On locales

The April showers came all at once and spent the better part of today soaking our area. Which is good, since we’re still feeling the effects of last year’s drought in some places. Certainly the area farmers ought to be happy – the hayfields ought to be in good shape, which means better winter feeding for livestock, and so on.

We have some good friends locally who raise some of their own beef. Late last year, we bought part of a side and it was delicious. We’re down to the last dozen or so oddball cuts and haven’t had a stinker yet (well, except for the ribs – they were a bit on the fatty side). They’ve upped the ante and gone to three head this year. Last week, the kids got to go over and feed them. From big bottles. We didn’t belabor the fact that we will probably be eating one of them at some point. The cows, I mean. Our friends always name their food animals after food (“Big Mac”, “Whopper”, “Chocolate”, “Steak” and so on). Seeing their place outside of town renewed the itch I’ve had to buy a real piece of property somewhere Out There where there are no covenants or city ordinances to prevent, say, a beehive or a chicken or two.

On the other hand, at the 2 year mark in this house, I think we’ve finally just unpacked the last box recently. Certainly I’m in no hurry to try to stage and sell a place that\’s still full of small kids. Ugh. We got lucky when we moved up here from Atlanta – put our place on the market and had an offer in the first week. Not sure we could pull that off again. Maybe in a few years. Our neighborhood is great, and we’ve finally reached a point where the insides and outsides are Our Own Place: paint, some landscaping changes, vegetables, compost bin. All the little things. We’ll see. Meanwhile, we scan the real estate classifieds and daydream about some of these 10 and 15 acre lots that are out there. Mmmm. I, for one, miss being surrounded by mature wooded areas. Most of the area around here is reclaimed pasture, so you can imagine that it’s a bit on the bare side. There are whole populations of birds and critters that go along with the trees, and I find myself missing them.Most of them. Not the roof rats. I don’t miss those little bastards at all.

Now everyone’s in bed and we have some movies to watch. Disc 1 of Season 4 of BSG and Munich. Have to pace ourselves, you know. Tomorrow, if there’s a break in the rain, I’ll unwrap the statue of the Blessed Virgin that we brought with us and install it near the butterfly garden. May is the Marian month, you know.

A note to the children: I found another one on the upstairs door frame. Hear me well: one of these days, I\’m going to catch whoever is doing this. When I do, that person is going to have two problems: a bloody nose and a broken finger.

Parent Hacks takes on the crock pot.

Discussions ensue. There will probably be some good things posted here, so check the thread from time to time.

Kombucha

I picked up a bottle of kombucha while I was running some errands that took me near the local health food spot. I had been hearing about it on various food and beverage blogs and had been intrigued. Kombucha is basically fermented tea. You brew a jar of tea, toss in a bit of culture from the last batch, let it grow until it forms a big, slimy layer on top and presto, you have an ancient beverage full of probiotic goodness and other vague, unspecified benefits.

The stuff I bought is labeled “Raw,” and has visible bits of…stuff…floating around the bottom of the bottle. This, I am informed, is normal. The guy at the checkout register warned me against handling it too roughly, and let me carry it out by hand rather than bagging it.

“It will explode. It’s happened here before. A bottle fell over and the cap shot out way over there.” I told him I’d never had the stuff. “Some of them,” he said, “are pretty good. Others are…”

He paused.

“…earthy.”

I grabbed my stuff and came back to the office. Come in, sit down, uncap it and take a sip.

It tastes like carbonated vinegar. Nasty at first, but not so nasty that I want to immediately pitch it. One of those did I really just taste that? nastys. There were other flavors available – perhaps one of them would be a little more pleasant. This tastes like I suspected it would – a beverage on the verge of going bad. If something in the fridge had tasted like this, I would have tossed it immediately. I changed my mind. I think I’m done with this.

Oh well. Next stop is yerba mate.

Extra-cool kitchen tip!

Did you know that many, if not most, blenders can be used with a standard mason jar, or wide-mouthed mason jar?

Tip: Blender and Mason Jar at Simply Recipes, via lifehacker

Tents, mowers, and…FRYBREAD.

As expected, the weather here was beautiful so we spent most of the weekend outside.

On Saturday, we pitched one of the tents just to see how to do it. I think I got it up in around 35 minutes, including several un-doings of poles and re-doings of this, that and the other. Having done it once, I think I could get it raised in about 20 minutes or less next time, not including all the little tying-off various flaps and whatnot inside. We can at least be out of the weather fairly quickly.

Two impressions: first, these thing are huge.  I realize they won’t seem quite as large once they’re full of gear and sleeping children, but still. Much larger than I thought they’d be. Secondly, tent materials have come a seriously long way. No aluminum tubes with little spring buttons here. It’s all shock-cords and fiberglass, and even though it’s all modern fabrics, it still had that…new tent smell. Tough to describe, and I’d heretofore associated it with the ol’ canvas monster that we slept in on family outings when I was wee. But there it was. My wife came into the tent and immediately said “it smells like a tent in here,” so I knew I wasn’t crazy.

