Page 91 - Tattnall County

learn to make their own yogurt and kefr. I knew I had encountered “kefr” somewhere before. When I asked Raven about it, he explained that it is a cultured milk drink. Ah. I remembered. On my frst trip to the Balkans some years ago, my Serbian friends could not understand how I could eat “Börek,” a fabulous baked breakfast pastry flled with feta or some other cheese, without kefr. Ok, I know it’s good for you. Kefr is “a cultured, enzyme-rich food flled with friendly micro-organisms that help balance your ‘inner ecosystem.’ More nutritious and therapeutic than yogurt, it supplies complete protein, essential minerals, and valuable B vitamins” (www.kefr.net). However, sometimes being good for you just isn’t reason enough.

Although there was no kefr on hand, Janisse did offer me a glass of goat’s milk. As we walked through the felds and gardens, the goat milk was thankfully forgotten. Janisse spotted two deer grazing at the far end of the tree line. When we came to the solar dehydrator, she pulled out a drawer to check the peaches, herbs, jalapeno peppers, and squash that were drying. “If I want to make soup, all I have to do is throw these herbs and vegetables into a broth,” she explained. The dehydrator was at 102 degrees but will rise to 125. Newly born guineas scurried

across the front yard a few feet from Emma, the cow who doesn’t know she’s a cow. Emma followed us like the family dog that didn’t seem to mind sharing the responsibility. The cow stood close by as if she was afraid she might miss a bit of juicy gossip. Raven took the goats to the barn for the night while Janisse introduced me to Sojourner the hair sheep (as opposed to wool sheep), the Saanen dairy goats, the various cows, the bull named Geronimo, the “naked neck” Turken chicken, baby ducklings, and the pig, offspring of feral pigs raised in captivity and therefore devoid of antibiotics. A turkey continued to strut around our feet

until Emma tucked her head and pretended to charge him in irritation. All of the animals at Red Earth Farm are named for activists.

The gardens were beautiful: old timely varieties of “moon and stars” watermelons grown from last year’s seeds and gold-striped cushaw and butternut squash were ready to be harvested. The rooster continued to crow as if a bit insulted that we were not paying attention to his broadcast. I was reminded of the past week when I had been out running in the early evening and in frustration had asked God why he didn’t talk

to me. A situation with someone who was giving me a bit of grief was spinning like a thousand wheels in my head. I felt Him say, “I am. Listen.” And it was as if someone suddenly removed cotton from my ears and I could hear the sounds of birds, crickets, bullfrogs, and a fock of geese honking from the water’s edge as I ran by. I was shocked. How could I not have heard all this? It was almost deafening. The sounds had been so obvious that all I could do was laugh at myself. To hear God I just had to listen.

Janisse and Raven’s Red Earth Farm is both a place of roots and branches. Roots of organic vegetables, many from heirloom seedlings, grow alongside an