AUTUMN COOKING
SEPTEMBER HAS SLIPPED by even faster than August, to my dismay. A major renovation project, or rather rejuvenation project here in the house has been undergone here and is in the final stages of completion. This latest last phase has been fun, accompanied by no real agony. Amazing that! The miracle worker has hired and organized a responsible crew and has supervised their progress through the front of the house. It was an act of faith and ultimately wisdom to allow his decisions to take precedence over mine, however difficult it was for me at times. I’ve been known to sometimes concede a point or two to a workman because I’d consider it an imposition to ask a worker to complete a task, or to rip out work I was not exactly satisfied with or something he will not think important enough but I do, such as using drop cloths everywhere. But men listen to men as I readily acknowledge, and they all listen to him and don’t change his mind without asking first as they so easily do with me. Change my mind, without asking me. Sometimes they know I’m sparing them such as in “it isn’t necessary to move over there” and “put the brush here.” They, then, not taking me seriously, but rather assuming I’m trying to spare them, now, “there,” anyway, and throwing the offending branches that I had seen would impede their ability to mow that section of yard onto my carefully nurtured black currant bushes, to “get them out of the way.” They probably announce, “We knew you really wanted that section mowed.” I did. But I didn’t.
I cook for the men working here. Usually a one-dish meal. Dinner we call it. In the fashion of the English countryside. At around two o’clock. It takes me time because it usually involves several pots. And sometimes the cooking takes place in both my side of the house and the front half of the house.
My family spent a three-day weekend here and cooking for them was a marvelous experience. Richard Olney in his Simple French Food, which is rarely simple but often very inexpensive, had a recipe that was described as coarse but good to serve after a walk in the country, or in the heart of the winter. It seemed appropriate to serve to my family after they had walked the hills up here and, if successful, then to the men recreating the front half of my house. It seemed, while assembling it, to be a rather odd combination, but upon serving it, it immediately achieved the “old family favorite” status. My variations were minor. I do claim the privilege of being entitled to alter a recipe on the first try, a privilege earned by time and experience, but I did choose to not eliminate an ingredient I don’t like. Brave of me. “I’ll take a chance,” I thought. I used four times as much shallots as his recipe required. There are very few instances where I can ever consider two tablespoons enough of the onion family. And I did, with some reluctance, add finely chopped flat-leafed parsley to the sauce as it cooked. I find I don’t have the Mediterranean taste for bitter vegetables, although cooked radicchio does appeal to me. The shallots and butter effectively calmed the spirit of the parsley. The recipe was declared to be perfect. Write it down, begged my daughter. “Make it again,” requested my son. “It is equal to the bacon, potato, dandelion dish. Another old family favorite.”
The cold nights continue to inspire the rams to cover the ewes. I’ve rescued Mungo Penhaligan buck goat, permanently returned to the farm. With any hope he will breed the goats in October rather than this month, so I’ll have kids born in March rather than February. My young stock in the carriage house is looking nicer than I’ve ever seen young goats look. They are accompanied by a beautiful chestnut-colored six month old buckling, son of Belinda and Mungo. He is old and tall enough to breed the young stock. One was in heat a couple of weeks ago. They live upstairs in the carriage house with the penned-up pullets. Of the doelings, Verity has remained to be a very pretty little thing. Pure white. A Saanen throwback. She and her twin are out of one Sable parent and one Toggenburg parent. I am breeding for color. The adult Saanen-Sables are bigger than my Togs by far. More muscular than crossbred Cameron who is approximately their height. The kid goats had begun a habit of jumping on me, a habit I tried very hard to discourage. At their mature size they could certainly do some damage. As it was it was an unpleasant experience to say the least.
The most aggressive doeling is also the brightest. At one point I almost felt she would, to my great reluctance, have to be sold. However I decided to try to figure out what it was she wanted; this bright, clever, beautiful doeling that I had bottled since she was two days old. I sat down on a stool in the carriage house loft and waited for her to try to jump on me. As she approached I reached out my hands and scratched behind her ears and on the sides of her face. She stood perfectly still. That was it. She wanted acknowledgment from me. And gets it. She shall stay.
