Six Arrows Farm

Two worlds are at work on the farm this week.

In the outdoor world, we Minnesotans were just liberally dowsed with over a foot of our winter diet, snow, topped with a icing of freezing rain…what the weather-man feebly dubs “a wintery mix” with that amiable and yet non-descript expression we have all learned to expect from someone blandly exaggerating the next “foreseeable” meteorological event. Daddy says this alias for predicted precipitation sounds like something off a restaurant menu, “And what drink would you like with that Ma’am; a dose of cold north wind?”

 

I know I’m a little hard on the weather forecasters, but you have to admit they often take things far too seriously.  I often wonder if excessive enthusiasm for their work adequately accounts for the zeal of the catastrophists at large on the weather channel. 

Indoors, a world of life is brewing.  New herbs are already unwinding their first leaves and bending towards the light.  We can stare out on a glaring frigid waste and turn back to peep at the garden flourishing under our noses.  I love the way chives grow in particular.  If you look carefully at the image on the right, you will see that each shoot is doubled, and one in the background just out of focus is unbending…they “cheat” a bit and grow ahead of the other herbs that way. Aubrey and I are itching to delve into last year’s “pot-hills” and piles of rubbish in the greenhouse and reorganize the “nursery” for the soon-coming “babies.”  But then we’re all a little fidgety.  The planting bug tingles through our finger-tips and we can’t stop ordering seeds.  Ordering seeds about now is truly a risky business not unlike grocery shopping when you are hungry.

Speaking of hungry, we attached a recipe to the bottom of this post for a favorite cake of ours that is unbelievably easy and remarkably delicious…not to mention beautiful.  The cake bears the name of the person making it, so this is what we call Lenz Cake.  Substitute your name in the title and treat your guests to a delicious dessert next time you open the doors to your corner of culture.

If you’re in the “great recipe” mood go to: http://tammymaltby.typepad.com/tammyhansonmaltby/  (That’s where we learned about the Lenz Cake)

Winter is finally beginning to wind down.  I could feel it even in the intense gusts of blistering chill that heralded the last blizzard.  Very soon the last great dying gasp will give space to spring.  Now we trudge up the lane off winter’s last toilsome road.  Here a tree, there a bush shakes off its gossomer blanket as if anxious to have done with the sad songs they have creaked all the long cold months.  And then, through the last of the falling flakes, we’ll spot it in a quivering of wonderment.  The bright warm glow of Spring shining on the edge of time.  The next step will be heavier and softer and everywhere the white shrouds will melt and flood away.  Soon there will be mud underfoot and buds overhead.  Laughing and shouting the gush of life will burst the bonds and carry us away with it until the soft glow is dancing all around in the 

warmth.  Somwhere between here and there it will come: Summer.  And we, all unconcious of the wall we have passed  and the gate that was shut behind, will rove in freedom through another world.  Last Winter, still a-shimmery and glorious will peep from this young Spring’s walls o’er which it can never pass and watch us gambole away.  We may look back at it like children all grown up and wonder with a deep yet fading sense of loss at what we had and knew and never can have or know the same way again.  A season gone, a chapter finished.  You may glance to me and read the history …last year’s joys… that will be shining like tears in your eyes refleced in my own; and wonder why we don’t turn and return to the dear old familiar.  And yet neither of us can…or does.

So my take on all the snow?…learn to enjoy it while you can!

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows


Lenz Cake

1 box white cake mix (don’t get mix with double the pudding)

1 box vanilla instant pudding

1 box chocolate instant pudding

4 eggs

½ cup oil

1 ½ cup water

1 cup chocolate chips

Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans.  Mix all ingredients except choc chips according to directions on the cake mix box.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Pour cake pans and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until done.  (When testing cake with a toothpick, the trick is that the cake continues to “bake” until it cools, so take it out when there are a few moist crumbs (not gobs of batter) on the toothpick rather than waiting until it comes out “clean.”  This will yield a more tender and moist cake.)

Remove from pans after 5-10 min.  Cool cake completely.

Topping

2-3 pints fresh strawberries

½-1 pint fresh blueberries

1 pint whipping cream

Powdered Sugar

Vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

1 Tbsp butter

Melt chocolate chips with butter and dip half to ¾ of the strawberries.  Refrigerate until set.  Whip cream with powdered sugar to taste (3-5 Tbsp) and vanilla (usually a generous tsp.)

Layer and frost the cakes with the whipped cream. Garnish with chocolate strawberries and remaining strawberries and blueberries.  (Can also use raspberries) You can also drizzle the cake with leftover chocolate from the strawberries.

Lightly sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!