Going Country

I Didn't Knock on Wood and Now I'm Paying for It

2012-02-02T06:20:00.000-05:00

Just a few days ago I was remarking to A. how thankful I was that this winter has so far been remarkably free of illness. After last winter's bonanza of digestive upsets and other things, I was so very, very happy that as a family we have only had one quite mild cold.

So of course, I came down with a cold the day after making that rash statement.

No one else has caught it yet, so now I'm knocking on LOTS OF WOOD. And never opening my mouth to jinx us again.

What Not To Wear

2012-02-01T05:49:00.000-05:00

I think it's a pretty safe generalization to say that anything I wear in my house, I should not wear outside of my house. This is because all the clothing I wear at Blackrock is either stained or ugly. Or both, actually.

This is brought home to me every time I have to leave the house and interact with people other than my son, my husband, or my mother-in-law, none of whom rate the courtesy of me caring what I look like around them, apparently.

Actually, my attire on a daily basis has less to do with me not making an effort and more to do with the fact that I live a particularly dirty and cold life, so I must be in clothing that is both warm and disposable enough that another rust stain from that one spot by the sink won't matter.

This is why I spend my days in long johns, jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a flannel shirt, AND a wool sweater. Basically, I look (and feel) like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from November to May.

I have three wool sweaters. One is a hideous, bulky brown cardigan on which the buttons will not stay closed. The other is a not as hideous, but definitely more bulky cream-colored cardigan on which the buttons stay closed but which is perpetually dingy-looking thanks to its light color and the fact that it must be hand washed. It weighs approximately twenty pounds when wet and takes three days to dry. So. Not so frequent with the washing. And then I have a too-big-for-me alpaca sweater from Peru that my sister gave me. It's the least bulky, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it attractive or anything.

These three sweaters are my mainstays day in and day out in the winter. I will on occasion wear the alpaca sweater somewhere like the village library, but the other two? Forget it. I have my vanity, and I will not appear in public in these sweaters.

This is why when I leave the house for exciting events like story hour with Cubby on Tuesdays, I have to literally change my clothes for the hour I'm out of the house and then change back again when I get home. I also have to do this because the layers of clothing necessary for even minimal comfort at Blackrock would probably cause me to suffer heatstroke in a normal, centrally heated environment.

You see the problems I have to deal with on a daily basis. Such a trial, this life of mine.

So, duckies, what item (or items, plural) of clothing do you slump around the house in but would never, ever be caught in outside the house? I know you all have at least one.

Pardon Me

2012-01-31T12:39:00.001-05:00

Whatever topic of great import I was going to discuss with you today has been driven right out of my head by the sunshine and fifty-two degree temperature.

I KNOW.

I believe I shall take my sandwich outside and bask in the false spring. Happy sunny Tuesday, poppets.

The Watchers in the Window

2012-01-30T05:44:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, the MiL had the brilliant idea of putting a bird feeder in the lilac bush right outside the bay window so Cubby could watch birds this winter.

That plan was finally implemented a couple of months ago, with immediate success. Not only does Cubby love to sit on the table in the bay window (from which we have had to remove the extremely old and probably quite valuable lamp for the duration of the bird watching season), he often has company.

Devil Cat and (occasional) Devil Child, sharing a rare moment of peace.

This is the only place Belle will sit still and allow Cubby to get within grabbing distance of her tail. Considering his past track record, I can't blame her. It's been an excellent opportunity to teach him to be more gentle with her though, a lesson I think he would do well to learn with the feline and canine members of the household before we introduce a completely helpless human baby into the mix.

The bird feeder, incidentally, has also forced me* to learn to identify at least the most common birds that come to the feeder. It has also forced me to repress my (immature) laughter every time I announce, "Look, Cubby! There's a tufted titmouse."

Bet you would laugh, too.

* Me and Cubby, actually. He's pretty good at identifying the birds. It's quite amusing to watch him sitting--or, as in the case of this photo, lying--on the table narrating the action: "Chickadee! Blue! (bluejay) Carda! (cardinal) Mouse! (tufted titmouse)(HAHA).

This Doesn't Count

2012-01-28T08:15:00.001-05:00

For some time now, Cubby has been talking quite clearly in single words, but not quite stringing the words together to form a sentence. Until this morning. I think.

He had his hammer and was standing there with it, looking as if he might be contemplating hammering the coffee table. So I suggested to him he should go to his toy box and get out the bench with the pegs so he could hammer on that.

He looked at me for a second and then said, "Mom?"

"Yes?" I replied.

And then, quite definitely, he said, "Get it."

Am I hearing this correctly? My child's first sentence was a peremptory, "Mom, get it"? Swell.

I, of course, replied that Cubby could get his own bench from the toy box. Which he did.

I'm not counting this as the first sentence, however, both because I would really like his first sentence to be something nice like, "Mom, love you,*" and also because there was that pause in between the two parts of the sentence. So technically, it doesn't count.

I fear, however, that this is the sentence that will go down in family history as the earliest spoken indication of Cubby's character. Much like his father's first sentence--"No, don't want to!"--was a pretty reliable indicator of his personality for the rest of his life.

Maybe we should encourage Cubby to join the military. Then he could become an officer and tell people what to do all the time. But until then, he's out of luck.

* There is about as much chance of this, I fear, as there is a chance that I will retrieve a peg bench in response to a command from my two year old. That is, none.

The Indecision

2012-01-27T05:51:00.000-05:00

Hey, anyone remember that whole baby gestating thing I have going on? Yeah, well, in addition to the thousand other ways it's going to alter our very existence (TWO children? whose idea was this again?), I cannot for the life of me figure out the garden for this coming season.

There will be a garden, that is not the question. The question is, how much garden and what will be in it? I can't see how I can manage the whole space we have--which is almost 2,000 square feet--even with the participation of A. and the MiL, both of whom have said they'll step in more.

I appreciate their offers, but the reality is that they both work actual jobs and the garden has been my job. So what happens when I need some maternity leave from this job right in the middle of the growing season? God knows.

There will be tomatoes. But how many? How much enthusiasm am I going to have for tomato canning while dealing with a two year old and a two month old? I suspect not much. But the prospect of going another winter with only these disgusting store canned tomatoes is not to be tolerated, so I think that must be a priority.

I haven't even sat down with the seed basket to see what I have. When I do, I have to really try to be realistic about how much I can even get planted when I'm seven or eight months pregnant, much less harvest and maybe process with a newborn to deal with.

I suspect part of the garden will lie fallow this year and just get planted with a cover crop. But I also suspect I will still end up doing too much and regretting it. I kind of have a history of doing that, even when there isn't a new bundle of demanding, up-all-night joy gracing my life.

One year of gardening is a small, inconsequential blip in the grand scope of my life. But not to me.

Culinary Notes

2012-01-25T05:48:00.000-05:00

Last night around 5 p.m., I asked A. if he was hungry, meaning should I start making hamburgers from the ground beef I had taken out to thaw. He said no, not really, because he had eaten at the Chinese buffet for lunch. I wasn't hungry either, so I decided to just make Cubby a couple of eggs for his dinner, figuring A. and I would forage later for our dinners if we wanted to.

Here's what we ended up having for dinner individually:

Cubby ate his two eggs, plus some leftover balsamic-glazed parsnips, leftover brussels sprouts, milk, and applesauce.

A., despite his assertion that he wasn't really hungry, began preparing his dinner while Cubby was eating his odd collection of foods. A. made two hamburger patties, between which he sandwiched slices of Brie cheese. This, in turn, was topped with a fried egg, and that whole mess was finished off with ketchup and mayonnaise. He christened this incredible concoction "The Tower of Power."

The very thought of it made me want to throw up. I may have been rude enough to actually say that out loud, which fazed A. not in the least.

After Cubby went to bed, I made myself a sandwich with sharp cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, and Dilly Beans. A., in what was undoubtedly fair play on his part, told me that that made him want to throw up. He seemed particularly disturbed at the pairing of cheese and mayonnaise. Is it really that weird to put mayonnaise on a cheese sandwich? I always do.

And, on a completely unrelated note, the leftover sugar syrup from a jar of canned pears when mixed with seltzer tastes amazingly like cream soda. I have no idea why that would be, but there you are.

Gooey

2012-01-24T05:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning was warmer and rainy and the ground was covered in a very unappealing mixture of slushy snow, ice, and mud.

So of course Cubby and I had to go outside to play. YAY.

Since it was well above freezing and the ground was quite soft, Cubby and I went into the garden for some more harvesting. Parsnips this time, because it had occurred to me that I had not actually used a single one of the many parsnips out there and perhaps I should take advantage of the thaw to get them out of the ground without the aid of a pickax or a concrete wall and my own fit of rage.

So Cubby carried the bucket to the garden for me and placed the (ENORMOUS) parsnips in it for me as I dug them up. Then, while he was wrestling with the bucket in an attempt to carry it out of the garden--the boy does love to lift things, just like his daddy--I decided to check the chicken nest in the hay barn in the garden for eggs. There were two.

I grabbed the eggs and went back to Cubby, who was flat on the ground, having tripped on the hose in his way. So I stuck the eggs in my coat pocket, hauled him up, got the scattered parsnips back in the dropped bucket, and went back to the house.

Can you guess what I found in my pocket when I reached in to take the eggs out? Bet you can.

Yup. One of the eggs had broken, coating my pocket in an exceedingly disgusting ooze of yolk and egg white. This is not something you want to feel unexpectedly with your hand, trust me.

It meant that I had to wash my coat. Although, considering the bottom part of said coat was already muddy from my previous harvesting experience and every item of Cubby's outdoor apparel was coated in mud, it wasn't too difficult to make up a full load of dirty outdoor wear.

So that was yesterday.

The Biggest Tools

2012-01-23T06:48:00.000-05:00

I have mentioned before Cubby's abiding fascination with tools. He has not wavered in his devotion to tools of all kinds--preferably the sharp, dangerous ones he's not allowed to touch--but he has expanded his interests to what are essentially just really, really BIG tools.

Behold:

When we were at Longwood Gardens, the staff was working on some kind of big outdoor project near the house, so while I toured around the full-of-breakable-objects house, A. took Cubby outside to play. And there they encountered the excavator. It was love. Cubby stood there the whole time I was in the house watching the men working the machines, and he REALLY didn't want to go. A. had to pick him up and bodily remove him from the scene of the machinery.

Perhaps we have a future heavy equipment operator on our hands. Or maybe just a typical little boy who thinks anything with an engine is the greatest thing ever.

Sharing Is Caring

2012-01-22T06:45:00.000-05:00

And because I care so much about all of you, I will share my recipe for leek and potato soup as requested by Anna.

I am not convinced the online world needs yet another recipe for leek and potato soup, and God knows, I don't really do recipes, but Anna asked, so here we go: My vague outline of how to make leek and potato soup.

I happened to have some leftover bacon grease around, so this last time I made it I didn't use actual bacon. But normally I dice a couple of slices of bacon, render out the fat, and then use the fat to saute the leek and onion. And use the bacon itself in the soup, too, of course.

Anyway, however you get your fat, saute the leek and onion on low heat until they're very soft but not brown. I think this last time I had about two cups of thinly sliced leeks (across the circumference, not lengthwise) and a diced medium onion. The leeks are more sweet than onion-y, so they can use the boost from an onion.

When they're soft, I add about an equal amount of peeled, diced potatoes. Use a variety that falls apart when cooking, like Russet. The smaller the potatoes are diced, the faster it will all cook.

Add enough chicken stock, veggie stock, or a combination of stock and water to cover the vegetables. Add salt, depending on the saltiness of the stock, and a bunch of pepper. Simmer until it's all soft. Puree it either with an immersion blender if you're lucky enough to own such a wondrous device (I am not), or in a blender or food processor in batches.

If you like some chunks, don't puree it all. I like it all really smooth, personally.

Put it all back in the pot and add some heavy cream. I think I used about a third of a cup this time. You can use milk, too, or a combination of milk and cream, but the cream is the best. Of course.

And that's it. It's simple, but it takes a deceptively long time to make, what with all those dirty vegetables and the irritating "puree in batches" bullshit. Which is why you should just go ahead and make a big pot, because it's a wonderful thing to have as leftovers for lunch for days.

Or, you know, two days, if you eat it as fast as I do. Whatever. It's delicious and very heartening on a cold, nasty day. And I GUESS worth the incredible effort involved in gathering the ingredients in late January. If you have access to one of those new-fangled "grocery stores," it might be a wee bit easier to assemble your ingredients. It probably won't taste as good as soup made with homegrown leeks and potatoes and homemade chicken stock from homegrown chickens, but still pretty damn good.

So go for it. Make some leek and potato soup, and raise your spoon in a toast to Blackrock and the ridiculous lengths we go to for food.

In Pursuit of Leeks

2012-01-21T06:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon Cubby and I were outside wandering around, as we do every day that it isn't actively raining. Snow? Sure. Nineteen degrees? Make sure the snow pants are on and the ears covered, but get that child outside.

Inside is no good for Cubby and, by extension, me. So outside we go, weather be damned.

As we were meandering about, I happened to think of the leeks still in the garden. And of how delicious leek and potato soup is. And how long it had been since we'd had it. So I re-directed Cubby to the frozen garden, where I grabbed the shovel and set about digging leeks.

Did I mention it was nineteen degrees? Because it was. Prime digging weather, right there.

Surprisingly, I got the shovel in at the end of the row with no trouble, but when I pried up on it, I ended up leveraging out basically the rest of the row. That is, a continuous two-foot chunk of frozen dirt with about seven leeks inside.

Useful.

Since I had already ripped all of those leeks up by the roots, I figured I'd better get them out of the garden. But the chunk of dirt was too big to carry, so I hacked at it with the shovel until I could at least lift the two pieces. Then I instructed Cubby to carry one (he couldn't really, but it occupied him while I got the other one to the house), figuring I would fill a bucket with water and put the leeks and dirt in the water to thaw the dirt and free the leeks.

But while I was hauling my enormous block of frozen dirt and leeks to the house, I slipped on some mud on an incline and fell flat on my ass.

Seriously. MUD? It was NINETEEN DEGREES. WHAT THE HELL?

I was mad. And covered in mud. So by the time I got to the house, I didn't have the patience to slop around with buckets of water. Instead I literally threw the chunk of dirt at the low concrete retaining wall near the shop door. This worked surprisingly well. I thought it would break the leeks up too, but they ended up just kind of breaking out of the frozen dirt whole, as if coming out of a mold.

Huh.

The soup was delicious, but I will not be digging leeks again until the temperature gets above freezing. I can learn.

Kristin's Kitchen: The Spin-off

2012-01-20T05:45:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you all remember my hit cooking show, "Kristin's Kitchen." I made one very successful episode*, and then it got canned by the network.

But now! Let us revive the show as a spin-off! Because I have a co-host now. Like my hero Jacques Pepin, who did some cooking shows with his daughter Claudine. Except Claudine was able to use a knife and presumably put on her own pants, unlike my co-host.

