Showing posts with label Country Life. Show all posts

OK, if any of you are still out there, here is an update. I have looked at all the half written notes and unpublished posts and decided it was time to salve my conscience about not writing. Although this is the fifth time in nearly as many weeks that I have tried to post. With any luck, I may actually make it.

A lot has happened in the past few months...

My beautiful fiance is now my beautiful wife. My two noisy children have been joined by a noisy niece and a great sister in law, and a grown stepson. We have all moved to a big old farm house with a remaining half dozen acres split evenly between scrubby woods and overgrown pasture. My kids are still adjusting to climbing down from the mountain to the network of deep valleys and rolling hills, and neighbors whose houses we can actually see. My new wife, sister in law and niece are trying to adjust to what they perceive as rural... and I still can't get used to cooking appropriate quantities.

From my quiet cabin in the mountains I could reach several quaint small towns and several minor cities in about the same half hour drive. I had choices whenever I needed supplies, and I guess I was spoiled. My new home, though rural, is only 5 minutes from a small city. Unfortunately, it is depressed, a leftover from the rust belt. Too rural to have caught the economic rise of the 1980's, yet too urban to have benefited from large factory type agriculture. I have to travel nearly the same half hour to get hardware or clothing or any of the myriad things one discovers lacking or lost whenever changing households.

An unplanned surgery and a whole lot of illness has challenged us as we adjust to our new life, and just yesterday we found out that the plans we had for our rural acreage are on hold due to some zoning issues. We are, like much of this rural township zoned residential despite the agricultural background of the area and of the area and a dearth of fresh produce. As a child, I remember making special trips to this area (from our quite rural area) to get the apples and other fruit this area was famous for. Now, there are two fruit farms remaining, but they seem to be much smaller and less known than they were formerly.

Raw milk is almost unheard of. A few inquiries have led to blank stares or non-commital shrugs. In fact the only nearby feed store says that there are not even any dairy operations of any sort in this end of the county. Still, I am searching.

In fact my best leads so far has come from a friend who runs the produce department of a large chain grocery store that caters to "foodies". I drive my half hour several times a week for their selection of "seasonal" veggies that really come from somewhere beyond the equator. During a chance conversation, he mentioned a farm that sells local, hormone free beef and other meats. He had a faraway dreamy look, and could give no ral directions there, but I promise, I will seek it out and let you know.

On the home front, I am thinking of dubbing our new home the "Back-Yard Farm". I am in the beginning stages of applying for variances to allow light agricuture on our acreage. Much of our land is nearly 1/4 mile from any neighbors, and yet as zoned is legal only for dogs or cats. Chickens are prohibited as well as the sale of any extra eggs or produce. If we can't get our variance we are paying taxes on land that is essentially useless to us. Its my own fault, of course. But in our haste, I trusted the real estate agent - fool move.

Still we are forging ahead with planting both gardens and fruit trees. I just tilled an asparagus bed despite dire warnings from my doctor, and to everyone's suprise but mine, I feel better from the work. I seldom get sick, but I frequently need patching up...

To anyone who is left out there, Thank You. I really hope to keep you posted, and get some new recipes going, but my new Brady Bunch sized family has gotten me a bit off my game. As soon as I figure out my wife's camera and how to upload, I promise a few before and after pictures too.






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I stand breathing, high up on a hill. The night is deep, and the huge starry sky dwarfs the tiny countryside that spreads out in all directions before me. The moon is not yet up, and the inky ridge to the east merges into the sky with a barely discernible line. From somewhere near its base, the quiet rumble of a train. Nearby, there is no sound. Not even a breeze stirs the stubble of last year's cornstalks. Tiny clusters of light mark distant villages and seem a dim reflection of the brilliant stars all around me. Traces of the men who settled this land, now nearly forgotten.

I am not of the village, though my house is there. I am not of the villagers, though I pass among them and am not a stranger to them. I am of the land, this land, and the villagers are but a part of the land.

I know the land by its rises and vales. I know it by its shape and its textures. I imagine touching these burly cornfields, my hand following down the hill and up the smooth, fallow slope of the next. I feel the lone oak at its top. Every hollow and rise is familiar to my touch. Though I've walked among the trees below, I know them better by their feel from above. I imagine, for a moment, that this is, in part, how a god might experience a world, from above, not detached, but rather as a part of the world.

Occasionally a tiny light, a car, silently moves along a distant hill as a villager travels on some mission or other. Most of the villagers rest in their homes. Great men may be among them, but for now all is tiny beneath the sky. Sadly, most of the villagers live tiny all their lives. Like ants, they rarley, if ever, take time to ponder the hills they live amonst. They don't wonder why they were born here and not elsewhere. The village seems to have been here always, and they cannot conceive it otherwise.

Though many of the villagers are relative newcomers to the area or even sons of those who came later, there are yet many names that are the same as those who cleared these fields. Many of them bear the names of the men whose homes were the first to stand there, though most of the villagers no longer know or remember the men who came first.

These men were not village folks meant to live in gatherings and maintain routine. They were men who knew feeling of freedom. Some one of them must have stood on this hill, just as I do, and felt the land below. There were no light below to mimic the the stars, but the land must have seemed nearly as deep as the sky. Like me, his day was spent in work, though his was greater than any found today, but in the eve, when work was through and he gazed out over the fields he had carved from the rough woods, he not only knew the feel of the land from below, but also from above. To know the land that closely he must have felt not as mere god, but as close to the Creator as a man can feel.

