For All the Mothers (Ovine and Otherwise)

We have a brand-new mother around here, and for once it isn't me. One of the full-to-bursting ewes had a lamb three days ago. It's another girl lamb, and it was lucky enough to be born during our warm spell and thus did not require any shepherd intervention.

Do I have a picture of it for you? No, I do not. But! I do have a picture of the Megaton cabbage plantation!

Cabbages are just as cute as lambs, right?

Because it is Mother's Day and I get to do what I want, I spent the morning planting out almost all of the starts that were in the kitchen grow box. There are now 12 tomato plants and two pepper plants out in the backyard cells A. prepared for me. They are protected from our vicious winds with the most aesthetic of objects:

Our house is definitely going to be on the next Home and Garden Tour.

I got the idea for the tires from the lady we used to buy milk from. She said they work really well, and you can just keep stacking them up as the plants get bigger. God knows, we have plenty of old tires on our new (abandoned) property. I'm also hoping the heat absorbed by the black tires will keep the plants a bit warmer and happier during our cool nights in the summer.

I also planted out the remaining eight basil seedlings in various places. Those have some attractive plastic milk jugs around them, too.

A. spent the morning cutting up and hauling away the board fence that used to be where that stone wall is in the above picture. It was big, heavy, and awkward, and has been sitting in the middle of the yard near my lettuce for months now. His gift to me was two hours with a chainsaw and wheelbarrow to get it off the ground and out of my way.

Beautiful bare ground, just waiting to be planted with something. More cabbages, maybe?

Cubby nailed up some of the wood to cover gaps in the fence to keep the dogs from racing around that yard and over my carrots. He also used some hinges that had been on the section of fence A. cut up to actually afix the gate to the post to that yard, so now I have a fully-functioning gate there, instead of various propped-up pieces of wood that were always getting blown over in the wind.

I knew all those hours he spent playing with tools as a toddler would pay off later.

After Poppy's nap, A. took all four kids (and the dogs) to our neighbor's canyon so I could sit here in a quiet house. Except it's not all that quiet, because I'm listening to music on my computer. I love music, but I absolutely cannot have it on when my kids are around, because they make too much noise of their own and the combination of them and the music just makes me crazy.

So for now, it's just me and Gary Allan.* And both of us are right where we need to be.

Happy Mother's Day to all my sisters in arms. I hope the day is exactly what you wish it to be.

* It occurs to me that I should be taking advantage of my children's absence to listen to something not appropriate for their innocent ears. Pink, coming right up!

Friday Food: Frozen Treats Galore (Okay, Twice)

Friday

Short version: Elk bites, pasta, cucumber and carrot sticks with ranch dressing

Long version: Small pieces of elk sliced thin, then fried in bacon fat. Same as the day before, because when I take a bag of elk out of the freezer, I have . . . a lot of elk to use.

The pasta had a sauce made of the last of the pizza sauce from a few days previously, plus butter cream cheese, and the pasta water. It was kind of a miracle I remembered to save some of the water before I drained the pasta. I almost always forget. It does help with these kinds of thicker sauces, though, to thin them out a bit.

Saturday

Short version: Elk chili, rice

Long version: As is my habit when I'm anticipating temperatures at or over 90 degrees, I did most of my cooking the morning. The chili, that is. Then, at dinnertime, all I had to make was some rice. Which was a good thing, because by dinnertime, I reeeeally didn't want to be messing around with food AT ALL (it was a challenging day with the children), and I was very grateful all I had to do was heat things up, prep some toppings, and throw some bowls and spoons on the table.

Sure, they look all adorably western in their cowboy boots and jeans, but get the four of them together and they can cause some serious irritation in their mother.

Sunday

Short version: Leftover chili and rice, fried eggs, carrot sticks, banana chocolate ice cream

Long version: With the hot weather, the children were wishing we had ice cream. That is not so easy to get here 90 miles from anywhere, but we did have quite a few bananas from A.'s grocery store run the previous week.

Whenever I put "bananas" on a list for him, I brace myself for excessive quantities of bananas. This time I think he bought 12.

So I had enough bananas to make that fake ice cream with frozen bananas. I always have to add some milk or cream to loosen it up, and I also always add cocoa powder. Sometimes I add peanut butter, although I didn't this time.

