Cee-Cee, our Pygmy goat

It's only the beginning of winter in Minnesota and we've already had 34 inches of snow in December.  This video shows nothing of the snow we've had but Cee-Cee was out already complaining about it and how cold it was for her.  She's our Pygmy doe and we are hoping that she will have a kid or two coming in February.

2010 Barnyard additions

No sooner was Christmas over when we had to prepare ourselves for the arrival of our newest additions to the farm.  My dear friends Jen and Chuck had to leave their homestead (Duskwind Farm) and asked me to take their Scottish Highlander cows and the sheep (8 ewes, 1 ram).  In the above photo is the cow, Althea, and one of the ewes.  Below is her 6 month old heifer calf, Gini (Virginia).  Interestingly enough, Althea was a calf when I visited Jen and Chuck's farm back in 2008 (Althea, when a calf).

In December Althea was bred (AI) with Scottish Highlander.  The Highlander is listed on the American Livestock Breed Conservancy as a breed that is recovering but is still being watched in order to improve its genetic integrity.   As the name elicits, the breed evolved through natural selection surviving in the highlands of Scotland and it best known for its "hardiness, maternal abilities, reproductive efficiency, and longevity. Highland cattle thrive on rough forage and in cold, wet climates"(ALBC).   It is a meat breed that is especially popular in the northern states where they're going do alright with the snow and cold.

Gini

The sheep ran off of the trailer in single file and out to the barnyard and stopped in their tracks at the end of the yard.  They stood, quite dazed and confused, for at least a half hour trying to get a grasp of the new surroundings.  Once there was hay available they were enticed to come closer to the barn.  Some of these sheep are Suffolks and North Country Cheviots.   I still dream about producing sheep milk and cheese so I've got it in the back of my mind to have them (or some of them) bred next year with a dairy ram through AI.   Dream, dream, dream...

And meanwhile CeeCee (our Pygmy doe) let me know, quite furiously, that she was unsure about the new animals that had arrived and "camped out" next door in the adjoining pasture.  The goats and the new animals are sharing the barn but are separated from each other by fencing and gates.  It's interesting, though that the goats are now sleeping next to the bedding area where the cows and sheep sleep during the night.   They prefer their company rather than staying in their goat stall where they slept before.

Althea and Gini, summer 2010
Duskwind Farm

Gini is a very curious cow and is interested in the other animals in the barn including the goats and cats.  It's interesting that Gini and Tomás seem especially curious about each other, and they both came from the same farm.  Below is a video of Gini in the barn with Tomás.

¡Feliz Navidad!

Esto es realmente divertido y adecuado dado que aquí ya hemos tenido tanta nieve este invierno!

A Former Student Remembers René

For Professor René Jara, who knew that books were about life, by Anya Achtenberg (Department of Spanish and Portuguese)

A former student remembers our colleague René Jara

When I first began taking courses with Professor Jara, I was going through another round of undergraduate work, having discovered that I loved the Spanish language and its literature, and needed to know more of the cultures and struggles of Latin Americans. I did not actually know then that I was part Sephardic; I had not had the experience of meeting "cousins" in New Mexico who were descended from Sephardic Jews also expelled from Spain hundreds of years ago, nor had I had the experience of the caretaker of a synagogue in Istanbul taking one look at me and speaking to me in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language the Sephardim took with them into diaspora.

But I was indeed in love with Spanish, and a bit terrified of returning to school after a rough coming of age in New York, and plenty of blows telling me I simply was not good enough to learn much of anything. In secret I had been reading the poems of Neruda and Lorca, Vallejo and Hernandez, out loud, and struggling from page to page to decipher them. After moving to Minnesota from the east coast, I pushed past fear to return to school, and suddenly I was in René's class. And I kept taking René's classes, semester after semester.

This man could drink coffee, and indeed did. Way too much. I doubted he slept at all; indeed, who could, having read as much as he did? And loving every word, clearly. I wrote down as much of what he said as I could, and I know that he found those notebooks quite, let's say, complete. I don't doubt that writing out what he said in class has contributed to what I do know of the Spanish language. There are still moments, after years of having dropped the work to concentrate on the English language in my own writing of poetry and fiction, that my tongue is freed and my Spanish moves well.

