Feta

Close your eyes and cast your mind back a few thousand years. You're stirring a vat of milk over a fire, and someone walking by accidently drops in the stomach from a just-slaughtered calf. (I'm sure you could make up an interesting if implausible story to explain that.) And a miracle happens: cheese is born!

There were no calves or camp fires here this week, but I am happy to announce the birth (or coagulation?) of the first Mucky Boots cheese. Yes, we made cheese! Goat's milk feta, to be precise.

Our interest was piqued by our friend Rebecca who began making hard cheeses a few months ago. She has had us over for a couple of cheese-making experiences in the last few weeks, and we came out of them with the confidence to try it on our own.

So I ordered a couple of different cultures (one for feta and one for chevre) and some rennet from Glengarry Cheesemaking, and sourced some local goat's milk just in time for a visit from my dad. Put a Math teacher, a Science teacher and an engineer in the kitchen with pots and thermometers and bacterial cultures, and for sure something interesting will happen!

We followed a recipe from here, but basically this is what happens:

Step #1: Gently heat the milk, add the culture, and let it sit for an hour.

Step #2: Add the rennet, stir, and let it sit for 40 minutes. [Our rennet came as liquid in a dropper bottle, which made me wonder how folks a hundred years ago would have done it. If I remember Laura Ingalls Wilder's account correctly, her ma got a piece of calf's stomach from a neighbour. But does that mean people only had cheese when a calf was slaughtered? It turns out people would dry pieces of the stomach and reconstitute it when it was time for cheese making. Go figure...]

Step #3: Cut the curd and let rest for 10 minutes. During this time the curds will start to release the whey.

Step #4: Hold at a constant heat and stir gently for 45 minutes. This "cooks" the curds and makes them a bit tougher.

Step #5: Pour into a cheesecloth-lined colander and hang to drain for 24 hours. After a few hours we turned the cheese in the cloth, so we would get a more uniform ball.

Step #6: Cut the ball into manageable pieces and let sit covered at room temperature for 2-3 days. Then cover the pieces with brine and refrigerate for 1-4 weeks. 

Step #7: Eat!

We're in the middle of Step#6, so it will be a while before we know if the cheese is any good. Even if it's fabulous, this experiment isn't likely to be repeated soon, since we used about $28 worth of organic goat's milk to get a ball of cheese the size of a large grapefruit. Not so cost effective, but worth the experience. One time, anyway!

Swap

Something unheard-of happened on Sunday: Kim sold six cockerels at the local chicken swap.

You need to understand that this is the time of year when everyone is looking hard at the chicks they have bought or hatched, trying to figure out how many pullets and how many cockerels they have. We call it The Great Rooster Lottery, and the end result is always the same: everyone tries to unload their cockerels. Some people raise them to eating weight and then butcher them, as we did last year. But Kim was really proud of her boys: she has been breeding for size, and the six cockerels she brought to the swap were fine specimens - good enough to breed rather than eat. Kim was determined to find new homes, good homes, for these six youngsters.

She didn't have great hopes. Neither did I. When we unloaded the crates the folks beside us came to have a look. "Cockerels?" they asked, and then shook their heads sympathetically. We all know this sad dance.

But nobody factored in how compelling the combination of Chicken Mama and Science Teacher can be. People may have wandered over just for a look and maybe to ask "How much?" but they stayed because of Kim's passion and knowledge. And then they bought because of the healthy birds, and clean cages, and because Kim answered every single one of their questions - clearly and patiently like the teacher she is. She sold one cockerel, then another, and another, then two at once, and then the last one - all to people looking to start their own breeding programmes, or for a rooster to help protect an existing flock.

Woo hoo!

It was an interesting morning for me, too - a lovely woman named Kate came over to introduce herself and to tell me she had been reading the blog. How cool is that!

Older and wiser

I was pretty much new to gardening when we moved out here to Mucky Boots. There was one small vegetable garden a long time ago that my house mate was mostly responsible for, and I remember a few failed planters on decks and balconies. At our house before this one we had quite a bit of landscaping, but all it really needed was maintenance, and so I learned something about how to weed, cut things back, and spread mulch.

So I think I don't need to tell you what a steep learning curve I have been on in our three years here. I have learned a lot about growing vegetables, and a bit about growing perennials, but I think the best lessons, the most important ones, have been about the graceful embrace of imperfection and the ebb and flow of the seasons. And about the acceptance of enough. Enough food grown. Enough work done.

