Present Delights and the Promise of More to Come

Jenny and Jean-Marc made it down for part of the Memorial Day weekend, and Friday afternoon we took a walk around the farm with them.  It was a beautifully cool day with perfect weather.

From a grass farmer's standpoint, when it comes to daisies, we love them not.  Animals don't eat daisies, and where daisies grow, grass doesn't.  But from an aesthetic standpoint, we love them.  Even Tai seemed to like them!

From a photographer's standpoint, we love daisies even more!  A field of daisies makes a perfect setting for a family photo.

Off in a shady corner of the pasture, Siobhan and Sara were chewing their cud, although they got up politely as we approached.

Siobhan wanted a nice scratch, and I took the chance to put some homemade fly spray on her.

We're excited about some promising signs of approaching calving that Siobhan is showing, so stay tuned.

Siobhan seems to be saying, "Hey, Mom!  I'm supposed to be calving first, but you're bigger than I am!"

Down in the orchard there were more promises of delights to come, starting with baby persimmons--the first ever!

Baby prune plums were looking good.

The nectarines have been attacked by some kind of borer, and only a few fruits look undamaged.

Fuzzy little peaches promise much more than the two little stunted ones we got last year.

And little apples on one tree already have a blush of red.

Honeysuckle is a pest, but it sure is a beautiful one, and it scents the air divinely!  Climbing up an old fence post, it just begs to be photographed.

Herb basked a bit in the promised fruits of his orchard that he's worked on so faithfully for the past five years.  He deserves every bit of fruit he gets to harvest!

This picture reminds me of a line from a Robert Browning poem I saw on an old sundial:

"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be."

That's all I ever remember, and I had never looked up the rest, but I did tonight, and I love it:

"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
the last of life,
for which the first was made.
Our times are in his hand who saith,
'A whole I planned,
youth shows but half;
Trust God: See all,
nor be afraid!'"

In this culture that fears old age and idolizes youth, how often we miss out on the joy in the second half of life that God planned.  May we continue to enjoy the best, to trust God, to see it all and not be afraid.

Our First Official Grandkids at the Farm Day

Charis and Kol came over together to spend the morning without Dada or Mama for the very first time! We've been looking forward to this day, and we enjoyed it to the fullest!

First we all went out to feed the animals.  It was like a three-ring circus:  Didi feeding the pigs; Misty and Tai play-fighting; and Ping quacking her way to the fence to get her breakfast. Charis said, "I have a story about Ping."  Yes, I know, Charis--I borrowed Ping's name from that story!  All Ping had to say about it was, "Ping! ping! ping! ping! ping!"

In the barnyard Kol was a little afraid of the chickens and ducks, so he stayed safe in Didi's arms while Charis got up close to watch them eat.

 Grace (left) and Kiwi did their naughty thing chasing the cats away from their bowl so they could eat the cat food.  Didi made them get down.

As we came back to the house, Kol saw the tractor. "Get on," he said.  (It wasn't quite that clear, but we knew exactly what he meant!)  Kol takes his tractor "driving" very seriously!

Next we headed over to some friends' house to feed their animals while they're away.  I told the kids we were going to see a new animal and I'd let them figure out what it was.  We actually heard them first; as soon as they heard our voices, they set up quite a racket.  They're pretty funny-sounding:  It sounds like they're saying, "Bleauh!  Bleauh!" as if something was really disgusting!  At first Charis said they were cows, but then she got it right.  The lambs were a big hit because we could sit right down in the hay next to them and even sneak in a little bit of fleece-feeling.

Our friends have fun hay--square bales!  How can you have two kids near a stack of hay bales and not have a photo op?

The next big hit was their swing set-jungle gym.  Kol climbed . . .

Charis swung . . .

And swung some more . . .

And then they discovered the slide!  This is the good old-fashioned kind of slide, and it didn't take long for both of them to master it.  Kol got a little close supervision from Didi.

After the first trip, Charis had it down!  (Sorry, starting to pun is a slippery slope!)

On the way home we saw a doe with twin fawns.  When Didi stopped the car, Mrs. Deer very obligingly stood still till both the kids got a good look.

