Why?

 Why do cattle lick each other?  This is Short Stuff (he used to be short!) licking The Bull, Duncan.  So I get the heirarchy thing - the herd paying homage to their king.  Or rather sucking up to the Big Boy.  I never think of cattle as grooming animals like cats, but I see them licking each other often.  I asked my 87 year old aunt, who has been around cattle her whole life, but she didn't know why, just that they always do it.

You Don't Want The Bull Mad At You

I went out to feed Mama Cow a bit extra this morning.  She is 18 years old, nursing a big calf and is showing the drain from the baby.  By the way the baby is 6 months old and she still patiently lets him nurse.  I don't usually feed her, so she wasn't sure of my "Come on Mamma" call.  Finally I got here into her special feeding place, but not without getting the attention of everyone else . Nothing gets by the bull that has to do with his herd and you never want the bull to be mad at you.  To make nice with Duncan, I brought him some extra feed.



I was surprised by the amount of curl in his horns.  I don't usually look down on him.

New Day Bed with Surround Views

My Favorite Season

The south pond is full this year.  












I brought in my winter squash from curing this weekend.  This is my best haul - golden acorn, blue hubbard, butternut, delica, baby pumkins, and more.  There is some squash soup in my future.






I found a squash soup recipe that has pear, maple syrup and sriracha.  The combination of sweet and hot was perfect.

Thumbprint Cookies w/ Lingonberry Jam (GF)

Things I Love About my Kitchen

We just installed this Rev A Shelf http://www.rev-a-shelf.com/ to organize the pots and lids.  It holds my big skillet and wok.  The part I really love is the lid organizer.  In the back right is my pressure cooker lid an lumpy unstackable thing.  And see that really big skillet lid; there is room for it and lots of other lids.


















This is my baking center - a pull out shelf for my mixer, on the right a fully extendable drawer for the flours, sugar, ect. and on the left my measurement equipment drawer including a scale.  Yes I bake using a scale.  It is especially important for gluten free baking.  On the granite counter the ingredients for gluten free Thumbprint Cookies - rice flour, sweet rice flour and arrowroot starch plus the ordinary ingredients.  I used lingonberry jam in the print.  The granite counter top is wonderful for baking.  You need less flour when shaping and rolling..

This is my open dishwasher and dish and silverware drawers.  I can unpack almost my entire dishwasher all in one spot - very quick and convenient.  

I'm Not Crying Over This

Last winter my winter gardening experiment turned out to be discovering how to keep plastic sheeting on the bed through the winds.  I say "turned out" because my original experiment was to plant seeds and grow vegetables under plastic.  The seeds never sprouted.  And the plastic kept blowing off.  I did find out that a long heavy metal pipe laid on the plastic close to the bed is the best method to hold down plastic in our high winter winds.from Johnny's Seed http://www.johnnyseeds.com/.  We did "improve" on my wintering garden project by making frames to put the plastic over creating low tunnels. 

















 This is what the bed looked like on one of our 4 x 10 beds that had a low tunnel over it.  Like I said, I'm not crying over it.  This chard survived through 9 degrees F and gusts of 35 mph winds.

The chard up close

New Growth on 1/11/2013!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look new growth!  No, I'm not crying. I had  my regular weekend scramble of super foods - ground beef, onions, garlic, tomatoes and chard (form my winter garden!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love it!

Wuuu Whooo!

One of the first things I do in the mornings is check on my plants and turn on their lights. I hadn't had  much luck lately starting seeds.  I was beginning to think I had lost my seed starting abilities or that soil blocks weren't the way for me to go. But those are spinach seedlings started 4 days ago.  Wuuu Whooo!  The package says seed  germination times of  6 to 10 days.  Spinach is a diamond super food for me.





















My indoor garden is doing OK.  Yes  that is a tomato!  I have had several and the taste and texture have been good.  There are tomatoes, collards, cilantro, collards and lots of basil in this garden.

I'm feeling good today because I got the greenhouse refilled with water yesterday.  Getting it ready to start humming.  I hope today to get a bunch of goat poop, homemade compost (yes, I'm proud of it being homemade) and Happy Frog soil amendment.  I need to harvest some vermiculture compost.  One of the trays is overflowing.  Then I'll have worm poo to add to each planting hole.  Oh yes, and egg shells.  Did you know egg shells are 95% calcium carbonate?

I'm in Gluten Free Cupcake Heaven

Chocolate Gooey Peppermint Cupcakes (GF)

Guava Guava Cupcakes (GF)

 

 

 

I found Gluten Free Canteen while surfing around the internet. http://glutenfreecanteen.com/  First I made her Pie, Oh Pie crust for my Christmas pumpkin pie.  I used rice flour, sweet rice flour and arrowroot starch.  I was unsure during the baking, because it smelled just like rice cooking in the rice cooker.  But the pie was incredible (my husband's description).  By the way my husband does not like pumpkin pie, or at least he didn't used to like it. I made two over our Christmas shut down.

She also had recipes for cupcakes.  I haven't had a cupcake in 1 1/4 years and sometimes you just really need that cakey texture.  I made the Chocolate Gooey Peppermint cupcakes 1st and the next day it was the Guava Guava cupcakes.  Gluten Free Canteen had the recipe for Strawberry Strawberry cupcakes, but strawberries are an avoid for me.  But guava is a diamond supe rfood,  so I made the substitution.  I follow a genotype food list from Dr. D`Adamo that is gluten and mostly dairy free.

Thank you Gluten Free Canteen.  My holiday was extra special because of you.