What I found in studying with René was enormous intellectual stimulation; an infinite passion for language, for the complexities of texts and the mysteries they hold; a way for a fierce sense of justice to be incorporated into the hard good work of university teaching; and an embrace of all of his students, me included. What I found that was absolutely irreplaceable for me was a brilliant and passionate scholar and a master teacher who somehow managed to convey to me that I was, indeed, quite smart myself. This may not mean a great deal for some people, but with my origins, this was life-changing, and it is something I have worked to do and continue doing in my own teaching: to convey my true belief in the gifts of the people with whom I work.

I always connected to the things he told me about his life growing up in Chile, most especially that his mother was illiterate. (Perhaps my memory is wrong; perhaps his mother was college-educated, a teacher, but my memory holds this conversation.) I always sensed that he was speaking for more than himself, and his hunger for reading and learning was something I could understand from my own experience, my own background.

I cannot recall his support of the best in me, of that synthesis of the very cerebral and the very compassionate, without a deep sense of grief at the loss of René, too early, nor without knowing that this very thing, this support, is something he was able to give many more than me. He was excited about my work, or seemed so. He trusted me to translate a paper of his for a presentation at the MLA, although I was much more of a beginner than not. And he praised the results. He read my first book of poetry, published shortly after I received my degree from the University of Minnesota, and praised it as well, likely beyond what it deserved, perhaps because he knew that it was an opening to more, a synthesis of hard knocks and whatever gift of language lived within me. He wrote me letters of recommendation that were more complete and specific than I have ever seen anyone else do, even for their best students. I tend to write letters like these, I realize.

I left Minnesota, but every few years or so got in touch with René, and never worried that he would not remember me or would not welcome me. I occasionally visited, breathing in deeply the air of his office, and knowing it was food for someone hungry to go home to language and literature in this disciplined and joyful way. I brought him my next book of poetry. He saw the growth. He never failed me, ever. Neither in being a wonder to talk with, nor an ally in a profound sense.

I was so happy as he made a family, put on a few pounds. I remember those days when his diet of coffee and (I think I recall) many cigarettes kept him thin. The last time I saw him was before his surgery, and I was so happy to hear from him afterward, and imagine him reading as much and whatever he pleased, and spending time with family and friends.

My memory can locate in those piles of notebooks from René's classes a phrase of his lecture--perhaps his own; perhaps a quote (and if this is a known phrase and you have the source, please inform me!)--that poetry is: words searching for other words; palabras buscando palabras.

This phrase reminds me that René's words seemed always to be searching for other words on this poetic road, and that he searched for the poetry in his students. For many of us, his search was so skillful, so loving and knowledgeable, that it yielded up the poetry in our hearts and minds, in a language we had not known we possessed.

Anya Achtenberg
www.anyaachtenberg.com

Thanksgiving with the Overbys

Even though we were in the middle of a huge snowstorm we decided to travel to Kenyon for a Thanksgiving day celebration with the Overbys.  Charlie was here from Alaska as well as his kids Jason, Alyssa and Rachel, who all live in Minneapolis now.   It was a lovely time together!  Selena and Xavier got to know their cousins a little better and they also played some music together.   After eating some good food --thanks, Rosie-- we played a game of Cranium.   Then we took a family photo together pretending that it was a 19th century photo shoot, "everybody be serious!"  We all look kind of awful and it doesn't represent the mood of the day at all.