I refer, of course, to Cubby.

So let us begin the new show, "Kristin and Cubby's Kitchen." On today's episode is German Shepherd's Pie, a recipe of my own devising that's like regular shepherd's pie in that it's meat topped with mashed potatoes. But with a distinctly Teutonic tone, thanks to the sauerkraut, caraway seeds, and beer.

Oh yes.

Shall we?

We start with handing Cubby off to his daddy, because no child of two has the patience to stand and watch his mother peel two dozen small, irritating potatoes. His mother barely has the patience to do it. Then they're chunked up and cooked in a pot of salted water.

While the potatoes are cooking, into a large pan goes some tallow and around two pounds of ground beef (this recipe, obviously, makes A LOT) to get browned up, along with a diced onion. The onion was a large one to start with, but it had some bad spots that had to be cut out, so maybe it ended up being a medium onion in the end.

ANYWAY.

After that's all browned (the meat) and soft (the onion), I chuck in a couple of teaspoons of caraway seeds and some rinsed sauerkraut. (This sauerkraut, but of course.) I think I ended up with about two cups of sauerkraut in there. And I rinsed it enough that I had to add some salt. Also, pepper goes in now. And no, I do not measure my pepper because I grind it from a grinder and I'm not about to grind it into a bowl and then pour it into a measuring spoon or something. How irritating would that be?

Okay! Now for the beer! I used about half a bottle of Bud Light. And the reason I used it is because someone left it outside after the baby shower (yes, people brought beer to the baby shower--people bring beer to EVERYTHING around here) and then it froze solid and busted the cap off. So I had a partial bottle of flat beer sitting around. So I poured some in. Why not?

Then it simmered for awhile while I went to fetch Cubby from upstairs. I could hear A. trying to answer the phone in his office while simultaneously attempting to keep Cubby away from the kerosene heater in there, so I figured it was an opportune time to resume my child watching role.

Enter the co-host!

Now the potatoes were soft, which meant they had to be mashed.

Bingo.

After allowing my quite willing but also quite ineffectual assistant to mess around with the potatoes for awhile, I appropriated them for the serious mashing.

Then I dumped the meat mixture into a big rectangular Pyrex dish and spread the potatoes on top. Then I put some bits of butter on top of the potatoes while Cubby did this:

Not quite as good as a cake batter spoon, but appreciated nonetheless.

After which he looked like this:

What?

It didn't go in the oven right away, because it was only two in the afternoon, and we are not in the habit of eating dinner at 3 p.m. So I reserved some of the mashed potatoes and mixed them with some sauerkraut for a snack for Cubby.

And, by extension, Mia.

The resulting German Shepherd's Pie** bakes at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, until it's crispy and brown on top and hot and bubbly underneath. The mixture sounds weird, I know, but it's surprisingly good. Cubby was very proud that he helped me make the pie, and ate a large amount of it at dinner.

He's got a ways to go before he's a very useful kitchen assistant, but this is a good start.

* OH, THE SARCASM.

** When I named this thing a couple of years ago, I didn't even think of the dog breed until the MiL laughed and complimented me on my cleverness. And of course, I pretended that that had been my little joke all along, when really . . . no. Not that clever.

Follow Up

2012-01-18T06:07:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for your felicitations on our momentous news. Some quick items of interest:

Lindsey: Yes, we are happy. No worries on that account. I guess my limerick wasn't clear enough on that point.

edh wins for the best comment yesterday, because it was in limerick form. Perhaps I should require that all comments on this site be made in limerick form. Perhaps that would guarantee that no one would ever comment again. But I can encourage it, right? Right. So anytime you want to write a limerick in the comments, I would be most pleased.

The child's current name, courtesy of A., is Precious Cargo. As in, "How's the Precious Cargo today?" We are open to other naming options, however. Beth: Chainsaw is not one of them, although Burl has definite possibilities.

My due date is technically July 15, although I have scant faith in due dates, thanks to the early arrival of Cubby. What is certain, however, is that this child will be born at a time of year that is much more hospitable to vulnerable new life than poor Cubby's time of arrival. I never want to have a newborn at Blackrock in February again, thanks.

This timing means that I was newly pregnant on the day when I was whining about cutting up the deer. Although I am extremely fortunate to be among the minority of pregnant women that never throws up, NO ONE should be cutting up a dead animal in the first stage of pregnancy. It is unappealing in the extreme. But I did it anyway. Where's my prize?

Yes, we will find out the sex. I am too much of a control freak to wait until the birth. That appointment will be in March sometime. Start placing your bets now!

Feeling Poetic, Part 2

2012-01-17T05:47:00.000-05:00

Part 1 is here. And now, let's get limerick-y . . .

Remember that girl named K.,
Who married that boy named A.?
Well, then there was Cubby,
And THEN, K. said to hubby,
"Guess what? There's another on the way!"

Hi. I'm pregnant. Again.

Winter Family Fun

2012-01-16T05:45:00.000-05:00

P.S. In case you were wondering why there's a chain saw on the toboggan behind Cubby and what those things are on the toboggan in the last picture, A. wanted to cut some willow burls for my dad, the (not amateur) carpenter extraordinaire.

P.P.S. Toboggan courtesy of A.'s Uncle Roger, who I'm sure will be happy to know that the toboggan he gave the family so many years ago is now serving a new generation.

Bubbly

2012-01-15T07:29:00.003-05:00

Hey, remember awhile ago when I was all excited about the fruit soda I made from failed jam and seltzer? Well, know what's even better than that? Fruit soda made from dissolved jelly and seltzer that I made myself in my SodaStream.

I've been thinking about getting the SodaStream for a couple of years now, because I really love seltzer and I really hate buying it all the time. And then, Finny got one and recommended it. Finny's my buddy. We like a lot of the same things. I trust her. So then I knew I had to get it.

But it ended up that my mom got it for me, because she wanted some Christmas and birthday gift ideas, so I very generously said she could give me the SodaStream. I aim to please.

I really cannot tell you how much I love this machine. Yes, it takes up valuable real estate on my already-crowded counter, which is no small consideration, but it turns out that when I'm making my own seltzer instead of buying it, I can drink even MORE seltzer. About three liters a day, as a matter of fact.

That's a lot of fizzy water.

I can also make fruit sodas on demand for a baby shower with jelly from my cellar and all the seltzer I need from my machine. Seriously awesome.

So, in sum, love my SodaStream and love my mom and dad for giving it to me*. That's all.

* That's not all I love them for, obviously, as I am not that shallow. But it helps.

Rushrushrush

2012-01-14T09:37:00.004-05:00

Lots to do this morning, poppets, before 25 people descend on us to eat finger foods and oooo over tiny pieces of clothing.

Baby shower, you know.

Floors to be cleaned, food to be prepared, dishes to do. And only the time before A. brings Cubby back from their woodsy expedition to get it all done.

I'm out.

Where Have All the Experts Gone?

2012-01-13T05:41:00.000-05:00

I don't spend a lot of time watching cooking shows, because, well, I spend that time cooking instead. It's a participatory activity for me, not entertainment. But I'll tell you one person I can (and do) watch cook with great entertainment on my part: Jacques Pepin.

I recently got a collection of DVDs from the library entitled The Complete Pepin: Techniques and Recipes. It's a collection of very short segments detailing the proper way to execute the most basic things. Like peeling a tomato, for which Jacques Pepin demonstrates no less than four different ways. He also shows you how to make a decorative rose from the tomato skins, which I am unlikely to ever do, but enjoy watching nonetheless.

What I'm always struck by when I watch the man cook, however, are his amazing abilities with a knife. He makes cutting, chopping, dicing, slicing, and whatever else look absolutely effortless. And I love that. I'm tired of all these celebrity cooks who take great pride in being cooks, not chefs. Just like you and me!

I don't want to watch someone like me cook. I want to watch someone like Jacques Pepin cook. Because it is always more interesting and entertaining to watch an expert do something spectacularly.

I will never be as skilled as Jacques Pepin. I don't think anyone I've ever seen is as skilled as Jacques Pepin. He is absolutely an expert at his profession. But still--and this is the main reason he's my favorite chef of all time--he's unafraid to say things like, "Hey, cook your hamburger however you want! If you want it well done, have at it! It's your hamburger. Also, I like iceberg lettuce on my hamburger, because it's crunchy." That's paraphrased of course, but you get the idea. Despite his consummate skill and his extremely traditional French culinary training, he is absolutely not a food snob. He wants people to cook, to not be afraid of it, to think it's easy and fun.

It'll never be as easy and fun for me as it is for him, but he's sure a lot of fun to watch.

I didn't have a real point to this, except that I think Jacques Pepin is the best thing to come out of a kitchen since pasta, and I wish there were more chefs like him.

That's all. Have a fabulous weekend, duckies.

Hello There

2012-01-12T08:25:00.002-05:00

You never do know what's around the corner at Blackrock.

A Mood Booster

2012-01-11T09:13:00.000-05:00

Few things are more beneficial to my mood and cheery outlook on the world (what? I DO SO have a cheery outlook, dammit) than a day in which the sun is shining, the temperatures are above freezing, and I can hang laundry outside.

Sheets on the clothesline in the middle of January are a happy thing. If you're me, that is.

Better than Prozac, I guess.

A Little Anti-Climactic

2012-01-10T12:39:00.002-05:00

Turns out, there weren't very many details to share about my trip to Arizona. At least, when I sat down to write it out, I was sort of boring even myself. (Although, a brief mention is indicated about the ridiculousness of the three-inch spike heels worn by the very young flight attendant on the very rinky-dink commuter plane I took for the first leg of my journey. That girl will be crippled by the age of thirty if she keeps going on that way.) So I decided to spare you all the inanity and let you get on with your own lives.

You're welcome.

In fact, it seems that bare feet and straight hair sort of summed it up. So not the most exciting of trips, but satisfying nonetheless.

We won't discuss my reception upon my return home by my own flesh and blood. There were tears--on both sides--and not of joy. Apparently, spending all his time with his father had a rather coarsening effect on my already rambunctious son. So now I have to whip him--and the laundry and the house--back into shape, because we're hosting around 25 people on Saturday for my sister-in-law's baby shower.

When does the fun end? At Blackrock, never.

Hi

2012-01-09T10:33:00.000-05:00

I am home, but I'm afraid a long, unnecessarily detailed talk about my trip to Arizona will have to wait until I've had more than three hours of sleep.

So, not today.

In lieu of the details, let me just share a photo. Of my mom, my sister (that would be the bride-to-be), and me at the bridal shower. The important thing to note here is that I got my hair straightened (just blown out, nothing permanent) at a salon the day after I arrived in Tucson, and then just left it straight the whole time I was there. For a very curly-haired person, having straight hair is kind of discombobulating, which is why I don't get it done often. It's nice to have something different occasionally, though.

How Odd

2012-01-05T08:23:00.001-05:00

Hello from Tucson, my lovelies! You'll never guess what I'm wearing right now. (Don't be dirty.) I'm wearing a skirt. And short sleeves. And no shoes. What sort of alien land is this?

Oh. Right. The desert in, ahem, "winter." No wonder so many damn people have moved here.

So I did indeed survive my long trek yesterday intact. In fact, it all went quite smoothly. I must give props to the good people at Continental Airlines, who took care of a couple of things that could have really screwed up the trip with efficiency and a good attitude. Well done, Continental.

I had a brief moment of melancholy at 7 p.m. Blackrock time as I was watching Houston recede into the distance and thinking about Cubby going to bed without his mother. Sniff. But he's doing just fine, according to his father, and they have many exciting adventures to come in the following days.

As do I. Exciting adventures that include going barefoot. It doesn't take much, obviously.

Good Timing

2012-01-04T05:21:00.001-05:00

It is currently 13 degrees with snow on the ground and more on the way at Blackrock. In Tucson? Currently 44 degrees, no snow, none predicted, and a high of 78 degrees today with bright sunshine.

January is an excellent time to go to Arizona.

Just cross your fingers for me that Mama N. doesn't screw me over with a Weather Event somewhere between here and the sunshine state that will prevent me actually getting there. I don't trust her.

More Travels. And a Surprise.

2012-01-03T05:48:00.000-05:00

When we left The Family Blackrock, they had done D.C. (well, two places in D.C., anyway) and were gearing up for the long drive home. On Kristin's birthday. Because what could be more celebratory of 32 years on this Earth than driving for many hours in the backseat of a car while entertaining a toddler? I'll tell you what. Stopping in the middle to tour Longwood Gardens.

Longwood Gardens was the summer home of the extraordinarily wealthy du Pont family. It is now a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the property and its absolutely astounding gardens. A. has been there a couple of times, and has always wanted to take me there. It's about 30 miles from Philadelphia, and not entirely on our way home from D.C., but close enough that not going would have been foolish.

Even in the middle of winter, there is plenty to see at Longwood Gardens. And that is because of the Conservatory, a.k.a. the biggest damn greenhouse I have ever seen.

Behold:

And a different view, with A. and Cubby for scale.

And inside the Conservatory, there were many, many Christmas trees:

Flowers:

Running toy trains:

And a children's garden that mostly included a whole hell of a lot of water features that rendered Cubby's shirt soaking wet by the time we left. Didn't matter, though. He had a great time.

It started to rain just as we left the Conservatory, so we didn't see much else, but just that and the house on the grounds took over two hours to see. In the summer, when all the fountains are going and the outdoor gardens are at their peak, it would take days to walk around this place and see everything properly.

Although I'm not a huge student of trees--or, okay, a student at all of trees--A. is, and he kept pointing out to me examples of trees that I'm familiar with but would never have recognized because they were HUUUUGE. Longwood Gardens is actually the home to many of the country's oldest and biggest trees of several varieties. Magnolias so big they looked like oaks, yew trees so enormous they could be mistaken for pine trees, and on and on and on. Nothing has been cut down there, pretty much ever, so all the trees have just grown for hundreds of years. It's a rare thing in this country to see, and very impressive.

In sum, I was completely blown away by Longwood Gardens and would recommend that anyone who finds themselves in even the remote vicinity find a way to see it. Truly, one of the most magnificent things I've ever seen.

Not such a bad birthday, after all.

And now that I've finally told you all about the last trip we took, perhaps I should inform you that I'm leaving again tomorrow. I'm going to Arizona to go to my sister's bridal shower. By myself.

I'll allow that last bit to sink in for a second.

By myself, without husband or son. This will mark the first time in Cubby's almost two years that I've ever been away from him for longer than a few hours. I am both incredibly excited and unbearably sad at the prospect. Not that he'll be lacking for tender loving care, with the combined efforts of his father and grandmother, but still.

I won't think about the missing him part yet. Instead I will focus on the fact that I will not have to worry about anyone's bodily functions (except, uh, my own, that is) for five whole days. A heady thought, indeed.

