Ahhhhh.

We made it home to mom and dad's last night. A couple of hours later than I wished.

I had mentioned to Mom yesterday morning that our ambition of countryside driving would be greatly tempered by 7pm. Actually, when we hit Waco at 5pm instead of 3pm I wondered if I had made a great mistake.

Travel-weary kids picked and poked and took great offense. Road bleary mom wondered if she should discipline or ignore or simply turn up the radio and sing loudly.

After filling up the gas tank I looked at the clock still registering Virginia time. Too long for little tummies to wait for supper. What to do? We had been eating oranges and apples. Dad was cooking supper. Didn't want to spend much money or spoil appetites.

Across the parking lot was a drive-up chicken shack. Bush's Chicken.

Local.

Regional.

Fast.

We drove up and several red t-shirt clad kids ran up to car windows to take orders. Menu was stenciled on cinder block wall.


Hmmmm.

I had left my bank card somewhere. Ooops. Had aproximately $6 to my name after buying gasoline.

There on the menu was a box of fried gizzards for just the right amount. With gravy.

I have a confession.

Fried chicken is one of my favorite foods. Not KFC or Bojangles, but small eatery fried chicken. Really any kind of fried food is a favorite, but fried chicken especially. And I think it might have been at least 25 years or more since I last bought fried chicken gizzards. One of my highschool jobs was working at a local fried chicken eatery.

Maybe some of you think gizzards are gross. That is how I feel about chicken liver.

But when that young fellow brought our white box of crispy, semi-tought, golden battered morsels of memory out to the car, we all began to drool. I think he might have felt sorry for me, counting out the change, with all those ravenous kids in the van, because he gave us way more gizzards than ordered.

What a fun way to eat locally!

We scarfed that snack down and made our way south. Ooohed and aahed over the many christmas light displays. Fought a little. Laughed a lot. Finally drove in to Mom and Dad's driveway, where BBQ pork sandwiches and pickles were waiting. Noone's appetite was spoiled in the least.

This morning the girls and Mom have been making the traditional breakfast of sopaipillas. Mom is the sopaipilla queen. The sopaipilla is a fried Mexican bread that puffs up to make an opening for honey. Nothing like what you get at Mexican-american restaurants. We will then go to Fredericksburg to the gallery where her art work is displayed, then on the San Antonio to Remember the Alamo and walk the Riverwalk.

I think I better figure out a way to take a very long walk somewhere on this trip. Too much food. Too little farm work!

FYI, for folks who think that eating locally is just too costly while being on a budget, I plan on sharing what our food costs were so you can see that with a little tweaking, it is actually cheaper than fast food.

So far, we have avoided all beverage costs by refilling half gallon mason jars with water.

I bought one cup of coffee on the whole trip at a locally owned diner: $1.50.

Mexican dinner for 6- $40.00 plus a $6 tip.

Chicken snack-$6.56.

That's it, for over 1300 miles.

Not bad. Everything else came out of the cupboard. Gotta run. Food's on the table!

Texas, Our Texas

We are enjoying the warm, 62 degree sunshine at an East Texas rest stop with wifi. How weird is that?

After a lunch of pbj, more egg salad, homemade pickles and non-local but purchased in our local coop feta cheese and olives, Ikenberry apples and Thomas and Rachel Thomas's chocolate cake, the kids stretch, read, run and bicker a little. Not too much. They are too happpy to feel Texas air. A few hours to go. I think we will take the countryside route to Mom and Dad's instead of I35. May take us a little longer, but I can show the kids my old hometown and I can feast my eyes on liveoaks and mesquite trees and brushy hill country, small towns and county seats.

So thankful for the gift that is making it possible for us to enjoy this journey.

To Narnia and the North! I mean, To Central Texas and the hill country!

Journeying West, or Where is that rest stop?

We left Kingston, anticipating a pleasant journey listening to The Magician's Nephew and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I figured on stopping at a nice rest stop for a picnic lunch. We drove and drove and found no rest stop. We decided to have an adventure and investigate a little town somewhere west of Nashville. There was a sign advertising a Railroad Museum. We headed downtown. Downtown was aprox. 12 minutes for the busy shopping zone near the highway.

The children and I discussed the cost of shopping and eating locally, how the extra 12 minutes would allow us to use the bathroom and buy a cup of coffee from a local shop that would benefit the people in the town much more than a cheap cup of McDonald's coffee.

