It's Happening!

I got the email today that every expectant shepherdess can't wait to get--a note from the breeder confirming that I want two wethers, asking about color preferences, and notifying me that they may be picked up on any Wednesday or Saturday in June! There are some extra details that I need to share with the Wrangler before I write about them here, as it would not be courteous to have him read here first that we may be getting four sheep instead of two (I'll explain later), or that we will be flying to Branson, Missouri and driving back to California with sheep in the back of a rental SUV. So I'll fill everyone in after I make the Wrangler some nice homemade granola and break the news gently.

And THAT ... was AMERICAN IDOL!

I'll admit that I've been an Idol fan since Season Two. I wouldn't say that I'm a huge fanatic, but I do watch it faithfully. Shows air twice (and sometimes three times) a week, from January through May, so it's a big time commitment...I hardly know what to do with myself in the off-season. After Simon left and J-Lo and Steven Tyler were brought aboard as judges for Season 10, I had decided to part ways with the show this year. But curiosity got the best of me, and I started watching the audition shows in January. And what do you know--I got hooked again. Hey, it's good, clean, family fun.

Last week I was thrilled to learn that I'd finally scored Idol tickets for tonight's results show. The Wrangler was considerably less enthusiastic about the idea of attending, but he focus group-tested the idea among some coworkers. The idea tested through the roof--everyone told him to go. And so we headed up to Hollywood this fine afternoon, dressed to impress (as we were instructed). We checked in around 2PM and were seated around 4:30PM. The show, which is aired live on the east coast and in the midwest, began at 5PM Pacific Time.

The studio looked just as I'd imagined, although it was much smaller than I expected. It was fun to see the judges, Seacrest, and the contestants in person. At the risk of sounding like a starstruck 'tween, I'll say it was simply a fabulous show! I just read a recap describing it as the most exciting results show EVER, and I must agree! We got our groove on during the surprise live performances by Stevie Wonder and Jennifer Hudson. (The Sugarland performance was pre-recorded; we all just sat and watched the video on monitors. It was a little weird.) We witnessed an elimination shocker, and we were stunned by the truly dramatic save by the judges.

After the show, we waited out the rush-hour traffic on the 405 with a stop for dinner in Little Ethiopia on Fairfax. We arrived home in time to re-live the glory by watching the recorded show (which airs at 8PM here), freezing the frame to point out our tiny, blurry faces in the nosebleed seats. Indeed, we are so blurry that I don't think this counts as our 15 minutes of fame.

Slide Down My Rain Barrel

The Wrangler and I learned how to build a rain barrel today at the Ecology Center, and we might be able to put it to use as early as Monday--there is rain in the forecast. Harvested rainwater is a great source of high-quality water for the garden. Here in Laguna Beach, it's an especially good means of reducing the storm water runoff that ends up in the ocean. As a general rule, a 1,000-square foot "catchment area" (i.e., your roof) yields 600 gallons of water per inch of rain. My rain barrel is a 55-gallon recycled food-grade plastic drum (with no harmful BHT), which I estimate will be filled after only an hour or so of moderate rain.

Constructing the rain barrel was extremely easy. It's just a matter of having the right tools. There are only four steps: drilling a hole in the lid, which will be positioned beneath the downspout of the rain gutter; using silicone caulking to attach a piece of screen under the hole (to keep out mosquitos and debris); inserting an overflow spout; and installing a spigot for the garden hose or watering can. The Ecology Center provides more detailed instructions on its website.

What Are the Bees' Names?

Today at the farmer's market, I purchased some local honey and found myself innocently asking the seller too many questions about the honey: Where was it harvested (Northern San Diego County.) Who is the producer? (A guy with just a few hives.) What kind of flower? (This honey is from orange blossoms, but he's also selling some from jasmine. It just depends on what's in bloom.) During the inquisition, the Wrangler interjected, "And what are the bees' names?" He was referring, of course, to this hilarious clip from the new series Portlandia. Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself.

You're Welcome

I finished my craft project. When I last reported on this attempt to create replicas of the $7.99 Easter-themed Welcome sign that I saw at Michaels, I was somewhat alarmed that the cost-per-unit had reached $55. Well, I ended up spending approximately $240 on supplies, for a total of $60 per sign. This, of course, does not include labor. My friend Theresa and I spent most of Sunday afternoon painting the letters. Connecting the letters with wire kept me occupied throughout the entire Academy Awards red carpet pre-show and ceremony. I spent a couple hours cutting fabric on Monday evening, and tonight I fired up the glue gun and spent an hour affixing all the buttons. I guess that's about 13 hours of man-power. Assuming a modest wage of, say, $10 an hour, the cost per sign is $92.50.

Theresa offered to sell my signs at her booth in the upcoming craft fair at the Laguna Beach Women's Club. As lovely as my signs are, I suspect that at $100 each they are unlikely to fly off the shelves. No worries. I always had intended to give them as gifts to VERY LUCKY recipients.

