Fascinating
In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech to the National Congress of Mothers, On American Motherhood, in which he stated that "the primary duty of the husband is to be the home-maker, the breadwinner for his wife and children, and that the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmate, the housewife, and mother."

It's interesting that we modern keepers-at-home have generally spurned that word, "housewife" since it seems inevitably to be preceded by the phrase "just a," and so, in the effort to give ourselves a title that sounds better, we've taken over what used to be the man's title.

Calling the man the home-maker is certainly a Biblical idea. Jesus said to his disciples, "In my Father's house there are many mansions.... I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2)" Christ makes a home for his Bride, and earthly husbands, who are to imitate the Saviour, should see their priority to be to make a home for their brides.

Then, the bride, as her husband's helpmate, keeps the home and rules it - she is the woman of the house, the housewife. I think we should reclaim this word and restore it to dignity.

Tagged Twice!
Back when I was on hiatus, my Mosey tagged me with the Four Things meme, and now Cindy has tagged me asking for six interesting things about myself. Cindy thinks I should blog more often, so in order to oblige her, I'm doing Mosey's meme today, and I'll do Cindy's... oh, tomorrow or sometime.
;-)



Four Jobs I Have Had
- babyitter, beginning when I was about twelve
- I don't think I ever had a title, but I worked for my daddy in his lab several summers during junior and senior high, doing everything from janitorial to secretarial to testing - testing was definitely the most interesting!
- short order cook working fountain and grill at Swenson's Ice Cream Parlor, for three months when I was sixteen
- secretary for four investors at a securities firm, the year after I graduated from high school


Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
- Emma (the one with Gwyneth Paltrow)
- North by Northwest
- Sahara
- Babe


Four Books I Could Read Over and Over
- all of Jane Austen's books
- all of the Lord Peter books
- Creating a Family Garden
- Surprised by Joy


Four Places I Have Lived
- Biloxi, MS
- Valdosta, GA
- Rome, NY
- Montgomery, AL


Four CDs I've Listened to Recently
- Take a Dance
- English Country Dances
- Phantom of the Opera
- Christina Fuller


Four Places I Have Been On Vacation
- Nassau, Bahamas - my Sunday School classes's senior trip was a cruise, the only one I've ever been on
- St. Augustine, FL - when we lived in Valdosta, we used to go to St. Augustine with Mike's parents every summer
- King Salmon, AK - Mike had a remote assignment to King Salmon from June 1993 to June 1994; in the spring of 1994 he flew me up there to spend ten days with him
- Fredericksburg, TX - when we lived in San Angelo my wonderful sister stayed with the six oldest children (Lilian was only two or three months old) so Mike and I could spend a weekend alone


Four Websites I Visit Daily
- Highlands Study Center, my home page
- A Better Country
- the first five blogs in my blogroll
- Google


Four Favorite Foods
- anything Mexicany with lots of salsa, sour cream, and cheese
- homemade guacamole, which is my current favorite snack and side dish and sometimes main dish
- a chicken-pepper-pasta dish I make with Alfredo sauce and lots of bell peppers and jalapenos
- pumpkin pie


Four Places I'd Like To Be Right Now
- in my dream home
- in my rocking chair, curled up with a book and cup of coffee on this chilly, rainy morning
- living in a village like Highbury or Hollingford
- visiting Mike's grandmother

Flora and Fauna
Since I had my camera handy, I took a few shots around the farm ;-) in spite of the mizzle.



Peonies and roses:














Chanticleer, whose tail is droopy on account of the weather, but isn't he a beauty? Also pictured are a guinea, a couple of bantam Araucana hens, and two standard chicks in the foreground which I think are also Araucanas. We also have six standard Shaver Reds which I somehow failed to photograph.





Queenie, Blue, and Eleanor:









Mike milking Eleanor (note the nascent patriarchal beard):

I like this woman

Having grown up washing dishes, I am surprised to find that so many people have not been initiated into the mysteries of this ancient and ritual-laden art. My husband, an orderly, logical person who actually enjoys washing dishes, hadn't a clue about ordinary dishwashing procedures when I married him. He stacked dirty dishes and pots on both sides of the sink; he put washed ones down among the unwashed, rinsed ones among the unrinsed. He did not set dishes to drain; to this day he tends to let water pool in them. He still follows no particular order of washing; a glass might be washed after a skillet and before a plate, then another glass, then the paring knives, then a cup. He is not bothered by food particles that are hard to see or those that are on the outside of a bowl or pot. He tends to walk away from the job midway and return a couple of hours later, seeing no reason not to break it up. To me, this all seems like heresy or insanity or the end of civilization.