"Don't smile!"
 From left: Alice Bishop, Xavier Jara, Ahna Bishop-Jara, Charlie Overby, Selena Jara, Rachel Overby, Jason Overby, Alyssa Overby, Rosella Strandemo

Xavier's audition for From the Top's "Big Break" contest

Etude #8 by Giulio Regondi. Recorded in Antonello Hall at the MacPhail Center for Music. Filmed by Dan Huiting. Guitar made by Stephen Kakos.  
Recorded for the Big Break contest for From the Top

Marianna's Surprise Birthday Party

Marianna Lee

My cousin Rose pulled off the biggest surprise on her mother, Marianna, for her 60th birthday.  All of her friends and family gathered at Buca di Beppo and waited for her to arrive.  When she came in the room she had no idea what was happening and it took a full 30 seconds of complete befuddlement before it dawned on her what was going on.  Well, it was a wonderful evening for all of us and I wanted to mark the occasion with these photos, that I stole from Rose, and to honor a really wonderful woman on her birthday!

Marianna and Alan

Duane Lee

Ahna, Xavier and Selena

Debby and Ryan Lee

Delaware hen and her chick

A Surprise in the Barn

Delaware hen and her 15 chicks

The hay loft in the barn has been full of hay since the second cutting of the pasture in August.  We've only had to climb up there to retrieve hay for the goats so I hadn't noticed that there was a hen laying on a nest.  One morning last week I went in the barn and heard a distinct cheeping sound coming from the loft.  At first I thought it was from the bats that have colonized the rafters of the loft.  I climbed up the ladder and saw lovely sight: one of the Delaware hens was moving around the barn pointing out things to eat to her brood of chicks.

 I ran immediately into the house and shouted, "There be chicks in the barn!"  The kids came out with me, we grabbed some chicken scratch, and we sat up in the hayloft watching the hen and chicks running around for at least a half hour.  None of us had ever seen this before because most of our chickens up until now have not had the inclination nor the space to brood their own chicks.  Having the hen raise her own chicks certainly makes more sense than humans doing it!

Two weeks after the chicks were discovered we decided to move them out to "The Chick House", which is a small henhouse not big enough for our 35 laying hens.  We put a fence around an area where they can forage bugs and plants but not be bothered by the other chickens and turkeys.  Below is a video that I took of them outside with their mother.

Selena and Lena, the goat

Lena and Inés are our Nubian dairy goats.  In the video Selena is hanging out with the goats, turkeys (Bourbon Reds) and chickens (Delawares).  In the background you can see how green the garden was this year.

Homemade Yogurt

When people hear that I'm going to get milk from my goats they usually ask me what I'm going to do with all of the extra milk.   Well,  I have to admit that I am always a bit surprised by this question because to me it is too obvious that one would drink it and make yogurt and cheese with the rest of it.  We've been buying raw milk from various sources for the last 4-5 years and I always buy extra for making yogurt and kefir.  The best yogurt that we've had this summer has been the blueberry yogurt with honey added for sweetener.  It's really not that complicated and you don't have to buy anything complicated or fancy.  I use an old cooler and a heating pad to keep the yogurt warm.  And then I use a small thermometer to keep it around 95-100 degrees.

I usually use at least a gallon of milk for making yogurt; might as well make a large batch because it gets eaten very quickly!   I always use raw milk (unpasteurized, nonhomogenized) from a clean dairy that I trust and from a healthy, grass-fed cow or goat (maybe some day I'll milk some sheep!)


 So, to make yogurt, gently heat the milk to 180º F using a candy thermometer.  Don't let the milk boil or curdle on top.  It might take awhile for the milk to get to this temperature so put on some relaxing music or have a conversation with your kids!  Once it has reached 180º take the pot off of the heat and bring the milk down to 110º F.  Sometimes I have put it outside if the temperature is cooler than indoors for a couple minutes but don't let it get too cool.   Stir and check, and recheck the temperature of the milk which may take quite a while.  Don't rush it.  I look at slow cooking like a good friend that is telling me to slow down and enjoy the smells and textures of food. Hey, this is another opportunity to hang out with the people you love!

Stainless steel or glass container 

When the milk has reached 110ºF stir in the plain yogurt.  For every quart of milk add a tablespoon of full fat, plain yogurt (either a good product from the store or some yogurt from the previous batch).

Once you have stirred in all of the yogurt and it looks like it has dissolved in the milk pour it into quart or half sized mason jars.  You can use any glass containers but I prefer mason jars.  Don't use any kind of plastic because you will be heating up the containers to close to 100º for quite a few hours and there is crap in the plastic that will seep into your yogurt.  And, yuck... food in plastic tastes like plastic!  I avoid plastic all the time anyway.

