Shamia's notes page 5

[Shamia]

Me too!! I so wish I had a farm with plenty of space for a cow (or steer calf to grow till big enough to be eaten), a couple of pigs ( I already have their names picked out! Burger and Bacon! ) and a flock or two of birds (I like chickens and ducks).
And maybe a sheep to have little lambs. They would be so delicious!
Of course, I also need a veggie patch to grow my own greens and other veg/herbs/fruits. And a little greenhouse for the tomatoes and peppers. Jup, once I win that lottery, I got it all planned out!

(I love to dream like that)

The dehydrator works like a charm! We have two containers of jerky! It's dry, it's chewy (I cut with the grain) and it's good eats. The brisket smoked for 9,5 hours and turned out the way we remembered! Ok, not exactly, but it was a good alternative!

Again, another good day:
the scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, a small salad with smoked chicken (our own!), raw goat cheese bits and tomato for lunch and a slice of brisket for dinner. With two tablespoons of bbq sauce. Did not like the sauce very much. Too sweet. But they were my cheat-meal for the week. I find it so funny that I have - so far! - regretted all my cheat meals.

My veggies are actually sprouting already! the spinach has tiny cute leaves and the salad looked like it was sprouting as wel. Fab! I hate buying stuff that I can make on my own. Pulled out tons of weeds and finished up raising the beds. Missed just three feet of siding. Darnit! Now I have to go to that o so tempting shop again.. They sell baby chickens..

[Coll]

I have dreams like that too! Awesome! Congrats on your veggies - love seeing those little plants peeking out. How big is your yard? Could you have a few hens in a chicken tractor? THen you could have lots of chicken fun and plenty of your own eggs!

Glad to hear the jerky turned out well! Lovely snack! The brisket sounds good too! I think our tastes change when we are on the PB way of life and the things that used to be so yummy have no attraction anymore when you have them. I look at a bag of my favourite old chocolates and they don't have the power they used to - I remember how I used to feel afterwards and then I think of how I feel now and am going to feel in a years time and it is not hard to say no.

[Shamia]

We should start our own community! a primal village!

(actually, if there were a primal holiday village, I'd go there! I've even been thinking about an ideal place for it, but I'm lacking finances. Story of my life )

Our back yard is 600 sqft, but has bunnies. That would be the only place for chickens to be, the veggie patch is on a comunity veggie gardens thing (I rent my bit) and chickens are not allowed. Makes sense, but it would improve the colorado beetle issue there is. Our front yard is 240 sqft, but tiled. I got lots of flowers there The back yard has strawberries, raspberries, almonds, peaches, pears and grapes.

PB really changes your palet and I now find things a lot sweeter than they seemed before (apples, oranges, that stuff).

I was reading the PB book this weekend. It says to try to find ways to eliminate stress (eg, to eliminate the flee-fight reaction of your body.) Yeah.. how? I'm pretty cool and relaxed, but I have a cursing co worker across my desk that curses at everything (computer, other colleagues, etc) all freaking day long. I feel I'm having a flee-fight reaction to that. But I can't really avoid it. She's there to stay and if I say anything, it just aggravates the situation. Boss knows, won't do anything about it, because she's good at what she does. And I need this job for the mortgage.

I'm off to buy a lottery ticket this lunch break. Hopefully, I'll have a bit of luck this time

[Coll]

Sorry about the colleague, sounds very annoying indeed. Maybe you should try squirting her with some vinegar every time she cusses, aim for the eye or nose (I am kidding ) - or at least imagine doing it and laugh your head off everytime she cusses. I bet she may change her tune. You know you can use vinegar water to discipline cats and dogs when they keep doing something you don't like... just like the thought of her yelping and mopping eyes. Yesterday, my daughter, who is going through a stage of drinking in a very impolite way out of her glass (after I have talked to her about not doing it) managed to spill some homemade lemonade in her eyes and nose Needless to say she is drinking nicely today Hee hee hee, every mommy's delight when life turns around and confirms the message you have been trying to convey. I had a quiet giggle, even while I commiserated over the burning eyes and nose.