Well, we got to the cute little downtown and every little shop was closed. We couldn't find a single place open. We discussed how the chain restaurants near the highway were so convenient it made it very hard for people to drive 12 minutes to buy their coffee downtown, so the shops were closed until weekdays. We discussed how badly everyone needed to use the bathroom and why couldn't we at least find a rest stop open for potty break and picnic? We decided to go into Walgreens out of desperation. Then we went to the Goodwill, Patrick purchased a bowl for us for mixing up the egg salad and we ate our egg salad, smoked trout sandwiches and oranges (thank you, Tata) in the parking lot. Everyone ate Maggie's homemade cookies for dessert.

Not quite the fun picnic I had invisioned. Shortly after getting onto the freeway we passed a rest stop!

For dinner we decided to use a gift of cash to buy supper at a family-owned restaurant along the way. Everyone got hungry at Forrest City, Arkansas. Near the exit was a plethora of chain restaurants. Lowes, Target, Best Buy, you know the sight. The children and I discussed how that same arrangement could be seen in any region of the United States. Texas, Virginia, New Jersey, Oregon, Montana, Florida, Massachusetts. Wouldn't it be better to drive an extra 12 minutes and check out a new town, see a different culture?

We drove and drove and couldn't find a single open restaurant. A few BBQ joints, closed. The town looked very poor. It wasn't always poor. There were plenty of buildings. Dying businesses. Plenty of people driving around, but something about the area made me sad. We drove by an incredible library. We drove around for 20 minutes. The gas gauge was getting really low. We wondered when the town started to change. When Wal Mart and McDonald's opened?

Well, we came upon Moctezuma Grill. An open sign flashed onto an empty parking lot. We went in.

A nice fellow named Filemon brought us chips and salsa. Fresh, medium spicy, we dug in. Filemon kept everyone's glass of water filled, chatted with the children, calling them each by name, speaking to them in Spanish, reminded them to be careful with hot plates, asked them about the farm.

The food wasn't organic. Probably not grown very locally. But it was the best we could do. Family-owned and operated. At least our dollars weren't going to a corporation. We were so content with our meal we wanted to curl up and purr! And then, when we thought we couldn't even look at another bite of food, Filemon brought us a huge platter of fried ice cream with pineapples, whipped cream and a cherry on top. The children somehow managed to eat the whole thing. They wondered why in the world he would give them a dessert they had never eaten before, for free?!? I said it was probably because he had never seen so many kids in one family eat at the restaurant and behave so nicely! Who knows?

But we discussed how corporate restaurants didn't offer the service or the generosity that family businesses could. Bellies full, content that our $$$'s helped support a family, we got back on the road, not that much later than we would have been if we had gone to Cracker Barrel. Actually about the same amount of money spent or less than if we had stopped at Cracker Barrel. Not that we don't like CB, it is my favorite travel restaurant! The servers are sweet at CB, the bathrooms are clean. But the point of our challenge is to support local establishments and the local economy. Dinner was a great lesson for all of us. Now I am about to make the leftover tortillas and beans into burritos for our lunch on the road. We are almost to Grandma and Grandpa's!

Today we will listen to The Horse and His Boy and whatever is next in The Chronicles of Narnia series. Thank you, CS Lewis for enriching our lives.

Better hit the road. But the kids are enjoying TV so much I hate to rush them off! Vacation time! Thanks, Philip, for working so hard so we can vacation. We miss you.

Our Challenge

The children and I haven't made a cross-country trek for several years.

Things were different then.

Fast food drive-thru is a very inexpensive way to feed a bunch of kids on a trip. Not to mention the speed factor.

On this trip the kids and I decided to eat locally the entire drive.

That seems so basic! Everybody used to eat that way. But as I boiled eggs yesterday, itching to get out the door, and popped popcorn, and filled mason jars with water, and fetched a cutting board, and scooped mayo and loaded homemade bread and smoked trout (Thanks, Jimbo!), I wondered if it would be a whole lot easier to buy off the dollar menu.

But earlier the kids and I discussed the impact of our food choices. How it would be better for the economy to spend our food dollars in one local restaurant along the way and eat home-grown food the rest of the way. We spoke about how healthy we would feel, feeding our engines with good food instead of junk. And as I loaded up mayo and seedy loaf and trout and locally grown apples and homemade brownies and cake and cookies, I wondered about how our meals along the way would taste so good! And would take more time, insuring we stop and picnic, stretching our legs, looking at regional scenery.

