seconds. Pour in all the sugar and mix gently by hand. Using an electric mixer, blend with a paddle attachment on lowest speed for 10 minutes (yes, 10 minutes - the frosting will become silky smooth and shiny).

**Culinary Tip** Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and take out small amounts as you go to blend with your food colorings. In this case for the skull cookies, I used a lot of white icing and made black icing using red, blue and green food coloring. The other color accents (red, yellow, green & blue) on the cookies were very easy to do with culinary decorating pens (purchased in the baking aisle at the local grocery). They are really easy to use, just do not press down too hard or they crack the icing and ruin the tip.

Decorating:

Pick out your base color for your royal icing frosting. Make sure your cookies are completely cool before icing them. Place your base color in a squeeze container with a thin tip ( I buy them at a restaurant supply store). Outline your cookie, the outline will act as a dam. Allow outline to dry. Add a little warm water to your frosting bottle to thin the royal icing. Flood the surface of the cookie and evenly spread within the dam. I use the bottle tip to do the spread the inner icing. Once the cookie has a nice even layer of icing, allow to dry and harden before adding other color.

For the skulls, we took our black icing and made the eye sockets, noses and jaw/teeth outline. Once the black had dried, we then began decorating the skulls with unique patterns, using the culinary pens. The final touch was to outline the entire cookie with black icing for a more dramatic effect. Be creative, do not be afraid to experiment. Just like true Folk Art, there are NO rules!!

**Culinary Tip** Allow to harden overnight before packaging. Have fun, your cookies will be the hit of the party. We may do some turkey ones for Thanksgiving, Krumpus for Christmas etc...

It's the Most BOO-tiful Time of the Year....

2009-10-30T14:08:00.005-05:00

No, I am not talking Christmas, I am talking my all time favorite holiday..dun..dun..dun (insert spooky music here)...Halloween. The leaves are turning, the fires are burning, there is a chill in the air and our very first pumpkin patch has delivered The Great Pumpkin (over 50 pounds)! I must say, Linus & Snoopy (in this case Gunther my Fila Brasileiro hound) would be proud. The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown cartoon was always a tradition in my household and Halloween holds my fondest memories. My dad was the master of macabre, he would spend days decorating the walkway and would carve the largest pumpkin he could find. No cutesy themes, mind you, he would use dry ice, fake blood, voice recordings etc..on the other hand, my mom always made our house the most popular one on the block (mostly because she gave out her famous spiked apple cider to the grown-ups). Hey it was the late 60's and early 70's and my parents had a weekly martini party too. Ahh..life growing up in crazy California. When we moved to Brazil my American school still carried on the tradition of Halloween so I did not miss out on too much, even living in a foreign country. We carved "aborboras" and ate "cocada" to celebrate.

We have been so busy here at Feed Me Farms, have not had much time for the ol' blog, but soon there will be a new and improved version, just hang in a few more times with the old format.

The rain has dominated our lives since the beginning of September but there are blue skies and brisk nights on the horizon. Our planned Fall garden did not get in the ground on September 1st as planned. It is now a "Winter" garden as we took a window of opportunity a few weeks ago to get some more heirloom seeds in the ground. We may have drowned the little guys but we hope to see some sprouting action within a few days.

Real love is your cowboy artist planting the entire garden for you while you are gone on a culinary producer business trip (yes, I have been freelancing for a new web based multi media cooking show). His Ms. Texas mom even came out to the farm to help.
Now that's love all the way around. He also built an outdoor temporary holding coop for my new 13 Ameraucana chicks that we got for our birthdays. Can't wait for Easter, just because we won't have to die any eggs - they will naturally be green and blue.

We are crossing our muddy little fingers that our radicchio, kale, Asian greens, baby bokchoy, broccoli, spinach, beets, carrots, cabbage, turnips, mustard greens, collard greens and a few more live to see another feast!

Well, no rest for the weary or the Halloween obsessed! Enjoy some pictures of our pumpkins (New Jersey Giant, Red Warty, Italian Green Sea Pumpkin and a few others)and the Fall foliage at the Antioch camp. We are working on our costumes and a recipe to go with them that I will post in a few days (can't spoil the surprise).

Have a BOO-tiful Halloween weekend!

Marcel's Maple Egg Custard

2009-09-07T22:14:00.012-05:00

I named this recipe in honor of Marcel, my sweet beloved rooster who had a brief but happy life here at the farm. By now, you probably know I grew up in Brazil. Many Brazilian desserts have eggs as their primary ingredient. Portugal's influence is evident as they are known for their beautiful and tantalizing egg custard desserts.

I grew up eating pasteis de nata (little custard pies). According to Portuguese legend, two nuns invented these lovely little custard tarts and the recipe only became known to the public around 1837 when some entrepreneurial monks decided to open up a bakery shop to help fund the building of a new monastery.

I love those tarts but enjoy just as much the plain variety of just pure custard.I remember my very Texan mother & grandmother making wonderful little cups of egg custard desserts when I was just a toddler. Whenever I see a ramekin, it triggers a strong memory of savoring a little cup of creamy, yellow sweetness while sitting at the kitchen table with my mom or grandmother cooking nearby.

Here is my interpretation of a classic recipe:

Marcel's Maple Egg Custard

5 organic free range eggs
1/3 cup of real maple syrup
1 teaspoon real vanilla
1 tablespoon of organic sugar
dash of sea salt
2 1/2 cups of organic whole milk
dash of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
*Can be added:
(fresh blueberries, peaches, blackberries or any fruit of your choice)
*Can also be used as a filling for pastry tarts

Beat eggs slowly with mixer one at a time until creamy golden. Add syrup, vanilla, sugar and continue to beat. Slowly begin adding milk and blend gently until completely mixed.
Pour egg mixture into oven proof ramekins or small decorative baking dishes. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg.
Place them in a deep baking pan that can accommodate all the ramekins. Fill the deep pan with enough water to keep the custard from burning (about halfway up the ramekin).
Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 to 50 minutes
* If adding fruit, check custard 25 minutes into the cooking cycle and if soft set, add the fruit artfully on top sprinkle with sugar and then continue to bake for remaining time.
Cool before serving

Nesting On the Farm, Not Just For Hens...

2009-09-07T15:02:00.016-05:00

August was a busy month on and off the farm. I took the month off from the blog but here is a quick update to bring all of you up to speed. We have more calves, less roosters (coyote trouble), lost our heirloom garden to a hail storm, learned to make soft and hard cheese at Homestead Heritage, wrote an article for Grit Magazine, stayed at the haunted Faust hotel, graduated from the Mid America Arts Alliance year long program, tubed down the Guadalupe, attended a Town Hall meeting & entered a baking contest.

But there was one event that was more exciting than all the others - we found an EGG in the chicken coop, then one on the ground, then several more in the art studio and now everyday is like an Easter egg hunt.

The first egg finding was touched with happiness and sadness at the same time. I was grieving the disappearance of my absolute favorite rooster, Marcel. I had refrained from naming Marcel for almost 6 months (from the day, the chicks were a day old). I was told not to name the chickens because "chickens are always looking for a way to die" and to not get attached.

Marcel made that very hard. He was different than the rest. From the time he was just a chick, he acted more like a dog than a chicken. He loved to be picked up and petted and would run across the barnyard as soon as he saw me walking up or parking the car at the gate.

Marcel made my morning and afternoon rounds around the farm with me. He watched as we fed the calves, worked in the garden or played with the donkeys. He crowed with happiness when sitting on the swinging bench. He was always at my heels and he made me laugh every day. His freedom was part of his happiness.

I named Marcel after another rooster who became close to my heart. This Marcel happened to reside near downtown Austin. He sort of belonged to my best friend. She adopted him when he showed up in her yard. He had a happy life till a predator ended his too. We think the predator was a UT law student who grew tired of hearing Marcel's beautiful wake up call.

My Marcel and another of our roosters did not show up at the coop for sundown lockdown. I knew something had happened, he was always at the coop first, calling the other chickens and Guineas to settle down for the night. I was distraught, we looked for him in all of his favorite places but to no avail. I held out hope that he and the other rooster might have wondered a bit too far but would find their way back.

The next morning to my surprise, our missing black & white Polish rooster who was MIA with Marcel, was sitting atop the coop. He must have been in hiding after his buddy Marcel got attacked. Marcel never returned, but the coyote who we suspect killed him did. The coyote showed up for two nights straight. My cowboy sat in wait for him with his hunting rifle. He didn't kill him (could not get a decent shot), but scared him enough that he has not come back.

The day after Marcel's life ended, a new surprise was there to greet us in the coop. A perfect white egg still warm from being laid was deposited on the ground. Our chicken adventure had come full circle.

