In Montana Magazine

The current issue of Montana Magazine -- the one with the fox on the cover (a real fox, not me, jeez) -- features a really wonderful story by Beth Judy on our very own Prairie Heritage Farm.

The photos, by the talented Mr. Jeremy Lurgio, are great and Beth's piece captures us, our hopes, our dreams, our values and our challenges extremely well.

We've been extraordinarily lucky to get loads of good press over the last four years, but this story really shines at getting at the heart of what we do. (And that, as I know, is a hard thing to do as a reporter.)

I was particularly nervous about how this story would come out because we were beyond scattered when Beth came to spend some time with us this summer. We'd just found out the deal on our dream farm had fallen through, we'd just found out we were pregnant (we later miscarried) and our little one was sick, sick sick -- all the middle of high season on the farm.

So, I wasn't very on message (not that I ever am really) and felt like I'd given Beth just a total mess of a representation of us. But, maybe because of that -- or maybe because Beth is just a really good intuitive magazine writer -- the story feels more authentic than any other piece of journalism that's been created about us. (Other than, of course, our friend Rick White's amazing radio documentary, in which he chronicled our first year on the farm. Man, I wish I had a link to share with you.)

It's always hard to see yourself in print, or hear yourself on the radio, or see yourself in video -- to see yourself through someone else's lens. You're almost always left wondering: Is that really me? Is that how the world sees me? What you see doesn't always square with what you think or know.

But this piece wasn't hard at all like that -- it really looks and feels like us, like our true selves, mess, weeds, chaos and all.

So, if you're looking for some good reading material, pick up a copy at a bookstore, grocer or any magazine retailer in Montana (I found a good stack at at Town Pump).

Here are a few of our favorite photos from Jeremy's photo shoot (all photos courtesy of and copyright of Jeremy Lurgio -- see more of his work here!):

 

Outside! I Said Outside!

These days, Willa is asking, basically from the moment she wakes up, to go outside.

OK, so it really sounds like she's screaming "Die-ee!" "Die-ee!" "Die-ee!" over and over again, but I quickly translate that to "Outside!" (I'm hoping, at least, that it needs translation and she's not actually turning into a teenager already telling me to die. I don't think I'm doing that bad of a job.)

Anyway, I love her even more for this, because:

a) It means she has more than a healthy dose of her father in her;
b) It gets me out of the house too, which, if you work from home, sometimes seems impossible unless there's a toddler screaming at you to do so and;
c) It means she'll be OK in this farm life... maybe.

When we took this leap into farming, I'll admit, somewhere, deep down, I probably did it because I wanted to reclaim a childhood, both for myself and for my kids.

I spent a lot of time outside as a kid on the farm and I think that -- the wind, the sun, the dirt, all of it -- formed me in some pretty elemental ways. I wanted my kids to know that connection and farming was a way to create that. (There are of course, lots of other ways to make that connection.)

Willa has been an outdoorsy gal, by necessity, since birth, and she's seemed OK with it. (See photo below.) But, I have worried a time or two about thrusting this life on her. I mean, I think it's good for her to have this connection to food and land and the environment, but you never really know, you know? Maybe she'll be an indoorsy kind of gal who doesn't like dirt or animals. Then what? Then I'm just the dirty Mom who does gross things all day long. It could happen.

So as I watch her little personality developing, and her independence growing, I'm heartened to see her craving the outside all on her own.

The other day in the greenhouse, while Jacob planted (and confession: while I read a mystery novel), I saw Willa waving her hands out of the corner of my eye. She was covered in potting soil, a large clump of it tumbling out of her mouth as she ran to me, arms outstretched and her tongue, black with the stuff, plunging out of her mouth.

I think maybe she's a natural after all.

On Presence, Practice and Pooping Out Unicorns

 Image comes from here and used with Creative Commons license.

 A few months after her second child was born, a friend's doctor told her she could get more sleep if she went to bed when her daughter did at 7:30 p.m.

"Yeah, lady. And why don't you go poop out a unicorn?" she wrote on her Facebook page.

Since I read her post, I haven't been able to get that phrase out of my head.

It's especially helpful when someone gives well-meaning advice that might seem doable to them, but seems totally impossible to me. Like when someone asks me why we don't just put Willa in the crib and let her fall asleep on her own? Or, when someone tells me I just need to make time for myself.

Or, more frequently, when someone tells me to relish every single moment when my kids are little because before you know it, they're all grown up.

I'd love to relish, really I would. But, sometimes, I'm too exhausted to relish. And, you know what? Telling me I should relish just makes me feel even more guilty than I already do about my lack of relishing. 

So, to the rescue, comes Paige's mantra:
Yeah. And why don't you go poop out a unicorn?

It's been a particularly perfect response as I've been exploring resources on what I'll just call, for now, present parenting. 

I've been really struggling lately with how fractured I've been feeling (which I know I tend to write about a lot. Sorry about that.) 

Don't get me wrong, I love the flexibility I have in my current, work-at-home, stay-at-home, farm-at-farm situation. I can't even remember what my office job felt like these days. No more linear home is at home and, work is at work boundaries for this girl. But, at times, our lives do feel like one big, badly mixed mash up.

And while it works for the most part, I've noticed a certain flabbiness, let's call it, in my ability to be present. I'm always doing something so I can cross it off my to-do list and get to the next thing and then, maybe then, I can be present. But, the to-do list never actually gets finished. So, if I wait for that to be present, then I'm never present at all. And, I'm afraid we're all going to suffer because of it.

