Friday Food: A Canned Food Week

Friday 

Short version: Sloppy joes, carrot sticks with curry dip

Long version: We went to our neighbor's canyon property in the afternoon to cut firewood. He had yanked up a bunch of cedars by the roots.

 

The exposed roots look very cool.

These trees were taking over this pasture, so he pulled some out. He had said we could cut whatever we wanted for firewood, and he would burn the rest in the winter.

Cutting wood here looks a lot different than it did in New York.

Anyway, by the time we got home a little after 5 p.m., everyone was very hot and hungry. I made a very fast dinner with the ground beef in the refrigerator by simply frying the meat and adding some of my frozen onions, plus barbecue sauce and ketchup. 

This batch of sloppy joes FINALLY used up the gallon of Sysco barbecue sauce I bought almost exactly two years ago. 

A significant achievement.

Saturday

Short version: T-bone steaks with caramelized onions and herb butter, spaghetti with pesto, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: The caramelized onions were the ones I made a few weeks ago and put in the freezer. Some of them I froze in small piles on parchment paper. The rest I froze flat in a gallon bag. 

The ones in the gallon bag froze into a solid mass and there is no separating them without thawing the whole thing. Lesson learned there. The small piles are the ones I used for dinner this night. All I had to do was take out two pucks of onions and microwave them for a minute to thaw.

The parsley came back with a vengeance this spring, which is why I made the herb butter. It was just soft butter mixed with finely chopped parsley and a leaf of green garlic from one of the plants that volunteered in the garden. 

The herb butter and caramelized onions were a stellar combination on the steak. As you might imagine.

Sunday

Short version: Fried pork, oven fries, green salad with ranch dressing, chocolate pudding with cream

Long version: When I was ten years old, all I wanted to eat at restaurants was salad and french fries. And now here I am, a few decades later (ahem), and that's still all I want to eat. So that's what I made myself for Mother's Day.

I threw two cans of the canned pork we get from commodities in a pan and fried that with some spices as a grudging concession to being an adult and needing some form of protein in there. It did cross my mind that perhaps I could count the pudding as protein--so much milk!--but in the end, I am just not ten years old.

A highly satisfying meal, however, even with that boring and responsible addition.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers at home, brisket 'n' stuff out

Long version: I went to the school sports banquet with our athlete. We were provided with smoked brisket and rolls, and then everyone brought a side dish to share. I chose a little bit of creamed corn--pretty sure it had a LOT of cream cheese in it, and was thus delicious--and salad to go with my brisket. And I contributed carrot and celery sticks with homemade dip. The dip was basically the same ranch dressing I always make, but instead of yogurt, I used sour cream to make it much thicker for scooping. I also added a little finely chopped parsley, because I really have a LOT of parsley right now.

Almost all the carrots and celery were gone by the end of the evening, so I guess that was a good choice.

The home crowd had leftover pork, steak, bread and butter, and I left some of the carrots and celery for them, too.

Tuesday

Short version: Triple-can patties, rooster rice, frozen green peas

Long version: I have a few cans of the commodities salmon left, as well as several cans of commodities chicken. I combined one of each with a can of tuna--along with mayonnaise, mustard, eggs, bread crumbs, dill, salt, and pepper--to make patties. They tasted just like tuna patties, so I guess I'll keep doing that to use up the commodities stuff.

Wednesday

Short version: Chicken fried rice, pineapple and peaches

Long version: This fried rice kind of just happened last minute when I went into the kitchen to make dinner after work. I had a bunch of leftover rice, so I added a can of the commodities chicken--they're big cans, so that was about half a pound--frozen onion, frozen peas, the rest of the carrot sticks that I nuked for about a minute to mostly cook and then diced, garlic powder, soy sauce, vinegar, and eggs.

I had a can of pineapple in the refrigerator, along with two store-bought cans of peaches, that I had in there for breakfast. There was quite a lot left, though, so everyone got to choose one or the other for their dessert.

As you can see, between the canned meats and the canned fruit, we were all about the canned things this week.

Thursday

Short version: Chimichangas! Margaritas!

Long version: Last day of school! A. and I had some celebratory margaritas with the remainder of the Cinco de Mayo supplies.

The return of THE PARTY BLENDER!

