Sauna - pronounced "Sow" Na

The local Finnish population swear by their sauna's...they take a sauna, like you and I take a bath - but with much more of a spiritual attitude.  Like the American Indian's have their ceremonial sweat lodge, the Fins take their sauna seriously (including either a dip in the frozen lake through a cut hole in the ice or with a roll in the snow).  See Health benefits of a sauna.

From the time we got here, Mark thought he HAD to buy a sauna for me to survive a winter in the north.  Well, we were really not ready to purchase last winter because we couldn't agree on one...do we buy a kit, a ready made sauna, or hire someone to build it for us???  Were do we put it - on the patio or next to the patio?? Since we could not decide, we decided to wait until we've been here a year and then make the decision.  It gave us the time we needed to finish the patio and get used to the farm - and I did survive the winter without one.

We finally decided on a barrel sauna, which holds four people.  They are hand crafted by a local retired building contractor and his wife.  They create 4, 6 and 8 person barrel saunas, some with dressing rooms attached, see them at Keweenaw Saunas. 
Once we saw the quality, we were sold.  We purchased a four person - no dressing room.  The price included delivery and set up - SWEET!!!

 So on Tuesday evening a BIG truck pulled up with our sauna.  They cut the door through our patio wall so that we could put the barrel behind the wall and walk through this door from the patio directly into the sauna.  That means that we have a clear path, right outside our                                                  back door, in cold weather to the sauna.  Mark is going to add trim to the doorway that was cut into the wall.

The sauna stove is a wood stove (typical Finnish design), not electric.  It can be moist or dry - whichever you like. You have a pail of warm water that sits on the stove top.  You ladle the warm water over  the rocks surrounding the stove or yourself as you sit.

I know many people don't like or can't tolerate moist or dry saunas, I've never had issues in the past so I'm looking forward to the physical and spiritual cleansing!

Canning Season Has Begun at Cold Comfort Farm

For most of you this month means "back to school," but here in the north it's canning season too.  In St. Louis, it was way too hot for anything to grow this late in summer, unless you replanted with a fall crop.  At this time our family always looked forward to mid to late September apples for saucing.  I always had a hard time growing a vegetable garden in St. Louis because I had to water the garden often, with chlorinated water - our water was so full of chemicals that when I ran a bathtub of water, it looked like I was going swimming.  And there were more bugs than veggies...unless I used more chemicals. 

I thinned our beets so the others would grow bigger & our first head of brocolli

Here in Houghton, since we all plant our gardens the first week in June, everyone's gardens matures around the same time so we run into neighbors in the canning aisle at Walmart.  As I said in a prior posting, our garden this year was purely a test garden to see what we could grow in our soil...well, have we been surprised - pleasantly so!

Our first large beets harvested

The huge summer squash plants - 30+ inches tall

                                                              

We learned that one side of our garden has WONDERFUL soil naturally and less than 100 foot away, the soil is very different.  I'm so surprised that even in the same growing bed, we have HUGE plants at one end and tiny ones at the other, all planted at the same time, same water, and sunlight.  We will be adding compost to that end of the garden bed to improve the soil next year.  I also experimented with the companion planting method and it seems to be working very well.   

 We, of course, have some bugs but not nearly what we expected or had in St. Louis. I think that the marigolds, narcissus, mints, etc. have done their jobs protecting their charges.  

We've been enjoying our veggies fresh from the garden for lunches and dinners...even the pickled beets!

 So now I've begun the process of canning or "putting it by" as they say here.  And I'm experimenting with that as well.  Mark and I have always been the kind of folks that will eat just about anything (until I started with a food allergy - bummer!).   

  

So, when our beets and turnips matured, I knew you can eat the entire plant, but needed to learn the best way to preserve it all.  I blanched and froze the leaves of both plants to use in soups and stews.  I also found recipes for pickled beet stems and a different one for pickled turnip stems that I've tried.   We have to wait a few days before we can try them - they may become a yearly favorite - or a Christmas presents to my son-in-law, Mitch who likes spicy foods.  They should taste like crunchy pickles.

Since we had a cooler than normal spring, some of our berries are just now ripening so that is adding to the workload.  Yesterday alone I jammed raspberries, thimble berries (Michigan is famous for them), and blueberries. I still have a bucket of blackberries that I froze last evening, holding them until I can pick more and jam them.  It's suppose to rain Tuesday and it will be a great task to do on a rainy day.

 

All this effort does entail long hours at the stove but this winter when the snow is falling and I don't want to go out to town to shop,  I can  make a hardy meal to warm our bones with our preserved and canned food.  It will bring a smile to my face and those hours will seem a very worthwhile effort!  And all that jam on nice warm homemade toast or in homemade yogurt (made from our neighbors cow's milk) will be a wonderful way to start our day.

And maybe, just maybe if you ask nicely or come visit, you can share a jar of pickled beet stems or thimbleberry jam!

Bunny Ranchers

Marti coined the term Bunny Rancher as a humorous poke at her brother, Mark. I hope that Cold Comfort will soon have more animals than rabbits, but right now it seems to fit. 

