Day and night balanced
Poised to tip the world into
Darkness or sunlight.
rural life
North African Salted Lemons
Salty lemons and sweet lemon curd…mmmmm.
My husband brought home a grocery bag full of lemons yesterday—a gift from a colleague with a prolific lemon tree.
When life gives you this many lemons, you have to be more creative than lemonade.
The first thing I did was make lemon curd, which is one of my favourite uses of lemon.
But when I was done with that, you couldn’t tell I’d taken any lemons out of the bag.
So I searched around and found a few recipes for salt-preserved lemons.
I was intrigued. We’ve been using more and more lemon in our savoury cooking, and salted lemons should be perfect for that.
It is perhaps the most bizarre recipe I’ve ever made.
Cut the lemons lengthwise into quarters, but not all the way through, so they fan out like a flower. Sprinkle salt on the fanned quarters, then juice them before stuffing the juiced lemon into a jar and pouring the salty lemon juice over it. Repeat with as many lemons as will fit in the jar. Let sit in a warm place for a month, then store in the fridge for up to a year, pulling out lemons as needed.
I’m very curious how they taste, and how we will end up using them.
And now I’m on to baking lemon cake and lemon scones, because I still have half a bag of lemons left…
Ah…Spring…
There’s nothing like springtime…
…to make you realise how filthy the windows are.
Not quite warm enough to have them open, but nice enough that you want to look outside more frequently than you did in winter.
Like most people, I don’t particularly enjoy washing windows. But as cleaning jobs go, it’s one of the most rewarding. Who notices if there’s a little extra cat hair on the rug? But look out the window, and the fingerprints, grime, and mould of winter are painfully obvious.
Unfortunately, springtime is such a busy time for me, I don’t always have time to clean the windows. I have to be strategic about it. My office windows are the first to be cleaned—I spend all day in there, and dirty windows are particularly irritating.
Next are the kitchen windows—I like to look out while washing dishes, but not if there are streaks of bird poo on the windows.
Then come the dining room windows—who wants to look through grime while eating dinner, especially now that it’s light enough to see something outside at dinnertime?
Bedrooms, living room, bathroom…they can all wait—I don’t spend much time in any of those rooms during the day, and I don’t notice dirty windows at night. Maybe someone else will wash them if I don’t.
Haircuts!
Einstein before
Today was our first shearing of the goats. The boys were pretty shaggy, and having trouble seeing around the mops on their heads.
Our lovely shearer was very patient and gentle with them, and made a point of talking to them and calling them by name as he worked. Newton and Darwin submitted quietly, looking like a bag of wool with hooves as they lay on their backs. Einstein was more indignant—he bleated the whole time, as though he was being tortured.
Einstein after
Of course, once they were shorn, they didn’t recognise each other, so they had to re-establish their dominance hierarchy. Artemis, the remaining dairy goat (still herd queen, of course), was offended—she spent the afternoon nipping them all on the bottom.
I feel a little bad for the boys—it’s going to be a chilly night tonight—but they seemed relieved to be free of the weight of all that fur.
Now I have two big bags of mohair…I suppose it’s time to learn to spin.
A List of Garden Don’ts
As I head into spring, I always try to bear in mind my list of garden don’ts…
- Don’t put the compost pile next to the greenhouse. The rats and mice go straight from the compost to the greenhouse, where they devour everything in sight.
- Don’t plant so many zucchinis. No. I mean it. One zucchini plant can feed a small village. Just don’t do it.
- Don’t put the pumpkins near a path. You don’t need to do anything to them until long after all the other crops are finished, so tuck them away from heavy traffic areas. Otherwise, they’ll take over your paths. Same goes for potatoes, melons, and broad beans.
- Don’t take zucchini to every social function you attend. See point number 2. Even your friends can’t eat all that zucchini.
- Don’t plant corn where it will shade the tomatoes.
- Don’t freeze your extra zucchini. See point number 2. If you must freeze zucchini, grate it first, and don’t freeze more than what you can use in two batches of zucchini bread.
