September

There is definitely a nip in the air.

That crisp cool snap signalling fall bonfire, apple cider, and walks down lanes lit with changing leaves...

It is my most favorite time of year. I usually launch into a bread baking to celebrate.

The butternut squashes seem to be impervious to the squash beetle population that has taken over the field...and I look forward to turning them into creamy soups to succor us in these last few weeks of the growing season.

We will be sheering the sheep soon...and turning out efforts to carding their fleeces...and other domestic magic.

Recently we were so caught up in packing for our coming move, harvesting the last crops of vegetables, and making plans for the Fall butchering...I found that I was hurrying the days by without a thought to their value...I was tizzying on to the next important thing...until our little Una fractured her skull, and we landed in the hospital for 4 days. The ICU does wonders for one's sense of gratitude and acceptance. Suddenly the moments became precious...the present became monumental...and time stood still...

As our little one recovers, she daily confronts the frustration of not having the same balance and motor skills she has just one week ago...but the rituals and rhythms of old fashioned kitchen work has her quite content for hours on end...I am grateful for the work to do with her, mixing the dough for baguettes...and using tried and true stretch and fold techniques...

there is a kind of therapy in salting cheeses, and making yogurt...

The gift of work: waking up in the morning to tasks with which to busy your hands, tasks that directly add to and supply your daily needs...it is a poverty indeed which has us paying our way out of kneading our own dough, simmering our own broth, coagulating our own milk, and chopping wood for our own heat...what pleasures we seal ourselves off from with our conveniences and ready cash!

Last night, after the children were snug in their beds, I tiptoed out into the dark and brought in from the cooler this week's batch of goat cheeses. Caring for cheese is something of an intimate thing after all...

It is well known that Nubians are the drama queens of the dairy goat world...their plaintive cries are pathetic and human-like as they let all the world know that they are a. ready to be milked, or b. cold and wet, or c. desirous of treats, or d. not euphoric....

I am well aware that Lupe and Zita are softies...but I spoil them anyway because they give us the creamiest milk! It is the height of decadence to be able to reach into the fridge and pull out chevre to stash in omelets, or sprinkle liberally over salads...goat's can thrive on poor pastures...provided with woods...and their milk can be digested in 30 minutes- versus the 3 hours it takes our bodies to digest cow's milk. A most excellent animal, even if prone to very vocal complaining and too dashedly clever for their own good!