The school Sysco program offers bananas, but I haven't gotten any yet because they only offer them in ten-pound boxes. I thought that was too many, but it occurs to me now that I could freeze a lot of them in chunks and thus ensure our fake ice cream supply for the summer. Based on the complaints from every single child because they only got one serving of it, they would approve of this.

Monday

Short version: Grilled cheese sandwiches, cucumber spears, and yogurt for the kids, leftovers for me

Long version: One of the newer offerings from the school Sysco program is frozen fruit. That's why I have two five-pound bags of diced strawberries that I can use with abandon in the children's yogurt.

Such abundance! Is this what it's like to shop at Costco?

Random photo break!

The construction site, with Poppy manning (womanning?) the digger.

Tuesday

Short version: Ground beef tacos

Long version: Feliz Cinco de Mayo! In celebration of the holiday, I made my children crispy tacos.

Okay, so really it was just because I happened to have my griddle pan still on the stove from the grilled cheese sandwiches I made for lunch, and it still had some butter on it, so I decided to warm up the store-bought tortillas on the griddle pan instead of in the microwave.

Three out of four children loved the crunchier tacos. Only Charlie didn't, but that was mostly because he started eating a full ten minutes after the rest of us--a disagreement we had about the appropriateness of wearing his tiger get-up of paper whiskers taped to his face and toothpicks duct-taped to his fingers--and so his sat on the pan a lot longer.

This was the best of all possible taco worlds, because we had both avocado AND fresh lime. Grocery stores are wondrous places.

Wednesday

Short version: Sheep ribs, baked potatoes, steamed broccoli

Long version: Both A. and Cubby were in raptures over the sheep ribs, which were just marinated and then baked at 300 degrees for like 5 hours. The meat was pretty good, but OH THE FAT. Evvverywhere during clean-up.

Which is why the ribs taste so good, of course. At least, that's what A. thinks.

Thursday

Short version: Soft tacos with leftover taco meat, leftover broccoli, strawberries and cream popsicles

Long version: I definitely bribed the children with popsicles so they would clean Charlie and Jack's room (a.k.a. The Toy Room) well enough so I could vacuum it. I was totally planning on making the root beer and cream kind, though, because all that requires is mixing prepared ingredients and pouring it into the molds.

When I offered my popsicles for clean room trade, however, Charlie said, "I'll do it if the popsicles aren't those root beer ones. Those don't taste quite right."

Dammit.

So then I had to cook frozen strawberries with sugar and water and haul out the food processor to puree it all, then add in cream and vanilla, and THEN pour it into the molds.

They were really good popsicles, though.

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

Construction by Kristin

Although there are many things I do well, building things is not one of them. Never hand me a hammer and expect something usable to come from my efforts. In fact, it's entirely possible I will end up with an unusable, exploded thumb.

But if you need something cobbled together out of cardboard boxes and duct tape? I am your woman.

Luckily for the chicks, a bigger home for them fell within my scope of building. That is, I could duct tape some pieces of cardboard to one of the old drawers we took out of the bunk bed to make the drawer higher and voila! A chick house.

I even found one of the dividers for the dogs' crates and taped that on one end of the box so that the children had a viewing end. That also has the benefit of keeping one end of the box open for better air flow.

And for better photos.

On the other end, with a solid piece of cardboard there and the heat lamp, the chicks can get into a warmer area if they feel cold.

See? Not only am I a general contractor, I am an architect. And I didn't have to pick up a hammer.

I'm Just Here for the Validation

You know how it is when you accomplish something relatively small but nonetheless satisfying and you just know no one else is even going to notice, much less congratulate you on your accomplishment?

That was today, when I finally climbed up and down a chair many, many times to scrub off the disgusting combination of grease* and dust that was furring all the high edges of cabinets and the ceiling fan in the kitchen.

No one will notice this in my house except for me. Therefore, I'm just going to share this minor accomplishment with the Internet at large so as to feel appreciated.

Have you accomplished anything unheralded but satisfying lately? Please do share so I can congratulate you.

* I fry things a lot. Mostly meat. I have often thought that my kitchen would be a lot easier to keep clean if I wasn't feeding so many militant carnivores every day. 

Friday Food: The Elk Is Back

Friday

Short version: Mutton backstrap, pasta, frozen green peas

Long version: The backstrap is one of the best cuts of meat, which means I don't have to do anything with it other than slice it, season it, and fry it. Which I did. And it was good.

