turkey

Homestead Log November 20-26

November 28, 2017 · By Ann ·

Why disassemble it just to put it back together again? (photo by Robert Marc)

Americans have got the concepts of feast and famine all wrong. I’m reading a new-to-me cookbook, European Festival Food by Elisabeth Luard (republished as Seasonal European Dishes but I’ve got the older edition). A major theme is the rhythm of fast and feast, externally dictated by the liturgical calendar, but driven by nature’s immutable cycles. The fast precedes the feast, the labor before the festival. What do we do? We feast like fools from Thanksgiving to New Years Eve, then go on a national diet of contrition, imported celery and “scientific” fads that end in spectacular failure and shame. At least Lent or Ramadan has a defined end point and a celebration to look forward to.

We feasted well at the homestead this year. Turkey breast, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, all raised here. It would have been our green beans, but I took the wrong package out of the freezer and we had Costco asparagus I had frozen when it was in season instead. (The consequence of breaking an important homesteader’s rule: label everything, no matter how sure you are you’ll remember. You won’t.) I made a pie out of a Burgess buttercup squash, the one winter squash that we seem able to grow in quantity. The dark meat of the turkey went into a mole I have been making since 1992, when I found the recipe in a Texas Monthly article on what my first star chef hero Robert del Grande would serve if his family let him cook on Thanksgiving Day.

Husbandry and gardening: It has been ridiculously, unseasonably warm here. If we still had access to the irrigation system, we would water the trees. But we do not. R has been using the time well to put a coat of white paint on the trunks of our trees and to trim back the grasses around their bases. Now that the turkeys are out of the orchard, the dogs are having a wonderful time romping while R works—Wyatt has paint INSIDE his ears.

After Sunday’s harvest, I can report that six geese are a lot quieter than nine; one male is more harmonious in the flock than two.

Food, harvest and preserving: The weather pretty much decided the timing of our turkey harvest, which resulting in seven days of aging on the turkey meat we cooked on Thanksgiving. I think we accidentally hit on something successful, because the flavor and texture were excellent. Our aging method is primitive: put the vacuum-packed meat in a cooler and dump ice on it.

We reloaded the cooler with goose meat, except the gizzards (corned and slow-cooked for 24 hours) and the liver (paté flavored with Calvados instead of brandy). R smoked the wings, which we will use as a substitute for ham hocks while cooking beans this winter. The rest of the meat is a project for the coming week.

I restocked the freezer with cornbread dressing and leftover mole sauce to make some quick meals later this winter. The rest of the holiday leftovers are gone, just about the time I started hankering for anything other than poultry.

Finances: We have two bills that come before all others: the property tax bill and the irrigation company assessment. If you are late on the property taxes, your name gets published in the paper. If you are late on the water assessment, someone else can scoop up your water rights. We set the money aside every year, but I am always anxious until I get the bills paid, for fear I will forget somehow. Disaster averted this week for 2017.

Community: We joined some friends on Friday for an amazing Alaskan crab feast. I was bludgeoned with crab.

Creativity and recreation: It’s a good thing cooking is fun.

Next week: We are closing up our apartment in Salt Lake City next weekend, doing some shopping and seeing friends. There might even be some cocktail attire involved.

Seasonal observations: Winter hawks and migration stragglers show up regularly now. R saw a peregrine checking out the barnyard, I spotted a rough-legged hawk over the orchard. The deer in town are becoming brazen, ambling across the highway in the middle of the day and having out in yards.

A few Christmas trees, strapped to the tops of trucks and SUVs and sporting green Forest Service tree-cutting permits, passed through town over the weekend. So did a truck carrying a fully assembled trampoline with safety netting, held down by some of the most excited looking kids in the world. Santa must have come early, driving a faded white pick-up.

Homestead Log Week of August 21-27

September 1, 2017 · By Ann ·

R busted out an ancient enlarger filter to observe the partial eclipse in Torrey, Utah.

