Sauerkraut: A Study of Life

 Wow it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I get really lazy as the weather gets colder. Everything gets slower as the cold air works it's way into your joints and fills up the corners of your house. Frost covers the plants on the farm in the mornings and I have to pace around to warm up my toes. 

This fall has been a time for transitions. I moved out of the cabin to a house across the river and recently accepted an internship doing environmental education in New Hampshire. So I quit one of my jobs and have been spending the last few weeks getting ready to leave. I've been living in Ann Arbor for over five years now. This place is where I learned how to be who I am. I'm excited for my next adventure, but also sad to leave all that I've built here. 

I've been fluctuating recently between impatience and anxiety about the future, nostalgia for a past that isn't yet in the past, and an extreme attention to detail in the present moment. At times I'm excited about the future and can't wait to leave, everything here seeming to move too slowly. Other times I'll start feeling melancholy while in the middle of a gathering of good friends, suddenly aware that the moment is a fleeting one and unable to fully enjoy it. Then there are times when I seem to experience everything in high definition, the colors of the sky as the sun rises over the fields coming into sharp focus, like I'm trying to absorb every minute of it before it is gone. Those are the times I like the best. When I am fully in the moment and truly experiencing the world around me.  

In other news, the fall crops are doing well so I decided to try my hand at fermenting! The kraut from the Brinery here in Ann Arbor is super good but also super expensive. Making it yourself is super cheap and super easy. I used nappa cabbage, carrots, colored beets, and garlic, all grown on Seeley Farm. The only thing I had to buy was the salt. 

To make sauerkraut all you have to do is cut up some cabbage and other veggies if you want, toss them into a food safe bucket or crock, then sprinkle them with salt. Find a plate that fits into the bucket and will sit on top of the veggies, and weigh it down with something heavy. I used a grower full of water. Apply pressure throughout the day as you remember for the first 24 hours. The salt will pull moisture out of the veggies as they sit. If the liquid isn't above the plate after 24 hours, add salted water until the plate is submerged. The purpose of the plate is to keep the veggies under the liquid so that contaminants from the air can't get to them. There should be some room between the edge of the bucket and the plate so that gas bubbles can escape. Cover the whole thing with a dish cloth to keep flies and dust out. Let sit for about a month, scooping mold off the top every now and then.

 And there you have it! Sauerkraut. So yummy and so easy! And so like life. You get a bunch of good stuff together, you let it sit for awhile, and hopefully something great comes out of it.

Baby Henry has been "helping" us out around the farm. While planting garlic the other day he helped us out by being adorable and eating dirt. 

Sadly the cauliflower didn't do so well, but there were a few beautiful purple heads that popped up. 

 

Growing things and Speed Dating

I finally got my first harvest of tomatoes last week! They plants are growing like crazy and there are tons of green tomatoes so I was really excited to see some ripe ones.

  
Dining on my delectable harvest..

We've been doing a lot of harvesting at Seeley Farm as well. Besides the usual salad greens, we've been picking beets, carrots, kale, chard, and green onions. The other day we spent 3 hours harvesting garlic. So much garlic!!!

This Saturday is our first "weed dating" event. It's like speed dating but way cooler because you get to help out at a local farm and meet people while weeding with them. It's an open event for single locals or anyone who wants to meet people in the area. Come hang out!
 

Farms, Food, and Summer Swims

Last weekend was full of farms, food, and friendly faces. I Also finally finished the market banner for Green Things Farm that I have been working on for over a month! They had a dinner on the farm made by the chef and sous chef from the Jolly Pumpkin
with goat meat, goat milk, goat cheese, and greens from the farm. They made these awesome goat cheese donuts with goat milk caramel sauce that were addictive. I had like four of them. They also brought a small keg of an experimental beer made with hibiscus and peppercorns. It was a lovely red color and tasted tart and spicy.

 A band played and the weather stayed nice for the most part, with only a light sprinkling in the beginning. They gave a farm tour and everyone seemed to have a great time. We stayed late to help clean up and of course to drink more beer and talk until it got dark. Around 11:30pm we all started yawning and headed home. That's farmers for ya.

 

Later that weekend My roommates and I partook of one of our usual summer traditions; we rode our bikes up to barton pond to go swimming. (I conveniently parked my bike to block the "No Swimming" sign) It was hot and muggy but the water was so refreshing. These days are what summer is made of. 

On Slaughtering Goats and Eating Lots of Meat

I feel like my life lately has been revolving around food. Between working at Seeley Farm, and working part-time at a grocery store, it's pretty much all I think about. A little while ago we headed over to Green Things Farm to watch them slaughter a few young goats. Being a meat eater, I decided long ago to never forgo a chance to see where my meat comes from and how it is killed. Last year I went to the same farm to help slaughter chickens. Killing goats is a little more intense, but not as bad as I thought it would be. There is just a lot of blood.

Ben after slaughtering the first goat.

The spectators.

You're next!

