Provisions

Last night we headed to the Bruery Provisions, a specialty beer, wine, cheese, and charcuterie tasting room in Old Town Orange. Provisions is the retail offshoot of The Bruery, a small craft brewery founded by Patrick Rue, the brother of our good friend Casey. Since its opening in 2008, the Bruery has racked up a ton of industry awards and flattering mentions in the New York Times, GQ, Esquire, Playboy, Forbes, Gourmet, and Draft.

Provisions is a charming and welcoming place, from the artful displays to the Rue brothers' beautiful woodwork and hand-crafted touches. Beer flights (samples of five different brews) range from $3 to $10. The top-notch cheese and meat plates took me back to DC and the posh politico hotspot conveniently located in my law firm's building. We young lawyers would drift in after work, feast on proscuitto and fancy cheese, and keep an eye out for Condi. The cheese and meat plates at Provisions, while just as discerning and delicious as those at my old happy hour hangout, are a fraction of the price.

It is truly inspiring to see someone take a passion and, with hard work and talent, turn it into a successful business that hasn't lost any of the original heart and soul. Cheers!

Sheep School

Sheep grazing at 3-Corner Field Farm, a stop on our Great Cheese Farm Tour last fall

When I learned of a spectacular sheep seminar in Minnesota, I couldn't help but think of all the songs and sayings about "going home." How wonderfully circle-of-life to find that a community college in my home state boasts one of the most well-known sheep management programs around. In addition to the four-day "sheep camp," Minnesota West Community and Technical College in Pipestone, MN, offers five online sheep management courses, sheep farm tours, a lambing short course and bus tour, and a 14-lesson home study course.

I'm debating whether to head to Pipestone this summer for sheep camp, which is described as "intense" and a combination of lectures, group discussion, and visits to two outstanding sheep operations. Sheep camp promises to help me define my vision and build a practical plan to achieve my goals. The only problem? It is held in July. I will have had my little lambs for just a month by then, and I suspect that I'll refuse to budge an inch from my babies. And so I'll mull this over for now. In the mean time, that 14-lesson home study course is sounding awfully fun.

Book Club

Even though it's been sunny and 80 for the past week, and it looks like it will continue to be so for the foreseeable future, it is January. And where I come from, January means curling up with a good book and cup of hot chocolate. Some habits are hard to break. I've read a lot this month--and not just sheep books. A few books worth a glance:

Peace at Heart: An Oregon Country Life, by Barbara Drake. This is a collection of short, charming, and interesting essays about life on a small sheep farm. The author and her husband moved to the country after living most of their lives in the city.

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein. This Malcolm Gladwell-esque book sheds light on how we make choices and, thus, how to prevent making mistakes (financial, social, and health-related).

Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea, by Catherine Goldhammer. This memoir traces the author's move from a manicured suburb to a ramshackle New England town with her teenaged daughter and their six chickens.

Growing a Farmer: How I Learned To Live Off the Land, by Kurt Timmermeister. The author owned several cafes in Seattle before moving an hour outside the city and starting a small dairy farm on 13-acres.

Tidepool Tidings

Last weekend we walked down to the beach with our little nieces and checked out the tidepools, which are the pools of water left behind when the ocean waters recede at low tide. The pools are in the hollows of rocks or between rock piles, and in them we often see hermit crabs, snails, sea anemones, mussels, and sea urchins. Our tidepool guidebook puts sea creatures in six categories based on how easy it is to find the critters. While hermit crabs are in the first category (easy to find), octopuses and sea stars are in the sixth category (hardest to find). How lucky we were to find an enormous sea star. I'm not one for lounging on the beach or playing in the water, but I do love the tidepools.

Counting Sheep

The sheep breeder sent me some wool samples from five different Babydoll Southdown sheep, including one sample of unprocessed wool. It's so soft and fluffy. I can't wait to hug my little lambs.

If you've been wondering where I've been these past two weeks, I'll tell you: immersed in sheep books. I've read about a book a day and now am faintly familiar with--but not well-versed in--the subjects of sheep breeding, gestation, lambing, nutrition, pasture management, housing, diseases, parasites, predators, fencing, behavior, and breeds. There are so many things that can go wrong, but I reason that: (1) although I don't have human kids, most people have them, (2) raising a cute little babydoll sheep can't be any scarier than raising a human, and so (3) if most people can raise a few humans, I should be able to raise a few sheep without an inordinate amount of freaking out about them getting loose, sick, or eaten by a coyote.