So, I have to find someway to find peace amidst the chaos and most importantly, someway to be more focused and present -- for my daughter, my husband, and for myself.

(I'm guessing here, by the way, that no matter if you work outside the home or if you run your own business or, even if you have children or not, this fractured feeling might sound familiar.)

So, I started exploring resources that might give me some strategies or tools in this regard. And, in poking around in the self-help/parenting/spirituality sections, most of what I found just begged to be answered with some permutation of someone, somewhere, pooping out a unicorn.

(How is it that so many books meant to give parents inspiration just end up making a person feel like a terrible parent? In my research, I must have found 10 ways that I've already done major psychic damage to Willa.)

And so it was with perfect timing that I found Paige's wise post and later, that I stumbled across this post from a really good blogger about how to not carpe diem. Besides totally hitting my nail on its head (finally! someone gets the whole relish thing!), the post was a wonderful reminder that life is about practice not perfect. 

If you spend all your time worrying about what you're not doing perfectly, you actually lose the chance to sneak in little moments of perfection. 

And, it's those little bursts that will make the difference. Being "present" is like a muscle. It needs exercise -- not overuse or atrophy -- but maintenance.

(By the way, one of the best bits of advice I got after I became a Mom was from my friend Donna, who told me -- instead of telling me to be totally present every single moment -- to take "snapshots" when my kids were little. Take a few seconds, she said, and make a mental photograph of that moment -- of the smell of their little head, of the smoothness of their skin, of their little sparkly eyes -- and you'll be surprised at how the memories come back later on. And, it also serves a really good way of exercising being present, in little, doable, moments.)

Parenthood -- hell, life really -- is about knowing the difference between what's desirable and what's attainable. Striving for your best, but still accepting yourself when you're not quite there. And for the love of God, understanding that there are some feats that just aren't humanly possible.

I'm now giving myself permission to not carpe diem, and certainly, permission to not poop out any unicorns.

And so far, we're all better off.

After all, ouch.

7 Store-Bought Things in Your Kitchen You Can, and Should, Make Yourself

One of the best things I've done for my family's budget and my family's health is rethinking the convenience foods we use in our kitchen.

A few years ago, when we were first starting the farm, neither of us had a steady paycheck and at times, we were living on less than $800 a month. That meant a significant slashing of our food budget and when I took a hard look at what was costing us the most money, it was most definitely the items in the middle of the grocery store -- the pre-packaged, processed, convenience foods. It's not like I was buying Hamburger Helper or anything, but even healthy-ish things like rice pilaf mixes, salad dressings, breads, macaroni and cheese (Annie's organic, of course) and cereals and granola were draining our budget.

Also, no matter how pure the product, the ingredient list is still longer than I would like and there's bound to be preservatives and other funky, unpronounceable things that I'd just rather stay away from.

So, slowly, as I started learning to cook (I was a Tostitos queso, little smokies, brown gravy kind of gal), I retrained myself to think wholly about food. If I wanted a rice side dish, I made it. If we were out of granola, I made it. If I needed a quick lunch, I made mac and cheese from scratch.

So, today, I give you a list of the seven big recipes that have helped us kick the box (or bag) and gain more control over what goes into our bodies and out of our pockets.

1. Salad Dressing
This isn't easy as pie. It's easier than pie. (Pie is actually quite hard.) The basic vinaigrette I use is simply:

1/4 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup vinegar (red wine, balsamic, apple cider)
1 Tbs mustard (I'm big on Dijon)

Then, from there, you can make it whatever you like. Add lemon juice for a little zest. Maybe some honey to sweeten, any herbs you have on hand. A diced shallot or red onion or minced garlic. Hot sauce. Minced sun-dried tomato. Customize however you like based on what you have on hand and what might match what else is in your salad. As for mixing, I just use a small jelly jar with a lid and shake-a, shake-a. You just saved yourself $5 and a whole lot of MSG.

2. Granola
The bulk items you need for granola are generally pretty inexpensive (with the exception of nuts). And granola is super expensive.

Here's a good basic recipe I use a lot, from CHOW.

3. Cheesy crackers
Or, really, crackers of any kind. You'd be surprised how easy crackers are to make and how many unpronounceable ingredients are in the store-bought varieties. (My kid went nuts for graham crackers so I started making my own, with our own flour -- ground from our heritage Sonora Wheat. I can't tell you what a super mom I feel like when I feed her those crackers.)

But, today, I'll share this awesome recipe for cheesy crackers. We absolutely gobble Goldfish or Cheez-Its when we have the chance. So, I thought, I'd better learn to make a cheesy cracker.

And I came across this recipe from Simply Scratch. Deelish.

Also, if you want to fancy up a bit, here are some wonderful basic icebox cracker recipes from Martha Stewart.

4. Macaroni and cheese
Sure, the long version of homemade mac and cheese, in the oven with breadcrumbs and whatnot is super good, but who has time when it's supposed to be a quick lunch and then back out the door?

So, we grab the box and actually, it's not that great. But, if you play it right, you can make your own mac and cheese on the stovetop with a few ingredients: flour, butter, milk, cheese and noodles.

Here's a basic recipe I use (but I sort of know by heart now) and here's slightly more complicated one that gives creamier results. 

5. Pancakes
They now make a "shake and pour" pancake mix (actually, it's called "Shake N' Pour"). Yep. A plastic bottle with the mix in it. You add water, shake and pour onto the griddle.

But, you know what? Pancakes are pretty darn easy. So, if you want to spend the extra two minutes and save yourself cash and loads of unpronouceables, here's a simple recipe.

