Happy Solstice Laura

Laura my love

For all the good places we've been

And the good people we have met

You'll find this painting at home to meet you

With all my love

Thank you to Sylvia

For taking on the task!

http://sylvianickerson.ca/

as published in Edible Toronto

Tasty

Now don't get excited, this picture taken by Adam Brownfield in a trip out from the west, is me pointing to the back of the pasture to where Tasty was hanging out with the rest of the herd. Tasty's mom (in photo) came over in the hopes that we had treats for her.

Nearer the end of her life, Tasty lost her left horn due to the feeder that she had eaten from the winters of her life. Regardless of the broken horn, she looked a lot like her mom (I realize I don't have a picture of her at all)

Thanks to those who've supported me in my learning, both animal and plant. Especially to 'the farm', Chris and Denise. Check out the new website (in days!) http://manorun.com/


~ Wed. 10th ~

Artistic menu a-la Beth Anne le Ben (although mostly B.A.)
Jessi likening two chickens, as in the curry.

Salad course care of the front yard garden (tomatoes), Jon's garden (cabbage in Kraut), Chick-A-Biddy (beets!) and ManoRun (fermented green bean)
((table setting by Karine, place setting and pictures by Harris))

Harris and I self posing with the roast, tender as ever, from the slow cooker in wine and tomato


Thus marks a chapter in my relationship with life.
I've now eaten an animal I've raised.
I'm not sure how I feel about it.
But I sure feel alive these days,
and responsible
for the continuation
of life.

The wrong Side of Empire

September 2004
Arundhati Roy said, in San Fransico

"For those of us who are on the wrong side of Empire, the humiliation is becoming unbearable. Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs."

Italics are mine.
As published in the most recent issue of briarpatch
http://briarpatchmagazine.com/

not much more than a miracle

heat poured out of that garlic, but really
it was sunshine that permeated that soup.

We had planted the recipe in our garden last fall
patient for harvest, patient for that earthly flavour,
fire.

it wasn't much more than a perfect clove,
dry outer into the compost bin, cut clean
garlic oil knife licked clean
fire in the belly
burned clean

not much more than a miracle.

Making Fabric

Thank you Jon for teaching me how to make buckskin, how to skin moose and deer, and how to butcher. I am so fortunate to have learned from a person as knowledgeable, skilled, and respectful as you. Thank you.

In exchange for the knowledge and experiences Jon's gifted me with, I have offered, and worked, with many people on the hides I've processed. and Soon I will have a lovely hoodie as testament to my work! (picture to come mid January)

Scott scraping the flesh side of the hide before soaking in Alkali (wood ash)

Hair side of a Deer Skin post soak

'Graining' - removing the hair and grain
leaving the skin layer, which becomes
the supple buckskin

Laura and Kashmir (or is that Apollo?)

One of five hides that's been softened
and is awaiting the smoke ...

The Smoke!