I just Netflixed a documentary, Sweetgrass, about a large sheep ranch in Montana. I found it fascinating. The Wrangler did fall asleep about midway through, but I will attribute this to the soothing sheep sounds and beautiful Montana scenery rather than to a lack of interest. Truth be told, Sweetgrass probably will appeal only to those among us who really like sheep.

I've found a dangerous number of adorable sheep-related things on etsy.com. I must exercise restraint. We're still tripping over boxes of lavender-themed stuff.

Orchard in Bloom

Our tangerine, orange, and lemon trees are bearing fruit. Last year we had only lemons, so this is a nice surprise. No word yet from our avocado tree.

Holy Cow!

I know women who hide certain purchases from their husbands--the kinds of purchases that guys sometimes don't understand, like expensive handbags. Unfortunately for me, the Wrangler doesn't mind when I buy handbags but takes a very conservative approach to stuff that would be impossible to hide. Like, say, cows.

I had not given a lot of thought to keeping a cow on the ranch but, as of late, I'm seriously considering a nice Jersey cow (or two, as I think it is nice for animals to have a familiar companion). Averaging just 900 pounds, a Jersey is quite small...for a cow, at least. They are known for their delicious milk, which is high in butterfat. They also are known for their pretty faces and relatively docile (although somewhat nervous) dispositions.

A typical Jersey gives about five gallons of milk a day. There are miniature Jerseys, but I'm not going to go there. I'm not building a hobby farm of miniature animals; miniature sheep and goats will suffice. Plus, I'm confident that I won't be overwhelmed by a standard Jersey. They are sort of a "starter cow," in that novice cattlemen with small pastures can do well with Jerseys.

The Wrangler is very supportive of the beekeeping and chicken coop plans. He's moderately on board with the sheep and llama/alpaca, meaning that he isn't necessarily eagerly awaiting their arrival, but he isn't protesting. He has said no to donkeys and the verdict is still out on pigs. Once in a while he will mention randomly that "goats are the worst," and I'm not entirely sure what that's all about.

He speaks well of bison, so who knows where cows will fall on his spectrum. But think of all the lovely fresh butter, cream, milk, yogurt, cheese, and ice cream that our bovine pets would provide. Thankfully, the idea practically sells itself. Because I can't think of a way to sneak a cow into the backyard.

Some Light Reading

Keep It Simple, Sweetie

After seeing Food Inc. and reading a couple Michael Pollan books, I jumped on the bandwagon and began making a greater effort to eat organic and locally-produced food when possible. But the funny thing is that, despite these efforts, I hadn't been paying much attention to food labels. I mean, I knew that homecooked meals usually are better for you than buying packaged convenience food or eating out. But I still wasn't paying very close attention to ingredient lists.

A couple weeks ago, the Wrangler picked up a bag of store-bought bread and read aloud the ingredient list:

enriched bleached flour, water, skim milk, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable oil, yeast, salt, wheat gluten, corn starch, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides, sodium and calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate, datem, calcium peroxide, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, enzymes, yellow corn flour, natural flavor, paprika extract, calcium propionate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, calcium carbonate, ammonium chloride, distilled vinegar, soy lecithin, soy flour

That is the actual ingredient list for the store-bought bread! In stark contrast, let me list the ingredients in my homemade bread:

organic unbleached flour, water, yeast, kosher salt

Yep, that's it. And, as I've written before, the artisan bread recipe I use allows me to bake a fresh loaf each day in about an hour. (And only five minutes of that hour is "active" prep--the rest of the time the dough is rising or baking.) I don't need high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, vinegar, paprika extract, and at least 15 unpronounceable chemicals in my bread, so I'm going to pay attention to labels and no longer buy bread with this kind of stuff in it.

Similarly, I've been making homemade ice cream lately instead of buying it. My recipe has three ingredients: organic half-and-half, sugar, and pure vanilla extract. Sure, my ice cream tastes a lot better than store-bought ice cream, but I'd never noticed that a premium brand's "homemade vanilla" contains: milk, cream, sugar, corn syrup, egg yolks, natural flavor, guar gum, salt, carob bean gum, annato. What the heck is annato, why are there two kinds of gum on this list, and what is corn syrup doing in my ice cream?

