Snapshots: First Fire and Flowers

It's the shoulder season of fall, and that means that we have both fresh flowers:

On the table.

And on the bookcase.

Plus the ones I put together just yesterday.

And fire:

The first fire of the season, yesterday morning.

I had a heck of a time getting that fire going, thanks to the fact that it looked like this outside.

That's not fog. It's a cloud, and our elevation is high enough that we were just in it.

Everything was damp, there was no draft, and every time I opened the stove to check on the fire or add wood, it just billowed smoke out. It was very unpleasant. I did get it going eventually, though.

The morning before, it was 59 degrees in the house. That would have been a good morning to have a fire, but all the wood was wet from being in an untidy pile outside on the ground, where it was dumped when it was delivered unexpectedly on Monday. 

The kids went to work yesterday afternoon, though, and had it all stacked within a couple of hours. They were helped in this endeavor, amusingly, by our priest. He came to dinner and was very eager to help stack wood. I suppose he appreciates such a straightforward, physical task, that is so unlike what he usually has to do.

We are happy to oblige him by providing the opportunity for labor. Never in short supply at our house.

On Michaelmas, we had fire and flowers together at breakfast. Our usual candles were joined by our St. Michael candle--these are readily available at any grocery store in New Mexico--and the youngest boy's St. Michael keychain that he carries in his pocket every day.

A very liturgically appropriate breakfast table.

Continuing the religious theme, I was amused to see that Poppy's brown scapular that she wears every day under her shirt was perfectly framed by the opening in the back of her shirt yesterday.

I spy with my little eye . . .

Another back shot for Poppy so I could show her what her hair looked like before Mass on Sunday:

Big bow on a looped braid.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: A Lot of Midweek Desserts

Friday 

Short version: Tuna spaghetti casserole, radishes, concession food

Long version: Homecoming this day at the school we do a sports co-op with. There were volleyball games starting at 2 p.m. and the football game was at 7 p.m. I was hoping to be able to come home in between those two things to eat dinner (and not be sitting on hard bleachers for 8 hours straight). Also, not everyone went to the games, so there needed to be something for them at home.

To that end, I made a casserole in the morning with many of the things we've been getting from commodities and the food boxes the school is now sending home: cream of mushroom soup, canned tuna, spaghetti. I just more or less randomly added things like cream, milk, and cheese to the cream of mushroom soup to make the sauce. I got it just right. Yay, me.

I did end up rushing home in between events, mostly to pick up something the football player forgot. I called ahead and asked the eldest to put the casserole in the oven before I got home. However, the younger two stayed at school to see the last of the varsity volleyball game, so they ate their dinner from the concession stand. 

Homecoming is always nuts.

Saturday

Short version: Beef and bean quesadillas, corn on the cob, bread and butter

Long version: This ended up being a much busier day than I had anticipated, so dinner was more simple than I had anticipated. I had thawed some ground beef, which I used to make taco meat with some of the big pot of black beans I had cooked earlier in the week. That filling went into flour tortillas for quesadillas.

We got the corn on the cob, randomly, from commodities. It didn't quite go with the quesadillas somehow, but I needed to use it and my kids always love corn, so there we go.

The bread and butter is just because floppy store bread with butter on it is the easiest way to butter corn. You just wrap the buttered bread around the hot corn and slide it all around to spread the butter. 

A plate full of starch.

Sunday

Short version: Grilled steaks with herb butter and caramelized onions, fried potatoes, cucumbers, brownies and vanilla ice cream

Long version: I had just a little charcoal left, and this was one of the last really warm days we're going to have, so I decided to grill the steaks I thawed. I really dislike grilling. We just have a charcoal kettle grill, and I find it very difficult to get the heat level right. This time it wasn't quite hot enough, so I had to finish the steaks under the broiler. They still had the taste of grilled meat, it's just annoying to have to use two sources of cooking.

I still have a lot of caramelized onions in the freezer, and they are the youngest boy's favorite with steak. The herb butter is also that boy's preference with steak. I used finely chopped basil, parsley, and green onion for the herb butter, along with a little garlic powder.

