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Caravaggio in Texas

Category: Serendipity | Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 1:14 pm

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When we moved to Texas from New York, people kept asking us about "culture shock." Yes, we were shocked at how many cultural opportunities we had here in Central Texas.
Shortly after we arrived, we saw and heard Luciano Pavarotti in Austin. Earlier in the week we had gone to a rodeo where Dan Mortensen, the reigning world bronco rider, rode and won (hey, rodeo is culture in Texas!). Only in Texas can you get dusty at the rodeo on Thursday and hear a premier tenor on Saturday (you need Friday to rest up).
We have also seen the Rockefeller Latin American Folk Art exhibit in San Antonio's Museum of Art. Charming sculptures, wonderfully colorful objects, all collected and then donated by the Rockefellers.
We have visited two art museums in Ft. Worth--the Amon Carter and the Kimbell. The Carter specializes in Western art and has a great collection of Remington statues, as well as paintings of Western scenes.
The Kimbell has a wonderful collection of art all its own--Velasquez, Rubens, and a recently acquired painting by Michelangelo. It also hosts visiting exhibits, often the only venue in the United States. We have seen two Impressionist exhibits (a favorite style of my husband's) and an impressive exhibit of Egyptian artifacts from the only female pharaoh to rule Egypt (Hapshetsut).
Which brings us to Caravaggio--and you were probably wondering when we were going to talk about the artist who was one of the most influential figures in the history of art. The Kimbell is hosting an exhibit of Caravaggio paintings, and paintings of his contemporaries in France, Belgium, Spain, and other countries who were influenced by his new style. We went this past Tuesday and were amazed at the depth of the exhibit. The Kimbell always presents exhibits well, but the explanatory texts, the lighting, the juxtaposition of the paintings made this exhibit one of the best we have seen.
There is another Impressionist exhibit coming in March, and we'll be going to Ft. Worth to see it, and have another great lunch at the Kimbell. They serve a wonderful lunch there, too!
So, we aren't completely over our "culture shock" and it looks like we won't be for quite a while. We're thinking of going to the Impressionist exhibit, staying overnight, and hitting the Ft. Worth Stockyards Rodeo the next day. Yee-Haw!

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Bread baking

Category: Farm Doings | Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 6:52 pm

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I dearly love to bake bread. I like to measure out the ingredients, use herbs from our garden, knead, shape the loaves, and especially I like to smell the freshly baked bread scent throughout the house. I always have several kinds of bread in the freezer, and we have homemade bread with most of our dinners.
Here are some of the breads I've baked recently:


Homemade breads ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )
Starting from the 12 o'clock position, there is rye, Cuban, roasted sweet red pepper bread, pesto bread, parsley/onion bread, and French, with rosemary bread in the center.
There is something very satisfying about chopping herbs, mixing the yeast and flour, kneading, and setting the dough to rise. I have a large wooden cutting board that I use for kneading, and usually leave the dough on the well-floured board with a damp cotton dish towel over it for the first rise.
When it's cold outside, or when you are at loose ends and need something to do, or if you are feeling a trifle blue, there is nothing like cutting loose in the kitchen with a good bread recipe! It warms you up, gives a tangible result, and makes you feel better. Not to mention the great workout you get for your biceps!
If you want any of the recipes, I'll gladly send it to you by private message. I just don't want to bore everyone with all the details of making these breads!
With the holidays coming up I'll be making even more breads to give as Christmas presents. I've found that people are inundated with sweets at this time of year, but a good loaf of bread that they can pop in the freezer if they don't need it immediately, is always most welcome!


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Cackleberry harvest

Category: Farm Doings | Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 11:53 am

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eggs galore ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )

Despite drought, heat, and adjusting to each other, my ladies are laying fine eggs! The young ones haven't quite got the hang of using the nest boxes, so I have to be careful where I step when I go into the coop. Right now behind the water station is a favorite spot for one of the girls. I keep showing them the lovely, well-decorated nest boxes, but they are being perverse.
The older ladies, however, have abandoned their old nest boxes for the newer ones. I cleaned out the old ones and put in new shavings, but they prefer the view from the new boxes.
The girls' eggs are smaller and lighter colored, so I can tell who is using nest boxes and who is playing "hide and seek" with eggs.

egg size comparison ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )The center egg is one of the young hen's. It is smaller and slightly lighter in color. When they lay an egg it's practically white, but it starts to darken a bit immediately. As they mature their eggs will become a rich brown.
The ladies are actually getting protective of the girls (or my dominant hen sees an opportunity to enlarge her sphere of influence). Two of the girls wandered out into the barn aisle while I was cleaning the coop, and Ruby Begonia went after them, flapped her wings and shooed them back into the coop! Ruby didn't want to lose any of her constituents, I suppose. However, when it comes to catching grasshoppers, it's every hen for herself!