Feeling like we were onto something, the Wrangler and I read the labels on our canned goods. What you've heard about the ubiquitousness of corn syrup is true! I suppose that whether it's really bad for you is debatable, but I don't see why it's in everything--even canned tomatoes.

Chalk up two points for this cowgirl tonight. I have a batch of my freshly mixed bread dough in the fridge, and the Wrangler and I have just helped ourselves to two heaping bowls of homemade ice cream. (Clearly, simpler food is not necessarily synonymous with diet food.)

New Year

Happy New Year! 2011 is off to an auspicious start--my orthopedic surgeon officially discharged me from his care today, which also means that I can quit physical therapy. It has been six months to the day since I fell off Moto. Things still are creaky and hurt now and then, but I really can't complain. I've also got a full line-up of activities this season: yoga, ballet, piano, and horseback riding lessons. As one of the Six-Button Cowgirls points out, swap soccer for yoga and mine is the schedule of a 12-year-old girl. Ah, but there is little danger of illusions of youth here. Especially now that my once-broken bone throbs when it rains--certainly, the hallmark of the aged.

No Ark

This photo shows the water line from the flood at the Laguna Beach Animal Shelter.

Photo by Kent Treptow / L.A. Times

Last week Laguna Beach got hit with six days of torrential rain, which caused over $10 million in damage to businesses, homes, and city structures. Mudslides and flooding wiped out the Laguna Beach Animal Shelter as well as the Pacific Marine Mammal Center. (I've mentioned the Marine Mammal Center on here before.) Fortunately, no patients were injured in the floodwaters at the Marine Mammal Center, which were four feet deep. All sea lions were safely evacuated to another animal care center.

The Animal Shelter incurred at least $800,000 in damages. The flood and mudslide destroyed all the computers, files, and office equipment. The night before the mudslide, shelter workers had placed stools in the dog kennels "just in case." When workers reached the shelter the next day, the dogs were standing on the stools. Tragically, the storm took the lives of two chickens and one bunny. But all cats and dogs were relocated.

Incidents like this make me hug my pets even tighter. I love giving them a warm, safe, and happy home. I wish I could make sure other pets are just as fortunate.

A Rocky Mountain Christmas

We're home after our fourth consecutive Christmas in Denver. It wasn't a white Christmas this year, but the pets, nieces, and nephews provided plenty of holiday cheer. We timed our road trip perfectly. We had impeccable driving conditions, but a massive snow storm closed the major interstate roads on our route just one day after we arrived home.

While in the Denver area, we toured the Celestial Seasonings tea factory in beautiful Boulder. The tour, which includes a stop in the infamous peppermint room that makes your eyes water, is an olfactory (pun intended) treat for all, but it was especially interesting to me since I've replaced soda with tea as my beverage of choice. I stocked up on holiday teas--peppermint, gingerbread, chai, and even sugar cookie-flavored tea.

We also headed downtown to the aquarium, which has an impressive collection of species--sea horses, sharks, jellies, and even a tiger. I lobbied to conclude the visit with lunch in the aquarium restaurant but was shot down. Seems that the others felt weird about feasting on a platter of calamari just steps away from the giant octopus tank.

We took a little driving tour of some equestrian communities mixed in with cookie-cutter suburban subdivisions. I loved the tidy ranch homes with horses, goats, and chickens grazing peacefully in the yards, Pike's Peak looming in the distance, and a comforting Target, Borders Books, and stadium seating multiplex just five minutes away. (Because who am I kidding? I love suburbia just as much as I hate it.)

Upon our return home, I was thrilled to find that our gorgeous Noble Fir still is very much alive and kicking. There are no signs of dry needles, and the tree is drinking 1/2 a pitcher of water a day. At this rate, the tree may be around for Valentine's Day. I can't send a thriving tree off to the wood chipper.

Goats!

Crunchy Granola

Tonight I made homemade granola, and I'm pleased to report that the Wrangler pronounced it "the best thing you've made in a really long time." Although, now that I think of it, what is this saying about my other culinary efforts? Hmm. My recipe is based on the granola recipe in the Mountain Sky Ranch cookbook (the ranch that hosts the spectacular Wild West Women Adventure in Montana). It's a quick and easy project with yummy results, and the house smells cozy and Christmasy:

4 c. oats

2/3 c. each - roasted cashews, walnuts, almonds, pecans, and peanuts

1 c. coconut

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/4 tsp. cloves

1 Tbsp. each - cinnamon and nutmeg

1/2 c. vegetable oil

2/3 c. honey

2 Tbsp. vanilla

In a large bowl, mix the oats, nuts, coconut, brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

In a saucepan, heat the oil and honey but do not boil. Remove from stove and add vanilla.