In the mean time, I need suggestions for something I can do with the four jars of leftover paint in pink, green, tan, and eggshell!

Urban Flower

Homemade Living

I've been enjoying the four books in the Homemade Living series by Ashley English. Beautifully designed, the books are both informative and fun. Ashley is a former medical professional-turned homesteader in North Carolina and seems poised to become the Martha Stewart of the modern homesteading movement.

Getting Started

I'm making my way through the Sheep Home Study Course that I'd mentioned a couple weeks ago. It's part of the Pipestone Lamb and Wool Management Program started 39 years ago as a pilot program jointly funded by the National Sheep Industry Development Board and the Minnesota Department of Education. For approximately $170, I received a package of 14 lessons and quizzes. I could have opted for the online version of the course, but I'm an old-fashioned gal at times and prefer the hard copies. (No Kindle or Nook for this cowgirl).

The course is designed for commercial sheep producers. I know this because the first lesson, "Getting Started in the Sheep Business," suggests that I start with 40 to 50 head of three- or four-year-old ewes. Clearly, my instructors are envisioning an operation somewhat larger than my huge flock of two miniature lambs. Nonetheless, I'm getting a lot of out this course so far. I don't think it's possible to be over-prepared for shepherding.

'Shrooms

Tonight at Whole Foods the Wrangler spotted a little mushroom garden kit by a California start up called Back to the Roots. The kit comes in a cardboard box similar to a milk carton. Unlike mushrooms in the typical grow-your-own mushroom kits, these mushrooms grow not on logs but in recycled coffee grounds.

The garden must be kept indoors in an area with good air flow and indirect sunlight. We put ours on the windowsill next to my wheatgrass garden (which is, I might add, growing like a weed. I planted the seeds last Tuesday, and the grass is already six inches tall!). The mushroom kit includes a misting bottle for daily watering.

Apparently, we'll start seeing growth in about seven days, after which the mushrooms double in size each day. A crop yields about a pound of mushrooms, and the little kit should give us two to four crops. We'll know by next week how this turns out.

Back in the Coop

Okay, okay. I know I once proclaimed here that chickens are "so early 2009" before blithely moving on to such things as backyard goats and Babydoll sheep. But what came first, the chicken or the...goat? In my case, it was the urban chicken movement that got me thinking of all the other possibilities.

I've been so caught up with my impending shepherdhood that I've given scant thought to chickens. But while traveling this week I picked up Janice Cole's Chicken and Egg, a simply delightful memoir of suburban homesteading with 125 recipes. Although I'd all but fallen off the chicken bandwagon, I thought the book might be interesting because the author keeps backyard chickens not far from my hometown. I was more than a little curious to see how her chickens fared during the brutal Minnesota winters. What a charming account of learning to raise chickens! Janice, a food writer and former chef, also blogs about her Three Swingin' Chicks.

Because my supernova self often takes things to the extreme, I loaded up on chicken books this weekend. There are many good books for beginners, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention Chick Days, a fun new book by Jenna Woginrich. You might recall that Jenna graciously invited the Wrangler and me to visit her farm when we were in Vermont last fall, and we had a wonderful lesson in beekeeping and spinning wool.

And that is how I've come to be preoccupied with chicks, coops, and delicious fresh eggs all over again.

Unwelcome Knock-off

I spotted this Easter "Welcome" sign for $7.99 at Michaels and thought--rather stupidly, it turns out--that it would be fairly easy to mass-produce facsimiles to give as gifts. Materials needed: unpainted wood letters, including an egg-shaped "letter" as a substitute for the O in "WELCOME"; paint in four country-ish pastel colors; paint brushes; a drill to make holes and jewelry wire to string the letters together; twine to affix to the top letter so that the sign can be hung; ric rac ribbons in a few different patterns; wood buttons; glue gun; and sandpaper (to give the letters a distressed look after painting).

I decided to make four signs. Tonight I found most of the supplies at the store, but I struck out on the wood letters. No L to be found, and the C and M were available only in the wrong size or font. But at that point, I wasn't too discouraged. I could find the letters online. The discouragement began to set in at the check-out counter. The paints, brushes, twine, and jewelry wire came to $86 and some change. Thankfully, the Wrangler already has a drill, glue gun, and some sandpaper.

At home I searched for the letters online. The good news is that I found exactly what I wanted--even the egg-shaped O. The bad news is that the grand total for four sets came to $98 plus shipping. The devastating news is that I won't receive the letters for 15 business days. I consider this devastating news because the odds are good that I'll have deserted this project within 15 business days.

But I haven't lost interest yet, so I'll press on to the fabric store tomorrow in search of the wood buttons and ric rac ribbons. I can't guess what I'll end up paying there, but right now these handmade knock-offs of the $7.99 Michaels masterpiece will probably cost about $55 each and look like a third-grader made them...assuming I even make them. Fifteen business days for delivery? What year is it--1860? Are the letters coming by Pony Express?

