A Most Uncivilized Adventure

Easy Peasy Pudding Pound Cake

2012-02-19T20:57:00.000-08:00

This is the easiest little pound cake...

Pound. Cake.

Pound Cake.

Poooouuuuuunnnnnd Cake.

Yum.

Sorry, I got distracted.

This is the easiest little pound cake recipe I've ever come across. So moist. So sweet. No one will ever know it has only 5 ingredients - all of which you probably have in your pantry right now.

What You'll Need:

1 cake mix, any flavor (my favorite is classic white)

1 4-serving size instant pudding mix, same flavor as cake mix

1 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

(My favorite little additive: chocolate chips)

Ready for the excruciating instructions?

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Beat all your ingredients together for 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Grease your pan - I always like to grease (with crisco) and dust with flour just to be safe!

Give your whisk one or two more trips around just for fun!

Pour your delicious batter into your prepared pan...

Now throw a good couple handfuls of chocolate chips on there. They melt and sink and create one of the most Heavenly crusts you will ever sink your teeth into. Mmmmm.

Just trust me... go get the chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cake either tests done (with a toothpick) or springs back when you touch the top near the center.

Dust with powdered sugar and enjoy. The outside turns beautifully dark brown, and when using a white cake mix, the inside is a glorious gold color.

Enjoy!

By Bread Alone

2012-02-18T20:02:00.000-08:00

I'm not a bread-maker. That is my sister's department. She makes buttery golden loaves that are to die for. I'm not inept, mine just isn't ever anything worth talking about, and I always feel like it's so much work.

Until now.

Until this.

Crispy and flavorful on the outside, chewy and light and mild on the inside. It takes a long time from start to finish, but you don't spend but about 10 minutes messing with it. It is as good as it is pretty.

I had this bread for the first time at my friend, Krista's house. She cooks. This was served with Risotto and Parmesan chicken and yum. It came out of the oven and I couldn't get enough. I felt like I was in a Jim Gaffigan bit: "Bread? They have bread here? I love bread. Can I have some more bread? And can you cancel my entree?"

Try it. Then come back and thank me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

A Special Thanksgiving

2011-11-20T16:09:00.001-08:00

I've been very hesitant to point to specific people or acts for which I was grateful since the Bean was born. I feel I must, however, just share one or two people or bits of service that were especially helpful. I hope this isn't taken to demean or lessen the gratitude I feel for all of the faith and prayers and acts of service we received. Please know we couldn't have survived this without them all.

The day after I went into the hospital, a gang of ruffians came to my house and mowed my lawn. Seems so simple, but it meant that our house didn't look abandoned and Jon could be there with me instead of home mowing the lawn.

One lovely soul took the bummer lamb I was raising. The bummer lamb who wasn't weaned. The bummer lamb who thought he was either a chicken or a person, and so would break out of the pasture to hang out with the chickens or on her front porch. I was so happy to not have to worry about Lambchop, and didn't want to have to prematurely "process" him. Lamb formula is expensive and we had already been through an entire bag. Thanks to her, our freezer is now full of the most amazing lamb you have ever experienced. This was all after mowing my lawn with a broken mower and bringing Jon dinner the night I was admitted to the hospital. She didn't ask what she could do...she just showed up. Thanks, Rickie.

I have chickens. They have to be let out in the morning and put up at night. Their feeder and waterer have to be filled. Their eggs have to be collected. My next door neighbors, who have five kids of their own (one welcomed to the family in June...about two weeks after Mac was born) did this for me until the day Mac came home in September. I didn't have to choose between getting rid of them and coming home before dark every night. It was a huge burden lifted.

I was admitted to the hospital on the 18th of May. The morning of the 25th, I found out I was going to have to deliver three full months early as a result of pre-eclampsia. I was unaware at the time of the ramifications of this...like the fact that it was likely he wasn't going to make it and that the road ahead was long and steep. I just knew I was scared. At 2am on the 26th, my friend Maren walked into my hospital room. Why, you ask, would this make me happy? Well, she bought a ticket that morning right rafter she heard my news and just left her husband and two little ones and hopped on a plane from Oregon that night to come sit by my side. For a week. Not just anyone could have done that. Maren has a skill set that was especially helpful; she is a neonatology nurse. She answered my questions and helped me know what to look for. She asked the nurses questions and told me what questions to ask. She told me when to be nervous and when to relax, and helped me prioritize my concerns. She explained the monitors and alarms and needles and wires and tests and vocab. She bought the nurses chocolate. She washed my pump equipment at 11, 1, 4, and 7 so I didn't have to get out of bed. She and my sister made me freezer dinners, did my laundry, and held my hand. They kept me sane those first days and weeks.

My little sister. She didn't hop on a plane. She hopped in her car with her husband and a six month old. In addition to dinner and laundry, she and her husband D fenced and planted my garden. She did dishes. He rigged the feeder in my chicken coop to go up and down so the mice wouldn't eat all the chicken feed. He entertained their little one (translate: he drove around a lot) so Laura could sit in the NICU with me. That was most important.

Speaking of sitting in the NICU with me, that is what my super active mom did every day for three weeks. She managed to do this without going postal. Nuff said.

Jon and I drove 120 miles round trip every day in separate cars for over 100 days. This got very spendy...but not for us. Employees at Vivant, where Jon's sister-in-law works, raised $500 for Maverick cards for us. Jon's parents (in addition to driving an hour down from Heber several times a week to sit by the bedside of their grandson) gave us each a credit card to use for gas after the cards ran out, which happened very quickly.

This all in addition to the many many prayers and days spent fasting and faith of family, friends, and perfect strangers, if there is such a thing in this world.

"The Lord does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other...So often, our acts of service consist of simple encouragement or of giving mundane help with mundane tasks, but what glorious consequences can flow from mundane acts and from small but deliberate deeds!" Spencer W. Kimball

I'm feeling especially full of gratitude this Thanksgiving season.

**Update: 22 November
I forgot two very important people.

My best friend, Krista, also left her family and came out to be with me when Mac came home. Krista had her own early one, and knew that it would be nerve wracking those first few nights away from the nurses and doctors. She cleaned my house, did my laundry, made us dinner, and gave me massages (she is a massage therapist...ahhhh). It was heavenly just to have her here with me and I know it was a sacrifice for her to come out from Oregon. She has been such a blessing in my life.

Jon's boss, the mayor of Mount Pleasant, not only gave him all sorts of time off the first weeks after McKell was born, but she then let him take off from work an hour early every day so that he could drive up to Provo after work to be with Mac, even just for an hour or two. Not only was that excellent for him and Mac to bond, but I was in serious need of Jon's emotional support. And while we are talking about work, how about all of the people who stepped up and helped with my classes the last two weeks of school that I missed. God bless the people of this community.

MIA

2011-11-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

We haven't meant to go missing, it's just that the last two months have been pretty crazy as we adjust to having the Bean home.

First of all, a reminder:

He was such a little guy, and so covered in wires and stuff. This was taken just a couple of weeks after he was born.

This was taken tonight:

It's the same bear and, believe it or not, the same Bean. My goodness, in case we were concerned he wasn't growing, I guess...

So, here's the skinny on life since the last post.

Mac had surgery for a hernia while we were still in the hospital. It went off without a hitch and he recovered really quickly. He was well enough to come home four days later. We said goodbye to a lot of people we had grown to love. I spent as long in the hospital as I have lived many places in the last 15 years.

Mac wouldn't eat at first. He had reflux and threw up most of the small amount that went in. He cried when we tried to feed him. He cried when we held him. He cried when we put him down. It was tragic. He was already on medication, but the first Prevacid he wouldn't take at all, and then we got dissolving stuff that he loved, but it still didn't make it all better, so the doc threw in Zantac for good measure. It worked like a charm. He still wouldn't eat as much as he "should" have, but at least he wasn't losing weight and he wasn't in constant pain from reflux or hunger.

We had to make weekly trips up to Provo for eye exams to monitor his retinopathy, and I am happy to announce that he had his last appointment two weeks ago and was pronounced "out of the woods"! No surgery and no lasting damage to his vision. It still isn't 100% finished developing, but he's old enough and it is good enough we're safe. Halleluja. Curious to know what those appointments were like? Go watch Minority Report...except that Dr. Carver was wonderful and his office was clean...but having things stuck in your eyes to keep them open and then having instruments jabbed into your eyes to move them around, well, it doesn't much matter how great the doctor is; that sucks.

I started back to work part time the beginning of October. I work every other day and Mac hangs out with his Meema (I have no idea how to spell that). It is wonderful that he gets to bond with her and she spoils him rotten, which is OK by me. I still treasure my relationship with my grandparents and want the same for him.

All in all, life is grand. It is so nice to have him home. I have never existed on so little sleep, but am functioning remarkably well and he is starting to sleep longer stretches during the night. He is not a very fussy baby, though he does have his fussy times. This is especially rare for preemies, so we are grateful. Don't get me wrong, he fusses, but not for hours at a time and he isn't usually inconsolable. Between his vibrating chair, his sling, and one of us walking him around, we can almost always find something that makes him happy.

We took a trip to Oregon last week and he didn't need oxygen the whole time we were there. 6K feet elevation makes a big difference though, so he still needs a little bit most of the time. If he keeps eaing like he has lately, however, we'll be done with it in no time.

God is good. We're daily aware of how blessed we have been. So far, we haven't seen any developmental delays, and there shouldn't be any long term health issues. He brings us so much joy and we are so glad he is a part of our family.

And that outfit he is wearing in the above pic? Doesn't fit him any more.

100 Days

2011-09-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

Friday marked our 100th day in the NICU. It was also my adjusted due date. My body seems to know this, as I have begun to loose copious amounts of hair. I'm sure this is just hormonal and has nothing to do with my stress levels.

We are so close to the end of our stay here, we can taste it. McKell seems to not want to leave his private spa and personal attendants, though, and is taking his sweet time with everything. This child, moreso than normal children I'm sure, was sent specifically to teach me patience and faith.

Let me 'splain.

About one month ago, he was moved to a low flow oxygen system. This meant that we could start working on oral feedings. I thought for sure we'd be home within a week. He has always sucked so stupendously on his pacifier, he has woken up for feedings for months, and he queues his hunger like a champ, with much rooting and sucking on his fist.

Alas, it was not to be. He just wouldn't get into it. His swallower seemed to be broken. He choked every time, and this would usually lead to a vasovagal response, which means that his heart rate dropped to almost nothing and he would basically pass out. This is not an enjoyable experience and so he started to hate to eat. It was much more convenient to be fed through the nose. He even started playing opossum so that we would leave him alone, or he'd just pretend to suck. We call this an oral aversion and had it really taken hold, it would have made life not an enjoyable experience, so we backed off and started being very careful to let him take the lead. Then we tried thickening up his milk with banana baby food, which made it easier for him to figure out what to do with all the liquid in his mouth. We took it very slowly. We waited until it was his idea.

The other problem we were having is that he would not wake up when he got hungry. He didn't recognize his hunger for what it was, so he would sleep through it. He is IMPOSSIBLE to wake up. Cold towels, naked baby, tickling the foot, baths. Nothing worked. He would get furious, but as soon as I'd stop harassing him, he'd be totally asleep. When we tried to get him to eat when he wasn't fully awake, he would choke even more, or gag. It was lovely. The following are some pictures I took while he was supposed to be eating:

So, as you might imagine, I was getting very frustrated and impatient. I'm so tired of him being there and not home. Heck, I'm so tired of being there myself...but I keep reminding myself that the Lord is in charge. One night while feeling especially discouraged, I found myself having a car conversation with God (never had one? Try it out sometime). As I was telling Him that I thought it was time for McKell to come home, I had a very distinct, almost cartoon, image appear in my mind...it was of me handing over something to God, but when He tried to take it, I wouldn't let go. It was like watching a movie in my head. I realized I kept telling Him I wanted Him to take over, but then wouldn't let Him. Can you picture it? Very comical. Made me laugh out loud, actually. In the car. All alone.

I'm secure like that.

And here is the beauty and the resolution: Mac has a hernia that needs to be repaired, and the surgeon that does them just moved to UVRMC (our hospital) from Primary Children's in SLC. This means we don't have to drive all the way to SLC. The surgery is scheduled for Friday of next week, and will happen before we leave the hospital. This means that it is covered under his hospital stay as far as insurance is concerned, which saves us about $5K. It also means we keep our nurses and the presidential suite. Nice, right? And this week, our little Bean has started eating like a champ. He should be ready to head home sometime next week (keep your fingers crossed...er, I mean, that whatever is right will happen...)

I guess maybe the Lord knows what he is doing after all.

A Room with a View

2011-08-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

Meet Mac.

Well, that is a little outdated now.

Now, he's fat. He has wrist rolls and neck rolls and a double chin and dimples on any and all joints.

And his head is bigger.

And he has 3 tubes coming off of him instead of 13. It's much easier to pull in and out of bed to snuggle him and doesn't require three people to do so.

And he lives in a Robbed-the Convenience-Store-looking-Jail-Crib,

instead of a Wrath-of-Khan-looking-Spock-Coffin.

He cries now, and grunts, and does the baby yawn noise. He opens his eyes and interacts. He communicates happiness and displeasure. He wears cute onesies, which is good because I have about 150.

He now weighs five pounds and breathes all on his own. Okay, mostly on his own. He is only on 1.5 liters of air at 25-30% O2, which is a jump from where he was six weeks ago, which was intubated. Hooray!

He loves his bath.

And, he was moved from the high maintenance side of the NICU to Nursery B, which is where the bigger babies are, which means he is closer to going home. Not only that, but thanks to a nurse whom we love, and who obviously loves us, he now has a room with a view (thanks Mary!).