I fried the potatoes just because I had a big skillet still on the stove and mostly clean from the after-church crepes. So I used that skillet to fry the potatoes, just putting potato cubes in with tallow, covering until they were soft, and then uncovering to get them crispy.

Monday

Short version: Leftover steak in sauce, herby rice, cucumbers and pickles, leftover brownies

Long version: I had quite a bit of steak left. The consensus was that it had been a bit chewy, even though it was definitely not overcooked. Just the cut of steaks, I guess. So I decided to sort of stew the leftovers to tenderize them. I did this by trimming and slicing the leftover steak into smaller pieces and then simmering it with the leftover caramelized onions, a bit of tomato sauce from an open can, and some chicken stock I had in the refrigerator.

When I went out to the garden to get collard greens for my salad, I was reminded that we have A LOT of leeks that I need to start using. So I pulled one big leek, sliced that thinly, and added that to the steak pan. When everything was tender, I added cream mixed with cornstarch to thicken the sauce. It turned out well.

I used the leftover herb butter in the rice, which handily used up all the leftovers from the night before.

I only cut up one cucumber, so everyone also got pickles spears. Cucumber variety is the spice of life.

Tuesday

Short version: Chicken thighs, mashed potatoes, maple carrots or raw broccoli, stabby cake

Long version: This was the Feast of the Archangels, but in our house, we pretty much just celebrate St. Michael. Sorry, Gabriel and and Raphael.

Anyway, September 29th has traditionally just been Michaelmas, which is St. Michael's feast. And the traditional food for Michaelmas was goose.

I don't have access to a goose to roast, so I make do with chicken. Usually I would make a whole roast chicken, but this year I just cooked chicken thighs. They were on sale when I was at the store the day before, and I also wanted to make something I could share with the teacher at school who was coming home from a hospital stay with her son. A whole roast chicken is harder to split up than a bunch of chicken thighs.

I made this recipe, with about 12 pounds of chicken thighs. The power went off at about 10 a.m. and didn't come back on until almost 1 p.m. I didn't want to open the refrigerator in that time, so I had to wait until we had power again to get the chicken out and get going. This meant it didn't brine as long as it should have, but it was still good.

I really didn't like how much aluminum foil I had to use to make foil packets for all this chicken.

So much trashed foil.

Next time I might try baking it in my giant casserole dish with a lid that I usually use when I make pork shoulder.

Anyway. The chicken came out well.

And there was a lot of it.

That was before putting it under the broiler to get crispy. The smaller pan at the front of the photo went to the teacher, and we had the bigger pan in the back.

Our other St. Michael tradition is the stabby cake. I bake a devil's food cake and then we say the St. Michael prayer and everyone stabs their piece of cake with toothpicks. Because St. Michael is traditionally depicted using a sword to fight the devil. Get it?

This year, I had a bag of chocolate cake mix that came with the food boxes the kids are getting at school. I knew it would be an anemic "chocolate" cake if I just used the mix, so I added some more things to it. Like a full cup more cocoa powder, some molasses, and coffee in place of about half the water called for. 

I never make frosting for the stabby cake, but I did dust it with powdered sugar. And we had some ice cream to go with it. Happy Michaelmas, indeed.

Wednesday

Short version: Enchilada casserole, cucumbers with ranch dip, cupcakes

Long version: I used the rest of the taco meat/beans, plus the package of corn tortillas that came in the school food box, to make the casserole.

Dinner ready to go by 9:13 a.m.

The cake mix I had used the day before would have made two 8-inch layers, but I made a dozen cupcakes with part of it instead. I frosted them with peanut butter frosting. Half of those went to the teacher, and then we had the other half for everyone at home this night. 

Nothing like an unexpected Wednesday cupcake.

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I was at a wedding in the late afternoon--for two people I had never met, story to come later--and didn't get home until around 4 p.m. I changed quickly and went to the school for volleyball, where Poppy was cheering. The games were done pretty early, so we got home around 7 p.m. and I have the two children who had been with me leftover mashed potatoes and cheese or a salami sandwich.

