Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Tumbleweeds are so iconic of the American West: blowing about on the wide-open spaces, a fixture of western movies, almost as recognizable as the cowboy.

They are also awful.

We live in the land of the tumbleweed, which is actually an invasive plant called a Russian thistle. They grow big, plentiful, and prickly, drying in the ground and then getting uprooted by the wind to blow about and disperse their seeds.

Still firmly rooted and biding their time.

They are wretched plants. They are stiff and sharp, embed their prickers into the sheep's wool, and this year, they are EVERYWHERE.

We must have gotten rain at just the right time for them, because I've never seen so many. Even the one year when they formed a solid four-foot-high bank of tumbleweeds against the garden fence, I don't remember seeing so many in the ground. They're currently still rooted, but in the next month, they'll start blowing free, and then we're really in for it. 

All the dark patches in this field are Russian thistle.

There's really nothing to be done about them at this stage except wait for them to build up against fencing and then pitch-fork them into piles to burn. And hope that next year isn't such a banner year for them.

Snapshots: A Far-flung Church

After quite a bit of work by A. and the eldest boy, the brown truck has been towed to the semi-retired mechanic in the village for help with the rodent-chewed wiring.

Good thing we have a one-ton van that can tow anything.

I always put up a string of white lights around the iron divider running between the kitchen and dining room right after daylight savings time ends. I call them my time-change lights. I bought a new string last year, which I carefully wound up and put away. When I plugged them in this year, only half the string was working. 

WHY does this seem to happen with all lights now? I can't get more than one year out of them before they're only partially functioning.

I did try replacing one bulb that looked burned out, but when that didn't work, I gave up and ordered another string.

I did use the half-working string of lights around the kitchen window, so at least I didn't have to throw them away.

Winter lights.

We don't have a lot of deciduous trees around here to give us fall color, but the apricot trees do turn a nice yellow.

The windmill apricot is almost at peak color.

We have several mission churches in our parish that have a Mass once a month. I've been to all of them but one. I've been meaning to go to it for awhile now, but it's about 70 miles away and not on the way to anywhere, so it's a definitely commitment to get there.

Poppy said she'd go with me, though, and we finally had nothing going on the second Saturday of the month when Mass is celebrated there, so off we went.

There's a whole lot of nothing getting there. It was even less populated than around our house.

The town the church is in is at the beginning of these hills.

It's a plain old church.

The inside is quite plain, too, with unfortunate ceiling tiles.

Not much around it.

But they do have an outhouse.

Nice sunset on the way home.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Many Potatoes

Friday 

Short version: Spanish tortilla

Long version: I ended up with fifty pounds of potatoes from excess commodities to add to the twenty pounds A. had bought literally the day before we got those. So! Let's use some potatoes! 

It was just me and the younger two children this night. Both of them love Spanish tortilla, so that is what I made. I used bacon and tomatoes in it, plus some already-cooked onion and shredded cheddar. An easy meal before the last-minute scramble to get costumes on before trick-or-treating.

Saturday

Short version: Pork, peas, and rice skillet

Long version: Still just the three of us. I had put some cooked pork chops in the freezer a few weeks prior during one those rare periods when I had too many leftovers and we weren't going to be getting through all of them before they went bad. In such situations, I take a look to see what will freeze and defrost the best. This time, that was cooked pork chops. 

I took these out and trimmed and diced all the pork, then used the pork with leftover rice, pickled onions, and frozen peas to make a skillet meal. In this case, I just fried all of that in a bunch of butter, not even bothering to add any spices except salt and pepper. 

The three little bowls.

Sunday

Short version: Meatloaf, baked potatoes, tomato salad, chocolate ice cream

Long version: Everyone was home. Thus, a full meal. 

I made the meatloaf with both ground beef and breakfast sausage, because that is what I had. 

Did anyone need more dessert after the post-Halloween candy glut? No. But it was Sunday. And I did have a bit of chocolate ice cream left in the freezer. 

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, pickles

Long version: I had another ridiculous Monday afternoon of driving hither and yon, with the added complication that I had to go to an pep rally at school at 2:30 that was partially in honor of one of my sons. This meant I was gone from 2:15-5:45. Before I left, I microwaved a few more potatoes to add to the leftover baked potatoes, then chopped those and fried them. I chopped the leftover meatloaf before I left, and then when I got home, I just re-heated the potatoes with the meatloaf in the skillet. In a lot of butter, which is the best way to re-heat leftovers.

There was also leftover Spanish tortilla, which I also fried in butter to re-heat. 

It was far from gourmet, but everyone was fed.

Tuesday

Short version: Tuna mac, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: I was at First Communion class this night, so before I left, I made a casserole of essentially macaroni and cheese, with a can of tuna added. I used Parmesan, cheddar, and a Mexican cheese that was pretty much exactly like fresh mozzarella, but way cheaper. A very cosmopolitan mac and cheese.

