This One Is Better

I was so pleased that several of you also know of and love "Still, Still, Still." Particularly that the anonymous someone with Austrian grandparents now knows the name of the song her grandparents used to sing. That's so great.

It's not a very well-known carol. The only reason I know it is because my mom and I had a tradition of going to my university's choir concert/dinner every December, and they always sang it there. 

As I mentioned yesterday, though, I find it very hard to find good performances of the Christmas songs I really like. I don't enjoy large choral arrangements, but it's difficult to find solo artists that sing carols traditionally. Especially the less well-known hymns.

But! I found a version of "Still, Still, Still" I like better than the a cappella version I posted yesterday. I really appreciate how the woman singing (Sarah Gregory) has a very pleasant voice but doesn't sound overtly trained. Sort of like if your friend with the really good voice was singing it in your living room.

And while we're on the subject! One of my other favorite Christmas hymns is "O Holy Night." Josh Groban has a good version, although his voice is, obviously, much more trained.

I guess although I appreciate professionals and their fantastic voices as instruments, I feel like Christmas carols should be accessible to anyone to sing. Hearing someone like Josh Groban sing is sort of intimidating for an average singer like myself.

As for the Christmas carol I most enjoy singing myself, that would be "Joy to the World," without question. It's so fun to sing, and really does sound, well, joyful. It's impossible to be down while singing this song.

How about you? What are your favorite Christmas songs? And do you have any recommendations for really good Christmas albums for me?

The Sound of Silence

When you look at this picture, what do you hear?

Nothing, right? It's just a picture! There's nothing to hear!

Except that's what I actually heard when I took this photo in that spot.

It's not usually silent on my morning walks. In the summer, there's a cacophony of birds and far more traffic on the paved road a half mile away. Any time of year, there's likely to be at least some wind whistling past my ears.

But in the winter, before the sun is even up, if there is no wind and no one happening to drive on that paved road while I'm walking, I can stop and hear the blissful sound of . . . silence.

I don't know if you've ever really heard silence before. It is certainly pretty much impossible in a man-made environment. It's not very common even in nature. The only times I've experienced true silence are in winter, often after a snowfall, when everything is muffled and the animals aren't moving around**.

But here, even when there isn't any snow, I can sometimes go out for a morning walk and stand still in perfect silence*.

Bliss. And the perfect counterbalance to a season that is, despite all the joy, a very loud one.

* What's funny is that perfect silence actually sounds a bit like faint ringing, I suppose because at such times it's actually possible to hear my own blood moving.

** Which reminds me of my favorite Christmas carol, an Austrian song called "Still, Still, Still." It's hard for me to find good versions of carols like this, because they tend to be sung by large choirs, which sounds beautiful but makes it hard to actually hear the words. Here's an a cappella version by a men's group in which you can hear the lyrics, although it's not my favorite version. 

Snapshots: Meat!

Tea, rye crisps, and Hop on Pop. Living our best lives, for sure.

Battle gear for a horribly windy day that was blowing dirt all over. Everyone needed a shower when they came inside. Gross.

We used a new butcher this time for the cow we bought from our neighbors, and the meat came back to us in these feed sacks. First time I've ever seen it not in boxes. Not that it matters, actually. Boxes or bags, it will still drive Odin crazy.

This freezer has most of the fruits and vegetables, all the older meat to be used*, and now, a couple hundred pounds of ground beef. Yay!

The other freezer has all the rest of the beef--mostly steaks--a random box of bell peppers, and the box with all the bags of tomato sauce. 

And last, some of our minimal Christmas decorations.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

* All that was left of the steer we got last year was the tongue and a package of brisket. I still have about fifteen pounds of bull meat, though.

A Saturday in December

I know! A rare post on a Saturday. This is not one of my typical posting days, but who says Tuesday is now the only day I can be random?

It is cold, and windy, and generally inhospitable. This means that we have all been inside all day. And A. was gone much of the day retrieving our beef from the processor in Oklahoma (yay!).

As a means of distraction--and also because one child asked about the Christmas stockings--we pulled out our (very minimal) Christmas decorations today and put them up. Of course, this required putting on some Christmas carols. 

I'm partial to crooners singing classic Christmas carols, although one child requested Jeff Foxworthy's "12 Redneck Days of Christmas."

Later, Ritchie, our beloved UPS delivery man, brought us some boxes that included the bulk oats I ordered, some stocking stuffers, and a DVD of "Mickey's Christmas Carol." We have a tradition of watching one Christmas movie for every weekend of Advent, so I immediately put this one on.

I guess all of this inspired a very Christmas-y feeling in the children, because when I announced that I was retiring to the bedroom for one hour and that any further questions were to be directed to A., they all went into the living room to listen to YouTube Christmas music. 

I don't know what else they're doing in there, but I can hear "Last Christmas" through the door. 

I'm feeling very much in the Christmas spirit, and I guess my children are, too.

Friday Food: In Which We Demolish a Turkey

Friday 

Short version: Leftovers, of course

Long version: Isn't the day after Thanksgiving the National Day of Leftovers? No? Well, that's what we had, anyway, federal holiday or no.