Before making the margaritas, I made some taco meat with ground beef. A. had bought flour tortillas last time at the store, along with my requested corn tortillas. (I'm sure Walmart Lady still does not approve). So at dinnertime, I made burritos with (canned) refried beans and the meat, plus cheese, for the children, and then fried them in corn oil.

This was very popular. Unsurprisingly.

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

Saturday Family Fun

It's been awhile since we've all been adventuring locally as a family. We used to set off almost every Friday in Adventure Van to see what we could see, but our current homestead-y activities make that kind of hard nowadays. 

However!

Today one of the farther mission churches was open for their annual feast day Mass. This particular church is dedicated to San Juan Bautista--known in non-Spanish-speaking places as St. John the Baptist--and today is his feast day. So this tiny church in the middle of nowhere is open this one day a year for this Mass.

We had to go down that way to drop the school bus off (we're getting a brand-new school bus this year, hooray!), so we decided to go.

Now. When I say, "that way," I mean in the general vicinity. There was a whole lot of this off the paved road before we got to the right community.

Such a Western view.

We did eventually find the church, after thirty minutes and ten miles of dirt road from the pavement.

It was a modest place.

We walked in juuuust as Mass was starting, and the guy in charge of the church asked me to do the readings.

Uh. Okay.

I don't know who was going to do them if we hadn't walked in the door, but whatever. 

This is not one of the more beautiful churches we've been to, but it has an interesting history. It's way back in a creek-side community that actually still has maybe a dozen occupants. One of those occupants is a man who spent most of his adult life in California, but came back to his family's lands in the 1990s. He found the adobe church abandoned--interior stripped, walls crumbling--and restored it almost by himself. He even found the pieces of the original altar in the schoolhouse of a (relatively) nearby village and replaced it.

Anyway. After church we looked around the small cemetery, which is pretty much all that guy's family.

Most of the headstones were hand-carved from the local stone.

This grave had asparagus planted in it. 

Asparagus does grow wild here, but someone had to have transplanted it purposely to this particular spot.

I immediately told A. that my grave (far in the future, I hope) should likewise be planted with a long-lived edible perennial. I suggested rhubarb, and then the children could make a pie in my honor every year.

Is that too weird? Don't answer that.

On our way back, we stopped at an imposing structure we could see from the dirt road. With an ancient bulldozer parked in front of it.

The children were thrilled.

We couldn't figure out what this building was. It was the highest stone building I've seen around here, but it was just one lofty story with one room. And a giant door.

It almost looked like a church, although I don't know why there would be another only a couple of miles from the one we went to.

Just across the track from this structure was an old homestead. It was a very good example of an old, owner-built homestead of the sort that used to be ubiquitous here before the railroad brought materials from elsewhere.

Three-room adobe house with some of the original dirt roof remaining, although most of it had been replaced by tin roofing at some point.

Dry-stone barn.

Windmill.

And some flowers I can't identify but that were obviously purpose-planted next to the hand-dug well.

I wish I could have gathered seeds from that plant, because talk about a plant that is a survivor.

After a quick snack of graham crackers and nuts, back in the van we went to make our way home.

Country roads, indeed.

It was nice to get off the property and explore a little more. No matter how many adventures we have, there's always more to see.

Friday Food: Workin' Hard for the Money

Actually I was working so much this week not really for the money, but for the other teacher's aide, who had knee surgery last week. So I worked Monday through Thursday. That's why there are a lot of leftovers and ground-beef-based meals coming up.

Friday 

Short version: Carnitas tacos, chocolate-dipped peanut butter balls

Long version: I re-discovered one of the big pork roasts given to me by the school cook at Thanksgiving that had gotten into the bottom of meat freezer. Those are much leaner than a pork butt or something, which is what I would typically make carnitas with, but I made it work by frying the shredded pork in a LOT of rendered tallow. Because the roast doesn't make enough fat for frying.

Not as good as pork butt carnitas, but there were homemade tortillas to compensate.

A.'s dad and his wife were staying with us this weekend, which is why we had a dessert on a day that was not Sunday. These peanut butter balls are a reliable hit.

I mean, unless your guests are allergic to peanut butter. That would not be good.

Incidentally, I use this recipe, but I definitely don't need the whole amount of chocolate chips. I made a recipe and a half this time, but used the original quantity of chocolate chips, and it was just enough with a little scraping of melted chocolate left over. Maybe because I melt the chips and dip the balls into a small canning jar rather than a shallower bowl? Dunno. But just a little tip for you there to save you some leftover melted chocolate if you make these.

