Happy Birthday to me Cheesecake

My very favorite dessert-type food, other than plain berries or maybe peaches, is cheesecake. New York baked cheesecake to be specific.

Baked Cheesecake on tie-dye.

Now, I don't eat processed sugar any longer, or white flour, but I just made a really awesome creme fraiche, and it's my birthday, and I wanted cheesecake. So I made one, and it is the best cheesecake I've ever eaten. Shawn even agrees. I'm trying to share the recipe here, but keep in mind that I  make my own cheese and I do cook with a "little of this and a pinch of that" so... your mileage may vary.

Jen's birthday cheesecake

Crust
1/2 cup real butter
1 1/2 cup War Eagle Organic White Wheat Flour
1 Farm fresh egg
1 Tablespoon honey

Preheat oven to 350, melt butter in your largest quiche pan as you preheat the oven. When butter is melted, pull pan out of oven and add flour, egg and honey. Mix thoroughly. Pat down in pan and up sides. Prick crust with fork and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and raise oven temperature to 475 degrees.

Filling
2 1/2 pounds creme fraiche
7 eggs
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup goat milk

Blend ingredients well and whip up smooth and fluffy. Pour into crust. Bake at 475 for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 200 and bake one hour. Turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in there for another 6 hours. Then chill over-night before eating.

Simple and super delicious.

Boomer's babies

Gypsum nuzzles her new daughter Honey Jade, Boomer's first lamb born here,
 while her sister Demi heads out to pasture with her son, Hagrid. Gypsum and Demi are bothdaughters of our Icelandic ewe, Chalcedony. Gypsum's sire is Dapper Dan,Demi's was Homer, a CVM ram.

Finesse's daughter Halcyon, Boomer's second lamb. 

Pequena llama checks out the new baby.

Boomer is watching
in the background. Both Finesse and Gypsum are first-time moms.
They are doing incredibly well.

When we brought Boomer home, right before Christmas last year, it was pretty late to try to breed him to any ewes. But, I decide to go ahead and try to breed him to a few of my Dapper Dan daughters.

Even though it was late in the breeding season, two of the ewes settled. Sunday morning, Gypsum had a beautiful little ewe lamb that we've named Honey Jade, in keeping with her family line of rocks and minerals.

Then, Monday morning, Finesse had her own little ewe lamb, Halcyon. Finesse is the daughter of our first Jacob ewe, Thyme. She is from a very long-lived line of ewes that grow beautiful, strong, fine fleeces. I'm excited to see what Halcyon's wool looks like as she grows.

So now we're done lambing and kidding for 2012... and just look at all the great "H" names we didn't get to use - Hydrangea, Heliotrope, Hester....

While one part of me thinks we need more sheep, so that we can use up those names, the practical part of me is looking at the drought we are in and just hoping we can find hay to keep the sheep and goats we have.

Looking in from the deck

Looking into my office (on the right) from the new Admin deck at the
Ozark Folk Center. 

Do you have an office window?
I'm blessed to have two. I feel a little guilty about it, but I do appreciate it.

And, until the Admin deck was built this at the Ozark Folk Center this winter, it was a nice, private window that nobody even saw. Suddenly, every person going to the Restaurant, or gathering with a group or looking for the bathrooms walks right by my window. I realized that and wanted to take a look at what they might see.

Here's the view looking in. The first thing you see in my stained glass bunny. My nana made it for me, back in when I was first homesteading. One year I was having so much trouble with my bunnies not breeding. She made me this bunny that would never frustrate me. It's a happy sight for me each time I see it.

The plant is a rattan vine that Shawn got me for my birthday last year. It's a little potted plant that I was going to plant next to the front porch of our house. This little vine got so happy in my office window, I've just left it there. It now frames the window in year-around greenery. Every once in a while I have to convince it to not grow into the ceiling.