Pour the milk/yogurt mix into mason jars

Cover the mason jars with a lid with place them in a warm place at 95º-100ºF for about 8 hours, or overnight.  Like I said, I find that the easiest way to keep the yogurt at a constant temperature is using a cooler with a heating pad.  The first hour or so I monitor the temperature to make sure it is neither too hot or cold then I leave it.

Cultured milk:  yogurt

After 8 hours check it to see if it's "set".  The smell texture of cultured yogurt is unmistakeable!  It's lovely.  Although, on a side note, my son gets nauseated by the smell so I guess it doesn't affect all people in the same way.  

Cultured milk produces whey which is the whitish, filmy liquid that collects on top of the yogurt.  If you don't mind runny yogurt then do nothing more.  Whey is very nutritious so there's no problem eating your yogurt without draining the whey ª.  But whey can also be used to aid in the fermentation of vegetables and grains.   My family likes a thick yogurt so I usually drain the whey and use it for other things in the kitchen.  Below is one method to drain the whey, especially if you want a thick curd.  Get cheese cloth and hang the yogurt curd in it for a couple hours.


Of course, put a large bowl beneath it to catch the dripping yogurt.

Yogurt curd in cheese cloth

You might only want to drain it slightly and get a runny yogurt.  Once you have the consistency and taste that you like, eat it the way it is or add fruit and/or a sweetener like honey or stevia.  I've tried both and prefer honey as a sweetener.  If you like the taste of stevia it is certainly healthier that sugar.  We love blueberries and it adds a lovely bluish tint to the yogurt.

"The Good Stuff"
@
The Good Farm

ªWhey is high in minerals and has been used for therapeutic purposes going back to the ancient Greeks.  It has been "used to cure dyspepsia, uremia, arthritis, gout, liver diseases, anemia and even TB ingesting up to 1500 grams of whey per day" (Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions)  according to, Whey Beverages by V. H. Holsinger.

With Grandpa

Xavier must have been 2 or 3 years old when I caught him and grandpa sitting together outside on the porch at our Ham Lake house.  I wish the photos were of better quality because I love these photos.  For me it captures the comfortable and quiet way that my dad could just "hang out" with the kids.  Note: in the background of the 2nd photo is his famous red truck!

Here is another one of my favorite photos of Selena with her grandpa.  This was in 1992 at a vacation resort in Perham, MN.

Jacques & Tomás, Barn Kittens

I've read that barn cats are the canaries of the farm.  If you have healthy cats you have a healthy environment for the rest of the animals, and for the humans as well.  I don't know how true this is but I do watch the kitties to get a sense of how healthy it is in the barn.  Anyway, in late spring we got some very young kittens from Duskwind farm and both Selena and Xavier take care of all of the cats on a daily basis. They are very sweet, lovable cats and are well socialized, which goes to show that barn cats do not have to be wild and skittish.  In March I plan on neutering them with Camp Companion that will do the operation for barn cats for a very low price.  I don't want them reproducing any more unneeded cats in the vicinity.  Having them neutered will also keep them closer to home and they will be safer if they are not roaming around looking for action!

Jacques

Tomás

"Gray cat" is a stray that arrived here, from who knows where, late last spring.  At first he wouldn't let us come within 25 feet of him, but after leaving food out for him he slowly warmed up to us.  Now he is a very friendly cat who has taken up an interesting friendship with Karl, our Pygmy buck.  Gray likes to lay underneath Karl or right by him.  Karl even shares his food with the cat.

 Poor Mathias is the original barn cat who lived here before we moved to the farm.  He's a very nice cat but he is pissed off that so many other animals have moved into his space.