For my birthday, my cowboy took me over to Canton First Monday Trade Days. We thought it would be an adventure to experience this market place that has been setting up under the old oak trees for over 100 years. It started out as a place where people traded their animals and hunting dogs and has grown into 10 miles of open air and covered pavilions selling everything from Mexican folk art to antique doorknobs, candles to cheesy rhinestone flip flops, alpacas to pot bellied pigs. My cowboy had been coming here since he was a little boy, his grandfather spent most of his life raising fox and raccoon hunting dogs and taking them there on occasion to sell or trade them.

We walked through Dog Town where all the animals are sold in Canton and I grew sad as I saw the conditions of how some chickens, Guineas and roosters were raised. It looked like many of them had never experienced one day of freedom. I began to think about my chickens back home, happily running around in the pastures and barn, chasing bugs and each other. I began to realize that Marcel had a wonderful life for a rooster, even if it was brief compared to some of these poor birds.

So it was no surprise then, that for my birthday, I picked out my own present. I am now the proud new owner of a refurbished chicken nesting box. Out of all 10 square miles of everything under the sun, all I really wanted was that nesting box. My cowboy laughed about it but gladly picked it up and stuffed it in the SUV. We even celebrated by ordering some Ameraucana chicks that lay beautiful blue and green eggs naturally. Now everyday next Spring there really will be an Easter egg hunt.

I finally realized that it wasn't just my chickens who had nested on this piece of Texas landscape but also myself...I look forward to every sunrise and sunset here on the farm with all the joys and sometimes sorrows of each and every day. I never want to leave this nest.

And who knows, maybe there is another rooster like Marcel just waiting to be hatched someday, right here at Feed Me Farms.

Roadtrip Ramblings

2009-08-01T20:49:00.004-05:00

Texas has over 150,000 of surface roads (well, that is according to Wiki), and we always seem to take the ones that have been less traveled. We like it that way. We are so lucky to live in a state that encompasses it all. Go East, we have the great Piney Woods. Go South, we have the great Gulf Coast. Go North, we have the prairies and lakes. Go West, we have the wide open spaces and the gateway to the last frontier. I really love each direction and never grow tired of hitting the road for a day or two.

This particular trip led us to Buffalo Gap, one of the last places that the mighty buffalo roamed. I had to go there on museum business but as always, I try and make it a nice getaway for a day or two from the farm routine. My cowboy artist, always up for an adventure, eagerly mapped out the most scenic route.

The night before our trip, wild weather once again struck the farm. The storm began rumbling right before midnight and by 3:00 a.m. I was wide awake and fumbling for flashlights. By 5:00 a.m. myself, my guy & our four dogs were riding it out in the closet while the cats had to stick it out in the other room (they get their own closet).

Two hail storms and one, possibly two tornadoes later, we emerged unscathed only to find that our property had not fared as well. The reason for no power was because two electric poles were now almost horizontal to the ground. The light pole that is located by our water source was now wrapped around the pump station like a tongue tied cherry stem,this solved the no running water mystery. Several of our old oak trees were sheared off at the top and their trunks and branches lay all over our cross fencing. One old shade tree in our front yard split completely in two and it was dangerously close to taking out our security fence around the farm house.

The heirloom garden was completely devastated and my beautiful okra and tomato plants which had given us such a bounty, were now laying forlornly on their sides all battered and beaten by the hail.

The barn and art studio lost more of their roofs (we had not replaced them yet from the last bout of wild weather) but at least all the barnyard animals were safe and all accounted for.

We came very close to canceling the trip but the thought of an all expense paid for beautiful bed & breakfast WITH electricity and running water was just too good to pass up for the night. We thought long and hard about it but in the end, we made our decision. My knight in blue jeans got out his chainsaw and began chopping furiously as I scrambled to pack and get the animals secured for a 24 hour period.

Without a backward glance (almost, I did have to check and re-check all our pets and livestock) we took off down the road, as we knew that a good nights sleep awaited us at the other end...so what if it was half way across Texas and we would have to be back by the next evening and tackle all the storm damage that awaited us.

One thing I have learned living here on the farm....NEVER pass up a chance to change up the routine and the work will ALWAYS be here waiting for us when we get back.

The other thing I have learned is to always take the road less traveled...you never know what you might see, and , you have a better chance of seeing it if you are on a two lane road instead of a super highway!

Tomorrow we leave for Austin, and yes, we will be taking the long way....

Heritage Homestead Preserving More Than Just Fruits and Vegetables

2009-07-09T10:53:00.013-05:00

As my garden grows, so does the bounty and the dilemma of what to do with it all. So, I decide to tackle the art of canning and preserving, how hard can it be? Well, after reading several books on the subject, the realization hit me that if I made a mistake while attempting this I could cause illness or egads...botulism. Canning and preserving involves some basic science as does baking, and I am not the best baker.

My mom's family were not only excellent bakers but also extremely noted canners and preservers. My Choctaw Indian great-grandmother was known for her beautifully preserved crab apples and her canned fish. According to family lore, my great grandfather was quite a fisherman and would travel to places like Yellowstone and beyond to fish for rainbow trout and salmon. The family could not eat all of the fresh fish at once so my great grandmother would prepare it and cure it by canning it. It was a special treat for the family in Texas where catfish ruled the special occasion dinner table, salmon and trout were apparently, quite exotic.

My cowboy's ancestors all canned here where we live too. In fact, there is an old shed that still stands on one of his cousin's properties that still holds some of his great aunt's jars from way back. While exploring this old shed, we were still able to distinguish summer squash that had been canned over 20 years ago.

Until our fast food nation and mentality took over, canning and preserving if not taught by a family member at home, was taught in school or by a local county extension agent. During World War II when victory gardens were at their peak, community canning centers began popping up throughout the Country. Women would bring their garden fruits and vegetables and utilize the equipment at the center. It was a social event much like quilting or sewing clubs of the day. For canning at home, there would be a wood burning stove placed outside or on a porch since the boiling and steaming could go on for hours, depending on the amount of food to be processed.

After some internet research, I came across some homesteading courses that are offered in Texas only an hour away from our farm. Homesteading courses have gained popularity with the decline of the economy and the rise of healthy eating and the popularity of the slow food movement.

Heritage Homestead is a Christian based community located just outside of Waco in an area known as Chalk Bluff. The 510 acre working farm named "Brazos de Dios" along the banks of the Brazos river, is home to 30 families. The majority of the buildings and structures are salvaged log cabins, barns and mills brought piece by piece from around the United States and lovingly restored with historical accuracy but incorporated with hidden modern conveniences (AC, plumbing, electricity).

As soon as you drive through the community you are struck by simplicity, orderliness and the balance of modern and old fashioned rolled into one. Heritage Homestead is self sustaining and self contained, producing: natural pastured meat, organic vegetable gardening and orchard production, dairy barns, gristmill etc. They are also master metal forgers, furniture makers and builders.

Each and every building and surrounding gardens reflect their heritage. I arrived at the cooking center, which to my delight was partially housed in a beautifully restored two story 1800's log cabin from Missouri (with a modern commercial kitchen building hidden behind). I was greeted by a very nice woman in her 50's who was the lead instructor, accompanied by four other young women (one being her daughter)to assist with the class training. Two of the young women, Jessie & Rebekah would be doing the actual teaching on this day. They had been canning since childhood - this type of cooking method was as natural to them as popping in pre-fab food in a microwave to us.

The class size was just right, nine participants of all ages and all walks of life (from housewife to Austin restaurateur & caterer)surrounded the log cabin hearth as we listened intently to the instructors. From there we went through the antique doors and stepped into a very modern day large kitchen facility. Everyone took their place at the amazing butcher block work table that faced the stoves and ovens. As we learned the ins and outs of this lost art, and I can honestly say, it is a lost art - we bonded and assisted each other with the various steps. My mind immediately conjured up images of those old community canning centers and for a moment, I felt deeply connected to the past.

Our course began early in the morning and did not finish till late in the afternoon with a much needed lunch break at their on site deli and bakery. It is not often that you get to eat homemade bread, grass fed beef, handmade cheese, fresh squeezed lemonade and freshly made ice cream all in one meal all produced at one location.

By the end of the day, I had successfully canned or preserved the following: grass fed beef chuck, pinto beans, green beans, tomatoes, peaches, jalapenos, strawberry preserves and cabbage for sauerkraut. Now, I can safely say "of course I CAN"!

As stated earlier, there is a real science to canning, after learning the basics, you can add your own flare and touch to your canning recipes and arrangement of the food within the container. Learning from a professional (be it a homesteading course, family or friend) is essential for this particular craft. These skills are handed down through centuries and are honed to perfection by places such as Brazos de Dios and Heritage Homestead.