It is her twin who was in heat recently. A black-and-white doeling. Possibly covered by the chocolate brown full Sable buck. It shall be an interesting winter. Thank goodness I now have the pen in the basement for the youngest lambs and kid goats.
The brightest biggest of the bottle ewe lambs sports very substantial horns. She and her twin sister lived at the camp in Andes all summer. She remembered living in the south pasture, however, and did all she could on her return to rejoin her pen mates. That included jumping a gate, and in all ways persuading me to make it easier for her to join them. She finally, quite by accident, got through the fence near the portable chicken coop. The laying mash is indeed a draw to sheep. This time I didn’t return her to her old friends. She is now, reluctantly, with the main flock, hopefully being covered and bred by my older rams. She comes to me looking demandingly as if asking to be out of the big pasture. What she doesn’t know is that her twin and other sisters shall soon be joining her. Only the meat lambs shall stay in the south pasture to be fattened for, well, for.
I was given some ducks again this fall and four young chickens. With any luck the chickens are chickens, not roosters. Two ducks are the white ones. Two are cocoa and cream. Two are black and white. Last year’s remaining duck is white. My son liked the black-and-white ones and asked me to keep them. I like them, too. They shall stay. The two white ones shall appear on my table. The cocoa and cream ones shall be sold. The one who has lived out the year here shall stay, as shall his or her companion, the Buff Orphington rooster. How pretty the carriage house shall be with that most beautiful of birds in flaming orange, the black-and-white ducks and the big white duck! The carriage house, after my kitchen, is the next major project. The miracle worker has ordered and seen to its delivery all of the wood, 16 feet in length, to build that most needed and longed for grain storage room. It shall be constructed, in theory and perhaps in fact, so that the grain for the goats, ducks, and chickens can be off-loaded at the door to the building and put in any of my garbage can collections with minimal obstruction from livestock. That will mean that it will no longer be necessary to store grain in my house. Just their house. Some goats know how to open the latch to the wood room. Brunhilda, sheep, has been known to pop the door to my living room, and in one morning created purgatory for me. I found almost the entire herd in there, trashing the room but miraculously not breaking any of the lamps or china on the coffee table. It took me days to clean the mess. Salt is still ground into the floor. However, it is except for the salt, back to its former state. Pretty. But overcrowded. But pretty to my eye in its own way.
Autumn is almost upon us. Another day or two, and it shall officially be here. There is enough firewood, albeit not all inside. Hay is promising. The mow was swept out this morning. The sheep have never looked this good in September. The wool check shall provide me with a Christmas. The front half of the house is looking beautiful. There is a winter’s worth of apples destined for the root cellar. I recite these imperatives over and over as I look for my misplaced confidence.
THE BEAUTY OF OCTOBER
A FEW DAYS into autumn. Pumpkins. Pumpkins. Pumpkins. I have 17 curing on the porches. About four to six still on the vine, and dozens the size of chickpeas among those still flowering. Had a good day yesterday. Even though the goats knocked me down. A neighbor brought me so
me kale, both Lacinato and Red Russian, and I cooked some right away to freeze. The rest shall be done today. If I am successful in putting up both kale and pumpkin, I am safe about having enough of the right vegetables for winter. Of course, pumpkin very often means jam to me. Can I ever be consistent in choosing my favorite of preserves? Today, with pumpkins both dark and amber and pale orange lined up, I think, of course, that pumpkin jam is my best loved. Except, of course, when I make tomato jam. Or buy black currant jam at the grocery store. Their Belgian made is equal to anything homemade. Whole-wheat soda bread, homemade, has been only an occasional success here. An old book recommended covering it over with another tin while it is in the oven to prevent the crust from getting hard. I’ll try that as soon as I can pick up some baking soda. It would seem that pumpkin jam would be exquisite on whole-wheat soda bread.