My Louie spinning wheel and basket of whatever fleece I am spinning at the time is sitting right there in the little alcove between my desk and the window. Tucked down at the bottom is the sign for either the angora goat or wool sheep, depending on which critters I've brought in to be at the spinning and weaving shop this week.

Office sweet home, I think it's a nice view for folks walking by.

Another reason I love chickens

Kitty and I like to watch the chickies. 

Silver laced Wyandottes are supposed to be good foragers.
The way our little babies go after left-over people food, they
are proving this to be true.

.The baby chickies are now feathered enough that they can go loose in the tractor during the day. They still need the extra warmth of their box with the heat lamp at night.
They love to flutter and fly about the coop after bugs and shadows.
The compost bucket in my kitchen has been called the "chicken bucket" for most of my life and now I remember why. I've started giving the chickies the spoiled salad, stale bread and vegi peelings. They gobble them up. I hate  to waste food, so having the chickies to make use of food that is just not quite up to human consumption makes me feel a whole lot better.

The other night before I tucked them into their box, Kitty and I spent about half an hour with our faces pressed against the chicken wire, just quietly watching chickies. I think it's amusing that I can't sit for half an hour to watch television, but I can stand and watch chickens for that long. (note the multiple closures on the chicken tractor to keep out coons, possums, kitties, foxes and...)

Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery - the jewel of Mountain View

Bright colors greet you when you enter the Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery.

The Gallery is made up of 3 main rooms.

Every week when I go in, I find new items that have been
brought in by members.

The Arkansas Craft Guild is a member owned and operated co-op of crafts people. The co-op is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The co-ops gallery is in Mountain View and it is one of the things that drew us to this town. The shop is an incredible collection of art and talent. It's a real jewel among the wonderful shops in downtown Mountain View.

Now that I'm a member, I volunteer to work the shop most Sunday afternoons, from 1-4. It's my responsibility, but it's also a privilege to be able to share all this creativity with visitors to the area in such a beautiful setting. The co-op is growing, to, with 11 new members being accepted in the April jury out of a record number who applied.

Credit for the look of the gallery goes both to the artist who create and send in their wonderful works to sell, and to Becki Dahlstedt, the guild member volunteer gallery manager, who puts in very long days making the gallery shine.

It's a joy to be a part of this group.

New rugs

I just finished a whole group of rugs and to them down to
the Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery The one on top is
First's fleece of many colors.

This rug is woven from Demi's fleece

I do try to weave a little every day. The felting and washing has to wait until weekends or other days off. I finally got a collection of rugs finished and taken into the Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery.

Several are done on a green warp, more on a red warp and a few on a painted purple warp. I have another series ready to felt and wash a soon as I have some time at home.

I've got a couple new shawls ready to go into the store, too. Just keep on weaving.

Costuming and status

When you attribute human qualities to animals, you are being anthropomorphic. I go the other direction and watch behaviors in my flock and see parallels in the human world. What's that called?

Yampa's yearling daughter Geo. My only dairy goat with horns.
Geo really is a beautiful girl with a great udder.

Statis in the flock is pretty obvious even to an outsider. There are bosses and then there are low ranking animals. Usually, a young animal growing up in the flock takes it's mother's rank, but not always. Yearlings are frequently at the bottom of the pecking order.
My dairy and angora goat flocks were separate for years and had established rankings. Yampa was the undisputed boss and she did nothing to keep her status, no one ever even thought to challenge her. As is often the case in herds and flocks, the number two, Erie, was the enforcer. She bawled, bashed and bit other goats to make sure they knew she was boss over them. She always automatically defered to Yampa, but not to Yammie's daughters.

In the angora flock, Bramble was a gentle boss and Abracadabra ranked second. It was mostly just an eating order, untli Tillie joined the flock. Tillie quickly let everyone know she was boss and she enforces it with blows from her horns.

Over the last year, I've sold both of the flocks down. Drought, high feed costs and job demands have stretched our resources and it's just made sense to have fewer sheep and goats. I went from 9 milkers, with assorted bucks and kids to 4 dairy goats, total. Erie, Beannie, Cricket and other long standing members of my dairy flock have new homes. I kept Yampa, her yearling daughter Geo and this year Geo gave me two very beautiful daughters by Footsie, Harley and Henna.