That sane afternoon saw me buying a new mower and tiller from the local Big Box Tool Place. The old mower still runs fine, but the self-propel mechanism has been hinky for a couple of years now, and this past summer had pretty much given out. The belt has been replaced a few times, but the innards were all rusted out, and the user (me) was consigned to pushing the thing around manually. This is not so good – weight considerations don’t seem to come into the design of a mower that’s intended to push itself. It’s darn heavy. The back wheels on the old one were also shot, having also been replaced twice. Our old yard had a considerable slope in front, and after years of pushing it back and forth sideways on a hill, the inside hubs of the wheels would disintegrate until the thing rolled around like it was drunk. I had considered pushing the thing up and down the hill by way of mitigation, however, see my earlier notes regarding weight. Half the time, I’d be muscling this thing up the hill, the other half, struggling to keep it from roaring down the hill and into the cul-de-sac, over the children, &c.

The new one took off like a shot and I knocked out the front yard in record time. It felt a little odd, mowing as early as March, but it had gotten pretty bushy in the front and I wanted to try it out anyway. The back is some type of bermuda grass. Or at least I hope that it is. Whatever it is, it’s all brown at the moment. The tiller is still in the box, though were only 20 or so days away from the last-frost date for this area. Several areas of the yard are going to get terra-formed here real soon now.

Today we went to a local American Indian Festival. I’ve never been to a pow wow before, and I have to say it was pretty interesting. We watched one of the Grand Entries, where all of the dancers come in and circle the arena, and stayed for a few of the other group dances. The kids enjoyed seeing the outfits and, really, how do you argue with event that features buffalo chili on frybread? You don’t, Searches-for-Tums. You’d be wasting your time. Don’t even try. My ignorance of pow wows also made me ignorant of frybread, to say nothing of frybread with buffalo chili, lettuce, cheese and tomatoes, the so-called “Indian Taco.” I spent all day savoring it. I then came home, Googled it and discovered that, according to one source, a single serving has – say this next part in your best Darth Vader voice – 700 calories and 27g of fat.

Welp. You only go around once.

I took a few pictures, but unfortunately, the lighting was terrible inside this place so everything looks dark and muddy. After we got home, we dug out Pancho’s new kite and tried it out in the field down the street. The wind started to get a little gusty as the afternoon wore on, so we ended up reeling it in and heading home. He’d gotten the kite for Christmas, and this was the first ideal day for trying it out. Six very tired children are now asleep, and the adults are not far behind.

 3:10 to Yuma was pretty good. Actually, just about anything with either Russell Crowe or Christian Bale is going to be pretty good.

Potty, porridge and plans.

Mirabile dictu, we seem to have potty-trained Lefty in a single day. As luck would have it, we hit it exactly right – offering the potty chair on the same day he seemed most interested in and inclined towards it. Off came the diaper for two days, and we had but one accident. He’s fully clothed now and very happy to come tearing in from outside to get to the toilet and receive his M&M. There will, almost certainly, be bumps ahead. For the moment, though, we are reveling in the idea that only 1 child in 6 is getting a diaper change during the day.

Last night at the store, I rolled through the health food area looking for more quinoa. I didn’t find it, but I did pick up a bag of Bob’s Red Mill 10 Grain Hot Cereal because it looked interesting. We fixed some this morning for breakfast. It. Was. Delicious. In fact, I may say that it rules completely over all of the hot cereals we’ve tried of late. A little bit of cream, brown sugar and one sliced banana later…oh my, it was good. The adults ate it. The baby ate it. Our oldest son tried it and asked if we’d make some tomorrow. Dinner tonight: Curry soup with lentils and suchlike.
As for the rest of the weekend…Disc 2 of Firefly, also 3:10 to Yuma. Weather permitting, we’ll pitch one of the tents and see how it goes. We may also go looking at lawn mowers (meh) and tillers (w00t!).

Lastly, here’s a nice tribute to homeschooling (with reader comments) by Anthony Esolen. If you haven’t read his Dante yet, you really should. No, I mean now. Shoo. Go away and buy it.

Really.

Quinoa and Campari.

No, not together. Shudder.

Quinoa (KEEN-wah) is something I picked up after reading all of the glowing reports on various food blogs. I found a small box in the health-food section of the local grocery store. It looks like birdseed. After I followed the microwave instructions on the box, I discovered that it tasted like birdseed as well. I figured out that the water had boiled off during cooking, so it was undercooked. Blargh.

This morning I fixed it again, but this time on the stove. I was pleasantly rewarded with a pot full of fluffy, steaming, translucent little beads. By itself, it’s not bad, though a little bland for our tastes. I added half a banana, some raisins and dried apricots for a little bit of body and it was pretty good. The little pamphlet that came in the box says that it can be used as a drop-in substitute for rice, so our next experiment will be a quinoa pilaf some evening soon. It’s jam-packed with protein, gluten-free and full of organic Incan goodness.