Saturday

Short version: Spaghetti and meatballs, roasted peppers and onions, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: Our guests brought me the peppers. Roasted peppers and onions and meatballs are some of my very favorite additions to a salad. Yum.

Sunday

Short version: Steaks, boiled potatoes, pureed calabaza, frozen peas, peach and blueberry non-crisp with maple whipped cream

Long version: Steaks definitely in the plural. I cooked ten steaks, and we ate all but one. They were pretty small steaks, but still. That's a lot of steak.

The potatoes were also brought by our guests. They were a waxier variety than the Russets we normally buy--something like Yukon Golds--and made very good boiled potatoes. They were pretty small, so I just halved them, boiled them until tender, drained, and added butter, salt, and pepper.

The calabaza was a couple of bags from the freezer that I pureed in the food processor while I had it out making breadcrumbs and so on. I find the calabaza a bit stringy--something like spaghetti squash, the texture of which I don't really care for--so I really prefer to puree the cooked squash. 

My planned crisp for dessert ended up definitely not crispy when the frozen peaches and blueberries released so many juices that they submerged the oat topping. Still tasted really good with the whipped cream, though.

I made most of this meal ahead, as we took a trip in the afternoon to a remote ghost town about thirty miles away. More photos coming Sunday, but here's a sneak peak.

The church has been maintained by a committee headed by Jack's teacher, who grew up here.

Monday

Short version: Pizza garlic bread, leftover pork, leftover squash, carrot sticks

Long version: Is it pizza? Is it garlic bread? Who knows. I had made garlic bread on Saturday, but I let it rise too long on the last rise, so it kind of deflated when I slashed it and the end result was a bit more dense than the usual garlic bread. So I decided to keep it for a kind of pizza later in the week. I also saved some of the pasta sauce for pizza sauce.

So! When I got home from work, I sliced the garlic bread horizontally, covered both pieces with sauce, then some asadero cheese from the freezer and baked it. Was it as good as real pizza? No. But it was certainly good enough, and the children were thrilled to be having pizza on a school day.

A. and I ate the leftover pork, fried in coconut oil, and the squash.

Tuesday

Short version: Sausage-y meatloaf, leftover boiled potatoes, curried cauliflower, sauteed green beans

Long version: I made the meatloaf mixture at the same time I was making the meatballs on Saturday. I used some of the ground beef, but it was mostly breakfast sausage that had been in the refrigerator. It was good, but not as good as the cauliflower.

Our guests brought me the cauliflower. I steamed the head whole, then took it out of the pot and sauteed some of the diced onion in coconut oil, then a bit of sweet curry powder. At that point, I put the now-cut-up cauliflower back in the pot, added salt and heavy cream, and mixed it all around until the cauliflower was coated in the sauce.

So good. I combined the saucy cauliflower, green beans, and meat all together and was very happy with my dinner.

Wednesday

Short version: Sorta-barbecue pulled pork, as sandwiches and not, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: I didn't have any barbecue sauce, so I just put ketchup, mustard, vinegar, some tomato juice I drained off the tomatoes used for the meatball sauce, garlic powder, and maple syrup on the chopped leftover pork roast and simmered it all until the liquid was mostly gone and the pork was mostly soft.

The kids had that as sandwiches. A. had it with some cheese melted on it. They all had the salad.

I had salad with the last two leftover meatballs and half an avocado, brought, as I'm sure you guessed, by our guests. Everyone knows the going rate at the Going Country B&B: Fresh produce.

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers, cucumbers

Long version: Three children had scrambled eggs in tortillas with cheese, one had leftover sausage-y meatloaf and potatoes.

A. had the last of the pork, plus some scrambled eggs.

I had a salad.

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

Friday Family Fun: The Christmas Shrub Edition

It's the eve of Christmas Eve Eve! Are you all ready? Do you have all your cookies decorated and delivered? Your dozens of gifts all wrapped in coordinating paper? Your three Christmas trees decorated according to their respective themes and color palettes?

Of course you don't. Only Instagram does, and that is not real life.

I don't know about you, but in my real life, we didn't even have a Christmas tree until Friday, and it . . . isn't an Instagram tree.

I will explain. With photos.

