Trueheart Gal

Mother Nature’s Lessons

Two of our grandsons visited us for the week, and it’s been full of fun and adventures, but there have also been some difficult lessons about life with animals.

Each grandson was allowed to select and name one of the young hens from our flock. Hill, six years old, gave his pullet the name “Hi” and his brother Braden, eight years old, chose to name his “Dear.”

Giving them names created a special connection from each boy to their little hen. The boys wanted to let his hen out in the morning, feed her treats of bananas and dried meal worms during the day, look for her free-ranging throughout the day and hold her before we locked them up in the coop for the night.

Two years ago, Braden named one of our little white roosters “Frosty.” He has had a special connection with Frosty since that day. The little rooster grew up to be our favorite. He was the tamest and smartest. The low rooster on the totem pole, he waited outside the coop every night, waiting for us to come out to put him in for the night. We opened the door to the nursery – the side of the coop reserved for new mommies and their chicks. Frosty hopped in gratefully to enjoy his peace and quiet, away from the higher ranking roosters, Sylvester and Banjo, who would chase him and attack him if he came close to the hens. He trusted us, and we adored and appreciated him and his unique personality.

A few days ago, my husband (Grandpa) noticed that Frosty wasn’t feeling right. By this morning, he was dying. We took him to the vet and had him put out to sleep.

We are so sad, and so are the boys. Braden took solace in the idea that Frosty wasn’t suffering anymore and that we’d done the right thing by our favorite little rooster.

The good news was that we saved a chicken today as well. I was out checking on Frosty in the coop when I heard a hen cackling incessantly in the courtyard. I found her beneath a lemon tree, inches away from a snake that was coiled around her eggs.

I cannot tell a rattler from a python from a garter snake. I freaked and called Grandpa, who was out with the boys, buying supplies for a lemonade stand we are doing tomorrow to raise money for our local animal shelter, Pets Lifeline. I waited and kept the hen away from the snake while the guys sped home.

Grandpa identified the snake as a good gopher snake. He picked it up just as it was trying to swallow one of the eggs. The boys (and our dog Mia) went wild with curiosity, and were eager to touch the snake and look at it up close. Grandpa let it loose out in the vineyard, and within moments, the happy and fierce little hen was back on her nest.

I write as though I’m accustomed to Mother Nature’s sublime miracles, random violence and loss, but I’m not. I mourn every death, worry more than I should and work to anticipate every danger.

It’s hard watching our kind, animal-loving young grandsons learn Mother Nature’s hard lessons, but I hope they keep loving with their hearts wide open. I hope they continue to name every chicken, even though it means their hearts may break. But sometimes, it might also mean they save a brave little hen and her eggs and they will walk inside with heroes hearts and new names for the yet to be hatched chicks swirling in their heads.

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Peach Jam

Peach season is here (my favorite time of year!), and I thought I’d share a easy, delicious recipe for turning those little orbs of summer sunlight into jam. Once again, I contacted my friend Julie – Sonoma’s Queen of Jam – to help me out.

You will need:

14.5 cups peaches
2.5 cups sugar
2 or 3 lemons
Pomona’s Universal Pectin (Julie loves this brand because it has no dextrose or preservatives. It’s jelling power comes from calcium, not sugar. Most pectins require jam or jelly to have high levels of sugar to set up.)
Unsalted butter

For equipment, you will need:

several half-pint jam jars with two-part lids
four salad plates
rubber tongs
a wide funnel
a ladle (Julie uses a ladle with a hook on the end so it can rest on the edge of the pot without falling into the hot jam, and it makes things much easier)

1. Set oven to 250 degrees and place your jars on a cookie tray in the oven to warm and disinfect.

2. Put the jar lids in water in a small pan over low heat. Warm them for three minutes. Be sure to put the first layer of lids bottom side up to protect the rubber seals.

3. Put three or four salad plates in the freezer for use later.

4. Rinse and slice fruit into equally sized quarters or pieces.

5. To determine how much sugar to use in the fruit, tally up how many cups of fruit you have. We had 14 cups of sliced peaches. Divide your total by six. For us that meant approximately 2.25 = cups of sugar. Of course, as Julie says, “you are working with Mother Nature, and she can throw you a curve, so if your fruit is very ripe, you might use a bit less sugar, or if it is underripe, you might use a tad more.”

(Note: Standard store-bought jam is usually a one-to-one ratio of fruit to sugar. Cheaper brands use even more because sugar is a cheap commodity. And, because most brands are not using ripe fruit, they add dyes to make the jam look good. Don’t you feel even better about making your own?)

6. Add one cup of sugar to your sliced fruit, stir and cover with a piece of plastic wrap. Pat the wrap right onto your fruit to keep it from oxidizing and turning brown. Let macerate for 30 – 60 minutes.

7. After macerating, divide the fruit into two non-reactive pots.

(Hint: If you are making a small batch, less than 10 cups, you can use one pan. But 10 – 12 cups of fruit is the maximum you’ll want in one pot. If you put too much fruit in one pan, it will take too long on the stove, and the goal is to get it off the stove as quickly as possible.)

8. Cook the fruit over the highest heat possible (medium-high) without scorching. Stand over the pot and stir. Bring the fruit to a boil.

(If the fruit starts to foam as it boils, as mine did, add 2 teaspoons of unsalted butter and stir until the foam breaks down.)