The three who had been at home at leftover enchilada casserole, plus canned peaches and cottage cheese.

Refrigerator check:

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

An Adventure in Dyeing (with an "e")

I am speaking here of dyeing clothing a new color. That is why I made the distinction in the title. Otherwise it might be a little concerning.

Nothing to worry about, though! It was just my first experience with clothes dyeing!

The reason I decided to try dyeing clothing with permanent dye was because we have another wedding coming up. This time it's my niece's wedding in Vermont. Two of my children are coming with me*, including Poppy.

This is a fall wedding, which means the colors appropriate for wedding apparel are darker than Poppy typically wears. She didn't have a dress that was formal enough and of a dark enough color for this wedding.

She did, however, have quite a few formal white dresses, thanks to the several First Communion dresses that were passed down to me. Of course, she couldn't wear a white dress to a wedding that is not her own. 

This is what gave me the idea to dye one of the dresses. They were free, so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal if it didn't work.

Accordingly, I asked Poppy what color she wanted--blue--and ordered a bottle of dye.

I dicovered that one of my friends used to dye clothes from thrift stores frequently, and she had several helpful tips for me. The first was to make sure that I got dye appropriate for the dress material. In this case, that was polyester. The dye for natural materials is very different from the dye for man-made materials, so it's important to get the right one.

She also said to get the dress wet before submerging it in the dye, as that will make for a much more even absorption of the dye water. Made sense.

I did not want to be messing around with permanent dye in my kitchen, so I decided to do it outside. This meant I needed nice weather and the time to figure it out. Also, it had to be a day when Poppy would be here to help me. Of course.

I decided this past Saturday that we were going to just go ahead. 

This is when I read the directions on the bottle of dye. 

Yikes.

It's not just dunking the clothing in some colored water and voila. The water has to be kept at a steady 200 degrees for at least 30 minutes. The clothing has to be continuously agitated in that water for the entire time. It's sort of a pain.

I was not anticipating needing to keep the water at a high temperature like that. I still didn't want to have to do this in my kitchen. Luckily, A. had the idea to use the camping stove I gave him for our anniversary, so I could keep the pot of dye water hot. I wanted to set it up somewhere I could just dump the water in the ground when I was done, without having to carry an extremely heavy pot any distance. 

A. helped me set all this up, even building a little wall around the camp stove to make sure the wind didn't extinguish it.

I was a little leery of using a cooking pot to dye clothing, but I didn't see much choice, so I used my pressure cooker/canner, which is the biggest pot I have. It's also stainless steel. I figured that was more likely to scrub clean.

So! Water to 200 degrees on the stove inside (so as not to use up the small fuel canisters from the camp stove), then hauled outside to the camp stove. Per instructions, one teaspoon of dish soap added (more or less), then the dye, and finally, the dress.

We used a broom handle to stir it. Still attached to the broom, so of course the handle is now dyed blue, but it's my outside broom, so it doesn't matter.

Poppy and I took ten-minute turns stirring.

Of course I quoted Macbeth. It was irresistible. 

Poppy noted that this was quite tedious. It was. The instructions said to keep it in the dye until it's just a little darker than the intended color. We kept it in there for forty minutes. After that, there were several rounds of rinsing until the water was clear. This is important so that Poppy doesn't turn blue when she wears it.**

Then I washed it in the pot with a bit of laundry detergent and we hung it up to dry.

It looked more purple when we first hung it up, but it dried more blue.

There were some tiny pearls on the lace detail that took the dye strangely and turned brown. Poppy carefully snipped those off. 

She is very, very pleased with her "new" dress. I was surprised with how well it worked. Although I'm not too motivated to dye clothing regularly, given how much of a process it is, but it was certainly worth it for this event.

* The other two aren't, because one boy is competing at the FFA national convention that weekend in Indianapolis and another had a football game. A. is staying home to manage all of that.

**We did amuse ourselves by saying she could be Smurfette for Halloween if she dyed herself blue.

Snapshots: Rain!

Friday's homecoming football game was slightly delayed because of lightning. Coincidentally, the game the week before was delayed for the same reason. Very cool sky once the storm started to clear, though.