I leave tomorrow morning and get back late Sunday night. I'm sure I will be sending a shout-out from my parents' house at some point in the next several days, but who knows when and what I'll have to say. Maybe without the constant companionship of my own small dictator, I'll find I have nothing to talk about.

Yeah, like that'll ever happen.

So hasta luego, poppets! Catch you on the west side.

I Am Obviously All About the Promptness

2012-01-02T06:12:00.000-05:00

You don't come here for up-to-the-minute, in-depth reporting, do you? I hope not, because I'm sure you're sadly disappointed if that is the case.

Case in point: Hey, let's talk about that trip I returned from a week ago! Because I know you were DYING to hear about it and see the pictures.

Maybe not, but onward nonetheless.

Christmas Eve in the morning at my sister's we did our present opening and such, because N.N. was leaving that afternoon to spend Christmas with her mom. After she and her father left for the airport, A., my sister, and I took Cubby to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. We figured Cubby would go crazy about all the stuffed animals (taxidermy stuffed, not teddy-bear stuffed).

He did. Go crazy, that is. That child literally went INSANE for the first half an hour or so we were there. He was just running at full speed through enormous crowds of people, and then periodically falling to his stomach in the middle of the floor, as if he just couldn't take the excitement and needed a break on his face for awhile. In the middle of the heaviest foot traffic he's ever encountered in his young life.

This is why there are no photos of him at the museum. He was moving too fast to be captured on camera, and I was too busy trying to keep him out of the way of the holiday crowds.

He got a little hysterical, if I'm to be truthful. Eventually we found a relatively quiet room with some seats, in which we sat while he ate some almonds and cruised around looking at the skeletons of various birds and things. After that, he was calmer and a little more able to take things in. Though he hit the wall about two hours in and was practically catatonic by the time we left half an hour after that.

He enjoyed it, though, and made his father very proud by identifying a lemur. Clearly a prodigy.

Christmas Day, after church and a very large meal, we spent a lot of time sitting in my future brother-in-law's vintage (is that the right word for a 70's-era vehicle?) Jeep Scrambler.

Do not even attempt to remove this child from the driver's seat. He will be ENRAGED. Trust me. I speak from experience.

And we went to a marina on the Potomac River to hang out on the grass and eat some apples.

Because why not?

He also enjoyed the National Zoo--also a part of the Smithsonian Institution--that we went to the day after Christmas. He was significantly less hysterical at the zoo, and so I do have some photos of that.

Holding hands with a panda . . .

Riding on his soon-to-be uncle's extremely high and broad shoulders . . .

And, of course, rolling around on the ground. Are you sensing a theme here?

Incidentally, that last picture was right outside the bobcat enclosure. This was pretty much the highlight of Cubby's zoo experience, because the bobcats were enjoying a rabbit snack when we got there. We stood there for several minutes watching them gnaw on the bunnies while Cubby helpfully narrated the action, "Cat? Eat? Meat? Rabbit?"

I think that's enough for now. Tune in tomorrow for more pictures and the story of our visit to Longwood Gardens, which ranks right up there as one of the most fantastic places I've ever visited.

Making Do

2012-01-01T06:04:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, my lovelies! I hope you all had a fantastic New Year's Eve, doing whatever it is you most wished to do to ring in this new year. In my case, that meant going to bed at 8 p.m.

But first, I had to procure some black eyed peas.

I have mentioned, at least twice, the southern tradition I follow of pork, greens, and black eyed peas on New Year's Day to ensure health, wealth, and happiness in the new year. I'm not southern anymore--like, AT ALL--but my mom is, so it's my tradition too. Every year that I've been with A. (which is ten years this year, actually) and therefore not at my parents' house, I've made this meal in various forms for New Year's Day. It is Tradition, with a capital T.

But this year, thanks to our recent trip over Christmas, New Year's Day kind of sneaked up on me, leaving me with nary a black eyed pea in the house. Pork, yes, thanks to the ENORMOUS pork shoulder the MiL had purchased awhile back and stashed in the freezer. Even greens in the form of the chard in the freezer. But black eyed peas? Nope.

Obviously, that wasn't okay. I'm not going to be the one responsible for unhappiness for all in my household just because I didn't pick up some spotted legumes. Plus, it's a capital-T Tradition, man. You don't just break a long-standing Tradition due to laziness or poor planning. Dammit.

I had a plan to go to the Small City yesterday to get the black eyed peas, but due to various things not of my doing, I didn't get there. Which is why I was driving to the small market in the next village over at 6 p.m. last night in search of our happiness. And I found it. In a can.

I've never made black eyed peas from canned peas before, but it's the best I could do. So this year, our happiness is coming in canned form.

Whatever. I have my pork, greens, and black eyed peas. Bring on the new year! We're ready.

Oh, Right. That.

2011-12-31T05:10:00.000-05:00

Totally forgot today is New Year's Eve until I saw all the "Year in Review" junk on Yahoo. So how will The Family Blackrock be ringing out the new year and ringing in the new one?

Well, we'll go to the dump. Maybe to the feed store to get some chicken food. A. will be running the lake pump to fill the cistern during this unseasonable warm spell. Maybe Cubby can get something more exciting for his birthday this year than 4,000 gallons of water. Cubby will toast to the new year with some milk and go to bed at seven, as usual. And if we're lucky, A. and I will follow suit about an hour later.

Hey, YOU try waking up at 5 a.m. every morning and see how late you want to stay up at night.

ANYWAY.

Yes, we're lame. And yes, we are totally okay with that.

Sp, poppets, what are your plans for this rockin' New Year's Eve?

There Was Cussing

2011-12-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

Not in the presence of my little mimic, but cussing nonetheless, for yesterday I had to organize the freezers.

Cue the suspense music.

Organizing chest freezers S-U-C-K-S sucks. Everything falls to the bottom and must be hauled up to get it out. "Everything" being heavy-ass boxes of frozen meat. Mostly, in the case of the upstairs freezer, heavy-ass boxes of liver and suet. I hate liver, and although I make tallow* from the suet now, I was unhappy to be struggling with not even really edible meat materials.

I called them bad names. They didn't seem to mind.

After much toil and struggle--and quite a lot of back strain--I got all the older meat arranged in the upstairs freezer, leaving the downstairs freezer mostly empty for the six boxes of new meat. A. hauled all those boxes out of the car and down the stairs into the cellar, which was a feat of strength in itself.

In sum, we both earned a steak dinner. Good thing we have about 100 pounds of steak to work with now.

* Speaking of which, can you believe I haven't even made any french fries with that tallow yet? I KNOW. Gotta get on that pronto.

Nothing To Do with Our Trip

2011-12-29T07:52:00.000-05:00

Mostly because I have yet to get the photos off the camera and what good are stories without pictures? No good. That's right.

So instead, let me tell you about my birthday cake. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that either. Which is really too bad, since it was really impressive. After much cogitation, I decided on a German chocolate cake. The MiL had never made one, so she did a search online and came up with the most complicated recipe for German chocolate cake ever devised. Specifically, this one. She sent me the link to see the recipe, and I told her it looked like an enormous pain in the ass, but if she wanted to do it, have at it.

So she did. With some small alterations by me. Specifically, no pecans, because I don't like crunchy in my cake, and no rum, because I HATE liquor in baked goods.

High maintenance, that's me.

The MiL made the cake for me yesterday, and it took her about half the day. The end result, however, was pretty amazing. Also enormous. Luckily, we attended an impromptu gathering last night to which I brought a big chunk of the cake to share so other people could exclaim over the MiL's baking skills. They did.

And on an unrelated note, it was 43 degrees in our bedroom last night when we went to bed. Hello, winter! On the upside, that means I don't have to worry about the half a cow in the back of my car at the moment (cut up in boxes, obviously, not just an actual half of a cow). I haven't organized the freezers yet to accommodate the new meat, but it's quite obvious I don't have to worry about it thawing in the car anytime soon.

Cake and meat. That's all for now.

Road Trips with Toddlers

2011-12-28T05:59:00.002-05:00

Before we left for our recent many hours in the car with Cubby confined to a car seat, someone asked me how we keep a firecracker like Cubby entertained for that many hours in the car.

The word firecracker, incidentally, was not mine. The kid's obviously got a reputation.

ANYWAY.

The answer? I sit in the back and play Kristin the Great Entertainer for hours at a time. There's lots of talking and pointing things out out the window. So a typical "conversation" goes like this:

Me: See the river, Cubby? That's the Susquehanna River. And look. There's a boat.

Cubby: Boat?

Me: Yes, boat.

Cubby: Fish?

Me: Fish? Maybe.

Cubby: Man?

Me: You think there's a man fishing in the boat? Sure, if you say so.

Cubby: Bobber?

Me: The man fishing in the boat is using a bobber? Maybe he is.

Cubby: Hook?

And on and on and on. Other fun topics include trucks, especially those with ladders and construction materials in the back; hammers, even though there are none in evidence in the car because I am not such a fool as to give my son a hammer when he's within smashing distance of a window; saws, though, once again, that's a hypothetical conversation as we do not routinely carry saws in the car; and dogs.

I also sing. A lot. And he eats things. On this trip, the animal crackers were a big hit. Those things are really hard to identify as actual animals, but since Cubby wasn't about to disagree with me, I'd just hand him one and announce it was a lion and that was good enough. Then he would bite the head off and say, "Uh oh!" And I'd say, "Uh oh! You bit off its head!" And he'd say, "Missing?" And I'd say, "Yup, it's missing its head." Then he'd eat the rest until only a foot remained and announce, "Foot!"

And then I'd give him another one and we'd go through it all again.

So you see, it's not hard to entertain a child trapped in a car seat for hours at a time. The child is having a great time. It's the mother sitting there in the back who could use some help.

Happy Birthday to Me

2011-12-27T19:33:00.002-05:00

I must admit to feeling every one of my 32 years today, which might have something to do with a certain child's insistence on getting up at 5 a.m. (or EARLIER) every damn day of our recent trip to D.C., plus the twelve hours we spent getting home today.

However, it was a good birthday nonetheless, and a great trip. More details and probably some pictures will be inflicted upon you later in the week. So there's that to look forward to.

And now my birthday gift to myself: Going to bed at 8 p.m.

Yup. 32. Definitely.

Merry Christmas, My Lovelies

2011-12-25T10:49:00.001-05:00

That's all. Carry on.

Tales from the Beltway

2011-12-24T07:42:00.001-05:00

Hello, duckies! Here I am sitting next to someone else's Christmas tree in someone else's living room. In a long-sleeved t-shirt. I KNOW. Heat! It's a good time.

We drove along a very interesting road yesterday on our way here. We were on US Route 15, which runs right along the Susquehanna River. It's a beautiful river with these really awesome old cabins up on pilings on the banks of the river. But that was only on one side of the road. The other side was lined with multiple adult entertainment venues (of the triple X variety), motels you couldn't pay me to stay in, and "Indian trading posts." And let's not forget the meth heads dumpster diving outside those motels.

It was kind of amazing.

Also amazing was the amount of heavy machinery being used on some kind of complicated construction project on the Beltway. The last 20 minutes or so of the trip were spent pointing out cranes and diggers and rollers and other machines. It was fun.

And now here we are. There was something called a meat bomb for dinner last night--quite good, despite the alarming name--and monkey bread this morning. The monkey bread pretty much made my holiday. And now we have three days of merriment to look forward to.

Merry Christmas Eve, poppets. May your day be merry and bright.

Don't Mind Me

2011-12-23T04:42:00.001-05:00

I just woke up at 3:45 THIS MORNING, so I thought I'd hop on here and say hi! Because there's nothing that makes you feel ready for a long car trip with a toddler like waking up over an hour before it's necessary, after waking up about four times in the six-hour window of "sleep."

Super.

But! I did have time (LOTS OF TIME) to take a shower, a fact which I'm sure my fellow passengers in the car will appreciate. My eyes may be bloodshot and have black circles under them visible from outer space, but at least my hair will look good.

Oh, and an aside to my sister in case she's checking in here this morning even though I gave every indication yesterday that I would not be posting for several days: I've come to my senses about the crib and we will be buying a Pack 'n' Play somewhere along the way. Or possibly somewhere around your house if we don't stop on the way. Just thought you'd like to know that.

And an aside to everyone else: I'll tell you about the crib insanity later. Suffice it to say that sometimes my own kind of crazy surprises even me.

Okay, now I really AM going. Peace out, poppets! And merry Christmas Eve-Eve.

Of Trees and Travel

2011-12-22T05:32:00.000-05:00

Someone--an anonymous someone--asked yesterday about our tree. I wasn't aware there was any interest in our tree. I shan't be posting a picture of it, because A) I think everyone knows what a Christmas tree looks like, correct? And B) It's a Toddler Tree.

A Toddler Tree, for those who don't know, is a tree on which the only breakable ornaments are at the very top. This means that the top two feet of our tree are quite crowded with the shiny, festive, and extremely fragile glass ornaments. The remaining four feet of tree on the bottom hosts a somewhat sad and sparse collection of crocheted elves and felt things. It looks kind of odd. It's certainly necessary, however, as no toddler is to be trusted around breakable ornaments, and Cubby can't be trusted around the tree itself. He's not even allowed to get close to it, because he likes to smack it with his hand. He thinks this is fun.

He is a, ahem, high-spirited child. I'll be glad when I can take the tree away and remove such a source of constant temptation and tension.

First, though, we shall be removing him from the tree by taking him to my sister's house in the Washington, D.C. area for the actual holiday. We're leaving early tomorrow morning and returning on my birthday.*

What? You don't know when my birthday is? FOR SHAME. It's the 27th. Yes, two days after Christmas. And yes, you should feel sorry for me. Having a birthday that soon after Christmas is kind of a drag.

But anyway! Before my birthday celebration in the car, we have some Christmas celebrating to do with my sister's family. I bet they don't have a Toddler Tree.

Wish me luck. And if I don't talk to you before then, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

* I don't know if I'll be posting anything in those five days, but rest assured, you'll be in my heart if not on my computer screen. Or something.

The Worst

2011-12-21T06:13:00.000-05:00

What could be worse than getting ready for bed only to find that there are no sheets on said bed because they were washed and not put on yet? Getting ready for bed and preparing to put the washed sheets on, only to find they aren't quite dry because a robe belt got wrapped around part of them in the dryer*.

I said a bad word. Then I put the sheets back in the dryer for twenty more minutes. Happy Tuesday night.

* I take that back. The absolute worst would have been if I had done this when I was still schlepping our laundry to a laundromat because there was no dryer at Blackrock. I guess it can always be worse.

Height

2011-12-20T06:57:00.001-05:00

It seems to be a popular idea in our culture that height is an advantage for men. I'm sure you've heard the theories and studies about tall men predominating in powerful positions, including the presidency. But you know when height is a definite disadvantage for males? When they're not quite two years old but can already reach doorknobs and all the knives on the counter.

Although that's not so much a disadvantage for Cubby as it is for me, I suppose.

Yes, Cubby, There Is a Santa Claus. Maybe.

