Beast(s)

Dang man, I totally beasted lunch today. Susanne was all like, "Oh, are you going to cook today?" And I was all like, "Yeah, obvi." Given that I bit off a little more than I could chew last time, and given that we always have a lot of vegetables sitting around that are fully delicious but not very marketable, I decided to go with a vegetable and egg frittata. Eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, and herbs from the garden. Eggs courtesy of the chickens. Salad with homemade dressing, of course, and freshly picked sweet corn as well. I got it all done in the nick of time and got to blow the dinner horn (there is literally a dinner horn). Not bad for a second time around. And since we have a boatload of zucchinis at the moment, I've set myself the task of making a couple loaves of zucchini bread, to show these Germans how we do in the USA. Good thing the ducks laid a couple eggs recently.

Momo is a pretty cool goat, I have to say. She's super friendly and super chill, and when you go up to pet her she burrows her head into your side. She actually reminds me of my dog. I'm glad she's just a pet and we're not going to slaughter her. I would, however, definitely slaughter the two geese, Pontus and Emily. Especially Pontus. I told him this morning I was going to eat him for Christmas dinner if he didn't stop hissing at me. Emily is kind of mean as well. I like the ducks pretty well but I would definitely eat the big gray drake (male duck), because he's kind of a dick to the other ducks. The cows are fine, too, but I'll probably end up eating one of them at some point, and I'm okay with that. I guess I may even get the chance to slaughter a chicken, which will be and interesting experience I'm sure. The rabbits, delicious though they may be in a stew, would certainly be more difficult, and I am glad that they, too, just kind of hang around. In any case, most of the work here has way more to do with picking cabbage than slaughtering animals. It was really just the thought of eating Pontus that got me on this train of thought.

Yesterday was pretty nuts, seeing as we had to clean the solar panels on the roof, which is damn high up. Apparently they get all of their electricity and hot water from solar; heat comes from wood ovens. Woah! I know. In any case, we got up on the tiled roof and sprayed slippery-ass soapy water onto slippery-ass solar panels and got to mopping. Don't worry mom, it was mostly safe where I was standing. Joachim was a bit of a crazyperson and slid out on to the panels to get at the hard-to-reach spots, but I was like, hells no, I'm not going without a rope. We eventually figured out that Joachim probably should have a rope, so we got out the climbing gear and made it happen. And for the first time since they were installed 13 years ago, they are shiny and clean.

I definitely think the animal husbandry part is my favorite; I'm going to look more into that. Who knows, I might even move to a different farm at some point where that's more the focus. For now, though, I'm sitting pretty here in the hay loft.