On the Garden Path at 5~Acre Farm: Mmm, Mmm Good!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Mmm, Mmm Good!

We're having one of those cold spells again. Temperatures had dropped into the 20s by sundown yesterday, and a strong wind made it feel a whole lot colder. Today, it's been somewhere in the 40s, and tonight, it's going back down into the 20s. It will be like this through the weekend. And I love it!

I love wintertime! I find the season stimulating. In the summertime, the heat can overtake us by mid-morning, and we retreat indoors to cool down in the air conditioning. For anything that needs to be done outside, we usually do "rock, paper, scissors" to see who'll go. Sometimes, we have a sudden death round of arm wrestling to clarify who's going out into the hot Georgia sun. In such extraordinary heat, already bloated from drinking gallons of ice water in an effort to cool down, we rarely eat more than salads and sandwiches.

But when it's too cold to do anything outside, I find indoor projects to keep me busy, and my favorite project is cooking. I love to be in the kitchen cooking when it's cold outside. On a really cold day, I usually pull out my biggest pot and make a big batch of soup. Turkey and Chicken Soup are old standards. I add diced potatoes, rice, or sometimes, pasta to the meat and vegetables, a can of diced tomatoes, a few dried herbs, and maybe a secret ingredient or two! I also go through the refrigerator to see what else I can add. My soup recipes rarely repeat because there's always something new to add. The last time I made chicken soup, I added some leftover lima beans and collards, and some smoked sausage.

Over the last year or so, I've been trying to add healthy grains to our diet. Barley is one of the healthiest grains you can cook with. Since Dad, John, and I are all diabetics, barley is a much better choice than potatoes, rice, or pasta. Personally, I love the texture of barley more than that of the other choices. Of course, I'm speaking of pearl barley, not regular barley. Regular barley is cut to cook quickly, in about 20 minutes, but the texture and flavor just aren't there. Pearl barley, on the other hand, takes 45 minutes to cook, but is a natural thickener and has a much more appealing taste and texture than regular barley. So today I used pearl barley and made a simple Beef and Barley Soup.

You can add anything to any soup as long as it appeals to those who will be eating it, but some soups are meant to remain simple, and I think beef and barley soup is one of them. You can certainly spice it up to suit your individual taste. There are many ways to do that! But in its basic state, beef and barley soup is delicious, and healthy, and oh, so comforting!

Beef and Barley Soup

1-2 quarts beef or chicken broth
1 cup pearl barley
1 large carrot, diced small
1 large rib of celery, diced small
1 onion, diced small
1 lb. ground beef
1 tsp Italian Seasoning
salt and pepper to taste

Start with one quart of broth and bring it to a boil. Add the pearl barley. Return to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes. While the barley is cooking, brown the ground beef over medium heat. Drain the beef well when it has finished cooking.
When the barley is ready, add the drained ground beef, the diced carrots, celery, and onion, and the seasonings. Add additional broth to desired consistency. Simmer another 30 minutes, until carrots, celery, and onion are soft.
Serve with a nice crusty bread!

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John and Michelle, and 5 Acre Farm

How We Came To Be

John was born and raised in Georgia by parents who lived incredible lives of their own, and passed on to John a rich family history from both sides. He was a die hard Boy Scout, and later, spent 17 years as a Troop Leader. He earned a dual Agriculture/Agricultural Engineering degree at ABAC in Tipton, where he also started the college's radio station. After college, John served on nuclear submarines in the Navy, where he once saved the lives of his shipmates, and, rumor has it, did many incredible things in the service of our country. He married and had a family, and after the Navy, worked briefly with the EPA before opening his own HVAC-Refrigeration company. John was inventive as a child, and that carried over into everything in his life. He is a fixer of severe mechanical problems, and an inventor of all kinds of things that improve on or simplify existing machinery, equipment, and ideas. His inventions are unique, and some of them may some day aide humanity, save lives, and save our planet if we can get the right people to listen.

My dad was career Army. I was born in France, and introduced, at a very young age, to the Virginia countryside, where we raised rabbits and chickens. After dad retired, we moved to North Carolina, his home state, where we spent many years on the coast, near Wilmington. Here, we had a garden, raised cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, and fished commercially. Our freezer was always full of fresh Spot and shrimp, and oyster roasts were a weekly event! As a young adult I lived with my family in the mountains south of Asheville. Here too we had a garden, raised cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, as well as geese and peacocks. I worked for many years with an arts council, Christian organizations, and other non-profits. I helped train missionaries, researched/wrote grants, produced professional documents, edited newsletters, and wrote a lot of publicity materials. I already had two Associate degrees, but in my late 30s I finally completed an undergraduate degree in English/Art History. For 20 years I was active in community theater, sang solos with a community choir, and danced with a show choir. Treasured memories! I moved to Georgia in late 1998, and married my first husband in 2002. I was 45. Eighteen months later, I was widowed.

John and I first met in 2000. After I was widowed, and John was divorced, we found each other again. Of like minds, spirits, and goals, our hearts came together quickly, and we married in 2005. Each of us has undergone Elijah House training, and we were both ordained into ministry in 2006. I have been a Christian counselor and prayer warrior for probably 30 years. John and I live to put God first in our lives, and in our dreams for this small piece of earth of which we are the caretakers.

We call our place "5 Acre Farm." John's father took this barren, overworked field from a larger parcel of farmland in the mid-70s. He fenced off about three-quarters of an acre for the house, and added plants, flowers, and trees. Elsewhere, he transformed the property through years of hard work, adding an apple orchard, peach trees, pears, two fig orchards, grape vines, and a greenhouse. John and I have been trying to continue his father's work on this land, adding to it with our own hopes and dreams, and our late-in-life efforts. Not a day goes by that I don't feel great respect for John's father, for the man he was, for the work he did here, and gratitude for the bounty we reap because of his hard work.

John and I are in our 50s, just starting life together, but with age and health trying to work against us. We aren't ready to sit down and take it easy. We have a goal to become self-sufficient by growing our own food (meat and vegetables), and getting off the grid. The challenges we face in doing this are age, health, and finances. John's inventiveness is being strongly applied, as is my gift for budget stretching and frugality. Our strength? The love we have for each other, and the trust that we are working inside the will of God.

One of the things we ask ourselves now and then is this: "Is it worth it?" I never had children. John's son has set his own path with family and career. There does not seem to be anyone we can leave this property to who will continue the work and the dream; one of John's grandchildren, perhaps, but they are very young right now, and do not yet notice or care.

So, is it worth it (all the work and expense) if there is every chance this land will end up in the hands of developers after we're gone? Well, our answer to that question so far is always "Yes, it's worth it." It's worth it to us, because of what we are accomplishing here in our lifetime. It's worth it because what we grow here we share with family, with friends, and with our community. And not just what we grow, but our faith and philosophy, our hopes and dreams, and our very desire to leave at least our little part of the world better than it was when we found it. We are living - consciously, and deliberately - a lifestyle that expresses who we are and what we believe. Does anybody care? Why don't read our blog, leave a comment, and let us know.