Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets. Here’s a nice one from her.

“Starlings in Winter” by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

May means the beginning of winter here, and winter means rain. We’ve gotten some good rainfall lately and have started to plant coffee seedlings in open areas of the farm. Our coffee is Arabica typica, a variety that grows long and spindly and likes shade. It also takes five years for a seedling to mature a produce coffee cherries. We have two methods of getting coffee seedlings:
1) Planting coffee beans in our nursery
2) Taking young seedlings that naturally grow under adult trees from the ground and planting them in other areas.

We’ve planted 9,948 coffee seedlings so far and hope to plant more next week. After we plant coffee, we’ll plant more hardwood trees in open areas. We’ve got hundreds of tree seedlings in our nursery ranging from Jatobá to Brazil Nut trees. (I’ll write more about the Brazil Nut trees in a separate post; this is the first year we’ve attempted to propogate them from seed, and they are amazing little things!)

Português

Maio é início do inverno aqui, e o inverno significa chuva. Começamos a plantar mudas de café em áreas abertas da fazenda. Nosso café é arábica typica, uma variedade que cresce longa e fina e gosta de sombra. Leva cinco anos para um pé de café produzir cerejas. Temos dois métodos de obter mudas de café:
1) Plantação de café em nosso viveiro.
2) Arrancando mudas jovens que crescem naturalmente de baixo de árvores adultas.

Nós já plantamos 9.948 mudas de café e espero poder plantar mais na próxima semana. Depois que plantar café, vamos plantar mais árvores em áreas abertas. Nós temos centenas de mudas de árvores em nosso viveiro, variedades como Jatobá, Castanha do Pará, e Tamboril. (Vou escrever mais sobre Castanha de Pará em outro post. Este é o primeiro ano que tentamos propagá-los a partir de sementes, e eles são incríveis!)

Considering the Snail
by Thom Gunn

The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth’s dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail’s fury? All
I think is that if later

I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.

Rich Chocolate Cake made with Lard

I found this recipe in a 2000 New York Times article. It’s probably the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had–rich, moist, and not too sweet. If you use good lard (not burnt or with a piggy flavor) you’ll never be able to tell this cake was made with pig fat and not butter. We ate the cake so fast, I didn’t have time to take a decent picture!

2 egg yolks
6 tablespoons lard
1 cup brown sugar
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 egg white
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Beat egg yolks. In another bowl, cream lard with sugar. Add yolks until smooth. Melt the chocolate in a banho maria (hot water bath) and let it cool to room temperature. Stir your room temperature chocolate into the lard-egg yolk-sugar mixture. In another bowl, beat the egg white until it’s frothy. Gently fold the egg white into the batter.

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt) together. Add half the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Then beat gently while pouring in half of the milk and vanilla. Repeat with the other half of the dry ingredients, milk, and vanilla.

Prepare a cake pan with butter and flour. Pour the cake batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees checking every 20 minutes or so, until a toothpick comes out clean from the cake’s center. While you’re waiting for the cake to bake, lick the leftover batter from your spatula and mixing whisks. (My mom says that a good cook doesn’t lick, but I can’t help myself.)

Ithaca

As you set out on the way to Ithaca
hope that the road is a long one,
filled with adventures, filled with understanding.
The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,
Poseidon in his anger: do not fear them,
you’ll never come across them on your way
as long as your mind stays aloft, and a choice
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,
savage Poseidon; you’ll not encounter them
unless you carry them within your soul,
unless your soul sets them up before you.

Hope that the road is a long one.
Many may the summer mornings be
when—with what pleasure, with what joy—
you first put in to harbors new to your eyes;
may you stop at Phoenician trading posts
and there acquire fine goods:
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and heady perfumes of every kind:
as many heady perfumes as you can.
To many Egyptian cities may you go
so you may learn, and go on learning, from their sages.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind;
to reach her is your destiny.
But do not rush your journey in the least.
Better that it last for many years;
that you drop anchor at the island an old man,
rich with all you’ve gotten on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave to you the beautiful journey;
without her you’d not have set upon the road.
But she has nothing left to give you any more.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca did not deceive you.
As wise as you’ll have become, with so much experience,
you’ll have understood, by then, what these Ithacas mean.