---I wrote this over twenty years ago, probably in the winter of 1987. I was commuting to and from a corporate job 60 or 70 miles away in the city, and was yearning for the connection to the land I had grown up with. It miraculously survived as a handwritten scrap amongst the detritus that follows me, and I found it while packing for my upcoming move.

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Its Saturday, a workday like any other, and yet the kids and I still have to eat even when we are busy. We also have to feed our souls. Here is the ultimate solution to the busy summer lunch - a tomato sandwich.

Now it is not even worth beginning without fresh tomatoes straight from the garden, so warm and full of sunlight that they are about to burst. Choose one that is almost too ripe, so soft that it start to split just from the pressure of picking it. Be careful it doesn't fall off the vine as you reach for it. At this point of the season, the variety of the tomato hardly matters - Brandywine, Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter, a Lemonboy or Cherokee Purple, even those unidentified generic 'tomato' plants you picked up down at the local WallyWorld and planted amongst the weeds off the back deck. What matters here is the ripeness and your awareness and appreciation of the imminent end of summer.

Pick your bread. It should be soft and absorbent to pick up all the juices that are welling out of that perfect tomato. A good choice is my Daily Bread, or even some of that store bought white stuff. This might be the only real use for that stuff. Don't try to get all fancy and use a crusty artisan bread here, don't even toast it. It has just got to be soft.

Butter just one slice, preferably with Homemade Butter, but again, since the tomato is the star, you might cheat a little and still get a good result, but only if you have to. This is to be the top of your sandwich. You may add a bit of mayo here too if you like, and sometimes I do, especially if I have recent made it and have a little left, but its not absolutely necessary.

Now lay your bottom slice of bread on a plate close to your cutting board and prepare to slice that beautiful fruit. Use the sharpest knife you have, with smooth serrations if necessary, and try to preserve that precious juice. Try not to smash your tomato as most of the flavor is in the juice not the flesh as some folks may seem to think. Let them think it and keep the juice for yourself, summer is too short to argue. If you lose precious juices onto your cutting board carefully pour them onto you bread before arranging you slices of tomato. Afix the top slice and enjoy. Savor. Mop up any excess juice with more bread, and wash the works down with cold milk, Fresh Farm Milk.

Repeat.




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As often happens in life, we have suffered a series of setbacks here, and have been unable to post. Rampant development is rapidly destroying much of the rural countryside in western PA, and it seems we are the latest folks to be "developed out". Without going to great detail, in the last short while we have seen clear cut logging next door, a newly senile landlord with no respect for personal privacy and who hates children and folks who have no practical knowledge of, say gravity, building a series of water control ditches which will catch little or no water and send said imaginary water into places where water is undesirable. (In fact the only place where there really might be water, it is going to be directed into my foundation.) My garden, my pasture, my house and my home are for all intents and purposes destroyed. Since I have been on a long term lease, (operative term lease) we are probably going to be removing to another site for our homesteading lifestyle. Until then I will blog when I can, and in the meantime, at least we will get back to the backpack style of cooking. Remember, my original premise was that anyone can cook a good meal for themselves and their family anywhere they happen to find themselves. New posts with this in mind soon, I promise.

In the meantime, I have taken a town job with a great local chef who still cooks real food rather than reheating pre-made meals from a factory. Check him out here www.chefdato.com/ or stop by if you are in the area. You won't regret it, I promise.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to pack.


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I woke up dreaming of peaches. Again. My part of Pennsylvania is really only blessed with peaches, good peaches, only but rarely. since time immemorial we have spent the spring watching for and protecting against the frost that nearly always comes after it has been just warm enough to bring out the peach blossoms. By this time of the year especially at my elevation, we pine for that elusive perfect peach. We are fortunate, however, to be just to the west of a great fruit growing area.

Chambersburg Peaches have always been the standard for us, the peach we admired and wanted to grow. About this time every year, the highways around here begin to have makeshift signs advertising the local produce - but not local peaches. The signs brag about having brought back Chambersburg Peaches. Although technically within the 100 miles many of the Local Eating Challenges, these were for much of my childhood, considered almost an imported food. More accessible than the fabled Georgia peach, they were also in better shape having been picked riper and shipped from a shorter distance.

The area around Chambersburg is of a warmer climate, influenced by the not so distant Chesapeake Bay and sheltered from the cold winter winds by the very mountains I call home. Many of the old orchards seem to have gone now, but still the fame and legend of Chambersburg Peaches mean late summer to me.

Every year my family would buy a bushel basket of peaches, especially Chambersburg Peaches, and my Mother would prepare and can them in quart mason jars. These would line the shelves in the basement along with quarts of tomatoes from the garden, and pints of beets, green and yellow beans, pickles both sweet and dill, relishes, piccalilli, chow chow, various jams and jellies, and a lot of other things that escape my memory now and yet sustained us through bleak winter and reminded us of the need to garden in the spring as they slowly disappeared.

Those jars represented a form of security to us, although I admit I didn't much think about it as a kid. In fact, I used to sneak the occasional jar to eat, though unless we were low on something mom never really cared as long as it wasn't wasted. As I got older, I even came to use them as a form of currency.

