Friday Farm Photos: Have a Long Eared Weekend.

Any plans this weekend? We watched this great movie last night (which we somehow didn't realize was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood until after it was over) and this song is still going through my head. But most of the time I keep hearing Michelle Pfeiffer's version from this great movie, so I'm thinking we may have to dust off our copy (on video!) and watch it tonight. Speaking of Clint Eastwood, we both really liked this movie too.

We're having freshly baked pain au levain and butter for dinner tonight in celebration of my finally making a 100% wild sourdough starter (I hope it tastes good!) maybe with a salad on the side, and then tomorrow I'm planning to roast a locally raised, pastured chicken on a big pile of sliced onions, carrots, and whole cloves of garlic tossed with salt and olive oil (which I finally learned to put in the oven 30 minutes before the chicken to cook off some of the moisture) while it snows.

Of course the best thing about roasting a chicken is making chicken salad with the leftovers: shredded (not diced) chicken (it takes longer and is messier but is worth it), chopped celery, scallions, and parsley, fresh chives if you have them (and you could because they're so easy to grow), lots of Hellman's/Best Foods mayonnaise, a little dijon mustard, a splash of vinegar (I use white balsamic), and my secret ingredient—some of the leftover roasted onions with their olive oily/chickeny sauce. Tastes even better the next day.

Meanwhile I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that it was 75 degrees and sunny yesterday, and now they're calling for temps back down in the teens with ice and snow. Oh, and late yesterday afternoon a noisy thunderstorm blew in, put on a flashy light show, blasted everything with gumball-sized hail (my poor little seedlings out in the garden) and then rained for several hours before blanketing the fields with a light frost. March in Missouri always keeps you guessing.

And while my plan for this afternoon (sunny, breezy, high of 48°), after we work a couple of sheep, is to dig through my seed stash(es) in the freezer for the heat loving peppers, tomatoes, and basil that I probably should have already started in flats—along with more lettuce, swiss chard, and beets—I'm really in no rush for spring.

A good snowstorm is just the excuse I need to curl up with a mug of hot tea, a couple of cozy vintage blankets, and a riveting book (I can't decide whether to start this one or this one—we love Virgil!) and grow a calm and peaceful, hail-free, bug-free, disease-free, temperature controlled, overflowing-with-bounty, picture perfect garden in my head.

P.S. The donkeys are all doing fine, although they'd probably tell you they're in desperate need of a lot more treats.

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