Cheryl Mendelson, Home Comforts

I completely agree with her. Now I just wish I was able to impress all this upon my family. :-p

The exquisite frustration of slow food
Generally speaking, my experiences with slow food have been satisfactory - whole wheat bread made from soaked flour is very tasty, soaking oats to make porridge has been a notable success, and so has making my own ketchup, using homemade whey from homemade yogurt - but sometimes things just don't go as well as I'd hoped.

Friday evening: Take a quart of fresh goat milk and decide to make Devonshire cream. Strain it into a clean ceramic bowl, cover and set in a warm place for twelve to twenty-four hours per recipe.

Late Saturday morning: Place dish on wire frame inside of a waterbath canner filled so that the water comes halfway up the sides of the dish. Turn stove on low to begin the long slow process of bringing the milk to a boil.

Saturday noon: Check water temperature and turn up another notch. Repeat every hour or so throughout the afternoon.

Saturday, 5:30 pm: Notice that cream is beginning to undulate as it should.

Saturday, 6:15 pm: Check cream again and realize that it has taken over twenty-four hours to get to this point, but so far it looks like it's going to turn out well.

Saturday, 6:20 pm: Step out of the kitchen for a moment.

Saturday, 6:25 pm: Return to kitchen to find a spoon in the dish and the cream stirred back into the milk.

Saturday, 6:30 pm: Recover from volcanic eruption and decide to procede, hoping it isn't ruined.

Saturday, 8:30 pm: After keeping hot for two more hours, cover and set in a cool place.

Sunday, 8:30 pm: Over 50 hours after the process was begun, take the bowl to the kitchen counter, uncover, and skim off the cream. Inspect. Sniff. Taste. Discover it's a failure.



*sigh* I suppose I'll try again sometime... Maybe next week.

Small children playing 20 questions

Child A: "I'm thinking of something."
Child B: "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"
Child A: "Mineral."
Child C: "What is it?"
Child A: "Our goats! Your turn."

Child C: "I'm thinking of something."
Child A: "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"
Child C: "Mama, is the table mineral?"
Mama: "No, it's vegetable."
Child C: "Vegetable."
Child B: "Is it the table?"
Child C: "Yes!"

Oh Sovereign Lord, give me grace!
We got four pullets today - they're sweet and Chanticleer seems to like them, although we're keeping the hens in the coop, and the rooster out, for few days while they get used to each other.

All of our animals are patured/free range. We believe it's the healthiest way to raise them... in the outdoors that the Good Lord created them for.

But that's not what has me praying for grace right now. We just met our new next-door-neighbors. The husband works in DC.

For the USDA.

The first thing he did when he saw the chickens was to tell Mike about Virginia's newly enacted legislation regarding the bird flu: If even one case of avian flu shows up, all poultry within 14 counties has to be exterminated.

Please pray for us - this has me almost as worried as if a hyperactive social worker had moved in next door. We'll need wisdom as we consider how much, or whether, we should talk to him about research showing that the avian flu is not as serious a threat as the USDA is presenting it, and that the solution is nothing like what the USDA wants - that all poultry be raised indoors.

Adventures in Goat Herding
We knew we'd need two or three does in order to have enough milk for our family of nine to drink, cook with, and make cheese, so we'd planned on buying at least one more doe this year, and that's just what happened. On a Wednesday earlier this month we drove over to a nice Amish woman's farm in Maryland and bought Ella, a five year old doe who had been retired from the herd that Monday, since she's a little hard to milk, and this woman had nearly a dozen does to deal with, so she really didn't have the time that Ella needs. We, on the other hand, figured she would do fine for us. The Amish woman kindly let us milk her before making the decision to buy so we'd know what we were getting ourselves into, and she gave nearly half a gallon of milk.

Well, we brought her home that evening and thethered her inside the pen while we milked Queenie and took care of evening chores, then we tethered her inside the shed when it time to put them to bed. Ella's previous owner had told us to be very careful not to let her get loose for the first week or so, until she has time to get used to us and to her new surroundings and get settled down. Once, Ella had been lent out to a family who needed her milk for their baby, and she broke loose and came home again, so we were trying to be very careful about this.

