Lactofermented pickles I made last week

They're easy to make, and very tasty. My recipe is adapted from Sandor Katz' "Wild Fermentation":

• Cucumbers (picklers or slicers), enough to fill a 1 gallon jar as in the picture above
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• 4-5 fresh grapevine leaves (their purpose is to keep the pickles crisp. I pick mine in the woods near my house)
• 3-4 sprigs of dill (I use leaf and flowers, but you can use seeds as well). 
• For the brine: 1/2 gallon of water with 6 Tbs salt added in (I use quality Kosher or Sea Salt).

Warm up the brine until the salt is completely dissolved (no need to boil it).
In the meantime, pack the dill, garlic, cucumbers and grape leaves in the jar. Keep two leaves for the top.
When the salt is dissolved, let the brine cool for 10-15 minutes, then pour it in the jar. There should be enough brine to cover everything.
Place the last two grape leaves on top in such a way that they keep everything submerged. It is important that the brine covers everything, otherwise whatever is exposed to the air will not ferment properly and will spoil. I use two wooden sticks, cut to barely fit in the jar and crossed over each other, jammed in the mouth of the jar to keep everything in place.
Put the jar on the counter and leave it there for three days to ferment. Cover with a clean towel to keep out dust. The fermentation time is highly dependent on ambient temperature. At this time of year, I find it takes about three days for the pickles to start souring, but later, in the fall, it can take up to one week. The important thing is to taste your pickles every couple of days, and when they taste like they're starting to get sour, put them in the fridge to slow down the fermentation process. They will continue to get sour in the fridge, but at a slower rate than on the counter.

These are not the kind of pickles you store overwinter. They do store in the fridge for a month or even two, but as the fermentation process continues, the taste will continue to change until they get funky at some point. In any case, they're so good, I never have a problem with storing them because we eat them right away.
 
Peace

Clear

You know how some days everything seems so clear? Today is like that for me. I feel light and joyful. My body feels strong and energetic. I look around the field and feel good about everything; even the things that are not doing so well, they seem ok too. The animals are content. I am finally making pickles, and everything is simple and right.

A while ago I read something from Joko Beck that stuck with me. She said that we all look for something we hope will make our lives OK: a relationship, a job, the next vacation, whatever. She said that the only thing we can trust in is life being as it is.

I do not take that to mean that we have no control. But I do feel like we spend too much time talking about, thinking about, planning or scheming for the future, in fear or anticipation. Farming has taught me that past and future are indeed important. You need to plan if you want to have a crop at the end of the season, and you’d better learn from the past, from your mistakes and successes if you want to keep farming. But, once this is done, you need to move on, and just do it. Just farm. Realizing that there will be unpredictable factors, like weather, insects and so on. Realizing that you will need to adjust your plan as you go, that some things will work out, and others will not. Realizing that there is no way of knowing where things will go.That life will just be as it is. Just do it, without fear and also, without much hope. Just do it because you enjoy doing it, and because this is your life, the only thing you really have, and the greatest adventure you will ever have.

So this is something I’d like to teach my kids: that whatever it is that you want to do, you must go about it intelligently: plan for it, use what you learned from your past, and don’t spend all your time ruminating on those aspects. Spend most of your time doing what it is you want to do. Life will be your teacher, as you start and at every step, and things will go from there.

Peace

busiest time

this is the busiest month of the year. i usually panic and get that feeling of just not being able to catch up no matter how much i work, but this year we have enough data from previous years, showing a spike in workhours at this time, so i know that it's temporary, and that two to three weeks from now things will come down a lot. i love data, it can be so useful. by now we have a good amount of it, collected since 2009, so we can actually see some meaningful trends, and make some pretty good predictions for crop yields, crop timing, labor hour demands, and so on.

most crops are doing well, although there are some significant problems too. the basil got fungus really early this year, and we only harvested a couple of times before it was done. fortunately we were able to warn our CSA members that it was not going to last long, so whoever wanted it, especially for pesto, had the chance to get it.
the first planting of kale, which had flea beetles in the spring, never recovered. it's good enough to feed to the cows, and they do love it, but we're not harvesting it for sale. fortunately the second planting is doing outstanding and we're selling lots of it. the tomatoes are looking good and already producing lots. cucurbits are doing well, peppers too. eggplants are lagging again this year due to flea beetles. next year we're trying a new row cover to protect them, which i ordered this year but it arrived too late to use it on this planting. we'll have some eggplant, but i'm just not happy about how the plants are doing, and i know they won't produce much. potatoes and sweet potatoes are doing very well. raspberries are in, and peaches are close behind. there are plenty of apples on the tall spindle apple trees.

