This same time, years previous: church of the Sunday sofa, beware the bed sheets, mousy mayhem, roasted carrot and red lentil soup, the Monday rambles, creamed asparagus on toast, and the bicycle gang.

My older daughter has an agreement with a neighbor friend: in exchange for childcare, housework, gardening assistance, and animal care, he will give her sheep. Or some type of animal TBA. The details of the arrangement aren’t smashed out clear, but they’re kind of beside the point, at least to me. I’m just happy that she has the opportunity to work with and be trained by a farmerish man. (Neither my husband nor I could ever be mistaken for farmerish.)

The other day, she went to his place to help work the sheep. She got to fill the syringes for vaccinations (I felt like an evil doctor! she gushed), hold the sheep while they got their hooves trimmed, and observe the ear tagging. And then she came home and trimmed Omri’s hooves.

Oh, and about Omri. Last weekend another neighbor friend (this is getting confusing) came over and performed a surgical castration on Omri. (Except he doesn’t call it a castration; he calls it getting “changed,” as in, “Does it suit for me to come over now and change the lamb?” For some reason, this makes me giggle every time.) My daughter held Omri and the rest of us stood in a row and gawked. I took pictures, but my husband says I shouldn’t post them so I won’t. I’ll just have to settle for telling you in words: it was fascinating.

Anyway. Back to the work-for-sheep neighbor friend. When we got Omri, Farmer Friend expressed some worry about Omri being a singleton. Sheep are companion animals, he explained. How about I give you an advance of one sheep?

So Monday morning found us trying to stuff one very large and very loud lamb into our van. The dog carrier we had brought along for transport was way too small, so my daughter said she’d just hold the lamb on her lap. After a good bit of maneuvering and a good bit of baaing and a great deal of freaking out about ITS POOPY BUTT, the sheep was nestled securely on my daughter’s lap. We daintily draped a towel over the scary parts and hoped for the best.

And then I looked over at the two of them—my daughter with her arms wrapped tightly around the lamb, and the lamb sitting there all rigid and straight, head jutting out in an I-am-going-to-be-dignified-about-this-dammit expression—and I realized that my life had taken on a distinctly Far Side-esque sheen.

Of course, right then was when the lamb stuck her head in my ear and baaed at the top of her bleaty voice. I squealed and about leaped out of my seat. The kids and I belly-laughed the whole way home, though we had to do it quietly less we agitate our woolly passenger.

Jessica, for that is what my daughter named her, has rapidly adjusted to her new home. She and Omri are inseparable. Omri is learning good sheep-like habits from her, such as grazing and grain-eating. Occasionally, he tries to nurse from her, awww. Jessica is a little skittish, but that’s the sheep way. She’ll be ready for breeding in October.

Maybe we are more farmerish than I thought?

This same time, years previous: mango banana helados, drama trauma, the perils of homemade chicken broth, and shoofly pie.

When I pulled Sally Fallon’s cookbook off the shelf to refresh my memory on the proper crispy nut process, I spent a few minutes flipping through the pages. Years ago, I read my way through all the recipes, making quite a few of them as I went along and scrawling notes in the margins. So when I landed on a page with an above-average number of notes, the word “Great!”, and a pancake recipe, I took a second look. One can never have too many pancake recipes.

It’s a bracingly healthy recipe, borderline annoying with all its wholesome goodness. It’s all whole grain (of course) but Sally goes one step father and soaks the flour in a buttermilk/yogurt mixture to “activate the enzyme phytase … which … break[s] down phytic acid in the bran of grains.”

Not that I really understand all that, of course. But I’m gonna go ahead and assume it’s code for: these pancakes are really good for you so eat them.

Actually, I do understand that, just not in a brainy, scientific-term way. My understanding is more of a gut thing (pun not intended, but ha anyway). My daughter and I have been reading up on the whys and how-tos (to’s?) of fermented chicken feed. The ‘fessionals say it’s good because the chickens get more nutrients out of the grain, and the bad bacteria is reduced while the good bacteria is strengthened (this is lacto-fermentation we’re talking about). As a result, the chickens are healthier, the eggs are firmer shelled and heartier, and the chickens consume less grain. Translate all that to humans (minus the eggs part), and you’ve got some good reasons to make these pancakes.

My freezer is cluttered with half-empty bags of different flours: teff, spelt, rye, buckwheat, oat, etc. I figured that by making these pancakes once a week, using one cup whole wheat and one cup Random Flour, I could pancake my way through my freezer.

And that’s just what I’ve been doing. A single recipe is sufficient for the children’s breakfast.

These aren’t “candy” pancakes, mind. In other words, the children don’t go all gah-gah, but they do eat them happily enough. My older son, naturally, would always appreciate a few more, but a few of these hearty doozies is plenty, I tell him. If he’s still hungry, he can eat a bowl of granola. Besides, lunch time is only a few hours after breakfast. Survival happens.

Sally Fallon’s Pancakes
Adapted from Nourishing Traditions.

I use one cup of whole wheat and one cup of whatever grain I’m trying to use up at the time. Lately, it’s been dark rye. For the buttermilk, I use one cup plain yogurt and one cup water.

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups buttermilk
1-2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons melted butter

Before you go to bed, measure the flour into a bowl and stir in the buttermilk (or yogurt-water mixture). Cover the bowl with plastic and let it sit on the counter overnight.

In the morning, mix together the couple tablespoons of flour with the salt and soda. I do this to help the soda and salt get more evenly distributed in the batter. Sprinkle the mixture over the sludge of soaked flour and whisk well. Add the eggs and melted butter and whisk again.

Fry ladlefuls of the batter on a happily-buttered hot skillet. Serve pancakes with butter and syrup.

This same time, years previous: out and about, the quotidian (4.23.12), cauliflower potato soup, me and you, and the radishes,