As time and money permits, I will be returning to the homesteading school to learn other essential craft and agrarian homesteading skills. Some of those courses include bread making, soft and hard cheese making, handcrafted soap making, organic gardening etc. There is a profound purpose and sense of accomplishment in rediscovering and mastering these skills. One of the best rewards possible is to taste the fruit of fulfillment and accomplishment and getting in touch with my own heritage.

Personal "Victory" Garden - How To Get Started

2009-07-02T09:35:00.008-05:00

The reality is that almost half of my life was lived in a high rise overlooking the Atlantic ocean. The closest I got to a garden was walking by the potted plants in the entry way of the lobby of my childhood building.

Gardening was not really a part of my vocabulary. I did love driving through the sugar cane fields in Brazil when I was a child and the many farming communities when visiting Texas. But at the time, I had no idea that I would be living that life one day.

Fast forward to 2009 - now living in Texas on a farm that once yielded large crops of watermelons, peanuts, purple hulled peas, cotton, corn and other staples. In the 50's the farm switched to Brahman cattle due to the government cotton credit program.

My artist cowboy's family has carried on the tradition of raising registered Brahmans but due to their temperament and size have become less popular in recent years. I love all of our bottle fed Brahman babies but as the economy continues to spiral downward, we have chosen to revert the cattle ranch back into a working farm with some small profitable heirloom crop production and possibly an agritourism location in the near future. Feed Me Farms will one day feed the mind, body and soul!

In order to achieve our long term goal, we decided to plant a "test" garden to see what would grow well. We took our inspiration from the victory gardens of the 1940's.
The term "Victory Garden" was coined during World War II, when food was being severely rationed. The U.S. government began a campaign for Americans to grow their own fruits and vegetables.

Americans heeded the call out of necessity and victory gardens began cropping up in the new urban areas, places where people had lost touch with living off the land. Magazines and newspapers featured articles on vegetable growing, canning and preservation at home. Beautiful, whimsical posters and artwork were part of the campaign, many depicting patriotic images and vegetables, hand in hand.

History repeats itself. Newspapers, magazines and television news have been covering stories about home gardening, CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture) and local farmers markets. Even Leisure Learning, a Houston adult continuing education program has really jumped on the train. Once upon a time it was full of stock market and real estate classes but on the cover of the latest issue it touted backyard chicken and goat tending. Publications such as Mother Earth News, Grit Magazine and Hobby Farms are having a renaissance of sorts...as many newspapers and magazines are witnessing a decline, these publications readerships are growing on a daily basis.

I am happy that we are a part of this. There is nothing more satisfying than watching a little seedling take root, grow and bloom, then ultimately bare a fantastically tasting fruit or vegetable. I have lost all interest in purchasing massed produced food from supermarkets. Their waxy evenness is almost creepy. Our food sources have all been polluted with genetically modified seeds, massive amounts of pesticides and flavorless fruits and vegetables all in the name of progress.
One bite of an heirloom tomato will have you begging for more locally produced food and possibly inspire you to provide for yourself - even if you did grow up in a high rise! Yes this is my personal "victory".

How to Plant Your Own Victory Garden:

1) Start small, even if you have many acres to play with. Support companies who provide only non GMO (genetically modified) seeds. My absolute favorite company is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds @ www.rareseeds.com
Their catalog is not only beautiful but very educational. They offer heirloom seeds from around the world. I had almost 100% germination with their seeds. I boycott companies that are associated with Monsanto (GMO) seeds. Most of the seed companies sold in major stores like Home Depot, Lowe's and Walmart are NOT very good and many are flavorless.
2) Do not be afraid, just jump in. I was so hesitant and indecisive that it actually took me weeks to finally plant one seed. I read so many gardening books that I eventually got overwhelmed with information. I go back to the "kiss" philosophy (keep it simple stupid).
3) Do keep a journal, it really helps to keep things organized. I made my own gardening book. I titled pages with planting dates, first sprout dates, first harvest and last harvest dates. I also keep track of significant occurrences such as frosts, rain, drought conditions, pest invasions and lack of germination (possible reasons). Make a diagram of the garden and keep track of where you planted what. This will help if markers are washed away and will help you rotate for next year.
4) Prep your soil but do not overthink the process. Our ancestors grew tons of crops with little intervention and so can you. We use all natural fortifiers for our soil. Compost, fish emulsion and other natural infusions.
5) Do smother weeds or grass before planting. The easiest way to do this is with newspapers and tarps, allow a few weeks for the area to wilt and die and then begin working the soil. If you are doing raised bed planting then this is not a big issue.
6) Do not be afraid to plant the seed directly in the ground, especially if you live in the South. You do not need a fancy greenhouse to get those little seeds started.
7) Pick fruits and vegetables that you like and will eat. It is also important to picks seeds that are known to flourish in your climate.
8) Have fun with it, don't be upset with a few small failures. The big victories are well worth everything!

Oven Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

2009-07-01T21:06:00.009-05:00

Tomatillos have taken off in our heirloom garden. Two varieties have both grown equally well. My tomatillo verdes yielded rich, vibrant green fruit. The big surprise was the Purple Coban tomatillos, a native mountain variety from Guatemala. The Purple Cobans are a lush, purple and green mottled fruit much sweeter than expected. When roasted, they become even sweeter.

Tomatillos are thought to have grown wild in the Andes mountains eventually being domesticated by local tribes and then spread to other South and Central American cultures such as the Aztecs. Tomatillos are often confused with green tomatoes but are very different in both texture and flavor. Tomatillos are a member of the nightshade family but are closer to a gooseberry than an actual tomato. When ripening on the vine, a husk evolves first protecting the tiny fruit bud until it matures and breaks through the papery skin. The husk is almost the size of the full grown tomatillo throughout the growing period of the fruit itself. Tomatillos are ready to pick when the fruit catches up to the size of the skin and can be seen peeking through.

Salsa is now in the top five condiments of the U.S. right up there with ketchup and Tabasco. The name "salsa" most likely was given by the Conquistadors for the concoction of chilies, tomatillos or tomatoes used by the indigenous cooks of Central America.

*****culinary tip - tomatillos have a sticky, soapy residue between the husk and the fruit. Fill a sink with cold water and rinse the tomatillos twice to remove all the residue. I made this for a pot luck dinner party to serve with my homemade carnitas cornbread casserole, so I was cooking for a crowd. This recipe can be easily halved.

Oven Roasted Tomatillo Salsa:
40 tomatillos
8 to 10 garlic cloves
4 Poblano peppers
2 to 4 fresh jalapenos or serrano peppers
2 1/2 cups of coarsely chopped onion
1 cup chopped cilantro
olive oil
sea salt (to taste)

Set oven to broil.

Place all the ingredients except for cilantro, olive oil and salt on rimmed cookie sheets. Roast all ingredients until the tomatillos begin to burst and caramelize and the poblanos get very dark and their skins begin to separate. Keep turning all the vegetables until all sides are roasted.

Remove poblanos and place in zip lock bag. Allow to sweat, then peel off the roasted skin. Add back to the roasted vegetable mixture.

Allow for the roasted vegetables to cool slightly, begin scooping the roasted vegetable mixture into a large capacity food processor, be sure and add all of the juices from the roasted vegetables. Add a handful of cilantro and process. Continue this until all roasted vegetables and cilantro have been processed.

Add sea salt to taste and a bit of olive oil for consistency. Best if made the day before and allowed to sit overnight in refrigerator. Can be reheated or served cold.

* Can also be combined with Crema Mexicana for a beautiful green cream sauce.

The 3 F's of Small Town Texas: Fairs, Family Reunions & Funerals

2009-06-22T16:38:00.008-05:00

We have had quite a week and I apologize for not posting sooner. We had the three major F's happen - the fair, two funerals and a family reunion. All involved the big fourth F - food!

I can honestly say that many chickens (not mine) were sacrificed for these three East Texas rituals. Believe it or not, we had fried chicken at all four events. We also had plenty baked ham, fresh corn pudding, barbecue brisket, corn bread, purple hulled peas, homemade tamales, cakes, pies and lots of homemade ice cream.

All of these F's lead up to another F - Fat!!! We may need to add just one more F to the list this next week...fasting!

There is something very comforting knowing that the County Fair happens every year the third weekend in June. The fair celebrated it's 89th year in 2009. This is only my second year to attend but with every year that passes I get more involved. This year I entered some photographs in the home economics competition.

The fair always kicks off with a large parade. The parade floats are elaborate affairs that locals work on for months. Every year there is a different theme, this year was "Country Paradise". There were a lot of grass skirts and cowboy hats (now that's a combination). There were also plenty of duded up horses, tractors, motorcycles, all terrains, golf carts and antique vehicles.

Have I mentioned that my cowboy happens to be a well known art car artist? Well, he is. He has been making art cars since the 90's.