Last year we cut our tree at Wally's ranch, since we happened to be there at about the right time while we were out cutting firewood. It was a pinyon, which is a nice shape for a Christmas tree. They tend to be somewhat small, but I actually prefer smaller trees--fewer strands of lights and ornaments needed--so it was fine.

This year, however, we thought it'd be kind of weird to randomly show up at Wally's now that A. isn't working on his house anymore, so we thought we'd ask our neighbor if we could cut one near his canyon. I always feel somewhat awkward asking for things like that, although our neighbor quite obviously did not care in the least. I know that because when I asked him, he said, "Sure. I don't care."

We didn't get to it until after school was out for the break, though, so we went on Friday.

First we had to climb over the gate, because the one we usually go through was locked.

This made it seem a bit illicit, so I was glad I had gotten explicit permission.

It was a beautiful day, very sunny, though it had been quite cold the night before. This meant that the stock tank near the road had a very satisfying layer of ice on it.

Who needs a fancy Christmas tree farm with sleigh rides and cocoa when you have a frozen stock tank to whack with sticks?

I left the family there and took my bodyguards with me for a tree-scouting sortie.

Not that they would be much help if there were a mountain lion, but at least they'd bark.

Unfortunately, we weren't far enough down to find the pinyons. The trees all around us were only cedars, which grow much more bushy than I would have liked. However, beggars can't be choosers, so I found the most tree-shaped shrub I could and had Cubby cut it down.

Then he and Charlie carried it back to the stock tank, where A. set it in the water while the children played some more.

Useful things, stock tanks.

The boys started climbing a large cedar behind us, so Poppy and I spent some time bonding with Odin.

Odin always feels safest when he's hidden. 

Then we brought our shrub home, set it up, and decorated it. I did this by wrapping two strings of lights around it and handing off the box of non-breakable ornaments to the children. This mostly consists of all the ornaments they've made at school over the past several years. So they actually did all the decorating. 

It really is a shame that my lack of an Instagram account deprives people of carefully styled photos like this one.

As you can see, our Christmas tree is more like a Christmas shrub. It does, however, have a very nice Christmas tree scent, and as the children were decorating it, Charlie stood back and said, "Now our tree is starting to look merry." So I guess they don't remember or care what our big, northern-grown Christmas trees used to look like.

Pretty sure all they care about is that there are lights on the thing and some presents under it come December 25th. And that, we can manage.

Sunday Family Fun

Because it's not just for Fridays anymore!

Actually, Sunday used to be our dedicated Family Fun Day, many years ago when there were only four of us, and it looks as if we might be returning to that.

Anyway, yesterday we went to . . . can you guess? Yes, another canyon!

This canyon is the one closest to our house. It's only about two miles away, and the accessible part of it is owned by one of our neighbors in the village. Obviously, we asked him if we could look around there, and he kindly said yes.

We parked at his family's old homestead--no one lives there now--off a dirt road and hiked to the canyon. It was only about half a mile to the edge of the canyon. Poppy, of course, got to ride in the pack.

Charlie said wistfully as we were loading her into it, "I sure miss riding in the pack." It's been at least four years since he's ridden in it, but I guess it really leaves a lasting impression.

Just before the canyon, the dry stream bed we were following widened out into a large flat area of stone that would be a waterfall after a really good rain. We haven't had a good rain in awhile, so at the moment it's just the stone with a few shallow pools in the depressions. And what's in those pools?

Tadpoles. Which of course must be caught.

The canyon itself was bigger and deeper than I expected. There was a pool of water at the bottom that our neighbor told us has wild grapes growing all around it in the fall. His mother used to give him and his brother a 25-pound flour sack to fill with grapes every day during the season when they got home from school. She made jelly from them, of course.

I totally want some of those grapes. Bet our neighbor would be happy to let me pick some in exchange for some jelly.

A. and Poppy did some exploring, trying to find a way down, but nothing looked very promising.

Definitely a skeptical baby.

I was there too.

With no hat or sunglasses, because I gave the former to Poppy and the latter got broken by a certain boy who will remain nameless. I was wearing sunscreen, though.

We followed the rim around for a little ways and found a good flat spot on some rocks to have our admittedly lame picnic of crackers and walnuts. From there we could see a piece of old, rusted farm machinery that turned out to be a whole collection of old, rusted farm machinery.

Rusty junk is even more fun than tadpoles.