There was a rainbow between the trees, which looks in this sunset photo to be a tongue of fire rising from the ground. Dramatic.

The middle part of this week featured rain, and a lot of it. We have not had significant rain in months. We got 2.5 inches over a couple of days.

The proof is in the rain gauge.

Thankfully, our soil is very absorbent and was also very dry. Since the rain came steadily, rather than in torrents, it soaked in without any flooding or anything.

When I went to pick up the football player on Wednesday evening from the post office, where he's dropped off after practice, Poppy came with me. It was pouring rain. Her best friend was there with her mom, waiting for her brother too. The girls were thrilled to be able to play in the rain.

Our rainstorms are typically thunderstorms, and the accompanying lightning means the kids don't get to play in the rain very often.

Poppy asked for a big blue bow hair tie to be put in her braid for the day they were supposed to have on school colors. I ended up looping her braid up with the bow, which was kind of neat. I always have to take a picture of the back of her head whenever I do anything different with her hair, so she can see how it looks.

This of course did not stay put through recess, but that's okay.

And last, I randomly came across this terrible poem online. I appreciate the sentiment, but the rhyming and meter are really unfortunate.

 "Thou who didst love to give men food, in room or by the sea." In room? Is this referring to the Last Supper, perhaps? Who knows.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Delayed Shepherd's Pie

Friday 

Short version: Milkshakes, vegetarian fried rice

Long version: Second try for passports, which required a 100-mile drive to the post office in the small city. Our appointment was for 2 p.m., although we were about twenty minutes early. The post office employee was very efficient, and we were out out of there within half an hour. Then to the grocery store, and then to Sonic for the milkshakes with which we bribed the children to travel that far on the first day of their weekend for something not very fun.

We got home around 5 p.m. and I used leftover rice and eggs, plus pickled onions and frozen green peas, to make fried rice. Not that anyone ate too much. They were still pretty full from their milkshakes.

Saturday

Short version: Burritos, sausage, radishes, grapes

Long version: Dinner went all wonky this day. I had originally planned to have shepherd's pie, and made one in the morning. But then the football player had to be at the field early to set up for the varsity game and it was pretty hot, so I decided to save the shepherd's pie for the next day.

I gave the football player a burrito made with cheese and leftover chili at 4 p.m., before he left. But of course, everyone else wanted one, too. Three burritos, coming up.

Then the eldest came home from work just after that, and he wanted to eat. So he got a burrito and also two jalapeno/cheese sausages.

And THEN, when I got home from dropping the football player off, A. and one boy had the rest of the sausage. Boy had one leftover hamburger bun. A. had tortillas and cheese. Both had radishes. Poppy and everyone else had grapes.

Food and people everywhere, but everyone fed.

Sunday

Short version: Not shepherd's pie

Long version: Another dinner that was not what I had expected. This was the day of the branding when we went into the ER in the afternoon. Everyone ate a late lunch at Sonic, so no one was very hungry for dinner. I hadn't eaten much in town, so I had the leftover fried rice. Anyone else who was hungry got themselves bread and peanut butter.

Monday

Short version: Finally shepherd's pie, not fried lemons, chocolate pudding with cream

Long version: Shepherd's pie is technically made with lamb, and this was made with beef which I guess makes it a cottage pie. I feel like that's unnecessarily pedantic, however, and everyone can assume I used ground beef in my shepherd's pie.

Anyway. We finally ate it.

I also sliced up a bunch of yellow squash I had been given and roasted those while the shepherd's pie was in the oven. One son came by to investigate dinner, saw the squash, and said, "Oh, fried lemons."

I guess I can kind of see it, but no.

I had made the chocolate pudding on Saturday for our Sunday dessert. However, given the milkshakes everyone got at Sonic on Sunday, I decided to save the pudding for this night instead.