Our busy morning wasn't over yet.  We gathered acorns for the pigs, ate a huge lunch, and then took Mama on a tour of Narnia when she came to pick up the kids.  As everyone came down the stairs to say goodbye, Kol rang the bell on our First Official Grandkids at the Farm Day--and I'd say it was a resounding success!

Thanksgiving Weekend

As you can see, I'm like the butcher who backed into his meat grinder and got a little behind in his work!  :)  I could write a book about Thanksgiving Weekend with tons of photos of people and things I'm thankful for.  I'll spare you, and go with the "lite" version . . .

Apart from Katie and Cameron who were too far away in chilly Scotland, we were blessed to have the rest of the family here for the whole weekend.  Herb got home from Dallas with the Triplets on Tuesday.  Jenny and Jean-Marc arrived in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.  Jim and Monique with Charis and Kol arrived on Wednesday afternoon.  Kara, of course, was here all along, although when the children arrived, she retreated to her house to nurse her case of Strep throat.  The main thing to be thankful for there was that she was able (although pretty silently) to join us for dinner on Thursday.

A few untraditional Thanksgiving photos will give you a peek at our weekend . . .

  An antique cabin expert, Kerry Hix of Antique Log Cabins, came on Wednesday to an evaluation of our log cabin.  He was fascinated by it, proclaiming it "unique" and "a mystery."  I'll save a more detailed report for a future post.

We made a huge batch of my homemade curing salts, this time pureeing the other ingredients in the blender, then adding the salt (thus the green color).

I got our two 15 lb. hams salted, using a combination of my homemade curing salt along with Morton's Quick Tender Cure.

While I was hamming it up in the kitchen, Herb was out in the yard building a fence for the Triplets.  I refused to let them loose outside considering all the dangers from big dogs to coyotes to hundreds of unfamiliar acres for getting lost in.  Great was their joy when Herb let them loose in their safe new play area!

Jean-Marc had to work, but Jenny kept busy lending a hand in the kitchen and being our official photographer.  Here are her portraits of the Triplets:

Olivia, age 10

Jackson, age 6

and Monty, age 12.

Next up in the kitchen was the 37 lbs. of nice, lean bacon.

I did it all with the homemade curing salt, thus avoiding any nitrates or nitrites in it.  We used up all of our glass pans and pieces of plastic sink liner . . .

. . . even layering the bacon on top of each other using wooden skewers to separate it.  When we ran out of glass pans, we began using ziploc bags.  Finally all the bacon was curing in the fridge alongside the hams.

On Thanksgiving we ate to our hearts' content, beginning at breakfast with the first bacon I cured and farm fresh eggs, ending with a copious dinner that included our home grown green beans, sweet potatoes, and carrots.  We declared the organic turkey the best we'd ever had and decided that raising a couple of turkeys has to be on next year's agenda.



On Black Friday, while countless other Americans subjected themselves to horrendous traffic and other insane shoppers, we spent a wonderful afternoon in the barnyard with the whole family (again, minus Katie & Cameron).  From left to right:  Herb, Angel, Jean-Marc, Tai, Jenny, Zephyr, Kol, Monique, Jim, Charis, Kara, Brandy, Susan with Hero in front.

In this photo you can see the front of Kol, as well as Tai and his three "big" cousins, Zephyr, Hero and Misty.  (The Triplet cousins weren't included in the barnyard fun for fear of a horse or cow stepping on them or them chasing the chickens.  The cats, of course, stay scarce when there's a crowd.)

Siobhan got into this photo, but the camera was too quick for her to get a head.  You can finally see Kol's face; he was too interested in everything going on to spend time staring at a motionless camera!

One final photo shows the ducks looking on in astonishment as we all tried out our goofy (read "normal") personas.

Once the photography session was over, we really started to have fun.  Jenny and Monique rode the horses bareback with halters, Charis and Kol got wagon rides from Jim and horseback rides from Monique and Jenny with Mimi's help, Kara and Herb and Jean-Marc took tons of photos (many of which had my rear-view up front and center and therefore did not pass the Public Decency test!), and the dogs just generally mixed in with chickens, ducks, and Siobhan to create a fun and exciting atmosphere.

We wish all our friends and family could have joined us for the fun, but since that was not possible, we'll just say, "We hope you had a blessed and thankful Thanksgiving with as many blessings to thank God for as we have!"