We headed back shortly after this because it looked as if it might rain. But we'll be back. Who can resist tadpoles and rusty machines? Certainly not this crew.

Now That It's Been a Week . . .

There has been a distinct reduction in our Family Fun days since we moved into this house. And that is, of course, because there is so much to DO in a new house. The Fridays we used to spend descending into canyons and picnicking by streams we now spend planting gardens and fixing up the old chicken coop for its new residents (coming soon!).

But we did have a special Monday edition of Family Fun the day after Easter. We went to a national grasslands area about an hour away and spent some time driving around and exploring.

This photo of our picnic in the middle of nowhere reminded me of the descriptions by Laura Ingalls Wilder of her family stopping the wagon for lunch and sitting in the middle of the wide open prairie, eating hard boiled eggs dipped in a paper of salt and pepper.

The van is, of course, the modern equivalent of the Conestoga wagon.

And lest you think that we weren't really in the middle of nowhere and there was some kind of habitation on the other side of us, here's the opposite view.

Definitely nowhere.

That photo also shows the coming storm that forced us to cut our picnic short before the rain came and turned the dirt road we had to go back on into a mud pit.

Before the picnic, though, we explored an abandoned homestead up the road a bit. One of the things I love about New Mexico is that when the sun is shining, even I, the World's Worst Photographer, can't mess up a photo.

I mean, check out the light in these photos.

Who needs filters when you've got a New Mexican sky?

Of course, this weekend was right back to the weeding and fixing and planting, but that was a nice day off.

Friday Family Fun: O Christmas Tree

For the past two Christmases, getting our Christmas tree was gratifyingly easy. You know, seeing as how we actually lived on an real Christmas tree farm. Most other aspects of life on the Canadian border were most assuredly not easy--like regular deadly blizzards and endless winter--but the Christmas tree? No problem. We just walked a hundred yards up the road, cut one down, and brought it home.

Here, however, in our new House of Enchantment, there are definitely no Christmas trees within a hundred yards of our house. I had joked with the boys that maybe we should just decorate a tumbleweed--yes, there are real, actual tumbleweeds all over the place here, just tumbling around like an Old West movie scene--and they thought that was a swell idea, but I had to explain that tumbleweeds don't have strong enough branches to hold ornaments and lights.

Yes, I did give it that much thought.

But in the end, I decided we had to go on an expedition into the canyon to get a more traditional Christmas tree.

Cue Friday Family Fun!

Now, when I say "traditional," I am using that in a loose sense. The traditional Christmas tree you'll find in a tree lot is most likely a variety of fir or spruce. But if you think we were going to drive to a tree lot--I haven't checked, but I bet the closest one is at least 75 miles away--and spend $60 or more for a tree, then you haven't been reading here long enough.

The three evergreen varieties native to this area that might be candidates for a Christmas tree are cedars*, Ponderosa pines, and pinyon pines. Cedars are more like shrubs than trees. Ponderosa pines here tend to be too big and also kind of rare. The pinyon pine is the best bet for a Christmas-tree-like size and shape. They do not, however, grow near our house. To find these trees, we had to go down into a canyon.

Fortuitously, A. had that permit to cut wood in a canyon--well, sort of on the rim of this canyon--somewhat near our house, so we loaded up the kids, attached the trailer to the van, and set off in pursuit of one live tree and many dead ones.

It took us about half an hour to get to the national forest road where we could cut wood, and that road was . . . let's say "unimproved."

These were not the worst of the ruts. The worst of the ruts were about twice as deep and had tire-popping sharp rocks embedded in them.

A. drove very carefully and managed not to bottom out or pop a tire. It was a little bumpy, though. Bumpy in the sense that if any of the kids had had loose teeth, that road would have taken care of their extraction. 

There were also two gates that had to be opened and closed, because there are cattle in this area.

The gates were my job.

Eventually we reached an area that had trees big enough to cut. Had we gone farther, there were even bigger ones, but we didn't know that yet. So we unloaded the whole happy crew and set to work.

A. cut. The boys loaded.

Some could carry more than others.

But every little bit counts.

Baby Lamb and I sat on the ground nearby and supervised.

Mostly I supervised her, to make sure she didn't crawl into any cow patties.

While the boys were waiting for A. to cut enough pieces for them to carry, they played in a little washed-out gully nearby, jumping in and over it and brandishing sticks.