So far, so good. We also made sure to agree to enjoy food prepared or bought for us by friends and family, local or not. Don't want to be legalistic snobs if family wants to buy pizza for us. The kids were pretty darn pleased to see the boxes of pizza Uncle Mike bought to share with us. I was pleased to see that it was from a local pizzeria and not a chain. But we would have been just as happy to eat it if it were from Pizza Hut! Now we are going to eat some nice hot breakfast. Will let you know how our challenge goes as we travel the next 12 days.

One audio book down, several to go. Today, The Chronicles of Narnia.

On The Road

Now blogging from the road! We are in my sister's house in Tennessee. The rain is pouring and we are not on the road since 3am this morning like I had planned.

That's OK. We enjoyed catching up with cousin and sister and brother-in-law until late into the night. Not only is it wonderful to see my sister and her family, it certainly feels nice to be in a warm house. So warm! And Thomas didn't have to split any wood and we didn't have to deal with carrying in loads of wood to enjoy this warmth.

The last few days on the farm were especially brisk. Morning temps were in the low teens. Brrr. The pond began to freeze around the perimeter. When I woke up yesterday morning the moon was a thin crescent, hanging above the south ridge. She was facing west and hanging upright. According to Grandpa, that would indicate rain if I remember right. When the crescent moon is lying horizontal like a bowl the rain won't fall.

One of the things on my get ready to go to Texas list was look at the calendar. I wanted to remind myself what was the exact date Duncan the Piedmontese bull came to visit the farm. March 21. Wanted to make sure we weren't expecting babies before Christmas. According to the Cattle Today website's gestation table, we could expect a calf on December 29th. The website suggested that younger cows could deliver up to 10 days earlier and older cows could deliver 10 days later. I wonder what Coco and Priscilla think about that? At any rate, I seems like Philip will probably not have to worry about cattle midwifery until we get home. If asked, he would probably say "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies!"

Speaking about Philip, it was a sad thing having to leave him alone, waving in the driveway. During the Passover Seder this is a point in which the family members are instructed to dip their finger into the glass of wine to remove drops of wine. As we do that, we remember that we cannot enjoy the full measure of our cup of joy as long as we remember those who are suffering or who have suffered. I was thinking of how much more we would enjoy the trip if Philip were joining us. The children and I considered how their dad would have to get up early to go to work, have to tend the chores, build his own fire in a very cold house, make his own meals and buy feed for the animals. We tried to make things a little bit easier for him, but we understand that he is giving us a great gift by taking care of things on the farm and going to work everyday. We are grateful.

I have a feeling a few friends will be popping over to check on him and make sure he is well-fed. Perhaps he will enjoy the peace and quiet? We are already missing Philip, but I have a feeling that Christmas will be especially sweet!

Breakfast is almost ready. We will hit the road in a short bit. So happy to head back to the motherland!

Flood

Seems like I can't stop the world long enough to share all the grand thoughts rolling around in my head after that lecture by Wendell Berry. Thoughts about simple solutions that cost more than we can afford, like ethanol. Thoughts about complex solutions that cost more than we can afford NOT to pay. Solutions that will require a whole bunch of us catching the vision and inspiring the younger generation because it is going to take a few generations working awfully hard before we see long term change.

I am thinking about how hard this year has been for us and how comforting it was to hear that we are doing the right thing.

I am thinking about our farmer friends, all working with different talents and gifts and skill sets, step by step healing our little plots of land and our bodies and our spirits. Isn't it amazing that what is good for the forests and our farms and our animals is good for our bodies and minds and spirits and even stretches out to help improve the globe?

I am thinking that going back to go forward is harder than it looks in an essay. We are so challenged by the world to live the other life. The consumer life. Wendell Berry does not give the false illusion that if we merely follow a prescribed formula all will be well. Au contraire. It is easier said than done to "not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). But after chatting with friends before and after lecture, sharing their delicious soups made from locally raised turkey and chicken, along with locally made bread, in a cozy little cottage, the boys and I felt like we were living a noble life. A life that is honorable.

We have our work cut out for us. But little changes we make can make a difference. Letting our pastures grow perennials instead of annual grains will help the ecosystem in numerous ways. Laying down manure instead of chemical fertilizers will help the subsoil grow, will encourage insect life, stronger root systems and bit by bit we will grow precious topsoil. Wow.

As we depend more heavily on our customers we grow more appreciative of a local economy and make the effort to buy from friends and neighbors, keeping a bigger proportion of our dollars in the county. One of the things Mr. Berry mentioned was that as farmers moved away from draft horses and toward tractors, they moved to monoculture farming, exporting most of their produce, grains, or whatever out of town and even out of state. With all that exporting, they also ended up exporting their top soil and their sons. Way too costly. He seemed to suggest that we need to first feed our family, our neighbors and our community, then export. That way the economy can support more jobs, feed more people and strengthen infrastructure.