The "Yellow Rose of Texas" is a 1990 Cadillac that is covered in rhinestones and depicts famous Texas icons such as bluebonnets, longhorns, oil derricks, the Alamo and of course lots of yellow roses.He made this particular car for his mother's 60th birthday (over ten years ago). It took over 400 hours and 10,000 rhinestones to create.

This is by far, one of the most famous of all Texas art cars. It has won the Houston Art Car Parade and has been featured on shows such as CNN, Good Morning America and CBS Sunday Morning. It has graced the pages of Texas Monthly, Heritage Magazine and Texas Highways. It was on the cover of the Austin Travel Guide. The "Yellow Rose of Texas" garnered so much attention that it was chosen to be in the "It Ain't Braggin' If It's True" opening exhibit of the Bob Bullock Museum at the Austin State Capitol. It proved to be the most popular item in the museum. It was invited back twice and has a real place in Texas memorabilia.

Now it is on permanent exhibit at our local County museum (which I happen to be curator)instead of just being stored in the barn and we drove it in the parade as the museum entry. It is always a huge crowd pleaser! The kids all call it "The Bedazzled Car".

The parade winds it away around the old downtown square and courthouse, then goes straight down Highway 84 (which they close for the event) and ends at the fairground. It is amazing how many people stand in the Texas summer heat to cheer on their favorites. The sense of community really comes alive at this moment.

Many of the first settlers of the area have permanent camp sites at the fairgrounds and spend the preceding week decorating them with different themes. There is anything from feed sack, horseshoe and chili pepper motifs to patriotic themes that represent Texas. There are even a few confederate flags that fly, after all this is Texas, and the fair grounds are actually the Confederate Reunion Grounds.

Usually, we spend the entire week enjoying the animal judging events, concerts (Country, Bluegrass & Gospel), rides, food booths, cow patty bingo and the rodeo. Our camp has one of the best locations, it's right across from the concert pavilion, and at the gateway to the food booths and the Midway. All of my cowboy's friends, family and town characters stop by. We end the weekend with a family reunion and a late night at the camp telling tall tales and sharing a bit of days gone by.

This year was a little different as two members of my cowboy's family passed away during the festivities. It was a blessing for both. His grandmother was 93 and had been in a nursing home for many years, his eldest cousin had been ill for several years and her quality of life had been greatly diminished.
Both funerals were a celebration of life with lots of family, food and friends who gathered to pay their respects.

His grandmother (Memaw) was the best beautician in town and owned her salon for over 40 years. Everybody knew her, including the young funeral director who handled the arrangements. He added a photo to her photo montage of him as a baby, getting his first hair cut and Memaw was giving it. He was sitting on a two by four across the barbers chair because he was so tiny. My cowboy said , he too, remembered that two by four well. It was a touching moment and made me think how wonderful it is to live in a place where your life and death can touch so many. She was buried beside her husband in the family cemetery that was started by his family in the early 1800's.

Memaw's favorite treat was homemade ice cream. Even in the nursing home, we always gave her a bit of soft serve ice cream after her meal. Before her body faltered and her memory faded, Memaw made homemade ice cream all the time for her three daughters and her grandkids. Grandad and Memaw would make them homemade peppermint ice cream and they would have a good old ice cream social.

My parents and grandparents would make hand cranked ice cream for us every summer too. I can still remember the old wooden ice cream maker with the ice and bags of rock salt, later on they got an electric one but it still had the wooden barrel. It was a White Mountain brand, which has been around for over a hundred years (although I think Rival owns them now). I may be adding one to my farm wish list for future fair use.

Both my mom and grandma were awesome Southern cooks and they would make us homemade custard ice cream, this process involves fresh eggs and cooking the cream mixture to a very soft custard stage before freezing it. It adds a depth and richness that uncooked ice cream just cannot duplicate. My mom always adds in different fruits like peach, blueberry, blackberry or even fresh coconut but I like those but my favorite is just pure vanilla bean.

Here's a recipe in honor of Memaw (1915-2009) and my Grandma (1915-1996), I know there are plenty of ice cream scoops in the great beyond! Their ice cream socials live on in our hearts!

Homemade Vanilla Bean Custard Ice Cream

2009-06-22T14:32:00.005-05:00

This is a picture of our County Fair Campsite, the fair has been going on since the late 1800's in one way or another. My cowboy's sister & mom love to decorate the campsite every year in a patriotic Texas theme. The family has had a permanent campsite for over 80 years at the fairgrounds. The fairgrounds were organized originally as a Confederate Reunion Camp Ground and it still bears that name today.
My cowboy's ancestors had a campsite then too! We like to make our own ice cream but usually only make it for one night and the fair actually lasts for an entire week. Our county is famous for its peaches, so we buy home made peach ice cream from one of the food booths. The booth is run by a local family and they sell out every night, it is one of the most popular items at the fair. I like to think that many generations have sat down to eat a bowl of homemade ice cream a time or two in this wonderful campsite under the old oak trees.

Homemade Vanilla Bean Custard Ice Cream:

3 farm fresh eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups of organic sugar
4 cups whipping cream
2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean
1/2 teaspoon real vanilla
sprinkle of sea salt (tiny pinch)

1)Beat eggs in a medium size bowl and set aside
2)Combine sugar, cream and milk in large sauce pan
3)Add the entire vanilla bean whole and a tiny pinch of sea salt
4)Heat the cream mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved, be sure the mixture is on very low heat and never boils. It is necessary to stir almost constantly.
5)Remove one cup of the warm cream mixture and the whole vanilla bean.
6)Slice the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the tiny beans back into the cream mixture. discard the bean pod.
7)**This is the most crucial step, be very careful that the mixture has cooled slightly before mixing it in with the eggs or it will scramble or curdle and ruin the texture**Begin stirring the eggs constantly, slowly pour in the cream mixture
8)Slowly add back in the egg & cream mixture to the rest of the cream mixture in the sauce pan. Add a half teaspoon of vanilla. Stir constantly.
9)Allow the egg & cream mixture to cook on very low heat until it coats the back of a wooden spoon (the temperature should reach about 170 and can be tested with a candy thermometer)
10)Remove mixture from heat and place in large Pyrex bowl, allow to cool at least 4 hours in refrigerator. For best results allow to cool overnight.
11) Skim off any pudding like skin and place the rest in your ice cream maker. Follow your ice cream freezer instructions

This mixture makes a wonderful base for fresh fruit ice cream too. Seasonal fruit such as peaches, blackberries, fresh coconut or strawberries can be added during the making for a wonderful summer treat.

Clicking My Heels For Joy! or How To Train a Baby Donkey

2009-06-11T08:21:00.007-05:00

I am clicking my heels and my training "clicker" with joy of the birth of my first miniature Mediterranean donkey here at Feed Me Farms. I fell in love with these energetic little creatures while visiting Sicily in 2003. I had encountered them in a little mountain side village named Floresta near the Mt. Etna volcano. I only saw them from a far but it was love at first sight for me.

Donkeys have been domesticated for over 5000 years and come in all shapes and sizes. With the help of modern day DNA testing it is now widely accepted that almost all donkeys are descendants of the African Wild Ass. Some of the first evidence of domestication was found in an Egyptian tomb where 10 donkeys were buried with full regalia along with a long forgotten king.

It is believed that ancient Egyptian merchants sold or traded asses to other ancient cultures thus populating the Middle East and Mediterranean with this wise and revered pack animal. Damascus, was once known as "The City of Asses", obviously because of one of it's most famous commodities.

Mediterranean or Sicilian donkeys are famous for their distinctive markings. Most have a prominent cross like marking across their back and shoulder. It is said they were given this mark for having been so faithful and loyal to Jesus. They are always featured in the traditional manger scene.

Closer to home, we had been waiting since early Spring for this little bundle of fur to arrive here on our Texas farm. We acquired 3 little Sicilian donkeys at the beginning of the year to keep our first bottle fed calf, ZZ Topinha, company. We bought an adult Jack, Jenny and their one year old Jack offspring (it was a package deal, donkeys are notoriously lonely without companions). We named them Billy, Frank and Dusty in homage to the band ZZ Top. When they were delivered we noticed Dusty was either really, really well fed or pregnant. Well, pregnant she was and getting bigger and bigger day by day.

We waited and waited and WAITED...I had no idea that a Jenny can be pregnant for 360 to 375 days!!!! Can you imagine if a human had to carry a baby for over a year! All of our friends and family would ask "Have you had that baby donkey yet?". My standard response became "Not yet, but I swear it has to be any day now".

One afternoon a little over a week ago, I walked out to the side pasture to visit and to my surprise, there was an extra set of ears slowly making their way through the tall grass. I started yelling for my cowboy, I was so excited I tripped and fell in cow manure but did not even notice (until later when I tracked it all over my hardwood floors).

