New Year Food (With Lots of Ham Pics)

A little less than a year ago we butchered two hogs. You may remember the picture of the hams in their salt and sugar cure, and my description of how they lived in our bedroom for weeks and weeks, the bedroom being plenty cold for curing hams. Well, they’ve been living under our kitchen table since then, wrapped in pillowcases and surrounded by wood ashes, and yesterday, in

The ham in its pillowcase, dusty with ashes

The ham in its pillowcase, dusty with ashes

preparation for New Year Day, I unwrapped one, scrubbed it,

The ham, unwrapped, but dusty with ashes and a little mold

The ham, unwrapped, but a little ashey and a little moldy

and have had it soaking overnight.

In a little while, or maybe this evening, I’ll put it on the woodstove to simmer for a few hours. Then tomorrow I’ll skin it, leaving a half inch of fat to cover the whole thing, smear the outside with a messy paste of brown sugar and mustard and bake it in the woodstove oven until the outside is caramelized and brown.

The ham, scrubbed

The ham, scrubbed

I also soaked blackeyed peas

Blackeyed peas soaking

Blackeyed peas soaking

overnight and they’re now cooking on the woodstove, and in a little while I’ll chop a couple of  bunches of collards and start cooking them with some smoked pork.

If you’re reading this and you’re close by, I hope you’ll stop by and have a bite.

The rest of you: I wish you were here!

The Dark of the Year

Snowy gate

The cow gate

Last Friday the 18th our power went out at around 4:30 p.m. in the midst of a wet and heavy snowstorm. It had that feeling of finality, almost an audible “clunk”, and we all looked at each other and said,”Well, that’s that.”

We have surprisingly few power outages here in our southern Appalachian boondocks, and so it took a few minutes to mobilize our resources—remembering where candles and candleholders were, mainly. Of course the wood cookstove was chugging merrily along, pumping out heat and simmering a pot of chicken soup, so there were no worries there; and our freezer and a fridge are out on the back porch, which usually seems so redneck, but now made me feel a little like a genius.

Our water situation was annoying but workable: we have a spring, but it requires a pump to get up the hill to the house. But at least we were able to dip water and bring it in in buckets for drinking and the toilet, and—heated in five gallon pots on the woodstove—for bathing and dish washing.

We’ve happily lived in a lot of places without electricity or running water, or both, but it makes all the difference to have systems that work. We were able to cope this time just fine, but there were some ways we were unprepared that I’d like to remedy. Our water being the biggest and most obvious. In the past we’ve always had gravity fed water, and now it feels crazy to have to use electricity to get water into our house. I’m not sure what the answer is, but we are looking into it!

We’re also thinking a very small, very simple photovoltaic system for lights. We were lucky that I hoard candles, buying them whenever I find them cheap, because the stores were sold out very quickly. But candlelight, while being pretty and atmospheric has some limitations. Trying to cook supper by candlelight was a real pain, and reading just wasn’t really possible for my forty-four-year-old eyes. We went out a bought a Coleman fluorescent lantern, which helped immensely with trying to cook after dark, though it turned out that the LED headlamp I got for Christmas was the best for that. The girls said I looked like a miner, toiling away in my dark little pit of a kitchen!

So the power was out for five days, on again for two, and off and on yesterday. We’re so much more aware of how dependent we are on electricity, and we’re also all thinking of ways to be less dependent.

I should also say it was very special celebrating the Solstice by candlelight. It really made us aware of just how dark the dark of the year is!

Cozy House

Looks cozy, doesn't it?

Looks cozy, doesn't it?

Well, we didn’t make it to Atlanta today—the weather was just too much. We’re going to aim for tomorrow, and if it’s still snowing tomorrow, we’ll try for Sunday. Meanwhile, it sure is pretty, and still coming down hard!

Winter Weather

We are headed to Atlanta tomorrow morning for a brief two day visit with my sister and her family. Wouldn’t you know that now there’s a winter storm predicted starting late tonight! Finally, a reasonable snowstorm, and we’re headed to Atlanta—well, assuming the roads are passable in the morning!

Everything is fairly settled right now on the farm. The sheep are in their pens in the back yard, putting on a little weight and getting bred (actually, I think all the ewes are bred by now. Yay! April lambs!) Maude is due to calve in three weeks, and has a huge belly. I am beginning to detect changes in her udder, too. And Pearl is due ten days later than that, but has the most ginormous belly I’ve maybe ever seen! Like me, she’s short so when she’s pregnant she really shows!

So we’ll be gone a couple of days—it may be nice to have a change of scenery, though I am a little grouchy about the forecast.Firewood

The only consolation for maybe missing this storm is that right now, forecasts are tentatively calling for snow Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Now playing: Winter Weather by The Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Anniversary

Today is my and DH’s 22nd anniversary. Usually we end up Christmas shopping on our anniversary, but I think today may be spent decorating the tree that’s been up for days. It’s been sweet having it standing here in front of the window next to my desk—it’s a lovely peaceful green presence—but I think the time has come to actually add lights and ornaments and tinsel! It’s a dark and dismal freezing-rain kind of day, so some holiday cheer should be perfect.

The Kettle

Winter09-10 113

In 1989 DH and I were living in Pocahontas County, West (by God) Virginia, in a (sort of) converted one-room schoolhouse with a hand pump for water and an outhouse. We were great fans of Lehman’s Non Electric Catalog—it was some of our favorite reading—and it was from there we ordered our 4 quart stainless steel kettle. Being both frequent tea (and coffee) drinkers, and woodstove users, a kettle was an absolute necessity, and our little Revereware kettle, bought at a thrift shop, had seen better days.

Our new kettle went with us all over the country, in campers, in houses from the panhandle of Florida to the mountains of North Carolina. Sometimes there was no woodstove for it to sit on, but usually there was, and the sounds it made—creaking, bubbling and hissing—have formed a backdrop for our family’s soundtrack. Now twenty years and two children later, I have just discovered a hole in the bottom of our kettle. I am distraught, more than the occasion calls for, in a strange mourning for this inanimate object that’s always been a part of our family. Now, as ED is making plans for traveling in Europe, and then going off to college; as Bernard is expanding her social horizons and spending less time at home and with her family, it’s the tea kettle that makes me see how quickly it all passes.

We’ll be ordering a replacement, of course, but it’s really just not the same.