Lambie there never quite made it over to the game, but she tried.

After A. had gotten as much wood as he could from this area, we loaded up again to explore the road further. A. thought it made a loop, but the road deteriorated so much that he decided to turn around and go back the way we came in rather than risk getting the whole family stuck.

Wise man.

Now, we still did not have a Christmas tree. We saw several pinyons that would have been perfect, but A.'s permit was only for dead wood, and far be it from us to break the law by cutting down a live tree.

So we went to Wally's ranch. 

Wally is a man who owns a ranch right next to this canyon. A. has been doing some masonry work for him on a very old house on his property. A. wanted to show us the house, so we stopped at Wally's house. He doesn't live in the one that's being restored; he has a new house on the ranch. 

Wally already had his Christmas tree up and when I admired it, he said right away, "Do you folks need a Christmas tree? Go cut one of those pinyons out there."

He also gave each of the boys a soda from his dedicated soda refrigerator. I suspect the boys will want to visit Wally again.

Anyway, after staying for a few minutes to chat with Wally, we all got back in the van to go to the stone house.

The top wood section is brand-new. The bottom stone part is extremely old.

All those stone walls need re-pointing, and A. is just the man for the job.

As cool as the house is--and it is--the boys were most excited about what was down the hill from it.

Wilderness. And a frozen stream.

While they chunked rocks into the frozen water to break the ice, I wandered around looking for a Christmas tree. Also avoiding cactus** and hoping there were no mountain lions in the vicinity.

That last one is not paranoia, by the way. There are actually a lot of mountain lions in that kind of terrain. 

It's a long way from a Target Christmas tree lot.

Anyway. I eventually found a pretty good pinyon. It was trying to hide, but I saw it.

You can't hide from me, little Christmas tree.

A. cut it down in short order, and then we all hiked the half mile up--and it was a steep up, and I was carrying the 23-pound baby--to the van to go home.

Now I just have to decorate the tree. And figure out a way to barricade it in so the crawling, standing baby doesn't yank it down. That might be almost as challenging as procuring the tree in the first place.

 * These are known locally as junipers for confusing reasons of nomenclature and if we all just used Latin names, there would be no confusion at all. Assuming you know the Latin names, which I do not. Sorry, MiL.

** I knew we weren't in the northwoods anymore when I announced, "Okay kids, we're going to get our Christmas tree. Don't fall into a cactus."

Friday Family Fun: On the Road Again

A. and I thought it had been too long since the children had been forced to sit in the car for over an hour to get to a semi-urban center. So we loaded them all in the van yesterday morning at 10 a.m. and struck out for a large town an hour and a half away. The primary purpose of this trip was for A. to get a permit to cut firewood in the canyon.

The secondary purpose was to decide if we want to make this town our center of commerce. We have to choose, you see, which town we visit once a month for a grocery run and a library visit. The small city we had been going to is kind of seedy, so we thought we'd try another place.

And so, we drove. An hour and a half and many, "Are we almost there?"s from the children later, we arrived at the Department of Agriculture office where A. was to get his permit. I allowed the children to get out and run around in front of the office building while we waited for A., which resulted in a man stepping out of his office to see what the commotion was.

I apologized for disturbing him, but he didn't seem bothered. He also didn't seem disposed to go back to work, and stood there talking to me about firewood varieties and prices for some time. When it was time for us to go, he gave the kids some canvas bags.

Next we went searching for a place to have our picnic lunch. There's a lake about ten miles from that town, but we couldn't find the right road and the troops were getting restless. I spied a playground on a side street, which turned out to be on the grounds of an abandoned elementary school.

The boys were thrilled with this. They started out playing on the playground.

Going old-school (ha) with a metal climbing structure. No plastic here.

Lots of good rocks, too. Poppy approved.

Pretty soon, they were just running wild around the grounds.

They darted up and down ramps.

About this time, Cubby said, "Well, I'll tell you, THIS was definitely worth the drive." Okay then.

They balanced on the perimeter wall.

The picnic went mobile.

They climbed entirely too high on the wall surrounding a court yard.

Well, Charlie did, because he is a monkey in boy's clothing.

And Poppy explored what looked to be a very decorative volleyball court.

She found a stick. It was apparently very tasty.