Ignore the rooftop and focus on the mountains and the temple. The rooftop has it's purpose, but is not where we should focus. Can you see the analogy?

After he finished his round of antibiotics and started feeling better, he improved rapidly. And now that there isn't so much air blowing into his nose, he is able to feed orally. So, we started nursing last week, which is really exciting. It was a bit rough at first, due to a disparity between the size of his mouth and the size of my...well, you get the picture. Once we found a breast shield that was small enough for him to latch on, though, he did remarkably well and is continuing to improve. This is a huge step toward going home sweet home. We still have our hurdles though.

Because he has had to have so many blood transfusions, his bone marrow has gotten lazy and has never learned to produce hemoglobin properly. It should step up here in the next little bit, but in the meantime, he is anemic and that makes him feel a bit poorly. We have to have that straightened out before they will release us to the world.

Lastly, his eyes. He was diagnosed two weeks ago with stage one retinopathy of prematurity, which is a problem with the way that the vessels in the eyes grow into the retina. This happens as a result of swingy O2 levels, crummy lungs, high oxygen saturation, transfusions, and basically everything he has done or had. Last week, they discovered it had progressed to stage two. Stage three requires laser surgery to correct. It is possible that it will resolve itself, but he is a high risk baby for needing the surgery. It will save most of his vision, but destroys the peripheral vision. We feel blessed to live in a time when it is possible for him to keep his sight at all though. For many years after they got to a point that they could save preemies with supplemental oxygen, many of them lost their sight altogether as a result of this disease. His next check up is tomorrow and we are praying that his eyes will be protected. Without peripheral vision, he can't ride a motorcycle. Poor boy!

Otherwise, life flows along. He is making progress and we are so grateful for the amazing docs, nurses, RTs, and other staff at UVRMC. They have been fabulous. If you have to have a micro-preemie, this is the place to have him!

A Listening Ear...

2011-07-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks, Leah has been holding little Mac, and feeling as though something were amiss. For the past several days, she has pressed the nurses and doctors to run a few tests, take a look, pay attention, check the results, and then recheck them. She couldn't shake the feeling, or prompting rather, that an infection had taken hold somewhere, though she had not the slightest idea where, nor proof with which to back her feelings.

So why in the world would the nurses and doctors take her pleadings seriously?

It's Provo, of course, and she said, "I just have a hunch". It is the land where hunches are heeded. And thank goodness for that. They decided to throw in a test for infection when they did their blood gas tests the next day, although, they assured her, they thought he wasn't sick. He didn't look sick. He didn't act sick. She wasn't convinced. Just do it for peace of mind, she asked.

They did. On Tuesday, results came back indicating that there was inflammation and probably an infection. Strange though, his white blood cell count was normal. They started him on broad spectrum antibiotics anyway, just in case. Good thing, on Wednesday, white blood cell count was elevated. Because they listened, they were able to catch the infection before his little body even reacted to it. They found the source in his intestines and now they are getting better.

There were also things that they had assumed were just unique to him: high heart rate, high temperature, inability to properly oxygenate, sleeping more, grumpiness…all the signs that made mama wonder…they have all resolved themselves now.

The Lord is definitely watching over this little one. And his mama is trying to pay attention.

As for now, Mac, Faith, and Jon need our prayers and support more than anything. So keep them coming!!

Elephant Man

2011-07-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday was a monumental day in the life of the Bean. That darn tube...the one causing much of the inflammation, the secretions, and his distress, came out. He is ventilator-tube-free. He even has vocal chords he has been exercising, although they are still a little weak. It is wonderful and terrible to hear his tiny, whispery cry...my heart soars and then it makes me weep to hear that plainful little song.

The loss of the tube does not mean comfort on this earth for little Mac though. At least for the time being, comfort doesn't seem to be his lot in life.

Poor little guy. It's hard to believe, but he seems to be more at ease with this than he was with the tube...makes you wonder what it must have felt like to have that thing in his windpipe. So, meet the NIPPV, which is a Non Invasive (cha right *snort*) Positive Pressure Ventilation, like a CPAP, but with a set number of "breaths" per minute, instead of just the constant flow.

It's day two now and his signs are all good. We were worried about too much CO2 in the blood, which often elevates with this contraption, but his has actually gone down. His settings are comparable to what they were on the vent, and his O2 supplementation is about the same as well. He's also breathing on his own.

Did I mention that there's no more tube in his throat?

Did I mention I hate the sight of this thing? But I keep telling myself it is better than the alternative and that if it means his lungs are healing, which they already are, I can stand it for a little while.

This experience has really increased my empathy for how the Father must feel watching the trials we endure. It is a meager comparison, but how often I get impatient with His "pruning" and the pain and suffering, and how often His heart must break to see us hurt, even though He knows it is for our best good and development, which is the whole reason we are here on earth...to grow and become more like Him. I want McKell to breathe, and this is what is required. I can't skip steps, or his lungs become more damaged. Though it is hard to imagine right now, when he is older and can run and sing and sigh, we will be grateful he went through this.

If he ever picks up a cigarette though, I'll kill him.

Wrestling Crocodiles and Fighting Bears

2011-06-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Mac turned one month old on Wednesday. Thirty days old and thirty weeks gestation. Yesterday, when we went to see him, there was a noticeable difference in his size. Because we see him everyday, it is hard to notice sometimes, but every once in a while we catch it and are amazed by how he has changed. He's bigger and stronger. Linda the amazing nurse tells us it is from wrestling crocodiles and fighting bears at night.

When he was born, he had almost no fat (so he had no butt cheeks...it was hilarious) and his skin was so papery thin, he was brick red because his blood was so visible. His head was still very mushy, and his eyes were fused. He looked like an adorable little alien baby.

Jon's ring fit on his perfect little foot.

I had never seen such a small baby. But then, I spent every day with him, and suddenly, I didn't see the tubes and wires anymore and instead of him looking small, all other babies started to look obscenely large.

Slowly, his eyes opened and he started looking more human. His skin got flaky, and then came back much thicker and, well, skin like. He has always had as much hair as Fabio though, good grief; look at that mop.

In the last week, though, he looks downright babyish to me. His cheeks are filling out (both sets!), he looks longer in the isolette, and he is more often alert and interacts more. It really is remarkable how much he has changed in just 30 days.

The last week was eventful. I already talked about his switch to the conventional ventilator, and he has done remarkably well on that. After a week though, they were still unable to get his vent settings weaned down and he was still producing a ton of secretions, so his lungs continued to be really cloudy, and are starting to become scarred as a result of the inflammation, so we started discussing the use of dexamethasone again. The difference was, this time the idea was to use it to extubate, as opposed to using it as a treatment for Chronic Lung Disease. I had also had several discussions with other doctors about how it is used here and the differences in protocol between here and the studies I had read, and was feeling more comfortable with it's use. They use smaller doses and start when the babies are older, which decreases the risk of developmental disorders. They started it on Friday and he has done really well on it. His vent settings have come consistently down. We're hoping that we can switch him to the CPAP (like what people who have sleep apnea wear) on Friday and get rid of that tube so his lungs can start to heal, and so I can see his cute mouth. This is a pretty big step and we are pretty excited, so keep fingers crossed that he responds well.

The other thing that happened this last week is that he decided he had had enough of his tube and extubated himself.

Ok, so that isn't quite what happened. What actually happened is that he got some fluid in his tube while I was holding him as a result of some medicine they had given to thin the secretions. He waterboarded himself and, in the process of freaking out (who wouldn't), he did a pushup with his super micropreemie strength and pulled the tube out of his wind pipe. This led to several minutes of bluish grey skin, resuscitation, and panic among family members (mom and me) and determined amazingness among the respiratory therapist and nurse (go Pam and Val!).

Makes you realize (again) how fragile this life is, not just for these little ones, but for all of us. So, we revel in the beauty around us, love as much as we can, forgive, enjoy the time we've been given, and eat dessert first.

Oh, and express gratitude. I hope you all know how aware of and grateful we are for your prayers and love and support. We couldn't ask for better friends and family. Or strangers, for that matter...we know you're out there lurking and following our story through mutual friends. I hope our story brings you hope and you can share our joy. That is part of what this life is about, after all.

Mother's and Father's Day

2011-06-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

We've dubbed this the best year for parent's day ever. For more than the obvious reasons.

I'll explain.

Thursday, our update was not so happy. McKell's lungs were still super hazy, he was still very full of secretions, they are feeling pretty confident that he is developing a nice case of chronic lung disease, and so they just couldn't seem to get the vent settings down without his O2 plummeting. We couldn't even look at him wrong without it dropping. During his diaper change one night, his sats were in the 60s (they should be between 84 and 94) and his supplemental oxygen was at 100%. He was needing between 50% and 60% supplemental oxygen just to keep his head above water at the best of times. The air we breathe is about 21%.

The doc who rounded on him that day (there are about 15 at this hospital) warned me we were probably going to have to use a steroid called dexamethasone to wean him down and reduce the inflammation. I had read a couple of studies that indicated it had some potential long term developmental implications, and I was concerned about using it before we tried other options. I was assured that our other options were limited though, and that if we switched him to a conventional ventilator, he was likely to lose lung volume and have to be put back on the other vent. I pushed just a little bit. I prayed even more...something along the lines of, "I don't like the idea of this drug. Bless the docs that they can find another way. If not, protect his brain." Sometime while all of this was happening, someone "accidentally" changed one of the vent settings. No one knows who or why. I don't understand the details, but for some reason, because of how well his lungs responded to that, Friday morning they decided to give the conventional vent a try before they did anything else. One of respiratory therapists assured me he would fail. And then they all waited for his O2 sats to plummet.

And they waited.

And he breathed. And his lungs stayed the same (which was acceptable; at least they didn't get worse). He was pretty agitated and was a little swingy in his O2 needs, but not worse. They told me that once calmed down and stabilized, in a day or two, I would be able to hold him.

I plotted. I bided my time. I counted my victories for the day against the day shift (I say that a bit tongue in cheek. They were not at all resentful or obnoxious about throwing out many years of medical experience and intuition and listening instead to some psycho who had spent a couple of hours on the internet. Who needs medical school?) I knew who was on night shift. I thought I might be able to convince them that he just needed his mama.

I was not disappointed. The team on night shift thought it was a great idea and laid him on my chest. His oxygen saturation had been in the low 80s with 45-50% supplemental oxygen. His heart rate had been about 180. It took about three minutes, and his O2 saturation skyrocketed (this is good). They turned his FIO2 (supplemental oxygen) down. Then they turned it down again. Then again. In about ten minutes, his FIO2 was at 26% and his saturation was at about 92. His heart rate was about 160. His breathing was stable and steady. We both breathed a collective sigh. It was awesome. I held him for about an hour an a half. When we had to go home, they put him in his isolette (incubator), changed his diaper, retaped his breathing tube, and reswaddled him, and never once did he need more than 30% O2. He stayed stable through the night, slept great, and the next morning, his lungs looked better. We are now on day 3 on this vent, holding him twice a day, and he is much improved (we all are). They were even able to wean his vent settings a bit.

There is definitely something healing about human touch. I feel healed already.

Day 20

2011-06-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

The last week has gone by really fast. The last three weeks have actually been quite a blur, to be honest. But something in the doctors' tones has recently changed. Instead of focusing on the next day, or even hour, they are talking in terms of weeks and even months. They are generally more optimistic, even though McKell's little lungs are still struggling to catch up with him. He's on what they call full feedings, meaning he is getting all of his calories by mouth instead of by IV. They are trying to wean him off of he ventilator he is on and move him to a conventional vent, which would mean I could hold him, and it would do less damage to his lungs. But they are getting progressively better...even though we feel like we take a step back for every two steps forward. It is a long road, and we are not out of the woods yet, but we can see the light up ahead.

Two Pounds!

2011-06-11T15:26:00.000-07:00

Last night, McKell hit the two pound mark. They also had to turn his bed temperature down because he is maintaining his heat better. Yay for growth!

Otherwise, not much has changed (hence the lack of updates the last two days). His lungs are still pretty crappy, but as I understand it, it is a question of just maintaining a holding pattern until he gets bigger (which he's doing: TWO POUNDS!) and his lungs mature. The problem is, how much damage is done to the lungs in the mean time? Who knows? No one. So we still take it one day at a time.

He is still eating reasonably well. He is up to ten ml every three hours, and is digesting it pretty well. And he's getting about 40% of his calories from me, as opposed to the IV. It is amazing the things you worry about with preemies. Sheesh.

And just so you know, I don't have man hands. I have normal sized hands. He is just ridiculously small. But fat...two pounds. My goodness.

Two Weeks Old

2011-06-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

Day 14. Two weeks old. It was a quiet day. His O2 was mostly stable. Both eyes are open. He's getting 5ml of food every three hours, which now accounts for about 40% of his total calories (it was about 11% a week ago). His blood looks good. His arterial line went in without a hitch.

But,

His hemoglobin is down, so he needs another transfusion, which means another IV line. His blood pressure is questionable, so there is a slight chance that his arterial duct is open again. The arterial line is in his wrist and so his whole arm is braced. And his lungs are still crappy looking.

So, we wait and hope and pray and thank our stars so many people are doing the same.

Lucky 13

2011-06-07T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well, today Mac lost the line into the artery in his umbilical cord, so he will get a new 'ART' line today, either in his wrist or ankle. He still isn't showing signs of infection, but his lungs are still not healthy. He can't see to regulate his oxygen and the ventilator is causing his lungs to be full of gunk. So, we're working on that. Otherwise, he is taking milk (through a tube, but we take what we can get), and he's gaining weight. He'll be two pounds in NO time.

Day 12 of a most uncivilized adventure...