We named her Pearl, again a little reference to ZZ Top...just think, the next one will have to be named "Tush" !

How to "clicker" train a donkey:

1) Clicker training can be used with any animal. An inexpensive clicker can be picked up at any big pet store for less than $5. It can be one of your best investments on the farm. I use it for training the calves, chickens, Guineas and the donkeys.

2) Use the clicker in conjunction with treats or food. Animals of any kind are always more motivated when there is a little bribe of food involved. I use carrot or apple baked biscuits for the donkeys and calves. They love both.

3) Stand at the gate entrance or barn entrance and call out to the young donkey. Click as loudly as possible with the clicker. As the donkey approaches kneel down and continue to click until the baby comes up to you. Reward with a treat and plenty of petting.

4) If you want to teach them to follow you anywhere, make the clicking, treat reward, clicking into a game. Click a few times, get them to follow. Once they begin to follow you, reward with a treat or a pat on the head. Pretty soon, the clicker may no longer be needed but sure comes in handy if they are far off in the pasture!

When It Rains It Pours..Calves! How To Save an Orphaned Calf

2009-06-06T14:43:00.005-05:00

So, we had been camping out at the primitive property on Memorial weekend with a group of our friends until an intense short lived storm took out several tents and put a damper on staying out in the wilderness. We opted to move the camp out to our farm house and have a nice roof and dry bedding for everyone to enjoy.

Memorial Day itself could not have been prettier, the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing and several newborn calves were about to take a very different path (that inevitably leads straight to the misfit corral).

We took a couple of our friends and their 2 children (ages 6 & 3) for a farm tour. First up, a visit to the chicken coop. I knew it was a bad omen when my broken beak hen had passed away in the night (she had a broken beak since day 3 of her life and I guess it caught up to her). The kids took it much better than I did, so we carried on (no time to mourn my chickens untimely demise). We fed treats to some of the donkeys and calves and even had one of our 2000 pound Brahma mommas stick her head in the SUV window to lick the toddler. Not sure if she was amused but all the adults sure were!

A trip to the back pasture proved even more interesting as we encountered two things happening at once. One of our cows was in the throws of labor and another cow had extremely swollen udders and could not feed her newborn.

Life lessons for our little city slickers - as we watched one being born the other had to be lured to the corral area with her calf so we could take control of the situation. We left the other cow in labor alone, as everything looked like it was going along fine. Which, I have now learned, never assume things are going along fine on a farm.

After our friends had the eventful tour, they headed back to the city and we headed back to the pasture. By this time we had called in back-up, my cowboy's momma and sister had come to help too. The first piece of business was to get old cross bred momma into the corral with her calf. Easier said than done, but let's just say we are good truck wranglers.

As we returned to the pasture we were shocked at what we saw next. The purebred registered Brahma had died while giving birth (prolapsed uterus)and there was no calf on the ground. Everyone assumed the worst but as we drove off, I noticed something happening in the cow herd.

To my surprise, far off in the distance I could see a newborn calf trying to suck on every cow it went up to. I knew this was the orphan. We raced over and snatched up this little blue eyed bull, brand new umbilical cord and all and made our way back to the corral. Not before I got a pretty good hoof to the chin.

We named the heifer baby Pink Olive and the little bull King Nandi (in honor of our farm guests that day). They are now almost two weeks old and alive and well.

All in a days work....another circle of life, death & everything in between on the farm.

How to Save an Orphaned Calf:

1) It is important for the calf to receive Colostrum within the first few hours of birth. It's chances for survival increase drastically. If there is another heifer who has just given birth in the same pasture, corral her and her offspring and place her in the shoot where she can be milked or can be still so the orphan can drink.

2) Place the orphaned newborn on her udder and see if it will begin sucking. Be patient, this could take several attempts. Be sure the surrogate heifer is restrained because her instinct will not be to allow this orphaned calf to suck. Meanwhile, collect enough colostrum in a large baby calf bottle for back up and to scent the calf (more about this in a minute).

3) If you do not have a surrogate heifer available, you should keep an emergency kit on hand that includes a bag of instant colostrum, use this if no other colostrum is available. Even better, fresh colostrum freezes very well and can keep in your freezer for up to a year. Harvest fresh colostrum from one of your cows every year and place it in a ziplock gallon freezer bag. If you end up with an orphaned newborn or some other situation, just gently unfreeze the colostrum in some warm water and feed it via baby bottle or large oral syringe.

4) Once the newborn is fed, the next step is to get the surrogate to except him/her as her own along with her other calf. I had always heard that you can "scent" the calf and fool the surrogate. We rubbed down the real calf real well with our hands and then rubbed the orphan down with the real calf's scent. We also dowsed the orphan with a lot of the surrogate's colostrum/milk. This trick worked. She had no trouble accepting the orphan.

5) If all else fails, ALWAYS have electrolyte gel packs on hand to give the newborn and a bottle full of milk replacer. Tractor Supply has all of these things and if you live far from one like we do, it is always better to have all of this on hand. We learned the hard way.

Epilogue: In the end, the surrogate cow had plenty of milk for both calves but had a serious case of mastitis. Her milk was bad because of this. Both calves are being fed with milk replacer by bottle. I am proud to report that both are fine and now think we're their momma!

Posole Recipe (Pork & Hominy Stew)

2009-05-31T22:53:00.002-05:00

Ingredients:

5 or 6 pounds of marinated pork butt or wild hog fresh hams and backstraps (marinade in yogurt for 6 hours or more, see food history and tips)
2 yellow onions quartered
6 to 8 whole peeled garlic cloves
12 tomatillos washed and quartered
2 cups of fresh chopped cilantro
2 quarts of chicken stock
2 cans of Rotel
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 roasted poblano peppers (roasted, de-seeded and sliced thin)
2 dried red chilies (whole)
2 tablespoons of green chili powder(preferable) or red if not available
1 tablespoon cumin
2 large cans of white hominy
12 green onions (whole with just the tips cut off on each end)
2 avocados
white Mexican queso fresco (grated)

Preheat oven to 250 or 280 (if needed to speed up cooking time). Place quartered onions and garlic in the bottom of a large Dutch oven. Place meat on top. Cover and cook until meat can be pulled apart with a fork or cut into 1 inch pieces (this step can take anywhere from 3 to 5 hours).
Reserve the juice, carmelized onion and garlic (but skim off all visible fat with a spoon). Add the pork meat back in to the pan. Place tomatillos and cilantro in food processor and chop finely (it will liquefy). This is the base of your broth. You may have to do this in several batches depending on the size of the processor. Add the liquefied mixture to the pan. Add tomatoes, Rotel, poblano peppers, chili powder and cumin. Allow to simmer for a few minutes to allow flavors to layer. Add chicken stock, green onions, hominy and dried red peppers. Allow to simmer until green onions are soft and bright green.
Serve with fresh cut avocado and queso blanco on top.

My Peeps Love Posole !

2009-05-30T23:00:00.008-05:00

Many of my friends have requested this hominy and pork stew recipe and I have written it out so many times, I thought I would share it here for easy access. I like to serve Posole when camping because it can be made at home, reheats wonderfully and is a welcome change from the obligatory chili around the campfire. I make mine with wild hog meat but regular pork butt works fine too.

I grew up traveling to Mexico and one of my favorite street foods was Posole. There is nothing like it late night if you are a little tipsy and starving to death. There are areas in Mexico that have a designated Posole day at their permanent restaurants or temporary street booths. In the big cities, it is traditionally served on the weekends. Here in Texas, you will find it on many taqueria menus. It is also a popular on special occasions such as New Year's Eve (thought to bring luck and prosperity just like black eyed peas).

Posole gets its name from a variety of large kerneled corn soaked in lime to remove the tough skin. Here in Texas, hominy, is substituted. There are three different colors of broth red, white and green derived from the chilies used. My broth has a lovely green tint not necessarily from the chilies but for the tomatillo and cilantro broth that I like to cook down.

The most important technique for Posole is to layer the flavors. You can't be in a hurry, so plan to do this on a day off. The roasting of the meat is another key to success.

Cooking tip:I use yogurt to tenderize the pork meat (in my case, wild hog meat). Indian Tandori meat is always so tender and moist because of its yogurt based marinade. Unlike other acidic marinades (wine, citrus, vinegar etc.) yogurt tenderizes without changing the texture of the meat. I like to rub all the meat down with a combination of chili powders and a bit of sea salt. After seasoning the meat, slather it with yogurt and marinate in the refrigerator anywhere from 6 to 24 hours.

Cooking tip: If you are planning to use a pork butt, I like to slow roast the meat in a very heavy Dutch oven. Place 2 quartered yellow onions in bottom of pan and then place 8 to 10 peeled garlic cloves on onions. Layer the meat over the top and cook covered on low heat 250 to 280 oven until fork tender, anywhere from 4 to 6 hours.

