Ordinary Time

Leaving my old kitchen and coming to this one was one of the most difficult aspects of our move two and half years ago. Oh, how I miss that kitchen! Especially when the one we moved into was not even close to being functional. We have continued to work to improve it. First was installing the refrigerator I bought before we moved because I knew I couldn't function with the one that was in the kitchen. Then nearly immediately I ordered a rolling kitchen island because the little bit of counter space just wasn't enough. These two things helped... a bit. In a month or so, I realized that the range, which I didn't love at first sight, was even more horrible than I had thought. I discovered this when I kept routinely ruining food. So, off to the Habitat ReStore I went to find a new one. We then discovered that the kitchen didn't have a 220 line , so the P. Family came out one weekend and we fed them while the P. Family dad did the electrical work for us. (It is handy to hav...

First the menu as I planned it this morning. Friday (We enjoy celebrating a night of Hanukkah... telling the story of the Maccabees and the oil in the temple, eating good food, and playing dreidel.) Latkes Jelly donuts      Bought from the store Saturday Butter chicken (in the crock pot)      I'm using the recipe I linked to Naan      From the store Basmati rice      I always keep this on hand as well as Jasmine rice Sunday TAMALES !!      Some friends are coming over and we'll be making them from scratch. I'll make the fillings the day before. I'm planning pork with red sauce, chicken with a green chili sauce, and peppers and onions Monday Ninth Night Lamb      For Christmas, M. got me a cook book called, The Italian Country Table . I had checked it out of the library before, and several of my favorite recipes came from it. We were talking and I mentioned I would love to...

We continue to prepare to have horses. If you are at all aware of the equine world, you will know that inexpensive and horses do not go together. Besides the actual animal itself, there is a lot you need. So when I saw a notice that someone was selling a bulk lot of horse supplies for a pretty fair price, I jumped on it. Three saddles, not in pristine shape, but decent enough for trail or casual riding. Some girths, stirrup irons, a huge stack of breeches, an even bigger stack of horse blankets of various weights, feed buckets, hoof picks, halters, fly masks, and a few show coats are just some of the things J. and I hauled home today. It was a good deal even if some of the things don't end of up working. I do have a little repair work to do on some of the blankets, but that is something I can manage. So to recap... horse trailer? Check. Saddles? Check. Blankets? Check. Fencing? No.... Some kind of shelter? No.... And thus no horse. Sigh. __________ I have a n...

As I mentioned last Friday, the garden is booming. I still have moments of just standing and staring at it, because I find the whole thing so surprising. I thought you might like to see some pictures. Look at all my tomato plants! And cucumbers If you look carefully, you can see some very large hot peppers on this plant. This odd plant is called a cardoon, and its presence in the garden is due solely to staring too long at seed catalogs in the dead of winter. It seems you eat the stalks, after more than a little bit of labor. I'm sure I will let you know how this little experiment goes. See that squash growing up the side of the dead tree? This is another too-much-seed-catalog purchase. This is an edible gourd, which I'm told can be used like zucchini. The cool thing is that the gourds grow very long and look like snakes. I picture them hanging down from the dead branches of this tree. It sounds pretty cool in theory, huh? The garden from the ot...

We just finished our big June Birthday Bash Blow Out, and I'll tell you about it and show pictures on Monday. In the meantime, I realize that today is the one year anniversary of us owning this house. It's been quite a year. One year ago today, we closed on two houses; the Big Ugly House in the morning and this one in the afternoon. We had slept in a hotel overnight, complete with one dog, two cats, and one quail. The five younger people left for church camp from one house, and returned to another. We had no furniture, as the floors were all going to be redone. The next day would be spent cleaning out every shed and out building because they were packed full with stuff the previous owners had left behind. We were relieved to have the stress of selling the house and packing done, but it all felt vaguely disorienting. What a difference a year makes. I am so very glad to be on this side of all of that. While parts of the year have been very hard, I can say we are all feelin...

