maeva00

Fall

2009-10-03T21:07:20Z

It is definitely fall. The weather has changed, the leaves are turning, the garden is winding down. The young hens are laying their first eggs, by the waterer, in the food bucket, in the mud.... The old hens are really slowing down, the 1st two batches of roosters are getting big, soon they will go off to the meat shop in tacoma and come back for the freezer. The basil needs to be harvested and made into pesto, the potatoes need to be dug, the beans really need picking, and the house needs cleaning.

Today is the 1st day off (full day off) I have had in about 3 weeks . The students have pillaged the bookstore. I am certainly tired...

Hot, hot, hot

2009-07-27T01:23:54Z

It is tomato weather, they like it, I don't.

I made cheese this morning at the goat farm. The air temp was as warm or warmer than the temp of the cheese kettle - by 10 am! We made a pepper jack because we can get out of the cheese kitchen faster. I also packaged up some year old gouda like cheese - wow it is really good.

Art openings

2009-07-19T16:21:27Z

Last night we went to a couple of art openings (actually 3 but two of them were in galleries next door.) Bill had items in all three galleries.

It was hot in Tacoma (and olympia) I usually don't go to these things, because we get home so late. I don't last much past 10pm. It was a fun evening, lots of interesting art, good conversation and contacts made.

Today is laundry, garlic harvesting, weeding and all sorts of other house stuff.

Chickens

2009-06-27T03:13:00Z

Chickens are very stupid. One of the smallest chicks crawled into the narrow necked mason jar that is the reservoir for the feeder (I can't even begin to figure out how they managed to unscrew it from the feeder.) We had to break the jar as we couldn't get her out otherwise.

maeva00 @ 2009-06-26T20:09:00

2009-06-27T03:11:02Z

We like garlic, we like it alot.... We have 2,000 heads in the ground (Bill counts stuff like that.) and at least 7 varieties which I can only name 6 at the moment.

I don't know, but I do know that we have been eating the scapes (the flower spike for hard neck garlic) for the past two weeks. I have come to the end of the scapes, after 85 jars of pickled garlic (note to self buy more jars for the beans in a month or so) 14 tubs of garlic scape pesto in the freezer and a few scapes to blanch and freeze (experiment time.) I ran out of jars and mustard seed at about the same time.

For our SCA friends, we won't be at the War. The Bookstore has scheduled inventory for the 1,2 and 6 of July.

Boy am I tired. I am not sure I am going to stir from the property all weekend, I have to leave the house to tend the garden, the chickens and the incubator, I might walk to the bakery, and then again I might not.....

Another cheesy day

2009-05-25T03:56:19Z

I spent Saturday and Sunday at the goat farm, making cheese. Chedder with Ale soaked mustard seeds, made about 20 pounds of it. We cleaned out the cheese cave, added a new shelf unit and sorted cheese. We tasted some of the wheels before packaging them for sale. Th 12 month Cheddar n 10 pound wheels was very nice - sharp! the year old jack was a nice dry jack. We also figured out how to package teh haloumi in brine with teh vacuum packer.

The garlic is growing nicely, the potaoes are up.

omorrow is house chores, lawn mowing and repotting plants. Oh and dishes....

Cheese as far as the eye could see

2009-05-17T18:58:11Z

Yesterday I went to the Seattle cheese festival - going on today as well.

Lots of cheese, I wandered around with some folks from the Madrone Culinary guild and then went to some seminars. Tasted way too much cheese, drank some wine and then went to another cheese tasting put on by the Mons compay from France - really nice cheeses! Didn't bring home too many samples.

Too many cheeses to list. Some day I am going to visit the Mons company and their 5 or 6 caves....

Picked up some Rose water, couscous and fine bulger at the Souk and mustard seed and Tea from World spice.

Now it is off to mow the meadow that is passing as our lawn.....

Cheese, rain and the 13 indigenous grandmothers

2009-05-03T05:32:31Z

We have houseguests. Unchi Rita and her son Nathan are staying with us this week. They are part of a series of teachings/ listenings here at the College. Unchi Rita is one the the 13 indigenous grandmothers (there are 4 visiting Evergreen this week.)They are Lakota from the Pine Ridge reservation.

I made 3 pepper jack cheese today. (three peppers because I used the Aji mirasol, Pasea Oaxaca and Paseo Negro peppers.) It turned the whey orange and the cheese molds too. The yield on the cheese was very good, 5 2.2 kilo molds full. I also made ricotta.

It rained off and on (mostly on) today, very hard at some points. My guests wanted to know if it rains like this all the time. "at least until July" says Bill.

The chick count is up to 7 now, the last one is damp and very tired.... hatching is a lot of work!

The grandmothers are plotting a rip to shipwreck beads! Look out!

