In which I join in the fun at "Sunday Stills" and my first challenge is FOOD

Every week, bloggers all over the world respond to a challenge issued by Ed at Sunday Stills, taking the opportunity to pick up the camera and use it. The challenge this week is food -- a good place for me to begin!

Madeline and Jill are home from college for the holidays. When we all get together, we like to make a big pot of soup.

Soup isn't just the best food in the world--it's also the best food for celebrating, because everyone can help assemble it. I don't use a recipe. We just hack up all the stuff that looks good, add water and hang out together for a few hours while it turns into magic food.

For New Year's, Jim and Willy and I attended a Science Fiction Potluck at a friend's house. We all dressed up as aliens and brought weird foods.

These little round guys were very tasty. No bones, but the eyeballs were crunchier than I expected.

This dish is very crunchy and sweet. The spines are mildly venomous. The green stuff is an anti-toxin.

Invertebrates were a popular contribution to the feast. These Galdoran mollusks tasted a lot like peanut butter.

For the carrion-eaters at the feast, a nice jellied brain.

Bajoran Tuwaly Pie

The plomeek-root casserole got eaten before I got a good photo, and the alien dirt was delicious, but blurry in the photos, perhaps because of the pan-dimensionality of the recipe.

But seriously, folks. This is a Farm Blog! How about some farm food?





These peanutbutter and birdseed fir cones are dangling from the apple trees in the orchard. The bluejays are insanely happy when I hang up new cones.

For the domestic animals:

Goatmeal and chicken crunchies, anyone?

I feed sixteen animals singlehandedly every morning (Jim feeds at night), so the stacking of buckets has become a science for me.

This stack contains two hay buckets, and two grain rations for the horses...the goats will help eat this stuff, too, of course. The whole concept of "somebody else's food = better than my food" is taken to a high artform by goats.

I'm a tooluser.

I stack up all the buckets and wheel the whole contraption around the yard to dispense rations, all the while thinking of the food trolley on the Hogwarts Express.


I wonder what the goats would think about Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans?

Tucked in on top of the smaller bucket is a grocery bag of kitchen scraps for the chickens. Today's bag contains assembly parts from the plomeek casserole, which looks remarkably like butternut squash rind, apple cores, and bits of rosemary and garlic.

It doesn't look that great to me,

...but the hens are quite enthusiastic.

More food that doesn't look like food to me:

Neighbors gave us their decorative pumpkins after Hallowe'en. Our chickens love pumpkins! The crows have been nibbling this saggy one as it waits to be scooped up and thrown into the chicken pen.

Of course, at the other end of the food scrap bucket is the payoff: beautiful, brown eggs for breakfast back in the house!



Can you identify this? I like to serve it with eggs, especially on a cold morning.

Okay, here's another shot:

The steam from the hot tea kept fogging up my lens.

I guess that means I should turn off the camera and eat breakfast now.

Life is good.