It was a time when gas was cheap and country boys would get together to race whatever jalopies the had cobbled together. Often we would help some town kid with a better budget than ours, and we would secretly be reverse engineering the fancy parts they had so that we could go faster. Physics was second nature to us, as we couldn't help but explore how and why things worked. Our homemade cars with their homemade parts were often the winners over the shinier models.

Still, machines break. Often an exuberant Friday evening would result in a Saturday morning engine change. In those day we could get a used engine from a junkyard, add all our "performance" parts, and stuff it into our cars. Now what does this have to do with peaches you are asking. Well hang in there.

Lifting a 500 pound engine requires either machinery or a hand full of good friends, a chain and a locust fence post. Even friends need motivation for that kind of work, especially early on a Saturday morning. To alleviate that, I would pass the word that I was making PEACH PIES for anyone who came to help. Early Saturday afternoons, my folks would come home to discover a gaggle of greasy farm boys each eating his very own peach pie made from peaches I had copped from Mom's stash in the basement. I also discovered that rolling pie crust is a great way to get grease from under your fingernails.

Nowadays, I refuse to use the "all vegetable shortening" I used then since I have figured out some of that science (hint don't eat anything hydrogenated, heck it just sounds scary). I now use an all butter pastry recipe, and although I am still experimenting with it, I give it here as it is at least decent. Give it a shot and let me know how it works or how you improved it. Hit the comments!





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As dawn pushes the mist
I behold a golden orb.
A perfect peach, a blushing beauty,
Swollen with pride.
A gift from an unseen friend,
to break the fast of an early traveler.
The milk of human kindness runs golden down my shirt.




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Okay folks, sorry it has been a while since I have posted, but it has been so hectic around here. Without going into long detail, my family has been a bit under siege on just about every front lately. Yeah I know, poor pity us, you just filled up with gas and it looked a lot like your mortgage payment - if you are lucky enough not to have an adjustable...

Well anyway, as my son is crying about the frog he just volunteered to let loose in our creek and my daughter is lamenting the seeming destruction from a devastating septic tank and water purification project that has left virtually no part of our woods, yard, creeks, field, picnic area, and life untouched - even as I contemplate everything that has piled up - I suddenly realize...that's life, man. I know it is a bit trite to say that I counted my blessings, but it is true. I have most of my health, good friends and more importantly my kids are still free to catch frogs and lightning bugs. I am still engaged to the single greatest woman in the world (really, I checked). We still have our raw milk and most of our foods is still local and seasonal at a time when most folks are paying a premium for those things if they can even afford the luxury (like the folks who are paying tens of dollars to have raw milk delivered, clandestinely, or travel many miles to get fresh berries that we can pick on the way up our lane). The woods and the yard will grow back. My friends and family will survive and thrive as long as I keep the will and, I suppose, the faith.

Everybody gets a little down sometimes, but I wouldn't trade living in the country, in this country, close to the land and close to my family, for all the money we owe. I hope John Boy Walton is proud...

I promise more informative stuff soon, recipes, techniques and the all important backpack. No I haven't forgotten it, I just want to make sure I get it right for you. Also, look for the book soon. "The Indigenous Gourmet and his BackPack Bistro Walk Through the Seasons" is due in ebook form soon. Print copies with beautiful color photos taken by the lovely Kelly, suitable for coffee tables and art houses everywhere, is not far behind!


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The character of the blackberries varied from area to area. When I had first started picking them, they had seemed rather uniform in size and shape. The only difference I noticed between them was the level of ripeness each berry had achieved.

As I picked all the ripe berries from each spot I moved to another. Gradually I noticed that some berries, while of similar size, were composed of more, but smaller, individual seeds while others were larger than average, but with fewer seeds. Others, even when ripe were small and hard. On tasting, I found these to be tart and strongly flavored. These grew in an area that was sunnier, and so, I surmised, drier. But then, just beside these, and in almost the same mini-climate, were blackberries that were longer and larger and composed of larger seeds. These literally fell off the bramble at the slightest touch. Often the act of picking one caused several to fall beyond reach into the depths of the brambles. When tasted, they were so juicy and sweet as to seem an almost different breed of berry altogether. I was tempted to risk the scratches and thorns to reach the fallen ones and not waste a single drop of the glorious nectar.

A few steps more and I discovered similar gorgeous berries. They were not as long, but rounder, with the seedpods just as full and heavy with juice. There were more of these ripe berries here, as if no one had dared to pick them. I hesitated a moment as if I were about to profane their virtue. Gently I reached and found resistance. I pulled harder, and again harder. Even the greatest tug could not free them as they would not give up their hold on the vine, but instead squashed into my fingers leaving only pulp and juice. Licking my fingers to clean them, I tasted what I felt must surely be ambrosia. I paused. Surely this was reserved for someone other than the mere mortal I was. I reached again. Greedily I began pulling at them as if milking tiny but succulent breasts. I sucked my stained fingers as the deep purple juice ran down his arms and chin. In a frenzy, I reached again and again, pulling and sucking, I continued until there were no more.

