Playing With the Professionals

     I have been a farm-wife for twenty-eight years and in the high pressure sport of livestock relocation I feel like I’m now qualified to play with the professionals.  I can block a bull, I can screen a sheep, and I can double team a determined calf.  I am my husband’s best female rookie, so when Joe was at work the other day and a call came in from a fellow interested in recruiting one of our rams, I volunteered to go down to the other farm and break it to the young buck that he was being traded.

     The ram was hanging out with his friends behind the farmhouse.  With a little help from an assistant, I brought all of the sheep into a huddle.  Game on!  I started shouting encouragement and making hand motions to transmit my intentions, but my star ram was more interested in his wooly female fan club than my frantic coaching.  Finally, we agreed on a fast break, and with a little pressure from the sidelines, the flock trotted down to the loading pens.  Then, I separated the buck out for the trade and asked the wooly cheerleaders to leave.  They departed, demonstrating a few high kicks on the way out.

     The buck showed his displeasure in losing his cheerleaders by intentionally fouling my assistant.   I moved him onto the sidelines, confining him in a narrow chute until he got his temper under control.  The cheerleaders, who were now three fences away, kept calling for him to be put baaaaa-ck in the game.  LeBron the Buck looked through the fences separating him from the girls and, with a six foot vertical leap from a standing position that would make any coach proud, he cleared it.  I shouted something that should have resulted in a technical foul as the buck took two running steps and cleared the second one. One fence remained.  Before I could react, LeBron soared over the last fence without touching the rim, and trotted out to the cheerleaders who welcomed him with a victory song…”Na, na, na, na.   Na, na, na, na.  Hay, hay, hay! Welcome Baaack.”

     The gentleman who was attempting to recruit LeBron promised to come back another day.  I nodded, but secretly thought that he might want to make a different trade.  No coach wants a player he can’t control.  But, the man did return and this time the pros, Joe and Justin, managed to pull off a win, controlling Le Bron the Buck until he was safely loaded.

   The next night, we got a phone call.  As soon as he was unloaded, LeBron demonstrated his vertical jump again, clearing a fence and loping to the goal: his new flock of wooly cheerleaders.  We understand that they were delighted to welcome him and since that’s what the big bucks are for, everyone is happy with the trade.

Tomayto, Tomahto

     The quirky weather had me despairing that I would ever see a ripe tomato in my garden.  Oh what little faith I had.  My tomatoes have produced in abundance.  I have spent the last 4 weeks canning pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, salsa, whole tomatoes, pickled hot peppers and green tomatoes, vegetable soup and tomato soup.  We have also eaten our green tomatoes fried and our big yellow slicers on home-made bread.  The definition of tomato heaven is in my garden.
     What are pickled hot peppers and green tomatoes you ask?  Check out Singing in the Kitchen for a recipe that's sure to please anyone who likes a little jarred heat in the winter.

   

This bowl full of tomatoes was one of three that I washed and prepped for soup.

This is my recipe for tomato soup.  As you can see, it's been used many times.

I couldn't resist including this picture because the soup is cooking in my shiny new stock pot.  I spent 20 years burning tomatoes and apples on my stove before I realized that maybe I needed a pot with a heavier bottom.  (I'm obviously a slow learner)  Oh what joy to cook in a pot that bubbles without burning.

Not a great photo, but I was rushing because the crackers were dissolving.  Soup anyone?

The chickens get the leftover skins and seeds.

There are still so many tomatoes left, that I am contemplating ring and run tomatoes.  Don't be surprised if you hear a knock and open your door to find a box full lurking on your front porch.

The Short Corn Thief

      When I was in elementary school, I spent a few weeks each summer on my grandparents' farm.   My grandfather was a peanut farmer, but he also grew butter beans, cucumbers,strawberries, asparagus, squash and tomatoes. Early each morning, we took our baskets to the garden and picked things.  Then we would move to the shade behind the farmhouse and, while the cicadas sang  in the trees, shell or slice or peel what would soon be lunch. Ten minutes before it was time to eat,  Papa would tell my Nana to get the pot ready, and then we’d head into the garden again and pull just enough corn for one meal.  We would shuck as we picked and then tote it to the house to drop in boiling water for exactly seven minutes.  I loved sopping up the pot likker from the ham and butter beans with Nana's cloverleaf rolls, but I always made sure to leave room for two ears of corn.  Slathered in butter and sprinkled with salt, it was better than dessert.

     That is why I am such a corn snob now.  Corn is best eaten within an hour of picking.  Every year, Joe and I  plant at least three rows in our garden.  We usually choose our varieties based on their days to maturity so we can eat corn all summer long.  The types that take only sixty-three days from seed to table don’t grow very tall, and last summer we noticed these shorter stalks were being pulled down and the ears opened and stripped just as they ripened.  I chalked our corn losses up to groundhogs or raccoons. In previous years our dogs had patrolled the pastures, but our new puppy, Luke, wasn't old enough to chase critters out of the garden.

      This summer, it happened again.  Just as we were ready to pull the ears, our short corn began disappearing, so Joe set a live trap. Apparently our corn thief was slipping under Luke's nose.  For a week, the trap was empty and the stalks continued to topple.  Then one day, I rounded the corner and caught the corn thief in the act.  It was Luke. 

     He’s a beagle, which makes him just tall enough to grab the ears from the short stalks and pull them off, toppling the stalk in the process.  Then he places the corn between his paws and rip, rip, zip… shucks it with his mouth.  When I caught him, he grinned at me and wagged his tail.  He had corn between his teeth and a cob between his paws.  He doesn’t bother the tall corn.  I’m not sure he even realizes it has ears.  And he does a great job of keeping all other varmints besides himself out of the garden.  I often hear him at night barking to warn the deer and coons away. I figure he's so good at guarding because he wants all that corn for himself.   So, next year I think I will plant a row of short corn just for Luke as payment for a job well done. Maybe I’ll even treat him to some melted butter and salt.