The pasta had random sauce I made from some pureed tomatoes (the tasteless Sysco ones that I cooked a bit and then pureed in the food processor, skins and all, before putting small containers of it in the freezer), the last two cubes of pesto from the freezer, and some heavy cream. Sometimes those kinds of thrown-together sauces work, and sometimes they don't. This one worked.

Probably it was mostly because of the pesto. I really hope the eleven basil plants I have to plant out soon make it and produce a lot of basil for pesto this year.

Saturday

Short version: Ground beef tacos with homemade corn tortillas

Long version: Standard taco meat and tortillas, with the exciting addition of hot chili sauce for A. I make taco meat pretty mild--I could claim it's because of all the small children I'm feeding, but really it's because of me and my wimpy tastebuds--and A. has said he would like some hot sauce to put on tacos and chili and so on.

I was going to buy some hot sauce, but then I decided that was stupid when I had a huge bag of dried red chilis A. bought at the store a couple of months ago. All I did with them was soak them in hot water until they were soft, then puree them in the food processor and add some salt and vinegar. It was pretty hot, and A. was very pleased with it. As was Cubby. His tastebuds are far tougher than mine.

Random photo break! A. took this one down in the canyon at a place they stopped to fish (unsuccessfully):

This looks unreal to me, like a movie set or something.

Sunday

Short version: Pork, breads, squash, frozen green beans, graham cracker cookies

Long version: Pork butt cooked carnitas-style (that is, slow cooked, then fried in lard), more of the garlic bread dough that I cut into individual portions and allowed the children to season as they wished, and the very last of the frozen squash from last year.

The cookies are a recipe I got from the lady we used to buy milk from. They have only whole-wheat flour and the main sweeteners are Sucanat (the lady gave some to me, which is the only reason I have it) and honey. That makes them practically health food. I make them in small squares and call them cookies. They're pretty good, actually, although calling them cookies is a stretch.

Monday

Short version: Split-pea curry, leftover pork, leftover rice, frozen green beans, arugula salad

Long version: My children sometimes engage in what I call "mob eating." That is, one of them gets so enthusiastic about a particular food that they all jump on the bandwagon and eat multiple servings of whatever it is. In this case, it was the curry.

It was just a yellow curry of split peas, with some random pureed tomatoes I needed to use up, and a bit of heavy cream, but the children, led by Cubby, ate SO MUCH CURRY. They all ate two servings of  rice and curry and, when the rice was gone, started on bowls of just curried split peas. I put a stop to that after a couple of bowls each. I feared for their digestion.

The arugula was starting to bolt and will definitely finish that process in the multiple days this weekend when we're supposed to be over 90 degrees (WHAT?), so I pulled it up. I'm sad to say good-bye to the arugula. It never lasts as long as I would like it to.

I helped Jack do one of the crafts his preschool teacher sent home:

It's a chick. He did not like it, hence the sulky face.

And then, of course, Poppy wanted to make something, so I stretched my creativity to the limit and helped her make a pig:

You think I'm joking, but this really is the limit of my crafting ability. I would be the world's worst preschool teacher.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover curry, boiled potatoes, fried eggs, frozen green beans

Long version: Despite his enthusiasm the night before, Charlie elected to not have the curry over the potatoes. Everyone else had it, though, along with the eggs and the inevitable green beans.

Wednesday

Short version: Pizza, cucumber slices with vinegar and salt

Long version: I decided to make pizza mostly because I needed to trim the basil plants that are really getting too tall for the grow box in the kitchen but can't go outside just yet. Also, it was going to be cool enough to crank the oven up for pizza without wanting to douse myself in ice water.

As if I really need reasons to make pizza.

These were particularly good, too. One was just cheese, and one was half bacon with anchovy paste and half roasted bell pepper and onion/green garlic/thinly sliced raw onion.

I ate the one with the variety of alliums, which was one of the best pizzas I have ever had. More alliums, more better.

And why did we have bell peppers and cucumber? Because A. went to the grocery store. For the first time in seven weeks. I was SO EXCITED.

So were the children. They dove right into the grapes as soon as he got home. I had a seltzer. And there was much rejoicing in the land.

Thursday

Short version: Elk bites, leftover potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: You thought the elk was gone, didn't you? THINK AGAIN.

There are still at least three bags of elk in the freezer. I figured enough time had elapsed since we last ate it that the children wouldn't be too displeased to see it on their plates.