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A little rain, all the difference

Category: Nature | Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:47 pm

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Last Sunday night we got 1" of rain. That was the first rain we had received since late June, and it made all the difference in the gardens (and my attitude!).
The culinary sage that I thought was a goner has started to put out new growth. The oregano and mints are also perking up, and looking less like they ought to be in ICU. The rue still looks awful, but there is new green at the base of the plants. I'd hate to lose all our rue--the butterflies love it so!
We have Bishop's Weed blooming in the pasture--it's much like Snow-on-the-Mountain, and the tiny low Ruellia has blossoms on it. You can't kill that plant!

low blue ruellia ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )
Getting up in the morning and seeing mist over the pasture; being greeted by bird calls as they gather around the feeding stations; and not hearing the grass crunch under your feet sure makes a person have hope that the fall may bring relief!





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Ice Cream Social

Category: Farm Doings | Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 8:24 pm

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Every August the church up the road holds a community Ice Cream Social. In the 1850's, a German baron sent a group of retainers here to populate and farm a land grant. Many of their descendants are still here, farming the "old home place." Even if you attend another church, or none at all, if you live in the vicinity of the church you belong to the community. You should meet some of the community members.
Margaret and Arthur are mainstays of the church. Arthur farms and runs some cattle, and their place is a model of neatness and efficiency. Margaret volunteers at the local hospital and at the elementary school, plays the organ at church, and bakes the best cookies in the world. Grown men faint over her tea cakes!
Eileen lives on her farm and dotes on her grandchildren. She makes the best kolache (a raised dough with a fruit filling) and cleans the church because she does it better than anyone else could.
Mary is famous for her dill pickles. When the bingo game gets going after the Social, her pickles are one of the best prizes. Fights don't exactly break out over her pickles, but that is only because the preacher is there.
Leona is tiny, beautiful, and just vague enough to be charming. When she won a basket of our hens' eggs with a note from "Rosie, Ruby Begonia, Bianca, Lucy, Eileen, and Slo-Poke" hoping the recipient would enjoy the fruit of their labors, Leona said, "I don't know these people!" Someone explained the "people" were hens--big black hens that had laid the eggs.
W.C. (in Texas a lot of men go by their initials) mows the church grounds and cemetery, sees after the building, and rings the bell at 10:30 on a Sunday morning. He and his wife Anna (who quilts and paints and cooks and is absolutely dear) are expert fisherpersons. They have won many fishing tournaments, and always supply the fish for the April Fish Fry at the church. W.C. fries a good fish!
Clark is a deacon, and does the readings. He has a beautiful speaking voice, and sings awfully well. He leads our pitiful attempts at singing (we are not the most melodious group) and if it weren't for Clark, we'd have to give up trying the hymns and just hum. He also paints beautifully, and has had several shows of his work.
So, those are a few of the members of the community who have welcomed us and made us feel part of the community. Who knew that moving out of a "community" of 16,000 people to a small farm would put us smack dab in the middle of a real community of kind people with good and giving souls?


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High IQ chickens

Category: Farm Doings | Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 2:30 pm

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I realize that the common perception of chickens is that they are pretty dumb. Chickens don't get invited to join Phi Beta Kappa and the Mensa Society doesn't recruit them. Chickens are the butt of a lot of "dumb as a chicken" jokes.
Our chickens are not dumb. Granted, they get all excited when their treat dish comes and run around in circles; the shadow of a passing cloud sends them squawking into the indoor coop; the little ones haven't discovered that they can fly up to both perches (one they try hopping up on, which doesn't work, and when they get frustrated with that, they fly up to the other perch which is exactly the same height off the ground); and generally they just don't look all that intelligent.
However, consider this--a college graduate arrives to clean their coop, freshen their water (filtered, of course), dish out meals (pasta primavera is a favorite), and stand guard while the chickens stroll around the gardens. Another college graduate has built a large coop for them, installed two perches, made a climbing ladder so they can get to their nest boxes, and spent time in the broiling heat making sawdust from scrap lumber so their nest boxes will be comfy.
So, who's dumb? The ones who are catered to, have body guards, and don't lift a finger (oops, forgot chickens don't have fingers), or the "staff" who clean, feed, provide entertainment, and do handyman work for the "dumb" ones?
I don't think the two-leggers will be invited to join a high IQ group, either.

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Vampires, beware!

Category: Vegetable gardens | Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 3:54 pm