2011-06-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

He is 12 days old today. It's amazing, considering I feel like I've been here a year. I know all the bells and alarms, know all about PIE, PDA, and brain bleeds, and have developed a nice friendly relationship with all of the nurses. I think God just wants me to be 100% sure I REALLY want this little guy (I do). Right now, he is stable. He is tolerating his feedings well, which is nice considering I hook my bosom up to what looks like a cold war era torture device six times a day and twice in the middle of the night. He has no bleeding in the brain, his heart valve is closed, and his blood gasses look great. His lungs are causing us some grief, but considering he was counting on three more months to develop them, you can't really blame him. All in all, we are still optimistic, and are happy to have such great care here at Utah Valley. I'll start posting the daily updates we receive here, so if you are interested, you can check in here for the roller coaster ride.

Spiced Pear Turnovers

2011-05-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

This is a glorious little dessert. Simple. Quick. Just the way I like it!

What You'll Need:

Yield: 4 turnovers

1 medium-sized pear, ripe

1 can refrigerated biscuits

4 T brown sugar

3 T granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 T powdered sugar

8 T butter

First step, set your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place 1 T butter in each ramekin (or 4 T butter on the bottom of a glass 8x8 or 9x9 pan) and place the dish(es) in the oven.

Peel, core, and slice your pear into little chunks.

Slam that lovely can of biscuits against the counter until you hear that heavenly 'pop'.

Mix together brown sugar, granulated sugar, and cinnamon.

**NOTE: At this moment, I blacked out and completely forgot to take pictures of the next several steps. It's not rocket science, however, and you will do just fine reading the instructions. Take heart!

Roll out one biscuit on your counter top until it's about the size of a small dinner plate.

Put 1 T sugar mixture in the center of the biscuit. Place 1/4 pear dices over that, and top with 1 T more of the sugar mix.

Roll out another biscuit slightly smaller than the first. Lay it over the pear mix, and fold the bottom biscuit up over the top biscuits edge, forming a seal. Then give it a good closing by running a fork along the edges. (see below)

Repeat with the rest of the turnovers. When they're all ready, place them in the warm ramekins or in the warm dish with the butter melted on the bottom. (Several of the ramekins I used tonight had high sides, so I gave them a little spritz of PAM just in case!)

Top each turnover with 1 T butter, and bake for about 10 minutes. I think. Honestly, I didn't keep track.

Bake them until they're done.

There.

They should look a little something like...

this...

Top them with 1 T sugar mix and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.

Serve them with a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.

I had planned on taking pictures of the inside... but uhhhhh...

By the time I remembered, this was all that remained:

Woops.

My Favorite Experiment. Ever.

2011-04-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this with: I love cream soda. I love it. Mucho. My sweet D loves cream soda as well. I am a MAJOR fan of Henry Weinhard's Root Beer, so I figured I'd be a fan of their cream soda.

Wrong.

It tastes like bubblegum. It smells like bubblegum. I like bubblegum, but not in my cream soda.

I was at the store last night and decided to conduct a little experiment when I got home.

WalMart sells IBC.
Winco sells Henry's and Stewart's.

We begin with Henry Weinhard's -

As you can see this beauty is sportin' a lot of foam. That doesn't necessarily mean that it has more carbonation, however. It looks good; a nice golden color. But, alas, it smells like bubblegum.

And it tastes like bubblegum. Yuck.

Carbonation was pretty good though. It had a moderate bite, which I feel is important.

I want a big bite in my Sprite, but not in my cream soda. It needs to slide down the throat.

Mmmmmm...

Next in line: IBC. A little darker color, no foam at all. I was worried about the carbonation level, but my worries turned out to be un-warranted. The carbonation level was slightly higher than the Henry's, but it was perfect! The taste was better than Henry's as well, but it still wasn't on the money. It had a slight chemical-mixed-with-wintergreen taste. Not as bad as it sounds, but not ideal either.

And last, but definitely not least, we have Stewart's. I'd never tried Stewart's before. I was skeptical.

I. Was an idiot.

Stewart's was like liquid gold. The taste was perfect, the smell was perfect, the carbonation level was perfect.

The taste almost reminds me of honey. Smooth. Subtle.

Bliss in a bottle.

No chemical taste, no bubblegum taste, just sweet goodness.

Money. Big money.

You want some now, don't you?

I can't blame you.

Miscellaneous Remarks: There were several things I found interesting while I was perusing the list of ingredients on each bottle.

1. Henry's and Stewart's have identical ingredients except for one: their flavoring agent. Henry's flavors with "pure vanilla bean extract" (surprising!) while Stewart's flavors with Quillaia Extract.

2. Henry's and Stewart's both have a preserving agent. Necessary. Understood. However, IBC has THREE preserving agents. Yuck.

So there's the tale of the cream soda folks. My personal favorite is - BY FAR - Stewart's!!!

Look Ma, no Tide!

2011-04-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

So, Jon's brother was here when I made this. Later when they were off together, Daniel asked, "Why would you WANT to make laundry soap?"

This is a reasonable question, and one that others have asked. Jon responded pretty much in the way I would have. 1.) So we know how. 2.) So we can save a few bucks. 3.) Because it's COOL!

OK, so our definition of cool has changed since we were 17, but this is what ranks as cool in our household these days. Don't judge us.

First, grate two bars of ivory soap into a big pot. I used an enamel stock pot.

Add 3 quarts of water and heat slowly on medium for about 30 minutes or until the soap is all dissolved. The instructions say try not to boil, but, well, I went outside to garden and it boiled. It didn't seem to hurt it though.

Take the pot off of the stove and add 1.5 cups of washing soda (not baking soda) and Borax. Mix until dissolved. Both of these can be found in the laundry section of the supermarket. Our Wal-mart doesn't carry the soda, but our local Western Family grocer does, and it's cheaper there than we found it online.

Once it is dissolved, add two more quarts of hot water and stir. Transfer it to your five gallon bucket and add three gallons of cool water. This will gel up to an egg flour soup consistency, or a bit firmer, and it takes a cup per load. I keep a wire whisk down in the laundry room to stir it up once in a while. I love it because it doesn't have a scent, and I'm pretty sensitive to perfumes. When we do whites, I add a scoop of oxyclean and it seems to be working well.

And look at us! We saved $9.50. How cool is that?

Here's the thing...

2011-04-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would juxtapose Laura's and Mom's surroundings with mine.

OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating a wee bit. The point is, it has been a long, dark, cold (-20 for a week!) winter and I am more than ready to complain about the heat and wasps and lack of water.

I planted tomato starts, among other things, yesterday, though, so things are starting to look up...

Spring Has Sprung...

2011-03-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung. How do we know?

The bees are out and about.

Shrubs are blossoming.

Flowers are blooming.

We are all wearing rubber boots.

We are digging Winter Beets! Yum!

We are planting peas.

There is dirt on the stroller.

Daffodils are King.

And old gives way to new in the Herb Garden...

Aaaahhhhhhhhh... Spring.

A Father's Tradition

2011-03-16T22:26:00.000-07:00

The father-son relationship is an interesting thing. I can't say I truly know what it's all about, because... well... I'm not a son. Nor am I a father. Quite the contrary, actually. However, I'd like to believe that I'm an observant sort of person, woman as I may be, and I have come to observe that the father-son relationship is an interesting thing.

So there.

My husband, D, has this hammer. We call it "Daddy's Hammer", which is, in all actuality weird, because I call D "Daddy" but we're not referring to D when we talk about "Daddy's Hammer" at all. We're referring to Edmund Kay Cherry, D's father.

Clear as mud?

Good.

See, "Kay" Cherry passed away on February 28th, 2003, just 5 short months after I lost my own dear padre'. And Kay left all sorts of wonderful legacies for D and his brothers. Many have found their way into D's personality, including but definitely not limited to: D's love for ingenuity, his knack for building things from the ground up, and his respect for hard work and earning what you're given. Some of Kay's heirlooms, however, are physical... like "Daddy's Hammer".

This is D's work trailer. It's a beautiful thing.

This is D's workbench. It's a beautiful thing.

Above the workbench hangs two semi-identical hammers. How can two things be semi-identical, you ask?

I'll show you...

"Daddy's Hammer"... a sturdy Craftsman Hammer from ages ago...

D's Hammer... a sturdy Craftsman Hammer from January 2010. But it's not just any Craftsman Hammer. It's an identical match to Daddy's Hammer. Oh my heart.

I hardly believed him when D told me he found Daddy's Hammer in Sears. Daddy's Hammer is D's favorite, for obvious reasons. But it won't last forever. I don't think.

These hammers have a great arrow-like pattern on the handle. My favorite part!!

Have I mentioned how handsome my husband is? I mean really... *drool*

And that his beard gets me every time... *sigh*

Back to the hammers...

Fathers, leave your sons something they can be proud of.

Who am I kidding?

Wives... tell your husbands (you know - the ones not reading this blog) to leave your sons something they can be proud of.

Give them traditions they can pass down to their own children...

Because you know where this new hammer will go when D and I grow old...

The Daily Food Log

2011-02-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

I keep a Daily Food Log. I started this when I found out I was pregnant with Bubs, and it's been a huge help! Not only does it make me accountable so I don't eat junk, but it helps me keep track of what I eat so I get enough servings of each of the food groups.

When I first started using these forms, the first things I realized were that a) I did a lot of snacking without noticing, and b) I was eating adequately in all areas except vegetables! I love vegetables! So I fixed it.

The other really great thing about using these is that I can keep track of my water intake, which is really important while you're pregnant, and even more important while you're breastfeeding!

Even if you don't stick with this program for more than a month, it's a great way to get into the habit of eating right. So try it!

If you missed the previous link to the Food Logs I designed, here it is again: Laura's Food Log.

Happy Eating!!

CHERRY Family Newsletter: 2010

2011-02-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Where in the world has 2010 gone?!? This year has been filled with miracles and blessings and a little heartache… we hardly know where to begin!

As you all know, we were so excited to announce that I was expecting in February. The Lord blessed us with an absolutely healthy and uneventful pregnancy and delivery. I loved being pregnant, and hope to do it again soon! I was able to resign from my position at Agnes Stewart Middle School in June, and we have made arrangements so I can stay home with our children. (I would like everyone to know that D is my HERO for letting me do what I have always wanted to do: be a homemaker!)

Our first son, Trenton Dee Cherry, entered this world on November 11 at 6:09 p.m. He has been an extremely healthy and happy baby so far. He’s growing very fast – in the 95^th percentile for height, and the 85^th for weight. At just 5 weeks old, he weighs in at a whopping 14 lbs! He loves to hear our voices, and started smiling at us very early on. We could not be more thrilled with parenthood. This is truly a divine right and calling.

Several dear family members have crossed the bar since last Winter. Most of you know that my oldest brother, Joe, passed away at the beginning of December last year. Then on December 31^st, Joe’s youngest son, Mickey, was in a car accident and passed away in early January. They were both buried next to my father in the cemetery on Greenwood Drive up the river from us. On September 11^th of this year, we lost D’s Grandfather, Chet. He was 10 days shy of his 90^th birthday and still as lively as ever! He was buried in St Johns, Arizona where he lived for years. We are so grateful for the support and love that was shown us during these times of grief. How grateful we are for our knowledge of Eternal Families!

The Spring and Summer proved to be a challenge in the Agricultural department. Oregon, as well as other parts of the Nation, experienced odd weather this year. Winter was mild and dry, to say the least. Spring made up for it, however, with large amounts of rain. Our crops had an extremely difficult time getting started and surviving. We salvaged what we could, and the Lord blessed us with enough to carry us through Winter. However, we are looking forward to a much greater growing season in 2011. Trenton has to start learning the tricks of the trade sometime, right?

We’ve been blessed with healthy livestock again this year. We have pigs, as always, and there have been several – I use that term loosely – additions to the Jasper Farm. In April, we received a very noisy package: 35 peeping little things. Chicks! We raised 20 meat birds (had quite the experience getting them into the freezer), and 15 egg layers. Among those little chicks we had one rooster – whose name is now “Woosta” – and he is HUGE! Then one of our hens decided it was time to hatch babies (in November?!) and sat on a nest under the barn outside the coop, so we have the last surviving chick from her escapades. In September, we picked up a bummer bull calf from our Relief Society President. His name is Chester. He is large and you can’t go within 100 feet of him without getting attacked, aka without him slobbering on you.

D’s business (D&L Cherry Construction, llc.) has done very well this year. D has been busy nearly non-stop since it’s infancy, and when he’s not working away from home, I keep him busy on the farm! He prays for work for several reasons. The honey-do list is one of them. He has work lined up well into next year and is so excited about some major projects he’ll be tackling soon!

Last January, D was called to the Elder’s Quorum Presidency. He is serving as First Counselor, and is thoroughly enjoying his work there with the other men. Our ward has been growing exponentially! We are now the largest ward in our Stake, and our Sacrament Meetings are filled with the sounds of new babies. At one point there were 14 families expecting at the same time!

I was serving with the youth up until recently. I was released from the Young Women’s organization right before the baby was born to tackle another calling. I am now the ward Provident Living Specialist, concentrating on food storage, emergency preparedness, self-reliance, and frugal living. As you can imagine, I love this calling, and immediately called D to serve as one of the Committee Members. I need my partner in crime always!

We are absolutely amazed at the ways in which the Lord provides for us when we trust in Him. How grateful we are to know of our Father in Heaven’s Plan for His children. How astounded we are that he sent His Only Begotten Son to break the chains that bind us. We have seen His hand at work in our lives. We have felt of His pure love for us individually, and pray that we can continue to grow as an Eternal Family for a very, very long time.

From our Hearts to Yours,

The D&L Cherry Family

I Am a Victim of Consumer Targeting

2011-01-24T11:31:00.000-08:00

It happened. I was in Wal-Mart. I was in the check out line. I spotted something out of the corner of my eye.