9. Add remaining sugar and bring mixture back to a boil, and vigorously boil for 20 – 30 minutes.

10. At 20 minutes, test the fruit on a plate by spooning about a teaspoon on to one of the salad plates you put in the freezer earlier. Put the plate back in the freezer for a few moments to cool.

Take it out and look to see if the mixture is thick by drawing your finger through the juicy stuff and if it maintains a little trough for a bit, it’s done. Taste the mixture and add sugar if you think it needs it. My jam tasted great and didn’t need any additional sugar. It did, however, need a little pectin to help it hold together better and make it less runny. We added one tablespooon of Pomona’s Universal Pectin. We also thought the flavors needed to brighten up a bit, so we added two tablespoons of lemon juice and a bit of zest.

We boiled the mixture for another few minutes and did another test on to a fresh plate from the freezer. The fruit maintained a little trough on the second try. Turn off the heat.

11. Use an immersion blender to smooth out the larger chunks in your jam. I still like texture in mine, so I left some smaller chunks remaining.

11. Drain the jar lids you’ve had in the warm water, and put them in a bowl. Using your tongs, grab a warm jar from the oven, and fill it up to very near the top with hot jam using the ladle and funnel. Be sure not to get any jam on the rim of the jar, and use a moist paper towel to wipe away any drips.

12. If you wind up with any jars that are not completely filled, use them quickly, as they will not keep long. Put them in the refrigerator and treat the jar as already open.

11. Be sure to avoid jostling the jars for about 24 hours after canning.

12. ENJOY!!

A few links from the web I hope you’ll find interesting:

The best peach cobbler ever.

The small, happy life.

Six words you should say today.

I don’t speak French, but I still adore this long-sleeved t-shirt.

With more grandkids visiting this summer, cinnamon rolls might be a perfect cooking project.

Roasted broccoli rabe with lemon vinaigrette and grilled chicken = perfect dinner? Yes.

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My Role Model – Lynne

My friends Lynne and Debbie riding on a horse drive in the High Sierras. Two of my female heroes.

Lynne, riding the mule on the left, and our mutual much-loved friend Debbie, who I met when I was 19 is on the right.

I’ve been wanting to begin a new series on this blog about Role Models for some time, and I’m so delighted that the first post in the series is written and photographed by my dear friend Lynne.

I’ve written a few posts on this topic in the past, about Heroic Aging, a piece on My Grandmother and a brief post about my Mom. As time passes, I find myself more drawn to this topic and am eager to begin exploring it in earnest. I plan to feature women who inspire me, who are living with a hero’s heart, who are showing me new ways to see the world, who show me by example how to embrace aging, who teach me lessons both large and small, and who help me live authentically, fully and as fearlessly as I can.

I met Lynne, shortly after she and her husband moved to Mill Valley from Minnesota in 1994. We are both Midwesterners, life-long horse lovers, dog lovers, are married to men with kids but have none of our own, and met through our dear friend Debbie. Lynne is a speaker, author, business founder and owner, writer, consultant and leader, she’s funny as hell, smart, charismatic, warm, insightful, grandmother to two, honest, supportive and a true friend.

She inspires me on a million levels, but most recently because she is 57 and opening her life up to the power of saying yes. It’s a great and timely lesson for me, and I hope for you too. Please enjoy Lynne’s post and let me know what you think by clicking the comments below:

I do not know why people turn to adventure when they reach a certain age. Perhaps it’s a realization that time is getting short. Perhaps it’s the desire to test the body in ways that prove that we are still capable. Perhaps it’s an internal shift when we become less focused on family and work and have the breathing space to seek a new kind of satisfaction. Maybe it’s as simple as having the time and money to do things that are just for us, and that make our hearts beat faster.

For me this has not been an organized journey. I do have a bucket list but I’m not organized about following it. What I have done is say “yes” to opportunities that arise. For so long I had to say “no” or “not now”.

With age also comes the knowledge that we don’t have to get good at everything, or even stick with it. If we end up loving mountain climbing that’s great; if not, we get to try something else. I now seem to the have the kind of permission I felt as a 7-year-old girl to try things, without caring if I look silly or if I even complete them. I’m giving myself more room to play.

Each of us should have at least one thing we do that makes others shake their heads. If others don’t quite get it, that’s a good sign. It means we are choosing something “we” want, without outside approval shoring up our choices.

So when my childhood riding friend Debbie asked me to go on a horse drive in the High Sierras I said “yes”. We joined the staff of the Rock Creek Pack Station and about twenty “guests” to take a herd of 80 horses and mules on a 100-mile trek from their winter pasture in the flats of the Owens Valley to the summer pasture near Upper Rock Creek at an elevation of 10,000 feet. Days ranged from 100-degree parched and dusty desert riding to climbs up sheer rock trails through Alpine woods into the Sierras. Along the way we forded rivers, rounded up the strays that tried to make a break for it, and stopped for packed lunches in breathtaking scenic meadows. The mules charmed us, always sticking close by at lunchtime to socialize and beg for bites of sandwiches. Watching the herd interact with each other was endlessly entertaining with all the spats, petty jealousies, love interests, and battles for dominance one might see in any large group traveling together.

The pace of a walking horse is just about right for taking in the details of nature. You see a mountain far off in the distance and hours or days later you find yourself walking up the side of it. Nights we camped under the stars in small pup-tents, usually with the herd milling nearby. The western saddle assigned to me was cement-hard and I was sore as could be the first couple days. But you get used to it. That and sleeping on a bed roll and peeing behind a tumbleweed.