One of Mr. Berry's books is called The Unsettling of America, Culture and Agriculture. It greatly moved and inspired me. At the lecture I picked up a new book, Bringing It to the Table. It is a collection of essays and stories. One can smell the sweat, hear the sound of water splashing by the back door as the men shuffle in to the table. One can see the mounds of biscuits and corn and green beans with steam rising and taste the fruit of the land. Pure. Real. Nourishing.

Just like Mr. Berry's writing.

I was simply going to check into this blog to mention that we got a gully washer. Flash floods poured off the Jefferson National Forest. Pastures, stream and pond are overflowing. Gallons of water race down the valley. I hope they are leaving plenty of nice amendments to the hay field and not washing too many away. The sun came out for a short bit this afternoon. Not long enough to dry all the laundry. We are using the woodstove and fireplace to serve instead. Please give us a warning if you plan on dropping by so I can gather up all the socks and underwear!

Also wanted to mention that we received a marvelous gift last week. The children and I are going to be able to make a trip to Texas to visit my family. We leave this weekend after market. When I realized we could go I cried out loud. The children all acknowledge that it is a miracle. They are ecstatic. We will miss Philip but are so grateful he is willing to work so hard at work then come home and do our chores for us to give us this opportunity. We have an open window. The cows are due to calve end of month or January. Sheep and goats aren't due until February and March. We are going to leap through that open window and head to Grandma and Grandpa's house. A couple of people have told me they were praying for us after reading my sappy pre-Thanksgiving homesick post. Thank you so much. This is the season to be refreshed and restored.

So you got a weather report and a whole lot more. Believe me, there are so many things to talk about in regards to complex solutions to big-time problems and the role of agriculture. We have so much to learn. I hope we will all rise to the occasion. But in order for me to rise in the morning I better hit the sack. Guess I am very far removed from Mr. Berry's world. He doesn't write by artificial light and doesn't even use a typewriter, let alone a computer or a BLOG! Oh well. the sound of the wind is going to lull me to sleep anyway.

Snow!

Drizzle at 6am turned into big flat fluffy snowflakes by 7. The farm is bright white. Driving to the farmer's market this morning was a bit tricky but by 1 this afternoon the roads were clear. Children are sledding. I anticipate their return to the house very shortly. They skipped their grilled cheese sandwiches in order to head to the slopes. It is a very heavy, wet snow. They should be soaked through and chilled to the bone within minutes.

I have so much to write about! Thursday Thomas, Patrick and I attended a lecture at UVA. We heard Wendell Berry speak. However, the laundry is waiting. Must get some chores done. But maybe later I can share some of his nuggets. We drove home in the dark, dark night inspired and affirmed. What a treat.

Sure Enough

Sure enough, that lunar halo was an accurate predictor. I have seen rings around the moon before, but last night's rainbow was the largest I have ever witnessed. Rain has been falling all day. Steady, cold, relentless, huddle in front of the fire kind of rain. Stay in the barn and eat hay kind of rain. Except for the ducks and the sheep. They didn't seem to mind at all.

I certainly am glad for the firewood harvesting we did the other day. Looks like we will be enjoying the woodstove for a few days.

Rainbow

There is a gigantic rainbow ring around the full moon tonight.

The farmer's almanac calls this a lunar halo. It is caused by the refraction, reflection and dispersion of light through ice particles. The rainbow is red on the inside of the ring and blue on the outside. According the the almanac a halo foretells stormy winter weather.

I guess we shall see.

But right now I better get the non-sleeping kids to take a peek. It is too pretty not to share.

Retreat

Living has preempted writing.

Actually, I did some writing over the weekend. The unplugged type.

After an amazing Thanksgiving dinner shared with friends we enjoyed a couple of days with some out of state visiting friends who helped with firewood harvest. We shared meals around candle light and blazing fire. Our family then participated in our first Tacky Tractor Parade with friends over in Bent Mtn. What fun!

The dear Bent Mtn friends have a little cabin tucked up on the side of the mountain, far removed from electricity, running water, phones and computers. Philip gave me the gift of taking care of the kids and the farm and left me, a bag of old journals, paperwork, Bible, novel, notebook, wool socks and picnic basket of provisions to enjoy a silent retreat cozied up to a blazing woodstove.

