Daphne in the barn

When I was pregnant with Daphne, I got asked the same three questions by everyone: When are you due? How are you feeling? Do you know what you're having?

By the end, I was ready to have a T-shirt printed that said: My due date is 12/16/12. I'm feeling great. No, we don't know if this baby is a boy or a girl.

That way, instead of having to answer all those questions, I could just point to my belly and save both myself and the asker a whole bunch of words. (Yeah, I know asker isn't a word. Questioner is a word, so asker should be, too.)

Now that Daphne has been here for a couple months, I find myself answering a different set of questions: Are you back out in the barn yet? Do you take your babies to the barn? Is Daphne sleeping through the night yet?

Daphne sleeping in the tractor during her first official trip to the barn.

Q: Are you back out in the barn yet?

A: Yes. I've been helping outside for a couple weeks now. My 'maternity leave' (although you can't really call it that when you're a dairy farmer, because there's plenty of inside farm work to do while you're recovering from childbirth) ended up lasting longer than I planned because both Daphne and I got sick.

When I go out to the barn, however, is whole different question. Most days I end up heading out when Daphne is ready for her morning nap, around 10 a.m. Some days I go out earlier. Some days I go out after Dan gets home from school. Maybe someday we'll settle into a new schedule, but for now every day is different.

Q: Do you take your babies to the barn?

A: Yes, I take my babies to the barn with me. Dan and Monika both spent lots of time in the barn as babies and toddlers (see this post and this post) and Daphne will, too. But between both of us being sick and the awfully cold winter, I did wait until Daphne was a little older before I started bringing her to the barn.

Daphne sleeping in the barn.

Q: Is Daphne sleeping through the night yet?

A: No. But she probably would be if I didn't let her take a four hour nap in the barn during the day. This is one of those cases in parenting+farming when you have to choose the lesser of the challenges. Do I let Daphne sleep in the barn during the day so I can get my chores done? Or do I keep her awake longer so she sleeps at night so I can sleep through the night? I decided that it's easier to nurse her at night than it is in the barn.


Before we know it, sleeping at night will be a challenge of the past, Daphne will be chasing after her brother and sister and then we'll be answering questions like "How does Daphne like kindergarten?" and "What are you doing now that all three kids are in school?"

Maybe then I will get a T-shirt printed with the answers.

Like father, like son

For those who have ever questioned how hard dairy farmers work – or how hard farm kids play...

And for those who have ever questioned the comfort of dairy cows' living conditions...

Enough said.


(No, these photos weren't staged. Yes, they're both actually sleeping. In fact, Glen still doesn't know I took that photo of him.)

Good dinner

Last week started out as one of those weeks when everything was wrong. Not with the world, but with me.

To borrow a phrase from Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, I was at the bottom of the well.

Instead of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses, I was looking at everything through blue glasses.

I felt bad, felt sad, felt guilty, for not helping with more of the outside farm work, for being a yells-a-lot mom instead of a fun mom, for not keeping the house clean enough, for not losing this baby weight faster. The irrationality of it all was clear to me, but I couldn't stop the thoughts from coming or the tears that came with them. It was awful.

I needed a good nap and a good workout and someone to tell me I was doing a good job.

I think Glen knew.

After putting Dan and Monika to bed on Wednesday night, I delivered Glen's dinner to the barn and returned to the house to clean up the kitchen and put Daphne to bed. A little while later, I got this text message from Glen:

Two little words. Such a big impact. My heart sang. I smiled.

I love getting unsolicited feedback on the meals and treats I make. Especially when I try a new recipe, which I had that night.

Plus, Glen's message was just enough to let me know that my efforts were appreciated.

So, what was the good dinner?

I tweaked a meatball recipe one of my friends shared on Facebook and added my own sauce recipe. I've been trying to rotate through the different types of meat in our freezer to keep dinner interesting. When I saw this recipe, I knew I had to try it with our ground lamb.