Cheese

2009-04-20T04:59:29Z

Yesterday I made 6 kinds of cheese in 3 hours with about 15 people helping. I taught a cheese class for the local food coop. It was great fun, somethings workd and others did not. I tok some pictures of the finished cheeses. Will have to get them up. Today, for the first time in many weeks I stayed home (I am fighting somthing off and didn't want to infect the folks at the goat farm.) So I did laundry and dishes and mowed the lawn. 2 wheel barrows full and I hardelymade a dent in the front. there is areasn we have a big garden..... lawn mowing is one of them.....

ricotta tales

2009-04-07T04:42:44Z

Yesterday I made a lot of ricotta, as a by product of making haloumi. Tomight bill made a lovely garlic parsley egg pasta and made ricotta and roasted garlic ravioli. Add a home made red sauce and wine we made last year and dinner was really yum.

The wine has made me a little tipsy - I am such a cheap date....So it's off to bed, tomorrow is an early day at the bookstore. Followed by a trip to the trainstation to pick up a friend.

Getting our Sh*t together

2009-04-06T04:19:33Z

Actually Bill did most of that, I just made cheese. 11 pounds of haloumi, and lot of ricotta (I didn't weigh it) We spent most of the day at the goat farm. Bill weeded garlic and hauled the aforementioned sh*t from the pile (A whole winters worth of barn straw, goat poop and pee) to various places, one of whch was our truck, very fragrant. We are prepping the potato bed and space for the tomato hoop house.

The kids are really funny now, they are investigating everything, and then drop where they are for a nap.

Weather

2009-03-30T03:53:31Z

Yesterday it snowed! This is certainly wierd winter and moving into spring weather. The daffodils are coming up, so is my great grandmothers peoney plant (I carried it home to Olympia 2 years ago.) The plant starts are coming up, the garlic at the goat farm needs to be weeded.

At least we don't have volcanic ash to contend with.

yesterdays cheese adventures were with a gouda. I think we have the recipe down, now if we can just get it to dry properly. Last night I set some chevre and it is now draining over the sink.

Busy times this week. The quarter at Evergreen starts tommorrow and many of the 13,000 textbooks we now have in stock are just waiting for new homes.....

Contemplating cheese

2009-03-22T03:09:03Z

It was sunny for at least a while today. went out to the goat farm. the babies are no longer babies (goat and human alike.) We made a batch of ale and mustard cheddar. We set up the propane burner and made ricotta. Ceighle stirred and fended off interested chickens. Tommorrow I am making Romano or gouda - which ever strikes my fancy.
Must go set some chevre to ripe. A cheesey day over all.

On the road soon

2009-03-14T18:08:44Z

Well it is rainy but sort of sunny. We should be on the road to Portland soon. We are going to see Tyr (myspace.com/Tyr1) tonight. go to Powells at some point and visit with Fjorlief.

It has been a while since I posted. The hand is getting better. The bookstore is busy (at least for me) with getting books out for spring, updating the store website, filling orders for spring books. On the garden front, well I'd be washing pots if we weren't going to portland. In things cheesey I have made cheese at the goat farm twice, made cheese at home 4 times,made goat milk Ice cream twice ( working on a recipe) and over did the hand thing while washing the walls of the cheese cave. I am supposed to be doing wringing motions for PT.

I am going to be teaching cheese making for the coop in april, and I just got the first seminar sessions list for the Seattle cheese festival last night. (we the goat farm might do some handing out of cheese there - it would be me doing that as Jason needs to milk goats, make cheese and take care of Fern and the toddler and the new baby - still in the inside. Due in April)

gotta go get bedding together...

hand surgery

2009-02-11T21:01:11Z

well yesterday as trip to Seattle for hand surgery. left at 6am it was snowing a little we drove out of it. Lft hand carpal tunnel release. was out and back in the car by 11 and at he dim sum place by 11:30.
yummm slt and pepper squid, rice noodles and shrimp. back in olympia by 2pm where there was 4 inches of snow!

today i am wiggling the fingers and sort of typing....

baby goats

2009-02-09T03:00:55Z

I went out to the goat farm today to see what was happening. 15 ewes, 5 freshened - 6 kids 3 girls 3 boys a couple of stillbirths. We are a third of the way! (I use that we very loosly...) There may be more by tonight, one of the mommas was looking like she was gonna pop any time.

Two of the girls are twins whose dad, Picasso is a Saanen. They are very cute white goats, they are tiny now, but will weigh 150 lbs when they are grown.

Doctor visits

2009-02-03T05:02:41Z

Today I visited my hand surgeon (he did the carpal tunnel release on my right hand years ago.) After a short chat about the test results - electro conductivity tests from two weeks ago, we scheduled surgery for my left hand next Tuesday. While I am not exactly looking forward to it, I will enjoy sleeping thru the night after all is said and done. I currently wake up several times a night, flailing as I try to "wake up" my left hand. I should be off work for a few days, then on restricted duty - no lifting anything for a week or so.

I want to get this over with so it doesn't interfere with cheesemaking and gardening. There may be the first kid arrivals tonight or perhaps tommorrow night.

Winter...

2009-01-24T22:22:59Z

We here are heartily tired of winter. We have had enough thank you very much.

I am preparing the tomato seed order. Jen is working on some of the others and so is Fern at the goat farm. (no baby goats out there yet.) I am really starting to get the hankering to make cheese.

I do enjoy the speakers that find their way to the campus at Evergreen. Last week it was Gary Paul Nabhan who is a McArthur Fellow (among other things) he was talking about Where food comes from . I am currently reading Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes and Cultural Diversity . He is a geographer, ethnobotanist, and ecologist.