Every time I use fresh tomatoes now, I hear the drumbeat that heralds the end of fresh tomatoes for the year. 

Too dramatic?

Wednesday

Short version: Lamb ribs, chicken slop, mashed potatoes, green peas

Long version: I'm mining the depths of the freezer now as we get to the less-desirable meats that I've been avoiding. Among those is lamb ribs.

A. gave me a recipe for a Carolina barbecue sauce--heavy on the vinegar--that he thought would work well as a marinade for the lamb ribs. I marinated them for a few hours, then cooked them on low heat a few more hour, still in the marinade. I'm told they turned out well. I don't really eat them.

For the rest of the family that doesn't appreciate lamb ribs, I used the meat from a chicken I found at the bottom of the freezer. This was one of ours, a hen that had been getting bullied so badly by the others that we had to remove her from the flock. She was pretty old, which means long cooking. I basically made stock, then pulled off the meat and used that plus some of the stock, garlic, some dried thyme the MiL sent me, cornstarch, and milk to make chicken in gravy. 

The MiL used to make something like this after Thanksgiving with leftover turkey and gravy served over mashed potatoes. She called it turkey slop. This is the chicken version.

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I had a very short time in between the children getting home from school and the time I needed to leave with Poppy for the volleyball game she was cheering at. There was enough time to feed children before we left. Two of them had the rest of the tuna mac, to which I added the last bit of chicken and gravy. The other two had mashed potatoes and cheese, plus fried eggs. They all had leftover peas.

A. had lamb ribs, mashed potatoes, and peas.

Refrigerator check:

Can you tell I don't bother to clean or organize this before taking the weekly photo? I'm all about being real. And I am lazy.

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

The Big Bathroom Reveal

If you've been with us here for the past several months, you'll know that A. and I have been battling to renovate both of the bathrooms in our trailer for awhile now. The trailer is from 1972, and we're pretty sure the bathrooms are original to it. There were leaks. The floors were spongy. The tubs were cracked. The sinks were rusting.

It was ugly. It took forever. But we finally finished.

I don't have a lot of before photos, as it turns out. There's this one that shows the lovely avocado-green plastic tub surround. 

Cute baby, hideous tub.

And this one showcasing the faux-marble vanity top that had yellowed over time.

Lovely.

Those were both in the children's bathroom, which is also the guest bathroom. A. demolished the entire thing while we were in Colorado this summer, right down to ripping up the floors. The only thing he left was the vanity, as it was built into walls on three sides.

He replaced the bathtub with a deep soaking tub, even pouring concrete for its base. And then he put in an external shower system of copper he ordered directly from Morocco. He put in a new toilet. He put down a new floor of plywood and then covered it with Moroccan-patterned vinyl tiles. 

And then I painted. I painted the walls and the cabinets blue, and eventually, I got around to painting the sink and counter with a two-part epoxy paint that was tricky and drippy and time-consuming and absolutely REEKED.

Even with a mask, even with every door and window in the house open, it was overwhelming.

I even used some bronze-colored spray paint on the light fixtures, outlet plates, and cabinet pulls.

Upside-down egg cartons work very well for holding the pulls stable.

And finally, FINALLY, it is done.

Hard to get a picture of the whole bathroom, but this is most of it.

I have even fewer photos for the adults' bathroom. It had the same green tub, same faux-marble counter, same disintegrating floor, with the addition of some water damage on the ceiling from a long-ago leak.

The only photo I have is of the sink before I painted it.

And now it is done.

A. removed the tub, but decided instead of putting another tub in there, he would build a shower stall. He did this out of brick and concrete.

In progress.

And almost done. He still wants to find something to put over the painted walls.

A. did an incredible amount of work on all of this, most of it things he had never done before. The end result is very satisfying, though.

It was worth it, but we're very glad it's done.

Snapshots: First Freeze, Halloween, Etc.

We had our first freeze on Tuesday night, so I spent Monday gathering all the tomatoes and the last of the basil. That was pretty much all that was left in the garden.

The turning-color tomatoes, and basil.

The all-green and all-red tomatoes.

I gathered the last cosmos on Monday, too.

And a couple of very small sunflowers.

I was asked to sub for a sick teacher on Wednesday, and was very amused by this student's note left on the classroom refrigerator by the previous day's sub for the teacher:

This is not a note any of my sons would ever or will ever write.

Poppy wore these bows on Thursday that my sister gave her years ago:

Very holiday-specific bows.

I spent some time on Friday cleaning out the van for its annual duty as the Trick-or-Treat Party Van.

With the back two rows of seats out, there's plenty of room for hyped-up children.

Our first stop was in our own almost-ghost-village at Ms. Amelia's house. She always wants to see our children's costumes, and she always gets candy for them. They are the only trick-or-treaters she sees.

