WENDELL WEDNESDAY.
Thank you for all the kind words for Wendell this week. He is feeling much, much better! The vet confirmed that it was indeed a food allergy, but it had flared into a bacterial infection - with one especially bad spot near the top of his tailbone. Poor guy! He came home from the vet with some medicine and a shaved butt, and the improvement was almost immediate. Wendell has his energy back and has been running us ragged around the neighborhood, chewing up all of my knitting yarn, and generally being a puppy again. It is such a relief to see the light back in his eyes.That being said, we cannot recommend a raw diet highly enough. We fed Wendell pretty much nothing but meat and eggs his whole life, and these problems started the day we switched him to kibble (an expensive, organic brand nonetheless!) Do some research about what is in your dog food....just like with people, the higher expense for the food is justified in less trips to the vet/doctor.- Hannah.
RUSTIC ENGLISH MUFFINS.
Excluding my trip to Bugtussle, every day of the new year I've baked something: so far, it's been either biscuits, bagels or english muffins. The english muffins were a recommendation from our friends over at Bootjack Cabin and the english muffins, by far, have been our favorite of my baking experiments.
THE RECIPE:
What you'll need (use organic where you can):
- 1 cup milk
- 2 cups sifted unbleached flour
- 1 packet of yeast
- 1 tablespoon of Lard or Butter
- Sugar
- Salt
- Water
In a sauce pan warm your cup of milk on low heat with 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of lard or butter. Stir until sugar and salt dissolve and lard or butter is melted. Remove from heat. In a mixing bowl, combine one 1/3 cup of warm water with a packet of yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Once the yeast dissolves, add the milk mixture to the yeast and water mixture. Then sift and add your 2 cups of flour. Beat with a wooden spoon until all flour is incorporated. Let rise for 30 minutes.After 30 minutes, add another 1/2 teaspoon of salt and beat for additional 30 seconds with wooden spoon. Heat cast iron pan, griddle, or sauté pan to roughly 300 degrees or medium-high heat. Lightly coat with lard or butter.We don't own rings, and don't really care about having perfectly round muffins, but if you own metal rings, or a tuna can (with the bottom cut out) you could make the classic round muffins by placing them on the griddle or pan and pouring the mixture inside. We don't worry much about it, though, thus the "rustic" part of this recipe.This is a sticky dough. It helps to take a regular spoon from your drawer and, out of the batter, draw a large spoonful. Using your wooden spoon, scrape the dough from your regular spoon and let it drop into the hot pan. Cook on first side––it will slowly puff up as it cooks––for 4-6 minutes then flip. Press the muffin lightly (at which point you'll recognize the classic muffin look) and let cook for additional 4-6 minutes. Once done, remove and set on cooling rack or something similar.Once cooled, split with fork and serve (or toast and serve––your call)!- Jesse.
Recipe inspired by Alton Brown's English Muffin recipe.
PROMISED LAND.
Hannah and I don't often go to the movies unless there's something we really need or want to see––it is simply an expense too hard for us to usually justify. (Seriously, $10.50 for a matinee??). Last night, however, we saw a film we've been looking forward to for a while now: Promised Land.Although panned critically, we'd become increasingly interested in the fracking debate and thus increasingly interested in seeing this movie. "Fracking," or "hydraulic fracturing" is the method by which natural gas companies obtain their product. It involves sending a drill a mile into the earth with a bunch of water and chemicals to release natural gas up from the shale––in a nutshell––and has become increasingly more controversial over the last few years. You see, the side-effects of this procedure have been known to frequently contaminate water aquifers and wells, poison people, and kill wildlife. In other words, if your neighbor decides to let them drill, you can pretty much kiss your water source goodbye, thus the controversy and our interest.Promised Land is the story of a man (Matt Damon) who works for a giant, "9 billion dollar" natural gas company. His job is to go to small towns and lease land from farmers for his company to be able to drill, selling them the prospect of riches. And what the movie does really well is humanize a person capable of doing this; although you might (or might not) disagree with him, you empathize. However, he finds himself battling a young, charming environmentalist (played by John Krasinski) and a few outspoken townspeople over the possible issues with bringing fracking into their town.It's a clever story, and it's an important issue. There are cleaner sources of energy available than natural gas–-wind, solar, etc.––and moreover, there is nothing more important than protecting our ground water. We do not need gas to live, but we need clean water. This is why we want you to see this movie, why everyone should. Or if you're not as inherently charmed by Matt and John as Hannah and I are (guilty), Gasland by Josh Fox is an excellent documentary.The reason we wanted to see this movie, and the reason we are interested in the fracking debate, is because it affects us very directly. The small agricultural community portrayed in the film could easily be Bugtussle. The people of the town, poor and struggling to make ends meet as they destroy their family farms with corn and tobacco - those are our neighbors, and the neighbors of all small farms. We could and probably will see these types of companies come knocking on the doors of Bugtussle one day, promising millions of dollars to people who are desperate, if only they will sign on the dotted line. And this is what bothers us the most, because you can argue about the environmental side effects, that you don't believe in the tap water lighting on fire or the polluted ground water killing off livestock, but it's pretty hard to deny the fact that poor people in small towns are being taken advantage of and manipulated by giant corporations. People without a leg to stand on are signing away the only possession they have, their land. It is so sad and so upsetting and ultimately, so complex.Clearly, fracking isn't just an issue for farmers––it affects everyone. If you don't have time to go see the movie or watch the documentary, this Colbert Report clip is amazing as always, and The Sky is Pink is a short film about drilling in New York.What do you guys think? Like I said, this is complicated issue, especially here in Kentucky. We would love to hear other opinions on the matter.- Jesse.
Photo Source: Focus Features/Scott Green.
CABIN IN THE ROUGH.
Hannah and I had planned a trip back to Bugtussle this week, but I ended up having to go solo. She had an art project to finish for someone and, with Wendell sick and all, it just didn't make sense for both of us to leave––poor guy.I went back to work on the cabin, but mostly I went back to get advice from the Smiths. The Smiths, our neighbors who own Bugtussle Farm and who sold us the land, have pretty much built their homestead from the ground up, almost entirely on their own. Needless to say, this family has been an unending source of inspiration for us. And being able to sit down and talk about the cabin with them these last couple days has given me infinitely more confidence in our situation. We're wanting to move in next month, and I was completely unsure if that was going to be possible until this week. Unsure, that is, until I spoke with the Smiths.Eric and I went through the house and took measurements, brainstormed ideas and made a supply list. There's definitely a ton of work left to be done, but Eric and Cher made it seem possible, less daunting. When Hannah and I make another trip back next week the Smiths are confident that, with their help, we can all work together and knock out the wiring and maybe even the insulation. Getting the bulk work done will definitely put us one, or possibly even two, steps closer to being in the house and on our farm.After the wiring, insulation and stove pipe are installed, all we need is a cookstove and we'll be ready to move in. As the Smiths said: you can live without running water in your house, but you can't live without heat––you have to be able to get warm.Speaking of, does anyone in the Kentucky/Tennessee area have a wood cookstove they're looking to sell? We're definitely in the market for one! Shoot us a message!- Jesse.
