slouching towards ganache

Red Sails

I think we've figured this picture thing out. Not entirely sure about the technique. The Macintosh picture program is strangely counterintuitive. Will have to work the bugs out. In the meantime here is a picture from a couple of weeks back of the lettuce bed, variety Red Sails....

ps the girls like honeydew!

Joan Jett and Petunia

We have enlarged our family. There are now a dozen nattering pullets in the coop that Don built in the third barn. This is one of those moments when I really wish I understood the technology for posting pix. The girls are still young. Embarassed to say I do not know their actual age. Was distracted by basics questions for the Agway guy who sold them to us, I forgot to ask their age. Bad Mother. They are half baby down half real feathers. They are about 10-12" off the ground and weigh nothing. I know this last part because I am trying to socialize them as much as possible by picking them up daily. It makes for a pretty comical scene to watch a full sized human scrambling around after these little birds trying to corner them enough to pick them up. And boy can those girls move.

That is except for Joan Jett and Petunia.

We initally had a plan to name them after female rockers. It worked well for Joan. She was the first named because she was the first to assert her personality. She is pushy and agressive, always the first to check out any changes in the coop. She has first choice at the feeder and will shove anyone else out of her way as she desires. She is also the largest of our girls. She is a Plymouth Barred Rock. A lovely breed with black and white stripes. They make up half of our flock, the other half are Rhode Island Reds. Petunia is also a Rock. She is the runt, but her personality more than makes up for her size. She is very sweet and inquisitive. While the others will run away from the big human feet she stands right between them wondering what's going on. She likes her bugs. Don has been bringing them grasshoppers and snails. They come to the door of the coop now to see what he has in store. Petunia is always the first one there, followed closely by Joan. So I don't know any rockers named Petunia but we decided to stray from our initial plan. She is a Petunia, sweet thing. Perhaps as the others show us their stripes more names will emerge.

I am completely charmed. They are great entertainment. We go down there with our coffee in the morning just to check in with them. Don built them a lovely coop in a corner of the livestock barn with three nesting boxes, a three tiered roost and ramps up to and back down from the window where they will have access to the outside when they get a little bigger. They need to be big enough not to be hawk food before we let them out. Hopefully in another couple of weeks. We are looking forward to that day as we have a huge supply of bugs for them to eat. The grasshopper/cricket/tick populations are too healthy for my liking. Their bug eating and egg laying skills were the initial reason for our purchase, but I can tell you that they have won us over with their personalities. Besides you have to have chickens on a farm don't you? We have had them for just over a week now and they have grown before our very eyes.

Perhaps my darling husband will show me how to post pictures and I will have something to show you soon.....

Baking continues. Tourist season has arrived in Maine. I believe I have gone from 40 pies a week to 80. I am getting faster while not losing my form. I am ambivalent about it all, but going to just stay with it for the time being as I have no idea what else I might do. Think I am having more of an adjustment issue than I have previously thought. Still love it here (the rain is driving me crazy but whatever) but perhaps I cut myself off from more options by leaving the food capital of the universe for the backwoods. Clarity will come.

A bientot,
Samantha

Sheesh

You go away for a couple of weeks (!?) and when you come back you have 300 bogus comments on your blog....

No, I didn't actually go anywhere. Realistically speaking, I doubt there is anyone out there still reading this blog, so it wouldn't matter if I did anyway. I have been having a hard time sitting down and writing. The garden has been a big distraction. It is actually producing vegetables that we can eat already. So has the sheep investigation. We have been to a couple of agricultural shows and even sat through a lecture by a Maine cooperative extension guy whose specialty is sheep. I have also been working my little job with an increasing sense of discontent. I would hate to be just another statistic, one of that __% of people who are no longer in the food business within three years of completing school. I am not yet ready to throw in the proverbial towel. I need to make an income, no matter how measly. But my current job, although it has given me Pie confidence, is just not doing it for me anymore.

The psyche see saws back and forth between despair, self-loathing and disappointment on the one hand and hope, curiosity and possibility on the other. I do not have to stay anywhere. Well, I would like to stay in Maine. I would like to stay in this lovely house with my lovely husband, but those are kinda all givens. I have a habit of becoming emotionally attached to jobs. I empathize with my boss or co-workers and then it makes it difficult to dis-entangle.
For a couple of hours this morning I was encouraged with daydreams. My boss has her business on the market, has since the beginning of the year. One of my co-workers has come to believe that the biz has sold and our boss just hasn't told us yet. She thought she had overheard pertinent information to that effect this AM and told me she thought it was a done deal. So my mind took flight.

First thought.

-Oh shit, have to look for work again.

Second thought.

-Maybe I'll just take the summer off, work in the garden, on the house, research sheep, play with chickens, hang out with visiting friends and relatives.

Third thought.

-Last summer, another friend who owns a small restaurant in town with a solid customer base, asked me if I wanted to make desserts for her. Wouldn't have to serve them, just come in in the morning make a bunch of pies, some cakes or such and then be on my merry way. I demurred and the offer wasn't re-newed. I wasn't ready for such responsibilites at that point. But today, with possible unemployment looming, my brain zeroed in on the concept and it became very appealing. I started making menus, thinking about new ways to serve an old concept (Pie), what form of chocolate to offer, what other homey style desserts I could make and leave for someone else to plate. It was becoming a very compelling idea.

Later in the day it gets quiet in the kitchen. Usually it is just me, the boss and maybe one other person, so quiet conversation is possible. Me being one not shy to say what everyone else is thinking but too inhibited to say, decided to take the bull by the horns and address the white elephant (sorry for all the animal metaphors) in the room. I told my boss that others were under the impression that the business was already sold. She told me that, much to her dismay, this was not the case.

And just like that, poof, all my daydreams about dessert menus went up in smoke. It was almost like a dream I had. You know the dreams you have in the minute between when you wake and when the alarm goes off in the morning. Fleeting, and yet so vivid.

Feeling very insecure. Not necessarily about my skills, which I can feel daily improving. But about what I am going to do when I grow up. Coming to realize that I may not have direction in life that moves along a straight line. Having trouble reconciling this fact with my self image. Perhaps gives insight to the checkered career path I have taken: dancer; photographer; photo editor; baker.

sigh