The sheep have escaped twice in the past three days. I was at a total loss about from where. The fence by the road has been maintained fairly well and while my Friesian-Tunis cross ewe and the Young Pretender have two to three times jumped it until I barbwired it, there was no sign of where more than 80 sheep had walked down the road. What to do? I decided to check the fence between me and my neighbors to the south of me. The drainage ditch on their side has been silting up for quite some time, causing a small swamp to develop on my side of the stone wall. A gate had been standing in the wall for many years. Now the backed up ditch had formed a small pond or rather large puddle beneath said gate. My sheep, knowing with the certainty that all animals possess, that there were even more apples lying under the trees in the neighbors’ unused pasture than under my trees (they had eaten most of the drops on my farm), decided to push down the weakened gate, forge on through the puddle, which by the way was over my boot tops, and on to the fallen apples. I was dismayed to say the least. The gate was smashed beyond repair. The area was now a small, tiny in fact, swamp but a swamp nevertheless, and I couldn’t even lift it out of the water, nor could I even dream of repairing it.
A few days later. The wood to make a new gate arrived at six o’clock last night along with the wood with which to build one of the fences that I am contracted to put up in still another conservation project. Thank goodness. The new gate will be installed by tomorrow. While I try to repair rather than create new, this gate shall last a few more years than a reconstructed one. I may even paint it. That would add some years to it. Fortunately there is some primer and deck paint left from the painting I had done on the south pasture gates this summer. A controversial color at that, I like it of course. Willow green, I call it. However, the color does have unfortunate implications in some necks of the woods and I have been hearing a criticism or two. I still like it. So be it.
This month, week, day is intense with its demands. Putting food up is, of course, an imperative. How I live in the winter depends on what food is put up now. And how well it is put up. The wood is the second priority. I have nearly enough. But it is not in the right place, for the most part. About eight face cords are outside waiting to be stacked. Four more or so, in the form of slab, are also waiting. But in their case it is the cutting that needs to be done. I hope to have it piled in such a way that it can be sliced right through in 22-inch pieces near the cellar window. I love stacking wood and have created the perfect place for it in the cellar. After all of these years I’m beginning to figure it out. How to do it, that is. In all fairness, some things have changed here requiring the reordering of old systems. The French windows in the living room have changed my heating requirements dramatically. The lambing pen in the cellar has also caused me to have to rethink how I am going to keep us all warm and safe this winter. This winter. I do dread those words. Everyone has been sounding more worried this year than ever before.
However, my attention is now drawn to the carriage house. My young stock are in their own pen for the moment. The older does are ensconced in the big pen. The buck shall be introduced back with them tomorrow. Cameron is still being discouraged from the hay by some of the new goats. I don’t know why. She was once the aggressor. I can’t fathom how that hierarchy was altered. The little white supposed Sable has been living with them and has attracted the ire of one of the new Sables. I couldn’t find her anywhere this morning and was in a panic at the thought of how she could possibly have gotten out, when suddenly I noticed Cameron in a corner seemingly sporting eight rather than four legs. Verity was hiding behind her. I immediately moved Verity into the next pen and tried to get the three other kid goats, two doelings and one handsome Sable buck, cinnamon in color, in with her. They got in and Verity got out. So be it for the moment.
Should the does be bred when Mungo is introduced this week, it shall mean that there will be kids born in March. At most the best time for me. I need a doe in milk in the winter but that is unlikely to happen, unless someone got bred the week I brought him home. I need some to freshen in April to be useful to the camp in Andes where two or three milking does live in the summer. However, kid goats do better when born in the spring than they do when born in the colder months. We’ll see.
A grain room is going to be built in the carriage house shortly. The wood is here. The miracle worker has it all planned out and shall begin to build it on the next rainy day. I’ve had my hands full carrying grain from the house to the carriage house every day for goats and chickens. I am so grateful that I don’t have to figure out how to set it up.
Some new chickens have arrived. Twelve for me and five for a friend. They are the same age and breed of the pullets I bought last spring. Mine have faded out in laying. These 17 supposedly are still laying. Given a few days to adjust and eat a different menu, I have hopes they will produce at least nearly as well as for their previous owner. They have laid a few eggs. Brown like their cousins. I need them to produce more for my customers than I’ve had in the past couple of weeks and hope not to have to buy eggs this winter. There is something about feeding chickens that aren’t laying that drives me crazy.
