Merry Christmas!

A beautiful cold, crisp, sunny, winter day here on the homestead. We went goose hunting together this morning. Colleen brought her knitting. Kind of made for a funny image. Later we had a meeting about a business plan and vision for the farm. We discussed how to make the farmer's market our "summer jobs" when the teaching year is over. We came up with a list of what we wanted to grow and sell. Both vegetables and value added products. We narrowed down the list of names for the farm to just a couple.

Then we had a beautiful roast duck for Christmas dinner.


Duck a l'orange. First, I stuffed the duck with a combination of apples, onions, and celery. Put it in a roasting pan covered with cheesecloth dipped in lard. And baked covered at 350 for about 45 minutes.

While it was baking, I put on some garden Acorn squash and made the sauce. To make the sauce I combined,

2 tbsp. melted butter with,
2 tbsp. flour

turned off heat and added,
zest of one orange
2 tsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. of mustard powder
3/4 tsp. of salt

stirred and added
2/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup chicken broth

heated on medium heat until thickened, then stirred in
1/4 cup peach jam. (it was supposed to be orange marmalade, but we were out of it)

Stirred until jam melted, turned off heat, and covered.

After the bird had been in the oven for 45 minutes, I took off the cheesecloth and the cover on the roaster. Basted every ten minutes with the sauce. Cooked for another 20 minutes or so. Until bird was tender.

It was marvelously tender for a wild duck. Not "gamey" tasting at all.



Served with garden squash from our root cellar, and a salad.

Merry Christmas to all. Hope you had as lovely a day as we did.

Journal it!

As I mentioned in the previous post about the geese and their migration patterns, keeping a journal of your activities is an incredibly helpful tool. We keep a garden journal and a chicken journal. We keep financial ledgers for the chickens, garden, and capital farm expenses. We also keep journals for hunting and fishing, and one for outdoor recreation.

The garden journal gives us a reference point from the time we plant seedlings indoors in February to the point of harvest in fall. This year I was panicking that I was planting the garlic too late, until I checked the journal and realized that I had planted this late in some years past and done fine. We know that if we plant tomatoes too early indoors, the get leggy by last frost. We know what pest control methods that have worked and not worked. We know when we planted indoors, when the last frost came, when we planted outdoors for each vegetable, and when last frost and harvest was. This will help keep us organized in our endeavor to make money at the farmer's market.

The chicken journal and chicken ledger tell us how much we are spending on feed and fencing compared to how much we are making selling eggs. It tells us when we can expect eggs from chicks hatched in Spring. It chronicles loss from disease and what we have done to prevent disease and predation.

The hunting and fishing journals tell us when the ducks and geese have migrated in the past. It tells us when the deer go into rut. We know where we have seen them at different times of year. We can see when the steelhead have come into the river and what patterns they have been biting on. The journal tells us what flies have worked on what lakes and streams for trout in the summer.

We have three years of journals for the Palouse. We are getting to know the seasons and the cycles of our bio-region. Life moves in seasonal circles.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Princess and the Pea

This is Daddy's little Princess. We have a thick, fluffy down comforter on the couch in the living room and she likes to burrow down and sleep nestled in it.

The geese and ducks have not been flying over the Palouse in the same patterns as they have the last few years. We keep journals of our hunting and fishing, gardening, livestock, and outdoor adventures. In the past the geese have flown by the hundreds in small flocks low over the hills looking for grain. This year they are flying high and just passing through. They have no interest in coming in for a look at my decoys. We've seen no geese feeding on the ground. Oh well, give it a few days, maybe it'll change.

duck trick and steelhead ready for the smoker

Went goose hunting this morning and ended up shooting a drake mallard. It was beautiful. Four ducks flew by my goose spread. I grabbed my duck call, gave a few quick calls, and they spun around, bowed up and came into my spread. I love it when the calling actually works.

We "wet" plucked the duck and will be making roast duck a l'orange for Christmas eve dinner. When wet plucking, you dip the duck into simmering water before plucking the feathers. After you've plucked as best you can, you still end up with a bunch of really fine feathers that you can't quite get to. The magic tool for their removal is a propane torch. Just a few quick passes with the torch will singe off the remaining hair like feathers without burning the skin. And ready for the oven.

Here is the steelhead ready for the smoker. It's smoking as I write. Looking forward to sampling some at about midnight. I was going to go steelheading again tomorrow, but the forecast is for constant rain all day, so I think I'll take a pass.

Quince jam and smoked steelhead

Colleen canned 30+ jars of quince jam tonight. I'm quite sure we don't need that many, but they will make unique gifts. It tastes really good. what, you might ask, is a quince? It is in the rose family and is related to apples. They are more well known in Spain and marmalade was originally made from quince.

While Colleen was slaving away in the kitchen, I was off steelhead fishing with a friend. Actually, we enjoy canning, so I wouldn't really call it slaving away. There was a lot of ice in the river and it was hard to find access that didn't involve scrambling across ice floes. Not wanting to get dunked in the frigid water, we played it safe and did the best we could. I didn't catch any fish, but my friend did. As he had to leave town, he gave me the fish to smoke. It put it in the rub tonight, and it will go into the smoker tomorrow. I use a rub of:

1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
Tbsp. black pepper

Lay the fillet skin side down in 1/3 of the rub. Pour a 1/3 of the rub on the flesh side, which is now facing up. Lay the second fillet flesh side down on that. And sprinkle the rest of the rub on that. The press with weight in the fridge for 24 hours. rinse. Pat dry. Let air dry for 1-3 hours. Then into the smoker at 150 degrees and apply smoke. (Thanks to Alton Brown for the recipe)

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith

This quote, by the Spanish philosopher Miguel De Unamuno, is the story of my faith life. I don't pretend to be an expert on spiritual matters. My idea of prayer is to sit on the couch with a cup of coffee and some chewing tobacco and invite God to guide me through the day. I ask God to help me be of service to others. I ask that my own shortcomings be removed, so that I may better be of service to God and my fellow man.

The other day I was overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. Life just seemed too much. I rarely pray on me knees but decided to give it a try. A sense of peace came over me and my mind stopped racing. I thought to myself, "it's kind of calm and relaxing down here." I have prayed on my knees on and off for years, but I sometimes forget the power of that simple act of humility.

So back to the quote, I am filled with doubts. I am an intellectual, and I what to see the proof and know the reasons why. Does God exist? Does God answer our prayers? What is God? Is God made of atoms and particles? Should I go back to the Church of my childhood? Would I find comfort there?

I went to a Catholic priest as a young man after many years absence from mass. We had a long conversation and I still remember what he said. He said, "you are more Catholic than most people I see at mass every Sunday." And he was right. I have a completely Catholic worldview. I am moved by Catholic prayers and rituals. Catholic imagery and archetypes resonate for me. A life defined by Catholic values of Love and Service calm my existential angst.

I doubt my faith, but in doubt, my faith is born.

Cheese tasting

We got to taste our homemade cheddar cheese the other day. I would say it was a success. It turned out as a sort of medium-sharp cheddar. Its texture is good and it holds together, but it is not the sort of thing you'd melt onto a grilled cheese sandwich. We had it on crackers with salmon, on crackers with salami, and I had some in an omelet. It was good all around. At present it is not a money saver. It is mostly just a hobby. At some point I'd like to barter for bulk milk, and later we'd like to have our own dairy goats. Idaho's food safety laws make it impossible for small dairy farmers to operate, so our milk supply is controlled by a few large dairy operations. We would love to support a small local dairy farmer with our business, but that is not possible. That said, it may be legal to barter or to trade labor with a local milk producer for some goat's milk until we get our own goats.