Pippi Longstocking and a Green Bay Packer on their way to the first candy of the night.

We ended up with thirteen kids in the back of the van and four adults in the actual seats for the trick-or-treating in the bigger village. Some of the parents followed in their own vehicles, but all the kids want to be in the van. I mean, who wouldn't want to be riding around with all their friends in a giant van, eating candy? 

I only drove them when the houses were too far apart to walk. There was plenty of walking, too, though.

Running around in the dark with friends is even better than cramming into the back of the van.

The only restaurant in the village is owned by the grandparents of three of the children that came with us. The restaurant wasn't open, but they asked us to come back to the restaurant when we were finished trick-or-treating, because they had a bunch of candy there, too. So we went back there, where they handed out water and soda and all the children investigated their bags, playing with the balloons one lady had given them.

It was a nice end to the night. We all appreciated warming up after our cold trek. It was only in the forties outside.

Pretty good haul this year.

By which I mean: Mostly chocolate.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: The Pasta That Keeps on Giving

Happy Halloween! I'm taking Pippi Longstocking and a Green Bay Packer football player trick-or-treating tonight. Everyone else is traveling. I think we'll get plenty of candy, even with only two collecting.

Friday 

Short version: Pasta and meatballs, green salad with vinaigrette, chocolate pudding with cream

Long version: This was the only night my sister and her boyfriend were here that I actually cooked for them. I was going to make spaghetti and meatballs, except I found that I didn't have quite enough spaghetti. I didn't have quite enough of any pasta shape to use a single kind, actually, so I ended up using some penne and some large elbows. They cook at about the same rate.

This was also the day we went rappelling in the canyon.

This qualifies as Peak Color for this area.

We didn't get home until around 5 p.m. The only thing that was already ready was the pudding. I made the meatballs and sauce as quickly as I could, but the sauce still has to reduce. This meant we didn't sit down to eat until 6:45 p.m., which is shockingly late for us.

The sauce also made an unholy mess spattering all over my stove, which my sister very kindly cleaned up for me. This is one big reason I prefer to bake it all in the oven.

I made so much pasta that it reappeared all though the week, as you shall see.

Saturday

Short version: Halloween restaurant food

Long version: This was the night of the Halloween celebration in the village. I bought dinner for everyone at the restaurant that opens for this event. They had a buffet with hot dogs, Frito pie, and baked potatoes, plus, as always, a ton of desserts.

Sunday

Short version: Leftover pasta or tuna quesadillas, chocolate ice cream

Long version: I spent all afternoon at flag football games.

In what are apparently now my flag football shoes.

I didn't get home from this until after 5 p.m. at which point I just heated up the leftover pasta and left it at that.

Well, except A. asked if there was anything without wheat in it that he could have. He'd been eating a lot of bread and pasta and things, which is not something that agrees with him in large quantities. I found the last of some tuna salad I had made for lunch and heated that up in corn tortillas with cheese for him.

I had not made another dessert for Sunday, but we did have chocolate ice cream still, so that is what they had.

Monday

Short version: Guacamole and chips, then beans and sausage and lamb-y rice

Long version: I had a ridiculous afternoon of driving hither and yon. Our house is equidistant between two villages. It's ten miles from our house to each village, which means the villages themselves are 20 miles apart. I went from our house to the school in one village to pick up the confirmation kid, took him to the other village for confirmation class, went right back to the school in the first village to pick Poppy up from cheer practice, then stopped briefly at home to make the guacamole for everyone to eat while I was going back to the second village to pick up the confirmation kid.

I drove a total of 80 miles between the two villages in a span of one and a half hours. Good thing I made dinner ahead of time.

I had cooked a big pot of pinto beans in the morning. I used some of those, plus half a package of loose breakfast sausage, onion, garlic, and tomatoes, to make a saucy skillet of beans that then topped rice cooked in lamb stock.

I did not make a vegetable. I meant to put out grapes, but I forgot.

Tuesday

Short version: Pasta bake, grapes

Long version: I was gone yet again before dinner, this time with Poppy at her First Communion class. Luckily, there was leftover pasta. I had also made a little pesto the day before with the last of the garden basil, so I mixed that in with the leftover pasta, along with some grated asadero cheese, and had the eldest child put that in the oven for me to bake while I was at class with Poppy.

And I remembered the grapes this time.

For A., I scrambled some eggs and added some of the beans and sausage to that for him to have in corn tortillas and cheese.

Wednesday

Short version: Grilled cheese sandwiches, baked beans, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I was asked the day before if I could sub at school this day. Luckily, I had already made baked beans with some of the pot of pinto beans, which made for an easy and filling dinner with the addition of the grilled cheese sandwiches.

