Muscovy ducks are often promoted as well mannered and lovable, the perfect dual purpose breed for small farms and homesteads alike. They are supposed to breed like feathered rabbits while maintaining a friendly charm, if not quite warm and cuddly. So when the opportunity arose to trade some of my hens’ eggs for 6 young Muscovy ducks I jumped right on it with my usual enthusiasm. These guys and gals were great. They followed me everywhere, ate out of my hands, posed for pictures…I was smitten.

Until puberty hit. It hit hard and drew blood. My blood. I found myself perusing the internet at night, guiltily looking up recipes for duck. That came after I was bent over in the goat barn, tossing fresh hay to the ladies. Suddenly something heavy dropped off the top of the haystack and landed on the top of my head. I thought a bale had fallen until I realized whatever it was on my head was also using claws to pull out my hair. Oh- a Muscovy. Of course. It had climbed up the stack when I wasn’t looking and ambushed me. Sounds about right.

Making my rounds for last minute hay and water checks by the light of my head lamp suddenly I would hear it. The wet plodding of webbed feet coming at me- then the strike! One of the drakes would grab hold of my pant leg, using its claws it would try to climb my leg, beating its wings…some kind of weird duck mating ritual. Then plod!plod!plod! More of them would come out of the shadows, determined to get my other leg. Or one of the other drakes. It didn’t matter. I took to arming myself with a long pvc pipe to ward them off. But they were steadfast and held on.

Why didn’t I re-home them? Or eat them? Because I had a plan.  I was going to collect the eggs for eating. I was going to figure out which ones were the females…but guess what? You can’t tell the difference between males and females when it comes to Muscovies. Because they aren’t true ducks. No, they are really henchmen from satan. I’m sure of that. And I didn’t have a place to put them on lock down while keeping them separate from my well behaved poultry. So I let them roam. Like a gang of thugs.

I found myself telling visitors- “Just kind of shake him off.”  “Give him a little kick. A big kick” ” A bigger kick” then I’d go over and expertly pin his neck down to the ground with my boot, ignoring the bewildered look on my guest’s face while we chatted and he squirmed. Eventually it became evident that none of the ducks were female. They were all drakes. Except maybe that one that chased the truck in the road until the truck slowed and it attacked the tire…we’ll never know now. Definitely not the one that jumped on one of my rogue chickens and snapped its neck before I could save it.

Well mannered? Lovable? Perfect homestead duck? If you’re satan, perhaps.

Satan’s Henchmen. More commonly known as Muscovy drakes.

Our family is trying something new for May. Eating the food that we have on hand. I took an inventory the other day and felt a little sheepish. My freezer was full of meats from our farm, produce that we had grown and put up, my shelves were full of jars that I had filled last summer and into the fall…and we had take out pizza for dinner. Again.  So I had another one of my “great ideas!” and after running it by my husband who was trying to stay awake(best time to pass new and off the wall ideas) it’s on.

What are my rules? Eat from what we already have in our kitchen. No take out meals, drive through coffees, running out to get “ingredients” at the last minute. Instead we’ll focus on using up what we have already bought or grown ourselves. Cool concept, huh?

But, being the fair minded person that I am, we have a couple of exceptions to those rules.

Sandwich bread.- yes, I know. I could make the bread myself. But honestly, my sandwich bread is pretty pathetic. I make a killer loaf bread, baguette bread, sour dough…but not a basic sandwich loaf. And since my son packs a lunch for school everyday, and since we are jumping in to something out of our normal realm, I ok’d the bread.

Fresh fruit for my son’s sack lunch. This one is probably cheating. I have all kinds of fruit that I canned into gorgeous pints and quarts. I’ll be using those up, just not in his school lunches.

The other exception- drive through coffee for my husband on his work nights. I will be giving up my habit of an Americano with cream because I can make a better one at home, and with actual real cream from my own cows. But my husband has a crazy work schedule, and if a drive through coffee keeps him awake and alive then that’s ok by me.

I’m hoping that this challenge will get our family into the routine of cooking home made meals, from scratch. I don’t want it to be an activity that makes everyone so miserable that it fails before we even launch. It will also help me clear out space for all of the food that we will be growing and harvesting this season.

It’s crazy that I have access to so much wonderful food simply because I am a farmer, but that I still eat out more meals than I make at home each month. I think I fell into a pattern of being so “busy” farming, that I didn’t leave enough time to prepare all of that wonderful food and actually eat it every day.  And, I actually love cooking. A shift in priorities is needed.

Challenges that we are going to face:

We love to celebrate milestones by going out to eat. This month we have several of those that are going to take some special planning. Our oldest daughter is graduating after four long years studying to become an RN. Normally we would let her choose a restaurant to celebrate. This time she gets to choose a special meal that we make from scratch, at home. Our other daughter is coming back home after her first year away at college. She missed her birthday with us and again, we would normally let her choose a restaurant to celebrate. Even trickier, this daughter is a vegetarian…that is going to take some extra special planning to pull together a special meal that falls under our May challenge, without running out to buy ingredients.  And finally, we have an uncle coming to visit for a week all the way from the East Coast. Poor guy. He had no idea.

So that’s it. My crazy May Challenge. Care to join me?

……and she doesn’t love me!
Everyone has been there- things are going great, the sun is shining, the mud is drying up, the cows are all polite and grateful…then there is the ONE. The ONE cow who has to bungle things up for everyone. It starts of pretty innocuous- she tilts her head at you when you call her in to milk. She hesitates just fleetingly before she comes in to the stall.

Then she sniffs at the bucket of treats…starts to back out of the stall. Then next thing you know, you’re presenting her with a tilted bucket before she crosses the threshold of the stall. Like a waiter at a fine restaurant.. “Would the lady like some dessert?” and “Does the grain please the lady today?”