And so here are a few of the lessons about life and about gardening I have learned.

Don't push the season. When we first started I was determined to get as much food from the garden as I could, and that meant starting almost everything in the greenhouse. I have learned that a lot of time and energy - and money, for all those heat mats - go into all those early starts, and a lot of it can be saved by just paying attention to what the plants really need. By starting winter squash in the greenhouse, for example, I had it in the ground earlier than I would have if I had just seeded directly, but by the time the early birds had recovered from their transplant shock, their direct seeded cousins had caught up. Or take beans, as another example. They really need warm soil to germinate, so there is no point seeding them before the soil is ready - they will just rot, or at best sleep until the conditions are right. This can be applied to my life, too: sometimes, when I'm trying to force something to happen right now, what I really need to do is step back and wait. I'm not so good at that, but I'm learning.



Be satisfied with enough. Sometimes ten tomato plants are enough, and I don't really need twenty-four. Sometimes one bed of blueberries is enough - three would mean lots more blueberries, but also lots more work. Sometimes stopping to admire one gorgeous tulip is enough, without leaping to thinking I need to plant a whole bunch more. Sometimes it's enough to stop after two of three hours of work, even though it means leaving a lot undone. Being satisfied with enough is about getting off the treadmill of more, more, more, and sitting on the porch with a cup of tea and enjoying what is instead.



Enjoy the first blush of spring and don't be sad when it's gone. There is a magic week or two in May when tulips, and iris, and columbine, and perennial corn flowers, and lilacs, and wisteria are all flowering. Everything is lush and green, and all is right with the world. Then I notice that ants have got at the climbing hydrangea again and those corn flowers are looking slightly mildewy, and the tulips fall over and look blah. I've learned not to worry - the hydrangea will survive, and the hostas are already growing in leaps and bounds to fill in the empty spaces, and soon the poppies and lilies will steal the show, and then the glorious fall colours will start, and then the quiet of winter will come, and then it will be spring all over again.



Choose your battles. Creeping bellflower. Some of my beds are full of it. I briefly tried to eradicate it, but there's a reason it's classified as an invasive species in some districts: you can dig and dig and sift and think you've got every last root and rhizome, but an inch further down are some you missed that are already planning their comeback. Here's how I look at it now: in the early spring it forms a lovely, lush green ground cover. A few weeks later, once the stalks are about a foot high, they are easily pulled out to give the other plants more room. Of course that's just the stalk, and all the roots are left behind, but I wasn't ever going to be able to rid of those anyway (see above) so now I mostly don't bother unless I am planting something new and want to give it some breathing room. I see it as a perfect example of the 80-20 rule: in 20% of the time I can deal with 80% of the problem, but to finish off the remaining 20% would take 80% of the time. Get it?

Poppies growing in the thyme patch.

Give poppies special dispensation. Our first year here I spent a long afternoon ridding the rhubarb and blueberry bed of what I thought were dandelions. Turns out they were poppies. I love poppies. They are a perfect example of a beautiful thing that can't be controlled or owned: they grow anywhere and everywhere, and you have to appreciate them in situ because they make terrible cut flowers. Now poppies get a free ride here at Mucky Boots - I'll leave them in any bed they appear in except where I'm trying to grow carrots. It's good for me to have something in my life that doesn't follow rules or plans or schedules, something that can't and shouldn't be controlled. That's the gift poppies bring me.

What have you learned from your garden?

Tulips

Yes, it's tulip season once again, and once again I have an obsessive compulsion to document every single gorgeous blossom. I did this last year, and the year before, so you'd think I'd know by heart every tulip here at Mucky Boots. But here's the thing: I am positively, absolutely sure that there are tulips flowering this year that I did not plant and have never seen before.

I've had that feeling before, and only half-jokingly suggested someone was sneaking onto the property in the fall to plant a few new bulbs, just to keep my life interesting. This year, if I said the same thing, I would be only one-quarter joking. What's going on?

Take these ones, for example: simple white with a demure fringe of purple near the edge of each petal. I know I would remember these. I'm sure I've never seen these before. I didn't plant them, and yet here they are.

Ditto with these: there are three of them in a bed where I don't remember seeing any tulips before. Am I going crazy? Am I overusing italics?

On the other hand, some old favourites have returned for another year. So enjoy: here is the Annual Mucky Boots Tulip Parade.