Mix wet and dry ingredients together.

Spread evenly on two parchment-lined baking sheets.

Bake in a 325 degree oven until golden brown, about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so.

If desired, add dried fruit after baking. I added about 1/3 c. dried cranberries to one of the baking sheets. You also can add raisins, apricots, dates, etc.

Let cool. Store in air-tight container. Makes 12 cups.

Mind Your Own Beeswax

Today the Wrangler and I headed over to the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano for the beeswax candle-making class. The Ecology Center is in a bright, airy farmhouse built by Pony Express rider Joel Congdon in 1878. Five of us gathered in the pleasant farmhouse kitchen to learn how to melt and pour beeswax. Yes, it's as easy as it sounds. The beeswax from a local hive looks lovely and natural and smells like fresh, delicious honey. I couldn't help but feel ashamed of the unnatural and probably toxic sparkly and fake-scented candles I have around the house. Pouring votive and mason jar candles takes just seconds (and about an hour to dry), and dipping tapers is oddly therapeutic--like kneading bread. I can't believe I haven't been making my own candles. Well, that is going to change.

I remember my dad making candles by melting old candles in a coffee can. When I told him about the class tonight, he introduced me to another candle project--ice candles. Apparently, if you pour the wax over a cup of ice, it creates beautiful candles with lots of small holes.

The best thing about this activity is that if you somehow mess up or aren't happy with the candles, you can just re-melt the beeswax and try again.

Making Music

The Wrangler's handyman acumen is in somewhat short supply, which is not a big deal because he has so many other talents. After all, it's only fair that he's bad at something. (It is, however, exasperating when he embarks on home repair projects armed with nothing but his trusty roll of duct tape and package of zip ties.) Until last weekend, his tool box contained a pliers set that is, after 12 years, still in the plastic package; a Phillips screwdriver and a standard screwdriver (and I can't say for certain that he knows which is which); a tape measure; and his high school photo. He had a nice little hand saw for making a fresh cut in the Christmas tree trunk. And that was all.

But things are changing around here! We made not one, not two, but three trips to Home Depot last weekend to buy man tools and wood. Four nights in a row the sounds of sawing and sanding (from borrowed tools) emanated from the garage. The Wrangler is building a cigar box guitar.

I'm not exactly sure what this entails, but there was a cutting step, a gluing step, and a sanding step. As I write this, I hear pounding...so apparently there is a hammering step too. As far as I can tell, there are no steps involving duct tape and zip ties. He provided me with this picture of his work from last night. As you can see in the photo, he designed the fancy sides for the headstock of the guitar, traced his design onto wood, and cut the pieces. I will post more pictures as he moves onto other steps.

I am so excited to see him so excited about building stuff. All he needed was a connection between art and tools. Think of the possibilities! Built-in bookshelves, a gazebo, sturdy fences for the sheep...

Hay Fever

I made five trips to the barn between Friday night and Sunday afternoon. I had a riding lesson on Friday evening and then returned later with the Wrangler to decorate Francie's stall for the holiday stall decorating contest. I didn't win, but I had an interesting time trying to think of sturdy, all-weather decorations, affixing them to a stall door, and keeping them out of the reach of a very curious horse. It was a chilly 46 degrees at 9PM on Friday, and we could could see the horses' breath as they peeked out of their stalls. Each horse was strapped into a thick winter coat.

I had another riding lesson on Saturday morning and then headed back for the barn holiday party. (I brought my cake pops, which actually turned out!) We made one trip today for the stable's Holiday with Horses event. The barn hosted a small-to-tall breed introduction (from miniature horses and wild ponies to Arabians and Fresians) followed by an impressive jumping demonstration with Grand Prix-level jumps. In addition, the stable hosted a natural horsemanship presentation (where the rider guided her horse through an obstacle course with no bridle), a Western cutting demo (with a flag on a pulley system substituting for cattle), and a dressage performance. Someone brought her pygmy goats in elf costumes. Perhaps next year I will bring my sheep in snowman costumes!

