I thought I’d take a minute to share our new logo for the farm before I crawl into bed for the night. Our new logo is so classy. So beautiful. I love the Bauhaus font and the sweet little black wren. Our friend Ken Stacks is so amazingly talented.

It’s a little after 9 p.m. and I just finished hanging laundry out on the line so Paul and I have clean clothes to wear in the morning. Paul was kind enough to hold the flashlight for me so I could see what the heck I was doing. (Thanks, baby.)

  We’ve both been working so hard this week that the house looks like a college dorm. Pizza boxes are piled next to the trash can. Dishes are still in the sink. But, the kids have been away for almost a month, so there’s really no one around to set a good example for.

  I’ve been noticing twice a day all week that we’re almost out of toothpaste. we may have to cut the bottom of the tube off in the morning and fish around inside for what’s left.

 But I knew I wouldn’t last another day without doing the laundry. I’ve worn the same outfit for two days now. It’s so bad, I’m wearing the fancy panties that have to be hand-washed. The ones I only take out on our anniversary, because quite frankly, there was nothing else clean. I have no idea what Paul has been wearing. I’ve been too tired to ask.

But, now I can rest, knowing that tomorrow it’s back to my good old ratty cotton bikinis. And more work.

Hallelujah. Life is good.

What a turnaround! Things have just been clicking into place since last Wednesday. I’ve gotten so many writing assignments from three local newspapers, I don’t know if I can possibly do them all. Plus editing for two papers. And teaching at the Sangre de Cristo Art Center. Plus we’ve had several requests for pork and eggs.

   Our friend Ken Stacks is creating a logo for the farm this week. We’ll be using it on labels, banners and business cards for the farmers market. (July 2! That’s coming up quick!) We’ll also be using it on our promotional bags. We’re giving away free canvas shopping bags with any $15 purchase every Thursday night. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with. He’s so talented.

  I think everyone had a great time at the Monday night bread class. I had seven students: Debra, Betty, Gloria, an adorable couple Trevor and Kari (the class was Trevor’s father’s day gift.) I also had Alicia and her daughter Caroline. We made (and ate!) so much bread! White bread, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, blueberry-pecan bread, pizza with shrimp and asparagus…yummy. All from the standard two loaf recipe I use probably twice a week.

Many of my students asked what other classes I’ll be teaching. I think half the class has decided to take my cheese class at the end of the month. ( I promised we’d make pizza then too.) I’ve been asked to submit additional class ideas for the fall. I’m thinking pickle canning, jam, maybe knitting 101? So many ideas!

Here’s the bread recipe:

Simple White Bread  

6 cups bread flour or unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon yeast

1 tablespoon salt

2 1/4 cups warm water

egg wash:

1 egg mixed with a little water

Place flour in bowl with salt and yeast and mix to combine. Add first 2 cups of water, then add last 1/4 cup a little at a time until the dough forms a nice ball that doesn’t stick to the bottom of the bowl. If too dry add more water, if too loose add more flour. Let the dough rest in the bowl covered with a damp towel until doubled in size.

  Punch down and form the bread into two loaves. Put them into buttered loaf pans. Cover the bread pans with a damp tea towel until the dough has risen. Brush with egg wash and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 375 degrees and bake another 15 minutes. The bread will sound hollow when you knock on the bottom of the loaf.

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here. I’ve just felt so negative lately, I haven’t wanted to share. In truth, I think I’ve wanted to crawl into a little hole and never come back out. I’ve been so caught up with the stress, frustration and despair we’ve felt trying to survive this economy, that I’ve forgotten to count my blessings and record some of the happy things going on here on our little farm.

Paul is still working, although nothing is booked beyond next month. July is our very last month of certain income—something I try not to focus on, or fear socks me in the belly and I just don’t want to get out of bed. I’m still freelancing, but in reality, the money is small compared to our needs. Only 2 people have signed up for classes.

But, Farmer’s Market begins July 2. It may prove to be our saving grace.

It wasn’t until today that I realized how very fortunate we still are, even if we’re barely keeping our heads afloat. I opened my Urantia Book, looking for inspiration and found exactly what I needed. I scooped a big bowl of vanilla ice cream and read for about an hour about the life of young Jesus— just 15 years old and already the sole support of his mother and young siblings.

After Joseph died, the family’s finances continued to dwindle. Day after day they sold off more of their property to pay the bills. But Jesus didn’t despair. He didn’t crawl into a hole hoping to die. He just prevailed, one day at a time. They ate from their small garden and enjoyed milk and eggs from their animals, and muddled through. 

