Next......

Today as we continued our work on the property shaping it into a nice little farmette, I had the stark realization that my children will be the fourth generation living under that roof. So I sat down with my dad, who built the house and counted how many people have lived there. Lets just say this house and the barn have been home to more than we can count.

Everytime I visit the property and work on it I feel this very deep connection with the land. We lined up our trees to the places where they will be planted and sat back in the sunset looking on our hard work ahead three years trying to imagine what life will be like. I guess this is what it feels like to dream in real time.

Here is a short list of people who have lived on this property
Grandma Mary, Grandpa Jo
Granddaddy Elgie
My parents
My siblings
My children
My siblings children
My uncle
My friend Heather
3 foreign exchange students
foster kids
Keith (family friend)

I am sure the list will grow as I feel we are forgetting some people.

We were inspired to think of all the things that have happened on the property. We have had people get married in our barn, and my sister gave birth to her 5th child when her and her family lived there. I guess in a period of over 30 years there is bound to be some history. I am feeling blessed to inherit the memories and guard over them.

Tonight's recipe will be an easy one if you don't already know it. It is one I recalled tonight as I heated up left over chicken soup in the kitchen. I am sure by now my husband is sick of me saying.... "I remember when......."

Another croc pot recipe. You take a good cut of beef, pot roast, beef bottom round and brown it on a skillet with some crushed garlic and olive oil. Just throw that sucker in your pot with 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup and 1 can of water. You can add more mushrooms if you want. Cook it on high for 2 hours or so and then add baby carrots and quartered red potatoes or russet, celery if you want. I usually let the veggies sit towards the top so they steam nicely and not get to mushy. Then cook for another 2 hours or until it is shredded. That's it. Freeze the leftovers, if there are any. You serve this with home made biscuits to sop up all the gravy and juice and a yummy salad.

I guess we are next in a long line of people who have made this house and this land come alive. I wander what the future holds for the people who will be served by this food we plant and the doors we hold open.

Chicken Comfort Soup

This process of getting ready to move has left me a little frazzled. I guess it isn't just a move but an entire life style change. Realizing that I would have to get up before the crack of dawn to take care of animals leaves me feeling a yawny ( I may have made that word up)

We got our citrus juice press in the mail today so now I can really take down those lemons. Also today we picked out and paid for a majority of what will someday be our little hobby orchard. We are scheduled to have the land graded and AC put in on Saturday. The Lord has truly blessed us through other Christians. We are able to cut some cost of this little farm thing significantly thanks to friends and family.

We are getting friendly with one of our neighbors and he even stopped by today and let the kids take a ride on his champion show horse he was training. Lets just say the horse was worth more than our Suburban.

So in honor of chickens everywhere and the people who have to get up early to take care of them here is my easy recipe for chicken soup. I made it tonight but it turned out terrible because I forgot to bring some ingredients from our current residence to our future residence where we had dinner tonight.

I don't even use a pot just a croc makes life so much easier.

Take one whole chicken throw it in croc pot on high until the skin starts to come off, about 2-3 hours. Sometimes I just throw mine in frozen, it doesn't really matter but obviously the frozen takes longer to cook.

Add about 1 1/2 cups of water or some kind of broth. I use chicken broth.

1 yellow onion finely diced

2 cloves of cut garlic

pack of sliced mushrooms (optional, I like mushrooms)

let simmer for about 2 hours on high in your croc pot

take chicken out, (skin should be falling off,)

debone it on a plate and remove extra fat and skin from remaining broth with skimmer

put the chicken meat back in the croc and add chopped carrots, corn, peas and celery,

Add salt and pepper to taste, a few basil leafs, oregano and more onion if you like

If there doesn't seem to be enough broth just add some more water or broth to your liking.

Let that cook for a few more hours until the carrots and celery are a nice texture, I don't like mine to mushy.

Cook the egg noodles separate and add to the broth when serving. This keeps the noodles from sucking up all the juice.

