Hearth Bread; Hearth Magic

Sometimes it is the most basic of things that build the foundation for something grand. There is a ritual to be found in baking, something that has a rhythm like the sway of woman's hips. Kneading is done in a rocking, turning motion and in it I find the steps of a slow, romantic dance. With warm water, salt, sugar, yeast and flour I can make dough. With heat and time it rises. I knead before the rising process and after, form the loaves and slash them with the Gebo, the Futhark rune for the Gift. Bread is food but this food is also gift. From my hand and from the Gods, from my good work and the money from that work. It was my pleasure to place this on my baking counter this morning, the warm smell of wheat and butter filling the kitchen and sneaking into the nooks and crannies of the house. I wrapped them in tin foil to keep them warm and seal in their flavor. In the spring, I purchased chives still on the blossom and diced the stalks. The green and purple interplay was lovely; the very breath of a living season. 

Hearth bread to me is the simplest of Hearth magic, the spirit and power found in the bounds of our homesteads and long halls. Little prayers and rituals that strengthen the bones of our homes and gives as much warmth as a fire to our hearts. The year spends itself down to Winter, the dying season is near at hand. My clansfolk hold true to the warmth and the old way, finding love in the fate we weave together like a cloth. As I slice this fine loaf and spread sweet butter across it, I watch my daughter and my chosen niece chase each other around the kitchen while my chosen sister and younger chosen niece doze on the loveseat. There is strong magic laced in the bones of this place. It's name is love, honor and knowledge. Would that all people were as blessed as I am.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Heart

Happy Thanksgiving

From the Clansfolk at the Heart of Home. Please enjoy this Heart of Home recipe, posted for you pleasure during this Holiday season. 

Jalapeño Cornbread

2 TBSP. Salted Sweet Cream Butter (softened)
2 TSP. Baking Powder
1 TSP. of salt

1  Egg

2 Cups of Hodgson Mill Yellow Corn Meal

1 TSP. Baking Soda
2 TBSP. fresh diced jalapeño peppers

1 3/4 cups buttermilk (or enough to moisten well)

Put butter in cast iron skillet in 400 F. Mix corn meal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and peppers together; add egg and buttermilk.
Batter should be thick. Add heatened butter to batter and put batter into heated skillet and bake in 400 F oven 25-35 minutes or until brown.

You may also make corn sticks and muffins with this recipe.

Beloved Last Market of the Season

November 22nd 2014 at Market Square in Knoxville, Tennessee will be the place to be to catch the last Market Square Farmer's Market of this year. Over the summer I have enjoyed ice cream cones from Cruz Farms, rosemary lotion from Wild Hare and blue lotus scented goat's milk soap from a gentlemen who still hasn't given me his lovely name. I will find it out this weekend, so help me. The cold ushers in my desire to start my Christmas shopping, thinking about the gifts I have squirreled away and the cards I will be mailing out. I have already purchased my Thanksgiving cards and they will be mailed out soon.

If you want more information about MSFM, please go to http://marketsquarefarmersmarket.org/

Come down and celebrate the last market of the Season with me! This Saturday, November 22nd at Market Square, Knoxville, TN. The market opens at 9:00am and goes until 2:00pm. Thank you and have a great weekend!

Remembering October

Sitting by the campfire with friends, One Woman Farm in my hands. This picture was taken at the beginning of October this year, at a camp side shindig that was held in my good friends back yard to celebrate her 30th birthday. Snug inside my flannel shirt and embroidered jacket, I was well pleased after a night of drinking and warm music among friends.


Right now the temperature is dipping into the teens, my niece is making dinner and I am trying to push out this post before I cave and go take a shower. I am really enjoying Cold Antler Farm but I am far from the end. I really want to buy Barnheart soon; I'm am happily and unabashedly hooked on Jenna Woginrich's writing and admit readily she is my role model. Her words give me hope that is an attainable dream, that one may slip the film of urban living and truly merged into an authentic, sustainable life in agriculture. The hives getting here early this week have really filled me with tender hope that after the cold, harsh grip of winter this one acre of mine will have honeybees. That in summer there will be honey, candles and soap.

My husband asks me what I want for Christmas and my mind can't think of anything but "the homestead". We are a long way off from where we want to be. Patience is a virtue I need to cultivate as we work but Gods above and below how I want to be milking my goats and tending my bees. There is one other thing that comes to mind. My husband used to play the violin when he was younger and still has the one he used as a child. I think I will ask him to have it stringed so that I may learn to play the violin. I ache to play Carolan's Welcome for my family.

I leave you this cold, autumn night with a picture of another autumn, a dawning over stormy skies and black walnuts trees. This little shack used to be the safe haven of a family of feral cats that I would bring food and clean water. In turn this lovely creatures would keep the mice and rats near the creek at bay.

"With humble bargains struck, each end holding true to the other, we find grace and honor."
 
-A Heart of Home Proverb

Sunday Morning Pie Baking and other Treasures

The sweet perfume of cinnamon and organic cane sugar curls around the warm air of the kitchen here at home. The living room, the dinning area and the kitchen make up the mid level in the house, a path making a happy circle. There are two recessed, sliding doors that lead to the kitchen; in days gone past perhaps these doors were actually connected to their tracks and did just that to allow the mother or father cooking to relax while doing so. Now they sit always open; the kitchen is a hub of Clan activity and there is almost always someone in it doing something. This morning, I slipped downstairs to gaze across the one acre of our back yard. It is too chilly to go walking in the dew and dim. The kitchen is awash in gold light as Colin inspects our erring dishwasher.