I had a bit of an agenda. Behind in paperwork and taxes, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to add and subtract, multiply and divide without a big pile of other priorities staring at me. What better place to work than that amazing little jewel up in the woods.

Magnificent trees, tall and straight, surrounded my retreat. Piles of leaves carpeted my walk to outhouse and woodpile. I think I heard a deer once, but other than Spot, the hound dog, I had few animal visitors.

The kettle maintained a constant simmer, perfect for many cups of tea and the most delicious lentil stew I have ever made (if I do say so myself!). I will have to remember to give you the recipe at the end of this post so you can try it.

It was a great retreat. Many odds and ends were taken care of, business tended. Productive. But perhaps the most productive time was spent in quiet reflection. I read some journals from 1997 and 1998. Remembered some very painful periods. Wished I could go back and tell myself it was going to be alright. Smiled as I scanned the yearly garden maps, the wish lists I wrote out each winter as I surveyed the seed catalogs, remembered holiday feasts shared with friends as I perused the scratchy notes scribbling out menus and recipes and ingredient lists. Pain, grief, turmoil, illnesses and accidents and meals and gardens and children learning to read and walk, camping and marveling at nature. I reread the prayers cried out in anguish and despair and the prayers of delight and joy.

I don't know how I managed to write all those years with babies and toddlers. I can't even imagine how I was brave enough to write things I would never wish to share with anyone! Didn't I know that anyone could have picked up those books and have a window that opened up into the scariest most intimate parts of my soul?

What in the world does all this have to do with farming?

I think that taking the time to process and write and journal the good, the bad and the ugly helped make me a stronger person. I believe it was a part of a journey that led to healing and growth. Taking some time to revisit that journey reminded me that we have come along way, baby. Those hard times prepared us for this life. God was there.

It was pretty special to read in one of the journals a conversation I had with my dear friend, the very friend who owns the cabin on the mountain. I wrote that I wanted to be sure and pray for her and her husband. I smiled. Full Circle. Never did I imagine at the time that I would be reading my words sitting on the floor of her cozy little refuge. That we would all be living this life that we are living. Here in Virginia!

Along with moments of introspection, I reviewed farm vision, worked on an updated farm inventory and made lists of tasks I hope to accomplish this winter. With over a dozen ewes hopefully expecting to lamb come February and March, building some new stalls in the upper barn is in order. With two cows expecting to deliver babies this winter, i need to come up with an efficient way to milk those girls in a sanitary place in the barn. I have a feeling that Priscilla is not going to come up to the back door to let me milk her.

The silence ended all too soon. I didn't get to solve all the problems in the world. I didn't even get to solve all the problems on our farm! But Philip and the kids managed without me and I came back home refreshed and ready to get back to work. Driving home on Monday morning, misty grey and damp, the gentle hills gave me a great big hug. Driving through our little valley, my heart ached with gratefulness. Home. More than any other time in my adult life I feel an incredible sense of home. How can I explain? Some of the angst I felt back in those journals was pointing to a need for home. Some of the angst was necessary to put us on the right road to reach our home. Even as I miss my mom and dad, sisters and other relatives right now, the longing is definitely tempered by the sense of home we experience here on the farm. When I opened up the gate at the top of our driveway, the sheep paused in their grazing to give me a stoic nod. Home.

Well, dogs and coyotes are at it again. The moon is very bright. My eyes tell me it is time to head to bed.

But first, my recipe for you. The perfect camp stew, or top of the wood stove stew.

Lentil Chard Stew

Red or green lentils
generous amount of fresh or dried garlic
powdered cumin
curry powder
a few peppercorns
a pinch of mustard seed
a pinch of celery seed
a pinch of coriander
a pinch of cinnamon
plenty of salt

Put the lentils and the other ingredients in a mason jar if you are headed to your own weekend retreat. Once you get the fire rolling, place the lentils and spices in a pot and cover with water. Plenty of water.

Give the stew an occasional stir and watch to make sure your water doesn't boil away. If it does, add more water. The lentils will get nice and mushy. The smell will make you intensely hungry. Don't rush the stew. Slow cooking makes for a very creamy stew.

Once the lentils are creamy, add some chopped chard. Or kale. Or spinach.

I think the earthiness of the chard goes so nicely with the curry flavors. Cook until the chard is tender. Maybe 20 or 30 more minutes. Salt to taste. Make some toast by putting your bread on a cast iron skillet or directly on your wood stove. Enjoy all by yourself or share with a friend. Either way, I think you will love it!