We could have had a barn-fire today.
By the grace of God we became aware of the danger before it actualized.
I’m still a little shaken, imagining what could have happened and how (whether!) I could have saved the animals had a fire actually occurred.
So very very thankful it ended so small.
This is Cream. Her twin sister, Sugar, was a bit more shy tonight and wouldn’t come up for the camera.
They’re only interested in jack-in-the-boxing when they’re being ignored.
Like when we’re making lunch.
That’s where the goats have been hanging out for the last week: in a tarp-lined Pack’n’Play with a shavings-bed.
They’re in our main room, so, yeah, the same room we eat in.
It’s the room Jay and I sleep in too, so it’s definitely been like having infants: their little (but insistent) bleating whenever they think were’ awake (and therefore should be FEEDING them, of course).
During break up of last year, our neighbors’ property flooded with the snow-melt, and we learned our land is lower than theirs.
I had noticed the rotting back-step and had attributed it to the age of the structure. Now I more-strongly suspected it was due to annual flooding.
Jay rented a mini-excavator and used the bucket to dig a channel along the edge of our property (there’s a road in the winter/dry season dividing us). The ground was still frozen, and the water was flowing fast, but he managed to get enough dug to keep the house dry.
Later in the year he had the same machine out again, and the difference between the two times couldn’t have been more marked: “It’s like butter!” Jay said when I asked him how it was going.
Aside from the normal reasons for looking forward to spring, I’m eager to see how this work will affect the run-off pattern this year.
GF meal planning is pretty much the same as any meal planning, but I’ve found it very important for staying ahead of hunger that would lead to poor decisions (that I will regret later) so I’m including it here and early as part of an effective GF transition.
If you need more detail, that’s fine too. I’ll have the basic forms this week, and more specifics from my own menus next week.
To Begin
First of all, download my menu worksheet (my loving gift to you).
Second, make a list of all the meals your family currently eats: Spaghetti? Meatloaf? Mac and Cheese? Chili? Sloppy Joes? Big Mac?
Don’t worry yet whether they have gluten-containing ingredients. The point at this stage is just to write down all the meals you know. Meals you need a recipe to make are fine, as long as they’re familiar enough for you to make at the same speed as the recipes in your head.
Once they’re on paper to look at you can consider what favorites are worth creating substitutions for.
Optional-but-recommended third-step: divide your your collected meals into categories (and it’s okay to put the same meal into more than one category).
Any category-designation is fine. I use main-protein (Salmon, caribou, chicken) and/or format (soup, 9×13 casserole dish, slow cooker) depending on the needs of the menu.
Having categories allows you to simplify your planning by narrowing the options of any given day.
Well, here’s Roc, age five weeks.
This could be the last time He’ll be able to see where he’s going until his first shearing/plucking.
It’s just amazing how fast their hair grows.
Why, I remember when he was just a little guy, eyes still closed and barely a gloss of hair to hint what colors he or his sisters would be.
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When Jay finished installing the stacked washer/dryer, it took some serious, one-time gymnastics to get out from behind the machine and water heater.
It wasn’t till we finished celebrating his escape that we realized a screwdriver had been left behind.
Elisha took the chance to go where no man would go again, then cheerfully informed us he’d be happy to stay there the rest of his life.
I’ve wondered a long time what to call this… lifestyle we’ve taken on with the move just over a year ago.
It’s something I’d consciously wanted for over five years, and probably on some level since I was a kid (what little girl doesn’t want to be surround by cute furry things that she’s in charge of?).
Okay, maybe the necessity of both components is unique to me.
But somehow a herd of rabbits and a flock of chickens is hard for me to name.
It helped when I took over the animals’ daily care (my good husband had been doing it all as a gift to me, but that meant the only time I interacted with the animals I was managing was during breeding and birthing. It felt too unbalanced).
We are in the process of planning a garden, and a rather extensive first-go, at that; but even the seed-starting is a month or two away, and doesn’t seem quite real.
Then, yesterday, we jumped at the chance to get our own milk goats. And now, with that addition, calling our place a little homestead seems legitimate for the first time.
We had a power-outage last night. Lasted something like four hours. [Okay, I checked with Jay and he says it was more like 2.5 hours. {shrug} still the longest one we’ve had. I think.] So we got to see how prepared we were/n’t for emergencies.
We have our woodstove, so heat wasn’t a problem, and our kitchen stove is propane, so we have the cook-top at least (the oven requires electricity).
With everyone clambering for food, I decided (feeling clever) to make pancakes for dinner.
But then was thwarted by not being able to find my scale
It was in a back corner. Someone else must have put it away. (Silly person.)
And while that should scare me into transitioning my recipes into dry measures (cups), I think I’m just motivated to buy extra batteries for my scale. You see, having learned the variation possible in each batch of flour (the 70/30 version at least) I prefer the consistency of weights.
So we had pancakes for breakfast instead. I took pictures 😉
One of the few things eating advisers agree on is the value of eating foods without labels. Foods that look the same (or nearly so) when you prepare them as when they were grown: vegetables, meat, dairy, fruit, even fats. Everyone may quibble over the best kinds of these, or the “correct” ratios, but all will agree you will be stronger and healthier if these dominate your food-choices.
None of these whole foods contain gluten in their original form.
In point of fact, very few “real foods” contain gluten at all. Gluten is a specific protein that only appears in a limited number of grains: wheat, spelt, barley and rye.
That doesn’t sound too bad, right?
If you have a “whole foods” approach to eating– the type where you maximize label-less foods– you are well on your way to going gluten free “the easy way.”
Shirley Braden of gfe (gluten free easily) writes about this all the time. I heartily recommend her blog for food ideas and encouragement for the newly
shell-shockedGF transitioning, especially her (PDF) tip sheets that include such hope-inspiring titles as 50 GF foods you can eat today, and 50 meals that are gfeGO. Benefit. Be encouraged.
The difficulty in going gluten free, then, isn’t the limited number of foods available. The difficulty comes down to relearning. New basics. New habits. Too many of our go-to food are contaminated, and most of the ostensible replacements are prohibitively expensive (if we’re being sensible) and/or a huge disappointment pleasure-wise.
Eventually, if you want to be happy as GF-for-life (GFFL), you’re going to have to make peace with your kitchen, and the amount of time you will spend there, for the rest of your life.
The food you make, the skills you will master, will strengthen you. You don’t have to embrace it right away, but prepare your mind for it. Anticipate it. Look forward to the time when the work that is hard now will become the invisible step to your new favorite meal.