Maybe a cup of coffee is in order. Soon, when the coffee maker is done brewing its lovely elixir. Less than a minute now until the pie is done and Colin playfully lectures me about some aside I have made to the background conversation gathered around the television. The house is growing toward warmer on a physical level but emotionally the warmth is complete and permeates every square inch of the home.

The good news I might have mentioned is that come spring we shall be getting our first bees. One hive complete without frames, with queen excluder and a full size top feeder will be arriving any day now. The frames will come in the weeks later and when the weather warms, bees!

Carolans's Welcome by Orla Fallon is one of my favorite instrumental pieces when the air turns cold and the nights become full of velvet shadows and diamond stars. In the crisp, mountain air the stars burn icy shades of pewter and cyan when the sun sets. My mind turns back to the pie as the timer goes off and I wander over to turn off the heating elements and let it linger in the oven. I turn on the light and the clan gathers near to admire its height and the shinning, deep orange filling in the center. I wish I had heavy cream for whip cream but the pie itself is a blessing. To have my husband safe and asleep upstairs is a miracle giving last night's car accident that put the final nail in my Malibu's coffin. While turning onto Westland avenue, a car blind sided him and dug a trench I could have laid down in down the driver's side from headlight to back wheel well. Today one of the things on the to do list is to push the old Geo out of the garage and give her a full make over. After which the three working adults will still be able to go to work, a constant that is the life's blood of this household.

I will not ask for money or assistance from people. Only that you remember the Heart of Home Clan in the days to come when families and clans alike gather to comfort and give thanks at having each other close. These are holy days, these pewter grey morning's where the sky is as fluffy thick with clouds as a clean kitten. These are blessing, this velvet black nights with burning icy stars...to have our family whole and safe under the eyes of our Gods and the love in our hearts.

I am half way through Cold Antler Farm. I will have a lovely review for you all when I am done with it. Be safe and vigilant as you travel to your hearth sites and clan halls this season

Two proverbs from the Heart of Home.

Not the ones we know from the Holy Bible or any documented religious text. These proverbs come from the stitches in a patchwork quilt, the warm glow of a beeswax candle, the clean break in fresh cheese and the summer sweet perfume of homemade raspberry preserves. The first and best loved proverb of the Heart of Home is the very first words written on the top of the blog...

I bend my head and shoulders into the yoke of work, for I have miles to go and miles on my heart. These words are a promise, an oath and a hope as bright as a wildfire burning in my heart with the smell of woodsmoke, cinnamon and truth. The truth of a heart full of a love for something, someone that is just around the corner. We have another proverb, one I have used time and time again when faced with the unpleasant but necessary task of a hard lesson to be learned.

A hard telling for a hard truth.

Sometimes we cannot couch our words and sugar must be left off the meal of hard truth. We are kind when we can be, hard when we must be. It has always been the way of my Clan.



And so I have shared some of our words with you. There will be more as they spin themselves into being, dancing in my head like so many leaves on the wind.

Finally! Kiko Fest and Bees!

Firstly and foremost, I apologize for how long it has taken me to get this post out. Life has bounded away from me like the cagy buck and I have been dodging, running through fog, fen and bills to close the distance. So without any more adieu, I give you the IKGA 11th  Kiko Fest 2014.  

There were not many bucks at Kiko Fest but this one took the cake. Hoss, as he was named on the docket, was a beautiful 100% New Zealand buck with horns a foot and a half long easy. His hair was cream chased in dark chocolate, dark stout with just the right amount of foam. From a romantic view, he was like some fell and dark unicorn and he had a magnificent beard.  I wish I had taken a picture of his docket, for it held a good story of his fine breeding. Alas, there was so much to cover at Kiko fest and I only had a handful of hours to get it done. Below I took pictures of two more 100% New Zealand bucks and one buck whom I believe was  50% NZ Kiko and 50% Saanen. He is the one who is nearly cream white throughout his body.

Above- The buck on the left was my favorite out of the entire lot. He was very personable and his cinnamon and cream coloring was beautiful.

Right- 50% NZ Kiko and 50% Saanen. Lovely.







Then we get to the heart of the matter...Does.  Its all about the ladies.

 Does, be they meat or milk breeds, are the driving force behind the practice of raising goats. Their blood lines, if excellent, and performance, if fertile, are remarked upon with great fervor among the breeders that I spoke with . It was amazing to be there among those people, all very nearly cut from the same cloth I have been searching for. I wish I could say my research was a little more scientific but I went there with a great love in my heart and on the wings of my dreams. Thank the gods that I did not go with money in my pocket. I would have easily come back with two does and if I had cash, a buck service, for kids in the spring. My Clan would have been a little overwhelm.

 Later this week I will have my interview with the president of the International Kiko Goat Association typed up and will share that with you all. More pictures will be posted on request.

This morning finds the Clan warm, well shielded from the cold that has settled in the Valley. The wind has picked up and while the mountains got much in the way of snow...not so much us. The chill was bone deep and yesterday proved a valuable lesson in doing things early. Putting up the greenhouse in the cold rain, high wind and near darkness was more than the three of us every want to relive.  The Clan was happy this morning to know that we shall be getting bees in the springs. Honey, candles and soap know are more than just dreams. They are well on their way to being parts of our living, breathing life. I fill my heart with plans for lemon and orange water soap and beeswax candles.