blackberry bread Harold

Yesterday I busied myself using some berries picked by Mona's lovely mom. There was an enormous bowl of them, enough to make a batch of seedless blackberry jam from my favorite french jam book. Delicious!

And what would jam be without fresh bread to eat it on? Usually my loaves are hearty and dense, and I've been looking for a more casual loaf. You know, the sort that you could use for a sandwich without feeling like you're eating a bread bomb. Usually I end up with open-faced sandwiches because two slices at a time are too heavy. There is a great shared blog written by several excellent bread bakers called A Year in Bread, and I tried out their farmhouse white loaf.

the autolyse period, where I discovered that my biggest bowl was way too small

It's a big recipe and makes three loaves. Big enough that I couldn't use my kitchenaid to knead for me. Luckily I was having a good-hands-day and was able to enjoy getting sticky and kneading the huge lump of dough until it was smooth. Though I typically prefer multi grained bread, a straight-up white recipe seemed like just the thing to make a tender fluffy loaf. The milk in the recipe ensured tenderness. The verdict from Charlie: tastes very much like an english muffin and is good. I had a piece of toast last night and it toasted up very crispy and was lovely with a little butter and cinnamon. A success!

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I missed today's Summer Fun Time excursion because I went to Bellevue to see if I could solve my thorny smocking problem. After consulting with a woman at the sewing & vacuum store, the answer seems to be using a new bobbin casing and adjusting it. The experiment will happen tonight.


At least Mona went to the farm and was kind enough to take a picture of Harold for me. He seems to be quite happy there, still hanging out with Buzz the duck and Tom the other (much more impressive looking) turkey. I really have to go out there and visit him...

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid this year: 50

Harold's Exciting Day

We think it happened sometime on the Friday afternoon right before we got home from Mexico. Something, probably a coyote, carried Marian off. I couldn't find even a feather. Harold has been wandering around outside gobbling incessantly looking for her. I couldn't bear the idea of getting another hen and having her eaten too so I posted on Craigslist to see if anyone had a safer happier home for Harold. To my surprise there was great interest. I picked a local park that has a farm outreach program. They had a turkey pair and had the same experience where the hen was taken but not the tom, and he was just as lonely. So with Mona's help I wrapped up a (surprisingly heavy) turkey in a towel and put him in a huge dog kennel and drove him over there this morning.

That duck, Buzz, REALLY wants to be friends. He followed Harold everywhere.

The best part: he'll be happy. The second best part: I can visit him anytime. I got to pet some sheep and baby goats and check out their rabbits and chickens. Since there is a lot of human traffic they don't usually have predator problems and frankly I can't think of many animals bold enough to take on TWO male turkeys. Goodbye Harold, I'll come to visit you with some corn sometime soon.

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In other thoughts, where is my warm weather? In the space of a week I have gone from this:

Charlie's legs are a perfect nesting spot for Isaac on a pool-break

to this today:

another four inches of fluffly misery

Marian is all grown up

I was talking to mom on the phone yesterday evening, and stepped outside to see if I could get Harold to gobble for her. In looking for the turkeys I happened to glance inside the coop and saw something laying in the middle of the floor. It's small, it's a bit misshapen (really pointy), but it appears that Marian has laid her first egg! The color is a bit off in these pictures, but it is a milky cream color with a heavy smattering of tiny brown freckles. Every breed of chicken and turkey lays a slightly different colored (and sometimes differently shaped) egg.

the artful display, as requested by mom

I washed it and will poke it with a pin and blow out the insides, and add it to my collection of "hen's first egg." I'm looking forward to her next eggs, because I'm going to eat those and see how they taste. Supposedly they are just a wee bit game-y so I will likely pass on having them over easy all alone, but perhaps a scramble with some cheese and spinach.... I'll let you know how they are!

just a bit bigger than a regular chicken egg, but they should be twice as big once she gets laying reguarly

Bonus image: Harry enjoying a brief burst of sunshine yesterday afternoon. Boy, does that cat ever need a shave!

San Francisco Turkey Gobble

our hotel room was tragically hip

Oh, what has happened in the days since my last post!

