Category: Uncategorized

Pickles

 My first attempt at pickles was an epic fail. I used a six-week pickle recipe out of  Trisha Yearwood’s cookbook, and I shoulda known right off the bat it was gonna flunk.  I could not find two of the ingredients – cinnamon  & clove oil.  I tried health food stores, pharmacies even (which is where she says to look for it) … and the pharmacist said.. “I wouldn’t sell it to you for a food product!! You don’t eat it!”… and so I tried the recipe with cinnamon sticks and whole cloves instead.  For whatever reason, they were terrible.  I love Trishas cookbook and use many recipes from it, so I will not lay blame there.

My next attempt was yesterday!  And I think we have a winner. There are plenty of pickling methods, but a fellow blogger, Lisa of Two Bears Farm,  recommend using a packet she found in Walmart in the canning section and loved. So off to Walmart I went, and I did find it.

  What’s kinda humorous is… it says right there on the label that it’s  “Canning made easy”.
Let me tell ya, the easy part is mixing spices together.
The hard part… is all the boiling to sterilize lids and jars,
cleaning and cutting up of 5,273 cucumbers
ok that’s an exageration. but not by much!
and then the stuffing, sealing and boiling of the jars in the canner.
LOOK AT ALL THE POTS & UTENSILS
IT TOOK FOR JUST SIX QUART JARS.
The husband said ..
“Well, this was the sole job of women
back in the day. Preparing food all day!
And seems to me it was pretty relaxing work!”
HA!  
As if someone ELSE were doing the laundry beaten over rocks in the stream,
 tending to the kids, cleaning the homestead and feeding the ranch hands
and farm animals, nursing the sick, darning the clothes,
tending the fires and … and… and….
You know what?  Pickle making was a breeze  🙂

After the rain

 Last night we had a much needed thunder and rain storm
although it was much too brief.
I love the smell of the damp earth, 
 the feel of wet grass on bare feet
and especially the light on the remaining raindrops
as the sun reappears with the disbursal of storm clouds.

It’s one of life’s reminders.
When you’re in the middle of a storm
and things look their darkest..
Remind yourself that there will be light again…
and renewal. 
Another reminder.. this one from Karen.
Stop worrying about what everyone else might think.
I say…if you’re so inclined…
 go ahead and wear those ridiculously dangly $3.00 earrings
and let them catch the light.
(even in dirty jeans shorts and a horse slobbered t-shirt)
You only live once.

Does not share well with others.

 My Bailey girl does not like to share.
Doesn’t matter that she has no interest in eating that bone.
Rudy wants it, so he ain’t getting it.

Doesn’t matter how nicely he asks, either.
The answer is no.

Do you remember when your little sister or brother might have
coveted that ratty one-armed GI JOE or naked Barbie with a bad haircut
that you no longer glanced at?  And just maybe when he/she showed interest,
suddenly it was your favorite thing and no-way no-how were you giving it up. 
Even if you STILL weren’t gonna do more than glance at it.

 I took it away and gave it to him.
  It was the right thing to do.

Crowded Carrots

 So, this being our first YEAR OF THE REALLY BIG GARDEN, we made a few mistakes that we will correct next year.  One is the crowded planting of carrots.  While we yielded a big bucket full of short stunted carrots, it would have been nice to have them grow to full size and maturity. Not possible when you plant them all together in a big seed patch. 

How NOT to grow carrots…
 They need to be thinned out at this stage, because if you don’t…
they all jam together and can’t grow..and so you get THIS….