NEW Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Even smaller than regular Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Oh Heavenly Day.

I AM A VICTIM OF CONSUMER TARGETING.

I feel like a part of one of Jim Gaffigan's comedy acts...

"How much denial are we in when we're eating [mini-mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups]?"

"There so small they don't really count. They're more like [Reese's Peanut Butter Cup] vitamins..."

"I'll only have one or twelve."

The most ridiculous part about it is that I ate the whole bag.

THE WHOLE BAG.

And before noon. Yes. It's true.

Crap.

But the chocolate to peanut butter ratio is perfect! And they're already unwrapped so you don't risk tearing off the bottom of the cup or scathing the side of the chocolate!!! You just open the bag and, 'pop!'

I'm in big trouble.

And in total denial.

Mini-Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

*sigh*

I'm ashamed.

Awful Quiet 'Round Here

2011-01-23T19:49:00.000-08:00

The thing is, there is like eight feet of snow outside, it gets dark at noon, I have been up to my neck in grading, ancient history, and acting as adviser for ten gazillion clubs, and Laura has a new wee one who saps all of her time and strength.

Ahem. Sorry, I'm teaching hyperbole right now to my freshman, and I got a little carried away. I'm sick of winter and dark and cold though, and can't wait for the 90 degree heat it seems like I was just whining about yesterday.

Hyperbole aside, there hasn't been a lot of picture taking or projects to blog about. I'm trying to figure out how to make edible whole wheat bread, instead of bricks like the Egyptians made, and I've started thinking about how to build a cold frame this spring so that I can start my garden in March instead of June. Other than that, it's just normal day to day stuff, which doesn't seem to warrant any special attention...unless you are interested in the intricacies of my grading scale, or care to hear about my new Mouli.

OH! You DO care to hear about my Mouli!!

Look what my saintly mama-in-law got me for Christmas! It CHOPS WALNUTS! I'm sure it does other things too, as a matter of fact, I know that it shreds mozzarella like a pro, which is almost as cool as chopping walnuts because I hate shredding mozzarella almost as much as I hate chopping walnuts. It doesn't do dishes or windows, but I'm not complaining. Seriously, this is cool on a sliced bread level.

And there you have it. My life.

Our Identity Crisis...

2010-12-30T15:18:00.000-08:00

We are in the process of creating an identity crisis for our child. Neither D nor myself ever call him by his real name. To me, he's "Bub-Bubs" - don't ask why. To D, he's "Bugaboo" - again, no clue. Others call him "TD", to one friend he's "Jersey" - we just want to confuse the poor kid...

So here's the child - by whatever name you wish - for Aunty Leah, since she's too far away...

How in the world did he get so big??

The Cherry Family Birth Plan...

2010-11-29T16:36:00.000-08:00

By request, here is our Birth Plan... the doctor on call at the hospital when we checked in got his hands on it. He then proceeded to make copies and throw them around to other staff members. I've never seen an OB laugh so hard in my life. Several other OB's and RN's came into our delivery room throughout our stay there just to meet us. Apparently this is not your usual Birth Plan?? hehe

The CHERRY Birth Plan

While we hope there are no complications during the birth of our child, we understand that circumstances may require us to re-evaluate our desires. If the need does arise for medication or medical procedures we hope to avoid, we would like to have everything explained to us as fully as time will permit so that we may give informed consent.

Mother: Laura S. Cherry

Father: Dustin T. Cherry (friends call him “D”)

OB/GYN: Martha Reilly, MD (Oregon Medical Group)

Pediatrician: Chris Hammond, MD (I’m sure you’re familiar with this trouble maker)

Due Date: 12 November 2010

LABOR SUPPORT PEOPLE

My husband, D, will be present for the entire birth. If he passes out, just step around him.

Also present (but hopefully in the grandstands and not on the field) will be my mother, Susan Newbury-Oakley, and my mother-in-law, Pawnee Cherry. If at any time either of them get out of hand, feel free to kick them out. Just kidding. Kind of. They should behave themselves.

Last, but certainly not least, I have chosen a dear friend (and RN in your NICU) as my “doula” of sorts. I am paying her in cookies, however, so I guess I should technically call her my “specialized and highly qualified labor support leader.” Her name is Maren Lee. I’m sure that’s all the introduction this crazy woman needs.

MOVEMENT OF MOTHER
I prefer to move around freely during my birthing time, stand on my head, do cartwheels, or assume any other positions I find comfortable.

FIRST STAGE LABOR PREFERENCES:

PAIN MANAGEMENT

I am extremely sensitive to pain medication. One Tylenol is generally enough to cure whatever ails me, and I only take that when my husband thinks I’m dying. For this reason, among others, we would like to use natural pain management techniques throughout the birth. Massage, water therapy, walking, dancing, and chocolate are my preferred methods, along with anything that has ever worked, since the dawn of time. Please feel free to share any and all tricks with me you may have up your sleeve.

MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS

My OB and I have discussed the matter of medical intervention, and we have agreed on the following: Induction will not be discussed (unless a medical need arises) until November 14^th. I would like to remain without an IV unless it is absolutely medically necessary. And I would like to avoid the following things above others: Internal Monitoring, Induction, and Cesarean Birth.

SECOND STAGE AND BIRTH PREFERENCES:

POSITIONING AND PUSHING

I am open to anything when it comes to positioning and pushing. I would, however, rather remain in a more upright position rather than on my back or with my feet at my ears. Above all, I would like to play it by ear and do whatever feels and works best. Please feel free to offer suggestions!

MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS
I'd love a labor support person to massage my perineum with oil prior to crowning. Peeled grapes and a handsome greek god fanning me with a palm leaf would be ok too. Of course I want to avoid an episotomy, who wouldn't?

THE BIRTH
We would like a staff member to cut the cord, which hopefully won't be clamped or cut until the cord stops pulsing. We are not banking the cord blood. We would like the baby placed on my chest immediately after birth, to remain there for at least a half an hour, if medically possible.

PLACENTA
Do feel free to toss it after it is all out. I waive the right to fry it up and eat it. Thanks.

UNEXPECTED LABOR EVENTS

In the event of prolonged labor, complications, or the need arises for a cesarean birth, my husband has final say. I would like him to weigh our options, discuss the pros and cons with the nurses and doctor, and make a decision.

POSTPARTUM CARE OF MOTHER

Feed me. Let me shower. Send me home. I’m easy that way.

NEWBORN CARE PLAN

We would like our son to be a breastfed baby. Please do not supplement with water or formula prior to speaking with me. I would like to breastfeed within the hour after birth, and I would love for my husband to be as involved with the bathing/caring for the baby as allowed. Break that man in!

Thank you for everything!!

I swear I do other things besides cook...

2010-11-09T15:41:00.000-08:00

You wouldn't know it to look at my posts on this blog, but I really don't spend all of my time in the kitchen. As a matter of fact, Jon probably cooks more than I do. I average about three times a week, if we are lucky. Actually, it IS lucky, because Jon is a great cook. He's making one of my favorites as I type: chicken enchiladas. Pavlov just rang his bell.

If I had to choose a type of food to live on for the rest of my life, I would choose soup. I'm a soup fan. It is like a warm blanket and a good book in a bowl.

If not soup, then I would choose seafood. I will eat pretty much anything that comes out of water...and that includes eel and seaweed, so I'm not just talking.

So, as you can imagine, clam chowder is my idea of absolute heaven.

And it is so easy. Guess how it starts! Rood veggies. In a pot. Imagine that.

I always begin by sauteing onions and garlic in olive oil or butter or a combo of both. I then add equal amounts of carrots, celery, and potatoes. Those potatoes are from my garden. The last for the year. They were so good. The Yukon gold and red work well because they stay firmer than russets when cooked. I then empty the water from three cups of chopped clams onto the veggies. Add a bit more water if needed, but don't bring it over the veggies. We want just enough to basically steam the veggies until they are fork tender. Firmer is better.

This here is a pitcher of raw milk. My friend Heidi keeps me supplied. I got a couple of cups of cream skimmed off the top before I transferred the milk to this pitcher. The cream is rich and yellow. If fresh cream is hard to come by in your parts, you could also use a pint of half and half. Poor it into the veggies.

Take half a cup of butter and melt in the microwave. Add about three tablespoons of flour and mix into a paste. Put some of the liquid from the chowder into a cup and poor slowly into the paste, mixing to keep smooth. When it is combined, pour back into the chowder, bring to a boil and reduce the heat.

Salt and pepper to taste and then my secret ingredient, inspired by a fish and chips place in Florence, OR that Jon and I used to love before they had the audacity to close up and move to Salem to take care of an ailing mother or something. Whatever. All these people thinking of other people besides me. Sheesh.

Oh mama. Serve with buttered garlic toast or crackers. Sand and surf is optional.

Speaking of soup...Jon and I have become meat snobs. It started with watching Food, Inc. and then things fell into place so that we could get our own good, local, humanely raised meat to stock our freezer. We don't eat out much anymore. We don't mind. Our food is better anyway. So, recently, a family here in Sanpete offered to sell us some chickens. I was going to throw five or so in our freezer, but wanted to see what I could do with a roast chicken before I did that. Jon bought one a while ago that I had forgotten existed and I put it in the slow cooker rubbed with some olive oil and some poultry seasoning. I was able to turn it into about four meals.

After it was cooked, I carved it up and stuck the meat in the fridge. I then put the carcass into a large pot and covered it with water. I added an onion, a carrot, and a couple of stalks of celery. A couple of teaspoons of salt and some pepper went in too, and then I left it on low overnight and all day. I kept the lid on, so that I didn't lose too much liquid. When I got home from school today, I strained the stock and then I (you'll never guess) sauteed an onion and some garlic in olive oil in the pot and then added a carrot and some celery. I know...this is so hard to believe, but it is true.

I covered the veggies in the strained broth, chopped up some of the meat that I had carved off of the bird, threw in some of the good meat that had come off of the carcass, and seasoned to taste. I brought it to a boil and then added a couple of handfuls of Costco egg noodles. Simmered for about ten-twelve minutes or until the noodles were tender. The veggies and the noodles got tender about the same time and it was so yummy. I had quite a bit of chicken left over, so I made a simple chicken salad that I will eat as a sandwich tomorrow, and then I canned the remaining broth. I'll use it to make cabbage soup on Wednesday...or maybe pantry stew...I'm telling you, it's a cuddly blanket for your belly.

And last, but not least, another of our standard recipes. This is going to come as a shock though, so you might want to sit down if you're not already. Besides, what are you doing reading a blog standing up?

This does not start with root veggies. It has nothing to do with them...well, except for the onions and garlic, but what can I say?

This one starts with about 5oz of spinach (two or three big handfuls) in a HUGE bowl. Add 8oz mozzarella and 1/3 cup Parmesan.

Cook and drain half a pound of penne pasta. Set it aside. Next, a half an onion and three cloves of garlic in half olive oil and half butter (a tablespoon or so of each). I have one of those monstrous things of garlic cloves from Costco in the freezer, so I pull out the cloves I need and shred them. This makes the garlic really potent. You can use fresh diced up...I'm all about personal freedom.

Brown up some meat if you want (chicken or beef or whatever), but I often leave it vegetarian. Then add a pint of diced tomatoes...or a can...whatever. Last, when everything is heated through, add 1/3 cup or so of pesto. Hence the greenish color. It didn't look so green in real life. It looked yummy in real life.

Pour everything together in the HUGE bowl and mix carefully until all ingredients are evenly distributed. This is important...and a bit tricky, but I have faith you will prevail.

I dump it all back into the pan I used to make the sauce, but you can use a 9x13 casserole if you want. Sprinkle the top with more mozzarella and Parmesan, and stick it in a 375 oven uncovered for half an hour. I forgot the last picture because I was so excited to eat it, but it comes out beautifully brown and bubbly and smelling lovely. Enjoy!

4 Months 28 Days

2010-10-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

Then:

Now:

Both taken around 7am. Both suspiciously similarly white. I mean, really? More months with snow in the year than without? Who's idea was this?

Two Suppers for an Autumn evening

2010-10-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say suppers.

But seriously.

Two meals so decidedly simple. So perfectly...perfect. Both take about half an hour, and sometimes less. Both will have you dreaming of a white Christmas, fires in the fireplace, and mugs of herbal tea and hot chocolate. And Hawaii.

Well, let me explain.

I spent my first year of college at BYU-Hawaii. It was lovely. I studied on the beach. I scuba dived. Dove. I went scuba diving. I lived with nine girls. I ruined chocolate chip cookies.

I made chicken curry with my best friend, Coby. It was a Sunday tradition.

It is easier than pie, which is actually quite difficult, is cheap, and is yummy.

Root veggies in a pot. I always start with onions and garlic in olive oil. It makes the house smell lovely. I add a couple of stalks of celery, a couple of carrots, and some potatoes.

So many good things begin this way. Pantry Stew, Curry, Clam Chowder...

Next, brown some sort of meat with the onions. Stew meat, lamb, chicken...whatever you have or makes you happy. Ree would say, "whatever makes your skirt fly up". I love Ree.

I add enough water to barely come to the top of the veggies. Simmer until the veggies are just tender. It takes about 10 or 15 minutes. Then I add a very secret ingredient.

Behold:

Speaking of skirts flying up. Stir in this stuff until it melts, and simmer for 10 or 15 minutes. It will thicken up.

Serve over a bed of rice. Think of middle eastern spice markets.

Don't go away just yet. We aren't quite finished.

Remember that part in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...the new one...where they are eating cabbage soup and are sad about it? Yah, they're idiots.