- Don’t plant horseradish. Anywhere. For any reason. It’s fine if you love horseradish. But don’t plant it. Get it from a friend who made the mistake of planting horseradish once ten years ago.
- Don’t save extra zucchini in the fridge. See point number 2. There will be more tomorrow, and you won’t eat the ones in the fridge. Get a pig or goat instead and feed the zucchini to it.
- Don’t water before you weed. It makes for unpleasant working conditions.
- Don’t worry. Your local food bank probably accepts zucchini.
Homemade Goat Parmesan
Today was the day—the day to finally crack open one of the parmesan cheeses from last October. Eleven months in the fridge, and they were every bit as disgusting as they always are. Covered in mould, in spite of my efforts to avoid it, and with a hard, dry rind.
And as usual, once the rind was cut off, the cheese underneath was the most divine, flavourful cheese ever.
My parmesan is drier than the standard commercial block, a bit less salty, and with twice the flavour punch. It takes at least ten months to reach full ripeness, but it’s worth the wait. We put commercial parmesan on pasta, in risotto, and in pesto. My parmesan, we also sneak onto our sandwiches for lunch, or onto crackers for an after school snack.
Of all the cheeses I’ve learned to make, it is one of the most rewarding for its sheer over-the-top gourmet decadence. I’d say we live like kings, but I wonder if even kings get cheese this good on a daily basis.
Hygge
Definitely hygge
It was way too warm this evening to need a fire, but I lit one anyway. After two brutal days in the garden, I just wanted warmth and comfort.
Apparently, it’s very trendy. Just two days ago, they were discussing this very thing on National Radio—hygge—a Danish term (pronounced hooga) that means comfort, well-being, cosiness, and contentment all wrapped up in one word.
Taking care of yourself. Doing those things that bring happiness and comfort—a picnic on the beach, curling up with a good book and a cup of tea, enjoying a glass of wine with friends.
For me, curling up with a good book by the fire is hygge, and that’s what I’ll be doing this evening.
But hygge for me is also an evening stroll in the garden, after the day’s work is done. It’s half an hour at the piano. Lunch outdoors in the sun. Scones on Sunday morning. Milking in the dark at 5am under a sky full of stars. Morning coffee among the tassling corn in mid-summer.
What is hygge for you?
Captive
The siren song of spring has taken me outdoors
Against my will…
Or not.
And so, I will not write today
I am in the garden.
I will not post a blog
I am weeding the strawberries.
I will not sweep the floors or clean the bathroom
I am turning soil.
I am unlikely, even
To worry about what to cook for dinner
Until it is too late to do anything
But the simplest meal.
I am in the clutches of sunshine
Lured away by birdsong
Captured by the earth.
Happy Spring!
I don’t need the calendar to tell me it’s spring. I know it’s spring because…
The daffodils are blooming.
The office is full of plants.
The fruit trees are budding up.
Artichokes!
The grass needs mowing.
The weeds are out of control.
The wind blows hard from the northwest.
The dandelions are blooming.
Humming Rosemary
There isn’t much in bloom at this time of year around our place. Daffodils, crocuses, a few early daisies and other weeds in the lawn.
And the rosemary.
Rosemary is perennial here, and grows into a large shrub unless regularly trimmed. The rosemary in the herb knot in the front yard is kept quite small, but two bushes by the side of the house are allowed to range more widely. They’re about two metres tall, and almost as wide. Right now they are in full bloom.
And they are absolutely filled with bees. I swear, there’s an entire hive there right now. The hum is audible from five metres away.
I love to watch bees on rosemary. Not only are they incredibly enthusiastic about the nectar, but they collect the purple pollen, which looks really cool in their pollen baskets.
We’ve been talking about re-envisioning the plantings at the side of the house. The new plan doesn’t have giant rosemary plants in it. Watching the bees enjoy the blooms in early spring, though, we might just have to rethink that.
Robinne Weiss 