Proper way to grow carrots below – these have been thinned out…

 Live and learn, right? 
 Now.. what to do with a big bucket of stunted carrots…

A post of a different color

Today I am …
mucking stalls
doing laundry
watering wilting plants
vacuuming and dusting a very dusty house
hoping the AC won’t give out
tending to hot, buggy horses and bored dogs
and listening to the whining of teenagers
who really want to do something more than
hang around the house, but it’s too darn hot to do anything else.
and today I am…
pretending I’m ignorant of all the horror
I see but don’t want to see.
Thinking of all the parents who sent their kids to a nature camp
on a charming island in Norway
and will bring them home in caskets.
And that incident is just a speck of dust in this world we have created.
There are many many more festering specks.
Wondering why, if there is a God,
he created people consumed in such hatred,
such righteous arrogance that they feel any justification
in the senseless butchering of other innocent human beings.
Why is there so much suffering in so many ways.
So that’s why I believe.. we’ve brought this all on ourselves,
however we actually got here.
This is how I feel when I hear someone say
~God has a plan for all of us~
Really? I can’t imagine this was His plan. 
  I think…
We are to blame, not  a  “creator”.
We will be the end of us… in the End.
..more floating specks…
Casey A. walks free, and clearly SOMEONE is protecting her.
Who’s doing the same for the girl who testifies against
drug and sex slave trafficers and then disappears forever.
Authorities say “she fell through the cracks”. 
Politicians get uglier by the day. Republicans and Democrats,
right wing, left wing, south, west and northeast wing alike.
In my own little town there are some ugly politics developing,
and I cannot believe it has touched us here, with so much venom.
We all know each other.

Celebrity divorces make more news headlines than starving humans in the streets.
Our streets. 
The media feeds us and we feed them. Vicious cycle.  
From the very beginning of time, where did it all go wrong?
Territory disputes among cave men? 
Is that where it started?
When did people become so .. what is the word I’m searching for….
Mean, arrogant, heartless, greedy, self-absorbed, pious, narrow minded… 
They all fit.  And then some.
Was it present in us then?
Perhaps we just have more sophisticated tools to inflict now.  
WHY.. can’t we all get along.
Doesn’t seem like it should be this hard.
Think of all the suffering that could be avoided. 
Imagine the wonderful things that could be accomplished TOGETHER
…worldwide!
Today I am…
not going to put up a sunshiney
or even heat-whiney post.
Mark had some interesting things to say today.
Amen, Mark.  Amen. 
PS. This post is not meant to offend. 
I believe you have the right
to believe something different.
I’m just disgusted and this is my voice. 

Hipstamatic

 I am not a techno-geek. No… if I can figure out how to turn it on and turn it off, we’re golden.  Right now I’m talking about my iPhone.  Which I love beyond the good sense I possess.   Most of the time.

 So.. there’s this APP on the thing which someone in the blogosphere was raving about.  I managed to find it on my phone and I actually figured out how to use it.  It’s so easy, a Cave Man could use this application.

 
Anyway… I walked around the farm in this lovely heatwave
 and snapped some hipstamatic pics.
If you have an iPhone, I highly recommend it.
 It’s just fun to see how they turn out.
If you shake the phone,
 the camera picks the flash and shutter setting at random
and you get what you get. 
This is what I got.

Maybe Kate sat here….

 Look what I found at a vintage shop in Westbrook, called Not Just A Crock.
I fell in love with the chipped light blue chair
with brown velvet and embroidery.
I was told it came from the beach cottage right next to Kate’s
in Fenwick, Old Saybrook.  The cottage’s family of many decades was moving
 and there was age-old furniture throughout the house that no one wanted.
This chair was among them. 
Just think!.. this was Ms. Hepburn’s
 neighbor for many years!
Maybe she DID sit here….  

 This pillow came with it.. it smells of musty old beach cottage.

 I sanded down the flaking paint and cleaned it up just a bit.
I think I  like it just the way it is.

 

The Best Blueberry Muffins

 The Best Blueberry Muffins

1/2 cup butter , room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375°.
2 . Grease  12 large size muffin cups or use foil liners
3.  In bowl, mix butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat until pale and fluffy.
4.  Add eggs one at a time, beating after each.
5.  Beat in vanilla, baking powder and salt.
6. With spoon, fold in half of flour then half of milk into batter; repeat.
7.  Fold in blueberries.
8.  Spoon into muffin cups
9.  Bake 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown and springy to touch.

* This recipe is an adaption from an original I found on www.food.com