Saturday

Short version: Brisket, rice, pureed calabaza, more leftovers, canned peaches

Long version: There had been a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers, for both lunch and dinner, so I thought everyone would appreciate a turkey break. I made the brisket, rice, and calabaza, and then half the children chose turkey and various other leftovers anyway. Okay.

I ate the brisket, because I don't even like turkey freshly cooked, much less as a leftover.

The canned peaches were commercial canned peaches, not mine. We've been getting a lot of peaches from the excess commodities lately, so I put three cans in the refrigerator to chill and everyone finally got a pretty big serving of peaches. 

Sunday

Short version: Turkey enchilada casserole, peach and blueberry crisp with maple yogurt

Long version: I broke down the last of the turkey this day--six people can take care of a 22-pound turkey in five days, apparently--and used some of it to make a really big enchilada casserole. 

I didn't serve a separate vegetable, but there were lettuce and tomato. It was still my lettuce, that's been sitting in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks now, and my tomatoes, that have been slowly ripening in a box on the floor of the kitchen for over a month.

The crisp was made with a gallon bag of Nick's peaches that I had cut in half and pitted, but weren't peeled. When they thaw, the skins come right off. Of course, frozen peaches don't hold their shape when they're thawed, but who cares when they taste that good? The blueberries were a five-pound bag of Sysco blueberries that I've had for at least a year. I really need to finish them up.

We finally got a delivery of wood this day, late in the afternoon. 

The exciting moment when it all comes crashing out of the dump truck is the best part.

The boys got about half of it stacked in the hour or so before it got dark and I called them in to eat. 

Monday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I brought home some chicken tacos from the school lunch. A. had some of the turkey and rice soup I had made the day before, along with a couple of tacos. Calvin had the other two tacos, plus some of the leftover enchilada casserole.

Jack and Poppy had the casserole. And Cubby had the last scoop of the casserole mixed with some of the soup, to make a kind of taco turkey soup.

I had the lettuce and tomatoes left over from the night before's casserole topping with some leftover brisket.

Tuesday

Short version: Chuck eye steaks, boiled potato chunks, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: The very last of the garden lettuce that's been hanging out in the refrigerator for at least two weeks. Ditto the dill, which has been in a jar of water that long. I also used a couple of the long-ripening tomatoes from the box on the floor.

Garden produce really is the best. I will miss mine until spring.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, frozen peas, sleep

Long version: I had a headache building all afternoon at work, and by the time dinner came around at 6 p.m., the headache was a migraine, I was sick to my stomach, and all I could do was crawl into bed.

Luckily, I had already put everything in the oven for dinner. "Everything" was leftover "fish planks" (like sticks, but wider) from the school lunch, leftover brisket, leftover boiled potatoes, and the peas. By the time A. got home with Cubby, all he had to do was take it all out of the oven and let the children serve themselves.

There was also leftover chocolate cake from the school cafeteria, which of course was finished off with no problem.

I, meanwhile, slept off and on from 5:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m., got up briefly to put on my pajamas and brush my teeth, and went back to bed until 5:30 the following morning. I woke up all better, and very happy to see that A. had cleaned up the kitchen along with feeding the children, helping with homework, and getting them all to bed.

The old-fashioned but excellent word "helpmate" comes to mind.

Thursday

Short version: Beef tri tip, spaghetti with roasted tomato sauce, leftover peas, pureed squash

Long version: The beef was a pretty small, narrow piece that I just seared, sliced thin, and then returned to the pan to cook a bit more. Then I put some of the roasted tomato sauce and butter on it.

The tomato sauce for both the spaghetti and the meat was a bag of my own sauce from the freezer. I always feel like I shouldn't start using it too early, but then, I suppose there's also no point in hoarding it.

Peas for the children, squash for the adults. That's usually the way it goes in our house.

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

A Short Rant About Lights

One of my favorite things to put up in the winter are the small white lights that I wind around the decorative iron thing that separates our kitchen from the dining room. 

Light in the darkness.

The lights I use were actually left here by the previous owner of the house, so I have no idea how old they are. 

But I know they must be pretty old, because they don't hurt my eyes.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed that non-colored twinkle lights now really are white. They're a glaring, stark, absolutely terrible white. The older ones are more yellow. They glow, they don't glare.

One of the strands I had stopped working last year, so I tried buying a new string online. I specifically searched for "warm" white lights. When I plugged them in, however, they were very far from "warm." They were awful.

So now I guess I'll just have to use my last remaining strand until it dies and then I won't have lights anymore. Or maybe by then there will have been a revolution and the people will once again demand lights that aren't an assault to the eyes.

Snapshots: Courtesy of A.

When A. goes places and brings the cell phone, he often takes photos, usually of things I would probably not have thought to photograph.

From a quail-hunting excursion.

A very impressive WPA-built wall of hand-cut stone surrounding the old school in a town we go to sometimes for groceries.

Adventure Van hauls cattle. Well, a single cow, anyway, to the butcher.

He repaired our neighbor's crumbling chimney.

Good view from the roof.

There you have it! A.'s life, snapshotted.