Holiday Tee Time

Overlooking the golf course from the tea room at Pelican Hill

The Laguna Beach area has several very posh resorts, and all of them offer a number of festive and reasonably priced, if not free, events for us local, not-so-posh peons. Last weekend we stopped in for the tree lighting ceremony at the Ritz Carlton, and my mom and I went to Holiday Tea at the Pelican Hill resort. The St. Regis Monarch Beach resort and the Montage resort also hosted tree lighting ceremonies and wine tastings. As we swayed to Beach Boy cover bands (nary a holiday carol to be heard at the Ritz), sipped hot cocoa, and pretended to be cold, I tried not to compare the highly orchestrated tree lighting ceremonies at these blandly elegant resorts to those in cities with souls, like Chicago and Boston. Similarly, it felt a little odd to be reveling in a full holiday tea service while overlooking a very green golf course. It's my seventh December in warm climate, but I haven't stopped dreaming of a white Christmas.

I'm not a complete Grinch, though. I give the resorts credit for trying, and I have to admit that the views, while not Christmas-y, are breathtaking. And it's 13 degrees back in my hometown as I write this. Brrr! I like cold weather but I'm not crazy. Maybe a white Christmas is overrated?

Blechh Friday

Ah, Black Friday. The day on which greediness, materialism, and bad manners are rewarded. Women lace up their running shoes in preparation of mowing down anything standing in the way of a $15 savings, men forego Thanksgiving with their families to camp out in front of Best Buy--a friend really did see people lined up in front of Best Buy on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving--and sales personnel are forced to report to work before their turkey dinner is digested. I self-righteously declared a Black Friday Black-Out this year, vowing to spend not one cent on this disgusting excuse for a holiday tradition.

The day dawned innocently enough. I had no plans for shopping, but we did have a tree to decorate. But after "thoroughly" searching the attic for the Christmas lights, the Wrangler reported that we must have thrown them away last year. (The fact that it didn't seem odd or out of character for us to inexplicably throw away perfectly good Christmas lights is, in itself, evidence that we are in no position to judge Black Friday shoppers.) I felt no compunction heading over to CVS for lights. CVS is not Target, I reasoned, unreasonably. I further assured myself that it is not 4AM, I'm not looking to score a mad deal on lights, I do not plan on shoving old ladies out of my way, and I will not fight anyone for a parking spot. I am not a crazy Black Friday shopper. I am a calm, rational consumer with a legitimate reason for buying something.

I found some cool snowflake tree lights and bought the last two boxes. Upon our return home, we were dismayed to find that we had purchased enough lights for exactly one spin 'round the tree. To make a long story short, three trips to two different CVS stores and NINE boxes of lights later, we had enough of those blasted snowflake tree lights to barely cover the Christmas tree. We mustered half-hearted applause during our tree lighting. I guess multiple trips to the store to drop $100+ on lights will usurp some of your yuletide anticipation.

Later that day, I climbed up into the attic to put away the turkey roaster. And what was the very first thing I saw at the top of the steps? A large box clearly marked "Christmas Tree Lights." I simply do not know how the box escaped the Wrangler's purview. This is the dude who spotted a $20 bill in a pile of leaves, people. From a moving car.

Even more disconcerting: somewhere out there, Black Friday shoppers are wrapping their $39 ipads and $79 flat-screen TVs. Yeah, I sure showed them!

Thanksgiving Eve

Tonight I baked two loaves of bread (one for the stuffing, one for the table), roasted and pureed four sugar pumpkins for pie, and made a 1/2 gallon of homemade vanilla ice cream. The theme this year is Thanksgiving on the Farm. For the first time, I won't be opening cans of green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and fried onions for the green been casserole. Nope, I'll be using fresh organic green beans, mushrooms, chicken stock, and my own caramelized onions. I'm roasting and creaming corn for the scalloped corn casserole. I'm making the stuffing from scratch, right down to the fresh sage, thyme, and rosemary from the spice garden. The only remnant of my Minnesota upbringing that will grace the table is the Jello salad. I'm using fresh fruit instead of canned fruit cocktail, and yogurt instead of Cool Whip, but I just can't think of an acceptable substitute for the Jello itself.

So, here I sit on the night before Thanksgiving, feeling ambitious and inexplicably smug. But check in with me 'round this time tomorrow. I'll either report that Thanksgiving on the Farm (a) was amazing and not really any more time-consuming than my old way of doing things, (b) was significantly more time-consuming but well worth the extra work, or (c) was a colossal disaster and a waste of time and ingredients. I guess we will see if I can kick the cans.