The angora goat flock went through similar shrinkage. Bramble and Eve, two of my all-time favorites angoras, started jumping fences, so they went to new homes. Abra, Rose and many other followed. I still want my red buck from Indian Spring, so Sultan went to join a new flock. I now have angora does Tille, Fantasia, Fritillary, Gamma and two wethers, Glitch and Gizmo.

With only 10 goats, I put them all together.
What a bruhaha that's been.

Yammie is still boss, though Tillie disputes it. The two dairy kids don't worry about status, they mostly climb through the fence and live with the sheep, though they do sleep with their mommy at night. Geo also sleeps with her mommy, Yampa, at night, but other than that, she ended up a the bottom of the herd, with even the little angoras eating before she does.

Geo kept getting her head caught in the fence, high and low.

The last two weeks, probably in an effort to get more food, Geo kept getting her head caught in the fence. I always disbud my dairy goats, but for two years I was without a disbudding iron. My Rhinehart 30 burned out after more than 20 years of service and literally thousands of baby goats. I didn't think I needed to replace it. After two years of dairy goats with horns - I replaced it this spring. But Geo has horns, and she kept getting caught in the fence. I was afraid she was going to hang herself or that Tillie would break her neck while she was stuck.

So, in desparation, I taped a stick across the top of her horns. We've done this off and on in the past, mostly with bucks, I was reluctant to add extra pointy bits to a dairy animal that I have to handle twice a day.

Geo's new headgear.

It's been fascinating to watch the transformation of this meek little dairy goat yearling. Now that she has a big, impressive looking headdress, she suddenly has status. I have not seen her hit anyone, she still thinks of herself as low enough rank that it hasn't occured to her that she could hit anyone. But suddenly, the rest of the flock, except Yammie, fades back and lets Geo get grain. They don't shove her out of the best dust wallers and they leave her settled when she beds down.
It will be interesting to see if this new status holds when the flock gets used to the costume. Will Geo get used to her new status and change her behaviour to expect this new ranking? Or will Tillie decide to beat her up for "pretending".



There really is something to the old saying "The clothes make the man." or, the headdress makes the goat?
 

Happy Mother's Day on the farm

The baby chickies are now in the chicken tractor, with their
new perches and a draft shield.

The momma and baby sheep are grazing the front yard,
though with the lack of rain the grass won't last long.
Elizabeth and her triplets are in front. Pequena is
guarding from the shade of the maple.

And I got a riding lawnmower - and a bouquet. Being able to
mow the pastures will help with reclaiming them.

 It's been a good mother's day. We finished the chicken tractor and got the chickies moved out of the bath tub and into their new home. They are growing so well. Their little wings are half feathered already.
I remembered why I like chickens while watching the little ones gobble down every moth that comes to their light. They aren't up to eating June bugs yet, but give them a week...

We did our weekly check of the sheep and goats this morning. The girls are feeding the lambs well and several are starting to get thin, so we'll add some corn back into their ration.

The pastures are getting sparse, with no rain in at least a month. We have found some fresh cut hay though.

And, as a special present, Shawn bought me a riding mower to cut the pasture grass. The sheep won't mow the "roughs" but if I mow the grass after it gets long a tough, then they love the tender grass below.

What a good mother's day!

Chicken tractor, day two

Chicken wire now all laced over the top and door
framed in.

After a wonderful float with the current Road Scholar group down the White River, we resumed working on the chicken tractor.

The baby chickies arrived happy and healthy and are temporarily ensconced in the bathtub. We put them in a box so we could shower last night.

Robin and Summer  came over to help for the afternoon  and after I finished lacing on the outer chicken wire, the guys got to work on the back wall and the door and frame. Shawn says he now knows why chicken tractors are so expensive!