The meatballs were served with chunky-mashed baby red potatoes and broccoli. Did you know that frozen broccoli is actually slightly more nutritious than fresh broccoli? And milk, of course. (I only thought to take the picture below the next morning – after all the potatoes were gone.)

Aromatic Baked Meatballs with Savory Raspberry Sauce
(using my No-Touch Meatball Method)

Ingredients:

Meatballs
1 pound ground lamb (see ingredients note)
1 pound ground pork
3 eggs
2 or 3 tsp ground cumin
2 or 3 tsp onion powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp chipotle chile pepper (optional)
½ cup oatmeal, ground fine (optional)

Sauce
1 cup raspberry jam (with seeds or seedless)
2 tbsp soy sauce

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Put meat and eggs in a large bowl. Using a sturdy spoon, stir together. Mix in spices. Then stir some more. Stir really hard. And when you think you've stirred it enough, stir it some more. The key to meatballs that hold together and have great texture is to extract the proteins from the meat so that they can combine with the salt and eggs; in other words, the mixture needs to become a sticky mass. (I learned this from Glen when we made homemade sausage, so he deserves some credit. He didn't know I was paying attention, though. The first time I served meatballs for supper, he asked me, in awe, "Did you make these?" It was one of my proudest culinary moments.) Then stir in the ground oatmeal. [You can leave out the oatmeal, but the meatballs will ooze a little when they bake.]

Using a #50 scoop (or whatever size you want), place one level scoop of the meat mixture into each well of a mini-muffin pan. There's no need to shape these meatballs by hand. This recipe makes about 60 meatballs, so you'll need several muffin tins. You could put them on a cookie sheet, too. (When I make hand-rolled meatballs, I bake them on cookie sheets. The recipe my friend shared suggested using large muffin tins, so I decided to give the mini tins a try.)

Bake until well browned or meat thermometer reads 160°F, about 15-20 minutes. [Update: If you hand-roll these and bake them on cookie sheets, it takes about 25 minutes for the meatballs to be well-browned.]

In a medium serving bowl, mix together raspberry jam and soy sauce. The amounts are flexible; you can adjust the amount of jam and soy sauce to suit your tastes. Transfer meatballs from muffin tins to serving bowl. Stir to coat meatballs with sauce.

Ingredients Note:

I've used this combination of seasonings and sauce to make roasted pork loin and chicken breasts, so I think you could easily substitute any other ground meat for the lamb. I think I'm going to try using a combination of ground pork and ground beef after we run out of ground lamb.  You can also easily use a one-pound package of ground meat; just reduce the seasoning amounts accordingly.

I'm also going to try adding a little black or red pepper to the meatballs or the sauce; the recipe I use for pork includes hot pepper jelly.

This recipe was inspired by Vanessa Romero's recipe for Oven Baked Lamb Meatballs, which was adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe for Aromatic Meatballs.

Recipe Review:

You already know what Glen thinks of the meatballs. Dan and Monika thought they were yummy, too. I love this combination of spices and I love this sauce. (I love any recipe with raspberries involved.) I also really liked that I didn't get my hands dirty making these. I don't normally have a problem with getting my hands dirty, but (1) the skin on my fingers is cracked from this never-ending winter and getting food, especially salt and spices, in those cracks really hurts and (2) since I'm almost always parenting while I'm cooking, I didn't have to stop and wash my hands each time I needed to help the kids.

Not only was this recipe tasty, apparently it's also very trendy. During the Land O'Lakes Kitchen Conversation I participated in last month, Ree Drummond from The Pioneer Woman shared that meatballs are one of the hottest food trends of 2013. Who knew? She also shared a recipe for Meatball Tortilla Soup. I haven't tried it yet, but I hope to soon.

If you decide to try my recipe or Ree's recipe or my no-touch meatball method, be sure to let me know what you think.

Feedback – especially positive – is always appreciated.