2011-12-19T05:29:00.003-05:00

Parenting stumbling block #1693: Santa Claus.

As a grocery store cashier was cooing over Cubby the other day, she asked if he knew about Santa Claus yet. Though I answered politely enough in the negative, my brain was thinking, "Of COURSE not. He's not even TWO."

But I know there are kids his age who do know about Santa Claus. And I know he's perfectly capable of understanding at least the basic concept. I mean, this is a child who already knows exactly where the meat on his plate comes from*.

The problem, I suppose, is me. I am unexpectedly kerflummoxed by this. I don't really know how to explain with any kind of sincerity what sounds, frankly, like a totally ridiculous situation. Really now. Fat guy flies around the world in a sled pulled by eight tiny reindeer, sliding down chimneys at every house all over the world on one night a year to deliver presents? HOW do I say all that with a straight face?

I know we should be all about maintaining our children's innocence and encouraging a belief in magic or whatever, but . . . why? Why is it important for my son to believe in this?

I feel like an unbelievable Scrooge and cynic for even thinking that. Though I don't remember it, I'm sure I believed in Santa Claus. But I had two older siblings. I bet they were the ones who explained it to me. Which seems much more normal to me, because presumably they believed in him too. It wasn't some adult telling bald-faced (though well-intentioned) lies.

A. doesn't remember believing in Santa Claus. He was living in Saudi Arabia during the prime Santa Claus years, so he was more exposed to Ramadan than all the trappings of Christian holidays. So we have no personal experience to draw on here.

Anyway, I suppose Cubby will end up learning about Santa Claus one way or another, and I won't be quick to explain to him why it's all a pack of lies. Because then he'd be That Kid who goes around informing all the other tiny children that Santa Claus isn't real, and then they'd all go home crying to their parents and demanding explanations and their parents will all hate me for not fostering a belief in Santa.

Or something.

It's not something I thought about much one way or the other until a random question from a cashier at the grocery store. And now I have to think about it.

Ah, parenting. Knocks you on your ass on a regular basis.

So what about you, poppets? If you have/had small children, how did they learn about Santa Claus, if at all? And for those of you without small children, do you remember believing?

* Mealtime conversation by Cubby goes like this, "Meat? De-ah? (or "sheep?") Dad? Shoo? Saw? (in reference to the meat saw) Cut? Eat?" He's gonna be a big hit at dinner parties, no doubt.

I've Come to a Decision

2011-12-17T08:54:00.003-05:00

I buy quite a few things in the generic brand, because I really don't care whether my toilet paper has a picture of a cuddly (and WOW so annoying) little bear on the packaging. But I have decided that one thing I will never again buy the generic version of is cotton swabs.

Generic cotton swabs suck. They're all bendy. Especially in the summer when the humidity in our bathroom reaches rain forest levels. I find it unreasonably irritating to try to clean my ears with a buckling cotton swab. I buy cotton swabs about once a year. That means buying generic ones has saved me maybe two bucks a year. I'd rather spend the two dollars and get the Q-Tips.

Life is too short for generic cotton swabs. You heard that bit of life-changing profundity here first.

Birthday Food

2011-12-16T05:44:00.002-05:00

Beth asked yesterday if A. got his favorite meal and cake on his birthday. Of course. I mean, doesn't everybody? Isn't that an inalienable right, akin to the pursuit of happiness?

In A.'s case, that meant he got a roasted leg of lamb, of which he probably ate about two and half pounds of the meat because that man is ALL ABOUT THE MEAT, plus roasted potatoes and a yogurt sauce made of yogurt, lemon juice, and garlic.

That yogurt sauce, by the way, though it is ostensibly for the lamb and is of course delicious with that, is one of my favorite things in the world when drizzled over roasted potatoes. I may have eaten an unholy amount of potatoes with yogurt sauce last night. To each his or her own.

We also had chard, but that wasn't so much because A. loves it as because it's his least-detested of vegetables. That's really all I can ask for when it comes to forcing a vegetable at a meal.

The MiL made his cake. It was a chocolate roulade. That's a flourless cake batter baked thin and flat, then rolled around a whipped cream filling. It is awesome.

We're going to be driving home from Washington, D.C. on my birthday this year (December 27--you still have time to get my present!), so I probably won't be having a birthday meal on the actual day. And anyway, my preferred birthday food is always pasta, which doesn't sit well with most of my gluten-sensitive household (do not even speak to me of gluten-free pasta on my birthday). Which is why A. and I always go out for my birthday to a restaurant. The MiL does always make my cake, though. Any kind I want. Even this (DELICIOUS) pain in the ass.

I haven't decided on my cake for this year yet. It will be a chocolate cake, because it's always a chocolate cake of some kind, but I'm waffling between peanut butter or coconut frosting. Oh, the agony of indecision.

So what about you, duckies? Do you have a meal and a cake that must be served on your birthday or heads will roll?

The Woodchuck Man Gets Older

2011-12-15T06:49:00.004-05:00

Were I more organized or less addled in the brain, I would have thought up some fun new verses to A.'s birthday song. But I'm not, so I didn't.

He'll just have to be satisfied with re-reading last year's song and a simple happy birthday.

So happy birthday to my entirely unique husband. And many more.

Edited to add: Uh, that's many more birthdays, not many more husbands. Just thought I should clarify . . .

Idiosyncrasies

2011-12-14T07:14:00.003-05:00

A few days ago when I asked Cubby if he wanted a cracker, he asked for peanut butter. So I put some peanut butter on a cracker. He then proceeded to lick the peanut butter off the cracker and hold out the now-sodden and pretty nasty cracker for more peanut butter. So I figured, if the kid wants peanut butter, I'll just give him peanut butter.

He ate about four spoonfuls of straight peanut butter. It was kind of gross.

A couple of days ago we had some cranberry chutney with dinner. He ate a small bowl of that, straight. Also kind of gross.

Then this morning, we had fried eggs for breakfast. He wasn't really into the eggs, so I asked him if he wanted salsa on his eggs. He replied in the affirmative, so I put some salsa on his egg. Which he then licked off, leaving the egg behind. So, just as an experiment to see just how far this weird love of condiments goes, I gave him a spoonful of plain salsa. He ate it. And then several more.

Weird kid. Seriously. Just weird.

Pictures and Wit

2011-12-13T06:12:00.001-05:00

Well, pictures, anyway.

So check out what Nana sent as an early Christmas present for A.

It's a gigantic toddler in a backpack! Just what he needed!

Actually, it is just what he needed. A. has been complaining pretty much since Cubby was born that we didn't have an appropriate backpack to carry him with us hiking and stuff. Since I don't really like hiking and stuff*, I was not too motivated to remedy the situation. We tried a couple of different carriers loaned to us by friends, but they weren't comfortable for either A. or Cubby, so we didn't use them.

Then my mom mentioned this wonderful carrier my brother got for his daughter and asked if we might want one. About two weeks later, the Deuter Kid Comfort II arrived.

Cue the angel music.

A. loves this thing. It's a serious pack, built just like real hiking packs for adults. That means it fits his big frame and has enough support and straps that A. can strap Cubby to his back with a minimum of discomfort.

Cubby also loves this thing. We took it out of the box and he immediately tried to climb in it. "Pack?" he asked, right before scrambling into it on the living room floor and falling over in it.

There was no injury to either Cubby or the pack.

So where did we take this wondrous contrivance on its maiden voyage?

How about a bucolic hike through the countryside?

To dig out a well.

That's right. We strapped Cubby into the pack and carried him through the fields behind A.'s grandma's house so A. could dig out her well and fix her slow water problem. That is, A. carried Cubby. I carried that long-ass shovel you see there.

It was approximately 20 degrees with a stiff wind when we did this. Cubby was not amused. He watched the digging for about thirty seconds before he hid behind my legs and repeated, "Cold? Cold? Cold?" (Translation: GOD, MOM. IT'S COLD, OKAY? GET ME OUT OF HERE.)

Luckily, it only took about five minutes for A. to clear the well, and then he carried Cubby back to Grandma's house, where we went inside and luxuriated in her 75-degree house for half an hour while Cubby played with her walking canes.

A. also used the pack the next morning to take Cubby out when he went out to do various chores. It was even colder then, and Cubby was even less amused. But despite our questionable choice of activities with the pack, Cubby still loves it and I foresee much use of it in the future.

Good job, Nana.

* AT ALL, which is just a cruel joke, since I married Mr. Outdoors and then gave birth to Mr. Junior Outdoors.

Obligations

2011-12-12T05:37:00.000-05:00

I have some pretty good pictures from this weekend, which was a classic Blackrock family weekend (meaning hard labor and cold temperatures), but they're still on my camera. And my witty written explanations of the pictures (what? they ARE SO witty) are still in my head. Because the time that would have been spent uploading pictures and being witty was instead taken up with setting up and decorating the Christmas tree.

That was not such a witty activity. More frustrating, as we discovered more than one string of lights was only half working; I didn't get all the boxes of tree decorations out of the crawlspace because I was trying to avoid moving all the rest of the house decorations last night in favor of focusing on the tree stuff (read: I was too lazy to make more than one trip up and down the stairs); and the MiL and I--the resident tree decorators--were both really tired.

But the tree must go up, because a certain small child in residence will probably lose his damn mind with joy when he sees it. So it's up. It's not perfect--the lights are a little bit sparse, some of the MiL's nicer ornaments are still M.I.A., and I haven't found the star for the top yet--but it's a tree. And it's jolly.

So pictures and wit tomorrow. For today, we have some Christmas cheer to view in our living room.

First Snow

2011-12-10T06:07:00.000-05:00

P.S. Yeah, he's adorable. He also did not nap yesterday. Maybe Santa is waiting until Christmas to grant that request. In which case, I will officially have gone as crazy as a shithouse rat* by December 25th. Fair warning.

* This lovely rustic phrase brought to you by my lovely rustic husband.

Dear Santa

2011-12-09T06:11:00.000-05:00

Dear Santa,

It's been many years since I've written a Christmas wish list, but I feel the need for some magical intervention for some of these requests. Everyone knows you're magic, and can therefore maybe help me out with a few things I would really like this year that might not be available at my local Sears. Namely:

1) The ability to sleep past seven in the morning. Because there is nothing more irritating than A. taking Cubby away on a Sunday morning so that Mommy doesn't have to stumble out of bed and wrestle clothes on the little maniac at six a.m. only for Mommy to lie there wishing she could just enjoy this one morning off and GO BACK TO SLEEP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. So, a little help here would be nice.

2) Proper circulation in my hands and feet. You can blame my mother for this. The woman is famous for wearing long johns in Tucson, Arizona and having hands and feet so cold they would stun a corpse. I'm not as bad as she is, but my hands, feet, and nose pretty much stay cold from November until May. This is a serious liability at Blackrock. So amp up that blood supply to my extremities, okay, Santa? Awesome.

3) A dishwasher. This would also be on the MiL's list, I suspect, since she actually does most of the dishes in our house. But when she isn't here, I do them. And DAMN, I am SICK of doing all our dishes by hand. We make SO MANY DISHES in a day, what with A., Cubby, and I all eating three meals a day at home, most of those actual cooked meals. I realize that a dishwasher is an item most people can procure without magical intervention, but most people don't live in 160-year-old house with an electrical system dating to the 1920s (people just didn't use much electricity then, and thus didn't have the amount of current available to them that a modern house might have) and barely enough hot water in the winter to keep the occupants of the house bathed and presentable.

So first we need more electrical capacity, then we need more hot water--so you'd better add a new hot water heater to this list--and then we need a complete reconfiguration of our kitchen to make a spot where a dishwasher might actually fit without blocking one of the three doors that lead in and out of that room.

Maybe I should have made that last one into a few separate requests, but I'm sure you follow.

4) A guaranteed nap for Cubby during the day. Nap times have gotten pretty sketchy lately, and there has been more than one day recently in which I have gotten all of zero naps out of him. He's too young to stop napping. Or rather, his mother is too old and tired for him to stop napping. I need a break sometime between six a.m. and seven p.m. Morning, afternoon, I don't care, as long as I get an hour in there sometime when I can go to the bathroom without a toddler in attendance whose greatest joys in life are turning on the faucet and turning off the lights. Peeing in the dark with the water running is not my idea of a fun time.

5) An immediate cease and desist order for all the damn spiders in my house that are spinning webs with such abandon that the very day I manage to sweep them all away, I find a new one in progress. Although, I suppose I should be grateful none of our spiders seem able to spell as well as Charlotte. I don't think they'd have anything very nice to write out for me.

6) And while I'm at it, peace on earth and goodwill toward men; women; children; and all cute, furry creatures great and small.

Thank you in advance for your assistance,

Kristin

The Stubborn Survivors

2011-12-08T06:12:00.000-05:00

Last night as I was finishing up the dishes, I noticed the tomatoes sitting on the mantle in the kitchen.

That's right. Tomatoes. From the garden. Two tiny Roma tomatoes that have been sitting in the kitchen since the end of September. I sort of forgot about them. One of them is kind of wrinkly, but they show no signs of rot or anything.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with two tiny tomatoes. It's not as if I can make salsa with them or anything. Maybe I'll just let them sit there until I can once again say that I have tomatoes at Christmas.

And then I'll eat them, because really, I just want to get them off the mantle in the kitchen already.

Stylin'

2011-12-07T06:31:00.002-05:00

Remember the winter boots I introduced to you a few years ago because I know the whole world cares about my footwear? Well, they have another fan.

We're still working on the concepts of "left shoe" and "right shoe."

Cubby never fails to make me laugh on a daily basis. He also never fails to make me consider the merits of military schools on a daily basis, but that's life with an almost-two-year-old, I suppose.

Small Things

2011-12-05T05:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Cubby and I attended a birthday party for a now-three-year-old second cousin, at which there were many small children in attendance and pizza for lunch. The pizza place, knowing the pizza was for small kids, double-sliced the pizzas. That is, they cut each regular piece one more time so there were lots of narrow slices. And all the parents were sitting around looking at our little people with their little hands easily maneuvering their little slices of pizza to their little mouths and saying to each other, "These narrow slices are brilliant. How come I never thought of this?"

Because we are not so brilliant, I suppose. Sure does reduce the amount of tomato sauce to be cleaned off of faces and clothes, I'll tell you that.

Bravo, Papa John's. We salute you and your double-slicing.

Throw Those Expectations Out the Window

2011-12-03T05:59:00.002-05:00

I think that's excellent general advice for parenting, although of course I have a specific event in mind. That is, our trip to get our Christmas tree yesterday with Cubby.

As I have mentioned before, we go to what is basically a hardscrabble farm in the hills with some trees planted around the house to get our tree--15 dollars to cut your own, 20 for a pre-cut one. The past couple of years we've just grabbed one of the pre-cut trees they lean against the picnic table in the front, extra five bucks be damned.

Big spenders, that's us.