I have a good friend...a book, to be precise. I eyed my mom's, which was losing it's cover and looked like it was three hundred and fifty years old. Knowing me well enough to know that I am not above stealing from my own mother, she got me my own.

She is a smart woman. This cookbook is from the 40's. It includes recipes for rabbit, squirrel, and other small game. It never calls for "a can of..." or "a package of...". It assumes that you have to make what you eat...it is unfamiliar with the center isles of the grocery store. It harks back to a simpler time. I love its naivete.

As you can see, it starts with two tablespoons of butter, melted in a saucepan. Add 1/4 cup of chopped onions (I usually just add half of a medium onion) and saute until tender. Add 1/4 cup of raw rice, 1 quart of water, four bullion cubes (or four cups of chicken broth), and 1/2 tsp of salt. Simmer it all together for 15 minutes, covered.

Add and 2 and 1/2 cups of finely sliced cabbage.

It came right out of my garden. Full of vitamin C and mellow goodness.

Simmer another five minutes. Now get ready for the best part.

We use nothing but the finest in this house. Dish up the soup. Sprinkle it with shredded cheddar, and top with a bit of paprika. Sometimes I add a bit more rice (if you do this, add more water proportionally) and a bit more cabbage than the recipe calls for, but it is heavenly right out of the book. Talk about comfort food.

Now excuse me while I go turn up the heat.

Pantry Stew

2010-09-28T18:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight I made pantry stew in honor of my dad, who was known for mixing his food in crazy fashion. He would have loved this soup. Tomorrow it will be 8 years since we lost him to lung disease. I miss him.

I decided to share the recipe with you. The problem is, there is no recipe.

So, I decided to take a picture of the pot I made tonight...but then stopped, because I realized that that would be misleading; it never looks the same way twice.

I'm just going to tell you about this wonder. You take whatever you happen to have in the pantry by way of veggies or beans and throw it in with some root veggies or whatever is going to go bad if it doesn't get used.

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself...I'll start from the beginning.

Start by heating up some olive oil on medium and then saute a chopped up onion and a couple of cloves of garlic. Brown some ground beef or some stew meat.

Add to that a couple of carrots, a couple of stalks of celery, and a couple of potatoes. Have squash? Add it. Have zucchini? Add it. Have broccoli? Add it.

It is that kind of dish...forget "a cup of" or "two tsps of"...its just "some" and "a couple". Let your hair down. Be free.
.
Pour in a can of chicken or beef stock. Add enough water to come up to the top of the veggies already in the pot. Use bullion instead of stock, if you must.

Pinch of salt and some pepper.

This is where it gets interesting. Ready?

Beans. I added great northern, black, kidney, and green tonight. Sometimes I add pinto. Sometimes I add navy. I always mix it up. Three or four cans is about right.

I added a can of corn tonight too. And a small can of green chilis. And a small bottle of pimentos, because I wanted the jar to use for salad dressing in my lunch. I threw in a handful of chopped tomatoes. Sometimes I use a can of diced. Tonight I used fresh, because they are coming out of my garden right now. I was going to add mushrooms, but only had canned and didn't feel like it. So sue me.

Once the potatoes are tender, I add the spices. This gets fun because I pull down half my spice cabinet to do it.

Basil, thyme, sage, rosemary, parsley, marjoram, and savory. Pinch of each. I thought about dill and then decided that wasn't the direction my heart was taking me. Turmeric, cumin, and red pepper tonight. Just a bit. A dash of seasoning salt. Splashes of Worcestershire sauce.

Voila! Curl up on the couch with a bowl of this in your lap. I'm going to eat mine with some homemade bread my visiting teacher brought me yesterday.

Have I mentioned I love fall? And my dad.

Talk of the Taters

2010-09-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

We dug up a couple hundred pounds of potatoes a couple of weeks ago, and my niece Kayla gathered all of the "potatoes with personality" and put them in a bucket for me. They have been sitting in the produce fridge ever since, and as I went to retrieve the neglected pears also sitting there, I spied them with my little eye!

They are so cute.

They are almost human.

And I need your help in giving them names. There's a name associated with each one, which I put below each picture as to not screw with your thoughts, but my question for this psychotherapy session is....

What do you see in the 'tato??

So.... without any further ado, here are the taters...

Tater #1

"Sitting Dog"

Tater #2

"I Have No Clue"

Tater #3

"The Mouth"

Tater #4

"Rubber Ducky"

Tater #5

"Bulbous-Nosed Man with a Distinguished Brow"

Tater #6

"Rubber Ducky Reincarnate" or "Laying Dog"

Tater #7

"The Hand"

Dun dun dun duuuuuuun...

Tater #7

"Sloth?" or "Winnie the Pooh"

Tater #8

"Snoopy"

Tater #9

"Little Lamb"

And a family of taters... or ducks. I can't decide.

A Saucy Situation

2010-09-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

There was a saucy situation going down in my kitchen today...

I received an email from OSU Extension Agent Ross Penhallegon, advising me to pick tomatoes and use them in sauce immediately. The weather we've been experiencing in Oregon lately has been less than ideal for growing tomatoes.

Heat, rain, heat rain... that makes for a lot of cracked, pathetic, and confused tomatoes.

I decided to get crackin' myself and whip out a batch of sauce.

We use this sauce for everything... pastas, pizzas, calzones, lasagna... it's a wonder sauce. It's fabulous.

The recipe comes from Barbara Kingsolver's Book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" - a must read if you haven't done so already.

She calls it her...

FAMILY SECRET TOMATO SAUCE

Dun dun dun duuuuuuuunnn...

Ahem.

Straight from the book: 'The point of this recipe is to make a large amount at one time, when tomatoes are in season. If you are canning it, stick closely to the recipe; adding additional fresh vegetables will change the pH so it's unsafe for water-bath canning. If you're freezing it, then it's fine to throw in peppers, mushrooms, fresh garlic, whatever you want. This recipe makes 6-7 quarts - you can use any combination of pint and quart canning jars or freezer boxes."

I got 10 quarts out of my batch, and only did one thing different than the recipe calls for.

I let my simmer.

Overnight. All night. The whole night. Night entirety.

It was a glorious smell to wake up to. Really.

Here's what you'll need:

10 quarts tomato puree (about 30 lbs of tomatoes) - And if you're a little slow like me, that's 40 cups. That's how I measured mine out. While I was washing the tomatoes, I cored them and then I chucked them in my blender and frapped the suckers. It felt good.
4 large onions, chopped
1 cup dried basil
1/2 cup honey
4 Tablespoons dried oregano
3 Tablespoons salt
2 Tablespoons ground dried lemon peel - I didn't have any so I left it out. So there.
2 Tablespoons thyme
2 Tablespoons garlic powder (or more, to taste) - I used the 2T garlic powder, plus about 3T garlic salt. Cause I'm crazy. And I have a husband who hates sweet sauce but loves garlic. Can you blame him?
2 Tablespoons dried parsley
2 teaspoons pepper
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Soften onions in a heavy kettle (I used my big aluminum stock pot) - add a small amount of water if necessary but NO OIL IF YOU ARE CANNING.

Add pureed tomatoes.

Add all seasonings.

Bring to a boil, and simmer on low heat for two to three hours until sauce has thickened to your liking. Stir frequently, especially toward the end, to avoid burning.

This is where I changed things up a bit. I let the sauce simmer all night long. Aaaalllll niiiiggghhhttt loooong! Aaaalll niiigghht. Okay I'm done singing.

I can let things simmer all night long for two reasons:

1. I have a natural gas stove. I wouldn't recommend doing this on an electric range - ask my sister how that fares.

2. I am pregnant. Let me rephrase that... I am hugely, ginormously,8 months, fatty fatty type pregnant... which means I don't sleep so good. I toss and I turn and even when I can get comfortable and I don't have to pee, I still wake up at 3 am just for kicks and find myself fully alert and energized. I swear that's my body preparing me for late-night feedings. Anyways, I'm not complaining - I still get enough sleep - but I can get up several times in the middle of the night to stir sauce and not think twice about it. Last night D woke up and I was just sitting in bed, staring off into space. He looked at me like I was nutso and in only a way D could, asked sincerely, "Everything okay?" He's so sweet. I let him know I was just contemplating the meaning of life and that he was free to go back to sleep. Don't mind the crazed fat lady sitting next to you. Dream away.

Where was I?

Oh yes. I can leave sauce simmering. You may not be able to. If you cannot, follow Barbara's recommendation. If you can, praise the Heavens because it means you can break this saucy situation into two days. Excellent. Procrastination at its finest.

This morning I collected my canning things, fed the child in the high chair, and started filling quart jars. 10 quarts of sauce is easy shtuff.

If you can't simmer when the sun's down, continue the process as follows...

Meanwhile, (this is back when you've added your seasonings and such to your sauce... I'm almost positive you forget where I left you) heat water in canner bath, sterilize jars in boiling water or dishwasher (what's that?) and pour boiling water over jar lids.

SIDE NOTE: Make canning easier on yourself, and use a couple of tricks that women have used since the dawn of time. They're tried and true, and they are glorious. I like easy. Easy peasy.

1. Steal your paper towel holder. use it to hold your rings so you're not chasing them all over the counter. They're slippery little buggers.

2. Don't run your jars through the dishwasher every time you're going to use them. Run them under hot water for a moment, drain them, and then stick them in the oven at about 250 degrees. I promise by the time you use them, there will be nothing living. And then they're piping hot when you put what you're canning into them. Love it.

Bottled lemon juice or citric acid - NOT optional!

Add 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice OR 1/2 teaspoon citric acid to each quart jar (half that much to pint jars). This ensures that the sauce will be safely acidic.

When the sauce is ready, ladle it into hot jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace.

Cap jars, lower gently into the canner and boil for 35 minutes. Remove, cool, check all seals, and store for winter.

Voila! You have Super Sauce!!!!

And thank you Barbara Kingsolver!!

What CAN'T Zucchini Do??

2010-09-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

I started this post and then forgot about it somewhere between grading papers, reading the Hunger Games series (which I totally recommend as some fine YA fiction), and cleaning my house...because this is what it often looks like in my kitchen.

It's a crying shame too, that you had to wait for so long for it though, because if there is one thing that can compete with the chocolate zucchini cake for top zuke spot, it is zucchini salsa. I'm serious people. I can eat a jar of this stuff in one sitting, chips are optional.

Start with 10 cups of food-processed zucchini. Add four chopped onions, four chopped bell peppers, and 1/4 cup of pickling salt. Let that stand overnight, of for at least six hours.

Next, rinse and drain the mix, making sure to press on it to get most of the water out. No one likes watery salsa. Put it in a pot and add the following million secret ingredients that make it so divine you want to eat nothing else for a while:

2 Tbs. of dry mustard
2 Tbs. of garlic powder
2 Tbs. of cumin
1 C and 1 Tbs. of white vinegar
3/4 C of brown sugar
1 - 2 Tbs. of red pepper flakes
1 tsp. of pepper
4 cloves of garlic
2 - 4 jalapenos (Use gloves and don't touch your eyes. I'm speaking from experience here.)
1 bunch of cilantro chopped
5 C of chopped ripe tomatoes
2 Tbs. of cornstarch
12 ounces of tomato paste

Bring that to a boil and simmer until you get your desired thickness.

Look at all those beautiful garden grown veggies.

Come to mama.

Pour into clean bottles and water bath those babies for about 20 minutes. Makes about eight pints.

I really think that this could be a positive step toward world peace. You just cannot think about hurting anyone when you are as happy as this salsa will make you.

Crush on a Coffee Table

2010-09-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

I have a major crush on my coffee table.

Why you ask?

1. I can hear an awful scraping/rubbing noise coming from the living room while I'm washing the dishes, and my heart rate stays the same because I know it's just the "Owsees" running along it's top.

2. Thomas, or "Tangan" can keep a strict schedule and get where he needs to go... FAST.

He's a very busy train.

3. The cow can live in peace.

4. The boy can climb where he pleases...

And LoLo doesn't have to worry about a thing.

This coffee table's predecessor was glass and metal.

You can understand my previous anxiety and my current relief.

Oh and it has really cool hardware.

Needless to say, we're a happy bunch in the Cherry House.

Chester the Moo and my achin' butt...

2010-09-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday evening, we received a call from a family in our ward (The Sorters, actually, the matriarch of which family gave me the amazing recipe for Blueberry Breakfast Cake... you may remember it. I know I do. Mmmmm...) who's neighbor raises Angus cow/calf pairs. One of his *ahem* more spirited cows had twins, and would have nothing to do with the first born, a hearty black bull calf.

He's adorable.

He smells like heaven.

He was still wet behind the ears when we got to him. Literally. I checked.

His name is Chester.

We went to pick up Chester about an hour after the call, though we didn't know whether we'd end up with a "Chester" or a "Cherie" since we had no clue what he/she was at the time.

We were on our way to the Sorter's place when we passed this adorable, wrinkly, 150-year-old man shuffling through his yard. I wanted to squeeze him.

I had no idea.

The Sorter's promptly took us to their neighbors to pick up the calf. Much to my surprise, my 150-year-old crush greeted us in his driveway with a "Hmmph" and headed towards his corrals.

Inside, we would meet the twin calves, as well as mama cow, who was - lacking a better word - psychotic.

Karl and Rose bought their homestead in 1950. They have been married 64 years. Their adorability level is comparable to a baby duck. A very fuzzy, yellow baby duck. And yes. Adorability.

Before we arrived, Karl had identified the orphaned calf. He pointed her out... no him out... no her... no him. For sure, him. We loaded the most adorable bull calf into the back of the pickup. Karl asked us to wait. Karl asked us to bring the bull calf back. He'd gotten it wrong. We loaded the heifer into the truck. We waited. The suspense was killing us. We had the heifer in the truck three times, and the bull calf in twice. This went on for about two hours, during which Karl tried to reconcile mama and babies so he could see for sure which one was not getting attention.