This week it was Nikki McClure who is an Evergreen graduate (http://nikkimcclure.com/) and artist. I sell her stuff at the bookstore. She was talking about how she works at her art and marketing, etc. I also attended a lecture by Raj Patel who was on campus talking about the global food system, his book Stuffed And Starved, is on my reading list. His reference to the Robin Hood scene in Time Bandits as a picture of how the World Bank works was great (I had visions of something similar.) Great accent, easy on the eyes and a topic that I am fairly passionate about.

Who knows what next week will bring.

RIP Mr Rooster and other tales

2009-01-20T04:56:09Z

I went to the Madrone Culinary Guild party on Sunday. Fun was had, the food theme was pre-depression food. I took a bottle of our wine (Chardoney, very peppery.) a jar of pickled beans, and made a fruit preserves tart with puff pastry and fig preserves. It was from the White house cookbook, first published in 1888. Forgot to get a picture. There was creamed chicken in a mashed potato ring,polenta, beef roast, mac and cheese and au-gratin potatos and lots of other stuff. The martha washington punch was great.

The reason for the trip to Seattle was really a nerve conductivity test (on both wrists) to see if I have carpal tunnel problems in the left hand. Since it is worse than the right hand was prior to surgery 9 years ago, I think it is merely a formality. The weather in Seattle was sunny and warm, I had a pleasnrt walk from the Metaphorest where I was staying to virginia Mason hosp. I should here the results on Wednesday. I also spent some time in Di Laurentis and World spice merchants, also spent some $.

While I was gone, there was tragedy in the chicken yard. see http://ariadne3.livejournal.com/32007.html for the details.

The trip up and back was pretty uneventful; Intercity transit bus from Olympia to the 512 park&ride, Sound transit to Seattle and Metro (King county/Seattle) to Eden and Liam's house. Then the reverse on theway home.less than $5 each way and about 2.25 hours )includes waiting time. Bill picked me up at the food cop. Since we don't have bus service out our way.

After the weather

2009-01-13T05:24:31Z

Well we survived the snow, the wind and the rain. Not really any flooding here in mud Bay, but 12th Night was very iffy for a few days, with I-5 closed, the coast route (101) closed due to mudslides and the passes all closed due to mud slides and avalanches. William has gone south to 12th night and just returned.

Weather

2009-01-08T01:54:27Z

We certainly are having a lot it!

First the snow (2+ feet here in Mud Bay.) I will put up some pictures when I have time.

Then the rain. Last night it was wind! a lot of it. We lost power (no surprise) for several hours. Today it is rain, way to much of it. I feel for the people south of Olympia in Chehalis, Elma, etc., they are really getting hit hard for the 2nd year. I don't really know what it is like ouside today, except that we have sold a lot of umbrellas here at the Bookstore.

It's snowing, again

2009-01-05T05:44:19Z

Today I salted the soft cheese I started the other day. I took some to the coop for the staff and volunteers to try.They liked it!

Cheese making is alot of do things and then wait. Heat the milk and add cultures and rennet, then let the cultures work (a short time for some cheeses, 12 hours or more for chevre-like soft cheeses.) Then they need to drain the whey from the curds, then salt them, sometimes you mold the curds, or wet salt vs dry salt, and sometimes they are ready to eat, but sometimes you need to age them. At the goat farm we have some wheels of caparino (Romano made from goat milk) that are still kind of young at 9 months. Some of my favorite cheeses are aged for 2 or more years.

Tommorrow is the start of the quarter, so I spent several hours at work filling orders for textbooks. I expect to be very busy for the next week or so. I also did a shift of cashiering at the coop. I enjoy that, seeing lots of people and talking food, sustainability, gardening, the weather - big topic here i Olympia lately. I will try and post pictures from the snows of '08.

trying again

2009-01-04T03:32:33Z

I started this LJ thing in June with one post. That habit didn't take. So this year I will try again. I started out that original post with a note that I would try and keep up with garden and cheese making comments. So...

Today I am draining cheese that I set last night. The Coop had some raw goat milk that was past it's pull date, so I am making a soft goat cheese with Flora Danica and a little rennet. I left it to ripen for about 18 hours, the house is chilly (about 58 degrees) so this is longer than I would let it set at other times of the year.

Garden catalogs are arrving, today's mail brought Bountiful gardens offering (2 copies.) Also arriving are teh Evergreen State College students, winter quarter starts Monday. Since I handle all the web orders for textbooks, I have been busy!

1st Entry June 16th

2008-06-17T04:03:38Z

This is meant to be a garden and chesemaking journal. Hopefully I will note things happening in the garden and the dairy.

This week seems to be the start of summer,finally. The lettuce is going to bolt soon, so it will be time to start some new lettuces. Yesterday we picked grape leaves at a friends farm and canned them for use later in the year. Perhaps we can get some more, as we put up 4 jars.

Did some one-on-one teaching for making cheese. Whole milk ricotta ad chevre. The caparino in the cheese cavehas half of the 1st coat of cream wax. Cave environment - 55 and 86%.