Double Golden Birthday

I'm pretty sure Mother Nature forgot it was my birthday. Or else this weekend's weather was one heck of a gag gift.

But if I ignore the mountains of new snow in our yard and the fact that Carhartts are still required for chores, then this was one of my best birthdays ever. Reflecting on the greatness of this particular milestone, I realized that I was celebrating my Double Golden Birthday, so maybe the way everything fell into place happened for a reason.

(Double Golden Birthday = I celebrated my Golden Birthday when I turned 16; so hitting 32 means I've doubled my golden. Yeah, I know it doesn't work so well for the people born early in the month, but I like the idea.)

My birthday celebration started with a night out. Except you can't really think of it as a night out because Glen and I were joined by three petite guests. All the same, I didn't have to make supper and we all had a good time. Plus, there haven't been too many outings with all of us since we became a family of five, so that alone made is special.

To continue the festivities, I baked myself a cake using a clever new recipe I found. The recipe needs a little tweaking, though, so I won't share it until I have it perfected.

The next best parts of my birthday were my gifts: our new dog, Ozzy, and 19 new laying hens. (Hear me out on the hens before you pass judgement about chickens being a birthday present.)

Meet Ozzy

After our last dog, Daisy, died in January, I told Glen we weren't going to get another dog. All he said was, "You're right. We're not going to get another dog. (Pause.) Yet."

But, once again, I started missing having a dog. My high school speech coach always said that a town wasn't a real town if it didn't have a Dairy Queen. I feel the same way about farms and dogs. A farm isn't complete without a dog.

So when Glen said there was an ad for Border Collie puppies in the paper, I had to call and ask.

The people with the puppies had a whole bunch and I was all set to go look at them. But then a couple good friends both asked the same question: "Are you sure you have time for a puppy right now?"

No, I wasn't sure. But Glen and I had agreed that it was time for a new dog. So, I checked the internet for adoptable dogs in our area. I came across Ozzy's listing and knew, instantly, that he was the dog for us. After I talked to his family (who also provided the picture above), I almost felt like Ozzy was too good to be true.

We picked him up on Saturday and, so far, everything his previous family said about him is true.

Ozzy has been through both obedience and agility training. (He actually sits and stays when asked. I can't even get my kids to sit and stay when asked.) He has house and vehicle and kennel manners. (I won't say anything about my kids' house and vehicle and kennel manners.) And, at six years old, he's mellowed out, which will save us lots of training time and, hopefully, lots of boots and chickens.

Speaking of chickens...

Restocking the flock

Before I continue: Yes, that is a pet carrier full of chickens. Yes, it is in the back of my van. Yes, it was a loud drive home. But not nearly as loud as the shed after those chickens were unloaded and introduced to our chickens. The cacaphony rivaled that of the Poultry Barn at the Minnesota State Fair.

Our last dog almost completely depopulated my flock of free range laying hens, so I had been making plans to get an order of chicks this spring to restock the flock. I was inquiring at the feed store about getting a partial order of chicks, since I didn't really need 25, when one of the store employees asked if I was looking for layers or broilers.

When I told him I wanted layers, he said one of the other employees was selling all of his Buff Orpington and Rhode Island Red layers. A couple phone calls later, I had 19 yearling layers to pick up on Sunday.

Talk about a stroke of good luck! Just like that, I have fresh eggs again without all the hassle of raising chicks.

*     *     *     *     *

The best laugh of the weekend came after one of Dan's comments.

While we were enjoying my birthday cake together, Dan asked about my birthday presents. I told him that Ozzy and the new chickens would be my gifts. Then Dan said, "I get it. The chickens will be toys for our new dog."

"No, honey," I said through my laughter, "They will not!"

I'm hoping to have both of these birthday presents – and all the memories – for a long time.

Wordless Wednesday: Winter Wonderland

A few snapshots of late winter beauty.

I'm still glad spring is just around the corner.

Are you?