Barn Work Day 2

The last weekend of October brought us 8 inches of snow. We were lucky this time, in that the lights stayed on, unlike some of our neighbors in MA and CT. And it was pretty much melted by last weekend, so we could get back to work on the barn. Again we had a great crew, and a beautiful day too -  just look at that blue sky! The first story is up now in the front and the back.

Teamwork Holdin' it Together

Danny Directing from on High

The next step was to get the crossbeams in place so we could start on the second story hayloft floor.

Tractor Moving the Crossbeam into Position

Eric, Brian, Justin, and Kasia Strategizing

Mortises, Tenons, and Braces, Oh My!

We got the western beam in place right nice, thanks to monkey people and strategy.

We had an amazing auxiliary too, including Amaya, Laura, Scarlet, and Cassie. It was a beautiful day on the farm.

Run Amaya Run

Bird Soaking up the Sun on the Slab

By sunset (which happens at 5:00 now, thanks to the time change), we had all those big heavy crossbeams on top of the first floor frame, ready to be maneuvered into place. Time to hang the floor joists and get to work on the top story. 

It's a race against snow. Hopefully we win. Either way, we'll keep you posted.

Barn Raising

On Saturday, we began the barn-raising process. We have wonderful friends with all sorts of strength and skill, and we made some progress. I can't thank you all enough.

Ready to Raise

One...

Two...

Three...

It's UP!

Northwest Bent

Go Teamwork!

More upright timbers and photos to come!

Jars

This is what I've been doing to keep off the streets, keep up with my garden, and prepare for the zombie apocalypse (or just winter).

The garden continues to produce, and I continue to look for a job. Since I took this picture I have canned eggplant caponata, red wine pickled beets, and another batch of ketchup. Apples this week, then I should be finished for the year. Now to find more room in the pantry...

Manifest Destiné

This year we ordered meat chickens on the internet. On McMurray Hatchery's website, when you check out, there is a box you can mark if you wish to receive a free "exotic breed" chick with your order. When Farmer Fin asked me, "Should I check the box?" I was like, "Hell yeah! Of course! Why not?" He picked them up at the post office one Thursday in early August and installed them in the brooder while I was at the day job. Even the meat chicks are cute at two days old, but you could tell that little exotic one was something special. For the first time it occurred to me that the free exotic chick might be a baby rooster. But I figured it was just as likely a hen, statistically speaking, right?

Little baby chicks

The meat birds we called Jimmy II (Electric Boogaloo). See last year's chicken post: http://cottonhillfarm.blogspot.com/2010/08/chicken-bird-or-chicken-meat.html for the story of the original Jimmy. But the exotic chick was no Jimmy. After a few weeks I decided it needed some kind of name, even if it was a rooster. 

"We need an exotic name," said Farmer Fin. "You know, like an exotic dancer."

Progress!

So, remember that big hole in our yard in early August?

It's coming along.

Fortunately, the foundation wall was not washed down the hill by Irene. The storm and the flooding did set us back a little though. It has been pretty soggy here, and the excavators (both the man and his machine) have been down in Schoharie helping out these last few weeks. Finally, though, it all came together last week for the last concrete pour: the slab!

It's beautiful!

So, it's getting pretty barny here. Now we just  have to figure out how to get the timber frame up.

Maybe the Best Thing I Learned This Summer

One June day, craving fruit, I stopped at a farm stand. It was a hot afternoon and the strawberries looked a little squishy, but the farmer seemed nice, so I wanted to buy something. I settled on a quart of chanterelle mushrooms.  I'm not sure I had ever had a wild mushroom. Upon closer examination of the fungi, though, I had the feeling I had seen them before, like recently, maybe while walking the dog in the woods behind our house.

As luck would have it, our friends Brian and Kasia were visiting that weekend. Kasia is from Poland, where apparently mushroom hunting is a national avocation. She is a mushroom queen. When we all went walking in the woods, I pounced on a little golden growth in the field at the top of the hill. "Not so fast," she cautioned, showing me how the ribs on the bottom of the cap stopped suddenly where the cap joined with  skinny stem. Not a chanterelle at all. Oh well.

Not yet, that is. For just a little way down the path, more apricot-colored fungi poked out of the forest undergrowth. These had thick stems with ribs partway down them. They smelled kind of sweet. And they were everywhere in this section of the woods. I took the bandanna off my head to collect them and soon ran out of room, so Fin took off his long-sleeved shirt and we loaded them into his shirt too. At various spots on the trail, Kasia the mushroom queen would pointedly detour. We'd follow her to whatever random mushroom den she had miraculously located with her eagle eye and collect them. When we got home, we had a huge pile of chanterelles! I did a spore print to make sure. We ate them the next day and didn't die. In fact, they were delicious.

2 1/2 pounds - we weighed them
There's a bolet in there too.

Harvest Moon Harvest

The harvest moon has been shining bright the past few nights, but I harvested these eggplants during the day. Over half a bushel!

Vardaman the cat endorses these eggplants

There's more out there too. This is the first successful eggplant crop for me. We started them in late May with fabric row covers that gave us a head start and also protected the plants from flea beetles, which usually devour my baby eggplant seedlings within a week. In late June or early July, when the plants were ready to flower, we took off the row covers. Nothing really happened until August, when suddenly there were eggplants everywhere!

Some of them, I grilled and pressure-canned. The USDA does not recommend canning eggplant at all, so hopefully we will not get botulism when we make baba ghanoush all winter. I made a batch of baba ghanoush to eat right away too, of course. Here's how:

BABA GHANOUSH

4-5 small-medium eggplants

1 cup tahini

juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

1-3 cloves of garlic (you can probably guess where I stand on the garlic spectrum)

salt & pepper

parsley (chopped)

Roast or grill the eggplants until they are mushy. Let them cool and scrape the mushy insides into the bowl of your food processor. Add the tahini, garlic, and olive oil and puree. Add salt and pepper to taste, and stir in parsley last so the whole thing doesn't turn green. Eat it on pita, with crudite, or on sandwiches.