Now it's off to work and hopefully we'll finish the tractor tonight.

Thanks, Shawn and Robin for all your work and to Summer for a great dinner! My chickie project is a wonderful birthday present. I appreciate all everybody is putting into it.

25 Silver laced Wyandotte Chickies. For at least the last
40 years, chickie feeders and waterers came in galvanized
steel or white plastic with red bottoms. Now, with the
popularity of backyard chickens, you can get colors!
Mine are purple.

Back added door built and ready to cover with chicken wire.

The baby chickies have shipped

Saturday morning I had a message on my cellphone that our baby Silver Laced Wyandottes had hatched and were on their way to the post office. They should be here this morning. I called our post office at 6:15 a.m. and they said the truck doesn't arrive until 7:00.

I was expecting them tomorrow, and so agreed to be one of the river guides on the Road Scholar trip down the White River this morning. Not sure how it will all come together, but it will work out.

We haven't finished the chicken tractor yet, either. We 've had days set out to do it, and friends offering to come help and Robin and Summer gave us the wheels for it, but I always seem to forget how intense opening month is at the Ozark Folk Center. I've been putting in 50-60 hour weeks at work. Morning and evening chores and milking are still the bookends of my day and they keep me grounded. The garden is growing well. I've been able to keep it watered and keep the weeds directly away from the planted plants.

I've got a good stack of rugs woven and I've figured out some new felting techniques (including trying to felt one in the driveway - less than a stunning success.) I volunteer Sunday afternoons at the Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery and thanks to Becki Dahlstedt, the gallery is doing great. So, it's not like I've been slacking... it's just that the chicken tractor isn't finished.

But, my plan is to set the wee chickies up in the bathtub on newspapers with their heat lamp and food and water. Then we'll float the river and get the Road Scholars safely to their picnic lunch. And then, Robin and Summer are coming down the mountain from Fox and we'll all finish the chicken tractor and have a great dinner of....

Fruit Soup - you might call it a smoothie

My mom always believed in breakfast. She still does. And my dad makes the best pancakes in the world. But at least since I started school, I think I've always been in a hurry.

So, pretty much every morning since I can remember, I drink my breakfast. When I was younger, it was Carnation Instant Breakfast. As I got older, I'd throw things that were healthy - yogurt, fruit, wheat grass juice, oats - into the blender and drink it down. When I had kids, my breakfast needed a name. We call it Fruit Soup.

Fruit soup for breakfast on the deck outside my office
at the Ozark Folk Center.

My current favorite fruit soup blend is:

about 3 cups fresh goat's milk kefir
2 apples, quartered
1 cup rolled oats
1 frozen peach (there are no fresh ones right now)
1 cup cold herbal tea (usually Tension Tamer from the night before)

If I can get my hands on any berries, I throw them in, either in place of the peaches or added to the mix.
Blend all this on high for several minutes. Drink half of it for breakfast and leave the other half in the blender for tomorrow. Put the blender bowl in the fridge. Whip it up the next morning for a few minutes before you drink it.

Now "smoothies" are all the rage. A friend just shared her new smoothie recipe with me. My thought was, "that's nothing new, it's just fruit soup." Luckily, I didn't say it out loud.

Have a great morning!

My Communication Bead

Last year for my birthday my dear friend Sage Holland gave me a beautiful bead that depicts a white crane on a tropical background of color. The first time I wore it, several people asked me if it was a heron and I realized where the bead fit into my storyline.

Bead by Sage Holland

My daughter Lena has a star-crossed relationship with birds. When she was born, I had a scarlet headed conure. The parrot was jealous of the new little human. The baby would cry, the parrot would shriek and after about 6 weeks, I traded the bird for a python. I had Sheba for about seven years before she moved on to a new home with a breeder.

When Lena started walking, we had a duck that had hatched out and bonded with people. His name was Lucky Duck. The duck decided he was higher on the pecking order than the shaky little human and so he would attack Lena when ever she went outside. It took a while to find a new home for Lucky, because he kept coming back.