Standing there breathing heavily, my blood pounding in his ears, I felt at once a deep love along with the exhilaration of an intense lust. I had never felt so whole before, or more alive. I felt the heat of passion combined with the comfort and safety of the womb. I felt that for the first time I really understood everything, and yet could never express what I knew to anyone - a deep sadness tempered with the calm satisfaction of really belonging and perhaps really mattering to the universe. Seeing a patch of grass in the shade of a nearby grandfather oak, I collapsed and fell into a deep, profound sleep. Dreaming of the Blackberry Shortcake I would make with the berries I had found.

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I originally started this blog to document and share my experiences as I return to my roots in the country and in the kitchen. You see, I grew up in a rural area, with a depression era mentality. Even though it was the 1960's and 1970's, we grew and foraged much of our food, and we purchased seasonal produce from local farm stands and canned or froze or dried it for the upcoming winter. Stocking our pantry was as much a part of the daily rhythms as the the sunrise or the need to eat. Anyone can tell when its suppertime without a clock, and so with blackberry time or any other time we were aware of. The years were filled as a progression and and our pantries expanded and contracted with a regularity of a long comfortable breath.

As the years went on, like most kids, I left home and headed for the city, and so gradually lost touch with much of my food supply. Oh, I still picked berries and made my own jelly, but it was easier to spread it on some of the cake like substance the chain stores market as bread. I grew my garden and canned a few tomatoes, but the bulk of my winter vegetables came out of a can rather than a mason jar and were grown in some anonymous distant place rather than out back.

Blessed with such a healthy childhood I took for granted my reasonably decent health. But Occasionally I noticed how many of the folks I worked with battled chronic weight issues, or had minor skin ailments, or perhaps high blood pressure. Health issues were often the topic du jour around the coffee pot as everyone stuffed themselves with "healthy" bran muffins rather than the ubiquitous offering of doughnuts. Some of the younger trendier types even eschewed the coffee for a nice morning pick me up of diet soda of even water flavored with some artificial stuff I could not spell much less pronounce.

Gradually the years went by and we all aged, and more than a few of us passed from the standard illnesses of the industrial age, cancer, diabetes, heart disease. We all accepted these losses as part of the attrition of life. Like the divorces and corporate failures we endured them and moved on.

So now I find myself back in the country, in the mountains of my youth. And I begin to rebuild and restock my pantry. But my blackberry patches have been replaced with condos and my walnut trees cut for some fool's firewood. Little by little I begin to rebuild worn out soil, to search out foraging spots. I reach out to find local sources of the food I need to feed my family, only to find many of the old farms and farmers gone. Those that remain are beset on all sides. Market forces and big agribusiness have all but eliminated all the sources of local food. Tomatoes are available year round, but even in August are not from around here. Even the laws are seemingly against simple local food.

Recently I was looking for a farm to buy milk from directly. Most of the farms I worked on or around in my youth have been replaced by Housing developments and blacktop, so I asked at the Mountain Herb Shoppe when I went to buy some multi-vitamins for my kids. The folks there were so nice, and really wanted to help, but there simply was no farm locally that was selling milk directly. The reason it seems, is a fear of raw milk.

As a kid we generally drank fresh milk right from the farm. Those days we knew each cow by name and habit, and if anything was off in her health or behavior, we were sure to investigate. and if anything accidentally fell into the milk, we fed it to the calves after a serious scolding against our carelessness.

Daily we brought our jugs and, at the end of the evening's milking, we filled them from the bulk tank, a stainless steel refrigerated tank that held all of our, and the cows, efforts. The milk was fresh and creamy. Though the tank had a motorized paddle that stirred the milk to cool it more quickly and to keep the cream from separating, an hour or two after it was in the bottle, it need to be shaken to remix the milk and the cream.

Sometimes we would draw off the milk from a tap in the bottom of the jug and take the cream fro our coffee, or to make butter or ice cream, or even for whipping and serving on dessert. The skimmed milk that was left was not completely free from cream, and still tasted nearly as rich as the store stuff anyway.

Seldom was it ever wasted. Even though in its raw state milk tends to not stay fresh as long, it was not as nasty nor as harmful as the store bought stuff when it was "sour". It could still be used as sour cream or in a recipe where the slightly off taste would be noticed, heck, you could still drink it, especially if you added a bit of flavoring like chocolate or a bit of vanilla and sugar. Worst case, the dog would promise undying loyalty for just a taste.

Store milk is another story. First off, the store stuff is nowadays produced on farms that milk in a continuous, 3 shift day, from cows that are given drugs to speed their production of milk and so require more than the morning and evening milkings traditional for thousands of years. The cows are more or less simply an input in an industrial process and not a member of the extended family as were most of the cows on the farms of my youth.

Next this milk is Pasteurized, or cooked, to kill any nasty germs that may have fallen into the milk. This could happen in the barn, in the tank, in the truck on the way to the factory, or during any one of the many processes through which it undergoes. To be fair, this could happen, and probably does happen on smaller farms. but the ability to oversee and correct such problems is worse on an industrial scale. In addition, the cooking creates a nearly sterile product that has a much longer shelf life to enable shipping long distances and sales for a longer period of time.

The milk is also mechanically separated from its cream, much of it being diverted to other products and uses. A portion of the cream is forced through small screens under high pressure to break the fat particles into unnaturallly tiny pieces that can not separate when they are added back into the milk at controlled ratios to create the various percentages of milk from whole, one percent, two percent and so on.