I was right. They all went back for seconds of meat. The ketchup I allow them to have it with it might have something to do with that.

Charlie ate all of his salad without comment, which is how I discovered that it's not the salad he objects to, but the vinaigrette I usually make for a salad dressing. It doesn't take much longer to make the ranch dressing, so I guess I'll be doing that more often.

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

Welcome to the Hatchery

I'll just start off with the picture everyone is waiting for: The fluffy chicks.

Taken right after I put fresh paper towels down in their tub, because otherwise it's just too nasty to show the world. Birds are gross.

I've never used an incubator before to hatch eggs, but we have fertilized eggs, thanks to our mean rooster that terrifies the children, but apparently fulfills his natural duties. A. was starting to talk about making a homemade incubator, but the temperature and humidity have to be within a very small range for the chicks to form correctly, and I was worried about cooking the chicks or something in a homemade incubator.

So then I looked into buying an incubator, but I could see right away that you definitely get what you pay for with incubators, and I did not want to spend hundreds of dollars on a good one.

And THEN, Jack's preschool teacher mentioned she was thinking of borrowing an incubator from one of the other teachers. This is one of the incubators they use at the school to hatch chicks with the kids every year, but obviously, that was not happening this year. So I offered to keep the incubator here and take care of the eggs given to me by the preschool teacher, along with thirteen eggs of our own.

It seemed sort of unlikely that putting the same eggs I eat for breakfast into a heated styrofoam box would result in chickens, but I took the leap of faith that is artificial incubation.

This incubator was a really nice one. Not only does it have a thermostat and temperature regulator, it also has a humidity read-out (although it required some experimentation to figure out how much water to put in at what intervals to keep the humidity at the right level). 

And most importantly, it turns the eggs automatically.

The eggs have to be turned so the forming chicks don't stick to the side of the egg. Without an automatic turner, I would have had to turn every single egg at least three times a day.

I could do without that kind of commitment. I found it hard enough to keep the humidity levels at the right place.

Anyway.

After ten days of incubation, the eggs can be candled. This is just shining a light through the egg, and is how you determine if the chicks are actually forming in there or if the egg is a dud. As you might guess from the name, this was originally done with an actual candle, although the best method in the modern day is using the light on a smart phone.

I found that really funny.

Anyway again.

The light from the phone showed us that all thirteen of our eggs seemed to be developing, and only two of the preschool teacher's eggs were. I removed the non-fertile eggs, leaving 15 eggs still in the incubator. And then, ten days later, I woke up to cheeping in the kitchen.

CHIIIIICK!

Chicken eggs are supposed to take 21 days to hatch, and that little dude (or, I hope, dudette) was early. It spent a lonely day in the incubator with nothing but eggs for company until the next chick started to break out just before the children's bedtime.

Of course, I let them stay awake to watch it hatch out all the way:

It took the chick about half an hour to get all the way out, by which time I was reeeeally tired and the children were reeeeally hyped up.

By the next morning, there were three more already hatched out and one more working its way out. We watched that one hatch out all the way, too.

Newly-hatched chicks are really not cute. They're pretty wet and unappealing, actually.

One more chick hatched out later that day, bringing our total to seven. 

They're supposed to stay in the incubator until they're dry, so I left them in there until that night and then transferred them to their feed-tub brooder in the kids' bathroom, leaving the remaining eight eggs in the incubator.

It's possible for chicken eggs to hatch as late as 25 days, so I'm going to leave those eight in there until tomorrow, although I don't really think they're going to do anything.

Two of the seven chicks are going to the preschool teacher, leaving us with only five chicks. I was planning on putting new eggs into the incubator and doing it all over again, but now one of our hens appears to have decided to go broody.

So maybe she'll do it for me. But if she doesn't, I can go broody myself, with the help of some modern machinery.

We Have Chicks!

And I hatched them myself!

Okay, so I didn't actually sit on a clutch of eggs myself until they hatched, but I did manage to successfully use an incubator for the first time ever to hatch chicks.

We have seven. They are very cute. Pictures and story to come when I don't have to spend the day on Zoom school meetings . . .

Until then, you can go read this thing I wrote for Kristen-with-an-"e" about going grocery shopping less frequently. (Of all the things I ever thought I would become an expert on, that was not a thing I had ever considered. Life sure is funny like that.)