But because the lady is a complete pig and throws grain all around the farm while she eats, you have to snatch the bucket away at the very last minute, capture her head in the head gate and hold off on treats until milking is over. And because the lady eats like a rabid dog she has to be the last one in the stand for milking.

But the lady isn’t just a glutton. No, she’s also clever. And after months and months of being tricked at the last minute she finally begins to put it together. She isn’t getting that bucket of treats when her owner tilts it her way. So she balks. She isn’t going to come in the stall no matter what. No offering is good enough. No sweet words can cajole her. She just chews and looks at you.

And she is a strategist. She knows that you can never cross that “pond” that separates the two of you. You will sink to your neck if you even try. So she sashays around and around and around the edge. And she chews and looks at you.

So you throw your hands up, clean up and lock up. You’re done. Until two hours later when you head out with your head lamp. And start all over again. “Does the lady care for some dessert? Does the grain please the lady?”

And again, a few hours later when you should be tucked into bed dreaming about the olden days when life was good and the cows were all polite and grateful. But instead you’re squaring off with the ONE.

So today, I don’t love my cow and I don’t think she loves me either. But, I did win. This time.

This past week of snow & ice has been a rough one. We’ve had to deal with frozen water lines, hauling five gallon buckets of warm water to all the livestock. Moving hay ahead of time to feed the dairy cows. Our hay barn is on the opposite side of the property from where we milk and feed the girls. Usually it’s not a problem, but with all of the snow in the forecast we needed to move a week’s worth all at once just in case. And we barely made it. By the time my husband got out here with his truck we had already accumulated a good 5″ of wet snow. It made maneuvering around the fruit trees and bee boxes a white knuckle experience. Farming is strenuous work on a good day. But add a half foot of wet snow and your regular farm chores take on a boot camp work out intensity.

A week like we just experienced is a real eye opener. You can see where your weak areas exist and once things go back to normal it gives you an opportunity to fine tune. We know a hay barn right next to the dairy girls is a must. If my husband hadn’t been able to get that hay moved for me, I would have been in a world of hurt. As it turned out, he went sledding with our son later that night and hurt his back. It’s a good thing he added in a few extra bales to that last load.

This is where stocking up and planning ahead really come in handy. Keeping your pantry full for humans and animals alike is more than just a good idea. It makes the difference between a full belly and hunger. While we were “stuck” at the farm we didn’t need to worry about trying to make a dangerous drive in to town to pick up bags of livestock feed (or human groceries). We had already stocked all the barrels and topped them off before the first snowflake fell. Having been through a week like this not too long ago, I had an idea of what to expect. I’d gathered a long watering hose and adapter so I could attach it to the hot water heater in my milk shed. By doing that I was able to provide warm water directly into a spare water trough that I’d situated just outside of the shed. While the other water lines were frozen and no water was making its way into the regular troughs, the girls were still able to come up for water twice a day. And I was able to use that water to fill those 5 gallon buckets that I had to haul across the farm to water all the other animals. It was an intense amount of work, but no one went thirsty. We’ll be installing a second hot water heater in the pig barn later this Spring. That will cut the distance I need to travel in half next winter when things freeze up again.

Today I’d planned on making a trip out to town. I’d been farm bound for the past five days and was looking forward to a change of scenery. Well, my little car just couldn’t make it up the steep hill in my driveway. I wasn’t going anywhere. Except back inside. Because I keep a well stocked pantry, I didn’t really need anything from town. I’d been working my way through an old fashioned baking book, one recipe at a time. I was pretty thrilled to see that no matter which recipe I picked I had all the ingredients stored on hand. Peaches? No problem- I canned 30 quarts back in July. Blueberries? Yup- 15 gallon bags still in the freezer from August. Pears? Apple Sauce? Got them too. Canning and preserving food is highly addictive and well worth the effort to learn. It’s great to pop open a can of summer when you’re in the middle of a snow storm.

Back in the “old days” it wasn’t uncommon for several families to gather together and have an all day canning party. Everyone brought their produce and jars and working together by the end of the day everyone went home with a good haul of preserved food. Many hands making light work. I think it would be fun to start a “canning circle” of friends to share the harvest and make the time go faster while we canned.

If you’ve thought about preserving food but haven’t done it yet, here is a list of my favorite books:

Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving- this is the go to book for water bath or pressure canning

Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving:400 delicious and creative recipes for today-Edited by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine

The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest: 150 Recipes for Freezing, Canning, Drying, and Pickling Fruits & Vegetables- Carol W. Costenbader

Completely Revised & Updated: Stocking Up-The 3rd Edition of The Classic Preserving Guide-Carol Hupping & the Staff of the Rodale Food Center (this gem also has a section on dairy)

(Snow on the Far Barn)

It’s no secret that I don’t like the snow. I grew up in the mid-west and always knew I’d move to greener pastures. Literally. So here we are on Day 2 of Oregon’s Snow Storm 2014. It certainly doesn’t compare to the snow I had growing up. But I am still just as disenchanted with snow now as I was back then.

(Snow on the Garlic & Herb Beds)

It seems most of the people I know are pretty excited about the last couple of snow days. I think your outlook is different if you work outside with animals every day. But, I’m trying to find some beauty in the snowy landscape so I don’t ruin the fun for everyone else.

(The Dike Water)

(Cottage Garden Gate)

I just have to remember that there is green somewhere under all that white. And before we know it the snow will have given away to mud and that will give away to green shoots of spring. I may not find beauty in the snow itself, but there is certainly beauty in the cycle of life.