This year, however, since Cubby was with us we decided to wander around so he could run around and play some. And then we thought, since he's such a fan of tools and since we found a nice tree still in the ground, A. would cut our tree so Cubby could watch him use the saw.

Fun for all!

Except.

First of all, the people that own the place have acquired chickens (chuk-uhs, to Cubby). And no boring old tree is going to compete with chuk-uhs. Especially since these little hens were quite obviously accustomed to getting food from people and ran right up to us when we got out of the car. And followed us part of the way to the trees.

They did not, however, follow us all the way, and when we tried to bring Cubby to the trees after a play session with the chickens, he was not so pleased with the re-direct. He was also not very pleased about the fact that he wasn't allowed to hold the saw that A. was using to cut the tree.

He was momentarily appeased by the massive truck with some kind of hydraulic hoist on it or something that was sitting outside the barn, but then, once again, not too happy about being removed from it to get back in our car.

Sorry, kid. We don't live here, and I don't think the nice man who is trying to work on this truck really wants us to hang out all day.

So, all in all, it was maybe not the making-Norman-Rockwell-memories experience it might have been, but we got our tree. Mission accomplished.

A Trip to Hallmark

2011-12-02T06:12:00.005-05:00

Today is my newest niece's birthday--this would be my sister's fiance's daughter, so technically a step-niece, but let's just dispense with all that "step" nonsense, shall we? So, Newest Niece, hereinafter referred to as N.N. because it's shorter, is turning 1o today. The significance of this event to you will be explained later, but first! A short story about a birthday card.

I don't usually send birthday cards, but I made an exception for N.N. Cubby and I were in the Small City on Tuesday, specifically to go to the mall.

I sort of feel as if I should enclose "the mall" in quotes (like, uh, that), to convey to you how unlike this particular mall is to the sort of malls you're probably thinking of. I think it has two dozen stores. A Small Mall for a Small City.

ANYWAY.

I had some birthday and Christmas presents to buy, so off we went. And while we were there, we stopped in at the Hallmark store for a card for N.N.

I should explain some logistics of moving around with Cubby. Despite his earlier love of his stroller, he does not love it now and will not be contained. So I have the choice of either carrying him, which is somewhat detrimental to my back after a short while, or putting him down. This usually results in him eventually making a beeline for something inappropriate, being pulled back, getting mad, and then I have to pick him up again anyway. It's a challenge.

By the time we got to the Hallmark store, my back was due for a break, so I put him down.

Bad plan.

You know what Hallmark stores look like, right? All those cards! So many pictures! RIGHT AT TODDLER LEVEL.

Cubby stood there for a second while I surveyed the MASSIVE rack of cards (From the Group, For a Preteen Boy, You're Old and Here's a Rude and Not-Very-Funny Card) (that last ones's not a real category, but I think you know what I'm talking about) trying to see where to even start. And then he was off. He pulled out a card. So I said, quite reasonably, "Okay, you can look at that one. But just that one, okay?"

Sure, Mom.

Five seconds later, he had a stack of cards in one hand and was racing down the aisle straight towards the lady at the end who was giving me a look that clearly questioned my ability to control my child.

No, lady. I can't control him. Bet you couldn't either.

Anyway, I chased after him, and when I caught him, took away the cards. Then I looked at them. He had a few of all the same card, and lo and behold, they were specifically birthday cards for a niece. Well then! Our work here is done! Thank you for picking out N.N.'s card, Cubby, and let's get right out of this store before you find the highly breakable seasonal ornaments!

That's how shopping with toddlers goes.

Okay! Now here's where you come in. Now that I've made N.N. famous (HAHA) online, it's time for all you people out there to join me in wishing her a happy birthday in the comments. So everyone who left comments yesterday discussing ironing*? Stick a happy birthday for N.N. in that comment box, would you? And everyone else, too. GO!

* Thank you, by the way, for the numerous comments on what is essentially the dullest topic ever. It's nice to have company in my lameness.

A Sign that I'm Boring?

2011-12-01T05:39:00.002-05:00

Yes, for today, we shall discuss ironing.

I KNOW. The excitement! But you know, that's just the way my life goes. Sometimes I find myself ironing at 8 p.m. because Cubby is being, ahem, difficult, about napping, and I am therefore finding it difficult to get anything accomplished during the day. At least, anything that really must be done Cubby-free. Maneuvering a searingly hot, heavy piece of metal on a cord, with a plug, most definitely qualifies.

So. Ironing at 8 p.m. My original intention was just to iron A.'s shirt for him, because it's his only clean one and it's been sitting around for days unironed and he had to go to court this morning and so needed a shirt. So even though pretty much the last thing I wanted to do at that stage in the evening was iron, I did it.

I really hate ironing shirts. Men's shirts particularly. They're just so big, and they have so many parts, and I can never get the crease in the arm right. But I figure it's mostly under his suit coat anyway, right?

Right. Any justification for my ineptitude is aces.

Then, since I had the iron out, I decided to iron the pile of napkins and tablecloths that's been sitting around for, um, months. Yes, literally.

This being Blackrock, the House of Accumulation, we have way more table linens than any modern family needs. But of course, many of them are from the Not Modern era (several sets belonged to A.'s great-great aunt, which would make them . . . at least a hundred years old). So we use them. And when they are used, they do not get returned to the sideboard until they've been washed and ironed. Which is why there is usually a pile of napkins somewhere downstairs sitting around awaiting ironing.

I was pretty sick of looking at this particular pile of two tablecloths and about a dozen napkins, so I ironed them too. Ironing tablecloths kind of sucks, because they have to be moved around so much on the ironing board, but ironing napkins I find to be sort of soothing. I mean, I'm not saying it's something I go out of my way to engage in to calm my nerves or anything, but it is delightfully simple. One flat square ironed all smooth, then folded into the desired shape and pressed once again, and what was once a ball of wrinkled linen is now a respectable and classy napkin ready for company.

That's kind of nice.

So how about you, poppets? What's your opinion of ironing?

A Universal Fascination

2011-11-30T06:13:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is about clomping around in big shoes that is so amusing to every child in the world, but there's no denying the fascination.

Also no denying that Mia manages to get her enormous self in half the pictures I take of Cubby. Oh well. At least she loves him.

Vocabulary Lessons

2011-11-29T05:04:00.002-05:00

Cubby has gotten to the point where he's saying (or at least attempting to say) every new word he hears. This means, of course, that I have been making an even more concerted effort to check my mouth, because while it's pretty cute to hear him say, "bumma," (bummer), it is not quite so cute to hear "sheet" (shit) come out of his pretty little mouth.

It also means that as of now his vocabulary includes quite a few words in constant use that are a bit unusual, to say the least. "Shoo" (shoot) is a frequent one now that hunting season is upon us. As are "guh-NUH" (gun) and "dee-ah" (deer), usually closely followed by "meat" (that one actually sounds just like the actual word) and the query "ee?" (eat).

Yes, Daddy shoots the deer with his gun and then we cut it up into meat and eat it. Thank you for exposing us as the woodchucks we are, my sweet.

Then there was the pleasant surprise I got the other day. I sneezed, as has been a frequent occurrence lately thanks to this wretched cold, and Cubby quite out of the blue said, "Bess-oo."

Thank you, my child. And bless you for giving your mother hope that you're not going to be a completely coarse redneck.

Just mostly.

Knowledge

2011-11-28T06:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning when it seemed that a nap was imminent for Cubby--and I knew this because he had started throwing himself to the ground because I wouldn't let him play with the meat saw A. was using to cut up the deer because I am a MEAN MOMMY--I decided I'd better bring him inside for some lunch. But first I wanted to look in the hay barn for some eggs.

So Cubby and I trekked through the paddock to the sheep barn, where he was delighted to discover an egg ("Ug-uh?") in the lower nest and I recovered another egg from the higher nest. On our way back to the house, he was even more delighted to be holding "his" egg for me, and then asked, "Ee?"

"Sure," I said. "We can eat them."

So we went inside and fried the two eggs Cubby had brought back from the hay barn not two minutes before, and he ate them both.

Nobody will ever be able to accuse that kid of not knowing where his food comes from.

No, Don't Want To

2011-11-27T10:50:00.003-05:00

That was A.'s first full sentence as a child. I must admit to feeling something like that sulky child as I gear myself up for going outside to cut up that deer. I was kind of already over the butchering thing, thanks to the two lambs we've already cut up this fall, but now I really don't want to do it because I have a cold. All I want to do during Cubby's nap right now is take a nap myself.

Unfortunately, that venison won't cut itself up, so off I go to heed the call of the carcass. Happy Sunday, poppets.

What's a Thanksgiving Without Dead Deer?

2011-11-25T06:12:00.000-05:00

Not a Thanksgiving at Blackrock, obviously.

Three years ago on Thanksgiving, A. and I butchered our very first deer ever. As the MiL ran around like a maniac trying to prepare for 25 people coming to our house to eat Thanksgiving dinner, A. and I stood ankle deep in freezing cold mud in the shed and cut up a deer. It took us forever and was an incredible pain in the ass.

The next year, I had a Thanksgiving blessedly free of deer remains. Last year, I had to clear up the decomposing innards the dogs thoughtfully dragged home for Thanksgiving. And this year? Well, this year A. went hunting (again) yesterday morning. With functioning shotgun shells this time.

He drove off at five in the morning in my old Nissan, because his truck was out of gas and the turn signals no longer work. So when he shot a four-point buck (that's a young one, for those of you not familiar with hunting terms), he had to stuff it into the trunk of the Nissan, like some kind of mob hitman or something. It was pretty amusing.

He got home just as the rest of the family was leaving for the family dinner at the MiL's sister's house. So while the rest of the family sat around at Aunt Barb's eating stuffed mushrooms and drinking wine, Cubby and I watched A. wash the deer out and hoist it into a tree with a Come-a-long. We also got to watch Mia chow down on the deer's windpipe.

It's a wonderful way to whet your appetite for a big meal, let me tell you.

So now we have a deer hanging right next to the driveway in front of the house, to be butchered in a few days. Since we did two of our own lambs this year, this deer will be the third animal we've butchered in the last month or so. And it will be the last, that I will insist on.

Maybe next year I'll get lucky and get to have a Thanksgiving that does not involve a dead deer. That'd be nice. But I'm not counting on it.

Thankful?

2011-11-24T05:48:00.000-05:00

Indeed.

Happy Thanksgiving, poppets.

Mighty Mighty Pleasin', Pappy's Apple Squeezin'*

2011-11-23T05:09:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so today is a kind of Friday, right? Right! So let's talk about alcohol.

Specifically, let's talk about A.'s hard cider, which did indeed, uh, harden in the bucket and morph from innocent, innocuous sweet cider to nasty, alcoholic, disgusting hard cider.

Okay, so I'm not a fan of real hard cider**. But A. and the MiL, both of whom have some experience with real hard cider, have pronounced it good. Which means that A. now has six gallons of alcohol (SIX! GALLONS!) that he made for free (FREE!).

Now he just has to keep himself from drinking like a gallon a day because, you know, it's there and it was free. It's a challenge.

He's started drawing it off into screw-top bottles to further ferment and get all bubbly. So stay tuned for how that works. Maybe all the bottles will blow up from over-carbonation! You just never do know.

* For the many of you who probably have no idea about the song I'm referencing in the title, please go here for a video. For those of you who did get the reference? You're my kind of people. And you should also view the video. It's pretty awesome.

** I use the word "real" to distinguish it from commercial hard cider, like Woodchuck*** or something, which bears about as much resemblance to real hard cider as grape juice does to red wine.

*** HA! I just now registered the humor in that name. This stuff that A. made is authentic woodchuck cider. Woodchuck in the Blackrock sense, that is.

Confusion

2011-11-22T10:39:00.002-05:00

This morning when Cubby and I went outside to let the chickens out, it was a frosty 27 degrees. Literally frosty--every surface had a half-inch layer of frost on it. Including Cubby's beloved tractor.

The tractor had been left out by the dog pen, so it too was covered in a thick layer of frost. Cubby grabbed the steering wheel in preparation for climbing aboard for his usual play session, and then snatched his hand back. He tried this a few times, and then turned to me with the most bewildered expression on his face. "Co?" he said, holding out his cold little hand. "Wah?"

Yes, my sweet, cold and wet. This is only the beginning. Brace yourself, son. The Blackrock winter has arrived.

So I Broke the Bed This Morning

2011-11-21T07:26:00.003-05:00

How I wish that were a joke, but no. I was pulling Cubby into bed with me so we could read his schlocky "Mommy Loves" book for the millionth time ("Mommy kangaroo loves her joey. Mommy polar bear loves her bear cubs . . .) and CRASH. Cubby and I dropped down about a foot.

A. was still in bed. We were all quiet for a second, and then I heard from under the covers, "That really just happened, didn't it?"

Indeed.

Were I a more self-conscious person, I might be upset about the implications of my body weight (well, mine and Cubby's) breaking a bed, but as it was, I found it sort of funny. Except for the fact that our bedframe is broken and we'll probably be sleeping on a mattress on the floor for a few nights until A. can fix it.

But still. Yeah, it was funny.

Tales from the Huntin' Logs

2011-11-20T05:47:00.001-05:00

Yes, it is indeed huntin' season again. Opening day was yesterday, so A. got up at 4:30 a.m. and drove to the state forest where he likes to hunt. Cubby and I had many discussions about Daddy going hunting. That he was hunting ("Hut? Hut?") for deer ("Deah? Deah?"), that he would shoot ("Shoo? Shoo?") them with his gun ( "Guh-NUH? Guh-NUH?") and then we would eat ("Ee? Ee?") them.

Unfortunately, A. came home without a deer. But with a really ridiculous story.

He was all set up in his spot and had been sitting there for about an hour when a buck wandered into view. The buck didn't know he was there, and was in no particular hurry, so A. figured it would be a pretty easy shot. So he lined up the shot and pulled the trigger. Click.

The gun didn't fire.

He quickly loaded another round in the gun and . . . click. This happened with eight shells, one after the other. Click click click click . . . By the time he finally got one that would actually fire, the buck was too far away.

He couldn't believe it. The shells were a couple of years old, sure, but still. One shell, okay. So that one was defective or got some moisture in it or something. But eight? And it was definitely the shells, because he test-fired some other shells when he got home and had no trouble with them.

So, lesson learned: Make sure your ammunition is new before you sight a buck. Also, don't buy Remington shotgun shells to begin with. Let's hope the Winchester shells are better.

And while we're on the subject of shooting deer, let me tell you what happened when Cubby and I accompanied A. to the local Huge Outdoor Store to pick up some functional shotgun shells. We walked in and A. pointed out to Cubby the stuffed deer on the wall. Cubby grinned, pointed, and said, "Pshew pshew."

At least someone got a shot off at some deer yesterday.

Gruesome Even for Blackrock

2011-11-19T11:23:00.003-05:00

Early yesterday morning Cubby was ramming around the living room and ended up on the chair in the bay window, from which he perched to view the happenings outside. I was sitting on the couch and I heard him say, "Lee? Lee? Ee? Ee?"