On Monday the sun disappeared with the partial eclipse; on Wednesday the skies opened up. We had a half inch of rain in about twenty minutes, plus a pounding of hail that probably didn’t get measured. We almost never get standing water-this time we had puddles all the way to the south fence, the driest part of our property that never gets irrigated. The dogs were in heaven. Wyatt would bark at the thunder and they would chase each other through the puddles until the next bolt of lightning. If we’d had fruit on the trees, we would have had something to worry about. Since we didn’t, we just marveled at the power of nature. At one point it had nearly stopped at our place but I could hear and see the hail pounding on our neighbor’s roof about a 100 yards away. A half hour later, the water was gone, the sun came back out, and we were left with a muddy mess of stinky, tired, happy dogs.

Husbandry and gardening: The duck pen clean-out is finished. I made a compost heap in an old kiddie pool, about 4′ across and 4′ high. It took off, internal temperature of 155 degrees F and hasn’t cooled off yet. Once it’s done, there’s another pool full of leftover bedding, ready to be combined with the end-of-season garden waste, like tomato vines, into another pile.

We rescued the fall transplants from being completely pummeled by hail.

The hail pounded the tomatoes and corn, but everything seems to have bounced back. The pole beans are flowering and should start to produce about the time the bush beans give out. I’ve replanted some greens for fall and have more to plant once I make room.

Ben the turkey tom looks terrible. It’s temporary, he’s only molting, but he has lost all his tail feathers and isn’t strutting so much these days. The young turkeys are growing fast now, they are almost to the size of Tom’s pair of adult females. I assembled four new supers for our beehives for when we get around to checking on the bees. All the other animals are doing great.

Food, harvest and preserving: Harvest season is ramping up. We are eating artichokes, green beans, cucumbers, summer squash and all the herbs I want. My shallots from last year are still in good shape, and I’m trying to use them up instead of buying more onions, such a luxury problem.

R bought a box of peach, which we peeled and froze for a wine-making project when the temperatures cool off a bit in the house. I’ve been picking, blanching and freezing extra bush beans every 3-4 days. And I finally weighed the garlic before putting it away: over 10 pounds. I see loads of roasted garlic heads on the winter menu this year.

As far as the annual zucchini glut, I think I have found a solution. When we bought the dehydrator last year, I had read in the manual that summer squash weren’t great candidates for drying. This year I decided to study and test out that assumption a little further. When I found Hank Shaw had a traditional Sicilian recipe for dried zucchini, I knew I was on the right track. I’m ok if rehydrated zucchini isn’t the same as fresh, so long as it’s good, kind of like how marinated artichokes don’t much resemble fresh but are delicious in different dishes.

So I did a test run of dried zucchini noodles, cut on my ancient mandolin. That mandolin is so old, it says “Made in W. Germany.” I julienned the squashes (we grow both regular and yellow zucchini) in both regular thin strands and a much thicker, almost french fry cut, then salted them to release water for about an hour. After their trip through the dehydrator, I used them for dinner. Instead of rehydrating them separately, I stirred them directly into some reheating spaghetti sauce. The flavor was great, and the texture from the larger shreds was just fine. The smaller julienne seemed to just disappear in the sauce. Since then, I’ve dehydrated all the extra squash before they’ve grown too huge, and no one need fear having me shove zucchini in the cars when they visit. I’ve kept up a little too well, in fact and I need to set some aside to try Shaw’s recipe.

Other projects: There is a plan to get over to Richfield to gather materials for fall projects, but we keep putting it off.

Community: I finished the grant for the town’s tree planting project. Two different sets of friends from Salt Lake dropped by, one bearing tomatoes and eggplant (thanks Al!). We had a little dinner party for Robert’s band after their performance for Entrada on Saturday night

Creativity and recreation: My mandolin teacher has assigned me to start playing with the community band, but we have to change my lesson times so it doesn’t conflict.

Next week: Get over to Richfield for supplies, keep freezing and dehydrating, look in on the bees and decide how much honey we can take.

Seasonal observations: The morning light comes directly into the east-facing kitchen window at sunrise now, and the shadows from the cottonwood trees hit the front porch an hour earlier each night. These are the easy days at the end of summer, a little more sleep, a little less heat, baby critters growing fast, kids back in school. The barn swallows are done with nesting but are still here. Carson spends hours trying to herd them around the house. Wyatt sneaks away every chance he gets to play in our neighbors’ irrigation water and comes back soaked, smelling of horse manure and thoroughly self-satisfied. He’s growing out of his puppy stage too fast. His ears are about to stand up and he’ll be a grown up dog. I don’t want to rush through this part, his puppyhood or my favorite time of year.