[Coll]

Hey Shamia... how is it going over the pond there? Wondering how you are coping with work at the moment? Did you get all your sister's stuff sorted out? I like the sound of your backyard. Full of good things no matter the size! I am hoping to get some small fruit bushes etc to put in pots here so I can take them with us when we move to our own place (I hope)

[Shamia]

It's been a crazy few days. Good thing is, my colleague is off the next few weeks! Yeah! More work for me - but I like the quiet And every time she was nagging, I pretended to squirt the vinegar.. Made me lol! (And gave her a puzzled look every time..) All of my sister's stuff was sorted out pretty easily. Hopefully, the tax authorities will agree

Foods been good, no cheating apart from a tiny bit of sugar used for the jerky. We've been drying every bit of beef we could get our hands on. They are good!!! Still need to try the billtong though, but we will (hopefully next week).

I've got a busy weekend, we're looking at a new car saturday and after that I have a course "Italian vegetables". Hopefully no weird ingredients that I can't (and won't!) eat. But the course is at the organic farm, so we'll be buying our meats for next week at the same time. We can never just buy one thing there.. It's too fabulous! I wish everyone would have a store like them closeby.

Coll, do they sell goji berry plants? Apparently, they are really healthy. Saw some in the garden store yesterday. I was interested! (not interested enough to shell out the bucks for them. But they were relatively expensive and we were already investing a bit too much (and having too little garden space )

[Coll]

Well, you can buy the seeds to grown goji berry plants ... I am sure you could buy the plant too somewhere. I tried to grow one in South Carolina but a rabbit thought it was part of the all you can eat buffet so that was the end of that one! I am not sure how one would do in a pot ... don't see why not... maybe I'll try to grow one again this year.

I think our anticipated gardening opportunity is not going to happen. The landlord is going for a different style of gardening - fortunately still organic, but loads of labour and no real return on your work for a few years. We are hoping to be out of here in a year so am not going to invest that kind of effort. Will see if we can put in a couple of smallish raised beds right near our house instead and at least be able to grow some stuff for us.

I bought a pruning saw yesterday and tried it out today - works really well and I cut back one of the trees that was damaged last fall. We had a very heavy, very early snow last year while the trees all still had their leaves and I don't think there is a single deciduous tree in our yard that is not badly damaged as a result. Some really big limbs broken on the huge tree and most of the small ones had their tops broken right off! So now I am set to start work on a few of the damaged limbs on the apple trees... most of the pruning needs to happen late summer as they have budded out WAY early this year. Normally this is our heaviest snow month and we haven't had any snow or rain and it has been extremely warm for this time of the year. Hardly any frosts at all!

It does sound like a busy weekend! But a fun one too - enjoy! I am nursing our son who is really sick - I think he may have the 'flu! Poor kid is just miserable and I am pretty worried about him. Why do they get really sick just in time for the weekend? He lay in bed all day - have to carry him to the bathroom as he is too shaky and dizzy to walk himself. It doesn't matter what I give him for the fever it only gets down to about 100+ F. If it isn't settling tomorrow I will have to take him to the doc - he hasn't seen a doc since he was 6 weeks old. Hope we can avoid it this time too ... pumping him full of elderberry extract, zinc, vit C, kefir, and homeopathis meds. Not seeing much change at all yet though he did sleep a lot.

Hopefully you have a really good time at your cooking event! Looking forward to hearing how it went

[Shamia]

We bought the car! It was a weird thing.. We went to the car shop, looked around (shop just openend and it's the same as where my car is serviced), got talking to the sales person, got a quote on how much we had to shell out for a brand new one and it was a done deal within an hour. It's going to be exactly the same one, same colour etc, so that it won't show as much that we got a new car. Plus (maybe more importantly so) I love love love the colour It's sexy, it's girly and it's elegantly stylish. So me! (right... until I toss a bale of hay in the back and drive it with my muddy boots.. haha. that's more me. But the stylish etc is the work-me and the car is for work.) And it was just a smart decision to trade the old one in now. I know all that, but still feel a bit guilty, since a lot of people around us are barely scraping by. But on the other hand, I'm really excited! We'll get it in about three weeks.