Lucky Duck

I've been thinking about how nice it would be to have some rescued animals on the ranch. I love animal babies, so I'll probably get a lot of my livestock directly from the breeders. But I'll be sure to keep space for a few older animals in need of a good home. I just saw this beautiful duck available for adoption from the Best Friends animal sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. Timmothea is an adult female Pekin duck that had been dragged from her pond by dogs. Luckily, a good Samaritan chased away the dogs and took her to the vet. Timmothea is very friendly and waddles around with a cheerful hello for everyone. If only I had a pond!

Baker's Delight

This winter has been particularly brutal. After the epic rainfall here in SoCal, the unprecedented ice storms across the south, the weeks of sub-zero temps in the Midwest, and the record-setting blizzards in the east, I need a little reassurance that the ranch will have heat and a method of cooking if nature shows the power grid who's the boss. Thus, I've been researching dual-function wood-fired ovens. If pressed, I'll admit that I'm probably motivated less by the practicality of these charming ovens and more by romantic notions of stoking a fire in the cookstove and baking bread in a cozy cottage while a winter storm howls outside.

I had pretty much decided on the Baker's Oven featured in the Lehman's Non-Electric Catalog. The Baker's Oven can heat a 700 square-foot room while the cooktop accommodates four large saucepans and the bottom oven is used for baking. But I recently saw a post on another blog discussing the Vermont Bun Baker. Aside from having a catchier name, the Vermont Bun Baker comes with an attractive soapstone hearth, side wall, and top.

Not cheap, these ovens. (The Vermont Bun Baker 1500 pictured here will set you back a cool $6950.00.) Why does it cost so much to have a back-up plan?

Tamale Truck

One thing that this urban cowgirl will miss in the (probably) far-off future when she permanently trades city lights for starry nights in the country: street food vans. These are not to be confused with the properly licensed street food vendors selling the food truck equivalent of chain restaurant fare. I'm talking about the mom-and-pop shop run out of a sketchy-looking van parked in an alley. These vans, which have loyal followings, sell homemade delicacies for practically a song. They never hurry, and they never skimp. Germaphobes surely avoid these vans like, well, the plague, but in all my years of partaking in these non- Health Services-sanctioned feasts, I've only gotten seriously ill once. (And it was my own fault. In retrospect, no I shouldn't have eaten gray chicken fried rice sold from an Igloo cooler in a dark corner of a parking garage. Both the rice and the chicken were unequivocally gray--we're not talking just a grayish hue.)

When I lived in Boston, the best sausages with fried peppers and onions were served up in Kenmore Square on Red Sox game days. My favorite sausage van was conveniently parked on my route home from class, so it really was no wonder that I gained the Freshman 15. When I lived in Chicago, my second-story loft had a window that opened into the alley. Every day at noon, a sandwich van would pull into the alley, I'd open the window and toss down a handful of change, and the sandwich guy would throw me a tuna melt. When I lived in DC, my coworker regularly purchased me tasty meat pies or breakfast sandwiches from a guy on her corner (not from one of those bland "commercial" vendors that line Constitution Avenue). Is it any wonder we became such good friends? She is one of the Six-Button Cowgirls. Once in a border town south of Brownsville, Texas, I had the best mini-tacos imaginable, served from a cart in a dimly-lit alley and washed down with an odd-tasting Coca-Cola that was nonetheless refreshing. I still am haunted by those scrumptious street tacos that I am unlikely to ever find again.

I really could go on and on, but I will spare you the details of my love affair with street food vans. I must mention, however, how truly fortuitous it is that, on occasion, a guy will come to the back gate of our Laguna Beach cottage and ask if we want any tamales. Today was one of those occasions. It was noon, and I had just about polished off a column of Thin Mints. The pets were playing on the patio and started to bark. Thin Mints in hand, I peeked out the window and saw a dirty, white, windowless van inching slowly down the street (a sight that looks suspicious to mothers but auspicious to me). "Tamales?" called the guy in the passenger seat. I stopped, mid-crunch. "Yes, yes," I hissed at the Wrangler, handing him his wallet and shoving him out the door. Within minutes, the Wrangler returned with hot, homemade pork tamales, chicken tamales, and chile rellenos. It is true that I generally don't like Mexican cuisine, but oh how I adore van food.

Funky Chicken

Third Time Is NOT the Charm

For the the third year in a row, I struck out of the office's annual chili cook-off. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. My chili is pretty darn good, if I say so myself. It's not a very spicy chili (after all, I am from the Midwest), but it's hearty and tasty. I think I need to acknowledge the possibility that I'm that person who fancies herself a good cook while my poor dinner guests raise their eyebrows at each other and shuffle things around on their plates. This does not bode well for the cookbook on which I've been working for the past three years.

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.