Catching Up, First Installment

When Zephyr got sick on Aug. 28, I was already behind posting pictures here.  Obviously nothing happened with "Adventures on Zephyr Hill Farm" while Zephyr was so sick in the hospital.  Barely over that crisis, Tropical Storm Lee hit us and took out our power for 42 hours.  Oh, yes, I counted every single one!

Hopefully, adventures of that magnitude are over for awhile, and I can catch up on some of the smaller, everyday happenings that we prefer our adventures to look like:

This is catching up reeeeealy far back if you remember when we were remodeling in the spring.  The shelves were built and the room painted by the end of April.  In May we enjoyed the fun of unpacking our book-friends for the first time in 2 1/2 years!  Then gardening season took over, and I forgot about sharing pictures until recently.  The sun bathing my favorite reading nook caught my eye, and I remembered what I'd forgotten.

I love this old chaise longue that belonged to my dear father-in-law.  My cookbooks are right there within arm's reach.  Farming and gardening books require me to move a bit.  Children's story books are on the bottom shelf where Charis, and soon Kol, can reach their favorites.  Charis and I have already enjoyed story time in this spot, so easy for a little one to climb up on and thence to Mimi's lap.

This was taken Aug. 24.  We still had so much wasted pasture below Kara's house, and with the drought we realized that we really need it fenced NOW.  We were blessed to find Ken Ray and his excellent team to come in and knock it out for us in a matter of days.  (It took Herb months to fence in the Home Pasture by himself.)  Ken Ray had the brilliant idea to tie into existing fences and put gates across the roads that cut through our pastures.  That saved thousands of feet of fencing, something we could never have afforded.  Mr. Ray also brought his skid steer to dig post-holes through the concrete-like clay that would have stymied our 30 HP Kubota.  Stay tuned for a tour of the new pasture coming up soon . . .

 On August 27, Jenny and Jean-Marc arrived with Tai, heading out of Irene-threatened Virginia to the (relative) internet bastion of Zephyr Hill Farm so Jean-Marc could continue to work uninterrupted.  They helped us out more than we did them, helping me get Zephyr to the animal hospital, encouraging me and visiting her, making meals, cleaning up the kitchen . . .  It seems like every time they come here, something crazy happens--animals get out of fences, horses getting stolen, etc.  We told them that next time they want to take a trip, they should go visit Aunt Barbara in Virginia!  :)  They know we were kidding--we couldn't have made it without them!

 Misty wouldn't have made it, either, with her only playmate in the hospital, but Tai came to the rescue.  Sometimes Misty came out on top, sometimes Tai did, but you can see from Misty's expression here that she was eating it up!  The fun, that is, not Tai!

Thanks to faithful watering by Herb, our fall garden made progress.

This descendant of last year's garden spider stayed on the farm.  This is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Charlotte--that's a grasshopper she's eating!

Before Jenny & Jean-Marc left on Sept. 3, we took them to eat at the Wildflower Café in Mentone on Lookout Mountain, Alabama.  We have a new favorite restaurant, well worth the 45-minute drive for Chef Ben's natural, hormone-free, humanely-raised food.  Did I forget to say "delicious"?

 "The Dog Days of Summer," by Jenny.  (Title by me.)  They miss Zephyr!

Pig food.  No, we are not desperate for adventures here.  I consider putting together the pigs' daily "slop" as an adventure!  This time it's cucumber peels and ends, over-ripe cucumbers, a bug-eaten pepper, and the leftover whey in a large carton of yogurt.  It's different every day, and I love it every single day that we are treating the pigs well and they are converting our waste (granted, we could compost it) into bacon!

Sept. 4 was our church's 122nd anniversary.  Besides the Hoot 'n Holler Whiskey Cake (which I thought was fun to take to a church supper--after all, we're Presbyterians), I took a huge bowl of our cucumbers made into my Grandma Tritschler's Sour Cream Cucumbers.  The borage blossoms topped it off, matching the bowl perfectly.  No, the sour cream wasn't ours; neither was the whiskey!

This is how you know when it's hot--when a pig walking a fence line raises a cloud of dust.  Not a drop of rain in over six weeks.  We are praying for rain, believe me.