Jacques, enjoying the winter sun

The MacPhail Guitar Quartet's Radio Debut

Above: Henry Johnston, Xavier Jara, Luke Banchy and Austin Wahl

This week Xavier's quartet is featured on the program "String Theory" with Kevin Barnes on Jazz 88 FM. It airs again on Saturday, June 10 at 2:00 p.m. but can be listened to online at: Jazz 88 KBEM

The Program:

Quartet Live In Studio- Allan Johnston Director

Ensemble Performances Scottish Fantasy by David Crittenden
Bach Brandenburg Concerto 6 Movement 3 Allegro- J.S.Bach
Solo Performances-
Luke Banchy- Mazurca Choro by Heitor Villa-Lobos
Xavier Jara- La Joia by Vincente Asencio
Henry Johnston-Chanson From Sonata 3 by Manuel Ponce
Austin Wahl-Schnee In Istanbul by Carlo Domeniconi
Brouwer Cuban Landscape

Austin Wahl

The quartet with Kevin Barnes (on the left) in KBEM studios at North High School in Minneapolis

The Gentle Executioner

A gentle executioner, that's me!   If I want to butcher the animals that I raise for meat then I want to do it as humanely as humanly possible.  I want to be the executioner that my chickens would request to do the job if they had the option to choose.  My friends laughed when I said that my goal was to be the gentle executioner, they thought I was joking.   But no, there are good ways and bad ways to do it and I did my research on the various modes of operation.   There is the chopping block (removing the head with an axe) hanging the chicken upside down from the feet (with wings flapping and chicken squawking fearfully) wringing its neck and, the method I preferred in the end, the use of the killing cone.

A cooling tank with thermometer and a stainless steel cutting area with sink

Death can't be easy for any one creature on this earth but I want to be skilled at bringing it on as quickly and painlessly possible as well as minimize fear and trauma.  Wringing its neck is instantaneous death as long as you are skilled in doing so.  The other drawback to this method is that the chicken is not bled out (the blood isn't drained from the carcass).   The same goes for chopping off the head; you will have too much blood in the meat.  So, it seems that the most humane and practical way to butcher a chicken is by using a killing cone.  It snugly holds the the bird's body in an upside down position so that the chicken remains calm  and still.  Because the bird immobilized within the cone it does not flap around and injure its wings, which can result in bruise spots on the meat.

Killing cones attached to building, propane tank for scalding and chair for plucking
AND
a cat looking for chicken morsels!

Cones can be purchased for about 45 dollars each or you can make them yourself from traffic cones as I did.    Here's what I did:

Things you'll need:

• traffic cones
• Sharpie magic marker
• screws and screwdriver
• Heavy duty scissors
• (optional) Two 5'-8' posts
• (optional) “Support board”: 8 feet long 2X4 plywood
• (optional) rope

*Purchase plastic traffic cones at Home Depot or Menards. These cones are usually bright orange made in a soft and pliable plastic. You want your birds to be comfortable and calm till the very end so, in this sense, plastic is better than the steel cones .    Also, determine the number of cones you'll need according to the rule of “pluckin' & coolin'”; the number of birds that are ready for cooling down in ice water in one hour equals the number of cones you'll need.

*Cut 2”-3” off of the narrow end of a cone. Determine if this is the right width for your birds by placing one in the cone and gently pulling its head down through the opening. Make sure that its neck (the jugular area) is accessible. If the cone is still too narrow at the bottom make more cuts off of the cone until the opening is the right width for your chickens.

*Cut the remaining cones at the same width by drawing a line around each with the Sharpie marker. Are all of your birds the same size? If not, make some of your cones wider for the whopper sized birds. To butcher turkeys you might have to cut down the cone by half.

*Mount the cones on a support board with screws attached through the upper part of the inside of the cone. To make things easier pre-drill a hole through the support board. Make sure that the screw is long enough to go through both the cone and the board. In the photo above I attached the cones to the side of an old lean-to. The height of the support board is ideal at 4' off the ground. There is enough room under the cones to place a large bucket to catch the draining blood from the chickens.

* Now, I suppose, the next step is to prepare for butchering.  I spent quite a lot of time watching Youtube videos and reading books on cutting the jugular vein in the right place.  Here is a good site to visit to butcher a chicken.  

