Good Spring Rain, Cooking & Planting
Written on Sunday, 3/6/22
The temperature finally climbed out of the basement today. After an hour of moving snow so that the rain had somewhere to flow besides into the garage, I came back inside, turned the heat off, opened the windows and fresh air blew through the house for the first time since I was airing it out twice a day to ensure Covid didn’t take us over. It is amazing how in the spring when we hit 30 degrees, we shed layers and are ready to head outside and get yard work and all that symbolizes the start of the season rocking and rolling. But in the fall when the temperature falls to 30 degrees, we are bundling up, turning the heat on and snuggling in for the season.
My goal for the spring is to shut down at least one of the three deep freezes that we are running and finally figure out what we have for food in the house. The cost of protein is rising and it is time to eat down what is good food, toss what has been there for WAY TOO LONG, and enjoy the fruits of our labor instead of storing it forever in the depths of the freezer. All of our old layers go into the freezer as ‘stew chickens’. I take them out and make chicken and biscuits or chicken cheddar rice, chicken soup, etc. My daily trip to the freezer today unearthed some pork bones that had been there since I don’t know when, two packages of what might have been cuts of side pork destined for a trip they never made to the smoker, some corn on the cob that had dehydrated so that you could barely tell it was meant to be corn, and a stew chicken. There is still more down there, but four packages is better than one. As I came up the stairs with yet another stew chicken, Little man said, “YOU are cooking that, Right, Mom.” I assured him I was and his sign of chicken AGAIN was replaced with a smirk, and back to his games he went.
I love to cook. I cook for my off farm job, I cook for my farm job and I cook for the family. Too often I get so caught up in what do I HAVE to cook, that I forget that I LOVE cooking. I especially love cooking for people who appreciate the food that is on their plate. I LOVE cooking even more when the contents of that plate came right here from the farm. Yesterday a high school friend posted that he was starting the days old struggle of ‘what to make for dinner tonight’ and I commiserated with him - I certainly didn’t want to cook and in fact last night I didn’t. But today with clean kitchen counters and fresh air in the house - the ingredients seemed to call to me from around the kitchen.
Today, the heavy blade of the knife felt like it was melting through the onion as I diced it. Some fresh sage and rosemary we have growing in the living room, some chicken stock from the other freezer, a little salt and pepper and into the Foodi it went. In 90 minutes I will have fall off the bone, delicious chicken to add to whatever concoction I come up with for supper. In the meantime, as I write, the kitchen is filled with the smells of a spring rain, mud finally emerging from under its winter blanket, sage, and rosemary. More than half of dinner will come from the farm. While the chicken is cooking I will head out to the high tunnel and get the spring spinach started.