Serve crusty french bread and butter, mmmmmm, butter.

Make extra and freeze it. This is a great meal to keep on hand. I don't freeze it with the noodles generally but you can. You may just have to add more water or broth when you defrost it.

So there you have it. I am sure there will be much chicken soup in our house this fall. Who knows I may not even feel guilty for eating the buggars.

Patience Grasshopper, Patience and Blueberry Cobbler

I have never been the kinda gal to sit around and wait. It was hard for me when I was engaged, got pregnant, adopted, house hunted and well you get the picture. Waiting, for me, is like a slow form of mental torture. Perhaps that is because I am a "live in the present tip toe around the past" kind a gal, projecting myself into the future is not something I am so good at doing. My husband on the other hand has a hard time living for the moment. So in a sense we compliment each other as we have all three time dimensions covered.

In shopping for our orchard today I came to the stark realization, as I was presented with tiny, weed stalks my husband dared called trees, that I wouldn't really have an orchard for at least three years. The nice young gardener at Lowes actually said "I figure you will have fruit in three years, if we are all around long enough to see that." uhm, okay. So a fight between the petunias and avocado trees at the nursery of Lowes, between Gary and I ensued in what I perceived to be a matter of life and death. He didn't see it that way. He told me I was making a scene. No.... that would be the five monkeys we brought with us on this fun family adventure of shopping for trees. You know the ones we named and feed everyday. The ones climbing on the bags of fertilizer and running through the misting system. Really, I told him I was close to 40 and I didn't care if I was causing a scene. I needed to be able to feed my kids fruit off of our own trees. I needed good, whole, organic, fresh picked fruit and I needed to have this like yesterday.

After much hesitation I gave in for the cheaper, smaller, younger trees. I am going to pray that God speeds them up though. Gary said I would be so busy with life I wouldn't realize the wait. I hope he is right. I treasure every day and I don't take a single year for granted. I hope that I am around in three years to see them growing and producing fruit. I hope we are all around, not to sound like my friend the melancholy gardener at Lowes. I mean I hope my family is here and whole and healthy. There are so many uncertainties in this life we are given.

To trust in God to cause the growth in me and the trees is Paramount. It is the key.

So neither the one who plants or the one who waters is significant, but God who keeps everything growing, is the one who matters. 1 Cor 3:7

I feel sad. I know all of "this" can vanish in a moment just like it did for the people in Japan. The world is unstable, more so now than I ever remember. My trees are so little, so fragile so young. So are my children. That about sums it up.

So I decided to make that blueberry cobbler (recipe below) I had planned a few weeks ago, I mean what the hay? I have a can of sweet condensed milk in my pantry and if the world is going to end in a few years I can skip that diet!! At least I will enjoy that momentary false sense of security wrapped up in buttery goodness and melting icecream. I get started mixing and get to the end of the directions and as I am licking blueberry and sweet milk off my fingers the box says the cooking time is 70 minutes!!!!! Are you kidding me!!!!! Patience Grasshopper. Well to pass the time Gary and chatted about the chicken situation. He wants roosters and I refuse to eat fertilized eggs so I told him we could put chicken dog houses on the lower acres and have two flocks separated. I think that may have cost me some credibility. But as I sample this lovely blueberry cobbler (it just came out of the oven) I will gain it back again, especially since I will serve it up with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream. This could be how the wait causes weight. uh oh. Well here is the recipe.

1 pint of blueberries (frozen or not)

mix that with 1 Can of condensed milk 14 oz

2 tsp of lemon zest

take 1.5 cups of baking mix and mix with 3/4 cup of butter (get it all crumbly)

combine the two

pour onto a greased 9 inch square baking pan

Mix 1/2 cup of baking mix with 1/2 cup of brown sugar and two tablespoons of butter (nuts if you have them )and spread on top of the blue berry mixture cook at 325 for the very long time of 70 min or until brown and serve warm with vanilla icecream.