Tofino

Did you miss me? I've been enjoying a wonderful week with my sister, who was visiting from Toronto. We went thrift store shopping, played with the chickens, planted potatoes, went to an auction, cooked and ate and talked and talked and talked. And we went to Tofino overnight, so she could get an ocean fix.

Since it was a special visit we spent a night at the Wickaninnish Inn. This was the view from our window. 

The Inn is on Chesterman Beach, which wasn't busy midweek, so there was lots of room for walking and thinking and listening to the surf.

And now my sister is back at home with her family and things seem awfully quiet here at Mucky Boots. Come back soon!

Auction

The move to Mucky Boots was the start of a new life for us. We swapped heels for rubber boots, days filled with schedules and bells for days that unfold according to the seasons and evolving priorities. Instead of being teachers, and only teachers, now we call ourselves chicken wranglers, food growers, music makers. We have learned how to start seeds, bake bread, make soap, preserve food, hatch eggs, build gates and make compost. I've done things I never would have imagined: jacked up a chicken coop, picked rocks at a quarry, won ribbons at the country fair, and split cords and cords of wood with The Log Boss.

But there's one thing I haven't done, something missing from my country-girl credentials. Somehow, I've never been to an auction.

We fixed that by driving up to Coombs for their annual spring farm auction. I had no idea what to expect, but this being a farm auction, there's weren't any antiques or art. Instead, there was a plethora of chicken gear (cages, nest boxes, feeders, waterers), tools (garden tools, farrier tools, blacksmith tools, construction tools, logging tools), and kitchen paraphernalia, including boxes and boxes of canning jars that were the object of a fierce bidding war.

I didn't buy anything, but I did come home with something invaluable. I learned the secret for dealing with all those perennials that need dividing but that I don't have room for - I just need to plunk them in plastic pots or old feed bags and bring them to the auction, because people will buy them. Sellers brought rhubarb plants, and mint, and raspberry canes, and clumps of daisies, and people bought them - $7 a pot for some nice looking rhubarb. 

Do I need to remind you how much rhubarb I have? 

I could pay off our mortgage.

Camp Mucky Boots

There is a wonderful fire pit at Mucky Boots, right by the pond. It is made from brick and stone, about 15 feet across, with a nice, deep pit. Until now I have regarded it mostly as a weeding challenge, because of all the unwanted vegetation growing in the cracks between the bricks. But last night, for the first time in our three years here, we had a honest-to-goodness camp fire.

There was one other occasion when we burned brush in the pit, but it was a utilitarian event in the middle of the afternoon. Last night was different. Last night there was atmosphere: dusk, then dark, then a starlit sky; hot chocolate and snuggling; and a background chorus provided by the frogs calling our pond home. It was magical.

Here's a taste, just for you. Think of it as the Mucky Boots version of the fireplace channel.

The Comfort Queen gives a lesson on priorities

Today felt like summer. It was warm, it was sunny, and all around us flowers sprang open and trees popped out leaves. It could - and maybe should - have been a day for weeding, and transplanting vegetable starts into the garden, and raking the winter's worth of pine cones littering the driveway. But Miss Petunia the Comfort Queen had another idea about the best way to spend the day.

Walk in the garden

April is half over, and just like clockwork, my annual spring arthritis flare-up has arrived - a not very welcome return guest. Fortunately I have learned a thing or two, like the importance of not giving into the urge to be in the garden all day every day because overdoing things only prolongs the misery. And that the worst feelings of self-pity can be alleviated by nothing more than a walk through the garden. There's enough there to make the most miserable person feel better.

The fawn lilies, for example. We're blessed with hundreds of them, in all the shady beds around the house. And this year it's a bumper crop, thanks (I think) to all that scratching and flicking and digging the chickens did before The Great Divide. These are spirit lifters nonpareil, with their gorgeous speckled leaves and the sheer whimsy of their slowly lid-flipping blooms.

The catkins of the curly hazel tree along the fence line have erupted, giving us a reason to stop and admire the berserk curly pandemonium. I have to wonder about what evolutionary advantage is at work here...

The huckleberry bushes growing near the coop are a favourite of the chickens - in the summer, once all the berries at chicken height have been eaten, Hector jumps up to grab more, then drops them on the ground for his hens to enjoy. And when even those berries are gone, Kim weighs down the taller branches with string and cinder blocks, so the chickens can enjoy every last berry.