On Thursday morning, we tethered Ella to a tree beside the garage while I milked Queenie, and then I took a handful of grain to Ella to feed her while we waited for Stephen to take Queenie out to the pasture so I could take Ella to the milkstand. Ella took the handful of grain from me, took a step away and looked back at me and then bolted, breaking her tether!

Mike and Stephen ran after her while I jumped in the van to follow them, but we never caught her. She went down our road to the highway and headed south for a quarter of a mile or so, through a couple of yards, then went into the woods where Mike lost track of her.

We spent the rest of that day looking for her, and with the help of some very nice people (neighbors, animal control people, and even the sheriff were in on the hunt!) we finally caught her late Friday morning and brought her home again. The poor thing - she was scared to death. She had diarrhea for the next week and had to be kept tethered at all times as she still tended to bolt, especially while gazing into the woods from the top of our yard.

We kept milking her, though we had to give her milk to the cat since it wouldn't be wise to drink milk from an unwell animal, and took especial care with her feeding and water, and finally on Monday of this week she was well and we began keeping her milk.

Ella gives about three cups of milk morning and evening, and Queenie gives about two in the morning and one in the evening, which totals a little more than half a gallon a day, just a little more than we normally use in a day. Now, real dairy people refer to the amount of milk in terms of weight - a pint (2 cups) weighs about one pound - but we don't have a dairy scale yet, so we make do with measuring cups.
;-)

Queenie's kid isn't weaned yet, so that's why we get so little from her right now. Blue is about six weeks old now and will be weaned in another couple of weeks, just as Queenie should be reaching her peak production, so I'm thinking we'll be getting close to a gallon of milk a day this summer.

Time to order rennet for cheesemaking!

RSS feed
BBG Valerie mentioned in my comments below that my RSS feed hasn't been working for her. Is anyone else having this problem? (Of course, if you are, I suppose you won't ever know to answer this post...)



I tried several times yesteday to publish this, but apparantly Blogger was down. It saved this one as a draft, but another I tried to publish disappeard into cyberspace. :-(

Layers of Irony

Something occurred to me in my reading recently. Many of the symptoms or outcomes of the root defects in our culture today involve things like - plastic. So much of what we own is made of plastic because it's just cheaper to mass-manufacture plastic than to pay artisans who work with wood, clay, or stone, or to raise plants or animals for their fibers. We also use plastic in place of ivory, because it's just so mean to kill animals for their bones (instead of encouraging people to be good stewards of the animals that God has placed here), and many fine woods, like mohogany, because it's just Not Nice to cut down big virgin trees in the rain forests (again, instead of encouraging good stewardship of the resources God has given us).

We use lots of almost-plastic ingredients, like propylene glycol and methylparaben in cosmetics and other personal care products as emulsifiers and preservatives, again because it's either too expensive to use animal and plant based products or because of mass-manufacturing we need to preserve shelf life.

Then there's the whole slew of plastics that are used for convenience food storage, and for inexpensive household supplies. Don't get me wrong, now, I love my Rubbermaid stuff. I don't know where I'd put all my stuff if I didn't have plenty of Rubbermaid, or the even-cheaper Sterlite, to contain everything in. I much prefer real baskets, but they're pretty expensive, too, and if I'm buying something from China, I don't know whether I should spend less money and buy something ugly, or more money to get something beautiful. It's a quandary.

And then there's all the products that were created to facilitate factory farming and its attendant problems - the pesticides and herbicides, the antibiotics and hormones that practically all of us are exposed to, and all the products that were originally created to make keeping commercial kitchens and hospitals and such clean, and have trickled down to the household consumer, because really, they do make life much easier in a way. I love my Swiffer, and my Clorox bathroom cleaning wipes.

But the thing that really struck me was the irony... the poetic justice of all this. These things are all toxic to one degree or another and are probably responsible in a big way for the huge jump in various forms of cancer and autoimmune diseases and things like that that we're seeing so much of nowadays.

What's so poetic about that, you ask? Just this, that in our feminist society, the bulk of exposure to toxicity, most of which is practically unavoidable for most of us, comes from various forms of estrogen. That's right. Female hormones.