#you will pry rice and bread from my cold dead hands

[pugoata]

How I got into farm life: with pictures!

Here’s a little ramble for y’all. People ask me from time to time “Why goats?”, so here’s my long-winded answer! Rated ? for turkey sex (you bet your ass I’m gonna tell THAT story).

2011 was probably the worst year of my life. I was living in Boulder at the time, on the cusp of dropping out of my first bout with college. Side note, mental illness fuckin’ blows, fam. After a couple separate hospital stays, I received various diagnoses and medications and found myself living in a cramped apartment with three other women. I was broke af and had no idea what to do with my life. I spent many an afternoon wandering around Pearl Street, or even up and down the aisles of the nearby Goodwill and Whole Foods. My head was full of fog and in between the crazy shit I did just to -feel- something, I was simply lost.

This lostness found me in Whole Foods one day, staring at the dairy section. There were these fancy glass bottles with “Cream-Top Milk” and I was intrigued. I’d been a vegetarian since I was 13 and always considered myself savvy in the way of soy and rice milks. This was cow’s milk, but a kind I’d never heard of.

When I got back to the apartment, I was engrossed in learning all I could about milk. There was a LOT I didn’t know. Pasteurized vs raw, homogenization, the differences between skim vs 2% vs whole, even that different breeds of cows could produce either richer milk or higher quantities than others. It was the science of milk and it was fascinating. But if this was interesting... what else could I learn about basic foods?

Eggs were just as exciting. Who knew their were so many fucking labels on eggs?! Organic, cage-free, vegetarian (life protip: never trust a vegetarian chicken), pastured... It is COMPLICATED. I started wondering... why not just do this shit myself? Then I could know first-hand how the chickens were raised! The one drawback came from my vegetarian brain: what am I supposed to do with any boy chicks that hatch? Roosters can be assholes. Not everyone wants or needs a rooster, and at a 50/50 male-female ration, keeping all of them would lead to disaster The answer was simpler than I thought. If I knew how these chickens were raised, and knew they were happy and didn’t live suffering lives... why shouldn’t I eat them?

It was chickens that made me finally admit defeat in Boulder. I told my mom I’d be willing to move back to Maine... if I could get chickens.

As I saved up money to afford a coop, I volunteered on various farms, took classes, and read memoirs of people who gave up a “normal” life to farm. I read books about eating local and taught myself to bake bread from scratch. In Maine, raw milk dairies are legal, so I bought a bunch and taught myself how to make butter and cheese.

My mental health improved as I dabbled in farming. I’d found a focus.

I applied for and got an apprenticeship on a small farm. There, I learned the basics about growing vegetables in Maine’s cold, rocky climate. I only worked there for a couple months, but I learned how to truly care for livestock here, and decided that I would never be a sheep person. The woman who ran this farm was batshit crazy (I found out she was an anti-vaxxer, a homeschooler who didn’t really homeschool, and that she was a mess of a person altogether), but I wouldn’t trade the actual experience for anything. This was also where I met Jerry.

Have you ever been mounted by a turkey? I legit had no idea that it was happening until he was literally on top of me. Apparently, I’m a beautiful turkey hen. At least I’ve got that going for me.

After the apprenticeship ended in disaster (I had the nerve to tell crazy’s son that type I diabetes is not, in fact, caused by vaccines), I set to work on building my coop.

This little makeshift coop was replaced a couple months later by one that I helped my step-dad build, but I finally had some goddamn chickens. I did my best to get only pullets (young females), but it’s hard to tell sometimes what you get. When I heard the gurgling crow of a young cockerel going through the throes of puberty, I knew nature had gotten the better of me.

My new and improved coop was fuckin’ rad. I could have lived in it.

Chewbacca was alpha hen. She was a dinosaur, but she had a softer side. I stuck seven chicks under her fuzzy butt one day and she adopted them.

She loved them, and they loved her.

Anyway, back to goats.

After talking with a farmer who owned Jersey cows for milk, he told me that since I was just getting started, it would probably be more economical to start small. It made sense. Who knew if I’d even like milking twice a day? And it would be a good trial run to start with something that didn’t make so much milk. That’s how I found a wonderful goat dairy with an amazing woman who taught me basic goat care, including milking. She also offered cheesemaking lessons on a regular basis, which I signed up for. I fell in love with the little beasties.