Buen Provecho!

Rainbows, Ripped Tents & Real Friends

2009-05-28T15:50:00.008-05:00

Back from a stay-cation for Memorial Weekend. Instead of traveling this year, we chose to invite everyone here. There is an 800 acre area that is very primitive and beautiful that we use for recreation. It makes for perfect camping since there are several small lakes fed by natural underground springs and surface creeks. We designate one for swimming and hillbilly spa mud bathing and one for fishing. Between the two lakes is a gently sloped hill, on top of the hill is an Indian mound that overlooks the valley and large creek below. Tent sites were set up all over the hill and down by the lakes with a huge red rock fire pit near the Indian mound and a centralized kitchen tent for cooking by campfire. It had the makings for the perfect long weekend.

We had twenty something friends and family coming and going the entire three days. There was plenty to do for all ages. The guys loved to hunt wild hog and fish while the gals and kids swam in the ice cold spring lake, did wild mud baths with the cool green mud that has to be brought up from the bottom, went hiking and did driving safaris to see deer, wildflowers and other wildlife. The kids went to help do farm chores back at the farm with me in the early evening. The chickens, miniature donkeys, cows and Guinea keets all needed attention.

At night we had a slow smoked wild hog feast with roasted corn and vegetable kabobs and the kids had s'mores. Everyone had pitched in and brought plenty of gourmet food to snack on throughout the weekend. We had Scrapple, cowboy coffee, bacon , eggs, fresh feta orzo pasta, really fantastic chalupas with smoked pulled wild hog, hummus, roasted red pepper and smoked jalapeno dip, beautiful fresh fruit salad, homemade almond toffee etc..etc..

Saturday night we had a blast hanging around the campfire tending to the smoking of the meats, telling VERY tall tales and just laughing till our sides hurt. There may have been some whiskey drinking involved but not too much since we are one of the few dry counties left in Texas. There is nothing better than sleeping next to the one you love under the stars, with the sounds of the night right outside the screen of your tent, the lullaby of the wind through the trees across the small valley.

Sunday, we awoke to a gorgeous day!
Everything was going along nicely until......
early evening, rainbows and heavy white clouds began to appear. Great photo opportunity....nice time to take the little ones on a photo safari, we were not really thinking about how rainbows are formed. We had a great drive around the property and as we made our way back the sky ahead of us grew heavy with menacing gray rain clouds as we crested the hill. Before we had a chance to speak, lighting struck nearby and the skies opened.

The first thing one of my friends said was "I hope the guys closed up the tents", one of my other friends said "I hope they stored all the chairs so they don't get soaked" and I blurted out "I hope they covered all the fire wood". As we got closer, we noticed that everyone left back at camp were all crammed under the kitchen tent which consisted of a solid metal frame. None of the things we wished for out loud had happened. In fact, the wind had increased to 40 MPH gusts and I watched two chairs go airborne and fly over the edge of the hill top, so much for staying dry.

I thought to myself...hhhmmmm...thunderstorm, severe lighting, top of hill, metal rods holding up the kitchen tent...no, not the safest place to wait it out. One of my guy friends had the same thought, he ran out making a mad dash for his truck. As he sprinted across the meadow, a lighting strike happened withing 20 feet of his fleeing feet. He hesitated but in the end, chose to continue to the truck. Smart man!

Another friend had made it back to her SUV with her two dogs and we could hear her horn honking wildly in the distance. Apparently she was a bit frightened and was trying to attract the attention of her guy, who was helping hold down the kitchen tent. I really did feel sorry for all of the bodies under the tent. They had decided to stay put and not risk the same fate that our friend sprinting across the meadow almost suffered.

Us women or "cougars" as we had jokingly decided were now content to hang out in the SUV with four little kids (ages 3,4, and two 6 year olds)...did I mention the two dogs who were afraid of thunder that were crammed in the car with us? We all hunkered down and decided to make the best of the situation. We were nice and dry and they were all wet and hanging on to a tent for dear life so I couldn't complain.

I don't have children, but now I know how parents can zone out and not hear the world crashing down around them. I pretty much tuned out all the chatter, noise and barking and enjoyed a nice chat with my friends. Meanwhile the kiddos were performing acrobatic feats in my back trunk. Only one casualty...the cute little three year old suffered a pretty good shiner accidentally (or so we hope) given by her six year old brother, with his foot, no less.

We stayed calm as we watched one tent collapse under the weight of the water, we watched another become a Picasso painting with all odd angles and rods sticking out everywhere. Finally, I watched my own humble pop up abode finally take on too much water and the top just sunk in. All this in less than an hour.

And then it ended as abruptly as it started. The sun came back out and the rainbows reappeared. We all pitched in to pick up the pieces. Two campsites came out o.k. and seasoned campers that they were, stayed to brave another night. One couple was supposed to go home that night after dinner and now were stuck with the task of packing loads of soggy camp gear, damaged tents and exhausted, excited kiddos. The other couple had just gotten there and now their tent resembled a cubist dream and our tent was intact but filled with at least two inches of water.

We decided that we would move the party to the farm house for the evening and have a campout in our den. We drank lovely white Sangria full of fresh fruit, dined on a friend's fresh vegetables from her garden & ate wild hog Posole that I had slow roasted and made the broth from scratch with some fresh tomatillos and cilantro from my first harvest.

Monday, we woke to another beautiful day in Central East Texas. Our bellies were full and we had slept in a dry bed and a new day was upon us. Little did I know that I was about to find out that when it rains, it pours...calves.... but that's another story!

I learned a lot this weekend. I realized how lucky I am to have a crazy cowboy artist in my life, to live on such a beautiful patch of Mother Earth, and to have such wonderful old and new friends to share great adventures with.

It was such perfect trip, and ultimately we did not have to go anywhere at all! There IS no place like HOME!

We plan to make this an annual or even bi-annual event. In honor of the campout, I am going to post my Posole recipe that so many of you loved!

CCSI (Chicken Coop Scene Investigation)

2009-05-15T23:49:00.004-05:00

A serial killer is on the loose at Feed Me Farms. Our thirteen chicks had been moved to their chicken condo a little over a week ago when they outgrew their brooder. They were getting used to having the run of the garden during the day and were already trained to roost in their coop at sunset. I had actually begun an evening ritual of sitting outside their shelter and was mesmerized by their antics. I had also gotten in the habit of doing a head count before closing up the coop.
The serial killer struck in the dead of night and left plenty of DNA (of our poor chickens that is). My cowboy found them in their enclosed coop in the morning. Four of my poor feathered friends went down although not without a fight. We think the deceased were three roosters and one hen. My favorite black & white rooster with the giant mohawk was apparently the first to go, there was nothing left but his feet. In fact the chicks that had the most white feathers were all killed.
There is an old wives tale that white chickens get preyed upon more than colored chickens, I now believe it may be true. It might have something to do with their visibility at night.
The origin of chickens can be traced to Red Jungle Fowl from Southeast Asia where their domestication began thousands of years ago. Today, there is an estimated twenty four billion chickens or so in the world. That means there are roughly four chickens to every person on earth! Wrap your wing around that for a minute...
We have narrowed our culprits down to three possibilities: raccoon, feral cat or possum.
Chicken stories are like bad pregnancy stories....almost everyone has one and they love to tell you the gory details. One of our distant neighbors likes to tell the story of his chicken coop which he affectionately named "chicken death camp". Another friend relayed the story of beheaded chickens in her parents coop three days in a row. My cowboy told me when we got them, "Chickens are always looking for a way to die".
I want to think my chickens will be different. We have now added multiple boards to to the coop and are now wiring the door shut at night. We have set a live catch & release trap every night since (the killer seems to have caught on, as he has avoided the trap even though it is set with nice stinky canned cat food.)
My cowboy's mom found out that one of my cowboy's cousins had just hatched a gaggle of Guinea fowl three days ago and ordered 12 of them for us.
Maybe we will have better luck with these twelve than we did with the original thirteen. HHmmmm in Blackjack, we would have beat the dealer with a perfect twenty one!
In honor of my fallen feathery friends, I am posting my favorite Southeast Asian chicken recipe.