This year we butchered only 12 chickens but hopefully by next year we'll have a chicken plucker and some more experience under our belts. 

Selena, the chick whisperer

The chicks are 4 weeks old today and up until yesterday they had been living in our laundry room in large cardboard boxes with heat lamps running from the ceiling. We had to change bedding (newspaper), water and food 2-3 times a day so it got to be quite a mess. (By the way, I would not use newspaper next time as it flattened out the surface and was therefore hard on the chick's feet. i.e. better to provide an uneven surface, like wood chips).

I decided to order chicks at the earliest possible arrival date so that we would have eggs in July and meat in the freezer or on the table by June. We have 50 chicks; 25 Delawares for eggs and 25 red broilers for meat. The Delawares are the friendly birds, especially with Selena who has a calming affect on them.
The light colored chicks are the Delawares. This photo shows them at 2 1/2 weeks. The Delaware is a heritage dual purpose breed. Because of industrial farming these breeds and their genetic hardiness and diversity are in danger of dying out. (See Amercan Livestock Breeds Conservancy ) The turkey poults, Bourbon Reds, that will arrive in April are also considered a heritage breed.
Last week I moved the adult chickens out of the hen house and into a silo lean-to. We only have 8 egg laying hens and one rooster (Cow) left from my Ham Lake flock but they are still providing us with enough eggs. So, yesterday the chicks were removed from the laundry room and put out in the henhouse. Now they have enough space to run and jump around and are already trying to hop up to the roost. Chickens have a natural tendency to try to get up above the ground and roost. I am looking forward to warmer weather when we can let them go outside and run around. There's no better relaxing entertainment.

Xavi's concert debut at Salon Se Léve

As the 2009 Schubert Club winner in guitar Xavier was invited to perform a program for Salon Se Léve; a local group that supports young musicians by providing them the opportunity to perform professionally. Xavier has been working on his program of 6 pieces since last summer when he was first approached for the gig. So, in other words, this wasn't just another typical recital but the mini-version of a professional concert where he had the opportunity to "pull his own weight" and take center stage for a half hour program (for which he was paid :)

The concert took place in the art gallery of the United Methodist church on Hennepin Avenue. We had to arrive an hour before the performance (who knows why) so we tried out the stage and I took these photos. (It kind of looked like he had matched his shirt to go with the chairs and rug in the hall.) The hall was filled with paintings. Paul Wirth, a local pianist and Salon organizer, pointed out that there was a 16th century painting with the first appearance in western art of a "new world" turkey in it. This was really interesting since the turkey depicted in the painting does not look like a wild turkey but more like the domesticated breeds that I assume came later. This is puzzling to me and deserves some fun research at a later date. In fact, that particular painting is located above Xavier's right shoulder in the photo above.

Below: a copy of the concert program.

Xavier played the "Frog Galliard" piece well but showing some nervousness. By the time he started the Regondi, (my favorite) I was happy to hear that the nerves were calm and he was making music. Boy, I love that piece and his phrasing is excellent. Right now he's still working on finding the right mix, especially for the coming GFA competition in June, but all in all, it went really well for him. The Bach "Prelude" was beauuutiful and the "Allegro" was a bit too fast, but not as fast as you hear in some recordings. So, the program was finished, Xavier took his bow and the audience rose for a standing ovation! Yikes, Xavier was NOT prepared for this possibility at all. All of his time had been invested in preparing the program without considering that a encore piece might be required. I wish I had a photo of the look on his face as he was trying to figure out what the heck he was going to play for an encore! Finally he sat down and played half of "Blue Shift" but had some trouble remembering it. "Sorry, I can't remember it", he said, and the audience laughed and stood up again. This time he bowed and made a quick exit.

After the concert there was a reception for the artists so he chatted with folks for awhile. We were SO glad to see our friends Jane and Geza Simon at the concert, and even more so to celebrate together afterwards at the restaurant Monte Carlo. You can see in the photo below how happy I was; good times with good friends!

Above: Geza, Xavier and Jane

Below: the Salon Se Léve billboard for 2009/2010 season