PRISCILLA SKIPWORTH OR PATIENCE SKIPWORTH OR COMFORT SKIPWORTH
THERE ARE FOUR new baby lambs in the barn for Christmas. There may be more, however I’ve not gone down there to check again tonight. The newly repaired barn lights have malfunctioned. I am not safe by flashlight, evenings. However, the four little new ones are a pleasure. The twin ram lambs are from an older ewe who knows what she is doing. She is penned with them in one of the newly repaired lambing jugs, as one of the two is a little small and I don’t want him to run his weight off dashing around the barn after her to nurse. The firstborn of the season is a single. His conformation is what I look for in a keeper lamb. Chunky. Dorsety. Blocky. Heavy. His very ancient dam has a full bag and keeps her eye on him. A good mom. He plays with his half sister, a day younger than he. Her last name is Fitzgerald as she is clearly Burgo Fitzgerald’s daughter; however, her first name has not, as yet, revealed itself. I usually keep two ram lambs from each year’s birthing as replacements. Although I have only three in the barn as of tonight, this very first one has such a strong likelihood of being chosen that I have taken a chance and named him Gringly Skipworth. There was a decision to be made between Skipworth and Gibbon. Skipworth has a better ring to it as a last name for his daughter. Pricilla Skipworth or Patience Skipworth or Comfort Skipworth. There remains to be quite a number of interesting male names on the list. Too many to ever be used. Female names are, of late, more difficult to come by as I’ve used so many of the ones I fancy over the years. Fortunately, I continue to receive a spare but ready supply from the English magazines and books I so enjoy.
Names go in and out of fashion in seemingly 10-year cycles. I became a Sylvia at the very edge of a style change that slipped into Susan and Sheila. Cynthia came a bit later. What I’ve never been able to pinpoint is when the fashion for using men’s names for girls began, nor why. Vivian, Shirley, Ashley, Leslie, and now Taylor, all started out as men’s names. Georgina, Victoria, Raphaela are all feminized forms of men’s names and not simply an unaltered man�
�s name. I did recently come across a nineteenth-century woman named Douglas. However, none of my ewe lambs shall be a Douglas. It just won’t do. For a sheep, that is.
I have a customer coming from New Hampshire for three bottle babies, two ewes, and one ram, and ordered from the feed store the first bag of milk replacer of the season. Sixty bucks. I can only say damn. She needs bottle lambs so they will be tame to her, and I shall be very glad to sell them. She is getting last year’s price. This year’s hasn’t been decided yet, although I think breeding stock ewe lambs shall have to be $150 after hers leave. Meat lambs, rams, of course, shall have to be at least five dollars more than last year. It feels far too much to charge. A shocking amount for that matter. But the price of everything has risen, inched its way up, and losing more money than I already am losing is unacceptable. I can’t even afford to buy my own meat.
I am sandwiched between two Border Collie dogs. Mine. Glencora has managed to insert herself between Nelly and me. I don’t like Nelly to be pushed out. Glencora gets most of the attention from me, but Nelly seems to need it more. The fire is dying in the living room fireplace and I am reluctant to move them aside to get more wood for it. Going upstairs to bed doesn’t appeal to me either. The stairwell is almost as cold as the wood room that it shares a common wall with and the rooms I sleep in are most often around 40°F at night.
Christmas was different this year from all other Christmases in my life. The gifting was the same. Numerous and sensitive, thoughtful gifts were given and received in this family. But I was, for the very first time, alone. None of the people I love were able to come. We all talked to each other on the phone all day long, but there was no cooking, no hugging or laughter, and no tree. I have been very well taken care of this year, however. Chocolate and woolen tights, and eight books, and kitchen matches, and a Royal Daulton ceramic pin and earring set, and Bendicks bitter mints, and goat skin gloves, and a Ukranian scarf and a copper double boiler with a ceramic insert, the better to make hollandaise, and pot holders, pot scrubbers, Cavalini file folders, and 500 coffee filters. I could go on and on. It was fun. I refused to let loneliness take over, although it tried, and spent some energetic and constructive work in my poor kitchen. It is experiencing a sense of surprise of late in being made pretty in places, decorated window sills as an example.
The Improbable Shepherd Page 11