But, if you want to spend the extra cash for those two minutes you save, then by all means, shake n' poor. (Punny, aren't I?)

(Note: When I make pancakes, I sometimes just take the time to measure out three or four batches of  dry ingredients and put them in separate, labeled jars so I can just add wet ingredients if it has to be a fast, fuss-free morning.)

6. Pilaf
Oh, the many ways you can pilaf!

Pilaf is not just for rice you know. It's for quinoa and millet and farro, oh my!

My new favorite is a pilaf I make with our own Prairie Farro, which is what you see adorned with sausages (that's a phrase I don't use enough) above. (More, by the way, on Prairie Heritage Farm's extra special, nutritious, totally cool grains here.)

Here's a good basic look at pilaf from Mark Bittman in the New York Times, but just memorize this:

1. Saute onion and/or garlic in 1-2 Tbs oil in a deep pan or skillet.

2. Add grain or rice (I sometimes add a 1/4 cup or so of wild rice into the Farro or small pieces of pasta for texture) and toast in the oil until glossy and fragrant. 

3. Add any herbs and spices you'd like. The more the better. (I like to add a bay leaf, among other herbs.)

4. Add 2-4 cups of broth (depending on how much grain you have -- just get about an half inch of liquid on top of the grain or rice) and cover. (And use a flavorful broth. Do you know about organic "Better Than Bouillon?" you should.)

4. Check every so often and serve when liquid is absorbed (mostly) and/or the grain is tender. (Up to an hour and a half for whole grains, shorter for rices.)

7. Artisan bread
Two words for you: No Knead. 

Mark Bittman (who helped me more than anyone to kick the box and taught me how to cook, really) was the first to turn us on to no knead bread. If you plan ahead, it's easy, peasy. Mix the ingredients, let it sit over night, let it rise two hours and put it in the oven. The crust is amazing, the guts are nice and lofty and the variations are endless.

Here's Bittman's reciepe - the Jim Lahey version. 

(Short on time? Try the faster version.)

Note: You'll need a good oven-safe (preferably cast iron) pot with a lid and good flour. Really, good flour from good wheat makes all the difference. (This is me on my soapbox about grain again, sorry. But we have to start thinking more thoroughly about where our staples come from, just as we do about our dairy and meat and produce. We need to be thoughtful about how our staples are grown and how they're bred even. They are, after all, the staff of life, right?)

So there you have it: The seven wonders of cooking outside the box.

What are your favorite easy, peasy, made-from-scratch secrets?

Allow

I celebrated my 32nd birthday last week by getting up, first at 2:30 a.m., and then for good at 5:15 a.m. thanks to a toddler yelling for her Mama.

I talked to Jacob about the never-ending question of grain cleaning equipment, about what seeds to order and whether or not we needed to buy new seed-starting trays this year. I talked to a friend overseas, read lovely missives from other friends, listened to a sweet rendition of Happy Birthday from my Mom, played a little fiddle and started prepping lunch.

I ate a pile of greasy fries at our small-town diner, washed it down with a 7-Up, spent time with great friends and collapsed into bed at 9:00 p.m., so very grateful for my life, however ordinary it might all seem.

Ten years ago, on my 22^nd birthday, I was just getting ready to graduate from college. I had a DC internship under my belt and would go on, later that year, to intern covering the state capitol. When I blew out my candles that year, I'm guessing I wished for grandness in my career. 

The Many Faces and Facets of Courage

I spent the last week with a sick toddler, both of us covered in vomit and at times, too dizzy to even stand.

That Willa could be miserable, all puking and nauseous and still be cuddly and sweet and go on about her "work" -- mostly of dancing with her pig -- (especially because I felt like curling up into a ball) was remarkable. And, I think because she was such a little trooper, we both came out of it happy and healthy and surprisingly, well-adjusted.

It was just one of the many reminders I've gotten in the last two weeks of how many different ways courage can manifest itself.

Courage is everywhere: in foreign correspondents and people putting themselves in harm's way for the greater good, but also in quiet, everyday moments and seemingly ordinary lives.

The first reminder of this came in the story of Grampa Bob, my dear friend Brooke's grandfather, who passed away right before the New Year.

Bob and his wife Thelma, who died last spring, spread so much love and generosity and strength and humor in their lives. Their grace and their courage was palpable when you were around them. 

They gave these hugs, big, genuine, all-they-have hugs that you could feel long after their arms had unwrapped you. (And Thelma's perfume stayed all day too. Iloved that about her. Her perfume was sweet and thick, something special on an otherwise unfancied farm wife.) Even when they were both frail, they hugged with all they had, even though as you hugged back, you worried you might break them. 

Aging, but never broken, those two.

You can read Bob's full obituary here, written by Brooke, but to sum it up: Bob and Thelma lived a relatively quiet life, outside a small town, raising kids, food and a community. They weren't the loudest family in town, nor the most powerful, nor the richest. They were simple and good and kind. What mattered to them was marriage, family, faith, land, and community. And all are better because of them.

Their legacy is small, perhaps, but huge at the same time. Bob's funeral was so crowded that we arrived 20 minutes early and still had to wait in a long line to get into the small, packed church. The whole community came, all ages, all persuasions, all religions. Bob and Thelma's kids and grandkids milled about, all of them little pillars in their own right, strong and giving and funny and loving (and most of them blonde). As I watched Brooke, who recently moved back to Central Montana herself (as have her two brothers), and witnessed the grace with which she responded to each and every person who came to her, hugging them fully, all while wrangling two little ones and dealing with the loss of two of the most important people in her life, was, and always is, astounding. Bob and Thelma and Brooke and her siblings and cousins have seen more than their fair share of heartbreak in their lives. Bob and Thelma lost a son, too early, and then a grandson, way too early. Theirs has not been an easy life. But they've faced it with so much love and grace. 