as far as food preservation, we've put away quite a bit already: strawberries enough to last all winter, peas and pesto; i'm also stocking up on cheddar cheese, which i'm making with Opal's milk and aging in our root cellar. soon it will be time for tomato canning, pickle making, putting away peppers, beans, and probably others i can't remember. busy time.

the cows are doing very well. no sign of heat since the insemination so maybe they're pregnant.
milking Opal in the morning is now one of my favorite things to do. I just love everything about her: the way she smells, the way she feels when i lean into her as i milk her, her beautiful eyes and long lashes... Olive the calf is getting big and her horns are growing. the vet is coming out in early august to dehorn her. i'm not looking forward to that. it's supposed to be bloody, and painful after the operation. i can't stand knowing that anything is bothering or hurting the cows.

we had a little bit of a rodeo again earlier this week, when we moved the cows from one pasture to another. Aiyana really wanted to lead Olive, and after much whining and crying we finally said ok. Sena was leading Jasmine and ed had Opal. jasmine and opal were very well behaved, but as soon as we were on the move from one pasture to the next, olive bolted and Aiyana ran frantically behind her, trying to hold on to the lead rope. i was running behind Aiyana trying help. eventually as olive gained speed, Aiyana's steps got longer and longer, and she took some great leaps through the air bravely holding on to the rope, until she finally fell flat on her belly and let go. she was not hurt. olive, now free, continued her run into the orchard and then back towards us right through the eggplants and peppers. ed was amazingly able to catch her as she ran full speed passed him, and that's where the circus ended. i don't think Aiyana will pester us about leading the cows for a while. it was a good way to teach her a lesson about why we said no in the first place.

i'm reading 'everyday zen' by joko beck before i fall asleep at night. i like it a lot, and try to practice what she says in my daily life. such a small book, so much great insight. check it out!
peace

Somebody should be pregnant, I think. The AI guy came but he was not sure either as to who was in heat, so we inseminated both Opal and Jasmine. Hopefuly at least one of them is pregnant. We'll have to watch for the next heat cycle in 21 days, and I guess after that there's a test we can do.
Glad to be done with that for a while....

An eventful day

This morning we were milking Opal and everything was going well, when, towards the end, Jasmine came into the milking area and started mounting Olive. Olive was nursing at the time, Opal was in the stanchion, and Ed and I were milking Opal per our usual routine. When Jasmine mounted Olive, she knocked her right over, and knocked Ed over on his butt, and the milk bucket went flying. This upset Opal who was in the stanchion, unable to move around much, and it was quite a commotion. Fortunately we did not lose much milk, since most of what we had by that time was in a different bucket, out of harm's way. Jasmine tried mounting Olive again until I got bossy and kept her out of the milking area.

Although this was kind of disruptive to our milking, we were happy to see some sign of heat. We've been waiting for weeks to see something, and this seemed like an unmistakable sign. From what was going on, we figured that Opal is in heat. We told Sena to stand out there after we were done milking to watch the cows and take notes on what was happening. Being new at this sort of thing, we needed all the info we could get. Heat detection is not always easy, and the window for inseminating is quite tight, so we wanted to make sure that what we were seeing was really heat.

In the meantime, I called the Artificial Insemination (AI) guy to tell him to get ready to come. After that, I got in the car and drove a couple of hours to Massachusetts, to get a tank with Mr. Right's sperm in it, from one of our friends who has the bull we want. Got that, and turned around and headed right back home with this tank of most interesting contents strapped in the passenger seat besides me.

We kept watching the cows on and off throughout the day for more mounting or other signs of heat, but nothing significant happened since this morning. This evening I decided that maybe Jasmine is in heat, not Opal, because she's acting weird and high strung whereas Opal is her normal self. In any case, the AI guy is coming tomorrow morning, and hopefully he'll be able to shed some light on all this. Hopefully we'll get at lest one of them pregnant.

While Sena was out there this morning with her clipboard, watching the cows and recording their activities, here's what she wrote:

Jasmine butted calf.
Jasmine mounted Opal.
Jasmine licked Opal's butt.
Opal licked Jasmine's butt.
Jasmine butted Olive.
Opal almost butted Jasmine.
Opal pawed the ground while pooping.
Jasmine mounted both at the same time.
Head fight Opal and Jasmine.
Opal pushed passed calf.
Calf smelled Jasmine's pipi (private area).
Jasmine butted calf.
Jasmine pawed the ground.
Opal butted Jasmine.
Opal did some repeated butts.
Jasmine mounted opal.
Opal ran and butted.

All of this in less than half hour. 

Farmy pictures

The hay wagon

 First heirloom of the season: 1.9lbs

Peace