  He was eighteen when his youngest brother, baby Amos died.  Jesus, the young father-brother didn’t let the family fall into despair. Even when his mother Mary wandered the house tearful and brokenhearted, he didn’t lose faith. And he didn’t let his family lose faith either. He didn’t take to the bottle as many of us might. He just prevailed, one day at a time, helping his family to focus on the future, when their grief would not be so sharp. This is what I read. I’ve decided that these words will be my battle cry from this day forward.

 “Mother-Mary, sorrow will not help us; we are all doing our best, and mother’s smile, perchance, might even inspire us to do better. Day by day we are strengthened for these tasks by our hope of better days ahead.” His sturdy and practical optimism was truly contagious; all the children lived in an atmosphere of anticipation of better times and better things. And this hopeful courage contributed mightily to the development of strong and noble characters, in spite of the depressiveness of their poverty. 

 I’m going to allow hope to strengthen me and continue to look toward the better days that are ahead.  I know they’ll come.

We are so excited to announce that our delicious homegrown pork is now available to our customers.

Raising our five hogs was quite an adventure, one we will definitely repeat. They each weighed at between 200 and 275 pounds. The bacon is so amazing— thick smoky slices. Great pasture-raised flavor. We’ve got tons of pork chops, kielbasa, hams…everything is USDA certified and vacuum sealed. Please give us call at 719.289.4056.

I read something today that is so tremendously frightening I had to share. It really reaffirms my commitment to sustainable living.  An article published May 1, 2009 in Wired Science points out what no one is talking about: the link between factory farming and pandemic influenza outbreaks.
I’m so glad we’ve decided to raise our own food and that we’ve made the choice to stop purchasing from big corporations. Here is an excerpt of the article.

In 2003, the American Public Health Association called for a ban on contained animal feeding operations. One year later, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital virologist Richard Webby, one of the original chroniclers of H3N2’s emergence, called the U.S. swine population “an increasingly important reservoir of viruses with human pandemic potential.” United States Department of Agriculture researcher Amy Vincent reportedly said that vaccine-driven evolution created a “potential for pandemic influenza emergence in North America.”

Will they ban CAFOs? Of course not. We all know that our own government’s response will be more consolidation and more regulation. We are going to consolidate ourselves right out of a way to feed ourselves, and maybe even right out of existence. Already with the Food Safety and Modernization Act our government is approaching Salmonella outbreaks and other food borne illnesses by touting the need for heftier laws, making it almost impossible for small farmers to compete. “Get big or get out.” Wasn’t that the fed’s mantra in the 1950’s? We’re quickly learning that that approach no longer works.

Officials and the pork industry argued this week that a direct link hadn’t been found to pigs, and that the new flu strain had yet to be found in farm animals or workers, both in the United States and at a giant hog factory near the outbreak’s epicenter in La Gloria, Mexico. Owned by a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, the largest U.S. pork producer and a notorious polluter, the factory processes one million hogs each year.
And yet we know this is the link.

We raised five hogs this year to freeze for our own consumption and to sell to a few other families. Our hogs are healthy and happy running around a fenced off portion of our pasture, not confined indoors with thousands of others, standing in their own excrement.
If you do one thing for mankind, stop giving money to large corporations. Shop the local farmers markets. Purchase your family’s food locally. Grow a garden.

I’m so excited!
I’m joining with the Sangre De Cristo Art Center to bring homemaking classes to Pueblo this summer. The move will bring us one step closer to our goal.
When we bought this little farm, we had the dream of creating a home arts studio— a place for people in the community to come and learn to sew, knit, to bake bread, make cheese, and to learn the art of home canning.
The first class, scheduled for June 15 at the Sangre de Cristo Art Center, is a bread baking class. Participants will get to make and enjoy raisin bread, pizza, dinner rolls, bread sticks and other delicious items from one recipe.
  The next class is simple cheese making. Student will learn how to make mozzarella cheese and yogurt the evening of June 29. Super easy to learn!
I hope you’ll join me.
—Tammy

I’m so happy that spring is almost here. I thought I’d share a few photos of the new garden.

Here’s the hardworking crew taking a break to show off for the camera.

Wisdom is cutting up old carpet to put between the rows. Once it’s covered with leaf mulch it will make beautiful weed-free pathways.

Here’s a close up of the raised beds we built from some young cottonwood trees. The forest behind our house really needed to be thinned out.

A big Thank You to the previous owners, who piled up all their horse manure before they moved. It was just what our garden soil needed.