That is courage -- courage I see in each and every one of their kids and each of their grandkids too – a legacy to be very sure.

Holly, from PBS.org

The second example of courage hit me while I listened to a college friend discuss her work as a photographer in the Middle East. Holly Pickett grew up in Butte and went to the University of Montana. She started her career at a mid-sized newspaper, but broke off the traditional path in 2008 to move to Cairo, Egypt, to freelance. Now, the courage to freelance is one thing. The courage to freelance in a foreign country is another. To freelance in the Middle East in wartime is a whole other story.

In an interview with Montana Public Radio's News Director Sally Mauk (Listen on MTPR here.), Holly talked about her work in the Middle East, including her documentation of the revolutions that started a year ago in the Middle East – the so-called Arab Spring. Holly is an incredible photographer, whose work has now graced the pages of the New York Times, TIME, the New Yorker and many others.

Holly's images, as Sally points out, are nothing short of haunting, especially those of the women and children and families affected by war and disruption. (See them here.) When Sally asked her about those photos in particular, she said:

“I feel like I'm there for a purpose... It's such a terrible thing to have happen, but I want people to see those pictures because I want them to know that it [war] has an impact on even children. That it has an impact on families, on regular people who really don't have anything to do with the fighting or the politics. I just think it's really important to remember that, that it has an impact on civilians.”

And after Sally brought up images of Holly literally dodging bullets, Holly said:

“For me, it's not really about excitement so much... It's not about seeking thrills for me, it never has been... it's just I feel like I'm there for a purpose and I need to do what I'm there to do.”

What struck me so much about the interview is how humble and grounded Holly sounds (as she sounds, by the way, in her very well-done blog). She's just an ordinary Butte girl, doing what she's meant to do (here's a really good profile of her). It just so happens that there are sometimes bullets flying around her when she does it. 

That is courage.

The third example, in a similar vein, was the launch of my friend Anne's new project, Speak Out Tunisia. Anne is a multimedia journalist and instructor who just comes up with these crazy ideas to go to dangerous places in the name of free speech. Her last project, Congo in Focus, trained Congolese students to tell their own stories via multimedia. Here's how she described the whole thing in a piece this week on PBS MediaShift:

“In Congo, I watched students learn to report on the truth in their communities and to tell the stories that they considered to be important, not only the stories the West has grown accustomed to hearing -- stories of rape, violence, war and corruption. In return, my students taught me about human resilience and the ability to affect change in the face of oppression.”

One of Anne's students recently had apiece featured on PBS NewsHour, about which, Anne writes:

“The fact that NewsHour chose to highlight a story reported, written and photographed by a Congolese instead of a foreign correspondent in Congo brought the point of my teaching journalism in Congo full circle.”

Now, Anne is raising money to go to Tunisia to help train newly liberated citizens there (after the overthrow of dictator Ben Ali and in general, post Arab Spring) to tell their own stories too.

A few months ago, Anne and I were chatting (after she'd returned from a sojourn in France) and she, all casual like, writes, “it looks like i might be doing a project in Tunisia in the spring … and then back to Congo, I think...”

To just decide to go to a post-revolution or war-torn country for the sake of helping people tell their stories, because someone has to, that is courage.

(Anne's project is fundraising on Kickstarter.org, where you can pledge a little (as little as $1) or a lot to her campaign. Click here to watch a video about it, to learn more or to donate.)

The fourth example is the story of Henry and his parents. Henry is just a few months younger than Willa and his parents have become friends of ours. They're also small-town, came-back-to-the-farm folks just getting rolling on the whole farm family/family farm thing. Last week Henry had to be flown to Seattle with major heart issues and he and his family spent his first birthday in a hospital room, with Henry better, but still not out of the woods and with absolutely no answers, even from some of the nation's best cardiologists, as to what was going wrong with Henry's little heart.

But, they still had cake because he's a little boy turning one and by golly, that calls for cake. And, not just any cake. As his mom posted, “Red velvet cake with pearl dust on an incredible cream cheese frosting. Because it was truly a celebration.”

Henry's parents have been keeping friends and family informed on Facebook and sharing photos too. In one photo, there's Henry's dad, smiling as his son dug into his first birthday cake.

That is courage.

(Email me at courtney.lowery@gmail.com if you want me to pass along information on how you can help Henry and his family.)

This woman has amazing reserves of patience and courage.

The fifth example was closest to home: my Mom. My Mom has been caring for my grandmother since my grandpa died about 10 years ago. My grandma's a tough old bird, but in the last year or so, age and life has started to take its toll – on her body, on her mind and most of all, on her spirit. In particular, the last few months, she's gotten worse and worse and my Mom, the only child living near her, is the one who takes her to the doctor, takes her to the store, takes her to bank, takes her call in the middle of the night when her hearing aids don't work, and also takes the brunt of her, let's call it high-spritedness.

