Do Cows Know It's Christmas?

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!

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!

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)

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?

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)

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....

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!