By CP Cavafy, born April 29, 1863
Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn

We heard shifting and rattling in the roof tiles and assumed it was mice. There’s always a nest or two in the beams and we have to ask someone to remove the tiles and kill the mice. Or we use a common mouse trap with a bit of banana in it. Last week, instead of finding mice we found this lovely lady on our roof. She’d eaten the mice. (Probably the best exterminator in town. Ever.) But, alas, we weren’t sure if she was poisonous so we had to remove her from the roof and set her in the bushes. I wanted to keep her around but James had a good point: after she’d finished with the mice, would she then find a big toe appealing? Best not to find out. People here said she was a salamanta, which is a kind of boa constrictor. My biggest question is, how did she slither onto our roof? With this post I’m perpetuating the tedious, worn-out stereotype of Brazil as jungle-nation, with boas dangling from every roof beam. You know that’s really not the case! OK, I’m off to feed my jaguar now.

Ouvimos barulho nas telhas e pensamos que era ratos. Há sempre um ou dois ninhos no telhado e nós temos que pedir a alguém para remover as telhas e matar os ratos. Também usamos uma ratoeira comum com um pouco de banana dento dela. Na semana passada, em vez de encontrar ratos, nós encontramos esta senhora encantadora no nosso telhado. Ela tinha comido todos os ratos. (A melhor exterminadora da cidade.) Infelizmente, a gente não sabia se ela era venenosa, então tivemos de removê-la do teto. Eu queria mantê-la em casa, mas James falou o seguinte: quem sabe se, quando ela terminar com os ratos, ela iria achar um dedão atraente? Melhor não dar essa tentação a ela. As pessoas aqui disseram que era uma salamanta que é uma espécie de jibóia. Eu só quero saber: como é que essa danada subiu no nosso telhado? Com este post estou perpetuando o estereótipo do Brasil como nação selva–uma gigante Amazonas–com cobras caindo dos telhados. Claro que isso não é o caso!

Some Alice in Wonderland creatures found on the farm. The first, mushrooms. The second, caterpillars. (The caterpillars are not smoking hookahs, unfortunately.)

Algumas criaturas de Alice no País das Maravilhas foram encontradas aqui na fazenda. A primeira foto, cogumelos. A segunda, lagartas. (Infelizmente as lagartas não estão fumando hookas).

My friend Aryn’s amazing collection of short stories was released on Wednesday.

Aryn Kyle, whose first novel was hailed as “reason for readers to rejoice” (USA TODAY) turns her gift for storytelling to the lives of girls and women in this spectacular collection. In “Nine,” a young girl given to exaggeration escapes a humiliating ninth birthday celebration with the help of her father’s new girlfriend. The dubious benefits of sleeping with one’s boss are revealed when a bookstore manager defends an employee from an irate customer in the hilarious “Sex Scenes from a Chain Bookstore.” A raid on a neighbor’s meth lab strengthens the unlikely friendship between a solitary woman and the goth teenage girl who lives in the apartment below her in “Boys and Girls Like You and Me.” And in a notable exception to the rule, “Captain’s Club” features a boy whose devotion to a lonely woman transforms his cruise vacation.
In moments electric with sudden harmony or ruthless indifference, the girls and women in this collection provoke, beguile, entertain, and reveal a poignant and searingly accurate portrait of the female heart. With her keen eye for character, her humor, and her uncanny grasp of the loneliness, selfishness, and longing that permeate the female experience, Kyle has secured her reputation as a major young talent.