My grandmother has never been a warm and fuzzy type, but age, maybe some dementia, combined with a tough life and then watching her closest family members die one by one over the last decade has left even more prickly, to say the very least. My mom gets help from her brother – a lot of help – but he's also two states away. So my Mom takes the days upon days off work to take Grandma to the doctor, only to have her berate her time after time, in front of anyone who will listen. She takes Grandma shopping, because that's what she likes to do, only to have her complain the whole time. She wades through bills and Medicare paperwork, doctor's orders and prescription schedules, only to have my Grandma tell her she's not so smart.

My mom takes the abuse, deals with my grandmother with grace and then explains to me that she understands, it's just confusion and anyway, she's all my Grandma has left and she's not going to leave her alone in the last years of her life.

And so, when my Mom's phone rings at 7 a.m. and she sees it's my grandmother, she picks it up and says hello, lovingly.

That is courage.

I know I started this post with an anecdote about a stomach bug and I don't want, for a second, to equate that with the feats of courage laid out here. Instead, I want to point out how intrinsic it can be and how inspiring it is to realize that it all, big and small, comes from a central place. 

Whether it's fighting for one's country or getting up the strength to smile and give a hug when you know you, or your baby is sick, the courage comes from a current running through all of us.

So this year (I turn 32 this week), I'm going to be courageous, in any way I can, and recognize courage around me, in extraordinary and ordinary lives all the same.

Holiday Cheer and Light and Hope and ... Losing It, Again

I've sat down maybe seven times in the last two weeks to write something and every time I have, what comes out is some permutation of: I'm so, very, ridiculously, incredibly, totally, freaking, busy.

Sometimes, it happened a few paragraphs in,  other times, it was the first sentence. Some pieces started out being about how to manage it all (as if I know). Others were just screeds of complaining with sidebars of to-do lists and most, maybe all, had this annoying martyr undercurrent that I feel flowing more readily than I would like these days.

Eventually, I scrapped them all. Because I'm not telling you something you don't already know. You're likely very, ridiculously, incredibly, totally, freaking, busy too. 


Here's a secret: We all are.

I never want to become one of those "busy" people, you know the ones -- the ones always talking about how busy they are?

Because those people are likely:

a) trying to sound important (because very important people are always very busy);

b) using it as an excuse of some kind, often for being flakey or just plain inefficient;

c) as a vehicle for recognition of some kind, exposing some deep self-confidence void ("Oh, I have so much to do!" = "I do so much and get no thanks for it so I'm trying to get you to acknowledge how hard I work so I can actually feel some modicum of self respect."); or

d) too busy to think of anything else to think about, thus, leading lives obviously full of pure drudgery.  



So, I've been trying, grasping really, to find some balance with the busy-ness in our lives. Because, this, friends, is the slow part of our year. And if I'm borderline now? Wait until Jacob is in the field all day (i.e. not helping with Willa) and we have seeds to plant and plants to transplant and veggie deliveries to make and turkeys to feed and grain to plant and lentils to roll and ...

I start to hyperventilate just thinking about it.

And then, add to that, the prospect of a pregnancy or a second baby and I'm certifiably nutso.

Hence, the grasping. Because the truth is, I wouldn't change a thing. I wanted it all and I got it all. I have the career and the small farm and the husband and the small town and the awesome kid and even the cute neurotic dog.

But that doesn't mean I can't lose it every once in awhile.

I wanted to be able to tell you I've found some sort of lesson in it all. But things don't always wrap up as nicely as we'd hope.

It was all coming to a head last week and so on Willa's and my morning walk, I planned to take all these photos of this amazing frost that was blanketing our little town and write a post about how stressed I was, but isn't it grand when nature makes you stop and leave the chaos behind for a moment? 

I tried, several times, to stop and gaze at the sparkly white trees, the blue sky, the hot white sun streaks coming through the snow, and breathe. But it was ass-cold and my hands were freezing, and Willa fell asleep fast, (that's another post. Right now, the only way to get her to nap, and thus, get me some uninterrupted work time, is to walk her down in the stroller.) so I took a few hurried shots and heeled it back to the house to cram in a few hours.

Then, by that afternoon, I'd come down with what could have only been the flu and spent the next few days struggling to a) not throw up and b) not freak out about the million things I should be doing instead of laying in bed in a fever-induced coma.

By the time I came out of it, I was drained and weak. But, my to-do list was not. It was full and strong and looming.

Jacob had done a fantastic job at the care and feeding of the child and the house, but I was impossibly behind on work and the 10,000 other things that needed to be done.

For a moment, I thought about writing a piece about how isn't it beautiful it can actually be when, just when you think life is crazy, your body forces you to slow down? As if it's saying "Hey girl, think you're in control? How's this for a lesson in slowing down and letting go? You can't even control your bowels, let alone your day."

But, by the time Thursday arrived, I had hit the wall. A big, merry, crafty, homemade, work-at-home, stay-at-home, make-everything-from-scratch, try-as-I-may-cannot-find-any-goodness-or-grace, solid-as-a-rock wall.

And when Willa fought going to bed that night, I just laid in bed sobbing and gritting my teeth, sobbing and gritting my teeth, sobbing and gritting my teeth, while she kicked and played and cried a little and played some more.

Then, she patted my tear-drenched face and said "Mama?" And I wondered how she'd tell her therapist about it some day.

"Well, my Mom smiled a lot but she acted angry all the time."

It's all just terrifying, what we expect of ourselves in this modern life. Especially women. Especially mothers.

And on top of all we do, it seems cruel to also expect us to have grace and calm when we can't handle it all. We have to give ourselves permission sometimes, to let a few things go -- including our sanity. It doesn't mean we're really crazy. It doesn't mean we can't do it all. It doesn't mean we're not thankful for all we have.