Campari is not. If quinoa is your wholesome earth mother, Campari is your insane cousin who always has bottle rockets. It’s bright red and bitter as can be – a good kind of bitter. Served as an apertif, it’s quite popular in Italy and used to “open the taste buds”, get the bile flowing, and otherwise prepare your system to do battle in the Circus Maximus. I’ve had it with club soda and in two different cocktails: an Americano (Campari, sweet vermouth and soda) and a negroni (Campari, sweet vermouth and gin). I think I prefer the Americano. I tried it the first time over the Christmas holidays, right before a big birthday meal and it really did seem to make the meal go down easier. I didn’t feel the least bit full afterwards, though I did eat a little more than usual. Anyway, try one at a bar before investing in a bottle.

Quinoa picture from Autumn Sweater. Campari picture from immagina.

Another mystery solved…

…and just in time for the weekend. How does one get cinnamon to properly mix with French Toast batter, so that it’s not all floating on top and gone with the first slice? The supreme arch-mage kitchen ninjas at King Arthur Flour know, and have deigned to share: The French Toast Connection.

Middle-aged

We I just realized the other night that things are getting pretty medieval around here. The kids are studying the medieval period for history.  E. has started the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, and I’m about halfway through Pillars of the Earth. There’s mead brewing in the closet, and we’re counting the days until we can get the herb garden re-planted. We can probably do without the rest.

Oh, and we’ve recently discovered the game of Carcassonne. Highly recommended – it took us a little while to get into the swing of it, but the gameplay goes quickly and scoring is pretty quick. Basic premise: lay down tiles that gradually build up a countryside of roads, farms, cities and cloisters. Claim various parts throughout the game. When the last tile is laid, scores are determined. It plays well with two players – better than Settlers of Catan, which we also have but have not played lately.

Tonight’s dinner will be soup (homemade) and bread (also homemade). We keep our Fridays meatless as a matter of course, but we try to pay particular attention to them during Lent. Assuming that folks ae feeling up to it tomorrow, I’m going to try to head back to the local fish store for some replacement plants (the cabomba looks nice, but was shedding fine bits of itself all over everything and clogging the filter intake) and a pair of Oto cats.

As of Monday, the mead will have been fermenting for three weeks. I think it’s starting to slow down a little, so it may be ready to move to the secondary vessel before a whole lot longer. The second stage is mostly for clearing and settling, and will last until it’s as clear as we want it, at which time it will be bottled to age for the rest of the year. Once the vessels are free and clear, I will probably try a beer recipe. Something lightly-hopped and generally moron-proof, or at least that’s the plan. Various among us are still battling the sniffles, and in fact I’m working from home today so I can run interference with The Brood while E. rests.

For movie night, we’re going lowbrow: The Simpsons and the latest Harry Potter.

The Dawning of the Age of Aquarium

Warning: aquarium nerdspeak ahead. 

I happen to glance to the right and notice that today’s saint is St. Ammonius. How apropos.

It’s been probably 20 years or more since I regularly kept an aquarium, and while I thought it would just all come back to me, I seem to have forgotten that it can take weeks rather than days to properly cycle a tank. Luckily, I discovered this through research rather than the discovery of dead fish. We sort of jumped the gun on fish load, and I ended up using Bio-Spira to get things established quickly. I put it in last night, so I’d expect to see our ammonia and nitrite levels drop in the next day or so.

Whew.

Anyway, this stuff is a little on the pricey side ($12 for a 1 oz. package which will treat a 30 gallon tank), but weighed against the cost of the fish and/or the 4-6 weeks you need to wait  before fully loading a tank, it’s not so bad. Look for it in the refrigerated section of your local fish store. Along with the Bio-Spira, I threw in a half-dozen ghost shrimp. As of this morning, they seemed to be right at home, though I can only account for four of them at the moment. None of our fish are large enough to have eaten them, so they’re either hiding in the thickly planted area or our shrimps is dead and gone.

So, once things get established and you’re in maintenance mode, then what? Why, you begin planning the next tank! (note to E: I kid! I kid!) . One thing we may try a little later this summer is a simple brine shrimp hatchery, just for grins. And, well, for the live food too. I still haven’t completely let go of a freshwater sump, either. In any case, spring will be here and my attentions will be directed to the yard again, so I need to get my indoor ya-yas out while I can.

nerdspeak complete.

We have some guests staying with us over the weekend – some friends from Atlanta are passing through the area and will hole up with us for a couple of days. It ought to be great fun, and everyone is quite excited. Everything else is going well: we’re healthy, the roof’s not leaking and the bills are paid.

Bluebell is looking forward to having company and spent a few evenings learning to crochet. She wants mommy to knit her many things, but mommy has projects stacked up for awhile and Bluebell was getting impatient. Crochet materials came with a crafter’s kit that she received for Christmas.

Pancho is getting ready for an overnight caving trip with the cub scouts. We’ll be taking off next weekend for this. I don’t know how much of Journey to the Center of the Earth he remembers – we’ll have to see.

Daisy is doing very well with some things that she’s been working on. Friends and family will know what we’re talking about.

Tulip is having a birthday part of sorts next weekend after we get back from the cave.

Lefty is making great progress with words, and Buttercup is thinking about crawling. Which is a shame, since that will mean the end of the Golden Period – the time that you can plop an infant down on a blanket and she will stay there.

Foodie plans for the weekend: E. is making tiramisu as a belated birthday cake for yours truly. I think we’re using the recipe from a recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated, and will report back afterwards.