Tom Kha Gai (Thai Coconut Curry Chicken Soup)

2009-05-14T18:33:00.006-05:00

Ingredients:
2 cans unsweetened coconut milk
1 quart of chicken stock
2 cups water
2 boneless chicken breasts (sliced extremely thin)
1 pound of sliced shitake mushrooms
2 stalks of thick lemon grass (slightly beaten to release juice)
1/4 cup sliver sliced fresh ginger or if available galangal (Thai)
1 onion halved & quartered
1 bunch green onions with just the ends removed (leave intact)
2 cloves of garlic thinly sliced
8 leaves thinly sliced Thai basil
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
Kafir lime leaf (if available)
1 lime (fresh squeeze juice)
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon of curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin
*Sambal to taste (for heat factor)
2 bunches of Asian greens (cleaned and stems removed)
Sesame oil & Chile oil

Place chicken breasts in freezer for at least a half hour before slicing. If the breasts are slightly frozen, they are much easier to slice. Heat large stock pot. Add the curry and the cumin and allow to become fragrant. Add about a tablespoon of sesame oil and a teaspoon of chili oil to pan. Add the sliced yellow onions, cook till translucent. Add chicken slices,ginger,lemon grass,lime leaf, garlic and saute till chicken is no longer pink.
Stir in coconut milk, chicken stock, green onions & water. For heat add Sambal to taste. Once simmering add cilantro, basil and Asian greens until wilted.

Serve over fragrant Jasmine rice.

It's Like Talking to the Cat!

2009-05-12T08:57:00.002-05:00

Have you ever felt like chucking your computer out the window and returning to the dark ages of pen and paper? It happened to me over the last 10 days. I made the decision to purchase my own domain www.feedmefarms.com, at the time I thought it was a simple endeavor.
That is when I discovered that trying to resolve a domain issue can be akin to "talking to the cat". At least for me.
Next time I will do more research before jumping in but here is the brief synopsis of my cyber experience.
1) Purchased my domain at godaddy.com
2) Followed instructions given by blogger.com to re-direct the blog (or so I thought)
3) Found out that if I had bought domain through blogger.com, they would have set this all up without such a struggle (note to self: research more next time)
4) blog site was not accessible for 48 hours but as per instructions, did not panic.
5) Could not access blog, attempted to contact blogger.com. Found out that contacting them directly was harder than contacting President Obama
6) Contacted godaddy.com, they have a great customer service group available 24/7.
7) Explained my situation, their geek patrol took a look and enacted some changes.
8) Day 6 & 7, website still says "this website is temporarily unavailable".
9) Contact godaddy.com again, they have done what they can and ask me to contact blogger.com, they tell me exactly what to request (easier said than done)
10) Day 8 & 9, I put my trust in the hands of the Blogger Help Group (other bloggers) I begin my request with ...."Give an answer as if you are talking to your cat"
11) Some nice help group blogger responds with exactly what I need to give godaddy.com
12) Last contact with godaddy.com , sent them the info that the blogger help group gave me. Within an hour, I was up and running.
13) Lesson learned - cats make good carrier pigeons! On the upside - all this down time gave me a chance to really tackle the heirloom garden...check out the progress.

The Ass Whisperer

2009-05-03T07:07:00.001-05:00

Never thought I would be known to friends & family as "the Ass Whisperer" but I now wear the name proudly. My father had race horses in Brazil so the Jockey Club in Rio was one of my favorite "playgrounds". I was pretty tiny in high school (4'11" , 92 pounds) so my dad's horse trainer would allow me to exercise the horses. I began riding regularly at the age of five, English Hunt & Western Saddle so I have always had a love for horses. Donkeys were not my thing.
Fast forward to 2009 - ZZ Topinha our first bottle fed Brahma calf arrived January 1st, her momma BB had been a show calf for my cowboys sister and had lost her calves every year since she started having them. BB was our tamest heifer of the herd and we were sad every year about losing her calves.
BB gave birth to ZZ Topinha on New Years Day while we were away camping at Inks Lake in the Texas Hill Country. When we arrived home the next day we went out to check the herd and the strangest thing had happened.
We found this beautiful baby calf in our barn corral. She was all by herself and the gates were closed and latched. BB the show heifer was standing outside as if she wanted us to know this new little baby was hers and she wanted us to do something. We noticed that BB had a bad udder bag and could not feed her calf.
I had already received an emergency lesson on how to save a calf from our dear friend Ms. Dottie Love and she had provided me with a "baby" kit (bottle, electrolyte gel, books, milk replacer etc.)
The mystery to this day is how ZZ Topinha got in the corral by herself just in time for us to rescue her. I am convinced it was my cowboy's long dead ancestors lending a helping hand. His daddy loved these cows and being in the barns so we chalk it up to a little spectral assistance.
We decided that little ZZ needed some protection from predators such as coyotes so we decided to acquire a guard donkey. My cowboy's cousin down the road raises exotics for zoos, we knew he had some so we called him up. He said sure, he had a Jenny and two Jacks and they were a package deal. Apparently donkeys never do as well solo and are almost always a "package" deal. Oh, the Jenny is pregnant and oh, they are miniatures to boot.
He delivered them the next afternoon. We placed them on one side of the barn gated away from the calf and from there the fun began. These little guys (and girl) had grown up with just a bit of human interaction. In essence, they were as wild as wild gets! Since they were going to be living with ZZ Topinha, we named them Dusty, Billy & Frank (we have a habit of naming our barn animals after musicians & bands).
I was bound and determined to tame them and I'm now going to share the secrets of the "ass whisperer":
Step One - Donkeys have a memory like an elephant so do not get frustrated. They will never forget ill treatment. Donkeys by nature are curious and will pay attention even if they are pretending to ignore you. Walk quietly, talk softly and do not make any sudden movements. Place the donkey(s) in a semi-small secure area like a corral, barn or holding area.
Step Two - Place a chair somewhere in the area and plan to stay awhile. Arm yourself with good reading material (I chose Hobby Farms magazine with a special issue devoted to donkeys) and some really good horse treats (I have had the best luck with carrot flavored biscuits). Place the treats in a bowl at your feet so the donkeys can smell them.
Step Three - Start reading out loud in an even tone, as soothing as possible. I read the history of donkeys and they seemed to enjoy it. Do not expect immediate results, in fact do not be surprised if they join ranks and travel as if they are one, stay in the furthest spot away from you and maintain giving you the equivalent of the donkey "evil eye".
Step Four - repeat step three over and over (and over) every day until you're horse...I mean hoarse! My donkeys began getting very curious about day 5, by day 12 they were eating the treats if I threw them about three feet away and by day 21 they were following me around wanting their treats from my hand.
They are now tame enough after three months that they will greet me when they see me and come in from the pasture to have a treat or two at the barn. They allow me to pet their heads and they love it when I play with them in the pasture. They treat me like one of their own by waffling and getting as close to my face as possible for a kiss. The "ass whisperer" moniker fits me perfectly! Dusty, the female, is due any day and I cannot wait to whisper in the new baby's ears.

Wok It To Me! (first meal from the garden)

2009-04-28T10:54:00.000-05:00

As I get ready to leave for Austin today for a Mid America Arts Alliance meeting, I contemplate what to color coordinate with my surgical mask. Just making light of the situation but with the swine flu pandemic raising its ugly head, I am more afraid to go into a big city and would just prefer to hang out here on the farm.
I promised a recipe and some food history so I'm writing this as I wait out the rain storm that is raging across Texas (4 1/2 inches so far in the last two days.
As a child, one of my fondest memories was eating at this Japanese restaurant we used to go to once a week in Fashion Island, Newport Beach. I was born in Newport Beach (so I am the real OC girl thanks to my dad's side of the family). Just for the record, I thank my lucky stars for my Texas roots from my mom's side and I really feel more Texan (as the saying goes, I got here as fast as I could).
Back to the story....I loved that my entire family would order a Japanese dish called Sukiyaki. The Japanese waitress (in full kimono attire) would bring out all the ingredients and cook it for us at the table. It was my favorite Japanese dish till I discovered sushi a few years later.
Stir Fry is actually an Ancient form of Chinese cooking but all cultures have variations and that is why I like to mix up some of the unique flavors from each culture. My Stir Fry includes Mirin (Japanese sweet cooking rice seasoning) and I top my dish with some Sambal Oelek , a fiery hot chili paste popular in Indonesia, Malaysia & Singapore. Do not be afraid to cross cultures in your cooking adventures!
Stir Fry is an ancient way of Asian cooking. It traditionally involves cooking in a hot pan with small amounts of fat or oil, cooking rather quickly to preserve the color and texture of the ingredients. Beef was not a traditional ingredient in Chinese cooking till around 4000 BC when cattle was introduced from Western Asia. It was quite expensive and exotic so it was used sparingly. Buddhists would not eat meat so a protein was developed around 1000 AD during the Sung Dynasty using soy which became known as bean curd or tofu.
There are two traditional ways of stir frying, Chao & Bao. Chao is similar to Western sauteing (layering the ingredients) where Bao uses the technique of cooking all at once. I like the Chao method for this recipe.
Here are a few tips to make your cooking easier:
1) WASHING & DEVEINING GREENS - Fill your sink with water and allow your greens to float for several minutes, swish them around with your hands to knock the grit or dirt off. Drain and repeat one more time. The easiest way to devein your green is to grap the washed leaf by the stem (closest to the root) and with a very sharp knife, run the blade downward along the main vein on each side. Allow the leaf to fall back into the sink and put the stem in your compost bin. Repeat till all leaves are done.
2) ORGANIZE YOUR INGREDIENTS - The key to a good Stir Fry is to have everything cleaned, sliced and ready to go. This is called "Mise En Place" the French term for "Put In Place", a religion for chefs like Anthony Bourdain, he refers to it often.
I like to line up everything in order including spices etc..
I cannot express the pure joy of pulling up the greens straight from the ground and placing them in a pan less than an hour later! The Siamese Dragon Stir Fry Mix I grew was from seeds purchased from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. This is by far my favorite seed catalog and you can order it from rareseeds.com