It just means we're just freaking exhausted -- too exhausted to be thankful, to find meaning in the crazyness, to stop and drink it all in.

Taking a walk and looking at sparkly, frosty trees isn't going to immediately change how tapped out I feel. Neither is forcing myself into some sort of reflection. Nor is that half hour of yoga I try to shove into my day.

And that is perfectly OK.

Because those things aren't meant to magically make my life manageable. They're about the effort you put in to just do them. Just like yoga, or meditation, life is practice.

It's not always about getting it right. Sometimes, it's about doing it at all and that is perfectly enough.

And with that, I'll leave you with a few of the photos from the week and a Christmas wish -- that you let yourself lose it, just a little, even in the midst of all this holiday sparkle and cheer.

Warning: After Butchering 98 Turkeys, You May Need Gumbo and Paper Christmas Trees

Let me start by telling you that over the last week, we killed and processed 98 turkeys, delivered them across the state (Great Falls, Helena, Bozeman, Missoula and then back to Great Falls for those who missed the first pick up), hosted the 12 people it took to get the dirty job done, cooked Thanksgiving dinner, shot and processed a deer, went to a birthday party, had two final dinner guests on Saturday and then collapsed in a catatonic heap yesterday.

So, forgive my absence here as of late, as well as the reliance on somewhat blurry photography. It was all really that fuzzy. The camera doesn't lie, you know.

It started early the Saturday before Thanksgiving when the turkeys met their maker. People started showing up around 8 a.m. to get the job done. We had lots of help from many, many cool people. It never ceases to amaze me that people will come this far, in this kind of weather, to do what can only be described as terrible work. But they do. And they seem to have fun, no less. There's an unmistakeable camaraderie surrounding the whole thing.

From once-strangers to dear friends, the people who help us do this work are the true heroes, in my mind. By the end of it all, we feel closer to our food, to our community and to each other. There's just something about it.

After all the plucking and scalding and eating and playing music and sleeping on floors was done, our volunteers went home and we loaded said turkeys, now plucked and in pretty little bags into a refrigerated trailer and traversed the state, delivering 1,300 pounds of Thanksgiving.

Jacob tends to channel all of his stress into the actual slaughter of the birds, the equipment, the weather, the process, the help. The days before turkey slaughter, he's the one who's nearly crippled with stress. But, that's the fun part for me -- the hosting, the helping, the company. Also, it's not my thing. Jacob has it handled, and that allows me to relax a little. (By the way, if you'd like to watch a (somewhat graphic) multimedia project on the subject, check out this piece from our very talented and dear friend Anne Medley, from the 2009 slaughter.)

The delivery, on the other hand, is my thing and my nightmare. I have a handy spreadsheet that helps, but our customer list is always a moving target and I'm in charge of being friendly and doing math at the same time. I'm really good at one of those things, but terrible at the other, and for some reason, combining them makes my head inch toward explosion.

Then, there's this question of how many turkeys we have to sell. We have 98 turkeys and most are spoken for, so it's a tight margin. My worst fear is running out of turkeys and ruining someone's Thanksgiving because we can't get them a bird.

Then, people who are on the list don't show and people who are not on the list do show and my numbers get jumbled and I start to panic.

This year, because I erred so far on the side of caution that would keep us from overselling, we ended up coming home with about 10 extra turkeys. Which is fine -- they just went in the freezer for Christmas sales -- but two things: 1) We really need the money and 2) I'm still having nightmares that someone out there was expecting or wanting one of our turkeys and didn't get one because either we couldn't find them or they couldn't find us.

During the delivery, I ended up in a flood of phone calls and text messages, Facebook notes and emails, feeling like a bit of a stalker by the end of it all. I actually called one customer at work because I couldn't get her otherwise, and told her receptionist that it was urgent that she call her turkey farmer.

That's how crazy I get about all of this.

So, on Thanksgiving, we cooked one of our own small turkeys and laid low. We had offers to go other places, but we wanted a quiet day and we really wanted to actually eat the fruits of our labor. We needed a reminder of how worth it they are -- for us and all the work we put into them, and for our customers, who not only pay a premium price, but who also are patient with the process it takes to get the birds to them.

It takes real commitment sometimes to eat locally. It would be so much easier and cheaper to go to the store and buy up a turkey of your choosing, walk it to the counter and check out. Easy, peasy. But, not as tasty, or as fun, I hope.

These birds really are worth it.

I won't go so far as giving this guy a name or showing you his papers (hilarity here, by the way), but I know he was raised humanely, killed humanely, ate great food and lived his life out of doors. And, I know he was a tasty, tasty bird.

We also used up one of our Thanksgiving vegetable shares for our meal and the winter squash made this here delightful pie. (Recipe here.)

I broke our hand mixer a few weeks ago, so Jacob had to whip the cream by hand. It took much longer than he expected (but about as long as I expected, which I told him, of course.)

My Dad came over for the meal and brought his own homegrown scalloped potatoes and ham and, more importantly, played with his granddaughter while her Mama cooked.

Friday, Jacob went hunting and got the aforementioned deer, while Willa and I stayed home, trying to get back into somewhat of a nap schedule (impossible) and getting Christmas going in the house.

We don't have many Christmas decorations and haven't really ever decorated since we married and moved to Conrad. The first year we were here, we spent the holiday in Salt Lake City where my Dad was in the burn unit at the University of Utah, recovering from a pretty traumatic farm accident that ended up in him losing his leg. (I did, however, come home from Salt Lake after one of my stays with Dad to find that Jacob had put up Christmas lights to cheer me up. I could have kissed him.) The second year, we'd just had Willa and I was too busy figuring out how to take care of a newborn to pay much attention to decking any halls.