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There will be no vampires within five miles of Red Gate Farm! I have been cleaning garlic the past two mornings (I do it in the morning to let the aroma disperse before my husband gets home from work and faints).
We dedicated a bed to garlic this year, and I may have planted a tad too much. We hung it in the barn to dry, and now it's ready to have the outer paper removed and put into storage, one way or another. When half of the tops are falling over and yellowed, we pull the garlic; wash it off to get rid of the dirt in the roots; tie three or four heads together on each end of a long string; and hang the string over a rope stretched between the barn rafters. With our humidity we let the garlic hang about six weeks. The test for readiness is to take a clove and squeeze it between your thumb and forefinger. If your fingers are damp, wait. If the clove doesn't have enough juice to dampen your fingers, it's ready to be cleaned and stored.
I freeze garlic. My favorite, although labor intensive way, is to freeze garlic puree. Cloves are peeled, put into my mini-food processor and chopped fine (I could do this with a knife, but laziness prevails!) and enough vegetable oil is added to moisten the garlic. Then the garlic puree is put into freezer containers, labeled, and frozen. It will last up to two years if you don't have a garlic loving family. The puree can be scraped out, even while frozen. I never thaw the puree--just grab a spoon and dig out what I need.
Garlic cloves, peeled, can be frozen whole. It's really great to be able to pull out three or four cloves when you are in the middle of a recipe and realize you haven't prepared garlic for it.
Whole heads of garlic can be frozen, also. In this case the heads are not peeled--just remove the outer paper until you get down to the "clean" and put into freezer bags or containers (I prefer bags so I can squeeze out the air) and freeze.
We also roast garlic and make roasted garlic butter to sell at the winery down the road, and to our own valued customers (the ones who pay cash).
Roasting garlic is really easy. Take a head of garlic, cut off the top 1/4" or just enough to expose the ends of the cloves, place the heads in muffin pans or any shallow baking pan (8" cake pans do well, but don't plan on baking a cake in that pan anytime soon). Drizzle with olive oil, cover with aluminum foil, and bake at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes (depends on the age of the garlic.)This is great squeezed on toasted French bread, added to oven-baked potatoes, or mixed with chopped tomatoes and spread on Foccaccia bread as an appetizer.
Even though the local vampires hate our garlic, we sure enjoy it!

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Welcome to the world!

Category: Farm Doings | Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:39 pm

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We introduced our chicks to the outside world this week. They have a portable outdoor playpen to keep them safe (and to keep me from having to chase them all over 10 acres).


Whole new world ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )

At first they huddled together, then they assumed the classic Western movie "circle the wagons" position in which all their little hind ends are together, and they stretch their necks and keep an eye out for predators.
They didn't seem to be enjoying the great outdoors much until one caught a grasshopper.


Protein! ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )

Protein on the hoof! One girl grabbed the grasshopper and started to run with it, which initiated a great game of keep-away. After they disposed of the grasshopper (it wasn't pretty, so I'll spare you the details) they all cuddled up and took a nap.
This morning was their second foray into the wide world, and they immediately started looking for grasshoppers. I think I'll make outdoor girls of them yet!





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"Mexican" imports

Category: Flower gardens | Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 4:06 pm

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Here in Texas we have lots of plants that have "Mexican" in their common name. Mexican honeysuckle is neither a honeysuckle, nor Mexican.


Mexican honeysuckle bloom ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )

When it's out on the town and being fancy, it is Justicia spicigera. It makes a nice evergreen shrub, and the flowers attract hummingbirds.


Mexican Honeysuckle (Justicia spicigera) ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )

We also have "Mexican petunia" which is ruellia, and "Mexican buckeye" which is a nice little understory tree that isn't Mexican, but does have buckeyes.
When we lived in town the people in back of us were going to a deer lease (hunting area)and offered to bring me cuttings of a "Mexican rose" that grew wild there. I got all excited--a new rose for our garden. They brought back cuttings of bougainvillea!
We have lots of Mexican imports here--produce, clothing, all sorts of things. Unfortunately, many of the supposedly Mexican plants aren't among the imports but people credit Mexico for about half our decorative plants!





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Why it takes me two hours to run a half-hour errand

Category: Farm Doings | Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 7:32 pm

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I try not to go into town more than once a week, and here's why--I spend two hours doing things that ought to take a half-hour at the most.
On my to-do list: get turn-buckles for new coop door, get gas for mowers, pick up more chicken feed. First stop the hardware store. One of the clerks asks me how the garden is doing, and we commiserate about the drought and discuss how high our corn is, and another customer chimes in with the amount of recent rain and whether it will do any good. The other clerk and I have an interesting discussion about hens, which we both keep.
As I'm paying for my turn-buckles, a neighbor walks in and asks if I saw the gazebo going down our road. Nope, I missed that one! Our new neighbors that are about two miles away had a gazebo built by the local Amish settlement, and it was delivered last week. Sorry I missed taking a picture of the gazebo passing by. However, my neighbor said the new couple are talking about throwing a big barbecue to introduce themselves and inaugurate the gazebo (deciding what to take to the barbecue will involve several phone calls and discussions with the other ladies on the road and there goes another hour).
Got to the filling station and have my cans filled, ready to put into the truck. Some gentleman who obviously thinks I am a delicate flower of Southern womanhood tells me he'll load them for me. Then we get into a discussion about how the grass is growing because of the rain, and he wants to know where our farm is, and when I tell him he remembers several folks who used to live up and down the road. I get a background on the neighbors, past and present. Useful knowledge!
I know that the feed store is a hotbed of information, rumor, and tall tales, so it's no surprise to me that it takes 45 minutes to get a sack of feed. But heavens, the things you learn! The local garden club's president is the mother of the man who runs the feed store, so you get town gossip and country gossip, all in one convenient location.
When my husband comes in from work and asks me what I did today, I can honestly tell him, "Nothing." But I sure had fun doing it!

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