Lemonade

Smart girl, Nettie after getting lemon juice squirted in her eyes, ran and got her goggles!

Does anyone dare despise the day of small begininngs? Zech 4:10

I have been "practicing" food storage for a few years now by going to our local food co op and buying in bulk. It is such a satisfying feeling to make and can your own food, in some cases freeze it. Now that we have a few lemon trees and so much fruit I can't give it away I needed to do something with all those lemons falling to the ground.

I gathered them up and took them home. The kids helped wash them off in the back yard in a laundry basket. I then sat down with my little clan and we took to peeling about 50 lemons. (My commercial grade citrus press has yet to arrive) I then threw them into my juicer and got a decent amount of juice. I separated it out into little baggies and added some sugar and tossed it in the freezer. When I defrost it in a pitcher I just add enough water to make it taste great as the lemon juice is pretty concentrated. Now I have enough icy, organic lemonade to feed the family at dinner. I am so excited to get my press and take those lemon trees down. My kids loved it and it cost me a little time, but so worth the look on their faces! They all beg to be the one to have the last bit and more importantly I feel good that the fruit God gave us is not going to waste. I love every little lemon on those trees. In fact my family pretty much devoured the juice from 50 lemons in two days. I hope they grow up with great memories and take the time to do this for their kids.

Lesson:
The bible says to know each man by it's fruit. (Matthew 7:16 You can identify them by their fruit, that is how they act, do you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?) I think in today's society we have lost touch with the idea of knowing someone by their fruits because in the store our fruit is already sorted, washed and waxed, laid out in nice rows. As I took on the arduous task of sorting the massive amount of lemons, I had to examine each one carefully after I washed the bird poo and leaves off it. I squeezed it, looked at it and cut it open to see if it was juicy and fresh. When we go to judge a person based on their "fruit" we should do more than just look. In some ways you really need to be around that person and know what is going on to see if they are a tree making good fruit. The Lord even says to taste and see that he is good. (Psalms 34:8, Taste and see that the Lord is good, happy is the man who trust in him) There were a few lemons that looked pretty weak on the outside but on the inside they were just fine. So before jumping to conclusions about someone, take the time to know them, to taste and see, to use your senses that is why God gave them to us.

Spring Clean Your Food Pantry Easy Bean Soup

Well this soup was supposed to be a chili, but I messed up. In and effort to rid my pantry of canned foods I threw this together in my croc and it turned out great!

Make an extra batch to stick in your freezer for dinner in 2 weeks.

1 carton of chicken broth
4 cans of whatever beans you have in your pantry. ( suggest different kind of kidneys and Navy)
1 can of green beans or corn or both!
4 carrots (fresh or canned)
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbl spoons of Cumin
Salt/Pepper
1 tsp Oregano
1 can tomato paste
1 can of stewed tomatoes or fresh tomatoes if you have them
a dash of chili or Tabasco

Serve with crackers or cornbread and milk :)

I doubled this for our family of six and made enough to save. You can use all cans or substitute for fresh. It is very filling and my kids mostly ate it, some picked out the green beans and some the stewed tomatoes and some gobbled it down and asked for seconds. All in all a recipe that works and that is fast for those kinds of nights!

Taking On Old Fashion Cooking

Part of the direction I have been going in the last few years is to learn how to cook and preserve food like our grandparents did. It has only been in the last fifty or so years that we have gotten away from making our food from real ingredients and whole foods. At this point what used to be normal is now a lost art. Canning, drying, cooking! So tonight I was talking to a friend who just made her own butter and I was so inspired to make my own. She was able to use a Vitamix blender and in the process saved some money. So of course I will be trying that tonight because we love butter over here. In our conversation she asked me to post some of my recipes that I found work for our family here on this blog.