Thursday

Short version: Fried fish, leftover baked beans, leftover rice, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: I had four pollock fillets that had been in the freezer for several months that I wanted to use. They would not have been enough on their own, but with the leftover baked beans and rice, it was enough. I just put them in an egg wash and then flour seasoned with Old Bay before pan frying them.

I harvested the tomatoes before the first freeze on Tuesday night, which means I now have quite a few tomatoes in the kitchen. Some of them went into a salad with cucumber, pickled onions, and more of the vinaigrette.

Of note: I finished the last bit of the pasta for lunch this day.

Refrigerator check:

This needs some organizing.

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

(Not) Free Falling

My sister was here visiting over the weekend with her boyfriend, who is a climbing enthusiast, as well as a climbing teacher. He happened to have a children's harness and all the equipment for climbing with him, and we happen to live near(ish) a canyon with lots of rocks and cliffs.

This was inevitable.

A couple of children weren't feeling well this day, so only Poppy and the middle boy went. The climbing in this canyon is too advanced for kids, but they could rappel down in some places. So that is what they did.

This started, of course, with lessons in safety equipment, how to tie off the rope at the top, and the proper form. I was reassured by how professional and clearly experienced my sister's boyfriend is, not only with climbing instruction in general, but specifically teaching kids. 

My sister rappelled down first, so that she could hold the rope at the bottom for the kids, and also encourage them from down there. Her boyfriend was at the top, getting them started and instructing them as they went.

Small girl, big rock.

Poppy was initially very nervous, but she made it all the way to the bottom and declared it so much fun after her first attempt that she wanted to do more. Middle son was extremely enthused about it all from the get-go.

They rappelled down the same place twice, and then our personal climbing instructor found an even bigger cliff that we could easily access for rappelling*. 

This one was . . . well.

That's a big cliff.

Nothing daunted, down the boy came.

Starting the descent.

He ran the harness back up for Poppy, and she started down.

Not quite halfway.

Poppy had a problem a bit more than halfway down when she got her hand too close to the metal device on the rope that will stop the rope from moving if you need to brake entirely. She got the skin between her thumb and forefinger caught in the device. All her weight was on the rope, so she couldn't get enough slack to get herself free. My sister had to free-climb** from the bottom up to the ledge closest to Poppy, balance with her knee up to set Poppy higher, and then free Poppy's hand.

Super-aunt saves the day.

Poppy wasn't hurt and continued down. Despite that little mishap, she announced that rappelling was the most fun thing ever and she wanted to go the next day. Her brother agreed. We were busy with other things the next day, however, so they didn't get to go again, but it was fun to watch them try something new (and initially scary) and enjoy it so much.

* Being able to get to the top of the drop safely and back up is just as important as being able to get down it. For obvious reasons of not leaving children in the bottom of an inaccessible canyon.

** If my sister hadn't been able to get to her, Poppy could have also been pulled back up to the top, but as she was closer to the bottom and reachable, this way was faster.

Snapshots: Halloween Lead-up

I forgot to show you my pie weights from when I made Poppy's birthday pecan pie. 

Easier than trying to transfer beans in and out.

I subbed a couple of days at school this week. I was there just after they finished taking the year's pictures. We're such a small school, the high schoolers just take all the photos. They set up a nice little photo scene in the media building. I was pleased to see they included several books from my library.

They should have had each of the kids choose their own books for their photos. I would have loved to see what they picked.

The media building also has all the senior class photos from the past twenty years or so. Again, these are very small groups of seniors, so they all get to choose the setting for their photos. I was very amused by the 2012 class of all boys, who were clearly so over school and ready to be gone.

To the point that they didn't bother with any nice poses and smiling, instead just walking away from the camera. 

Over the years, my sister has brought us quite a few little Halloween decorations, which we put up last weekend. My favorites are the lights.

It's hard to see, but these are a small battery-operated string of purple bats.

There's another battery-operated string around the plants at the left above the couch, and then the ones around the window are ghosts.

Friendly ghosts, of course. And they are actually a nice glowy yellow in real life, but the camera makes the light look very white.

Our village had their Halloween celebration last night. This year, they rented a couple of bounce houses.

Appropriately themed.

Poppy and her friend were the first to get to these, and were bouncing by themselves for about twenty minutes before anyone else showed up. It had rained hard the night before, and those decorative skulls and jack-o-lantern faces apparently had water either on top of them or inside of them, because when the girls started bouncing, water started streaming from those onto the ramps below. Which of course made them incredibly slippery.

Since no one else was there, I just told the girls to keep bouncing and they eventually shook all the water out or off. I then dried it off with a towel I keep in my car so it would be safe for other kids to climb in. Public service!

And last, flowers. These might really be the last flowers.

Tired cosmos.

And this week's altar arrangement, which is mostly leaves with the last sunflowers of the year. And this time I think they really are the last ones. (I keep saying that. One of these weeks, it will be true.)

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.