After the goats were good and dead, they cut the heads and feet off (which I heard were buried by the dogs and then dug up later to be carried around like a secret treasure they had forgotten about). I had to leave before the skinning and processing, but later that night they gave me one of the goat hides to tan! I wouldn't call the experience awesome, but it was an experience. 

 

After all the slaughter, it was time for some meat eating! Last weekend was the camp bacon festival put on by Zingerman's. They had free samples of bacon, bacon goody bags that had things like bacon mints and bacon toothpicks in them, and of course, bacon face paint!

 The bacon was so delicious that Dana and I went back for seconds, and the came back right before it ended for thirds. So much bacon, so little time.

   

Then a few nights ago Sarah and I went to a house warming party at her food professor's house. Needless to say the food was amazing.. the house was beautiful too, but oh my god the food!!

 

The next day Erica took me too Biercamp. It's down on south State by the Produce Station, and I don't get down to that area a lot so I had never been there before. Boy, was that a mistake! I can't believe that I hadn't gone to this place earlier. The food is amazing, and the atmosphere is rustic with a touch of hipster class. They also sell raw meat in the form of brats, burgers, ground meat, and bacon. They had me at the jerky and sauerkraut but the picture of the cat playing a banjo is what really stole my heart. They also started brewing beer recently. I think I'm in love.

Driftwood

You know that period of time after a break up when you are done being sad and you feel free and unrestricted and all you want to do is concentrate on you and rediscover yourself and your passions? You are trying to redefine yourself without this other person who was a part of you for so long that it seemed like you were really just one person with 4 eyes and 2 heads and 20 fingers. You want to explore, you want adventure, but you aren’t quite ready yet to be with someone new. That’s when the wave hits you, The wave of possibilities that washes over you threatening to drown you when all you want is a moment of peace on dry land. You start to notice the way people look at you, their desire and their passion, but you don’t want any of it. You are a free woman and you aren’t ready to trust someone new. So you wade to the shore and dry out and build sandcastles and decorate them with shells and rocks. You retreat into yourself and explore what’s been hiding there for so long. You make art and go to yoga and ride your bike and make whatever you want for dinner and then eat the leftovers for lunch the next day. You read all the books that have been collecting dust on your bookshelf. You hang out with your friends more, and you make new friends, and you are having so much fun.

Then, after some time passes, you grow bored with your new passions, and you fall into a new routine, and then the wanting starts. You want another person to think about other than yourself. You want someone to care about. You want someone to touch. You miss staying up late just talking, you miss holding hands, and you miss sex. So you go back to the beach and down to the shore only to find that the tide is out and the wave has receded. You are left alone on the sand, still moist with possibility. You take off all your clothes and lay down in the sand, wanting to feel closer to the water. You cover yourself in it, rubbing it on your arms, your chest, your thighs. Scrubbing it into your scalp. You braid stray pieces of seaweed into you hair and you dance around like a wild woman, trying to lure the wave back into shore. But it doesn’t come. You think about trying to go find it. You think about how you want to settle down and start a family and about how you aren't getting any younger. You think about starting up your okcupid profile again. But you don’t. Because sometimes the sea and the sand are just enough. The driftwood feels so smooth and soft under your fingertips, after years of being worn down by rough waves and rocks, and the sun is so warm on your chest. And love isn't about need anyway. Because if you aren't enough for yourself, then you'll never be enough for someone else.

Waterhill and Cinco de Mayo

This past Sunday was the Waterhill Music Festival, where residents of the Waterhill neighborhood in Ann Arbor play music on their porches while everyone else walks around and enjoys the music of their talented neighbors. Before the festival we headed over to a friend's house for an amazing breakfast of crepes with cream, fresh fruit and bacon. It was probably one of the best meals I've ever eaten.

For the rest of the afternoon we wandered from house to house trying to listen to as many musicians as possible. We got to hear sets from some great bands like Appleseed Collective, Charlie Slick, Wire in the Woods and Floodlights with guests from Lindsey Lou and the Flatbellies, and Los Gatos. Afterwords we all headed over to Nick's house for a cinco de mayo party.

Wire in the Woods and Floodlights with guests from Lindsey Lou and the Flatbellies

 Sunday was also cinco de mayo and that means salsa! I took this oppertunity to use up some of my tomatoes from Green Things Farm that I canned last August.

Usually I roast all of the ingredients before mixing them but this time I decided to saute them instead and see if it made much of a difference. It didn't taste that much different to me, and it was faster to saute them so I think I'll stick with this method. The salsa didn't actually end up getting eaten on cinco de mayo so we ate it last night with some mojitos that we made with mint from our garden. yummy.

Everything is blooming and growing including my little projects. I've been re-growing some green onions from some old bulbs in the kitchen window. It's nice to add a touch of greenery and life to the house.

Outside I planted a ton of basil seeds in a container about a week ago. They are just starting to sprout and there are so many of them! When they get a little bigger I'm going to thin them out, but for now its nice to see them all poking up out of the soil. Growing things is so satisfying. Amelia likes to help me water them in the morning while she plays among the mint. She hasn't found the catnip yet, but that will probably change soon.