I went on a brief jaunt to San Francisco, where Charlie was attending the annual GDC conference. I spent about half of my time wandering aimlessly around SF, and the rest of the time lurking in the Valve booth trying to be helpful. It was loads of fun, actually, because I got to hang out with my friends and absorb some big-city culture in the bargain. SF MOMA was fantastic. I'm not typically such a fan of modern art (my tastes lean more toward the brothers van Eyk or Sargent) but I found lots to like at the museum. I also stopped in at a mecca of fabric shopping, Britex. Didn't buy anything, but four floors of chromatic mayehm was enough to set my head spinning and my creative spirit on fire.


When I wasn't soaking up culture or fondling fabric I was trying to act all nonchalant (The! Harmonix! Guys! and The! Blizzard! Guys!) while chatting with people in the gaming industry. And oh sweet nellie, I talked to Jonathan Coulton. He wrote the end song for the Portal game, but I have been a fan for a long time. He played a set during the Valve party and afterward I sidled up all innocent-like and tried to play it cool and just say "hey, great job!" Hopefully he didn't feel my sweaty palms or see the stars in my eyes. The Portal song? It is awesome.

The first thing that made me love him long ago? This version of a Sir Mixalot song:


The portal song? It is awesome, as stated previously. But what makes it more awesome? The Harmonix people made it Into A Rock Band Song And They Played It At The Party. Swoon!

Being a bootleg video of the party, it's not the best quality. But this way you can feel like you were there! Trust me, it was fantastic. If you haven't heard the song, here is the official version sung by Ellen. She is the voice of GLaDOS in the game and I want to kiss her cheeks.

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AND when we got home Harold greeted me by the front door by puffing himself up and full on gobbling. He sounded like a cartoon turkey. The stereotype is spot-on. Spring has sprung, and I can hear our neighbor's rooster crowing in the distance while Harold is strutting around the yard alternately flirting with Marian (the turkey hen) and myself. It is quite loud, and I am hoping that the neighbors find it as amusing as I do.

Harold in fine form (with Marian hiding behind the tree trunk)

snowy

We got a good five inches of snow last night, fluffy and clingy. Charlie growled off to work in his super-snow-car and I went around with a broom handle knocking at the delicate willow branches. Last year both of our pretty willows in the driveway center got squashed by ice and snow. They are both held up by stakes and rope now, but droop alarmingly once they get a few pounds of snow on the branches. Truth be told I don't mind, since knocking off the snow is fun.


The turkeys ventured out from the coop and came around front to request some treats. They're loitering on the front porch right now and looking in through the living room window whenever I pass by. "Look, she's vacuuming!" One can only hope that I provide enough entertainment for their sawdust brains.

Jive Turkeys

Jive Turkeys That I Do Not Like:

The jerk who sideswiped Charlie's car when it was parked in the back empty ocean of the Fred Meyer parking lot on Monday afternoon. I parked it there because his car is rather big, and I don't like squeezing into a space. When I got out to walk into the store, I could have flung my arms out and spun around while singing the intro to "The Sound of Music" and not hit a single auto. But somehow, someone managed to scrape up the entire driver's side of the car while I was shopping. The scratches are high enough that it must have been another big car. A big car driven by a JERK.

I spent half of my day running around to Woodinville town hall, where I spoke to the police chief who was lovely and nice (he came out from his desk all covered in gold braid and navy blue just to help me) but ultimately couldn't help me because the accident was in Redmond, and then to the Redmond town hall where I addressed a surly automaton behind plexiglass and was pretty much told to take a particular form and shove it. All I needed was to file a police report so Geico could claim uninsured motorist coverage instead of the regular deductible. Since there is a 72 hour deadline, this mail-in-only-to-Olympia form is going to do me no good at all. Things will still get fixed and work out fine, but I'll have to satisfy a bigger deductible to do it.

Next time I will try to get in an accident in my own town.

Jive Turkeys That I Do Very Much Like:



The turkeys have finally figured out that I am not going to attack them if they come near me. For about a month they've had a good grasp of the human=corn equation but couldn't quite bring themselves to eat out of my hand. Last week they took the plunge and today I documented it for the first time. It also shows the shocking size difference between them and Gladys.