"What?" I said. "Leda? Eat? Yes, Leda already ate her breakfast."

Then from Cubby, "Lee? Ee? Chukah? Chukah?"

"What? Chicken? Oh no."

I ran over to the window, and sure enough, Leda was chewing on something bloody that did look exactly like a chicken. I didn't think Leda would have killed one of the chickens, as the dogs have shown not the slightest inclination in that regard. I yelled upstairs to A. to let him know that Leda had one of the chickens and that I was afraid something might have gotten into the coop in the night. Then Cubby and I went outside to inspect further.

It wasn't a chicken. It was the head from the lamb A. had killed the day before. He had skinned it and salted the pelt in preparation for tanning, but, obviously, cut the head off the pelt. The head and the innards he had put in a feed sack and put in the back of his truck to dispose of the next day. But the dogs got there first.

I've done a lot of disgusting things since moving to Blackrock, but picking up a severed lamb's head by the ear and putting it in a bucket is by far the most grisly. That, without doubt, qualifies as gross.

A.P.D.--White-Knuckle Driving

2011-11-18T05:44:00.000-05:00

Last night as A. and I were reluctantly leaving the house to drop the Awesome Subaru off at the mechanic, I said with some false cheeriness, "Well, at least it's not snowing!"

Them's famous last words.

It was drizzling as we pulled out of our driveway. It was snowing three miles up the road. On the way home, the snow was so bad, A. could barely see and drove about 20 miles an hour the whole way.

Driving in snow is always way worse when it's dark, of course, because then your headlights reflect off all the snow flying into the windshield, effectively blinding you. As A. was creeping our way home, I was reflecting on the worst driving conditions I had ever experienced.

I've driven in some pretty nasty snowstorms in the mountains of Arizona and through rain that was so heavy I could barely see through the waterfall on the windshield. But my absolute worst driving experience was in fog.

When I was in college I worked at a dude ranch in the mountains outside of Fort Collins, Colorado, for a couple of summers*. One very early morning--as in, around 2 a.m.--I was chauffeuring several of my fellow workers back to the ranch after a night out at a bar in Fort Collins. Everyone in the car was asleep except for me, and about halfway up the mountain, I drove straight into a bank of fog so thick, I could literally see only a few feet in front of me.

Talk about a white-knuckle drive. I thought I was going to die. I'm not kidding. I thought I was going to drive the car off the mountain and everyone in the car was going to die. This was a serious Colorado mountain road, with the sheer drops and hairpin turns and everything. It was not a road I had driven a whole lot yet either, and I couldn't see anything.

Needless to say, I did not die, nor did any of my passengers. But I did go out the next morning to find my car parked at a very odd angle and far too close to the horse barn for comfort. Yeah. The fog was so bad, I couldn't see a barn.

Now your turn, duckies! Hit me with your worst driving conditions. Fog? Snow? Ice? Sandstorm? What weather on the road made you contemplate your mortality?

* Perhaps I haven't mentioned this before. I am a woman with a mysterious and intriguing past.**

** Not really.

Quirky

2011-11-16T06:04:00.004-05:00

I have been lucky enough to be graced with a child who loves vegetables. LOVES them. He'll eat any fruit and vegetable put in front of him (though he's a little suspicious of eggplant). He chews on raw chard stems in the garden.

I realized last night how odd this might be as I was dishing up dinner and told A., "I don't want Cubby to see the C-A-B-B-A-G-E before he eats some of his meat and squash, because once he sees it, he won't want to eat anything else."

That's right. I have to spell cabbage lest I excite my child too much. Granted, it was Burned Cabbage, which is pretty damn good, but still. Weird kid.

But the best kind of weird. Definitely.

What Day Is It? Tuesday?

2011-11-15T05:42:00.000-05:00

So, not a Friday and not a Monday (which is the new Friday). But I'm still going to talk about alcohol today. I suppose this means that every day is now eligible to be an Alcohol Day here.

Don't read too much into that.

Today we will discuss the Apple Sidecar. This is apparently a thing already, but I swear I didn't know that until I started writing this and searching for things online to link to.

Last night I decided to take one of my favorite cocktails of all time and once again twist it to suit my own particular ingredients. This time, we had some cider (some, HA--about two gallons still) and applejack, which the MiL had picked up along with some more Cava so we could all have some more Manzanitas de Piedra Negra.

But I think I'm just going to call them Blackrock Apples from now on, because that Spanish name is too long to type.

ANYWAY.

We had our Blackrock Apples on Sunday, and they were again delicious. I highly recommend that cocktail. Then we still had plenty of applejack left. Applejack is basically apple brandy, but with some grain alcohol added. Brandy is the main ingredient in a Sidecar, along with triple sec and lemon juice. So, I figured if I used the applejack instead of plain brandy, then I could use apple cider in place of the triple sec--for the sweet element--and then keep the lemon juice. Plus some water, because I nearly always water my drinks. I'm weak like that.

ANYWAY AGAIN.

As you may have guessed, this is a winning combination. My pleasure in it was only slightly dimmed by discovering that someone else had thought of it too. So I'm not totally original. So what? It's still a damn good drink and you should try it.

So! If you want to try this at home, it's a shot of applejack, half a shot of cider, and the juice from about half a lemon. Plus ice, and, if you're weak like me, some water to taste.

Have a happy Tuesday, duckies! Even if it doesn't feature cocktails.

Boy Crazy

2011-11-14T06:13:00.002-05:00

Not that kind of boy crazy. No, the kind of crazy that happens when it's All Boys, All the Time, which seems to be the case more often than not in this place of boy babies.

A climbable farm utility vehicle plus a dog? Boy heaven, right there.

A swing full of juvenile testosterone. And my friend Alyssa, who is the mother of two of these boys, bless her patient and courageous heart.

These three are going to be an even more formidable trio in ten years or so. And in 15 years, all of them will be driving. God help us all.

Bundled

2011-11-12T06:10:00.002-05:00

After a day of relentless wind and fairly cold temperatures, the temperature in our bedroom last night when I went to bed was a relatively chilly 54 degrees. Since we sleep in the north room, 54 degrees is downright balmy compared to the ridiculous readings we will have in there later in the year. But 54 degrees is plenty cold enough.

Especially since I didn't have my bed warmer on hand.

My bed warmer is A. He must have really good circulation or something, because he doesn't need to be in bed more than ten minutes to raise the temperature under the blankets at least five degrees. This is not so appreciated in our un-air-conditioned room in the summer, but in the winter, it saves my life. It takes me FOREVER to warm up when I go to bed. I don't have good circulation, and my feet will stay cold for a good hour after going to bed.

So I took appropriate measures last night in preparation for a night by myself in bed. First, I kept on the long-sleeved shirt I had worn as a bottom layer yesterday. Not removing all your clothing is key in cold weather to conserving some body heat. If you change every item of clothing, then your body first has to heat those clothes up, which saps precious heating energy from things like feet. So I left that on. Then I put on a heavy sweatshirt, fuzzy socks, and heavy pajama bottoms.

Then I jumped in our bed, which is currently covered in flannel sheets, a wool blanket, a heavy cotton coverlet, and a down comforter. And I stayed frozen in one spot for a good fifteen minutes, lest by moving I should come into contact with an inch of bed covers that had not been warmed by my body heat.

However, I did warm up and fall asleep relatively quickly, which was the goal. And then I woke up two hours later BURNING UP and had to shed the pants and socks.

But lest I sound as if I complain too much, I should mention that A. was gone because he was hunting. And camping. In the snow. So he was definitely much more uncomfortable than I was last night.

He'll be home tonight. We'll both be glad about that.

Who Am I?

2011-11-11T05:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, Cubby and I were hanging out in the shop with A. while he made a sheath for one of his homemade knives. He used a squirrel hide that he had salted some time ago and sewed it up with a needle and some button thread I found in our sewing drawer.

Exactly when I became a mother who spends quality time with her family that involves stitching dead animal hides, I do not know, but it seems clear I am no longer going country. I am so, so gone.

Canine Resignation

2011-11-09T06:14:00.001-05:00

Oh no. Here he comes again. I know how this ends.

Yeah yeah. Trot trot. The same thing, every time.

Please. A little respect, child.

So this is how it's gonna be from now on then, huh? Fine. But you owe me BIG TIME, lady.

Already

2011-11-08T10:19:00.004-05:00

Already this morning I've had to change both my clothes and Cubby's, due to an unfortunate incidence with dog poop. He both stepped in it (GROSS) and then got it all over my pants when I picked him up, AND picked it up with his hands (SO MUCH GROSSER, CHILD, STOP THAT). And then, after we had been inside to wash our hands, we went back outside and he fell into a pile of (cold, not to worry) ash on the driveway from leaf burning*.

So, new clothes for all, then!

And then A. and I went to vote, so I put on some semi-respectable clothing for my public outing. But now I have to change AGAIN back into not-respectable clothing so I can go clean out the gutters.

That's just how mornings with toddlers--specifically at Blackrock--go, I suppose.

Off to the gutters I go. Wish me luck.

* A pile of ash in which I found the metal part of my trowel. Cubby ran off with it about a week ago and I couldn't find it. Apparently it was hiding in the leaves that got raked up and subsequently burned. The handle was rubber, and it burned clean off. The blade part is still all there and fine, though, so I can get A. to make me a wooden handle to stick on there, I guess. Fun.

A Poll

2011-11-07T05:32:00.003-05:00

Is there anyone who actually likes Daylight Saving Time? Anyone? Seriously, all I see and hear from people is how much they hate it, how it screws up their schedules, and especially how it makes children into raging demons for at least a week or so as they try to adjust to their new bedtimes and wake-up times.

YOU try explaining to a not-quite-two-year-old why he's still awake at 6:30 p.m. when he can quite obviously tell that it is really 7:30 p.m. and therefore past his bedtime so PUT ME TO BED RIGHT NOW, MOM, SCREW THAT CLOCK.

In Cubby's case, that takes the form of manic hyperactivity and repeated queries as to, "Nap? Nap? Nap?" In case you were curious.

So really, now, in all seriousness: Who out there can profess to actually liking the time change? And if no one does, why in the name of everything true and holy and my child's schedule are we still doing this stupid thing as a country?*

* Although not everyone in the country does, of course. Oh, Arizona. I hated so many things about you, but your refusal to acknowledge DST was one small thing about you that I LOVED.

Hidden

2011-11-06T05:51:00.001-05:00

When Belle the Devil Cat is really trying to avoid Cubby (which is much of the time, due to his desire to "feep!"--flip--her*), she scuttles under the Awesome Subaru.

I know you're under there, Belle . . .

He tried a couple of times to crawl under there with her. Then he got stuck and didn't enjoy the process of being hauled out. Also, I have taken great pains to point out the pipes ("pup!) under the car and explain how they can be hot after the car has been driven ("ha?"). So he doesn't crawl under the car anymore and Belle is safe.

But only as long as he gets distracted by something else before she decides to come out. But if he's still there monitoring her movements when she tries to escape? Then the chase is on.

Don't worry; Belle always wins.

* I must admit, however, that even the times when Cubby has eluded me and caught up with her and grabbed handfuls of her fur or done something else to cause her pain and him a no-doubt deserved clawing, she's done nothing more than meow loudly and run away at the first opportunity. It turns out that, to everyone's surprise, the Devil Cat is good with children. Okay. I guess we'll keep her.

An Indulgence

2011-11-05T10:33:00.005-04:00

I took Cubby with me to the grocery store in the Small City yesterday and, on the way out, he was nothing less than electrified by the sight of the shiny helium balloons near the checkout.

So I bought him one. Perhaps I am setting a dangerous precedent of indulgence at the grocery store, but let me tell you, never have I spent a more-appreciated four dollars. That cheap, shiny, "Hope You're Feeling Better" balloon has provided hours of entertainment.

He punches it; tackles it; races across the room dragging it by the string; accidentally pinches his finger in the clip on the end (whoops--but he only did that once and apparently learned his lesson); throws it; pushes it under the coffee table and then kicks it out with his feet; tries to feed it to his rocking horse; and generally plays with it with no activity needed on my part. I just sit there and watch him go crazy.

And that, my friends, is worth WAY more than four bucks.

The Birds

2011-11-04T05:24:00.000-04:00

This is the time of year for birds. Probably just because the leaves are dropping off the trees and so we can actually see them, or maybe because particularly this year I spend every moment with a tiny budding ornithologist who delights in pointing out every single bird. Whatever the reason, the birds, they are everywhere.

Yesterday morning Cubby and I were outside around 8:30, hanging sheets on the clothesline and burning leaf piles, when he announced the presence of birds. I looked up, and sure enough, there were a bunch of crows. And then there were more. And more and more and more and more. They came in waves. I would think they were all gone, and then there would be another bunch of them, silently flying overhead. We must have seen 200 crows fly over the house.

I suspect that they spend the night in the gully near the house and then take off for the cornfields early in the day. I'll have to keep an eye out in the next few days to see if this is their pattern.

I had explained to Cubby that the birds were crows, and so when he saw some more birds overhead, he proudly announced, "Co!"

Except they weren't crows--they were seagulls. Once again, at least a hundred of them in small groups, taking the same general flight path as the crows. Except seagulls don't sleep in the gully, so I don't know what was up with that. Or maybe they DO sleep in the gully. What do I know? My knowledge of birds is pretty limited.

Although with Cubby around, I think that knowledge may be growing exponentially in the near future.

Time for the Traditional Tally

2011-11-03T05:57:00.003-04:00

With the freezing of three quarts of melted apple butter, I officially (REALLY officially officially, not just kidding officially) declare the end of Canning Season 2011.

And now for the traditional list. And photos.

Frozen

8 quarts corn

8 quarts maquechoux

8 quarts chard (what's with all the frozen stuff coming in 8-quart quantities this year?)

9 quarts green beans (never mind)

3 quarts melted apple butter

10 quarts German red cabbage with apples

2 gallon bags of pesto cubes

2 gallon bags of bell peppers

Canned

3.5 pints peach jam (MiL)

9 pints strawberry jam (MiL)

9 pints bread and butter pickles (MiL)

8 pints apricot jam (MiL)

3 pints damson plum jam (MiL)

8 quarts mulberry juice

12 quarts chicken stock (from our chickens, but of course)

7.5 quarts sauerkraut

16 pints salsa

7 pints tomato sauce

6 pints green tomato chutney

9.5 pints apple chutney

6 pints dilly beans (dill-pickled green beans)

16 quarts applesauce

30 quarts peaches

22.5 pints pickled jalapenos (that's OBSCENE)

54 quarts pears (DEAR GOD)

And 5 quarts of refrigerator dill pickles, which are not actually canned but just put in the, uh, refrigerator.

That's 274 containers of food stored in the Pit of Despair and the freezer. What's not on that list? Tomatoes. No plain tomatoes. None. SUCK SUCK SUCK. I actually had to BUY a few cans of tomatoes from the store the other day. It was sad, duckies. Very sad.