This will be the first one. I love making pizza. Well I don't love making pizza but I love the feeling I get by knowing how to pronounce every single ingredient. This is a healthy crust my whole family loved. I didn't have wheat germ but I did use ground flax seed and chia seed. I also made my own sauce. Simple throw together kind... in my Vita Mix. Garlic, tomatoes, onion and seasoning with salt. My kids loved the fresh taste. I don't have any fresh tomatoes tonight so I will substitute with canned. Anyway here's the recipe for the crust if anyone is interested.

Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts.

Greasy, grimy gopher guts. Why did we used to sing this on the playground and where did it come from? Well apparently it was a folk song sung by children in the USA and has a place in history at the Smithsonian. I thought it was made up by some farmer that had enough of the pest. Nevertheless it was going through my head today.

License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that's all she wrote.
Caddy Shack

Today was officially the first day of working on our property, we irrigated. No sooner did the water start to flow than we realized we had a terrible gopher problem. We sprung several leaks due to the extensive underground critter tunnels. Unfortunately we lost many gallons of precious water as it went where it wasn't supposed to go. So needless to say, gopher extermination otherwise known as Operation Kill the Buggers has begun - starting today.

Don't get me wrong. I was a very strict vegetarian for over 10 years due to the fact I don't believe (or didn't believe) in killing animals. Here's the thing. This is my land. This is where my kids will play, and our food will grow. If it comes between choosing a disease ridden mole and my kids, I am going to choose the kids (although some-days I bet the mole has more manners) that being beside the point, I don't want to kill but I will. (Well I won't actually kill one, that would be the job of Gary or anyone else but me)

I have devised a plan. First I will pray them off. Yes pray. Why not? God can move animals, he caused a giant fish to swallow Jonah so he can make a gopher family leave my little homestead. If that doesn't do the trick we will try trapping the buggers and then releasing them into the wild. ( I am pretty sure this won't work although the image of me gently releasing them into the wilderness wearing a long flowing dress and flowers in my hair seems appealing.) In the end I regret to say we have to kill them. I plan on using my Rat Terrier dog, perhaps a snake (we would have to catch a wild Gopher snake, that being in and of itself a blog post worth posting) We can use irrigation and flood the suckers or bomb them with fire crackers or feed them Juicy Fruit gum or smoke them out or even dry ice them out. The possibilities are endless as is the amount of work. Today was marked by killing the first one. A poor little soul who lost its way and met it's maker. I am not going to say who or how delivered the blow because we are not proud. Every creature was once a baby and when you imagine the little gopher as a baby they just don't seem so pesky. It had to be done and while I don't condone it I am not going to cry a river either. So with that said, the kids had a blast running in the dirty water just as I did when I was a kid. Mason got burned to a crisp, which also marks the first day of sunblock for us.

So because this blog is an archive of stories for my kids I feel the need to post this gopher related story.

It was a lazy summer day, circa 1980's, I know this because we were watching Fantasy Island and it wasn't on TV land nor was it a rerun. Somewhere between scenes we heard the sound of gushing water, much like a giant toilet being flushed. Suddenly the closet door flew open and a torrent of water flowed into our house. There was a tube that ran underground, designed to cool air from outside that led into the living room closet. A gopher had broken the berm that was used to keep the water from entering this tube from the outside and there you have it. Our basement was flooded. We hopped and screamed trying to unplug things before water got to it. My dad nearly had a heart attack trying to fix the berm outside, grabbing his chest and falling down into the mud. Not a great moment for me because I having just been trained in CPR ran inside the house to call 911 leaving my three younger sisters who didn't know the first thing about CPR to handle my poor dad. Good thing it wasn't a real heart attack. Hey I never said I was good with emergencies.

Well a few days later when we got the basement carpet out and my parents were back to sleeping in their room, that naughty gopher attacked my dad. He had been flushed in through the pipe during the whole debauchery and lets just say, that was the last time he messed with my dad.