Homestead Log Week of June 26-July 2

July 3, 2017 · By Ann ·

The loaner lambs are still here, being of marginal help on the orchard grasses but doing a stupendous job at fertilization.

Last week started out snake-bit and ended up just perfect, which goes to show that rolling with the punches works. On Monday, I took my car into Richfield to get an oil change and then to have my collision shop install one tiny piece that came in late. The big brand oil change and tire place seemed to forget I was waiting in the tv room, when I finally went to check they had “just finished” it as they fished my keys out 6″ deep in a foot high stack of paperwork. Yeah right.

Having plotted a course modeled after the UPS approach of making only right turns where possible, I dropped off some donations at the thrift store and then scooted over the the body shot. A job that was going to take “just twenty minutes” turned into an electrical diagnostics problem that went on until closing time and I left with car, with rear wiper but she no function. I’ll have to go back. The orange big box home improvement store had only crap hose nozzles…Walmart was Walmart-weird, and after one more stop…now I’m whining. I got back safely. R made dinner. None of it mattered. We’re all good here at the ranch.

The weekend was much more fun with Torrey Apple Days. I took myself Friday night to the veterans memorial fundraising dinner and hung out with my neighbors. R was stuck in SLC by then, his last official day at work. He sanely chose not to drive down on the Friday before a holiday weekend. Saturday was the big day. First the parade, then music. We could have gone to the food booths, farmers’ market and the dance, if we’d wanted to. R wanted to practice his guitar for his debut on the Entrada stage.

Husbandry and gardening: the Rachio irrigation system is working great. I attempt to weed a couple beds right after watering or first thing in the morning. In years past, I’ve been close to giving up on the weeds by mid-July, but R put weed barrier and mulch in the garden paths and it is much more pleasant to work out there now. Wyatt helps by standing under me and licking my face. I made one last attempt to replant beans, basil and Brussels sprouts. If they don’t make it, we’ll have to do without–we are already only 13 weeks to frost. The turkey poults are going outside during the afternoons and loving it. I’m hoping that we can get them out of the garage before the 15th.

Food, harvest and preserving: I garden for the week the peas come in. We only have about 10′ of row this year, and I made the most of them, froze some for winter risotto and made a pasta with the rest. The zucchini just started to flower, so the eating should be good until the frost. I gave R the very first cherry tomato as a retirement present (I’m using that as long as I can get away with it).

Energy and conservation: putting air in your tires does amazing things for gas mileage. I should remember that more often.

Community: I helped line up the entries in the parade. Actually, I mostly helped block traffic on the street where the line-up was taking place because the road barricades weren’t doing the job. At the last minute, R drove up and we both hopped on the Entrada Institute’s entry, an almost dilapidated fire truck one of the board members owns and keeps running just for the parade. He mentioned something about a paint job on it; R was advocating for cherry red metal flake.

Creativity and recreation: Torrey Apple Days!

Next week: we go to Salt Lake toward the end of the week for festivities to celebrate R’s retirement with a Red Butte Garden concert sandwiched in. Until we go, we will catch up on lots of little projects and tidying up to make room for R’s full-time residency at the bunkhouse.

Seasonal observations: the big fire at Brian Head sent smoke our way a couple different times, once turning the sun scarlet red. The barn swallows seem to be settling on their nests but we haven’t heard any chipping babies yet. Lots of things started blooming: leeks and shallots, the first false salsify and zucchini squash. The cheat grass is starting to head up, which means the county poison truck should be out spraying soon. Bindweed is climbing and the tumbleweeds are a foot high already. So is the corn, not quite “knee high by fourth of July” but close enough. Who knows how much they will grow in two more days, but it’s not like corn patches keep a strict calendar. Neither would we, except for the irrigation schedule keeps us honest. Carson will be happy – his wound has finally healed and he can play in the ditch when we take our turn on Independence Day.