September

Green fields rolled up and away to the crest of a small hill. Stout stone walls spread out line a hemline, keeping within them a crooked apple orchard, cow pasture, and the myriad of buildings that make up the Shaker Village. Many of the houses are old, 1700’s and yet others were post-1900 additions. The Shakers were a people who believed in doing God’s work, community sharing, and making items of love and value.

The Artisan Festival is held every September, a combination of vendors, farmer’s market, and food stalls. There were many craft demonstrations, such as wool felting, weaving, rag rug-making, braided rug-making, and blacksmithing. The Shakers made many simple, beautiful crafts in their day, as well as planting an enormous herb garden on the hill overlooking the pond. A seamstress demonstrated how to make covered buttons from the inside out, and another artisan heated strips of wood and turned them around to form tiny oval boxes.

It was nice to see how people in their era used to live, everything from a one-room school house to an enormous woodshed already stacked with cords upon cords of wood. Our favorite displays were by far the blacksmith, who beat scraps of iron into little heart shapes for the waiting audience, and a gentleman showing off a timber-frame reconstruction. The building had once been an ice shed in Downeast Maine, and had been painstakingly restored to stand correctly, with each connecting frame marked with a picture or letter so that it could be disassembled and reconstructed at will.

It was a lot of fun, and after a wonderful lunch on the warm grass in front of the band, we will certainly return.

LESSONS in SHEEP

 

The smell of southern New Hampshire in the fall is hay and crisp leaves, pine and tree bark, the way the wet, soft scent of a reed-covered marsh sneaks in through the windows at night.

 I drove along twisting roads that climbed mountains, forded tiny streams, and skirted 1700’s farmlands. The sky was high and blue as cornflower and the fall wind blew light and chill. Slants of golden sunlight cut a zebra pattern on the road and I passed through narrow, hidden valleys with steep slopes and rocky rivers.

 I arrived at the farm quite late in the evening, which was cool, with absolute silence, save for the soft clucking of the chickens and the distant baaing of sheep. We plunged right away into farm chores; herding the chickens and ducks in for the night, feeding the pony, and mucking out the stalls. It was a strange thing, putting my hands on the rough pitchfork after so many years absent from the horse training camps of my early Girl Scout years. But I knew what to do, and that didn’t feel so bad. It was nice to feel competent at something, at a task you’re set and to complete it. When I was in Scouts I never liked mucking-duty, but I was happy to return to it now.

 We went to bed tired and exhausted. I rose the next morning at 6:30, long after, it seemed, that the chores were finished. Such is farm life. We prepared the barn for the coming of the sheep, sweeping the floor as clean as it could get and opening the appropriate gates. After the shearer arrived we climbed the half-mile hill to the sheep’s pasture.

“Here, sheepies!” A grain bucket rattled. The girls and I had our instructions; walk behind the herd, make sure no one got lost and keep them on the road. The best laid plans, indeed. The sheep, as eager as Black Friday shoppers, had other plans. They charged through the gap in the fence and on down the road, with us running behind, waving our arms crying, “Stop, please!” and laughing as we ran.

 Every sheep in the fold followed the bends of the pasture road perfectly, outstripping us by a hundred yards at least. They crossed the paved road between the pasture and the farmhouse and then all milled, every one, into the barn yard. We arrived breathless and thankful that no cars had chanced to be passing.

 The sheep are a breed called Leicester, developed in Britain in the 1700’s and so prized for their heavy wools (up to 6 lbs for a ram’s summer fleece) and thick, meaty carcasses. They grow fast and have thick bones, and are often used to improve the quality of other breeds. They are also well-tempered.

 They say a good shearer can be done in just a few minutes and she was, though the other sheep were curious and so was the dog, who poked around and licked at bits of wool. Unskilled as I was, my task was to do quality control on the fleece; that is, I got to inspect each fleece for bits of hay and scat, and remove them. Each fleece was bagged, weighed and labeled according to which sheep the fleece had come from with the date, and to set aside the bags with the tops open, so the oily fleeces could properly dry. Later they would be washed and the sheep would be garlicked for worms and turned out into the new pasture.

 We advanced up the hill once more and moved the light-weight electric fencing and the water trough to a new area of pasture. A lamb had died, perhaps in the night, and her fluffy body lay cold and alone in the shade of the hill. We inspected her for scratch marks and worms, but found nothing. A short trip in the truck later brought us back to the barnyard, where the lamb was carefully sheared of all her still-good wool and then regulated to the enormous compost heap behind the barn. It was more than I thought I would see, or help with, but it was nothing I hadn’t expected to be a reality. It was sad, money-wise, to see the lamb dead, but the death itself was not a shocking thing.

 I left at lunchtime, before garlicking or turning the sheep out to a new pasture. I wanted to stay, and would certainly go back. It’s not romantic, farm life, but it was fun and hard, and it satisfied my heart and my hands.

RESTAURANT of the MONTH:

The restaurant we visited that we loved the most this month would definitely be the Italian Farmhouse, a division of the Common Man company, in Plymouth, NH.

 http://www.thecmaninn.com/plymouth/dining/italian-farmhouse.aspx

 We highly recommend it.

RECIPES

WONTON SOUP

 

Ingredients

• 6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup shredded cabbage
• 1/2 cup shredded or diced cooked pork
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 16 wonton wrappers
• 1/4 cup chopped scallions

Directions

Place broth and cabbage in a large saucepan and set pan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, in a food processor, combine pork, soy sauce and sesame oil. Pulse 3 or 4 times until the pork is finely minced but not a paste.

Arrange 16 wonton wrappers on a flat surface. Spoon filling onto the center of each wrapper, to within 1/4-inch of the edges (about 1 teaspoon per wrapper). Wet your fingers with water and pull up corners of the wontons to create individual "purses". Pinch the edges together (with wet fingers) to seal.

Place stuffed wontons in simmering broth. Cook 5 minutes, until wontons are tender and translucent. Remove from heat and stir in scallions.

 

BISCUITS SUPREME

Ingredients

·        2 Cups sifted enriched flour

·        4 tsp baking powder

·        ½ tsp salt

·        ½ tsp cream tartar

·        2 tsp sugar (I use ¼ Cup sugar)

·        ½ Cup butter

·        2/3 Cup milk

Directions

In large bowl combine the first 5 ingredients. (I buy pre-sifted flour and don’t’ bother to sift) I use my pastry blender to lightly mix dry ingredients. Add butter and blend with pastry blender until well-mixed. Make a depression in the mix. Add milk all at once. Stir with sturdy fork till mixture is formed. Toss onto floured surface and pat and push to rectangle or squares about ¼ inch to ½ inch thick. Cut with knife into squares or use cookie cutter, or diamond shapes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 450 degrees F for 10-12 minutes. Aluminum pans make for a more golden brown color.

 

 

 

Notes

We have made these biscuits several times in September, and they are always a hit, gone within nearly minutes. The notes on this family recipe card say “Mom to Mimi, via Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book”. There is no date, and since my mom, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all Mimi, it’s impossible to know who’s talking.

 

Closing thoughts:

That’s all for now, my dears. I hope you enjoy and I wish you well during this rather tumultuous month of October. I, quite unexpectedly, don’t have a job anymore. But be assured that you can expect regular updates still, I won’t abandon your need for fabulous recipes. You can expect another update after Halloween. So, in the meantime, good peace, and good food.

Love,

Kim & Emmy