Friday Farm Photos: Have a Long Eared Weekend.

Any plans this weekend? We watched this great movie last night (which we somehow didn't realize was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood until after it was over) and this song is still going through my head. But most of the time I keep hearing Michelle Pfeiffer's version from this great movie, so I'm thinking we may have to dust off our copy (on video!) and watch it tonight. Speaking of Clint Eastwood, we both really liked this movie too.

We're having freshly baked pain au levain and butter for dinner tonight in celebration of my finally making a 100% wild sourdough starter (I hope it tastes good!) maybe with a salad on the side, and then tomorrow I'm planning to roast a locally raised, pastured chicken on a big pile of sliced onions, carrots, and whole cloves of garlic tossed with salt and olive oil (which I finally learned to put in the oven 30 minutes before the chicken to cook off some of the moisture) while it snows.

Of course the best thing about roasting a chicken is making chicken salad with the leftovers: shredded (not diced) chicken (it takes longer and is messier but is worth it), chopped celery, scallions, and parsley, fresh chives if you have them (and you could because they're so easy to grow), lots of Hellman's/Best Foods mayonnaise, a little dijon mustard, a splash of vinegar (I use white balsamic), and my secret ingredient—some of the leftover roasted onions with their olive oily/chickeny sauce. Tastes even better the next day.

Meanwhile I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that it was 75 degrees and sunny yesterday, and now they're calling for temps back down in the teens with ice and snow. Oh, and late yesterday afternoon a noisy thunderstorm blew in, put on a flashy light show, blasted everything with gumball-sized hail (my poor little seedlings out in the garden) and then rained for several hours before blanketing the fields with a light frost. March in Missouri always keeps you guessing.

And while my plan for this afternoon (sunny, breezy, high of 48°), after we work a couple of sheep, is to dig through my seed stash(es) in the freezer for the heat loving peppers, tomatoes, and basil that I probably should have already started in flats—along with more lettuce, swiss chard, and beets—I'm really in no rush for spring.

A good snowstorm is just the excuse I need to curl up with a mug of hot tea, a couple of cozy vintage blankets, and a riveting book (I can't decide whether to start this one or this one—we love Virgil!) and grow a calm and peaceful, hail-free, bug-free, disease-free, temperature controlled, overflowing-with-bounty, picture perfect garden in my head.

P.S. The donkeys are all doing fine, although they'd probably tell you they're in desperate need of a lot more treats.

Friday Farm Photos: Hot on the Trail

Of an exciting adventure.

Any plans this weekend? We're staying around the farm (quelle surprise!) and I'm hoping to take advantage of the break in this freaky hot and humid February weather (the daffodils are already blooming!) to start in on all the kitchen garden fall clean up and bed prep that I never actually do in the fall. The good thing about these too warm temps is that all the cold tolerant greens I decided on a whim to direct seed in the garden two weeks ago have already sprouted.

The few dozen broccoli seedlings, cilantro, and 96 plugs of lettuce (seven cold tolerant varieties) in flats under fluorescent lights in the mudroom are also doing well (no need for fancy grow lights; $10 two-bulb fluorescent shop fixtures from the home improvement store work great), but I have no place ready in the garden to put them yet. At least the ground isn't frozen solid like it usually is when I decide it's finally time to pull up all the dead tomato plants. Who knows, I might even turn the compost pile.

Tonight we're having lamb burgers with raw milk sharp cheddar and dijon mustard, and tomorrow I'm planning to slow roast a couple of lamb shoulders in the oven with lots of fresh rosemary from the two plants I've miraculously kept alive on a kitchen windowsill for years, served with rice (we love this organic rice so much we buy the long grain white and the short grain brown by the case and keep it in the freezer) and a freshly picked kale salad tossed with dried cranberries and pecorino romano and dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

I'm also hoping to finally get around to mixing up a sourdough starter to replace the one I accidentally killed a couple of months ago. After 22 years of baking bread and acquiring a small mountain of bread books (some of which still feel overwhelming when I flip through them), I always go back to where I started, with my bread baking hero's easy to understand, now classic book when I need to make a new levain starter, or when I just want a little bread baking inspiration. (It was such a thrill to talk to him on the phone for nearly an hour last summer!)

I use the levain to make everything from Basil's simple and delicious pain au levain (page 189) to homemade pizza. Years ago I tried the San Francisco sourdough recipe (page 212) and with one bite was instantly transported back to the Bay Area where I grew up. I've been meaning to make it again ever since. The rye sourdough starter is also wonderful for making rye breads, but lately instead of trying to keep two starters alive I've just been using the levain to make my sourdough ryes. No complaints yet.

Since spring has apparently already sprung, there are several cleaning and decluttering projects in the house I'd also like to start (and finish) tackling, but that's a never ending, never very exciting year round list, at least around here. What's much more likely to happen is that I'll blow off the cleaning, close my eyes to the mess, and take a nice long walk with the dogs. It's a simple matter of priorities. Good food and time with the animals win out every time.