Tuesday, June 24, 2008
We both worked on the thistles this morning in the heat and humidity, some of the hardest work I’ve done for a while. Slogging through an uncut hayfield and then gingerly trying to gather – wearing two pairs of gloves - the thistles that Walt has cut with his loppers and put them onto a tarp to drag up the long slope back to the goat and sheep fold… there’s still quite a lot to do, it feels like we hardly made a dent in almost 3 hours. An important lesson learned here, that at Chateau Lasalle was just theoretical knowledge: don’t buy more land than you need. Walt asked me how I would handle this thistles in the hay problem and my first reaction was, sell the field! My next reaction was, mow it for a whole year multiple times without harvesting the hay, and then, get some donkeys to add to the sheep and goats and let them keep it trimmed after the haying.
At the bottom of the field is a fairly big stream, with lots of trees keeping it in the shade. Right now because of all the rain it’s a little muddy and a little too big for Reed to putter around in, making dams and such. But maybe it’ll come down later in the week.
I’ve started several projects and haven’t finished any of them but I guess that’s par for the course here. The onions are partially weeded, the thistles have been started, the chicken house cleaning out project has started, and we mowed some of the lawn this afternoon with the small mower since the riding one is still out of commission. The grass catcher fills up after just a couple minutes so it really takes two of us to mow, one to mow and the other to fill up the wheelbarrow with clippings and take them to the compost and the various animals.
Our lovely meals continue here, lots of fresh tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, homemade mayonnaise and hummus, Kate’s seed bread and lemon bread and macaroons and jam tarts, lamb ribs, roast new potatoes, roast duck, etc. etc! Our hosts were in town today and I got dinner and managed to overcook the roast duck but it was still edible, fortunately.
I’m going to try to get up early to weed, since I usually wake up at 6:30 anyway and then just lay in bed for a couple hours, not wanting to disturb Reed. Tomorrow I’ll just sneak out quietly and hope he sleeps late. It’s hard to get him to bed before 10 or even 11 with the light lasting so long.
2 comments:
How does Kate do her fresh tomatoes with balsamic vinegar/ olive oil and roast new potatoes?
Ms Spuring, do the French use balsamic vinegar a lot? I notice in some of your blogs you spaeak of balsamic vinegar a great deal.
Thank You,
Tracy
Tracy - the way we've been doing fresh tomatoes and fresh cooked cold green beans is just with a mixture of 1 part balsamic vinegar to 3 parts olive oil, mixed with a bit of finely diced onion or shallot. You could add some fresh minced herbs too, like tarragon or basil.
Balsamic vinegar is very dark and fairly sweet while still being acidic - so it makes a lovely zingy vinaigrette to go with fresh garden veggies. I still need to find out its history to tell you but I do know that balsamic vinegar is popular enough in the US that you ought to be able to find it at almost any big grocery store. Whether or not the brand they've got is very high quality is less sure, but if you go to a slightly upscale grocery store you ought to find some that's good. I'll find out more and write about it when I do...
Roast potatoes: scrub new potatoes and cut them roughly into two inch chunks and boil them in water on the stove until just tender. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Then put the potatoes in a ceramic baking dish and coat them with melted goose or duck fat - either saved from roasting a duck or purchased special in a can or jar. You can substitute olive oil instead and they will be good but the best fat for potatoes is definitely goose or duck. Sprinkle potatoes generously with salt and pepper. Roast uncovered until browned and crispy on the outside and serve piping hot. Yum!!
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