The school and its grounds, while now neglected, were actually very aesthetically pleasing in a way that modern schools definitely are not. A. thought the whole thing was probably built by the WPA. It's a shame it isn't used anymore. It didn't look as though it had been abandoned for very long, maybe just a few years.

Anyway.

After that, we went to check out (ha again) the library. Libraries are very important in our decision-making regarding where we choose to drive. This library, while small, was very nice, and the librarian was extremely friendly and helpful.

Next we went to the grocery store. I had been to this store only once, but remembered it as superior to any others I've been to around here. This was confirmed. It has a particularly good produce section, which is important to me.

So we decided this is our town of commerce from now on.

That decided, and the boys fortified with Mexican paletas (coconut for all three), we began the long drive home. Poppy and Jack fell asleep. Cubby and Charlie played a game with me in which I said a word and they had to think of a word that rhymed.

This is really fun to play with two little boys, because of course the greatest hilarity ensues when they can think of a rhyming word that relates to bodily functions. Cubby was particularly skilled at this. So it would go like this:

Me: Okay, how about . . . bird.

Charlie: Heard!

Cubby: Turd! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Me: Okay, how about . . . bush.

Charlie: Ummmm . . .

Cubby: Tush! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

And so on.

And that was it for Fun Friday. Next Friday will be the funnest of all, as we will be driving over 600 miles to my brother's house in Phoenix to kick off our Thanksgiving week in Arizona. That's a lot of time for rhyming games. Whee.

Friday Family Fun: Doing Without Daddy

A. had his own fun this Friday doing some masonry work (that's not sarcastic--that genuinely is fun for him), so it was up to me to make fun for the four kids.

And me, but I don't ever anticipate actually having fun myself. That way, I'm always pleasantly surprised when I do.

Anyway.

I was planning on taking them up to the new house after Poppy's morning nap, but despite many attempts, she refused to actually take one. And in the process of trying to get her to sleep, the boys got bored and started fighting and it was getting ugly.

So I made the executive decision to give up on the morning nap and haul the whole crew up to the new house right then.

I quickly threw some stuff in a bag for a picnic lunch--a chunk of cheese and a knife to cut it with, Nut Thins crackers, salami, a bag of grapes, and water bottles--made sure the stroller was in the car, and loaded the whole happy lot of them up for our admittedly lame adventure.

When we got there, I turned Poppy over to her brothers while I went into the house to do some work on the hallway walls.

Don't worry. I made sure she had a plastic bottle to keep her entertained.

Although with these three maniacs racing around, who needs more entertainment?

I left instructions with Cubby to come get me if she got too fussy and went inside to start sanding the spackle and washing down the walls of the hallway.

Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about the (yet MORE) brown carpet.

When we bought this house, A. remarked that it was nice it was so clean, considering it was occupied by a bachelor. Bless his heart, A. is a bachelor himself in perspective if not actual fact, so he didn't even notice that the place was not actually clean. Had he seen the black water I kept having to dump out as I washed the walls, he would not have been so positive.

Anyway again.

I got about twenty uninterrupted minutes before Cubby came in to announce that Poppy was getting fussy. I told him to wheel her over to the house in her stroller, thereby buying me another five minutes. And then he volunteered to push her around outside and keep her happy for another fifteen minutes or so. This meant that she only crawled around my feet and cried for a few minutes at the end while I finished up.

A portrait of the neglected child and her mean mom.

After I finished my self-imposed task, I set up the picnic lunch for everyone.

This bench A. made is a perfect children's picnic table.

The boys were pretending that they were eating at a cafe. I brought them their water bottles, and they called me the waitress.

Not too far from the truth, as a matter of fact. Although the tips around here are terrible.

Charlie while watching the leaves blow briskly away in the wind, "Do you think they're fleeing from winter?"

I let them play a little longer in their fort/ship/tractor/whatever its current incarnation was:

Otherwise known as A.'s trailer.

I finally took pity on the drooping baby and took them all back to the house with a crib so she could have a much-needed nap.

Unfortunately, the much-needed nap only lasted a piddling 45 minutes. Fortunately, her brothers had set up an elaborate ship game on the front porch that provided plenty of opportunities to crawl around and grab things.

She was allowed to do this because she was the princess in the game. As in real life.

And that was pretty much it for the fun this Friday. It would have been a lot more fun without The Incredible Fussing Baby, but that's the way life goes sometimes.