The new gang

The turkeys have finally sort of figured things out. After their next-to-the-coop loitering act they spent one night out somewhere in the trees with Gladys. The turkeys follow her around constantly like two dimwitted thugs, and I know that when she went to her customary tree at dusk they were right behind her. They probably stood under that tree all damn night, wondering where she had gone.

Cold weather helped. After one night out in sub zero temperatures that heating lamp in the coop was looking mighty fine I'm sure. Every night since then they've needed a bit of a nudge to get in there at dusk but the bonus has been that I've managed to herd Gladys in with them. I can only hope that this pattern will imprint itself on their tiny pea brains but who knows. For now, the three of them are sitting on the same perch for the night. I can sleep well knowing that only a raccoon with wire cutters could eat them. Another interesting side effect is that I may find out if Gladys is laying any eggs. She's certainly old enough, but I've never been able to find any.

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Had the pre op appointment for my foot surgery today. On friday I'll have some bone shaved off of my right foot where a hideous bunion has been plotting evil deeds. After three weeks of showering with a goofy looking bag over my dressings, my foot will hopefully be more normally shaped. And most of all not hurt like a bastard any time I wear shoes. Yay, science!

It's beginning to look a lot

like it's finally Christmas. Yesterday I busted my bottom cleaning up the front yard and putting up colored lights in the tallest pine tree in the driveway. Much of the busting involved moving lots of lumber from the front of the porch to the side, where it will hibernate under a tarp till spring. My limits? I have found them with that damnable aviary. It's too big for me to build myself, and with the days so short and rainy it is difficult to get Charlie to help me except on the weekends. Being a person who works on a computer all day (and sits in an office without a window, no less) he loves that it is dark for much of the day. It isn't very conducive to construction however. So the turkeys are free-ranging during the day and closed in the chicken coop at night. They are getting big enough that they can't flap around in the coop, and I don't want to imitate factory farming here on my own land.

And what did they do tonight? When I got home after dark, I saw two white blobs loitering in the yard approximately 20 feet from the coop. I half expected one of them to furtively scrub out a cigarette and pop a piece of gum to cover up the smell of alcohol. They were like two rebellious teenagers 20 feet from where they were supposed to be, but defiant till the end. I had to herd them into the coop and lock them in. I told them a bedtime story about enormous drooling bears but don't think it will make a difference.

We got a christmas tree today when Charlie got home from work and I had great fun decorating it. I had the bright idea to use my little tripod to take a photo of it all lit up and pretty, and for some reason the camera decided to make it look like a Totally Alien Christmas Hedge of Craziness. I am not even going to bother to try to fix it in photoshop. Take my word that it appropriately pine-colored in real life.

Bah, our internet connection is freaky and it doesn't like me uploading photos. I'll get that in tomorrow I hope!

My nose in a glass

The Wine

Last night we had friends and their family over to celebrate Mona's birthday. Like the exquisite guests that they are, they brought fruit and a bottle of wine. I always love having Ido's mother and step-father over because not only are they fascinating company and always good for stimulating discussion.....they also know a LOT about fine food. His step-father especially has a nose for wine that never ceases to amaze me. Any bottle they bring is usually going to be fabulous (as well as something I've never had before) but last night they outdid themselves.

I'm not usually a fan of French wine. I find it too earthy, too peaty and sediment heavy. Imagine a beautiful french countryside, and you are leaning against a rough wooden fencepost and you hear a cork gently ease free of a bottle. Oh, you say, bring me some of that fine French wine! Inhale the fine crisp air and feel the weathered wood and the grass under your legs and somewhere on the edge of your vision someone is gathering mushrooms into an old woven basket. A glass is handed to you, and you swirl and sip and realize that this wasn't exactly what you had in mind. It's gritty, and you can't get over that taste of loam, and you suspect they filtered your wine through a sack filled with dirt.

