When I looked at this blog I was a bit shocked to see that it has been 2 years since I’ve written here. I posted about knitting a quilt for my daughter for college and I did it out of guilt because I was woefully late on that too. Before that, it was months since I’d posted. Sometimes you just need to hole up. When you go through a transition – when you move from one self to another self- you gotta hunker down, focus – keep your eye on the ball and not disperse energy. Even if sometimes that energy gives you joy. Concentrate on getting your footing and get yourself out of the situation. One foot in front of the other – forward march.

We are people of extremes as my daughters like to say. We like extreme urban or extreme rural, not the grey pasty normal of suburbia. So I decided to buy a farm – for many reasons. It was the necessary path to take. It felt like the only viable path for the times. So I’m splitting my time between the Loisaida homestead and a 21 acre homestead in Schoharie County in upstate New York. There is a white farmhouse that was built in 1800. In the basement you can see 200 year old bark covered logs with their ancient axe marks that are the foundation beams of the house. There is a green barn that houses 4 goats, 5 hens and 6 ducks, all girls. Animals that inhabit the farmhouse include the 2 New York City Toy Fox Terriers Lolo, s spry 17 years young and the no-eyed Mille, Then there are the two big young black lab mix rescue dogs Rowan (who belongs to one of my daughters) and Maybelle who just turned one. There is the feral cat that I adopted to be a rat killer barn cat who could not hack it in the barn and who now occupies a bedroom to herself – story to come.

I will keep the blog title of Loisaida Nest but I will write about the farm too, which will now be my main focus as there is lots of work to do and things to learn. I will however continue to share stories and photos of my beloved Loisaida.

At the edge of spring we are still under snow after 3 Nor’easters dumped more than 4 feet on us in a month. The days are getting longer and my flock of birds have started laying in earnest. The 8 month old ducks have laid their first eggs. The first eggs of the Black Cayuga ducks were charcoal black and looked like stones. Now they are becoming a a lighter mottled grey.

My first dish made with duck eggs was an egg salad. Duck eggs have more yolk so the egg salad was very rich.

SAVORY DUCK EGG SALAD

4 hard boiled duck eggs (or 6 hard boiled chicken eggs)

1 teaspoon finely chopped shallot

1/2 teaspoon capers

1 teaspoon chopped Kalamata olives

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 squirt of Siracha (or other hot sauce if you like a little heat)

Chop up the eggs and mix all the ingredients together.