Lena was about 6 or 7 when we went canoeing on Pueblo reservoir with my parents. We paddled in and out of coves. We saw lots of fish and wildlife. We pulled into a little inlet, looking for a place for a picnic lunch and my mom said, "Shhh, look there's a heron." We all admired the beautiful bird who was fishing in the shallows. All of us that is, except for the little girl in the middle of the canoe, who looked at the huge bird with the very long pointed beak and was terrified into silence. She was sure that if she made any little noise the horrible creature would come shrieking over and attack us.

I think that we found another cove to eat lunch in that day, I don't really remember. In fact I barely remembered the canoe trip at all, until, as an adult, Lena told me her version of the story. Since then, "Shh, there's a heron" has become family code for  "We might not be communicating here, let's back up and figure out what we meant."

With a lot of changes going on at work, people are out-of-balance and worried. That often makes them quick to react when they perceive something as dangerous. I'm wearing my bead quite a bit lately and trying to watch out for perceptions of monsters. I'm finding ways at work to share the concept of "Shh, there's a heron."

My weaver's desk

One of the student's in my cheesemaking class yesterday pointed out that it looked funny for me to be standing in front of them in a long skirt and apron at the same time I was trying to access information from google on my android. We had a great discussion about how it all works together in art, craft and life - blending the old and the new in all that I do. I love the big pockets of my aprons and the easy flow of my long skirts. And I love my car, refrigeration and the internet!

The best of all worlds - my loom and my laptop.

Growing my garden, organically

I just came in from planting the blackberries and Jerusalem artichokes that Leesa brought me from her home in Alabama. She also brought me some black raspberries. I thought I'd take a quick lunch and rest my back.  I grabbed the box of strawberries out of the fridge to go with my kefir. These are store-bought strawberries. Phooey! They are just about tasteless. I have three different types of strawberries in my garden, so hopefully I'll have some real berries soon. There is little that I like better than berries, berries that taste like berries!

Today I'm also planting sweet basil and Black Prince tomatoes and poke and stevia. A pretty eclectic mix. My sweet potato slips are growing so fast on the window sill that I can almost see them stretch. They'll be ready to go into the ground in early May. The Yukon Gold and Red potatoes are doing great in the garden as are the peas, onions, beets, rhubarb, chard and strawberries. We just picked all the flowers off the baby blueberries to make them put their energy into growing bigger and stronger this year.

I'm not planting a big garden this year, but I am hungering for real food, so I am being a little more serious about it. Last year almost everything I planted in the spring drowned in the very wet May we had. So, this year, I'm doing raised gardens. During the walkway construction at work, they brought in pallets with wire hoops holding rock for the seat walls. These hoops are now in the process of becoming my raised beds. I'm putting them in areas where it is easy to water them and where they will get the drainage that I think the plant needs and the amount of sun it seems to want.

My garden is growing organically, by working with the plants and our land. It is a process and I'm willing to accept that it is going to take time. Maybe the rest of my life.

My garden in progress 4-8-12. Wire framed raised beds, hugel kulture pile in process, rainbow chard, center left.

At the moment, my garden looks kinda like a junkyard with wire hoops and piles of lumber and dirt mixed in with both planted greenery and enthusiastic weeds. But, it's my garden, for my purposes at my home and I don't really have to worry too much what it looks like. And, I know the direction that I am going with it. I really do want it to be pretty, some year soon, but I don't want to push, plan, chart and organize it. I want it to grow, healthy, wholesome, tasty and naturally. And yet, I do find myself trying to explain and interpret it to anybody who comes over. I don't want to apologize for it, because I know how really cool it is, but it does look like a junkyard.