One problem...

Mama, at this point, didn't want anything to do with either of them.

She was ticked that we were even there.

She busted right through a fence and tried to eat me (TWICE!!) while we were loading him into the truck. The first time I was on the phone with my mom, and backed right up against a steel gate. Not a good place to be 8 months pregnant and staring down a 1,500 lb animal. Instinctively, I pointed my hip at her, and then did what came naturally...

I lifted my leg and karate kicked her in the face.

The second time I was out in the open... she came through the fence. She stopped. She sniffed the air. She locked her eyes on me. She snorted. She contemplated murder. She charged. I peed my pants. Almost.

I've heard of fight or flight mode... but I have this thing about being chased. Since I was young I've said I'd be the perfect murder victim, because when I feel that someone is chasing me, my bones fuse together, my muscles lock up, and I freeze right where I am.

It's slightly embarrassing.

Thank goodness, I have been wrong all these years. When a real danger presented itself, my body instead did what was needed to protect my life, my dignity, and my child.

I ran.

My huge, wobbly, unstable pelvis'd self ran like there was no tomorrow.

When I finally got stopped, I found out why pregnant women don't run sprints.

Holy put me to bed. I couldn't get my legs to work.

From what we figure, I pulled every ligament and muscle in my hip flexer/pelvic area. I wanted to die that first night. Thank Heavens for a responsible, dependable, competent husband. He took care of everything.

Side note: I went grocery shopping today, and only 3 people I counted gave me the "Oh how cute she's pregnant so she has to waddle like a penguin" look.

Listen up, people. This is not the "I'm pregnant so I have to waddle" walk. THIS is the "Oh my achin' butt why did I run for my life I would have rather broken something" walk.

Anyways.......

Were there until after dark and every minute that passed was one more minute that calf went without eating. But, he's alive!!

It took Chester a full day to be comfortable enough in his surroundings to eat. We're on day 3 of being in the world now, and he is eating just fine!!

I think the slobber is proof enough...

Delicious ain't it? Wanna see it again?

How about from a different angle?

Every time D steps outside that calf bawls his head off. Thanks to the Sorters, the Stokes, and the Richins, we were able to gather everything we needed for him the first night without having to hit up the feed stores... they were closed by the time we left Karl and Rose's place anyways. : P

The next day we bought replacement colostrum and he drank it.

Hallelujah!

Our hope is to keep him alive long enough for him to grow big... and meaty... and... and...

I gotta stop. I'm drooling.

For now, I will love him and scratch his ears. I will giggle when he butts D for more milk. I will let him suck on my finger and love his soft, squishy nose. And I will forget that he will be huge and mean before I know it.

For now... all is well in Zion. And in the Cherry House.

An Old French Recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-09-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

This is my friend Jo. She was a room mate of mine my freshman year of college at BYU-Hawaii. We had way too much fun together. See those cookies? They aren't Jo's fault. They're mine.

Then I met a man. A man who changed my life.

Meet Alton. He taught me so many things. Among them, he taught me the secret to cookies. Not a specific recipe, but the secret behind any recipe.

Have I shared with you the second best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever? (The first best is a secret I will take to my grave because I promised I would; sorry.)

I HAVEN'T?? Well, let me rectify the situation.

I got this recipe from an old French friend by the name of Nestle' Tol'ous...and Pheobe Buffay, from Friends.

Fat. Necessary for so many good things in life. Is it the caveman in us?

One cup. You can use butter, but it has a higher water content and makes the cookies spread more, so they're thinner.

Creamed with sugar, brown and white, living in blissful harmony. Why can't we all just get along? Add about a quarter cup of each.

Remember my exhortation to cream your sugar and fat properly? This is most important in cookie making. Light and fluffy. Go do something productive for about five minutes. Chop walnuts or something.

Add an egg and incorporate it completely. Add another. Throw in a teaspoon of vanilla.

Sift together a cup of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda (I add a bit less here at 6K feet), and a teaspoon of salt. Add to the creamed sugar and beat for about two minutes. You need gluten to begin forming...protein threads...look for the dough to start clinging to itself...sad to be separated from itself...oh that we were all so content with ourselves...but I digress...

Stir up the flour in the bag or whatever container you have it in, and add another cup. Then fill up half a cup of flour and add enough that it looks like this:

Don't look at the chips...we haven't added those yet. Just look at the dough. It has started to pull away from the sides of the bowl. The thing with flour, as mentioned before, is that how much you add depends on all sorts of things, like temperature, humidity, elevation, the phase of the moon and where it is in the zodiac, so what you add one week may not be what you add the next. Part of what we are to learn in this life is flexibility. I have faith that you can deal with it.

Now add as many chocolate chips as floats your boat...sometimes a cup, sometimes more. And walnuts. Damned walnuts and their siren song. I'm still soliciting a little chopper thingy (that is a technical term) for Christmas, if that is the relationship we have...don't get me one if we aren't on gift-giving terms though because I'll feel terrible that I didn't get you anything.

As a result of my abhorrence, I chop them very roughly, not that I'm mean to them...I just leave them in rather big pieces. Isn't the English language wonderful?

If you like, add a handful of oatmeal to the pot. It makes the cookies a little meatier and I love it, but in my opinion makes the dough less yummy, so sometimes I leave it out. I left it out this time. Flexibility, see? Beautiful.

Now, here's a trick: toss on a sheet of wax paper and throw the mixing bowl in the fridge while the oven preheats to 375. This will solidify the fat, making the cookies lighter and cakier...they won't spread out. Put it back in the fridge between batches.

Another trick: tin foil on the cookie sheet. I hate washing cookie sheets almost as much as I hate chopping walnuts.

About ten minutes...maybe twelve. Again, consult your star chart...but take them out right before you think they are done:

Put them on a piece of paper towel on a cake rack. The paper towel will absorb some of the excess fat, making them a bit crispier as well as making them diet cookies. It nullifies the effects of using an entire cup of Crisco.

Enjoy warm with cold milk. Tomorrow (because I assume you will make them tonight; I'm going to) nuke them for 15 seconds to trick yourself into thinking you just pulled them out of the oven. OR roll the extra dough (cha, right) into balls and layer them in Tupperware with wax paper and keep in the freezer (thanks Tamara, you're brilliant) for a rainy day.

Eat your heart out Pilsbury.

Compensating for Something?

2010-08-30T19:38:00.000-07:00

It could be that it is an effort bust out without doing anything too crazy.

It could be a vain attempt to get my high school students to think I'm cool.

It could be some deep-seated need to belong to something. I get a rush from waving to other people, strangers, riding motorcycles.

Or, it could have to do with the joy of becoming intimate with my surroundings. Of the feel of the wind on my cheeks and neck as it drops five degrees when I speed past a field sprinkler. Of coming closer to the feeling of flying than while doing anything else, including flying. Of the smell of sage and alfalfa and the warm earth.

In any case, it makes my soul happy.

Don't tell my dad.

No Dumb Clucks Allowed

2010-08-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

At the end of June my mom came to visit. Heavens praise my mom. I say that because my chickie mama neighbor, Stayc informed me during mom's visit that the chickens might have to vacate her premises. See, Stayc and I have been sharing a flock. It has been great; she would take care of their daily needs, and I would eat eggs. And they stayed over at her place in a coop built in the 1800s. These were classy digs, I tell you.

But for some reason I cannot fathom, Stayc's husband, Deek, disliked driving like a hundred miles every day to work up in Lindon and Salt Lake. Something about never seeing his children and gas bills that exceeded his mortgage bill.

Whatever.

The point is, they bought a house up north and abandoned me and our children...I mean, chickens.

So, mom being the resourceful soul that she is and afraid of nothing says, "well, I guess we know what we are doing while I'm here!"

And like anything worth doing, it required a trip to the lumber yard. And a big red truck.

This is the first of many trips to Woodchcucks lumber yard. I don't really know if that is what it is called, but Joe the lumberjack has a picture of a big smiling woodchuck lumberjack on the side of his building and he (Joe) has a sunny disposition.

I should have broken this up into a series of posts about building the coop. But I didn't, so now I'm stuck with a ton of pictures and a somewhat fuzzy recollection of the last two months. This means that you are getting a photo documentary of this project. I will interject, but you can fill in most of the narration yourself.

These 4x4s are sunk 2 feet in the ground. In holes. I dug. With a shovel.

We leveled the sills on concrete paving slabs. Just little ones.

Mom insisted on 11 inches between rafters. Nice and sturdy.

I love this rough cut wood.

It goes perfectly with the rustic fence behind the coop.

I'm hoping the siding will fade to match it.

I hate insulation. With passion.

Jon did the electricity, bless his soul.

Did I mention that I hate insulation? I did? I still do.

I understand from the farmers around me that this is a good sealant.

Jon and his dad helped me put up the siding.

We had a little bit of trouble getting the drywall ceiling up. It came to blows. We won.

And some of the boards didn't line up quite right, on the inside.

This might have something to do with it.

But I made this door on my very own and everything. And it fit.

Felix seems to like the roosts. The others aren't quite sure yet.

Isn't she purdy?

I don't know about all this, ma.

And presenting an almost all growed up Piper. He isn't sure about his place in life. I'm not either. I don't think I can handle three roosters and I'm sure my neighbors can't. I'll decide what to do with him when he starts crowing.

Maybe I'll put him with the chicks that are hatching under the broody hen that is hiding in the barn next door?

Preservation Perseverance

2010-08-18T21:32:00.000-07:00

Mid-August in our neck of the woods translates: sticky floor, aching back, home as hot as Hades, and a stark reminder why we spend so much time tending to the garden.

I love canning.

Love it.

Did I mention I really love canning?

Here's a wrap up of the projects we've been working on lately...

QUICK DILL PICKLES

I get my dill pickle recipe from one of the greatest books ever written. Carla Emery, a brilliant woman to say the least, has since passed on, but her book - The Encyclopedia of Country Living - is ageless. Seriously, if you don't have a copy of this massive piece of literature, do yourself a favor and get one. The lady really floats my boat.

I like crunchy pickles, so I soak my cucumbers in culinary lime for about 12-18 hours before processing. Before we could get our hands on culinary lime last year, we crushed up a bunch of calcium pills and soaked them in a solution of calcium and water. It helped with the pickles' soggy nature, but not a ton. Wilco (owned by True Value) wound up ordering us a bunch of bags of lime, so now we're set!

Disgusting...

Repulsive...

GREEN BEANS!!

My green bean "recipe" comes straight from another of my favorite books... The Ball Blue Book of Preserving (don't laugh at the name - it's right there! I didn't make it up!!)

We add very little to our beans. They're canned in water and a tiny bit of salt - 1 teaspoon per quart jar to be exact. They process in the pressure canner for 25 minutes, and voila! You have GLORIOUS green beans. Holy moly no matter how many bean rows we plant, and no matter how many quarts we put up, we always seem to run out by December. We just can't help ourselves.

SIDE NOTE: Thank you, thank you, thank you Lindsay Surface and mommy for helping me snap beans this year! D was working and we had a great girls get-together. Woah. So many G's.

STRAWBERRY-RHUBARB JAM!!

My mom is famous in our family for her strawberry-rhubarb jam. I. love. it. My brother Chris has morphed his diet and nutrition into something I would never be able to tolerate, so this is the first year she hasn't shipped him some. I think I heard him cry a little on the phone when she told him what we were doing. Excellent. ; P

The recipe she uses comes right off the back of the MCP (pectin) box. One of the greatest lessons I have learned from my mother in the kitchen is this: always, always try the recipe on the box. So I confess... many of my best recipes come right off the boxes of the ingredients I'm using. I, too often, go searching for the best recipe online when, in fact, it's right there... right under my nose. Who knew?!?! Especially when you're making jam or jelly, the recipes on the table in the box are simply the best in my opinion, so we stick to 'em... sort of. ; )

We're apparently very thorough when using up the last of the batch... *ahem*

Hello love...

AND PLUM JAM... kind of.

I'm sure you all remember these gems from last year... my beloved plums. *sigh* I love plums. This year, the pear and plum trees blossomed right at the wrong time. It rained. It hailed. The bees never made it to them, and so, no plums. : (

Thank goodness, D had the sense to bring up the fact that we had 30 quarts of halved plums in the food storage room!! We didn't plan on turning these into jam, but we haven't used any of them - canning them semi-whole was more of an experiment than anything - so we got busy! The plums, though canned for a year, made GREAT jam and the juice that the plums were packed in made ever better jelly!! Score!!

D and I have one trick when it comes to plum jam... you may call it our best mistake in the world. We do. Last year, when we were making plum jam, and we were so googly-eyed about each other, giggling in the kitchen, dreaming of being husband and wife and the hundred babies we would have, we stopped paying attention to the recipe (*ahem* - I stopped paying attention to the recipe) and told D to add DOUBLE the lemon juice that it called for.

Yes. Double.

As it hit the pot I realized what I had done. We had not the slightest idea whether or not it would turn out. As it cooled in jars we watched, and we waited... And when it was all said and done, we had the best darn plum jam we'd ever tasted! It was lighter (in color and texture) than regular plum jam - our plums are dark in color and extremely firm and meaty. They make "man jam" so to speak... and the lemon juice added a tart tinge of flavor that was to die for.

So to make a long story longer, "our" recipe will call for double the lemon juice for the rest of our lives.

This is what happens when you have a bad ring. Yup. This bad boy exploded TWICE! I thought I had just lined up the seal wrong after it exploded all over the counter the first time, but when I tried it a second, we wound up with the same result. Bad, bad ring. : (

All in all we're happy with how things are going this year in the garden, though they may be slow...

