Day 3 on the Blueberry Farm

The animals around here are all like dogs and all are in need of constant love and attention.  I kid you not, if you yell to Ramona, the calf, she comes running and pushes her head against your stomach until you give her an adequate amount of attention.  The pigs like to be scratched behind the ears.  The lambs like their backs rubbed.  The cats like to be held, as do both of the dogs.  The cow doesn’t like her head scratched only her back; and the bull is the opposite.  Every time I walk from the house to the barn, it takes me ten minutes despite the short distance because I have to stop and properly say hi to everyone.  Today I had the opportunity to introduce 8-year-old Ella to all the animals.  Doing so made me feel like I’ve lived here for years, as opposed to the approximately 48 hours I’ve been here.  Ella is the daughter of Tom, the blacksmith, and she is a joy to talk to.  I really love the age she’s at.  She is really into books and geography and how things work, but she was still clearly a child, getting easily distracted, constantly asking to jump on the trampoline and oohing and ahhing over everything.  She made berry picking very enjoyable for Yvonne and me.  Other enjoyable parts of my day including learning to make scones, learning how to produce juice from the red and black currents I’ve been picking, walking into town for ice-cream, making potato cakes and fried zucchini with onions for dinner, watching A Beautiful Mind with Yvonne and getting to talk about anything and everything with a very intelligent, free thinking woman.  It’s rare for me to find another person that I open up so easily for, but she is one of those rare people.  She probably knows more about me from our conversations in the past two days than some people know about me after having known me for years.  I feel like no judgment passes between us, and she is just as open about her life.  A particular mentality of hers that I love is “you can’t change it, so why get upset?”  For example, while making juice today, she spilled red current juice all over the wood floor.  There will now permanently be red current stain on the nice wood floors, right in the middle of the kitchen.  She muttered something under her breath and moved on.  I thought to myself that it was so odd that she didn’t seem to care, especially since they have worked so hard for everything they own.  When I asked her about it later, she responded by asking me, “Does it make the floor stop working?”  “Am I not able to work in my kitchen anymore?”  I told her no.  And she responded by saying, “Then it doesn’t matter.  It’s not a big deal.  Life goes on.  If I got upset about it, what good would it do?  It’s over.”  I thought about it for a second and realized that she has a great point.  What can she do about it?  The mistake has been made.  She will be more careful next time.  I think that’s a theory I’ve always known about but have never seen someone practice, at least not to that extent.  It, in so many ways, encompasses my desire to care less about material things and to let go of things I cannot control.  Something I can control, however, is the time I go to bed, and that time is…now.  Oh, and before I forget, here is the recipe for scones:

Scones (Yvonne; Sneem, Ireland)

Makes 24

5 cups of flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Raisins or whatever for flavoring

3 Tablespoons sugar

1 egg

3 Tablespoons of butter

1 ¼ cups buttermilk (approximate)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix flour and baking soda in large mixing bowl.  Add sugar and raisins.  Make a groove in the middle, and add in the butter and egg to the groove.  Mix the butter with the egg using your hand.  Make sure to mix with one hand and leave the other one free.  Slowly add in the buttermilk, mixing and kneading.  Add in more flour if there’s too much buttermilk.  If the dough is too solid, make it into savory bread.  If the dough is softer, droop it in large spoonfuls on to a greased and floured cookie sheet. Cook for about 30 minutes.  Serve with butter and tea.