But this year, I must have the spirit in me or something because on Friday, I got all crafty up in here.

It's amazing what a little red yarn, a yard full of pine cones and a hot glue gun can do.

And then, looking at the insane pile of magazines we regularly accumulate, I got a flash of inspiration from my childhood, vaguely remembering making Christmas trees out of a Reader's Digest, maybe in 4th, or 5th grade?

I looked it up and of course, Martha had a full tutorial.

It became an obsession for me, folding these little trees, one I even partook in while we had company over for dinner.

But just look at these things!

They're part modern/recycled decor, part nostalgia for 4th grade, part sparkly, lovely, holiday cheer. They take impossibly long to make, but I can't seem to stop now.

Someone told me I should just be watching TV on the couch after the season we'd just had. And believe me, I tried. But, this craftiness is way better. It's an inertia thing. After all that doing, doing, doing, it seemed impossible to just stop and sit down. I needed something active and relaxing.

Enter the magazine trees (and the Pandora Ella Fitzgerald holiday station.) Willa and I have been folding and singing, folding and singing, pretty much nonstop since Friday.

And, I think we're starting to inch back to normal because of it.

--*--*--*--*--*--

Recipe
Leftover Turkey Gumbo

I sometimes cook up a turkey just so we can have gumbo the next day.

The basic recipe here is from Emeril, but I've modified based on other recipes and the input of a good friend who's a southern cooking phenom.

It's taken me awhile to get this down and it turns out differently everytime -- which I sort of dig. There's a certain terroir to it, a taste of place, as it were. The final product depends on so many variables -- the  kind of bird you have, what you seasoned the turkey or the broth with, whether you have white wine or red (or sometimes, I sub beer), what kind of sausage you have, etc.

It also depends, big time, on the roux.

Making the roux can be way time consuming, but it's so worth it. And, the time spent slaving over a hot stove makes this meal feel special, somehow. (Best praise ever: "You got a good scald on this.")

And, for goodness sakes, how can you go wrong when you start a recipe by frying flour?

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped bell peppers
1 small can tomato paste
2 cups frozen okra
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup worchestershire sauce
salt
dash cayenne (to taste)
1 pound smoked sausage, such as andouille or kiebasa, cut crosswise into 1/2 inch slices
3 bay leaves
6 cups turkey stock (made by submerging turkey carcass in stock pot in water and boiling for two or so hours)
leftover turkey meat, about 3 to 4 cups
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 cup chopped green onions

In a Dutch oven, over medium heat, combine the oil and flour and stirring slowly and constantly for 20 to 25 minutes, make a dark brown roux, the color of chocolate. Add the onions, celery, and bell peppers and continue to stir for 4-5 minutes, or until wilted. Add tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the sausage and bay leaves. Continue to stir for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the stock, worchestershire and white wine. Stir until the roux mixture and stock are well combined. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Add the turkey and the okra. Simmer for 2 hours. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface. Remove from the heat . Stir in the parsley and green onions. Remove the bay leaves and serve in deep bowls with rice.

The Race Against Winter

This weekend, we got our first snow. And then, we turned back the clocks.

Our race against winter has ended.

I'm not sure we lost, but it certainly doesn't feel like we won, either. I'm guessing it never does.

The last two months have been an impossible scramble to put up as much food as possible, glean as much as we can, harvest, market, disk, plow, pull and prep and then just the frost imps -- as my little Goddaughter calls them -- to do their work.

We harvested our last crops last week and then we *took off,* on a big trip to see Jacob's brother get hitched. As we drove away from the farm -- the first time since February we'd left it for more than a weekend -- the transition was palpable.

Because so much of what we do is determined by season, by sun and snow and frost and daylight we are forced to completely re-think our daily lives each time we turn from summer to fall, from fall to winter, winter to spring and spring to summer.

This particular transition, from busy summer to busy fall to slow, cold winter can be excruciating.

It happens so gradually, and yet so suddenly.

The last deliveries are made, the last harvest is in, the last jar of tomatoes is on the pantry shelf and even the last of the frosty beets are dug.

The farm drifts to sleep, leaving us to wonder now what should we do?

Then, we spend then next two weeks trying to shake the feeling that we forgot something. Jacob paces around the house and I try to assuage his concerns, all the while know that we're both dealing with a constant ringing in our heads of: There must be something that needs to be done right *now.*

But there isn't.

I'm so glad we spent that first week of transition traveling. We had a lot of time to talk about the season -- what we did right and what we did wrong, and we had time to reconnect -- even *gasp* talk about topics other than the farm.

And, we also got our hearts totally warmed, twice, by two spectacular accolades this last week -- accolades that make us feel inspired, humbled and honored.

First was the Sustainable Agriculture Award from AERO - the Alternative Energy Resources Organization. It's hard to describe what AERO is sometimes. It's not hard to describe what the organization does.You see their work all over, whether you know it or not, from community-based weatherization projects to the Abundant Montana local food directory, to farm and energy tours to specialized training for farmers and ranchers. But, what AERO is is harder to describe.

Both Jacob and I have served on the board. I'm on the board now, as a matter of fact, and I joined purely because I wanted to have these people in my life and in my work. I wrote and recorded a commentary on just this subject for Montana Public Radio (read the piece here.)

