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.

Comments

  1. HAHA!! Perfectly wonderful for your first photo submission to SS!
    I too was going to photograph Wa's food...but after I did our breakfast the other day thought otherwise~
    Loved the party food you had!
    KK

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  2. Good job! My horses would eat all that stuff you gave your chickens.

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  3. Are those rose hips? Or raspberry leaves?

    I love the sci-fi food - you have some awesomely creative friends!

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  4. The sci fi food was very fun to eat as well as to photograph. People clearly put a bunch of effort into the feast!

    Not rose hips. Not raspberry leaves. TEA! Our friend Jill just returned home from a semester in India, and she brought a huge bag of tea that was grown in the region where she was studying. Oh, I may never be able to drink tea from teabags again--thee tea leaves are the size of bay leaves, and so delicious. Astonishing.

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  5. Oh wow, that's what tea leaves look like? For some reason I thought we were trying to guess what kind of tea-like infusion you'd made! Too cool.

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  6. Fantastic!!! Welcome to Sunday Stills...Ed :-)

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  7. hi aarene, i just found this post, somehow it got buried.

    your chickens eat rosemary. that is why you will always have a high readership. it's true.

    people love spoiling chickens cuz it leads to tasty eggs. which i need to get involved in.

    here in our community. i have one old man in mind, he has chickens, and always shouts at me while riding his bike by my home, "hello frau blahblahblah"

    ok, buddy, next time...

    stop
    your
    bike
    !!

    we have chickens to discuss.
    i mean, eggs.

    what do you feed them.

    ok, no matter. better than aldi eggs. how much do you want?

    can i have some gratuituous crowing on saturday mornings at 9? that would be great!

    ~lytha in the west, way out west of germany

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  8. A most entertaining post, I thoroughly enjoyed, especially your alien food from the farm! Welcome to Sunday Stills from another oddball farm...

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