“It’s all in the goddamn suet.” This is a quote from one of my favorite literary heroines, Eva Waldvogel in Louise Erdrich’s novel The Master Butcher’s Singing Club. Suet is a form of lard made from a sheep’s kidney fat. We don’t have sheep here on the farm but we do have pigs.

These past couple weeks we’ve set out to make lard. In part because we want to be more sustainable and have lots of beautiful pig fat we’d like to use. Chef Rick Bayless calls lard “the voluptuous fat,” and says it rounds out food’s flavors. The only way to test the truth of this was to make my own lard.

What is lard, exactly? It is rendered pig fat. It used to be North America’s primary fat source until the 1950’s, when butter and margarine took over. Apparently in the 1950’s, doctors began to associate saturated animal fats with high cholesterol levels, giving lard a bad reputation. But this reputation is undeserved.

Good, pure lard is nearly 100 % fat. Butter is 81% fat and 19% other stuff (water, solids, yellow coloring, salt). According to a New York Times article on lard from October 2000, lard has less saturated fat than butter. “According to the Agriculture Department Nutrition Database, lard is composed of 42% saturated fat (which may increase cholesterol levels in the blood) and 54% unsaturated fat (which may decrease cholesterol in the blood). By comparison, butter is 43% saturated fat and 30% unsaturated…” Lard is not a villainous fat at all. But like any fat, is not bad for you as long as it’s used in small quantities.

So, why not render some lard? I read a book about farm life a few years ago when I was still living in the US, and the author was extremely earnest and energetic, to the point of being self-righteous. In one chapter, she scolded modern mothers for not making fresh mozzarella for their families. “It’s easy!” she said, and proceeded to list about two dozen ingredients and tools needed for such an “easy task.” At this point, I threw the book down. Making lard is probably unrealistic for most people. But if you have the time, some good pig fat, and a cast iron pot, it’s worth a try.

Here’s what I needed to make lard:
3 kilos of pig’s back fat, cut into cubes
1 large cast iron pot
Water
A large metal strainer
Cheese cloth
A rectangular roasting pan

1. First, cut the pig fat into 1-inch sized (or smaller) cubes. The smaller the cubes, the faster they will melt.

2. Place the cubes in a large, cast iron or ceramic pot. Put 1/3 cup water for every 450g of lard. And please make sure your pot is large enough to hold all of the melted lard! You do not want an overflowing pot here. If in doubt, render less lard.

3. Place the pot in an oven set at 200 degrees F. After 30 minutes, stir the lard. After this, check your lard every 45 minutes or so and stir it with a long metal or wooden spoon. Be careful, this stuff is hot. My fat bits took about 4 hours to melt. The fat bits will never melt completely; they will turn golden and crispy. These are called cracklings. If you leave the lard in the oven too long, the cracklings will turn the liquid fat yellow and give it a bacon flavor. If you are using lard for Mexican food, this is exactly what you want. If, however, you want to use your lard to fry regular foods, make pie crusts, or bake, then you want the lard very white and practically odorless and flavorless. This means you must take the liguid out of the oven before the cracklings get really golden. My first batch came out better (clearer) than the second because I took it out earlier, even though the cracklings looked underdone. They weren’t.

When it’s time to remove the lard from the oven, please be careful. This is hot oil—like, the kind of stuff Medieval people used to throw off castle walls to maim (and kill) their enemies. Don’t get Medieval with your lard.

I like a little held with this next step—someone sensible (as opposed to air-headed) and strong to hold either the strainer or to pour the lard. Line your metal strainer (I actually used a metal vegetable washer) with cheese cloth and set it on your roasting pan. Then pour the lard over the cloth-lined strainer. Once it’s poured, carefully use a spoon squeeze the cracklings against the cloth to get more fat out of them. Discard the cracklings (or eat tem if you want; whatever gives you a thrill.) Let the lard get to room temperature, then set it in the refrigerator. By the next day, it should be a solid snow-white block. You can scoop the lard from his block into small plastic containers, or cut the lard into blocks and wrap them in parchment paper and cling warp. Lard keeps for one year in the freezer and several months in the refrigerator. After the lard is made, what can you do with it? Well, I’ve made some really good stuff with my homemade lard. I’ll show you what, exactly, in the next few posts.