But still, thanks to the cuh-RAZY fruit this year, the shelves are far from bare. As you can see.

Top shelf: Jams and jellies.

Second shelf: Pickles, chicken stock, pears, and mulberry juice.

Third shelf: Peaches and pears.

Fourth shelf: Why yes, I do believe that's more pears!

Fifth shelf: ENOUGH WITH THE PEARS ALREADY. And sauerkraut.

Top shelf from left: Salsa, applesauce, tomato sauce. And one lonely jar of plain tomatoes left over from last year that I will now guard as the most precious commodity I possess.

Second shelf: Jalapenos, chutneys, and pickled green beans.

Then there are the boxes of potatoes; the numerous squashes hiding on the steps in the Secret Stair; the bags of garlic, onions, and shallots in the first pantry; and the brussels sprouts, kale, chard, parsnips, and leeks still in the garden.

Let the eating season begin!

Edited to add: Per the MiL's reminder in the comments, there are also four gallons of sweet cider in the freezer (or there WERE--probably more like three now) and what will--we hope--be six gallons of hard cider currently fermenting in the dining room. Stay tuned on whether A. manages to create six gallons (SIX! GALLONS!) of alcohol for free. Because that is going to be awesome. If it works. And if it doesn't? Then I'll have six gallons of apple cider vinegar. So there's no losing on this one. Though I think we can all agree that the alcohol would be way more fun than the vinegar.

Halloween: The Day After

2011-11-01T06:16:00.002-04:00

I know I was supposed to wish you a Happy Halloween yesterday, complete with photos of my adorable child in his adorable and lovingly prepared costume.

However.

You may have noticed that I post really early in the morning. Nothing remotely Halloween-y had happened before 6:15 yesterday morning. The first Halloween activity was the pumpkin carving around 8 a.m. And that only happened because Cubby and I were out looking for chicken eggs and I saw the pumpkin that the orchard owner had given the MiL for free and thought, what the hell. Might as well carve it, right? It's my duty as a mother to provide these seasonal festivities.

So I got out the knives ("Nuf? Nuf? Nuf?" Cubby-speak for knife, with which the child is unfortunately somewhat obsessed) and a big spoon to scoop out the fetid-smelling pumpkin innards.

The chickens happened to be scratching around right next to my operating table, so I threw the innards to them. And then spent the next five minutes--which is how long it took me to complete my totally amateur carving job--chasing the dogs away from the pumpkin guts and Cubby away from the rooster. I was rewarded with a brief smile from Cubby when he saw the completed jack-o-lantern.

I think he was hoping I'd left the nuf in there.

Leda was unimpressed with my lame carving skills.

The chickens liked the pumpkin guts, though.

And so did Mia.

Then, when it got dark, we put a candle in the thing and that child LOST HIS DAMN MIND.

It was one of the moments when we should have had a video camera. He was shouting and laughing, clapping his hands and literally falling to the floor in excitement. So I guess my five minutes of pumpkin butchery was worth it in the end.

As for the costume . . . yeah. I didn't actually get him a costume. Because I wasn't taking him trick-or-treating* (he's not even two--I would have ended up eating all the candy myself) and I wasn't planning on going anywhere. But then I ended up going to the medical center in the village to get a flu shot and we stopped at the library on the way home, so I thought he had to have something.

Behold, my half-assed attempts at costumery. And the cutest Mousketeer in existence.

The only reason Cubby had even a crappy costume this year is entirely thanks to Drew, who sent Cubby this hat when he was born. It fits him perfectly now, and made for a pretty darn cute semi-costume. So thanks, Drew. You've saved me from being a complete Halloween failure as a parent.

Also, did you know that Cubby was the name of an actual Mousketeer? I didn't either, until the assistant librarian told me yesterday. Just a fun fact for you.

And that was Halloween at Blackrock: dogs, chickens, jack-o-lanterns, and Cubby the Mousketeer.

So who's sending Cubby his Halloween costume for next year?

* Though he did end up getting a few bites from the mini-Kit Kat I snagged from the reception desk at the medical center. So he wasn't entirely deprived of Halloween sugar. I'm not a complete kill-joy.

TWO THUMBS UP!

2011-10-31T06:15:00.001-04:00

Capital letters, exclamation point, the whole bit. You should make this cocktail recipe. Except you should make it the way I made it, because it was really, really good.

You need brandy, cider, orange bitters, and Cava. Here's how it goes in our house:

Brandy=Christian Brothers

Cider= Freshly pressed thanks to Alyssa and her dad (thanks, Alyssa and her dad!).

Orange Bitters= Fee Brothers (what's with all the brothers going into intoxicating beverages?)

Cava= Juve y Camps

Now you need your Awesome Cocktail Shaker. Into which you put one shot of brandy, one shot of cider, and a couple of shakes of the bitters.

Or, if you're us, you actually do two shots each of brandy and cider and several shakes of bitters, because what's the point in a tiny drink? None. That's right.

Then you add ice and shake that Awesome Cocktail Shaker until frost forms on the side and you get kind of tired of shaking. That's how you know it's cold enough. Then you pour that through the little holes of your Awesome Cocktail Shaker into your glass, and then top it off with the Cava. It's supposed to be a Champagne glass, but we just used wine glasses because the Champagne glasses are safely stored in the attic. You can add the Cava to taste--if you make a double like I did, you just add the Cava until the glass is pretty full.

What this makes is a not-too-sweet, bubbly, very refreshing, and quite delicious beverage. Also sort of intoxicating.

Not that I would know anything about that last part. Ahem.

If you like it sweeter, you can add the suggested sugar cube to the bottom of your glass before you fill it up, but we found it definitely unnecessary.

And last, the name. We get to name this version, since we didn't use the apple brandy or sugar cube AND we used our OWN cider. The name was suggested by A., who knows quite a bit more Spanish than he speaks. Since we used Cava--basically the Spanish version of Champagne--a Spanish name seemed appropriate. And so A. christened this cocktail Manzanita de Piedra Negra. That is, Blackrock Apple. Seems pretty reasonable, right?

Right. Now go make a cocktail. Forget that it's Monday. Monday is the new Friday. So happy Friday, duckies! Cocktails for all.

Take the Back Roads

2011-10-30T07:08:00.002-04:00

We went to a state forest last weekend for a family outing and Cubby thought the miles and miles of smooth gravel roads were pretty much the best thing ever.

Wild Animals of the Domestic Variety

2011-10-29T11:41:00.002-04:00

The dogs broke down the fence that was protecting the hanging lamb and devoured one of the forequarters before having a wicked fight over the rest, thereby alerting me to their misdeeds. So A. had to climb into the loft of the shed and hoist the lamb up there to keep it safe from our own semi-tame wolf pack. He was pretty pissed, but what else can we expect from such fierce dogs?

The sheep have been breaking through every enclosure that A. has tried to keep them in in the last week. They've been on the neighbors' back pasture and on their lawn; on our front lawn in front of the electric fence; in the woods behind their own pasture; and in the road. It's all Bonnie's fault, of course. A. is seriously considering sending her away with the lambs he wants to sell at the Pennsylvania auction next year. I wouldn't stop him.

One of the hens has decided to get all broody. Now. When we're staring down the barrel of a nasty Blackrock winter. This is not an auspicious time to have tender young chicks around. So A. has been crawling into the dog pen every night to remove Ms. Maternal from her nest there and deposit her in the coop where she belongs.

Also, Otty is in heat and has to be closely watched lest she take herself off and then deliver unto us some unexpected puppies in a couple of months.

Animals are such a pain in the ass sometimes.

Just Another Thursday . . .

2011-10-28T06:07:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, in search of eggs, I heaved myself over the livestock gate to squelch through the mud and sheep shit in the paddock. It was about forty degrees and raining, as it had been pretty much all day, and I was intent on getting to the chickens' nest and back into the house as fast as possible.

I was not so intent on that goal, however, that I failed to notice the lamb on its back in the mud, kicking its legs in the air.

That's not a good thing. Just so you know.

I went over to him (all the sheep in the paddock right now are boys) and pushed on his back, hoping he had just slipped and couldn't get traction in the mud to get up. I got him up on his feet, but he buckled in front and went down on his knees. So I ran inside to tell A., who promptly got his gun and sent that lamb to its reward a little earlier than we had planned.

The male lambs were all due to go to the butcher in a couple of weeks anyway. We've had problems before with male lambs succumbing to pneumonia or whatever, brought on by cold, wet weather in the fall. So A. figured that rather than go out in the morning to find the lamb dead in the paddock, he'd just take care of it while there was still light enough to work on it.

He gutted it and skinned it and hung it in the shed, where it will stay for a few days to age, slowly driving the dogs insane. It's going to be a fun few days. And then probably on Sunday, we'll cut it up and have lamb in our freezer once again.

You just never do know what a random Thursday at Blackrock may bring.

Woodchuck Child

2011-10-27T06:12:00.001-04:00

I took Cubby to the pediatrician in the Small City for a flu shot yesterday. The following conversation--if you can call it that--occurred in the car on the way out of the pediatrician's parking lot.

Cubby: Sha? Sha? Sha?

Me: What? Sha? *looking around* Oh. Squirrel. Yes, baby doll, there's a squirrel up there on that roof.

Cubby: Da? Da? Da?

Me: Dad? What about Daddy? Daddy's at home, working.

Cubby: Shoo? Shoo? Shoo?

Me: No, sweets. Daddy is not going to shoot that squirrel. They have laws against that in cities.

Talk about a product of his environment . . .

Cubby Cage

2011-10-26T06:24:00.004-04:00

So how did we end up using that enormous old crock?

As a Cubby crock, of course.

He thinks it's pretty awesome, too.

P.S. He actually requests to be put in this crock, from which he cannot get out by himself. And I am only too happy to put him there while he's eating, because it contains the mess so handily. Happiness all around.

A Dynamic Duo

2011-10-25T06:13:00.000-04:00

The splitter:

And the stacker:

Let's Liquor It Up

2011-10-24T06:16:00.000-04:00

I realize that Friday is supposed to be Alcohol Day here, and that it is, in fact, Monday. But let's just pretend it's Friday for a second, because WOAH do I have a lot of cider in my refrigerator and freezer.

You may remember the somewhat spirited (geddit? spirited? HAAA) discussion in the comments of last year's post about cocktails involving cider. People were excited about it. As was I. And then somehow the cider was all gone and I hadn't tried any of the other cocktail suggestions kicking around.

Sad.

But! I am currently the happy possessor of four whole gallons of freshly-pressed, currently-unpasteurized cider, most of which is stashed in the freezer for future consumption. So of course I had to do a search for cocktail recipes using cider and make a mental list of the ones that looked even halfway decent.

You'd be surprised how many didn't look even halfway decent. Apple cider, orange juice, vodka, and Snapple? No. Just . . . no.

But this one . . . Yes. Apple brandy, Champagne, cider, and orange bitters? SIGN ME UP. The recipe also calls for sugar, actually, but the cider we have is very sweet and I don't think needs any added sugar. In an odd coincidence, we actually have orange bitters, purchased at random by the MiL and made by a somewhat-local-to-us company. Everyone in the house (well, except Cubby) gave a thumbs-up to the idea of this recipe, so I think we shall have to try this one as a group soon.

When that happy day comes, I'll let you know how it goes. And in the meantime, any great ideas for apple cider cocktails, duckies? Lay it on me. Just no one say Snapple.

The Apple Crazy

2011-10-23T07:05:00.003-04:00

Tomatoes are sometimes called love apples, right? So you could say that in previous years I have suffered from the Love Apple Crazy. Well, this year, instead of the Love Apple Crazy, I'm just plain Apple Crazy.

I'm still working my way through the many bags of apples I picked up from my friend Alyssa's dad earlier this week. Nine quarts of sauce have been made and canned, but there are still two bags and a box of those apples in the back of the Awesome Subaru.

Then yesterday, A., Cubby, and I went foraging for wild apples (more on this later in the week), of which we found many. MANY. Like, another shitload. That is also now in the back of the Awesome Subaru, soon to be en route to Alyssa's house. She has her dad's cider press there. And so today we will have a small version of the unbearably wholesome cider-pressing party she hosted last year.

I think it's just going to be our family and hers, actually. And a whole hell of a lot of apples. I'm guessing that Alyssa's husband Jodi and A. will do most of the actual pressing, while Alyssa and I act as support staff and attempt to keep our various small boys from pressing their feet in the machines or something.

The wild apples that A. gathered are meant to make old-fashioned hard cider. He and Jodi will press a batch of the wild apples mixed with cultivated apples for their hard cider, and then maybe they'll get to some plain sweet cider that the rest of us might actually drink.

Old-fashioned cider is rough stuff, man. Yuck.

So maybe today's cider pressing won't be quite as wholesome as last year seeing as how we're making alcohol, but it'll still be fun. And apple fun (and craziness) is what October is all about.

Happy autumn Sunday, poppets!

Cough

2011-10-22T06:31:00.004-04:00

I enjoy the heat coming from our woodstove. I enjoy how the woodstove dries out our otherwise disgustingly damp and clammy stone house. I enjoy the fact that the woodstove allows us to keep the indoor temperature above 55 degrees without bankrupting ourselves buying heating oil.

I do not, however, enjoy getting a faceful of smoke first thing in the morning when I open the top to get the fire going again. Gross.

There's an Equation in Here Somewhere . . .

2011-10-21T06:11:00.003-04:00

If I knew anything at all about math other than adding and subtracting*, I could probably come up with something important-sounding that would express how the amount of work I have to do in the kitchen is directly proportional to the number of fruit flies swarming around the house.

But since I don't have the ability to come up with anything important-sounding, I'll just tell you that I picked up many, many pounds of free and maybe a-little-past-their-prime apples yesterday (thanks, Alyssa's dad and the guy who owns the local orchard and gives the apples to Alyssa's dad!) and let you imagine how many fruit flies we have in the house at the moment.

Irritating.

I'm not sure how many pounds I actually have, since my inability to do math also seems to include an inability to estimate weight accurately, but I'm guessing about 75 pounds. When I mentioned to the MiL that I had picked up the apples, she asked me, "So how many did you get? A shitload?"

I think I'm getting a reputation.

I made a couple of batches of applesauce yesterday--about seven quarts--which I will can today. I keep telling myself this is the very last of the food preservation chores for the season and I just need to get through this next week full of apples and paring knives and food mills. Then I can sit back and rest on my laurels. And eat.

In the meantime, I'll be drowning in applesauce and swatting at fruit flies.

Have a happy, fruit-fly-free weekend, duckies!

* Speaking of math, I cannot tell you how much I dread Cubby coming home with math homework and asking for help with it. A.'s not a math whiz, either. Cubby may be on his own with that crap.

Another Kind of Deterrent

2011-10-20T06:11:00.001-04:00

Yes, we have another deterrent. But since this one is meant for Cubby instead of the dogs, it does not have electric current in it and we have not baited it with electrified salami.