Trouble is, the Pasteurization kills beneficial bacteria as well, and without the enzymes and bacteria that have for thousands of years helped people to digest the milk, many folks find they can not drink milk at all. Some yogurt companies have made fortunes by adding the same bacteria back into the milk and loudly proclaiming their health benefits. (They are probably right, but why kill them in the first place? But I digress). In addition, the smaller particles of cream can pass through the stomach lining of many humans and cause even more health problems.

But you see, as a large scale industrial material, milk is a controlled substance. That's right. That white liquid is subject to search and seizure and can even be classified as a hazardous waste if it has been produced, sold or consumed outside the system.

Now, I have never been any kind of an activist. I prefer to take care of my family and friends, educating as many as I can reach, but never overstepping the bounds of social propriety. I don't view store milk as a poison. It is convenient and easily available and better than nothing. But I prefer milk fresh from a farm I know, and that is now illegal in much of the country. Similar battles are cropping up in other types of food as industrial meats and vegetables are being eschewed for locally produced varieties, even as the terms "organic" and "natural" and others are coopted and diluted by the same large concerns. Caveat Emptor. But the buyer can not beware if he has no choice. I don't care if you drink cooked milk, why do you care if I drink mine raw?

Please visit my other blog, The Raw Milk Underground for news and views as I have time to post them, and in the meantime please visit The Weston A. Price Foundation and RealMilk.com for more and better information. Everyone who eats is being dragged into this battle, and even if you don't know it, decisions are being made for you that could affect your health more than any other single thing. What you eat is ultimately more important for your health than any vitamin or exercise program.


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Ok, so we don't get a lot of company up here. Friends speak of the drive, or the weather, but perhaps there is another more subtle reason. Let's talk about last evening.

My daughter had a town girlfriend up for a play date, and by coincidence another adult friend stopped up for a surprise visit and found me cleaning up tiny mouse droppings from behind the toaster. Since I was also in the middle of making supper while simultaneously preparing several dishes ahead for the freezer, I continued to work while the other adult played with the children and pretended not to notice.

My cabin is actually a series of additions to an original small cabin, and there are a few places where the occasional field mouse sneaks in for a small taste of whatever the children drop on our floor. I am not really a messy pig. No really. Seriously.

Anyhow, while I listened to the chatter and worked as quickly as I could, I raced around the kitchen rattling pans stirring pots and searching for ingredients. Upon discovering I needed an onion, I slipped on my work boots and ran out for it. Getting out there, I chased an errant jake turkey out of the garden, grabbed my onion and raced back inside.

A pot of chicken stock was boiling a bit too hard, so without removing my boots, I stirred down the boil and reduce the heat. I turned away for a moment to check on the kids, and when I turned back, a movement on the wall behind the stove caught my eye.

Now, in the interest of full disclaimer, I feel compelled to admit that, like Indiana Jones, one of my few irrational fears is snakes... Like the large, dark one that was now crawling from behind my stove and headed across the counter between my fancy vinegars and up behind my corner cupboard. Startled, I called for my friend to take the children and leave. Although neither she nor anyone else could see the snake, she shot me a look of irritated disbelief, rolled her eyes and went, taking everyone into the living room.

Using the chicken tongs, I grabbed the tail of the rapidly disappearing snake and pulled. The irritation of the snake manifested in a reversal and striking motion (rather than an eye roll), so I quickly (understatement) flipped the snake onto the kitchen floor.

Now at this point I need to add that most of what follows was related to me after the fact, as I have little or no direct recollection of many of these incidents. So as the snake tried to decide whether to strike at me again or to head underneath the freezer or the refrigerator, I made the decision for it and began to try to jump onto its head with the heel of my boots. The dance which ensued can best be described by the steady stream of obscenities that issued from my mouth as I alternately jumped up to avoid the snake's parries and down in the attempt to catch its skull. At least once, it caught on my pant leg and was flung into the air only to turn, ready to strike again. Alarmed by the commotion, my friend came out to the doorway, and seeing the battle, shouted "Use your Knife!!"

Rather than explaining the foolishness of that suggestion, I - apparently - calmly, explained that I would if it weren't trying to bite me, and continued to jump and lunge like a scene from Riverdance while she beat a hurried retreat back to the living room and began to hug herself and rock on the couch, with her feet well away from the floor I hasten to add.

All epic battles do eventually come to an end, and this was no exception. As I hurriedly picked up the still twitching carcass with my tongs and headed outside, I passed through the living room. The scene there is testimony to something, but as I have not yet finished analyzing it, I leave it to you to judge. The adult friend and the other town kid were huddled together on the couch, shaking, while my daughter sat calmly texting someone on a borrowed cell phone and my son was loudly complaining that he wanted to finish playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I cleaned up the mess and served dinner quickly, trying to distract. But our company seemed to have no appetite, and quickly left. Even though I noticed the mouse sized bulge in the belly of the snake, I can't help but wonder how long it will be before we have company again. Good thing I love the solitude.

P.S.: For those who may be harboring thoughts that I may be "anti-reptilic", or that I have commited a hate crime, I hasten to add that this morning I rescued a yellow box turtle from a blind curve on the road to town. In fact, some of my best friends are reptiles...