Now pop that fantasy. That's the old Sarah's French wine experience. Last night I sat at the dinner table and I stuck as much of my face as I could into a wineglass and just inhaled the intense smell of the wine they brought. It. Was. Glorious. There was sediment in there but I didn't give a damn. I absorbed as much of it as I could directly through my pores and then drank the rest in short tiny sips to make it last longer, never taking my nose out of that glass. I may never have French wine again, since I don't think anything can ever compare. It was the best of any wine I've ever had.

Charlie has mastered cooking with aromatics

Another thing that smelled good this weekend was a pot of tom kha gai soup that Charlie made on Saturday night. It's a Thai chicken soup with coconut milk and lots of kaffir lime leaves. Charlie has adapted his recipe to be sort of a whole-pot bouquet garni of ingredients that he sautees, then cooks with the coconut milk, then strains to make a velvety liquid. Once that infusion is ready, he adds in the chicken and mushrooms. You get all of the flavor with none of the lemongrass shards caught between your teeth. We like this soup so much, in fact, that we have a kaffir lime tree growing in our kitchen so that we can use the leaves.

What did not smell good today: the stain on the floor underside of the aviary. It smelled bad, but once those boards are dry I can flip them over, screw them down, and have a proper floor. Then it's time to build the walls.

What looked pretty today: this red bush. I have no idea what it is, but in the summer it has deep aubergine leaves and in the fall they turn a flaming scarlet.

fun filled weekend

Harry supervises the cooking

We were busy bees this weekend. The lasagna has been taken to new heights with a chicken/veal blend in the sauce. So luxurious and tasty. We made two pans on Thursday night and then had friends over for a lasagna feast on Friday. Also in attendance was a newly-minted three year old who provided us all with tasty birthday cake. Excellent!

Charlie helped me out with the coop today and we got the floor joists in. Now I get to treat them and lay the plywood floor. It's supposed to rain a bit tomorrow, but with some luck I'll be able to work around it. I've learned that 16 foot lumber is impossible to buy in perfectly straight boards. We ended up using several clamps, some ratchet ties from Charlie's car, and a fair amount of muscle to get everything lined up and screwed down. Everything got squared away (literally) in the end, thank goodness.


In other images from the weekend:

the fog in the backyard was stunning on Saturday morning

we have entered the "ironic" stage of infertility. I felt like a furtive college student picking these up at the pharmacy. Oh my goodness, the pharmacist knows I'm having sex!

aviary, day 1

is our new house ready yet?

Sitting in the store, it didn't look like a lot of lumber. Sitting on the front porch, it still really doesn't look like all that much. But loading it into two rolling carts, then loading it into a rented gigantic home depot truck, then unloading it onto the front porch: there is a lot of lumber. Not visible are the 8 sheets of plywood that are around the other side of the porch. They were out of the 4-inch T-1-11 plywood siding that I wanted, so there are still four more sheets to buy. Plus all of the 1/2" hardware mesh for the bottom two feet of the walls, and the bigger livestock mesh for the rest of the walls. Plus some more incidentals I'm sure.

trust me, that is a lot of wood.

Charlie tried to give me perspective by reminding me that I'm pretty much building a one car garage. Perhaps after this I'll be able to build our garage someday instead of hiring a contractor. Then again, after this I may just want to sit in a lawn chair with a glass of bourbon and *watch* a contractor build the garage.


We got all of the wood home and Charlie went off to work. I got my work area ready and will start tomorrow. Today was an unusual sunny fall day and I took advantage of that to set up my foul-weather work station. The front porch will be best, so I rigged up a tarp that I'll pull up whenever I'm working under it. For now it's got one end tethered down to provide easier rain run-off. My primary and spare drill batteries are charged, and I have all of my various boxes of screws and nails for toenailing, and other nails for regular use. Now I just need steroids.

must enter hot tub tonight.

Since it was nice, I tried to get the other side of the house cleaned up a bit. Just need to borrow a pressure washer to clean off the patio and it will be all set.

Gladys beams up to the mother ship

fall

I woke up yesterday morning to see that about half of the leaves in the front yard had fallen all at once. Must have been a windy night, and it meant that I had to get out there and do some serious raking. I learned last year that if I don't keep up with the leaves our entire property becomes covered in an impenetrable slime of heavy thick maple leaves. Fall here means rain. We have lots of trees, and most of them are broadleaf maples. Beautiful shady trees in the summer, enormously tall, but their leaves are oh so very broad. Each tree has about a bajillion of them and when they fall they are like dragon scales.