Up next, potatoes, potatoes, potatoes... tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!!

Honey, honey, honey....

2010-08-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

We've had hives for four years. The first year we obsessed, hovered, dealt with, medicated, and probably drove the bees crazy. They swarmed the second year. I'm sure it was because they remembered the previous year. They wanted out before we started meddling. The second year we tried to be a little less invasive. The third year we thought one hive was dead and the other just holding on, until we opened the hives in August and found two very healthy colonies. This year because of lots of traveling we have hardly touched the hives. There is honey galore. I guess my point is that bees know what they are doing, and have for centuries.

They work so hard. We saved the few frames of honey from the first years anticipating that the hives would need feeding in the spring. This year, realizing that they need little help from us, we took the six frames out of the freezer and extracted for the first time. We will need to extract again before September, because this has been a bumper year for the bees.

Here's what the oldest extraction looked like.

The honey will be fine for cooking, but is a little crystallized for genereal use. I was going to put it back in the hives.... but they just don't need it, so I'll use it and the bees wax. There are about 40 lbs of honey in each box or super.

They need 60 lbs in each hive to get through the winter and next spring.

Three quarts of honey and three candles from six frames.

Laura isn't afraid of bees anymore, after climbing fifteen feet into a tree and helping me recapture a swarm, and Leah is starting hives in Utah in the spring.

The bees that are alive now will not be the bees that emerge in April. The girls will kick all of the boys out of the hive in the fall... they refuse to feed them over the winter.... and they will raise new men in the spring. Most bees live about 42 days, and yes, they are all girls.

Little bees start out cleaning the hive, move up to helping in the nursery, learn to attend the Queen, stock the pantry, provide heat and air conditioning, build honeycomb, and then become guards. That's all in the first 21 days. The last half of their life they gather pollen, nectar, water, and tree resin. They visit 5 million flowers to produce one pint of honey.

I love our girls.

Yeah, Leah and Laura too.

Grandma Helen's Spaghetti

2010-08-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

So, this is turning into a series of posts about my favorite foods. These are tried and true recipes, the ones we return to regularly. Still to come: the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, pantry stew, shredded pork, and baked spinach penne.

But for now: Grandma Helen's spaghetti. She was a wise and wonderful woman and I miss her regularly.

This is a half hour dish, from start to finish, tastes amazing the first night and even better the next day for lunch.

Read, set, go.

Put on the water to boil. Add a bit of salt to it and make sure there is plenty of water so the noodles don't get sticky.

Dice an onion and saute it in olive oil with two cloves of garlic on medium high heat.

Add a pound of ground beef to that and brown up real good like.

The water should be boiling about now, so throw in a handful of noodles.

AFTER the meat has browned, add about a tsp of salt and pepper to taste (if you add the salt too soon, it pulls all of the water out of the beef and makes it chewy and dry). Next, add a handful of Italian seasoning.

Um, actually a little less than this. I didn't add the whole handful.

Now, Jon and I love bell peppers in our sauce, but don't eat them fast enough so they go bad in our fridge. For many years, we just did without them except for on the specialist of occasions (Shakespeare made up words, why can't I?). But then we discovered these babies:

Life changing. Dehydrated peppers. They come in a number 10 can at Wal Mart in small Utah towns. They look beautiful on a glass canister on your counter. They go in soup, spaghetti, taco meat, you name it.

To this, add a can of tomato paste, a can of tomato sauce, and a can of diced tomatoes. My hope is to use my own tomatoes for all of this in not too long. But they are taking a really long time to get ripe. Stupid buggers. And a tomato paste trick? Open both ends and push it out like a red pudding pop.

Last but not least: sugar. About four tablespoons. Three if you want "diet" sauce.

Sometimes I get crazy and add olives, mushrooms, green peppers, or some chili pepper.

Here is the tricky part: Let It SIMMER! All that stuff needs to get intimate, mingle, sing karaoke together. Bond.

Check those noodles. They should be just about al dente by now. Throw them in with the sauce and stir. Serve with a romantic salad, garlic bread, and whatever else your heart desires.

Like chocolate chip cookies!

Friday Night Pie

2010-08-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

Jon and I have a tradition. Friday night is pizza night.

The problem is that pizza places are dang expensive and the pizza is often not very good. So when Jon and I first got married and couldn't afford things like milk and bread, let alone something so extravagant as pizza, Jon decided that something had to be done. He started making his own pizza, using a Betty Crocker cook book that his mom gave us for our first Christmas together. It was cheap, and it was good (the pizza, not the cookbook). It became a Friday night tradition...pizza and a movie.

Years marched past, as they are wont to do, and sometime during the last decade, I took over the pizza making. It probably had something to do with Jon having to have a salad with his pizza and my detestation of the process of salad making. We decided without deciding that he would make the salad and I would be in charge of the pie. It is a good deal. I worked for several years in pizza places when I was a teenager, and I make a very pretty pizza, if I do say so myself.

Which, I do and just did.

This was never intended to be a food blog, but what can I say, we Newbury girls love food. So here is a pizza recipe that will have you saying, "Mama Mia!"

First, ignore everything your mother ever told you about proofing yeast and waiting to add the salt (sorry mom), and combine a cup of flour, 2 Tbs of sugar, a tsp of salt, and a packet (or two tsps) of yeast in a mixing bowl. I use the paddle for this first part as it mixes better than the dough hook. If you are backwoods like my sister though, you use a whisk and your hands. To that, add a cup of fairly warm water and 3 Tbs of olive oil.

Make it smooth and pretty. Then add another cup of flour.

I use a spatula to clean off the paddle and switch to the dough hook at this point. Add more flour until it looks like this:

It is still just a tad sticky, but is not sticking to the bowl anymore. Let the hook knead it for about five minutes. The tricky thing about bread making is that the dough is so affected by things like temperature, humidity, and the alignment of planets. So, one week I use three cups of flour total, but the next I might only need two and a half or so. This is how much of the third cup of flour I ended up using this time. It probably had something to do with the meteor shower or the tide. Who knows?

Now, clean off the dough hook, cover the bowl with a towel and go watch an episode of Seinfeld. Give it about half an hour, until it has doubled and two fingers leave an impression in the dough.

Gently scoop it out onto a floured surface (I usually use my pizza stone). Knead it for just a minute, folding the sides into the middle and set it seam side down to rest for a minute. I said, let it rest. This time to relax and meditate will make the dough easier to handle and roll out...not so elastic-y.

This is a key to a pretty dough. When it starts with this nice round shape, it is easier to get it to this nice round shape:

We are getting ahead of ourselves though. While you are giving the dough some time to relax, shred the cheese and make the pizza sauce. The sauce is an old family recipe passed down through the generations.

Seriously. Sometimes we use the Hunts all natural. I'm kind of neurotic and don't use spaghetti sauce with high fructose corn syrup, so if you care about that kind of stuff, read the labels. I pour the sauce into a bowl and add the paste until it looks like pizza sauce. About like this:

Thicker than sauce, thinner than paste.

Now, roll out the dough on your pizza stone, or put it onto a cookie sheet (see earlier pic). Poke it with fork all over so that it won't become pita bread and puff all up. If you are using a pizza stone, put it in the oven and NOW turn on the oven to about 415 degrees. Bake for about 15-20 minutes. Putting it in without preheating the oven turns the bottom element on so that the bottom of the pizza browns and allows the stone to heat up with the oven. Pre baking the crust eliminates sogginess in the middle of the pizza. If you are using a cookie sheet, you may want to preheat the oven and bake for only about 10 minutes though, because I'm afraid that it might burn the bottom of the crust through your flimsy girly-man cookie sheet.

When your crust looks like this:

Spread the sauce.

Add cheese:

And whatever toppings your heart desires. We usually use pepperoni because Jon's a purist like that, but last night we discovered we were out. We did a half and half with lunch meat turkey and leftover taco beef and olives.

Because I decided it was now taco pizza, I added some cheddar to that side as well.

Put back in the oven and back for about 20 minutes or until it looks like this:

Use your sleeve to wipe the drool off of your mouth and enjoy with a nice cold root beer (Laura should have some of that).

Who needs Papa Johns and $20 pizza?

Monster Zuchs put to Good Use

2010-08-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

I have a theory. It goes something like this:

Chocolate makes everything better.

I've been looking forward to zucchini season for one main reason:

A word about Dana Matthews. She is a guru of sorts. She makes fruit leather, paints, raises chickens, cards and spins her own wool, then takes the yarn and weaves beautiful cloth on a loom. Everything she touches ends up being lovely and tasty and she pretty much reminds me of my mom, who has these same talents.

I got this from her daughter-in-law, who was kind enough to share with us when we came over for dinner one night. This shows that she is a better person than I am because I would never share. Except with Jon, but only because he makes me.

So, this cake. It is divine. Moist and chocolately and nutty. It is the perfect use of a green vegetable.

I'm a fan of Julia Child, and believe, as she did, that all good things start with butter.

One stick. I cube it up when I haven't left it out to soften. This increases the surface area exposed to the warm air and lets me get on with my life.

Add half a cup of oil 1 and 3/4 cup sugar. Beat it up. Show it who is boss. This is, in my humble opinion, one of the main problems people have when baking. They don't cream the fat and sugar enough. So, it shouldn't look like this:

It should look like this:

Add two eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla. This right here rocks my world. I abhor all things artificial, including grass, flowers, boobs, people...you name it.

And look at these little beauties:

From my very own backyard. They're even prettier inside:

Deep golden and well rounded. Well, hello there.

Next add two cups of shredded zucchini (almost an entire small one; I used one of the smaller ones from the first picture).

Next, dump in half a cup of walnuts, and half a cup of chocolate chips. I'll be honest. I added 3/4 of a cup of the chocolate chips. I'm rogue like that.

Chopping walnuts always makes me think of my maternal grandmother. She was a chocolatier the likes of which would put Willie Wonka to shame. This was always the job she gave to kids.

I hate chopping walnuts.

Now we turn our attention to dry ingredients. I dump them all in my strainer over a bowl and shake them through.

We've got 2 and 1/2 cups flour, tsp salt, tsp baking soda (I use a bit less here at 6K feet), and 1/4 cup cocoa. I added a bit more until I liked the color better.

I'm telling you, I'm a rebel.

Add this to the wet alternately with 1/2 cup of buttermilk. Since I don't keep buttermilk in my fridge because I'm not my grandfather, I make it using milk and vinegar. 1 tsp to a cup ratio is about right. Make sure to incorporate each addition completely before moving on.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9x13. I'll tell you a little secret about floured pans for chocolate cake...better yet, I'll show you:

Cocoa! That way you don't get the white crusties on the cake at the end.

Pop it in a 325 oven for about 55 minutes. While it is still hot, sprinkle it with more chocolate chips and walnuts (preferably toasted, but I didn't feel like taking the time to do that, so I didn't. I'm boss, remember?).

Eat, bless the heavens and the cocoa bean, repeat. I think I'm going to go and eat my vegetables.

I love this time of year.

The Root of All Deliciousness

2010-08-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

In July, my mom came over toting a large, intriguing box. It had two of my favorite words in the world on it.

Root beer.

Yum.

Just saying it out loud makes me happy.

Root beer.

It was a root beer making kit. How cool is that?

I asked her what her tote was all about. She said she bought it to give to either Jon - favorite son-in-law (A) - or D - favorite son-in-law (B). Of course, I talked her into giving it to the one attached to me, and so D and I made root beer this past week for Family Home Evening.

We had a blast! Like I mentioned earlier, this was just a kit - a simple "hamburger helper style" way of making root beer, but it at least gave us a taste of the real process.

This kit involved a lot of waiting... sterilize this, wait 10 minutes. Combine that, wait 10 minutes.

So what is a couple to do while they're waiting??

Play UNO of course!!!!

UNO is a dangerous game to play in our home.

We play dirty. It gets nasty.

SKIP and REVERSE cards are thrown all over the room.

People get called fat.

Pregnant people in particular.

We followed the instructions (believe it or not) and the end result was root beer! This kit carbonates with brewer's yeast, which I really like because it's authentic. However, they flavor with wintergreen - which is a common root beer flavoring these days...

We're just not fans.

We like our sassafras.

A lot.

So at the end of the night, we ended up with four bottles of yummy root beer that my mom drank.

I am still suspicious that this whole thing worked out just the way she wanted it to.

Very mysterious.

Carla's Blueberry Breakfast Cake

2010-08-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

Carla Sorter is a wonderful woman. I knew that before. Now that she's given me this recipe, she's my superhero for the day. ; P

She asked me not to accredit this recipe to her, because she did not create it, but rather copied it from somewhere else. However, I figure this is how family recipes and legends are transferred. Do any of us really have a unique recipe to call our own that someone hasn't already made somewhere? Who knows. I guess that's a question for another day...

For now, we will call it:

"Carla's Blueberry Breakfast Cake" aka "D Please Take It Away and Hide It In Ethiopia Before I Eat It All... Cake".

What you'll need:

For the cake -
1/2 c butter
1/2 c sugar
1 egg
2 c blueberries
1 1/2 c flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 c milk

For the crumb topping -
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c flour
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t allspice
1/4 t cardamon
1/4 c butter

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Cream the butter & sugar until fluffy. I put the butter in the microwave for about ten seconds, and I don't have a mixer so I did this with a whisk and my super human strength in a vigorous fashion!!

Mix in the egg.

In a separate bowl, combine the following: flour, baking powder, and salt.

Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk and combine well.

Fold in the blueberries. Eat a few. Fold a few. Eat a few. PRAY you get blueberries as big and as luscious as the ones Carla gave me. Holy. Moly.