Dragon Greens Stir Fry Recipe

2009-04-28T09:28:00.000-05:00

2 handfulls of Asian greens (baby bok choy, Chinese kale, Thai mustard), cleaned & de-stemmed
1 bunch green onions (6+),cleaned and intact, remove only the tips
3 fresh garlic pods, sliced thin
1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper, sliced thin
1 onion, sliced thin
1 handful of shiitake mushrooms, sliced medium thin
1 cup of edamame
1 small stalk of ginger, sliced thin
1 container of firm tofu and/or 1 beef loin steak (sliced thinly)
The following ingredients are for stir frying and flavoring:
*Japanese Aji-Mirin
*sesame oil
*chili oil
*sesame seed
*soy sauce or teriyaki (I prefer teriyaki for this)

Stir fry the onions & bell pepper in a blend of sesame & chili oil (spoonful of each), once translucent, add garlic & green onions.
Gradually layer in edamame, mushrooms. You may need to add more sesame & chili oil as you go...always just enough to cook without becoming oily. Remove from heat and add the washed greens, stir them around and allow to wilt.
In separate pan: heat a spoonful of sesame oil & a splash of chili oil for flavor. When hot add the sliced beef and or tofu. Season with sesame seeds, Mirin, ginger, Teriyaki or soy sauce. Allow to sear for a few minutes. Add to the Stir Fry vegetables and serve over jasmine rice or noodles.
Makes 4 servings

Oh No! Yet Another Mouth to Bottle Feed

2009-04-24T22:52:00.000-05:00

Being a published food writer and former restaurant owner, one day, I suppose I will get to write about my heirloom garden and recipes that I want to share.
But for now, we have had more pressing matters here around Feed Me Farms. One of our Brahma Mommas had to be put down after slipping in a muddy pasture severely breaking her hip and leg. Keep in mind, our cattle are like pets, especially our heifers who live their entire lives here on the farm munching away on coastal grass and lounging in the meadows. Sadder still was the little calf that was orphaned.
This would be my second calf to bottle feed as I had just finished weaning ZZ Topinha (my first bottle fed calf that could not get proper nourishment from a bad udder). I had fed ZZ since day three of her life but this new calf would be a different story, she was already six weeks old and wild as can be. She had really never had any human interaction.
All that was about to change. My real life cowboy and his cousin roped her and placed her in my make shift nursery corral. There she was joined by ZZ Topinha and Beauregard. Beauregard is a one year old miniature Zebu that came to live with us recently. Beau is smaller than the calves and is already full grown so he is here by default.
As she ran around the corral bucking, kicking and trying anyway she could to bust out, her name suddenly came to me. Jezebel!
We decided the best way to get Jezebel to take a bottle was to learn from a pro, so back to the bottle for the weaned ZZ too.
Off I went to prepare 3 huge bottles and see if we could get this little one to drink, the plan was to give her two of the bottles and ZZ would get one for show.
Here is a step by step in case you find yourself in this very same predicament (with or without an experienced calf to lead the way).
Step One - As long as the calf is more than a few days old and has had it's mothers colostrum it is o.k. to feed it a milk replacer purchased from Tractor Supply or your local feed store. I also like to feed one electrolyte gel pack in case of dehydration. I have found that the non-medicated milk replacer is better and the calf is less likely to reject it. I use warm water and once the replacer is mixed, I put a dab of molasses on the tip of the nipple. The molasses seems to get their attention.
Step Two - Using a calf halter, tie the calf to a post or fence and walk and talk gently to it. We actually brushed Jezebel to calm her and then proceeded to drip a little of the milk on the tip of her nose to activate her sense of smell.
Step Three - If the calf will not take the bottle on its own, it's time to take action. Grasp the calf's mouth and pry her lips open. Cows only have lower teeth so do not hesitate to place your fingers inside. Position the bottle in her mouth and give the bottle a squirt. It may take a few trial and error starts and stops. Do not get frustrated, back away, allow the calf to take a break and then start all over again.
If you are lucky, you will have a ZZ Topinha like we did to show the new calf the ropes. ZZ was happy to lick the dripping milk from Jezebel's mouth after sucking down her own training bottle!
Just when we thought we could get away for 48 hours or so, we are back to square one - bottle feedings twice a day. In a way I am secretly happy, I was sad the day I thought I had given ZZ her last bottle. The world really does work in mysterious ways.

Extreme Bathtub Chick Fights

2009-04-23T15:09:00.000-05:00

Got your attention! Actually, we just moved the baby chicks in from their brooder in the art studio due to the lack of electricity. Because of chicken killer dogs that live in the house, the chicks had to be placed in the only secure place we could think of, the one and only bathroom.
This seemed like the best idea at the time (for them, not for us but I guess that's why we have perfume and deodorant).
If you are raising chickens in an outdoor building area and something happens to their brooder, here is the quickest and safest thing to do. Step one - gather them up one by one and place in a card board box that can be closed while transporting. The important thing is to transport them to a warm, dry, safe area first. Step two - take newspaper or old feed sacks (we like feed sacks because they are sturdy)and line the tub. Be sure and cover the drain well. Add some wood shavings on top. Step three - add their feeder and waterier to the opposite end of the tub (farthest away from the drain). Hang a portable heat light or mechanics light and just add chicks.
I can attest that these little peckers are much more entertaining than reading a book while using the facilities.
We had them in the tub for two days until we could restore power to the studio.
Back to reading magazines for toilet entertainment!

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

2009-04-19T12:31:00.000-05:00

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead...

2009-04-19T12:03:00.000-05:00

Or maybe just our scarecrow! Never thought that my first real entry would be about a minor disaster, but you never know what will or can happen next around here. We had to travel to Austin for a Texas Historical Commission Conference (for my real life museum curator job) for several days. On our way home we traveled through bouts of extreme Texas weather. As we approached our farm we could see that rain and wind had been quite plentiful. At the time, we were happy because this area needs the rain to fill our stock tanks and help our coastal grass to grow for the Brahmas.
We arrived at our entrance and noticed that the normally brightly lit barn and art studio were completely plunged into darkness. My heirloom kitchen garden was under water and our scarecrow was leaning sideways as if he was performing extreme yoga. We checked the water gauge and low and behold, two and a half inches of rain had fallen in a few short hours.
Now for the bad news: As we made our way to the barn area, we noticed that electrical lines were down all over the pasture. I was quite frightened, the only light we had was the lightning that would flash eerily on occasion. During one of the flashes we saw a terrible sight. Our large main barn that was housing my three miniature donkeys, one bottle fed calf & our newly acquired Zebu miniature bull was ripped open like a sardine tin can and the electrical wires were all dangling around the entrance.
I immediately began to cry and feared the worst. We could hear Beauregard (the Zebu) bellowing and all three donkeys (Dusty, Frank & Billy) were braying and standing near the gate. My biggest concern was for ZZ Topinha (the bottle fed Brahma calf). I have raised her from day three of her birth when her momma could no longer nurse her.
In the midst of all the chaos, there she was - sticking her head through the gate mooing excitedly thinking only of her two bottles that I normally bring out with me.
Next stop, the art studio which for now is serving as a brooder area for our thirteen little chicks. They were all alive and well but getting chilled so we would have to "hatch" a new plan for their upkeep.

Bloom Where You're Planted!

2009-04-14T00:13:00.000-05:00

WWhhooo....have decided to chronicle my adventures in heirloom gardening, farm animals, gourmet cooking, food history, farm life vs. city life and whatever else happens on this 1,200 acre plot of earth that we tend to. Every week or whenever the urge hits, I will share my experiences and adventures with others who have either taken the plunge and leapt off the rat race wheel of the city or with those who dream of doing it someday. I hope to reach others out there who share my love of cooking, raising livestock and specialty breeds, shopping from my very own produce section of my heirloom garden and just attempting a more green existence. I will be getting my hands and boots dirty for all of you who are living it or dreaming it. There are others out there blogging on these subjects and I want to thank them for being the real cyber pioneers. Westward Ho!

Stay tuned....