Does that help fix my Karma?






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As I look over the sad scene of destruction that is, or rather was, my garden, I can't help but notice that the weeds are doing well despite the demolition work of the deer, and the poor soil. I remember that the soil can be "read" by paying attention to the weeds that grow there. Often the best plots are those that can support a lot of weeds. After all, if weeds can grow there untended, your vegetables, with the added attention and care that you can give them should thrive!

As I survey the damage, I also see an awful lot of buttercups. Despite their humble beauty, I know they are poison to some foraging and grazing animals such as the goats we have been thinking of getting (more later). Buttercups, as well as the dandelions and plantain I see growing here are an indication of heavy soils as are some kinds of dock, which I don't see right now.

If I had the mosses may apples and joe pye weed, which I have down below but not up here in the garden area, I would know that the drainage was poor, so that is not necessarily a problem here. Up by the road I see some cornflower, and chicory so that soil must be a bit lighter, though sandy and probably not too fertile.

Oh how I long for the soil of many of my former gardens, light and humusy, well drained and rich. Usually the purslane and chicory grew right there on their own, and if the dandelions didn't, I planted them.. Not only are they delicious and nutritious, but their long tap roots reach down and break loose minerals and such that are too deep for the vegetables to reach. All of these "weeds" and some others also regularly found themselves on the menu for they are as healthy as they are easy to grow!

If nothing was growing there I'd know that the soil was not too fertile, or had been poisoned in some manner. Still, that truckload of manure I didn't get this spring when my old pickup broke down would have been well received, and I make a note to get it as soon as I can. It may be a bit late to save this crop, but the soil will still benefit from it, and can have the whole autumn and winter to digest and enjoy it and get revitalized for next year.

Now, I have to go finish picking the wild black raspberries and see if i can scare up enough to make a bit of jam. Have a safe and Happy 4th, and don't forget to ponder just what it is we should be celebrating. Hint, its not just a great burger.

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Ok, so I'm a week late. Last week was the Summer Solstice, and the frenetic activities that occupy the longer days of summer have proven to be a false economy. Posting has taken a step back as the added burdens of garden weeding, fruit picking, mowing and such have stepped up as we have been preparing for freezing, canning and drying the upcoming harvests. Though our garden is still dismal owing to the thin covering of heavy soil (is that an oxymoron?), and the depredations of the deer, squirrels and ground hogs. Family, neighbors and local farmers seem thus far to be having a decent year, though. Hopefully their excess will be available to help carry us through until our little plots mature and are strong enough to provide.

Often, while struggling to finish some long task at the end of an even longer day, I look up to realize that, although the sky is still light enough to see, it is long past the kids' bedtime and I haven't even cooked supper yet. I know it is summer, but proper sleep is a commodity that we are often short on as a society, and I try to keep their schedules regular.

But back to the solstice. Growing up it was a regular part of our family routine to observe the position of the sunset each evening at supper. Our table was in the western part of the house, and the fact that, by happy coincidence, our barn ran almost directly north and south, so it was easy to mark the progress of the sun as it progressed on it yearly cycle. It was as much a matter of conversation as the weather, and a part of our internal clocks. Precision was less important than the act of observation, the act of appreciation.

Our observatory was the product of years of living and watching, and a certain amount of osmosis. We just kind of absorbed the positions and related meaning. We drew encouragement in the dark days of February to note the sun had moved toward a certain point on the barn roof and spring was surely coming. Similarly, even though the days were long and beautiful, we were reminded to get the harvest ready and prepare for winter as the sun began its trek back south. Without realizing it, we were in tune with the seasons more surely than we could be if the calendar was our only regulator. Though this is just one of the cycles we are all influenced by, often too little thought or credit is given.

In the years since I left home, I have always, to some degree, paid attention to the the position of the sun. Depending on the specifics of my location, it has either been the sunset, or the more traditional sunrise. Sometimes I have simply taken note of the positions as the year progressed, making improvised observatories such as our "barn roof observatory", and sometimes I have taken a bit more time and built simple observatories.

One year I planted my green beans and pole according to my previous year's observations. I dubbed this creation "Beanhenge". Other years I have stacked rocks, adjusting for precision throughout the year, only to find myself changing homes before my creation was complete.
Since moving to this current home, I have not yet had time to actually build a formal structure. Happily a combination and a few coincidences have handed me a ready made observatory.

My desk sits beside the massive stone chimney that heats our winters (and helps hold the cool in the summer), and windows wrap around me to both the south and the east. On the morning of June 21, when viewed from here the sun seems to rise between the two tall poplars that shelter my outdoor cooking area. Next December, I know if I sit here, it will rise over the very back edge of the outhouse. Once during a particularly dark year (of mood), when I first noticed this, I dubbed my "creation" with the slightly disrespectful moniker of "Sh*thenge" and the name has since stuck.

