PIGGIES !!! and Horses, Goats, etc. etc.

Well, I got my fix at the state fair yesterday. Got kisses from cows, pigs, goats and bunnies and I'm pretty sure I fell in love with a draft horse. My friend and I spent 6 hours at the fair, the entire time in the animal barns. Great fun! If someone had offered me a pig, I'd probably have arrived home with him in the back seat.

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This is the horse I fell in love with - his name was Flash. He is a dapple grey Percheron. Height is 17.5 hands. Big, BIG horse. The second photo is of Ritchie. At the draft horse exhibition, there were Clydesdales, Belgians, Percherons, Spotted Drafts and the little Shetlands. Just gorgeous and awesome to watch in action. I have some video I'll post of the cart-pulling demonstration.

Great day, learned some things, and came home as tired as this Himalayan rabbit! 

FROM THE GARDEN

I've had fun harvesting this morning, and here are the results. The smell of the dirt stuck in the leek roots is a scent I love. And the smell of the sunflower stalks when cut. Mmmmm. The cool summer has delayed some of the vegetables, and others just didn't do well. But I'm happy for what worked !

It's so perfect outside, I'm soaking in all the sun and warmth I can. I'm fully into autumn-cozy mode. I'm stacking firewood - the silver lining of the horrible windstorms that downed 7 of our trees in December. We heat our house by woodstove only, so firewood is a big deal. I'm also canning, making herbed and fruited vinegars and oils, baking and doing my arty pursuits in the evenings. With the help of Reggie, of course! See how well he helps?

I hope you all are enjoying the days...

AUTUMNAL SEASON WORDSEARCH

Every once in a while, I like to create a wordsearch, using an online program. Usually, I make them for holidays or the changing seasons and then include them in cards I send. If you are feeling wordy and up for a game, you can check out my puzzle here:

http://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordsearch/Data/2008.09/0920/09204159.117.html

WILD RICE

I've written before on rice, as it's my favorite food. Wild rice is a grass, like other rices, but of a different genus. True rice is of the genus Oryza and wild rice is Zizania. Wild rice and maize are the only cereals native to North America. It grows in the shallows of the Great Lakes region of Minnesota and Canada. "Manoomin" is the Ojibwe Indian word for wild rice, translated as "good seed". The Chippewa and Ojibwe tribes still harvest wild rice in the traditional way.

Native Americans harvest wild rice by canoeing into a stand of plants, and bending the ripe grain heads over the edge of the canoe, with wooden sticks called knockers, so as to thresh the seeds into the canoe. The size of the knockers, as well as other details, are prescribed in state and tribal law. (Don't get me started on the innuendos....I'm thinking I would be good at this! HA!) After knocking, the rice is parched, thrashed and winnowed. Parching is the drying of the moist rice kernels, thrashing is removing the hulls from the parched wild rice, and winnowing is separating the kernels from the hull. These steps are now mechanized, but were formerly done in the old ways, by hand and foot and birch bark containers.

True wild rice is not like the shiny, black grains usually sold commercially. The "real" stuff is brown and thinner than the cultivated variety and has a distinctly nuttier flavor. It also takes less time to cook than the cultivated type. Both, however, are delicious and healthy. Wild rice is high in protein, lysine and fiber and is gluten-free. It is high in B-vitamins and potassium.

A Minnesotan friend of ours once gave us a "share" of the Chippewa harvest of wild rice for Christmas. We had to wait until the following autumn to receive our 2 lb. share. It was worth the wait and it felt good to know the money went directly to the tribe. I've posted a recipe for wild rice salad since autumn is just about here!

SEASON'S SHIFT ~ MUSINGS

The pigeon is cooing his low, throaty mantra as the sun fades from the day. His hypnotic tones lull the chickens toward sleep and calm my thoughts. The colder breath of autumn nibbles at my bare toes, my earlobes. Summer is releasing. I am ready for the golden-lighted days, crisp nights, flaming sunsets and the harvest that autumn brings. This time of beginning to draw inward; storing the memory of hot sun on skin and cooling waters -- for the times when the sun hides for days and rain washes the landscape.

Soon, I will search the woods for mushrooms. Precious gifts I carry home to my kitchen -- the smell of them almost as sublime as their taste. Their velvet caps and flutes, their feet cradled in earthy humus; I cut carefully, so they may return again. My cat, Thunder, follows me into the forest when I hunt for mushrooms. Like a truffle pig, he has often led me to groupings of mushrooms off my path. Does he know? It has happened too many times for me to question him.

The garden still has more to give ~ grapes, blackberries, tomatoes (with luck), potatoes to be dug, cabbage, leeks and lush herbs begging to be preserved in chutneys, vinegars and by drying. Summer's bounty isn't over yet. But I am ready and open to the quiet season, when my body is nestled in warmth and my mind flies.

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn stand shadowless like silence, listening to silence. Thomas Hood