Português
Recebi uma notícia surpreendente esta semana. A Rosa Vermelha, uma marca de roupas femininas que preza pelo trabalho socioambiental e trabalha com tecidos naturais (fibra de bambu e algodão) e vintage, fez a sua coleção Outono/Inverno 2010 baseada na A Costureira e o Cangaceiro. Adriana Gontijo, estilista e designer da marca, entrou em contacto comigo e me deu a boa notícia. Fiquei comovida, pois inspirar outra artista com meu trablaho é a melhor homenagem que já recebi. Gente a coleção é linda! Os vestidos e as blusas tem os nomes das personagens do livro. Como escrevi para Adriana, o vestido Baronesa é muito chic e nobre, assim como a Baronesa. E o de Lindalva é divertido e elegante, que nem a sua personagem. Realmente gosto de moda, mesmo não podendo usar roupas bonitas aqui na fazenda. Incluir umas fotos da coleção aqui. Veja outros desenhos de Adriana no blog da Rosa Vermelha.

English
I got some really great news this week. A Brazilian designer named Adriana Gontijo liked The Seamstress so much she used the book as the inspiration for her 2010 Fall/Winter clothing collection. Gontijo’s label, A Rosa Vermelha, produces women’s clothes made from sustainable and vintage fabrics. Adriana has named her dresses and blouses after characters in the book. The Baroness dress has a youthful elegance, like the Baroness herself. The Lindalva dress is fun and spirited, just like the character. I was really happy and honored to know that another artist has taken inspiration from the people and places in the book. I actually like fashion, even though I never get to wear spiffy clothes on the farm. To see all of Adriana’s designs, visit A Rosa Vermelha’s blog. (But I’ve included pictures here, of course!)

This morning we found this little man (female tarantulas apparently have larger bums) in our path. Actually, he wasn’t so little. He was nearly the size of my hand. It’s been raining quite a bit here, but this morning it was clear and warm. This guy probably wanted some sun. We usually find tarantulas in the coffee trees; it’s rare to see them out in the open like this. Although we did have one in our kitchen sink a few weeks back. We managed to coax him onto a broom and fling him out the window.

Hoje de manhã, encontramos este menino (tarântulas fêmeas aparentemente têm bundas mais cheias) em nosso caminho. Ele era quase do tamanho da minha mão. Está chovendo bastante aqui, mas hoje de manhã era clara e quente. Esse menino provavelmente queria tomar banho de sol. Costumamos encontrar tarântulas no cafeeiro; é raro vê-los em áreas mais abertas. Mas achamos uma na pia de nossa cozinha algumas semanas atrás! Conseguimos convencê-lo a subir numa vassoura e jogamos ele para fora da janela.

Long ago, there had been a fire,
And they’d all gone into it,
My brother and sister,
a few
friends, too, and my parents
piecemeal.
And the fire
flooded up at first
like
brilliance from the wood
like
both a burning fount
called up
by great thirst
and the thirst it quenched.

It raged and then it didn’t.
Then there was only
A lull of embers,
vague flares
like wakened absences
of fire dying down
to ash,
and then ash-blunted
scrape of bronze
on stone,
a weight
of ash to lift,
and then the ash haze
left there in the shovel’s wake.

How long have I been here
Keeping the dark
in sight
my mind the place in which
the dark’s grown
conscious of itself in the dark?

Come to me now, love.
I need you.
Come here.
How cold it’s gotten.
Let my name in your voice be
the fresh disturbance,
the rippling
of char-scented air;
your touch the tinder.

–”Hearthkeeper” by Alan Shapiro