Recently our neighbor Melanie, who is a preschool teacher, asked me if I would bring the young rabbit kits to visit her summer preschool class of six 3-6 year olds.  I was happy to comply.  I decided to take three kits, one of each color - black, brown, and white.  I thought I'd share a few videos and photos with you for my grandchildren to enjoy.  My video's and photos are not super clear of the children's faces as I did not want to have to get permission from each child's parents to post this, but you'll get the point of how this visit went.  

They gathered around the kennel to peek in at the bunnies - they were so excited

 Most "Bunny Ranchers" leave their animals in cages ALL the time but Mark and I feel that is very inhumane, so almost daily we put the rabbits in a wire ring so they can get exercise and graze on the natural grass and clover.  We started putting the little kits out as they love bouncing - but of course, as soon as I grabbed my camera, they became quiet.  I'll keep trying to get them at their bouncy best and post the video at that time.  The cutest is when they try to stand on their hind feet; many fall over until they gain their balance.

Maybe this fall, once the garden is totally harvested,
we'll let the rabbits run in the fenced in area; they will have a blast - but can you imagine us trying to catch them - we'd become bunny chasers instead of bunny ranchers!

July Miscellany From Cold Comfort Farm

Wow, what a busy month!  Marti, Mark's sister, has been a great helping hand but will be heading home (south to Wyandotte, MI) next week.  Diane, my sister, and her grandson (my great nephew), Grant Stellwag, came for a visit last week. The weather has been hot, we actually had our air conditioner on twice!  Now we have BEAUTIFUL weather.

It's been Michigan cherry season! (our neighbor allowed us to pick from their sour cherry tree last week).  The jam we made will taste wonderful this winter on toast.

With Grant and Diane, we've visited our  beaches and Houghton's "shoots and ladders" slide park  (left), visited neighboring towns, our neighbors cows and pigs (his top request), and went for rides on our ATV and paddle boat in the pond. I think he had a good trip to the farm.

Going Exploring!

Morning

Evening

Our rabbits kits (see below) grow each day - they are bigger by the evening than they were that morning!  There are eight babies; one black, one variegated black, two brown, three white, and one silver.  Diane helped me try to figure out their sex but they are still too young for us to tell.

They have been popular with all our family, neighbors, and are even going to go to our local pre-school for show and tell this Thursday morning.  Our cats seem amazed by them - especially their twitching noses.  Cleo, one of our cats, walked up to sniff one of them in the grazing fence.  She was nose to nose with it and was just as they touched noses, the rabbit twitched its nose.  The cat leaped back as if on a spring and ran off...she has never come close again. We wish we had a camera, you would have seen it on YouTube.

I hope to breed the Rex rabbits as soon as I find a female and then sell their offspring for pets as they are the most clean, nice, and smart rabbits I've ever owned!  They have been a joy to own and have in our barn.  Their coat (pelt) feels like a cross between cashmere and velvet - they, someday, might make the best and warmest mittens imaginable!

Our veggie and fruit garden is doing well - I've harvested our first broccoli and beets/beet greens of the season.  Our onions are close to harvest and our squash is starting to go crazy - with six squash on each plant! We've gardened before, but this is a first in this very cool environment so we are discovering and experimenting with what will work up here.  I will be happy with any harvest we achieve. 

So far, it's been a great summer! 

Our First Anniversary at Cold Comfort Farm - Full Time

Instead of the typical anniversary reflection of listing all the things we've accomplished over the last year, this posting centers on an important comment that Marti made yesterday - on our first anniversary here at the farm.

As we worked helping our neighbors mow and bale their fields and our large field and as we climbed up and down a 6,000 bale mountain in their barn and a 762 bale hill in ours SEVERAL times - we got tired, very tired.

Our barn holds 10,000 hay bales in the loft so these 762 bales looks like a tiny mound

This window is 20' above the barn loft floor and Mark is standing on the mini mountain of bales at the foot or barn window

Yes, I do nap!

But it is the best kind of tired you can be.  It isn't the tired you get from sitting in a car in traffic, or at a desk - it's the kind of tired where you sleep well (sometimes after a little Ibuprofen - at our age).

This all happened as Marti helped (as she could), watched, and most of all gave us all the smiles and laughter that only Marti (feeding Mark's humor) can.  As we sat on the patio last evening after we finished putting the 762 bales in the barn, she made the most profound comment - unexpected - even for her.

She said that after living with us on the farm for the last two months, the next time she sits down to a steak dinner, she will have much more appreciation for the work it took to bring the beef to that plate.  She said that most people have NO idea (and neither had she until now) what it took to raise just one cow...let alone mow and bale hay for it to eat, feed it twice daily in the winter, clean the barn it lives in, milk it twice a day (milk really doesn't come from the store), butcher and wrap it, and transport it to your grocery store.  That statement resonated with me...that is the real reason we are here on the farm!

I know, most of you will think that we sound like the hippies of the 70s, but it is so true!  We have all (me included) lost the connection to reality, to our food and what it really takes to grow/produce it, to the land, and to the weather!  I used to be one of those "three degree" people that was not comfortable outside of a certain three degree range - not too hot and heaven help not too cold.

So, this anniversary blog is to admit that we've come a far way in the last year (not with just physical goals), gotten out of our comfort zone, grown in a way we had not expected - and it is good!  And we are so grateful!