It hadn't yet started raining, so I was able to get out there with my rake and my leaf-dragging tarp and get most of the front yard uncovered. Thursday night there's supposed to be a wind storm, and that should send the remaining leaves plummeting. I see more raking in Friday's future!


We also had yard visitors. Two adolescent deer meandering from back to front yard. I managed to take a picture of one of the ladies.


I worked all day on Monday on those coop plans, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and listening to classical music. The turkeys were antsy so I decided to let them have the run of the kitchen. It took them a while to get the hang of wood floors. They tried to keep playing their flapping games and their legs would fly out from under them and they'd plop onto the floor. Today or tomorrow I'm going to try to move them outside to the coop. It's chilly out, but with a heat lamp in one corner they should be ok. I will miss their cacophony in the kitchen, but will not miss their turkey smell. Oi.

new aviary

the aviary plot, before

Charlie says he knew it was necessary after our first batch of chickens got killed. I held out through a few more brutal slayings, but now have come to realize that if we are to have poultry it can't be free range. And since we have two adolescent turkeys in the kitchen who are almost big enough to live outside, it has to be built soon.

Today was a lovely sunny day and Charlie helped me clear the plot of land for the new aviary. I wanted to be able to see the chickens from the house, and have them be close enough that they didn't feel isolated out in the woods. We picked a spot right next to the driveway. Once it's built, you'll be able to see the chickens from the living room, dining room, and our bedroom windows. And the front porch, of course. The location seems to get some nice sun, and there are enough trees on three sides to provide a bit of a wind- and rain-break.

bunyan action

There were only three major botanical obstacles: a big but scraggly pine tree, a scrawny rhododendron, and a big bushy azalea. We've got so many of those things all around the yard that I wasn't too pained about digging them up. Charlie channeled his inner paul bunyan and eschewed the chainsaw in favor of the axe. He felled the big pine tree and then we both stripped the branches off and dragged everything over behind the shed and into the ravine ("nature's compost bin").

the aviary plot, mostly cleared

Then we just had to rip up a bunch of brambles and one gigantic fern and it was cleared. Gladys hung out with us the entire time. At one point she decided to dig a hole next to where Charlie had laid the axe and have a furious dust bath.

dirt flies!

what are you looking at? I'm just sitting here.

Now that Charlie has finished the preliminary design sketch, I have to figure out how to build the thing. The ground isn't perfectly level, so if any of you out there have experience with pouring concrete to set posts, I would love help with how to build the foundation frame. Hopefully I'll be done within a month, before we leave for Australia.

Lovely, lovely fall

First of all, happy birthday to Charlie's brand new niece! She was born this morning at 6.30am. I can't wait to see pictures because I'm sure she is cute as a button.

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It's a sunny lovely day today, and I think I'll continue my get-rid-of-stuff campaign. Yesterday I managed to clean out most of the shed. I love Craigslist, because later this afternoon some guy is coming to pick up the rusty tool cabinet that has been taking up space ever since we bought the house. Who would want a rusty old tool cabinet? Well, about thirty people responded to my craigslist ad within 15 minutes of posting. I also freecycled some hose reels that I don't use.

Just get this extra crap out of my life! Preferably before the rains start.


The turkeys are growing, and enjoyed their first salad the other day. After much suspicion they took a taste and realized that it was good. They are still quite skittish and don't like to be handled, but I am sure they will come around eventually.

seconds after this picture was taken, the turkey overbalanced and fell off the perch. Always good for a laugh!

turkey palace

somehow they still manage to look small

The turkeys recently have decided that they would like to fly. This didn't work very well in their previous kitchen-coop, as there was no top. I pinned a tea towel over most of the top, but had to leave room for the heat lamp. Freecycle to the rescue! A woman on the other side of woodinville wanted to get rid of an indoor dog kennel size large. It is the perfect size for baby birds, and has the added bonus of a tray that slides out for cleaning. And most importantly, a roof.