And then we had to race to the Farmers market to be in time for the Italian Vegetables Master Class. It was super cool! It was a famous italian chef, he was very approachable and very very Italian. Lots of gestures, pasion. He made a type of chicorei, a brocolini type of veg and artichockes. Oh, and barbe di fratera or something like that. The chicorei and artichockes he did with olive oil, a bit of bergamot lemon juice (cool stuff!!!) oh, and in the oil he had garlic, pepper and anchovies. He let that steep in the oil (at low temp) and tossed it over the finely diced chicorei and artichockes. The barbe he just blanched in salt water and tossed with olive oil (EV) and lemon zest. Gorgeous! With the brocolini he did an orrichete pasta (and oil with garlic, pepper, anchovies). That was really good as well. And he was such a passionate man and he so loved food, it was amazing! The FM said they will be organizing more master classes, so we'll be watching that closely! They are for free (but, of course.. after that, you enter the FM and buy every thing you can lay your hands on.. haha) We did that too - they had raw milk!!!!! So I got that now - and a couple of pieces of cow (burger, cote de boeuf), lambshanks (fresh, this years produce) and blanquette de veau. Not sure what to do with that, but I'll find a use. And a bunch of chicorei and barbe. And two bergamot lemons

Then off to the normal supermarket for bacon and bread for RM.

And now we're cocooning inside, because it's awfully cold outside. I'm nice and cosy in my room, reading up on the forum, watching hungry for change (good movie!).

I realize I have not been posting about food and what I ate as much, but food is not really that big of an issue anymore, somehow. I make sure it's good, primal grub we buy and that's what I eat.

Oh! RM is calling for coffee. Nice

Tomorrow should bring a lot of gardening, fencing off a couple more beds, pulling out weeds and checking how my tiny spinach and lettuces are doing. I hope well

[Coll]

Isn't it awesome to not have to be so focused on food? I find I enjoy it more than I used to - no guilty conscience anymore It is so nice to enjoy a square or two of dark chocolate and not feel like I have started a self-destructive cycle again!

I like the sound of your gardening! I am jealous but DH spoke to the landlord today and asked for permission to put in a couple raised beds in our yard instead and he said it was ok. He is fully enamored with the local soil scientist and is ready to rent a backhoe and spend tons of money on a lot of hard work that will only pay off in a year or two. I told them I am not into shovelling sod and killing myself on a job that will have no benefit (aside from exercise) for us. I did, of course say it in a nice way. I'm off to bed, I hope you had a lovely weekend.

[Shamia]

I had to pull a whole lot of clover.. I hate clover! Any recipes with it? It's seriously annoying as a weed! Pesky stuff. Roots everywhere and breaking very easily. The weather cleared up a bit, it was around 11 C, but when the sun broke through, I was warm enough from all that shoveling that I could just be in my t-shirt. It's now cold again. Silly weather! We've been having 20 C a couple of weeks ago! I want that back! *stomps feet*

I am finding that I am less and less hungry, to a point where one meal a day will do (ok, with an extra egg and a bit of joghurt - the good kind). Somehow, I'm scared not to eat. I am not trusting my body enough yet to forego too many meal. But now I had a huge dinner, even though I was not very hungry when I started cooking. It was a good dinner though! Bacon, veal, sugarsnaps, onion, cooked up, added chipotle sauce, added cream and a spoonfull of chia seeds in an attempt to thicken it a bit. Would have loved to have had some bread with it to mop up the sauce, but I settled for a spoon

May have had a bit too much protein though.. And still I'm finding it very hard to add enough fat to what I eat. I put butter on my eggs, bacon in my salad, but that's it. I hate cream in coffee, all other things are full fat (cream of joghurt, clotted cream added to my joghurt if too lean, bt that's once a week maybe?) still, I feel I should eat more fat. It's a very lean type of PB I'm doing. (Already kind of decided that I must have been a Seto - Northern Europe Grokkette. Good food, lot's of choice, but not very fatty unless fall arrived and animals had their winter fat).

It's going to be a good week though.. my unhappy colleague has two weeks off! Yay!!!