Tuesday

Short version: Pizzas, cucumbers, ranch dip, leftover pudding

Long version: Baking bread, making pizza. Since everyone in the family now seems to like vegetable pizzas, I made one pepperoni and one with vegetables. This time I used finely chopped collard greens, leeks, and some banana peppers from commodities. I didn't think they were too spicy, and they weren't very spicy when they had baked on the pizza, but the skin on my hand burned for hours after removing the seeds from and slicing two dozen of those peppers (mostly for the freezer, not the pizza). They definitely had some capsaicin in them.

Good pizza, though.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftover pizza, more cucumbers, soup, zucchini bread

Long version: I made soup mostly for myself because it was rainy and cool and I wanted it. I used chicken stock from the freezer, some extra ground beef and vegetable mixture from making the shepherd's pie, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, carrots, and an expired can of Veg-All I found in the pantry.

It expired just a few months ago and smelled and tasted fine. Don't worry.

I also threw in a can of green beans and some of the instant potato flakes we keep getting from commodities. And as so often happens, the soup completely filled the pot.

Like the stone soup story. Except no stone.

It was a good thing I made the soup, because there wouldn't have been enough leftover pizza for that to be all of dinner. But the pizza and the soup together was enough.

Pizza and soup is actually a really good pairing.

I had made the zucchini bread when I was baking the shepherd's pie on Monday, to use a single large zucchini-like squash I was given. Poppy had been asking when I would make zucchini bread again, and I promised her I would when I had zucchini. I used this recipe, making a recipe plus a half because I had three cups of shredded squash, and baking it in two smaller loaf pans. I don't put the sugar on top. No one misses it because I've never done it.

Thursday

Short version: Homecoming tailgate food, leftover shepherd's pie at home, peaches

Long version: The school we have a sports co-op with had their football homecoming this week. This night was a pep rally tailgate party at which hot dogs, hamburgers, and chips were provided. I don't always go to homecoming events at this other school, but I went this year because we have a football player again. Poppy came with me. The three at home had leftover shepherd's pie.

We also had quite a few cans of peaches from commodities, so I put some in the refrigerator and everyone had some when we got home from the pep rally.

Refrigerator check:

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

A Different Branding

Branding is a big part of life in this cattle country that we live in. New Mexico takes brands very seriously, and everyone who has livestock needs a brand. We even had to register for a brand with our tiny sheep flock.

Because of the number of cattle ranches here, and the number of calves born on those ranches every year, every year sees a lot of branding. It's most commonly done in late spring, mostly May, and those weekends get very busy as every ranch brands all their calves.

Sometimes, however, there are summer calves that need to be branded in the fall. That's what happened for a small part of our friends' herd this year. I got a call on Thursday that they had about a hundred small calves that needed to be branded and they were hoping we could bring the boys to help flank on Sunday.

Flanking refers to grabbing the calf and flipping it onto its back, and then holding it, so the branding, vaccinating, ear tagging, and castrating (if necessary) can all get done. Flanking is a two-person job. The person in the back grabs one of the back hooves and holds on so the person at the head can flip the calf onto its back by grabbing the opposite front hoof. Then the front flanker pins the calf by its neck while the person holding the back hoof hangs on and leans back. In this way the calf is (mostly) immobile for the people with the branding iron, needles, and knife or bander (depending on if the castrating is going to be an immediate cut-'em'-out or a banding job) move in to do what needs to be done.

Flanking is very hard work. It's dirty, physical, and somewhat dangerous, especially with bigger calves. Mostly when the calves are bigger, the preference is to have draggers on horseback. They rope the calf around a hind leg and drag it to flankers to hold and flip.

These calves were very small, and this ranch doesn't use horses, so these calves were just grabbed and dragged by the flankers. This process is known, amusingly, as "mugging."

This ranch is owned by a family we know fairly well. Their son is just a little younger than our youngest son, and he wanted to try flanking for the first time. He wanted our youngest son, who is now almost 12, to try for the first time too. Our older two boys have flanked already, although always with horseback draggers. So we brought everyone down to the ranch right after church on Sunday to help.

This ranch is waaaay out on a dirt road. We drove 40 minutes from the village on a dirt road before getting near the branding pens.

Adventure Van has a very dirty windshield.

Our son's friend came to meet us on his four-wheeler when we were close to the turn-off to the pens, so he could lead us there.