That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Friends in the Hood

I have been residing in this particular neighborhood for nearly 10 years. It isn't a flashy subdivision, no private entrance or gated community. Just a plain ol track home kind of deal. Often we joke saying we live in the barrio section of the hood. Really it is quaint and seemingly average. With the small exception of who surrounds me. There is nothing average about my neighbors. I have the unique privilege of co residing with some of the most amazing people. On the outside, like the houses we occupy, they are not flashy but on the inside there is a dazzle that says, ol time values have not been lost here on this little street. I have likened living here to a big adult slumber party. Late night movies at the park with our kids, borrowing sugar at 10 pm in my pjs. Once a neighbor even traded me a hot dog and chips for some tooth fairy money at midnight just when I had been desperately craving a hot dog, one just appeared from down the street. Last night a dear sweet neighbor dropped by a bag of Clementine oranges as a token of thanks for keeping an eye on her bed ridden husband, and tonight at 9 pm my door bell rings and another neighbor walked two chocolate chip oatmeal cookies down to me because she knew I had a rough day. This afternoon, I kept an eye on a few kids for a friend and in turn she did that for me while I ran Mason to cub scouts. The same friend also this afternoon, got back a dish she loaned to another neighbor filled with some chocolate concoction and called me over to share. This afternoon the doorbell rang and I was able to share some lemons we picked off the tree. (The first of many times I hope we can share our fruit.) These little acts of kindness are not random, they are the norm over here. Perhaps that is why staying several years past our proclaimed expiration date of 2 years has been so easy. I really could go on and on but the point of this post is to remember while I am excited about leaving to something bigger square footage wise, there is a reflection on what I will be missing. In some way this is the something bigger. I have watched all of our kids grow from diapers to preteens. We have been camping together, shopping, walking, gained weight lost it, shed tears and shared laughs. I am blessed to have this home not so much because it is a structure over my head but more because the people around me, my neighbors, my friends make living here home and I cherish these memories. No matter where I go these folks will remain my neighbors.

Introduction

So after 30 years of dreaming about life on a farm, 12 years planning for it and 1 desperate year of searching, bidding, hoping and praying for that perfect home on the perfect piece of property.... my uncle calls and offers us a house. The old farm house I grew up in.

I had never considered this home an option, unlike my five sisters I didn't feel particularly attached to the farm. I had always hoped it would go to a good natured owner when it was time, but it wasn't going to be me. I had places to go and people to see that didn't include my past. There is a whole big world out there and a future that is unwritten and new adventures galore. The thought of moving back to the house I spent years 9-18 and 19-20 and 23-24 and 26-27 (I moved in and out several times don't judge me) was just too much to bare.

But never the less here I am, in my parents, ehum, my house. I could say I didn't get far in life and it kind of feels like it at times. Until I stop to think about it. I have been around the world, to Africa and back two times, all over the USA both by land and by air. Nearly everyone of my dreams have been fulfilled and I am not yet 40. I have 5 beautiful children that have taken me both physically and mentally to the edge of the world and that journey alone should cancel any stinking thinking that my life hasn't gone anywhere.

In about 2 months we will pack up our belongings and say goodbye to the house and the neighborhood we have spent the last 10 years in and head out west on that long journey, a whole 20 miles north to the farm. (which has never been by the way a farm, that is just what we called it all these years, we are talking virgin property.)

Technically I haven't gotten very far, if you base your calculations on a physical map. But if there were a map of souls you could pull mine out of that dusty glove box, unfold it's crinkly soul paper, stretch it out and you would see that I am quite the world traveler, a master of miles, a seasoned sojourner, and a little bit dramatic.

So this is it. My first post in what I hope to be many chronicling the misadventures, mistakes, and lessons we learn along the way.

My Tenderoni

Life is full and beautiful with Serenity. She completes me in so many ways. I don't think I have ever smiled so much as I do now. I try to get in every second with her because I am so aware of how fast things move. Here are some of the things Gary and I call her.

Tenderoni
Honey Bear
Marmy
Mamma
Bennidy
Chicken Nugget
Lovins
Cherry Pie


We adore her.