Genie in a Bottle

Reese died today. As far as we can tell, she hadn't recovered properly from her bad fall about a week ago, and had reached a point where she couldn't stand up. Phil dug the hole with the backhoe, dispatched her, and then buried her. It was unpleasant. A sad end to a dramatic, aggravating, puzzling four weeks on the farm.

We haven't had to go shopping for groceries much these last months. A new, enormous Whole Foods (or "Whole Paycheck" as we affectionately call it) opened near us, and we stopped in today for some of the more odd or tropical ingredients: lemons, bananas, sesame oil, dates.

And I had culture shock when I walked in. We've been so focused on the little bit that we're producing—the few raspberries, the many tomatoes (though few perfect, and most plants now dead), the lettuce, the buggy peaches—I had forgotten that such a visual feast could be fine, for just a small price. Plums, nectarines, peaches, squash, greens. And almost every cart I saw had cut flowers!

As we left the store, I could not believe how easy it is to eat in America. Inexpensive canned tomatoes: much easier than home canning. All the produce, in variety and quantity, you could possibly eat. Fish, already deboned. Chicken, breasts or thighs. Clean bags of potatoes, without dirt or (many) bad spots. And if it's not good, just return it!

Truly, a grocery store is the equivalent of a genie in a bottle, offering whatever culinary ingredients you made need, not for the rubbing of a lamp, but the swipe of a card.

To expel a myth: I had remembered yesterday that I could put the newly found eggs in water and see if they float. The floaters would be rotten. So the boys and I tried that, and it worked well. We found perhaps seven out of three dozen that needed to go straight to the compost heap. The rest we assumed were good.

Poor Phil, taking eggs from the pile of "good" cartons, cracked an egg into the milk he would use for a smoothie. That egg was also rotten. The moral? Avoid floating eggs, but test the rest.

To close, a family funny. When Phil installed the truck battery this morning, the truck still would not start. He walked home to get the gas can, wondering if the truck was simply out of gas. As he approached, he had to think about which side the gas tank is on. (The truck has two gas tanks, but only one still connects properly to the engine.) And as he considered that, he remembered that Joe had sat in the driver's seat for about an hour yesterday while Phil put up the electric line for the cows.

First Joe had rolled the window up, while his head was poking out. He couldn't draw his head back inside, so he simply called for help until Phil rescued him. Then his idle hands needed an outlet, and he must have pushed the various buttons and switches as he pretended to drive the truck. And one of the switches was for the gas tank. Sure enough, as soon as Phil switched to the proper side, the truck started right up.

Those little guys! What rascals!