Nigerian Dwarf Goats are fucking adorable. They never grow taller than a couple feet, and their milk is among the richest of all goat milks. If I wanted to make cheese, I couldn’t go wrong with a Nigerian Dwarf.

But life gets in the way. Fencing was expensive, my car was a money pit, and then my mom signed me up for a dating website. I actually met someone and liked him enough to move down to west Texas to live with him. West Texas is oil country. It’s a fuckin’ desert and there’s tumbleweeds and cacti and shit. It’s also drowning in conservative white Christians. My now-husband is an African Muslim (an immigrant, heaven forbid!), so he had no hope of finding a partner through traditional means in the area. 

He liked that I wanted to be a farmer! So shortly after we got married, we moved to the outskirts of town and I eventually got my heckin’ goats. I make cheese and it’s REALLY good.  Though I had to leave my chickens behind in Maine, I’m hoping this will be the year I get more. I’m starting to get into meat rabbits and I’m hoping this year, I can grow tomatoes without fuckin’ cooking the plant in this heat.

But look at this, I’ve got goddamn goats now. I make cheese. 

BTW anyone who’s tried my cheese knows it’s fucking awesome and whenever I visit the sibs out in California, I usually always bring a little tub of it. Maybe I’ll bring some to RTX Austin this year (though you’ll be prying it out of my cold dead fingers).

Goat farming is heartbreaking sometimes, not gonna lie. You have to have nerves of steel to pull a dead baby out of a mama goat, and I still kick myself over the death of a mama and two of her babies last year. Each setback has taught me so much more than books or classes ever could.

But this is the life I want. I’ve been through hell to get here, but I’ve got my focus, and I’ve got my goats. Everything will be okay.

Welcome to Sweethaven Farm.

[hermajestysbakery]

Great-Grandma’s Fruitcake

Okay, okay, I know; this place has been a bit of a ghost town and then to post a recipe for fruitcake?!  I get it.  Fruitcake, for some people, is the devil incarnate.  But it doesn’t have to be.  Homemade fruitcake is so much better than the bricks of fruity dwarf bread they sell in stores.

This recipe is a family tradition at Christmastime and I was certain that I was going to have to pry it from my mom’s cold dead hands before I ever got a copy.  Once I did, the first thing I did with it was figure out how to make it gluten free. 

You will need:

500 g currants (or raisins)

200 g chopped dates

150 g glacé mixed fruit

150 g glacé/maraschino cherries

125 g dried cranberries

100 g slivered or chopped almonds

33 g orange/mixed peel

5 eggs, separated

2/3 c lard or coconut oil or butter

2/3 c sugar

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp allspice

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1/4 c dark rum (or whiskey or bourbon or scotch)

40 g arrowroot flour

50 g brown rice flour

50 g sorghum flour

1 tsp guar gum

You will do:

Whisk together guar gum and flours until thoroughly combined.

Combine fruit, spices, and roughly half the flour.

Mix yolks, booze, lard, and sugar.  Add rest of flour and stir to combine.

Combine fruit mixture with batter.

Beat egg whites until stiff peak stage and fold into fruit batter.

Line two 8x4 loaf pans with parchment and bake at 250-275 degrees F for 3-3.5 hours. 

Some notes:

- You will need a really big bowl to mix all of this.  If you have a regular mixing bowl you use for baking, you should use one that’s about twice the size.  I am not kidding.  I am surprised every year by how MUCH there is and I really shouldn’t be at this point. 

- If two loaves is too much, you can use mini loaf baking tins instead.  You will get four instead of two.

- Can’t eat all this fruitcake?  Wrap it up and freeze it.  Or make mini loaves and give some away. 

- The fat in the original recipe is butter, but I have found that an equal mix of lard and coconut oil makes a good substitute for those who are also lactose intolerant. 

- It’s often cheaper to buy whole raw almonds than ones that are already processed.  If you don’t mind doing the work, a ziptop bag and a rolling pin are a great way to break them up.  Plus it’s cathartic to beat the stuffing out of ‘em.

This is my fruit all measured and ready to go.  Like I said: BIG BOWL.