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Those who love good food ..

.. Surely must be the happier for it.

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Growing your food, harvesting the food, then creating meals together and eating it together is the most sublime of culinary experiences.

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I am so enriched by the young people who have come to visit me and work with me through this summer. We have one more girl to come, she arrives on Tuesday.

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By the 20th, the bedrooms will be closed,  the young people will have moved on and I begin to prepare for my travel. To New Zealand. You will come too.

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And you will miss the animals and worry about how everyone is doing  – right along with me.  But for today we get to garden and work on clearing out barns and fix fences and then make beautiful meals.

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And Poppy gets the left overs.

It rained again last night, downpours. My basement has been either damp or flooded for weeks now, and it has been so hot, .. well you can imagine. I am only freezing the produce this year. Putting jars of food down into that environment is not sensible.

It  pours down with rain, sheets of it, rivers of it, waterfalls of water that drop from the sky as though a million buckets have been upended all at once by God and his mates playing silly buggers in the clouds.  Fierce storms that leave the dogs quivering with terror. The thunder rolls like a drum beat stuck in its track. In its groove. In a rut. Over and over and over again. Crashing and banging. The lightening flashes for hours, like strobe lights in an empty disco, you would think that it would get tired of such dramatics but no. Every night they come back. The storms.
Last night felt worse than normal. It was a more than one deluge for a long time. I will look at the rain guage when I go outside.  I am not even going to look in the basement until after lunch, it can only be awful. I hope the crops are still standing, the ears of corn are heavy this time of year and bad weather can lay the whole lot down. A combine cannot harvest corn off the ground. Though it was not too windy.

But today will be a good day. Today after our lunch of fried rooster, that the Old Codger has been waiting to eat for almost a month now, (they say a young rooster is always tastier than a hen and as you know we had at least six big young  roosters in with the broilers ), we begin to ferry animals, in the Black Mariah, across to the Kelly Creek barn. The fences are done and the cool shade of big old  trees along with piles of new fresh fields full of clover await the calves and the sheep.  Just in time too. My fields on this side of the creek need a rest and the mud around the water troughs is gumboot deep.  The water at the big barn is piped in and on a concrete pad. Time to move.

Queenie gets bred again on Monday and Daisy cannot go across until she is completely healed so we will have the big cows here for a while.

Elise and Jake (my young neighbour who is helping out every now and then to gain experience before starting his own gardens)  are going to do their very best to finish the chicken coop today. I will be very relieved when that is done, so will the laying hens.

I have cut up the chickens and they are resting in buttermilk and paprika. Now I will make a quinoa salad with silverbeet, tomato, lime basil and a herb dressing.  I will pick a big weed salad, Nanny is bringing the potato salad and we are good to go. I hope you all have a lovely day.

The table will be full, so we will have a great day for sure. I am a happy woman when I can feed hungry people who love good food. Today we range in age from 21 – 94 and they all love good food.  So I am happy.

Your friend on the farmy,

miss c

 

 

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26 responses to “Those who love good food ..”

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  1. I cannot wait to see NZ; have always wanted to go there myself. How wonderful to be able to see it thru your eyes. I will be worrying about the animals, also. What a yummy lunch! You have all that rain and we have none. Not fair.

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  2. I know if there was a way for you to send that rain down south, you would surely do it. And I, would surely appreciate it! 🙂 What a lovely meal you have planned… enjoy the day, deer friend!

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  7. I bet your kitchen smells fabulous. I’ve just made a thick soup of ancient grains, pumpkin, parsnip and kale to take to the family for dinner. They love good food, but with a new baby there’s not so much time to shop and cook. What great energy your helpers have brought in. I can feel the lightening of your load.
    The rain sounds dreary, but the plants must love it – in moderation no doubt. It’s raining a lot here as well, but I’ve had a chat to the sun and told it to start shining when you arrive.

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  8. Your meal sounded delicious. I’m sure the animals will settle in quickly, hard not to with nice shady trees and new fresh pastures. That flooding basement is a worry, I’m very aware of the damage and problems a constantly wet basement can be. It would help if the rain would stop for a few weeks and things got dried out. Looking forward to your trip. I’ve never been to New Zealand, would love to though.

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  10. The mention of good food, grown, prepared, cooked and shared by several generations around a large table brought back memories of my childhood. I could see the happy smiling faces, hear the voices, smell and almost taste the food…..

    Thanks for the memory, I hope your feast was glorious yesterday.

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