I believe everyone should be just a bit more aware of the workings of the world, and so I propose you make your own stone henge. It can be as easy as picking a spot to observe either the sunrise or sunset, and occasionally noting the difference, or it can be as complicated as getting a compass, and marking the various points from a central observation point, then making daily observations and markings. Here are some cool activities that can make it a part of your family's routine, and maybe create a tradition and a re-connection with the natural world. http://fun.familyeducation.com/outdoor-games/winter/35028.html
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This morning my son and I are trying to replant the entire garden that has been destroyed by the deer. The deer here are a mixed blessing; venison is an important part of the local diet, and a part of the beauty of the local landscape. They are fewer here lately, some say due to recent changes in the game laws. I don't know. Just a few years ago there were so many deer they were a danger when driving and even a nuisance to be fenced out of your garden. Not it seems they too have joined in the flight to suburbia. To their detriment. By moving among the masses they have attracted the attention of the media.

"Hazardous and out of control," the headlines read. And so, for whatever the reasons, the game laws changed. I don't pretend to understand the bigger plan, but since hunting doesn't take place in suburbia, but rather out here in the hustings, the result I have seen is fewer deer in local freezers and on local tables, while deer seem unchecked in the more populous areas.

The increase in hunting and hunters flows outward from suburbia. "Sport Hunters", Folks who often do not like, much less eat venison, none the less feel the yearly urge to brag about the deer they got. Recently, talk about the size of "the rack" have been giving way to tales of the numbers of doe or the several tags the intrepid hunters were able to fill out and thus prove their prowess. Many of these deer are wasted, a few perhaps given away. The ones that do make it into a freezer are still often discarded. Much meat will sit unused until next year when it must be thrown out to make room for the next deer.

A few years ago, when I first moved here, the winding mile or so of road up over the top of my mountain might have had two or three cars of hunters on opening day of buck season. Everyone had a reasonable amount of meat and the braggadocio of the size of the rack was often answered with "you don't eat the antlers". Though deer were more common, we had, really, less trouble avoiding the nuisance aspects. Perhaps we were just more used to it. The last several seasons, I have counted over two dozen cars, with several hunters each on the same road on opening day. Most of theses cars are not even local, but out-of-towners coming to "the mountains" for a little fun. This is on a road that gets fewer than a dozen cars every day.

Which brings me back to my current day. Lately I have been watching a (very) few doe in the evenings, only one of which seems to have a fawn with her. Thus, far in the season, my garden has been relatively untouched, and I suppose I have been a little lax in its defense. After all, I reasoned, there is plenty of food for the deer to browse, and if I share a little, it will mean more meat this winter.

This morning as I make my rounds, coffee in hand, I see my entire garden has been decimated. Stems devoid of leaves where my tomato plants lived, basil, uprooted and devoured, only the woody root ball remaining. Where my lovely rows of peppers with their promise of colors and flavors only tiny footprints and piles of pellet-like scat. Radishes, lettuce, everything but the onions gone.

Once, I might have been more philosophical about the loss, balancing the disappointment in vegetables with the promise of meat. Now, I'm not so sure. The young does and the sole fawn stand a greater chance of ending up in a suburban landfill. It is little wonder many of the daughters of the suburban sportsmen forgo meat as a social statement, considering the current trend of disrespect for all of our food sources, animals, plants, even the soil.

As my son, an early riser goes to the house to stir his sister and we all begin the process of salvaging, replanting, strengthening our barriers, I wonder. Is there a parable in all of this?

I hope America always has the resources to recover these losses.

Thank goodness for CSA.

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I grew up in the country. Being self sufficient, at least to some degree was a way of life not a lifestyle choice. As our ancestors did, we grew, foraged, or raised much of our own food. But we were not stuck in the stone age. We embraced mechanization to the extent that it helped, though not for the sake of technology or keeping up with the neighbors. For a time we even tried chemicals and fertilizers, though after watching yields spike up then creep down, and watching the tilth of the soil become more and more dependent upon them, we abandoned them without so much as a junkie's remorse.

Like many kids, I grew up and thought that abandoning the rural lifestyle for the glamorous, materialistic city lifestyle would be more exciting. And it was. But it was not healthy, and like all things unhealthy, it was not sustainable. After the madness of a corporate day, a miserable commute, and all the problems that follow from making a living not a life, I quit. Cold turkey.

I bought a restaurant in my old home town, and for a while it was great. But still, things weren't as they should be. I worked round the clock and seldom left the store. Still that was not the problem. I never minded working, I loved the work anyway, and besides any dairy farmer will tell you he seldom gets time off. But where was the connection to sanity I sought?

I started a garden and began to preserve the excess. I canned, I froze, I dehydrated. I fermented, I pickled, I vacuum sealed. I worked fresh stuff into my menu. And I found that the production of the ingredients was at least as satisfying as cooking them, and certainly more than selling to folks who maybe were just too busy to notice any difference. I became healthier, both in body and in spirit. I began to notice the taste of everyday life. My purposes were more important, more honorable than chasing the excitement. But I found that those who were addicted to the lifestyle no longer wanted to be a part of my life. Like any addict, I had to decide, did I want to hang with the addicts or go on and try to improve myself. Did I make the right choice? Its too subjective to tell, I suppose. But more and better thing have happened to me that would never have happened had I ignored the urge to "go clean", and forgo the "lifestyle". I still love the excitement of the city, but in a newer, fresher way. Of course, to some extent, I suppose, I am still a consumer, but in a less self destructive, and hopefully more thoughtful way.