It's an organization that flies under the radar a little bit, which I really like. It's not flashy and press-conferency (and I saw a lot of those in my days as a journalist) and it's not combative or negative. It's all about positivity and solutions and support for good work. And, because of that, it attracts a unique membership. The group is intimate and yet welcoming and made up of passionate, selfless, caring, creative and truly, some of the most courageous and innovative people in the state.

That's a long way of saying, we were so, incredibly honored to get that award, and presented by two of our best friends no less. We drove away from the annual meeting with our framed award and it took both of us at least 50 miles to stop talking about how we felt we didn't deserve it. But goodness, the fact that those people in that room, people we respect so much, thought we did deserve it, will keep us inspired and working for years.

Thank you.

Then, we were featured by Farm Aid, another great organization working on behalf of family farmers, as "Farmer Heros" -- along side some pretty amazing people (Will Allen, MacArthur genius). You can read the profile here.

Talk about putting a (turkey) feather in your hat.

Meanwhile, from the adventures of Willa the farm kid, here's a Public Service Announcement on being bear aware this fall.

Of Canning and Combines

Dear Tomatoes, 


I know I waited for you all summer and I know I complained last season because you were so damn slow and I wanted you so badly and I know in January I do nothing but lament the fact that I have none of your T for my B and my L, but now, with chapped hands and the smell of simmering sauce still in my hair, I say to you: 

Good riddance.

-Courtney

This weekend, the forecast called for a hard freeze and that meant the pressure was on to finish up a few key tasks on the farm. Namely, tomatoes and tomatillos in the high tunnel and chickpeas in the field.

Let me tell you, Willa is a big fan of the tomatillos.

So, Saturday, Willa and I gleaned all we could from the already frozen-black vines in the tunnel and on Sunday, we spent the morning canning tomatoes and tomatillos.

After 8 hours (and a 4 a.m. wake up), this is what I had to show for my toiling and boiling.

As I've written about before, I'm more of a blanch-and-freeze kind of girl (although I've recently been turned on to dehydrating and I think I'm hooked). Every year, I vow not to can tomatoes. But, I somehow convince myself to try one more time. And again, I am reminded of why I'd rather not, thank you very much.

Tomatoes are why God created dehydrators. And the "canned vegetables" aisle at the grocery store.

After my morning, I needed sun and dirt and so I just barely made it to the farm in time for one last round with Jacob on the old Massey 510 -- the machine my grandmother bought in the 70s and the combine I rode around, and around, and around, in as a kid with my Dad.

Dad came out to help and waved at me, laughing, while I drove the combine into the yard. "Now, that's a sight," he said.

I really love the combine. There's something about the whir and the belts and threshing and the chaff and the motion. I just dig it.

So does this guy.

Isn't it funny, how a life you never imagined can turn out to be so perfect.

Chaos and Order and the Beauty of Chaos and Order

I've said before that farming is really an exercise (often futile) in managing chaos.

Weeds overtake your vegetables. Hail destroys your wheat heads. Frost zaps your cucumbers. Coyotes eat your turkeys.

Nature gives us chaos. We try to make order. We level ground. We plant in neat little rows. We build tall, straight fences.

I think about chaos and order a lot on the farm -- the quest for one, the fight against the other -- and how really, we shouldn't try to make it an either/or thing.

Life is sometimes about order. Sometimes it's about chaos. For me, farming is teaching me how the two can coexist.

Because on the farm, it's just as easy to find perfect order...

As it is to find perfect chaos.

And both are perfectly beautiful.


(Vegetable portraits by Jacob Cowgill. See more on the farm's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/prairieheritagefarm)

--*--*--*--*--*--

Speaking of chaos, we celebrated Willa's entrance into the world this weekend.

The day was filled with friends, family, a parade and *several* puppet shows. It was quite a party.

I found myself teetering between inexplicable joy and tearful nostalgia.

It's unavoidable, and perfectly OK, a friend told me, for these first few birthdays to be a little bit about you becoming a mother, just as much as they are about celebrating the person who made you a mother.

Two things, then, were worth marking with hours spent making carrot cupcakes:

• Motherhood is a humbling, flailing, incredible, strengthening, awe-inspiring, didn't-know-I-could-do-that, kind of thing, and

• The world is quite certainly a better place with this little person in it.

One. Whole. Year.

Seriously though.

How did this...

happen?

Three, Warty, Wonderful, Years

Three years ago today, we were here.

One year later, on our first anniversary -- and wrapping up our first year farming -- we spent the evening pulling winter squash out of the field by flashlight, saving it from an impending frost, while our perfectly cooked pot roast went cold on the kitchen counter.

Last Saturday, we spent the morning in squash patch again, cutting bulbing fruit from thickening vines. It's become somewhat of a tradition.

This year in particular, it felt symbolic. It was therapy. It was good to be outside, watching nature do its spectacular fall magic and letting my body work again. As we cut and stacked and searched and cut and stacked, I had time to think. About frost and loss. Fertility and fallow. Marriage and motherhood.

About fragility.

And how quickly it can turn to toughness.

About beauty.

And how it deepens with time and imperfection.

About resiliency and steadfastness.

Fitting then, that when I got home, our dear friend Michael (read him here and him and his awesome wife here) -- the wise man who, three years ago, in front of God and Mother Nature and friends and family (and nearly the whole town of Dutton), pronounced us husband and wife -- sent us a link to this essay, written and read, by dear friend of his:

“On Cold-Weather Vegetables” by Katrina Vandenberg in Orion

Perfect timing.