They haven't discovered their new stick perch yet, but I think that is only a matter of time. Height is their favorite thing.

mail!

And no matter how nice email is, how informative and quick and effortless, there is something inescapably lovely about postal mail. When I saw the handwritten envelope in the pile of mail, I saved it to open last. What fun, to get something in the mail! Thank you Mom Mom!

catsup commitment

I learned that if you want to make catsup, you have to put some serious effort into it. Twenty pounds of tomatoes (mostly roma), slit and dipped into boiling water, skins sloughed off, squishy fruit mushed in hands to extract the seeds. For the love of god, wear rubber gloves because that tomato acid is a killer. Boil that in your enormous stock pot for 45 minutes, along with some spices. Make your eyes sting with the fumes from a separate saucepan brewing cider vinegar and more spices.

Pulp the tomatoes through your hopelessly defective foley food mill. Curse, decide to throw it out (it was bought at the goodwill and for all I know is missing some key component, a spring I think, which allows it to actually MILL the food). Put the rest of the tomatoes through the good old cone sieve (another goodwill find, missing the wooden masher which is obviously a key appendage, but I made do with a big wooden spoon).

Add the strained seasoned vinegar to the tomato-ey slop and stir. Bring to a boil, then move to the uncovered crockpot on high. The recipe suggested this as a method where you didn't have to hover over it stirring constantly. Well, there was no hovering but there was also no appreciable reduction in 4 hours. Switch to the trusty le creuset roaster! Put it in the oven, one of my no-stir tricks. After two hours, no reduction in liquid. Realize you have spent the entire DAY making ketchup and grab a tawdry but excellent used book that your lovely husband bought for you over the weekend. Realize that if you were not married you would seriously consider seducing Dan Simmons, just so that he would murmer the plotline for his next book of genius in your ear after a glass of wine. It is somehow sexy that his older work is gumshoe horror scruffy detective horror fluff. So delicious!

I digress. Read the book. Sit at the stove counter. Keep the catsup at a rolling simmer and stir every 3 minutes. Over and over and over. Eventually it is reduced! Happily, this coincides with Charlie ("the spicer") returning from work. Keep one small jar plain for future reference. Allow your husband to go crazy with the adobo sauce in the rest, spicy spicy.

Twenty pounds, one day later: catsup. Several precious jars.

Also: One hefty jug of fresh tomato juice. What to do! Well, make The Best Bloody Mary In The World, of course. Secret ingredient: Penzey's english prime rib rub.


Also: turkeys are growing slowly. Their whistling in the kitchen makes me happy. The larger is named Babs, the other as yet un-named.

two new family members

My drink of choice: Wild Turkey Bourbon. So tasty, so very tasty with two sugar cubes a dash of bitters and a crushed mint leaf.



You know what I also like? Real Live Turkeys. A guy on Craigslist advertised turkey pairs for sale last week. I wasn't really interested in teenage turkeys, but I did email him to ask what his experiences have been with predators and how his large-ish turkeys dealt with it. He's never had a problem with raccoons, which was music to my ears. Also? He had tiny baby chicks, unadvertised. I drove up their today, through two hours of godawful traffic, and was rewarded by a happy flock of Bourbon Red turkeys and miscellaneous chickens. The big tom was funny, strutting around and constantly gob gob gobbling and making sure that we knew exactly how awesome he was. Are they tame? Well, the guy walked over and picked up the tom turkey and cradled him under his arm. All of the teenage flock were way more curious than they were aggressive or scared.

Sold! I brought home two turkey chicks. One is nine days old, the other around three. They have been sleeping nonstop ever since coming home, so the picture is not the most compelling. There is no way to tell if they are toms or hens for the next three months or so. We'll have to be creative with naming. They will be living in the kitchen until the end of September, I suspect. The three month old adolescents the guy had were at least two feet tall, so they get big fast!

the flock of rambunctious teenagers, with dad at one o'clock

I am excited to have friendly hand raised poultry again, and hope that these babies will have a long and happy life.

sweet sleeping babies!