Every time I visit our local nursery I'm captivated by the deep indigo hellebores they have. But I've been reluctant to fork out the money to buy a couple, especially since we have about half a dozen hellebores in the garden already. One, in particular, is blooming abundantly this year, working hard to show it can stand up to its showier cousins at the nursery.

I think this is a spirea. I love its colour, especially in the sea of green this time of year. We have a few shrubs in the woodland part of the garden, and they're letting us know they're feeling neglected and a bit crowded out by ferns and salal. Transplanting might be in order.

No, Frankie is not a plant in the garden, but he makes my heart happier than one. Unfortunately he's having a sore April, too, because of what might be a pinched nerve in his neck. So he and I are laying low together, content in the knowledge there will still be gardens to play in and balls to catch when we're feeling better.

A gardener's apology

This is our fourth spring here, and it has taken me that long to develop an understanding of how little I actually know about gardening.

For sure, I have been diligent in my attempts to figure out what the heck I am doing, and I am learning all the time. But I think I am only just now at the point where I have learned enough to know how little I know. And that realization has grown hand in hand with a heartfelt appreciation for the skill and passion of the gardeners who came before me here at Mucky Boots.

Let me give you an example. When we got here I was irritated by all the valuable real estate taken up with flowering plants (yarrow, bee balm, lavender, daisies, poppies) in the vegetable garden. I was a serious gardener, darn it, and I wanted to grow vegetables. I learned to appreciate the beauty pretty quick, but it wasn't until I read my first book on companion planting this winter that I really understood the beneficial role all those flowers were playing, in warding off bad bugs and attracting good ones. When I closed the cover of the book I wanted to say "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" for all the times I rolled my eyes at yet another yarrow plant tucked into the corner of a bed. Not to mention the medicinal value of many of those plants, which I am just starting to appreciate.

Here's another example: I have just recently learned that most perennials need regular dividing if they're going to stay healthy and productive. So I started to make a list of the ones I should think about dividing ASAP, given they haven't been done since we got here. What was on the list? Rhubarb, hostas and primulas, for a start. And then the penny dropped - that's why there's so much of all that stuff around here! We have rhubarb galore, way more than any two people can use - enough that the other day the father of our neighbour, looking over the fence, said in a voice full of awe, "That's a lot of rhubarb."

Some clever person, someone who knew about dividing perennials, divided those rhubarb plants faithfully until she ran out of room, then started putting it in the perennial beds, where it makes a colourful early show, with a nice coarse texture that complements all the finer stuff we seem to have. But there is no more room anywhere, and so I am going to have to be even cleverer: I am going to have to start giving it away.

And there are beautiful deep purple primulas everywhere, giving a wonderful spring boost of colour exactly when we most need it. I know darn well neither of the gardeners that came before me here would have spent all the money to buy that many plants - instead, they came for free through regular division.

Now, everywhere I look, I see echoes: Siberian irises here, and there, and there. Lilies by the house, by the pond, by the chicken coops. More astilbe plants than I can count. Globe thistle in every direction. I already feel surrounded by a chorus of plant life every time I walk down the verandah steps into the garden - now it's like a multiple exposure, where I'm seeing the fruit of all the work done by the gardeners that came before me, in each of the springs that came before this one.

Now it's my turn. Rhubarb, anyone?

The great outdoors

Yesterday was a big day for the chicks hatched by the two broody hens - they began their acquaintance with the great outdoors.

The sun was shining and the temperature was climbing, so Kim got the chicken tractor set up with a wind cover over half, a heat lamp, and one of her newly built double nest boxes. Then we transferred the two mamas and their chicks from the special coop enclosure where they have been living, to outside. We thought there might be at least a brief period of adjustment, but the mamas immediately began making their "come get some food" clucks and demonstrating how to peck at the ground for grass and bugs, and before we could even get the camera focused those chicks were busy at work.

The parenting instincts of our broody hens are an amazement to us. Without having been raised by a mama hen themselves, they somehow know just what to do. They sat on the eggs, hatched the chicks, kept them warm, showed them what to eat and how to drink, defended them even from Kim, who has the bloody pecks on her hands to prove it. They didn't have to take a course, or read a book. And the fact that they are doing it together, sharing the chicks and the chick-raising duties, is a continuing delight to us.

Hatching eggs in an incubator is really, really cool. But watching these hens and their chicks is magic.

Wake-up call

There are clock radio alarms, and Mickey Mouse windup alarms, and discretely beeping digital alarms.

This is a Mucky Boots alarm.

Good morning everyone!