One of the types of stories I've always loved, especially as a child, are transformation stories, especially when the transformation is of a place. You know, a person finds or inherits a completely run-down piece of property, and with vision and a lot of hard work, transforms it into a beautiful place. I love them, and as a child couldn't get enough of them. (Mandy by Julie Edwards nee Andrews is one that sticks in my mind.) In some ways, living here is this new house on this piece of land, is a lot like living out my childhood fantasies of transforming a place. The bones were good, but everything was just a little bit falling down and extremely overgrown. In my mind, I can see what I want it to look like, and it is actually feasible for us to be able to do it, but it's going to take a lot of time and effort. (This is in direct contrast to the Big Ugly House . There were plenty of opportunities for transformation, and we did some, but transforming a very large but dilapid...

to having the chicken coop officially done. It is the project that definitely took on a life of its own. All that's left: paint the trip, add a small overhanging roof, make nesting boxes, get construction sand for the pen, find a couple of pallets to put the food and water on, and wire over the top of the pen. That's all.

Just in case you might have forgotten that my life is a good part farce, I will share this afternoon's adventures. As you read yesterday, we are now starting to let the chickens and ducks out of their pen in order to meander around the yard in order to eat dandelions and bugs. The chickens, once we herded them out the first time, quickly caught on, and enjoyed their freedom immensely. The ducks on the other hand, couldn't figure out what was going on. The first day, B. went in the pen and encouraged them to move towards the door. Actually, only one was encouraged to exit, the others required being picked up and put out of the pen. Once outside, the little amoeba of ducks happily quacked and waddled and nibbled their way around the yard. Then it was time to put everyone back in. I bought a bag of cracked corn and dried meal worms to encourage the fowl to come home. On Sunday, this was not quite successful. It took a multi-person effort to heard all the animals back into the pen....

This is our first spring in the this house, so we are still discovering things, such as what is coming up in the garden. It's kind of fun to see what spring flowers are here. I've been a little preoccupied with getting the flower beds all cleared out and neatened up. The long bed along the drive is... long. After many days of working on it, I'm still just about half way done. It feels a little never ending. But there are some pretty flowers that have come up. (Photo credits to TM.) We have a lot of peonies. If I don't get them all staked with cages soon, it will be too late. The trouble with cleaning up a garden you've never seen in the spring is that you don't know what is coming up. I very nearly did away with this huge area of grape hyacinths in my fervor to rid the garden of unwanted grass. Thankfully, just in time, I notice the little tiny flowers starting. They are all blooming brilliantly now. Who can tell me what this ...

Along with all chicken and duck related efforts over the weekend, I've also been doing so serious garden clean-up in the long flower bed along the drive. J. was building the coop. Various children were playing in various places, and I was happily weeding the garden. I pull out something that I thought was a stick, and instead of a stick, I suddenly find myself holding a toad by the back leg. Neither of us were amused. I shrieked rather loudly, the toad said nothing. I didn't shriek because I was holding a toad; I'm rather immune to reptiles and amphibians these days. I shrieked because I truly didn't expect to see a toad dangling from my hand. The toad is now back in the garden, despite G.'s pleas for keeping him as a pet. I will look a little more carefully at what I am grabbing in the future.

Did you hear the angels singing yesterday? That was to celebrate the relocating of the chickens from the kitchen to the chicken coop. J. worked for nearly the entire weekend non-stop, and just has a little more to do this afternoon. He got enough done that the chickens were evicted. They'll get the run of the run by tomorrow. It's probably just as well they had to chill inside the coop for 24 hours to get settled. They were a little overwhelmed by the experience. And then the ducks arrived. While all this coop building was going on, the ducks were having a grand time out in the pen with their wading pool. Not much upsets a duck. Well, except it seems, when they are surprised upon returning to their suite after a dip in the pool to find it infested with chickens. I peeked in the window at one point to see how things were going. It was like the poultry version of West Side Story. Well, with less dancing and a bit more quacking. The chickens, all 21 of them, were squeezed as t...

This weekend was good, but definitely of the sort where the coming of the next week sounds rather restful. The first thing was did was celebrate M's 25th birthday, though it was a couple of weeks late. I'm learning that with adult children, you celebrate when you can. Yesterday, J. and the older people also started making the shed for the chicken coop. While it wasn't snowing, the air temperature did feel like 25 degrees, or so B. told me. I stayed inside and did laundry and made cherry pies for M.'s birthday dinner. This morning, we get home from church to discover that the chicks all of a sudden decided that their brooder box was too small. They showed this feeling of impending claustrophobia by deciding to gang up on four of the chicks, and peck them until blood was drawn. Sigh. After quickly consulting the internet and the chicken book, we took the injured birds out of the box and put them in whatever containers we could find. The bird in the...