One of the big pushes right now at work is to collect, develop and publish a master plan for the Ozark Folk Center Heritage Herb Garden. The whole plan exists in many documents, posters and ideas that Tina Marie Wilcox has, and has had for many years, but it needs to be collated, communicated and published so that everybody in the park not only knows the direction she is headed with the gardens, but can share the whole wonderful concept with our visitors. This master plan is necessary, for the stage that the OFC garden is in right now and to carry it on into the future. I hope to help with it and learn from the development of this master plan. Maybe, in 25 years, my garden might be worth creating a plan for?

Meanwhile, I'll just write blog posts to share what I'm doing in search for tasty strawberries. I'm going back to my garden. Have a happy day!

Gobi yarn

Every once in a while there is a fleece that I just cannot wait to play with. As soon as we are done shearing it, that fleece goes right next to my spinning wheel and I hurry to get any other yarns off the bobbins.

Funny little Gobi. She's really not as thin as she looks in
this picture, she was just tucked up from being sheared.

This year Gobi's fleece was that special. Gobi is Boo's little ewe lamb, born last July. She's twin to Rambo, who sold to a new home on Saturday. She's a funny looking little thing, halfway between a lamb and a yearling. Because she was born at such a strange time, she didn't have any "classmates" to play with, so she never really learned all the sheepie games.

Gobi yarn on the bobbin

But I've always loved her coloring, I have a special fondness for the darker fleeces. My friend Mickie Ramirez, whose Broken O Ranch is in Fort Collins, Colorado, always knew she could call me when she had an especially dark lamb that needed a new flock. Two of our foundation sires, Caruso and Hotpants came from her flock. Mickie makes the most fantastic hats from her jacob fleeces.

Back to Gobi, so far, I've spun two 100 yard skeins of yarn from her fleece and they've washed up as soft and wonderous as I thought they would. I have at least enough fleece to spin another two. So, this little (about 35 lbs.), funny, off-season lamb grew almost enough wool in half a year to make a shawl. I'll only need to add one skein of some one else's wool to that shawl... perhaps her brother's? Or maybe a mohair highlight yarn. What color(s) would look good with this black and white yarn?

Shearing Days - or was it Lambing Days - Open House?

Our Shearing Day Open House yesterday could have been called Lambing Day - but it's easier to schedule shearing. When I checked the ewes right before daylight, I thought Demi was in labor, but it' not the first time I've thought that this month. At 7:00 when I went out to feed, I found these two little boys.

Demi's twin boys - Demi always does have to be different.
The little spotted one is "Hagrid" and we are keeping him for
at least his first fleece. You've never seen such curls. The
other one is really white.

Diane Smith and her new ram
"Rambo"

 Diane Smith and Sue Legg were the first to arrive at Shearing Days. We had been corresponding about possible new sheep for their starter flock of Jacob sheep. They fell in love with Dapper Dan X Basil's little boy. He has a gorgeous pair of horns and a superb fleece that I kept for myself.
They named him "Rambo" and he headed home to meet his new ewes.

Several people asked me for pictures of the shearing/milking stand we use. Obviously, it is home-made. In fact, my kids, Lena and Juna made this one for me. You can find lots of plans for goat milking stands and sheep shearing stands if you google them. Just adapt what you find to fit your flock. We have to work around some pretty good sized horn sets. We sheared Sultan in this stand yesterday and his horns are more that 4-foot across.

Another shot of the shearing stand.

It was a good day, we sheared Rambo, Gypsum, Nibbles and Sultan. We sold a few fleeces, a ram and Shawn got an order for a 7-foot triloom. We visited with lots of folks who read about our event in the Stone County Leader Weekender.

Basil had been trying to give birth to her little girl and boy
all day and about 2 p.m. I decided it was time to help her
out. The little ones were tangled up inside mama, trying
to come out about like they are here.  But with a little help,
They are out and fine and health. Basil is doing ok.

The biggest group of people arrived right after I decided that Basil had been pushing too long with nothing to show for her labor. Shawn did the tour, while Lena and I helped Basil sort out the tangle of lambs. Basil's little girl and boy are doing fine.

