Music music everywhere!

With one of the most prestigious conservatories in the country, you would expect Oberlin to have great music.  But musical events go well beyond the academic schedule of the College and Conservatory.  One of the best things about summer in Oberlin is the many concerts on the bandstand in Tappan Square.  This one featured my friend and guitar/keyboard teacher, Kevin Jones, and his band The Scrooges.  They did a lot of great old songs and even got one couple on their feet to dance.

Kevin and Marcia Jones

 The Scrooges played as a wrap up to the popular Chalk on the Walk event, but there are concerts almost every Friday night throughout the summer with all different kinds of music.

Nancy Gray and the Buckeye

Unfortunately, it seems to be feast or famine here and that night we had another concert to go to at our friends' Riverdog Retreat, with Oberlin's own Soul Proprioters followed by the unofficial duo of Peter "Madcat" Ruth and Dave Boutette.  If we had to cut out early from Kevin's group, at least it was for something as amazing as the show we headed to.  The jam at the end was really special and I don't think anyone wanted the evening and the music to end.  Anybody coming to Oberlin should really check out the Music at Riverdog Facebook page to see if there's a concert scheduled.

Soul Proprioters, the Buckeye

Dave Parsh, "Madcat" Ruth, Brad Conklin, Jakob Faber

World's Cutest Little Egg

At this point in our chicken-raising careers we have seen a lot of eggs.  But we have never seen one this small!!

We think it came from our German Spitzhauben, whom we call Kaiser Wilhelmina, only because she's the smallest of the 3 younger chickens and seems more immature.  Goofy, even.  We can't really tell because all 3 of them lay white eggs with a pinkish/tan cast.

We were just amazed by this tiny egg and haven't brought ourselves to cook it yet.  It won't even make a mouthful!  Of course, it might be just right for me since I don't like eggs all that well.

For now, we're keeping it in the basket with our rotating collection of tan, white, and green eggs - our kitchen still life.

Introducing...Jessica Burns, our new housekeeper!

After an exhaustive search via craigslist and having conducted many interviews, we are so pleased to have found Jessica Burns to take charge of the housekeeping duties at the B&F.  Also the head grower at the George Jones Memorial Farm, she really impressed us with her flexibility and enthusiasm.  We, on the other hand, are looking forward to spending more time doing things to add value to the B&B in terms of trying new recipes, doing maintenance and improvement projects, and expanding our guest offerings in amenities, recommendations, etc.  We plan to start making buckeye candies again!  We will also be able to devote more time to the product side of the business.  Hopefully this will be a win-win for all of us.

Welcome, Jessica!

Bread and Butter

After searching for a year or more, we finally subscribed to an Ohio "herd share" in order to be able to have raw milk (thank you, Paula and Kim!).  We now own a small portion of the cows on Log Cabin Farm run by the Yoders in Apple Creek from whom we get milk, cream, and yogourt.

We mainly wanted the milk so that we could make cultured butter after reading about it in a NY Times article.  We left our first gallon of milk out on the counter overnight to let the cream rise to the top, then realized that the cream had already been skimmed off.  Oops.  Milk turned a little sour,  not so good for drinking but just fine for making bread, and it led us to discover a fantastic and ridiculously fast and easy soda bread recipe in our "Forgotten Skills" cookbook.

The following week we ordered a pint of cream.  It was unbelievably thick and luscious, so much so that when we made butter, there was absolutely no buttermilk and no kneading required.  It was delicious.

We ordered another pint this week but this cream was a little more liquidy (is that a word?).  We put it in the food processor and "churned" it for maybe 3 minutes.  Voila! a big lump of butter in a puddle of buttermilk.  We kneaded the butter to get all the milk out, which took about 10 minutes.

It was fun to do by hand but it's easy to see why butter paddles might be useful.  Unfortunately, we forgot to add salt so we had to knead it a second time.

In the end, we had a crusty but light-crumbed soda bread, about a pound of the best-tasting butter ever, and a small glass of buttermilk.  What a breakfast!

Next stop:  an antique store to find butter molds!  But note the pretty butter dish that we recently inherited from Dominique's mother.

Improvements:  a tad less salt.

The Big Freeze

Yesterday Cleveland experienced its coldest Jan. 7 since 1884 - minus 11 degrees.  Frozen water everywhere:

frozen reservoir

azalea icicles

Sunny at the reservoir

At least someone likes the cold.










Here at the Buckeye and the Frog it's been 30 hours and counting with no running water.  We had a small trickle when we got up yesterday morning and, had we any sense at all, we would have kept the faucets open.  Unfortunately, we didn't, and soon after the water stopped.  We are literally melting snow to be able to flush the toilets and give water to the chickens and Sunny. 

We almost fought over a cup of water slowly being formed in our Brita from ice cubes.  This morning I felt like a homeless person, plotting my route downtown to include the library in order to wash my hands!  Maybe the worst problem is the pile of dishes mounting in the sink.


Of course, it could have been worse:  it could have happened last week when our kids were still here; we could be having guests; and my mom could live somewhere other than around the corner where we will be heading later for showers and probably some buckets of water.  Still, this is no fun at all.

The plumber has been called - twice - and with luck will make his way to us today.

New egg!

Two batches of homemade eggnog this holiday season plus the homecoming of our 5 children really depleted our egg reserves!  Fortunately, one of our newest chicks - we believe it's the lavender orpington - surprised us with her first egg this morning.  What a cute little egg it is, so small compared to the brown one from Bucky and the blue one from Goose, and pink!

We were surprised to have an egg from one of them now because we didn't expect them to start laying until at least January and possibly not until February.  It seems that orpingtons are a relatively fast-maturing breed (good to know).

We've learned that 3 laying hens is about right to keep us in eggs for ourselves and our guests with a nice reserve for cakes and other goodies.  When the other 2 start laying - and I guess they will soon enough - we'll be overflowing, but that's a good problem to have.  Sadly, chicken attrition can happen without warning.

First snow winter 2013-14

Oh yes, now I remember why we love Oberlin in the winter!  All it takes is one good deep snowfall - the transformation from dreary drab to frosty playground is instantaneous and invigorating.

I should have been painting our 3rd floor rooms but, under the pretext of getting Sunny out for a walk, I put on my skis and headed for the golf course.  Some of the skiing was great, but for the most part, the snow was a bit too sticky, it was more like snowshoeing than skiing.

Hmm, sticky snow?  Time to make a snowman, obviously! Lots of people had the same idea; snowmen were popping up all over Oberlin!  Not to mention snow forts and miscellaneous other structures.

We love our "bonhomme de neige."  Hope he doesn't melt for a long time.  I still want to get in some good skiing!