Perhaps our society is following a similar path. Perhaps we are, as a culture, experiencing much the same transformation. Perhaps the popularity of gardening and the resurgence of more natural lifestyles are a reflection of a society that is ready to mature, to "go back home". It is unfortunate that many individuals may have forgotten the methods and the paths of going back, but as long as there are folks trying to remember, maybe we all can go home.

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I have a confession to make. I buy raw milk. And I drink it. And I even let my kids drink it.
I know, I know, this is a fairly new blog, and I probably just lost your trust. After all, who wants advice from a lawbreaker. At least I think I am a lawbreaker, I'm really not sure. There are now a slew of new laws and enforcement of old laws and a general hodge podge of reasons why not to drink, sell or buy raw milk.

Why? For an inkling, look at this link. http://www.realmilk.com/

I don't believe the oft quoted saw about health reasons. I know my farmer, though he shall have to remain anonymous here. He is a neighbor, and has milked all of his long life. And drinks raw milk. Like his parents, and his children. They are all the epitome of health. In addition to the hard work of producing the aforementioned illicit substance, including producing all of the hay and and such to feed the cows and removing their waste, and keeping milking facilities and machinery clean and in order and just generally working harder than most of us ever dream of, the grown sons hold down full time jobs, and the father (now grandfather, and soon to be great grandfather) oversees daily operations since he has retired after a lifetime in a local steel mill. All the long suffering wives of these miscreants, and their children look longingly at the "better lives" of their legal, town bearing friends and wish they too could have a materialistic lifestyle. Or maybe not.

I believe there is a certain amount of, for lack of a better term, 'life' in everything, and especially any given food. The further from the place where it lived its life, the less life left in it. Likewise the more processing and or the less healthy or "life-ful" its upbringing. Did it consume healthy nutrition that was also full of life? Was it handled in a safe, and yes even respectful manner after harvest? This is really as important for a carrot or a cow. Whether the beef or the milk is healthful depends in large part on whether the farm was. The lack of safety that has resulted in tainted beef, tomato recalls, and bans on raw milk are more a reflection on a society that views it food sources as simply commodities.

Should we regulate the production of food to ensure safety? I give a reserved yes, but we need to apply a certain amount of common sense. If milk is going anonymously into a bulk tank, and then a tank truck to be mixed with gallons of other anonymous milk, then to a factory to be further lost in the mix, and then is expected to stay on a shelf for a week or two, maybe we should take the life out of it. Almost a mercy killing. Is this any way to live? Anonymously and without any life or purpose? How much life has to be removed from a food so that it is "shelf stable"? There are lots of arguments for and against raw milk. But in the America I still remember, we had choice. No one buys raw milk unknowingly, and so the burden is on them. For me, the health benefits outweigh the downside. I know where each drop came from, and I even know the cows, as my kids frequently have to be pried out of the barn where they pet and talk to the animals.

Last night, we had to wait for a few minutes while the bulk tank was being cleaned.

While we stood outside a breeze brought us the incomparable smell of fresh cut hay. It was enhanced by the wonderful smell of the manure, which our friends also sell by the truckload, an incomparable treasure for gardeners. Yes, I love the smell of manure. And not just for the aesthetics, it is a great indication of the health of the herd, and can even show differences in seasonal diet. Those who know cheese or wine can tell a lot about the weather and the soil and more from the end product. Although, such information is not as available in cheese from pasteurized milk or wine from pasteurized juice. There just isn't as much life in it.

Lush. Not an adequate word to describe an Appalachian forest morning after a June thunderstorm. Or during one for that matter.
The rain has replenished our little creek (pronounced "crick"), and it runs amiably past the cabin this morning. Though it is too small, too cold and too fast for fish, it is populated with a wondrous assortment of crawdads (crayfish for the unfamiliar), water skippers and salamanders. Each quietly surveying their dominions - the bottom, the surface, the shore.

I wonder, are they aware of each other? Though they share the creek, they seldom if ever venture into each other's domain. Are we, perhaps a bit like them? How often do we consider the world of our neighbor? Are there worlds which we are a part of, perhaps even influence or impact, and yet we do not perceive. Too much pondering. Makes me hungry. Just as they spend their days in search of sustenance so do we, and so I begin to ponder supper.

The garden is in, and with the exception of a few peppers and tomatoes that succumbed to a recent frost and need replaced, is mostly doing well. This garden plot is new to us, and the soil needs to be built back up with care and compost. The soil on this side of the mountain is thin and little forgives neglect. the deep tap roots of native tree and weed are much more suited to digging for the necessary nutrition than are tender, cultivated perennials. A few more seasons and perhaps it will be as rich as the coveted bottom lands, that are, even as we speak being papered over with housing developments, flimsy but ostentatious houses, manicured lawns and blacktop. It is easy get upset when I think of the waste of all the great dirt, in these parts the product of two centuries of land stewardship, being laid to waste even as the radio news cries that the "world must increase food production and improve transportation by at least 50 percent just to keep up with current demands". To watch someone seeding fescue onto the some of the worlds richest croplands is baffling and nearly unforgivable. This land, this country, became the greatest by building solid foundations - the soil, industry that actually made things, men and women who worked with pride no matter the humble task. And yet, the very impermanence of the structures the first world is building, their homes and worse still their society gives pause for reflection...

Think I'd better go plant an extra row of beans.

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