And Maggie’s crocodile tears. (She was very happy to be hanging out with us.)

  Today when I awoke I heard birds chirping outside my window. It was beautiful—a sound so full of the promise of things to come, I thought I might cry. I wanted to throw open the glass, but it’s still too cold. Another few weeks and they’ll be open until fall.

  It’s been an especially hard winter for me. Even though it’s been bizarrely warm, I’ve battled the winter blues the entire time. Maybe it’s because we bought this place too late in the year to plant a garden. I had to abandon my own garden long before the corn was harvested. I even called the renters to ask, “are you eating the zucchini?” And to let them know there might still be some potatoes in the ground. I don’t think I’ve bonded properly with my new home. I’ve spent the whole winter looking out on my dry, gray field waiting for the days when I can fill it with color and life. 

  I filled my time reading about gardening and ordering seeds to plant in the spring. I chose some amazing varieties from SeedSavers.org this year; little Parisian cucumbers for pickling, whisper-thin green beans called Fin de Bagnol and fingerling potatoes with the funny name “La Ratte” for their odd rodent-like shape. I even found Cherokee black beans that were carried along the Trail of Tears by my ancestors. We’ll have tomatoes and herbs for delicate summer quiches and lettuces to pair with bleu cheese and vinegar. Bell peppers. Cayenne. Habanero. Onions. Melons. Carrots. Peas. 

  I started my tomato plants in mid-February—70 Italian Heirloom and at least as many Amish Paste. We used the last jar of homemade pasta sauce in early February, so this growing season I’m not taking any chances. If 140 tomato plants can’t keep us in spaghetti sauce for a full year, then maybe we should take a closer look at our pasta consumption.

  I sat for at least an hour cutting all our empty toilet paper rolls in half to use as planters for our little seedlings. I’m hoping I’ll be able to peel them off gently before putting the plants in the ground. I also collected yogurt containers and a few new starter pots and filled them with a soil-free seed-starting medium. All the planters are on a rack in front of our biggest south facing window. By mid-May our tomato and pepper plants should be big enough to be planted outside. If I’m lucky this year, I’ll be blessed with an early crop. And a longer growing season.

There have been lots of changes since I last blogged. First, we finally moved the blog to a server I can see from home. Woohoo! We’re going to create a website for the farm, so very soon this blog will be just a small component of a much bigger picture. Second, we now have five little pigs on our farm. They are so adorable. They’ve grown so much since we brought them home just before Christmas.

  Making the choice to grow our own pork was a tough one. They are so cute as babies and right now the thought of eating them makes me teary-eyed. Not to mention those dire scriptural warnings against consuming cloven-hooved animals.  (Hopefully, now that we’ve discovered Trichanosis it’s not a biggie?) But in the end we decided the pigs were a much better first start for us than say a 1500 lb. steer. These little gals will top out at about 275 lbs. when we take them in to be processed. (At that point they probably won’t be as adorable.) 

 Both our turkeys have left the realm of the living and found themselves in the land of Meal. Our Thanksgiving feast was amazing. Knowing that our beautiful, juicy, golden brown bird had lived a very happy life made for a very thankful bunch around our table.

I have to say how very proud of the kids I am. Wisdom, my little animal lover was so brave during the turkey execution. I couldn’t have managed without his help. Both birds weighed in at around 16 lbs each and flailed about wildly during the process. He had to hang on tight to keep them from running headless through the yard. I think we were all surprised by how scientifically it went down. Not the emotional scene we’d feared.

Marley oversaw the feather plucking. It took the three of us several hours to liberate thousands of feathers from what would eventually look like two nice Butterballs from the grocery. My kitchen was a disaster. Paul had to work the entire morning, so he was very surprised to find us covered in down when he got home. I don’t think he believed we’d actually do it.

Thanksgiving dawned cool and misty, with a light snow falling—perfect weather for snuggling into blankets. Paul’s brother and his dogs Anna and Max came down from Denver to spend the day with us. I cooked for most of the day and served an early dinner. We had a yummy carrot salad with persimmons that Paul’s mom sent us from her garden in California. I made my mom’s corn bread stuffing with wild sage that we bought from the farmer’s market this summer along with dried cranberries and pecans. I’d planned to make carrot cake for dessert, but I forgot to buy powdered sugar for the frosting. We pulled peaches and ice cream out of the freezer and had peach cobbler instead. Not as sweet, but very good.

We enjoyed the last of our dear Thanksgiving bird last night as potpie. Our Christmas turkey is in the freezer along with 7 quarts of homemade turkey stock.