Follow the four-wheeling leader.

The pens were just in the middle of the range off a dirt track.

Good old Adventure Van, still adventuring.

The calves were split into two groups of about fifty each, in separate pens.

The second group waiting their turn.

There were a lot of people in the work pen. Besides three teams of flankers, there were two older men who helped with the more frisky calves, and about six women and girls who did various jobs like vaccinating, a nasal spray of some kind of medication, castrating, ear notching (to identify steers and heifers at a glance), and ear tagging.

Crowded in there.

Because there was no electricity there, the branding iron was heated by a generator. What with the bawling calves in the pens, their mooing mothers outside the pens, and the generator, it was very, very loud. Also very dirty and smoky, as the crew working in the dirt pen kicked up dust and applied the smoking brand.

Our older two boys worked as a team, younger at the heel, older at the head.

Workin' hard for the money.

The youngest boy and his friend worked as a team, too, with the smaller calves. They learned how to grab and flip the calves pretty quickly, but they were too light to hold the calves themselves. The older men stepped in to help with that. Weight is important when one is wrestling and holding an animal.

Poppy got conscripted into notching ears. She could only do this with the heifers, who apparently had thinner skin. The bull calves were harder. A slightly older girl did those, along with the ear tags.

A. and I were pleased to stand outside the pen to watch the action and hand over water to the children at intervals. Until just after the second fifty calves were in the pen and the eldest son got kicked in the hand by a calf. The hoof hit right at the base of his thumb, and then he couldn't move his thumb at all.

Dang it.

Injuries are not uncommon at brandings. Almost everyone winds up with a bruise from getting kicked. Some people get broken bones. We were really hoping this wasn't a break, given the small size of the calf that kicked him, but of course, the only way to be sure was an x-ray.

A. stepped in to take his place as flanker while a lady who does wilderness search and rescue splinted son's thumb with a cleverly cut piece of a water jug top and some bandages. By the time we got him splinted, the branding was almost done, so we waited until the last few calves were done before driving to the hospital to get his hand x-rayed.

Of course, driving to the hospital was not as quick as it could have been, given our location. We had to follow that same dirt road another forty-five minutes in the opposite direction before getting to a paved road, which we drove on for another forty-five minutes before getting to the small city that has an ER.

A. dropped the patient and me off at the ER and took the other kids to the Sonic right next door for lunch.

The hand was duly x-rayed.

On a nifty mobile x-ray machine.

It wasn't broken, just sprained. Thank goodness. He got a brace and a pain pill and we were out of there within an hour. 

Despite the unfortunate injury, everyone had a good time. Brandings are actually pretty fun. Kind of like a work party. The kids love them, and I'm sure we'll be going back there again in the spring for their bigger branding.

We'll just hope there aren't any high-kicking calves with good aim next time.

Snapshots: Flowers and Flame

We have far too many boxes of macaroni and cheese, thanks to commodities. I tend to use the pasta from the macaroni and cheese and not use the packets of cheese powder. So the last time I dredged pork chops in egg wash and flour, I mixed the extra egg and flour with some of those extra packets and microwaved it quickly, topping it all off with some nasty grapes. For the chickens.

Surprisingly colorful. They loved it.

 It was quite cloudy and dim on Wednesday morning when I woke everyone up for school.

And that means breakfast candles!

I like it when I can have both fresh flowers and candles on the table. The light from the candles is much more mellow and orange than it shows in the photo, and it lights up the flowers very nicely.

The next morning, the older two boys left at 4:15 a.m. to go with their FFA chapter to the New Mexico State Fair. I didn't have to get up with them, but I can't sleep if there's movement and light in the morning, no matter how early. So up I got to say good-bye to them. And then I had a LOT of time for my coffee.

No sign of dawn out that window.

I am pleased to tell you that Odin's gross wound that he kept licking has healed. It required several sessions in the dreaded t-shirt. He kept getting it off, and then we'd have to put it back on and try to pin it more securely. Eventually, everything healed up enough that he stopped fussing with it.

The great Odini, happy to be wearing no clothes whatsoever.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.