After almost everybody was done visiting, we turned the ewes and their lambs out on the rye grass in the middle pasture for the first time. It was noisy chaos for a bit, but then little babies went to sleep in the grass and mommas went to work mowing.

Our last visitors of the day were dear friends Troy and Linda Odom who took time away from getting Aunt Linda's Apothecary Shop set up to come see the newest babies. All in all, it was a wonderful day here on the farm.

In the afternoon, everybody got turned out to mow the
middle pasture.

Wow, I feel honored!

I often have a love/hate relationship with writing. I can do it well, but deadlines and expectations really stress me out. For that reason, and many others, I love writing this blog.

Here, I write when I feel inspired, I write when I have the time. I write my blog for my parents and to keep other friends and family somewhat up to date with my busy life. I write to share the great things that are going on at the farm, in my workshop and sometimes at work.

Last fall, I heard about Arkansas Women Bloggers from Stephanie Buckley and I went right home and checked out the group. I really enjoyed reading through some of the blogs and getting to glimpse bit of life from other real women sharing their real lives. I put in my application to join and got accepted.

Other than work email and writing this blog and googling research questions, I don't spend much time on the web. I only look at facebook when I need to get in touch with someone, or to share out info. Pinterest still baffles me. So, I was amazed and honored when Julie Kohl of Arkansas Women Bloggers got in touch with me and asked if I would be interested in being their featured Blogger of the Month for April. Wow, my blog about sheep and gardens and sheep and some craft stuff and more sheep - really?

She said "really" and so, I wrote my first post for AWB this morning. Many of you will get a kick out of this irony - the topic of the month for April is -  "Spring Cleaning - Tell us about all the ways you keep your “house” – not just your home – in order!"

Jeannie's new lamb

Cowslip's very large ewe lamb right after birth.

Now she's a whole day old and ready to rule the world!

Finally!
The ewes bred to Dapper Dan have started lambing.

Yesterday, Jeannie's sweet lilac ewe, Cowslip had a huge ewe lamb. This new girl is bigger than Frannie's twins.

Now that she's a day old, she's testing her limits to see how far away from mommy she can go. Tomorrow she might even join the evening Lam-pede. They grow up so fast.

She's really beautiful.

Jeannie - what are you going to name her?

Edible Spring Greens

When we moved to Arkansas, money was tight. We were blessed to have neighbors who showed us how to find food on our land. Rip Bonds taught me how to find, harvest and cook poke sallet. Marion Spear showed us how to harvest and enjoy catbriar shoot and to make spring rolls with wild greens.

My fav edible greens book in a patch of chickweed and
henbit in our front yard. We carry this wonderful book at the
Homespun Gift Shop at the Ozark Folk Center.

In the years since, I've continued to expand my knowledge of harvesting, cooking and eating wild greens. This Missouri web site is an incredible reference http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/how/cooking/wild-edibles-missouri and most of these green are native to our area of the Ozarks.

I have the Peterson's Guide to Wild Edibles and several other guides to digging, cutting and harvesting foods. Last year I discovered Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas. It is my current favorite greens guide and the one that I recommend to my students in my spring greens cooking class. There are still a few spaces left in that class on April 7 and there is room in the Spring Herb Workshop on the same day. The field trip the day before is booked full, but the workshop is an incredible overview of greens knowledge.

Today we had chickweed, henbit and dock with rice, garlic and cheddar cheese for lunch. I stirred fried the greens lightly with the garlic and served them over the rice and cheese. My family thought they were good, except I should have trimmed all the stems out and only cooked the leaves. Even as tender as the stems are right now, they were a less than stellar part of the delicious dish.

Happy Spring

 Yesterday it rained, all beautiful day. It was a rich, green, soul-feeding rain; a rain that swells the leaves on the trees, the creeks in the hills and fills you up with spring. Flowers are bursting out everywhere, from sweet little secret flowers on the forest floor

 to showy dogwoods, redbuds, lilacs, plums, honeysuckle and so much more on the hillsides.

Have I mentioned that I love Spring!!!

Happy Spring