And then there were five...

 

I'm not sure what made me think about it, but I was remembering the other day how awestruck I felt, back in 1998 or so, when I first saw a real Midwestern corn field and a silo and a barn.  I had seen pictures, of course, of this kind of nostalgic Americana, but wow that it really existed.

And then I worked on some farms and lived in the upper Midwest and married a Minnesotan whose family used to have neighbors over for chicken-killing days when he was little, and I got used to it.  I guess it's how I feel about quilts too -- once awe-inspiring and far away, I see them a lot now.  And apple pie (although to be honest, my previous lack of pie probably has more to do with a family that shyed away from fruity desserts than it does my East coast immigrant roots).   

But my encounters with Americana have also taught me that there is a dark and sinister underbelly to the pictoresque nostalgia -- things like scrapbooks and jello salads.  No offense intended to fans, but for me, yucky.

Anyway, I was thinking about what one gets used to and what one doesn't as Mike and I (and our friend Ute) were butchering chickens this past weekend.  And I have to say, each time we do butcher, I like it less and less.  I know we can't really accumulate old chickens for years on end, and that our chickens both live and die fairly humanely, but bleh.  Makes me want to go back to my vegetarian days.  I usually avoid as much of it as I can.  We invite friends over to help, luring them in with freezer chickens to take home, and Mike does most of it -- he doesn't much like it either, but for him it has gotten easier over time.  For me, well, I really like having the eggs, but I think down the line I'll vote to stick with 3-4 chickens for household eggs rather than 30.

In the spirit, though, of mentioning my Midwestern Americana acculturation, I have to also note (as you may already have noted yourselves from this blog) that Mike has gotten a bit of acculturation too -- new holidays and pronunciations and Yiddishisms and... I guess I'll have to ask him what of it has been most surprising and/or appealing and/or uninviting over time.  Meanwhile, in this vein, I've attached a photo from an Israeli folkdancing workshop we all went to a couple weekends ago in Seattle...



At the workshop, we ran into a couple we had first met at Jewish family camp on the West side of the mountains last fall.  They told us that they had been in our area in December but couldn't remember which canyon we lived up and so drove around unsuccessfully trying to find us (we were in Montana at the time).  And then on Monday of this past week, they called, on their way back from a birding trip to the Methow valley, and stopped by for tea on their way back to Seattle.  Fun, especially given our normal (still fun but less eventful) weekday evening routine of getting home, eating, packing lunches, and going to bed (which was actually postponed once again on Tuesday night when Mike and I both came down with a case of food poisoning and spent the night getting up every few hours to throw up.  Since then, though, things have gone back to normal (and yes, we're feeling much better, thank you)).

Meanwhile, some very very big new barnyard news -- we have as of this week split our goat herd in two... Breezy, Dublin, Ernie, Bert, and Ed have gone to live in Idaho, as new employees of a goat-brush-clearing company.  They'll get to stay together, and with other goats, eating a lot, visiting new places, etc.  I think they'll like it.  So now it's just Cle, Frosty, Gigi, Falkor, and Malki at home.  A manageable group of goats,  although it was pretty sad to see the others go... and feels strange to have such a quiet goat yard (it always happens so fast too, like there's not quite enough time to say goodbye... but perhaps that's okay). 

In any case, between plans for a hopefully saner-sized garden this year, and just two more batches of chicken to "process," I think we may actually get back down to an "ideal" farm size  pretty soon.

Meanwhile, in the Eytan pictures department, here are a few of those "getting bigger" sorts of shots -- one riding in the backpack (!) for a snowshoe hike, one sitting (without support), and then one falling over (from sitting without support).  And then one last picture of winter's last (ish?) hurrahs.