It's a baby gate. How lame. But how necessary.

We have not actually had a baby gate in the house before this because Blackrock, unlike a modern house, is all about the doors. Every room can be closed off from the rooms on either side just by closing the doors. No open plans here. This is quite handy when I want to corral Cubby in the living room so I can sit down on the couch for a few minutes without chasing him up the stairs or into the kitchen or away from that oh-so-fascinating toilet brush in the bathroom. (Kids are so gross.) I just shut the doors.

But now the woodstove is going. And woodstove heat does not go through a door. So if I closed the door between the living room and the dining room where the woodstove lives, it wasn't long before the living room was freezing and the dining room was boiling.

Enter the gate. A. bought it and set it up yesterday. He got the tall one, because Cubby is tall. Also spry. So A. thought he'd better get a bigger one to keep The Force contained.

An early appearance of the "Seriously, Mom?" face. I suspect I will see this face a lot in the coming years.

Unfortunately, the tall gate, though it does seem to contain the child*, is also a serious pain in the ass for the shorter adults in the house. That is, the MiL and me.

Due to our bizarre and definitely not standard-size doorways, it's not a permanently installed gate that can open and close; it just stays in place with tension. This means, however, that it's not very convenient to move it. The MiL and I can both juuuuust step over it, but not gracefully and certainly not easily. I'm going to eat it trying to get over this thing one of these days, I just know it.

But. It does allow me to sit on my ass in the living room with Cubby without freezing said ass off, so we'll just accept it as yet another irritating inconvenience of winter at Blackrock. It's a long list.

* So far. He's already tried to climb it a couple of times, so it's possible Cubby will be the one to eat it on this gate.

Elizabeth David Is a Pain. Plus, a Rabbit and a Bath.

2011-10-19T06:16:00.002-04:00

Okay, here's where I piss off every serious cook and foodie in the country: I don't like Elizabeth David's recipes.

There. Commence throwing your fancy, heirloom, organic tomatoes and rotten free-range, humane eggs. I think her cookbooks are irritating and the recipes are ridiculous.

I say this, however, after making all of one of her recipes. And that only to please the MiL.

See, the MiL bought a bunch of eggplants at the farmers market awhile ago. And she mentioned that before I froze them or whatever, she wanted to try making a recipe in Elizabeth David's French Country Cooking book. But the MiL hasn't had a chance to make it, since it requires an hour in the oven, so I decided to make it for her. I mean, this is the woman who will make any ridiculous cake I request and has regularly baked things for me that she won't even eat, so I figured the least I could do was make her some eggplant.

Eggplant for cake. Fair trade, right?

ANYWAY.

Here's the exact recipe for Aubergines en Gigot:

In each whole, unpeeled aubergine, make two rows of small incisions; into these put alternatively small pieces of bacon and cloves of garlic which have been rolled in salt, pepper and herbs, either marjoram or basil.

Put the aubergines in a roasting dish with a little oil poured over them, cover the dish and roast them in a slow oven for about 1 hour.

That's it. I mean, how easy is that, right? Except for the fact that . . . wait. A WHOLE eggplant? Whatever, I cut the stem off at least, because that's not even edible, okay, Ms. David?

Also, two rows? What's a row? Long ways? Around the whole thing? I did two rows around the circumference of eggplant.

Next, whole garlic cloves? How small were your cloves, Ms. David? Because short of hacking a fairly large hole in the side of each eggplant, there is no way a whole clove is going to be inserted in a "small incision."

I sliced the garlic cloves into smaller pieces. Then I rolled them in the salt, pepper, and basil, as instructed, all of which came right off as I attempted to force the pieces into those small incisions.

The pieces of bacon wouldn't even go into the small incisions, so I ended up hacking pretty big holes in the eggplant anyway.

There was cussing, I will admit.

Last, what the hell is a "slow oven"? At this point, sick of Elizabeth David and her stupid recipe, I just set the oven at 300 degrees and trusted to luck.

It tasted like . . . eggplant. But the MiL pronounced it delicious, so that's all that matters.

Next! The rabbit! Nothing to do with Elizabeth David. Though come to think of it, she might have some recipes for rabbit in that handy cookbook of hers, but I'm not going to bother looking.

ANYWAY AGAIN.

Last night as Cubby was splashing around in his bath and I was reading an old National Geographic Magazine article about Sherpas in Nepal (so sue me for being a negligent parent for not kneeling next to the tub and making boat noises for twenty minutes), A. burst into the bathroom waving a dead rabbit by the feet.

"Look, Cubby!" he said. "Look what Daddy shot!"

Cubby looked up, grinned, correctly announced, "Ra,"and then went back to drinking his bath water from his plastic alligator mug.

Not even two years old and already unimpressed by dead wildlife. A child of Blackrock, without doubt.

Almost There . . .

2011-10-18T06:28:00.002-04:00

We're almost at that most exciting day of the year, duckies: Jar Tally Day. Better than Christmas, that.

Yes, soon I will be adding up my hastily scribbled and much-amended list to see just how many glass jars of food have made their way from my kitchen into the Pit of Despair. I know already that there are more than two gallons of pickled jalapenos down there. Now that, I think we can all agree, is a SHITLOAD of jalapenos.

I guess my dad knows what he's getting for Christmas this year.

I have not yet contacted my friend Alyssa* to see if there are apples again hanging around somewhere, but I suspect there might be just a few extra. A few meaning a thousand pounds or so.

So! After some apples have been sauced and stored, THEN I can do the final tally.

Brace yourselves. The fruit is going to rule the world this year, I can tell. And the jalapenos, of course.

* Alyssa, you there? There are just a few left in those pallets I saw Saturday, right? And I can have some, right? Like, fifty pounds or so?

This Is Not Goodbye

2011-10-17T06:59:00.004-04:00

I couldn't really figure out how to say this, so maybe I'll just, uh, say it: I think I'm done posting every single day come hell, high water, or a child who refuses to nap.

I don't want this to become an obligation. And that's what it feels like when it's two o'clock in the afternoon and I finally get Cubby to sleep for 45 minutes and I have gallons of jalapenos to pickle and dishes to do and I haven't eaten lunch but wait! I haven't posted yet either! SHIIIIIT.

That's how I'm starting to feel. I don't like that, I don't want that, so I'm just giving you a fair warning that there may be days when I'm not here. It doesn't mean I've been attacked by a rabid raccoon and rushed to the hospital or fallen into the cistern, it just means . . . I didn't post. Because life gets in the way.

There.

And now! I would like to tell you that I went to see the re-make of Footloose on Saturday night. By myself, because Cubby can't sit for ten minutes, much less two hours; the MiL is much too cultured for such a movie; and A. would rather make both his thumbs explode with a hammer than sit through two hours of teenage angst and dancing. And, uh, apparently I have no friends.

Anyway. I'm a big fan of the original Footloose. I mentioned that last time I watched it, I realized that I have most definitely become an Adult since the last time I had seen it. And this new version? Well, holy shit, it just made me feel OLD. Not just because the original was so long ago and I remember it (and own it), but because the crowd in the theater was so young, I had no idea who any of the young actors in the movie were, and I find myself less and less patient with teenage shenanigans now.

Yup, old. For sure. But not so old that I'm not entertained by a movie put out by MTV. And entertainment is really all I ask for.

No Worries, Duckies

2011-10-16T12:29:00.003-04:00

I was just busy yesterday with various things and a child who wouldn't nap and then I went to the Small City for an outing and to see a movie (I KNOW! I'll tell you all about it later) and then this morning there was Stuff and . . .

Well. Nothing bad, just . . . nothing. Sorry for the worry. Carry on.

Cubby Down

2011-10-14T06:04:00.004-04:00

A cold may not get the raging typhoon Cubby down, but whatever he had yesterday sure did. Poor kid was plastered to my front for four hours yesterday afternoon. He had a very slight fever, but otherwise displayed no signs of illness. No signs other than the fact that he didn't want to run around and get into trouble. All he wanted to do was sleep on my lap on the couch, huddled under the sheepskin.

So that's what we did.

Because I was pinned to the couch by a quite heavy child, I was really unable to do anything but sit there and think. Always dangerous. Mostly what I thought about, of course, were various scenarios involving trips to the emergency room and that story A. read in the paper yesterday about the girl who died from contracting equine encephalitis from mosquitoes. And the three mosquito bites Cubby got the day before.

Wonderful. This thinking stuff will drive you crazy, man.

By bedtime, however, Cubby had removed himself from my lap, found his wooden hammer, and commenced to chasing the cat around the living room and pulling on the lamp cord. So, obviously a full and speedy recovery then.

Happy Friday, duckies! May your weekend be fever-free.

For Those of You Lucky Enough . . .

2011-10-13T06:17:00.000-04:00

To have fresh corn and tomatoes, you need to go to the kitchen right now and make something. Something I will tell you how to make. And you will then go make it, because you love me and trust me and DAMN, this is good.

But first! A story.

Several years ago, back when A. had just graduated from law school and I had just quit my job to move to Blackrock, I announced we were Going On Vacation. Capital letters, because we were going to Europe, dammit. That's pretty much how I announced it, too. A. was hesitant at first, suggesting maybe we could just take a nice trip around upstate New York? No? How about driving around Canada or something?

No. Europe. End of discussion. I figured this was the last time in a long time we would have the time and the money for a long, international vacation (and I was right), so we were leaving our continent, the end. I let him pick the country though, because I am all about a fair and equitable marriage.

So we went to northern Spain for two weeks.

I think his choice of Spain had much to do with the fact that I was proficient enough in Spanish to allow us to drive around for two weeks in areas that see no English-speakers, ever. Most of the Spaniards we encountered thought we were German, actually. And we didn't see anyone else that whole two weeks who spoke English. But in Madrid the night before we flew home, I bought an English-language cookbook called Cooking in Spain, by Janet Mendel.

I love this cookbook. Even though all the recipes use metric measurements and weights, because that's what, oh, pretty much the rest of the world uses, I still love the book. It mostly uses ingredients familiar to me, but in unfamiliar-enough ways to be interesting. Plus, the instructions are all pretty vague, assuming the cook knows how to navigate his or her own kitchen, which is just my style.

And so I present to you my version of stewed corn, originally culled from this book but then bastardized, because that is my way.

It only has five ingredients: corn kernels, fat, garlic, tomatoes, and paprika. Oh, and salt, but that's kind of a given, right?

The recipe has actual weights and real measures, but honestly? This is cooked corn with a tomato sauce, and I'm not getting out my scale every time I make this, so let's wing it, shall we?

So here's what you do. Peel and mince up about four cloves of garlic. Garlic is a dominant flavor here, so adjust accordingly for a larger amount of corn. Saute briefly in a bit of fat. The recipe calls for lard. I usually use olive oil or butter, but if I had good lard, I would use it.

Then add about four large diced tomatoes. Add some salt and cook the tomatoes down until the liquid is oozing out. Then add a good teaspoon or two of paprika. The recipe calls for one; I use more like one and a half. I assume, since this is a Spanish cookbook, the intention is to use smoked Spanish paprika. But I detest smoked paprika and always use the sweet Hungarian kind. Go with smoked if you like it (but then I would use only one teaspoon, so as not to go overboard with the smoky taste), but sweet is delicious too.

Okay! Now, you've cut the kernels off of about four ears of corn using my (the MiL's) ingenious method, right? Right. And if you didn't? Well, chuck in some frozen corn. I won't tell. Besides, the recipe actually calls for cooked corn, anyway.

In any case, add the corn kernels right to the tomato mixture in the pan and cook it all down until the liquid reduces and the corn is tender. Check if it needs any more salt, and then eat.

You're going to the kitchen now, right? GOGOGO.

A Serious Bummer

2011-10-12T06:17:00.000-04:00

I have mentioned this in passing before, but let me just state right now that few things make me feel more exhausted and ready to just give it all up than getting to the end of a long, tiring day and being TOTALLY READY to throw myself in bed and have it all be over with already . . . and then there are no sheets on the bed because I washed them.

Next time I'm just going to crawl into a sleeping bag and give up any pretense of civilized living.

What Every Boy Needs

2011-10-11T06:06:00.000-04:00

A tractor just his size, of course.

Tuffy+Cubby=Tru Luv

Thanks, Mama N.

2011-10-10T06:19:00.001-04:00

Last year we got so much rain in September and October that the potato harvest kept getting put off and put off and put off until when we finally dug them up they had sustained significant insect or worm damage or something. Whatever it was that burrowed into the potatoes caused an awful lot of waste. Every time I cooked potatoes I would end up cutting away half the potato to get rid of the nasty little brown holes.

Irritating.

But this year, Mama N. took some mercy on us. About time. She owes us, big time.

ANYWAY.

It's been dry and sunny and warm for about a week now, so I declared this Potato Digging Weekend. A. was way excited. He just loves digging potatoes.

He doesn't enjoy digging actually, not at all, but he does enjoy eating french fries. So he dug. And I picked up. And then I spread them out on tarps and flipped them so they would dry on all sides and picked them all up and rubbed some dirt off (I don't wash them--they supposedly keep longer if they're unwashed) and put them in wine boxes and brought them down to the cellar.

My back kind of hurts now, but no matter! For we have potatoes in the cellar, I just made a fresh batch of tallow*, and we can have french fries whenever we want. Winter can come now. We're ready.

* Yes, I had already used up the first batch of tallow. Who knew rendered cow fat would go so fast?

Rough Around the Edges

2011-10-09T06:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, after we had already dug potatoes and stacked wood, A. wanted to go down to the beach to work on some boat stuff. It was a gorgeous day, 75 degrees and sunny. Probably the last really warm weekend we'll have this year. Cubby had just awakened from his last nap of the day, so we went to down to the beach with A. After doing his boat stuff and starting the water pump, A. asked if we wanted to go in the boat. Okay, I said, but no fishing.

Which is how we found ourselves in my future brother-in-law's boat heading for a winery.

There are lots of wineries in our area, but we rarely visit them. But it was like the boat just made its way there on its own. Or maybe that was A. at the tiller. Whatever, the point is that we went to a winery without any planning whatsover.

Do you know the sort of people that go to wineries and pull up at lakeside docks to do wine tastings? People in speedboats and cropped pants with cute sandals. Not people who pull up in Mississippi River fishing boats wearing holey, stained t-shirts, paint-stained jeans and hiking boots, towing a toddler wearing a grubby white t-shirt and pants with a hole in the knee.

I can't imagine what we looked like to those people at the winery. But it didn't matter. We got our bottle of wine, plus a bottle of water and some bread and cheese for Cubby. We sat on the lawn of the winery drinking wine and eating cheese, looking at the lake, watching Cubby gnaw on his bread and play with the tiny plastic cups. He was perfectly happy. We were perfectly happy. Life was good, ratty clothing be damned.

We should do that more often. But maybe next time I'll change my pants.