Pour into a greased 8x8 pan. I always grease with butter. But that's only because butter is one of the best friends I have. Mmmmmm.

Set the pan aside.

Now make the topping...

Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, allspice, and cardamon in a bowl.

Cut in the butter with a pastry blender. I couldn't find my pastry blender so I used a whisk and hacked at it like a cereal killer. It felt good.

Sprinkle the topping over the cake mixture.

Even though there's butter in the topping already, I layered additional slices of butter on top because that's how I roll.

Oh yeah.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes. Stick a knife or a toothpick in her at the end to see if she's done and voila!!

We, of course, ate it hot with yet another slice of butter on the top.

Absolutely disgusting, I tell you.

The Greater Things in Life...

2010-08-06T08:07:00.001-07:00

If you haven't ever tried this with your children, with your parents, with your spouse, by yourself - you are truly, and utterly missing out on one of the greater things in life.

Utterly.

One of the greater things in life? Ice cream on your cereal in the morning...

The wee, wee hours of the morning.

Waste Not The uhhhh... SCRAPS!!

2010-08-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

After I got my pieces cut (ripped, rather) out for the wipes, I realized I was going to have scraps left over. Beautiful, perfect, rectangular pieces too long and too skinny for wipes, but not for other things. I considered using them for cleaning. Flannel is divine on windows, floors, and the like.

Divine, I tell you.

As I was contemplating that, D walked through the kitchen where I was sewing. I like D's brain. I always have. That's why I married him. His brain, I swear, runs 110 mph 24 hours a day. Always thinking, always measuring, always balancing. He's a creator. It's what his brain was born to do.

And it's extremely attractive.

*fans herself*

Anyways, I showed D the scraps and simply said,

"I wish I could find a good use for these little buggers..."

He stopped for a moment, looked at the scraps for a half a millisecond, and said,

"Why don't you put a bar of soap in between two of them and sew it up shut?"

Why don't I do what?!? Why didn't I think of that?

And ladies and gentlemen, we have a non-slippery (slipperless?) baby scrubber with a knack for getting grime off things with lightning speed, but which is gentle enough for baby's skin, and super cute.

I went to work. I matched up the pieces, I ran to Market of Choice and picked up four bars of natural soap for $1.35 a piece, I surged, I sang, I giggled, and I used my scraps.

I went with scents/ingredients like honeysuckle and olive oil... mmmm...

Brilliant man, he is. Who's that brilliant man's wife? She's so smart for marrying him. ; P

So the next time I need to scrub a baby butt (or my butt for that matter) I think I'll reach for the ultra-absorbent, beautifully lathering soap cradle D's brain formed instead of a washcloth. All it takes is some water, and a little scrub-scrub in your hands, and you're ready to go.

Oh and to make matters even better, look at the photo below...

You can see that fabric is folded over the right side. Well, when that soap runs out, I'm throwing that bad boy through a wash, cutting open the end, putting another bar of soap in, and serging the sucker up again for a second round.

Mmmmmm hmmm.

Use makes me happy.

Double use makes me double happy.

I purchased two yards of flannel at JoAnn's for about $3.00 per yard. The containers are from IKEA, and were $3.00 for a pack of 3. The thread? Pennies. The soap was a little over $1.00 a bar. I ended with over 40 wipes, 15 soap cradles, and a few random scraps that I'm trying to talk D into wearing as neck ties. Not bad for an initial investment under $15.00.

C'mon Baby, Light My Fire!!

2010-08-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

What to do? What to do? Every other day I have a stand off with the lovely, hairy, appetizing lint that comes from my dryer. It says,

"Throw me away. We both know where this is headed."

And I say,

"But I don't want to. You're mine. You're part of my clothes, my dogs, my dirt. I made you for goodness' sake! Can't I use and abuse you in some fashion?!?"

Yes. Yes I can. And so I will.

Dryer lint, sewing scraps, shredded paper for the love!! You can use it all to make your own firestarters!! It's a wonderful idea I tell you, and the ones we just made burned. They burned hot, and for a very, very long time. Excellent.

So here are the steps:

You will need:

Some form of flammable something (dryer lint, bellybutton lint - gross - or sewing scraps - best to use something that will catch easily and burn hot. Flannel seems to work really well)

Egg cartons (We used the kind with a flip top, but if you have the large, open-top flats, they'll work juuuuuust fine)

Paraffin (Paraffin is kerosene in it's solid form - it's the most common type of wax used for candles, lamps, etc. You can buy it online, or at places like Glory Bee Foods - they have a retail location in Eugene and if you've never been there, the trip is a must. Also, if you've got old crayons laying around the house, they're made of paraffin. Use them! Melt those bad boys down and make them work for you!)

Step #1: Gather your material -

Our material came from two places...

The dryer vent... (made up of yummy hair from the girls, and particles from our clothes)

And the wipes project I just finished...

Step #2: Place your material into egg cartons

Step #3: Melt the paraffin - Use crayons or commercial wax (a Number 10 can IN A DOUBLE BOILER on the stove works great for this! Be careful to sink the No. 10 can in water to melt the wax because if you put it on the stove directly it can catch fire. Not good.
)

Step #4: Pour the melted paraffin onto the material in each hole of the egg carton.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: Put parchment paper or some other leak-proof paper under your cartons. They will leak. Oh and don't pour so fast that the paraffin sloshes out of the container and onto your stove and floor. You'll be scraping paraffin for years. Just ask my mom.)

Step #5: Let them dry and voila! It's a fire starter!

____________________________________________________________________

When you need to start a fire, you break a little section off (this is another reason to use egg cartons) and light it on fire! Mom said when she put a match to one after it had dried, it went up beautifully, burned really hot, and stayed burning for over 5 minutes. That's pretty dang good.

Murder pictures and a guinea pig in the freezer...

2010-08-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

After we made the fire starters, mom told me she would burn one as soon as they were dry, and email me the photo documentation.

She did, and she did.

Here are the pictures she sent me...

Do you see anything wrong with these pictures?

Yep. You're right. That is a dead bird in the upper left corner.

We don't open the wood stoves often during the summer months, and obviously this little one found his way in but not out. It's sad, really. I won't deny that.

I thought it might have been old age, I thought maybe she had seen the bird and was playing a prank on me (just ask her about the egg drop project my sophomore year when my family provided the eggs... oh the smell. The site. The crying cheerleaders. My laughing mother.)

Much to my relief, she did not see the bird, and I didn't know whether she was going to laugh or cry when I showed her the pictures back. I, on the other hand, was doing both. I tend to shed tears when I laugh that hard.

And you know what she said to me after removing the bird from her wood stove?

"Well, I guess I'll go bury the poor little thing... I should probably give it some company and bury it with the guinea pig that's in the freezer though."

Uhhhhhhhh... what?

Yup. That's me mum.

Couch Potatoes

2010-07-31T19:08:00.000-07:00

This year we decided to concentrate on the vegetables we want to can. Last year the beans made it until December and the tomatoes until February, so we knew we needed more of those, but we got a little carried away with the potatoes: 230 plants.

Laura and I had thrown in a few sprouted potatoes from her vegetable bin last year, and we got ten or twenty decent potatoes without knowing or understanding anything about how to take care of them. They grew. We threw some tires around them, and that was about all. We probably over-watered them. The vines died off a little early, and we dug them before the first cold snap, but all in all they weren't too bad. Funny what a little success can inspire.

This year they were one of the first things we put in the ground. We started with about five pounds of various types from a potato farm in Idaho. We sulphured them well, trenched them in, and they started ok. But the rain didn't stop until June, and only the purple variety from Peru made it. The rest died off by July. They didn't rot, because I can still dig up the pieces and they are covered in sulphur and they are hard. They have about ten little potatoes the size of marbles around them, but the vines didn't make it.

That's ok because we still have twelve rows left. We planted more at the end of April. So far the russets and the yukon golds bought from the local feed store are doing the best. The vines are thick and green, and they grow steadily. We threw in some spidery things from Laura's pantry again; alien-looking grey things with long legs. They shot out of the ground, but too tall and too fast. They are growing. However, the vines are yellow and many are wilting because they just aren't very healthy.

Potatoes seem to be the most time consuming and troublesome of the vegetables this year. I call them the couch potatoes. They want a drink, or some magnesium, or a comforter thrown around them. Hilling them has taken some time.

We opted not to do the tires this year because of the snakes. D hates snakes, and we want D in the garden. The water that the tires held last year was a haven for the snakes.

Laura started the hilling process with wheat straw. We read that using straw keeps the potatoes clean. Then we read that it just encourages bugs? It's also hard to keep the light off the new potatoes if it filters through the straw, so we did the second go round with soil...... 3 yards of soil hand carried and placed ever so gently around their little necks. That was 2 pickup loads. By hand!

Twelve rows took two days. The potatoes grow between the seed piece and the top of the hill. Leah had the best idea. In her garden in Utah, she dug an eight inch trench and planted her seed pieces in the bottom . She keeps pulling the soil into the trench as the potato plants grow.

Ours are hilled with straw and soil, and we'll see who has the best potatoes.

Why are we growing so many?

We want to know which variety does best in our garden.
We want to see if we can keep our own seed stock until next year, and what the quality will be if replanted.
We want to see if potatoes will keep in saw dust in a garbage can through the winter.
We want to see how they can for stew.
We want to try potato flour.
We need counseling.

Waste Not the Wipes!!

2010-07-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

I have been extremely intrigued by a great many things lately... having a baby is an eye-opening experience of the best kind.

Countless topics have been discussed in our home over the course of the past few months, and bless D's heart, he has been right there with me, always supportive, going over pros and cons, always willing to be the other half (the sane half, really) of my "Oh I just read something else that turns my world upside down" conversations. Bless. His. Heart.

I will be posting several blogs over the course of the next few months (years) about eco-friendly kid raising. Yes, this farming, dirt loving, surely conservative woman just said the words (hyphenated word rather) "eco-friendly" and I plan on saying much more on that topic. The main idea is that I would like to protect my children. All of them. Even the girls. : ) As parents-to-be, we worry about some of the same things our grandparents worried about when they were raising their brood. However, we worry about much different things too. Things that, until late, have not reared their ugly heads for parents to worry about. We plan on doing all we can to give the Cherry Clan the kind of wholesome, homegrown, dirt-streaked life we enjoyed and love still.

Project #1: Reusable Wipes!!

I like to save money. "Like" may be the wrong word here... ummmm... I'm so cheap I squeak.

There I said it.

I'm also somewhat of a naturalist. A homesteader. A home-loving housewife.

All of the above.

Back to the wipes...

I first read this recipe on Progressive Pioneer, a wholly inspiring blog written by Amy Thompson. The woman has a soul of gold, to say the least. She shares great ideas for making the most out of raising your children, easy do-it-yourself projects, and if I start now I'll be here all day explaining the benefits of following her blog... so just do it. However, I will give the same disclaimer for her site as I did for the other... I am not responsible for the addiction that ensues after visiting her world. ; ) You can find her baby wipe recipe, among other great articles here.

Reusable Baby Wipes
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What you'll need:

For the wipes -
flannel squares (to fit whatever container you'll keep the wipes in)
a serger (the other day I called my mom's a surge protector and I thought she was going to pee her pants)
a sewing machine (if you have one of the nicer four-spool sergers you won't need the sewing machine)

For the solution -
3 cups warm water
2 T olive oil
3 drops essential oil (mint, lemon, lavender, you pick!)
2 drops tea tree oil
2 T natural baby wash (preferably the no-suds kind... I'll tell you why later. Ugh.)

Step #1: Wash the fabric. You'll always want to wash fabric before you start working with it - especially flannel which can shrink up to 3" in the first wash. Dry on low heat, and you're ready to start cutting!!

Step #2: Cut your flannel into squares/rectangles that will fit into the container you're going to be storing them in. I used a BPA-free plastic container with a flip top lid. NOTE: you will want to cut the pieces about 1/8 of an inch larger (on all sides) than you actually want. The serger will take off about that much from each side. NOTE#2: The wonderful thing about flannel is that, if you start a cut at one end, the fabric will rip easily and give you a nice, quick, straight edge. Excellent!

The golf pattern - my dad would be so proud.

Is this not the CUTEST fabric for a builder's family? I'm in love.

Step #3: Double up the fabric. The flannel I purchased had a print on one side and not the other. The material is also softer on the printed side than the non. Because of that, I serge two pieces of fabric together - printed sides facing out obviously.

Step #4: Serge all four edges of the fabric pieces. Trim the tails.

Come back soon to see what I do with these scraps!! It's so exciting!!

Step #5: Because I was using a 3-spool serger, I ran a straight stitch down each edge (in the middle of the serge) just to insure that these bad boys would not come undone. Ever. If you've got a 4-spool serger you won't have to worry about this step. If you do add a straight stitch, just trim all excess thread from the wipes, and fold them so they're ready for solution!

Step #6: Make the "wet" part of the wipes...

Put all ingredients in the blender. NOTE: This is the reason you want a baby wash that doesn't create bubbles... I had a lovely explosion in my kitchen last night because I thought I could ignore Amy's advice on that.

Curiosity killed the cat.

And foamed the kitchen.

Step #7: Add your liquid to your wipes. I just put half the wipes in (I can fit 12 in each container I bought), added the liquid, squish squish squished, added more wipes, more liquid, etc until they reach desired liquidiness. Yes. Liquidiness.

What's amazing about flannel is that it holds liquid VERY well, but doesn't drip. Perfect.

Congratulations! You have reusable wipes!!

In the past 24 hours I have used mine to wipe a butt, wipe a counter, clean a picture frame, dust a piece of wood furniture, clean a dirty face, and polish glass.

Yes. I used clean ones for some *ahem* tasks.

Happy wiping!!

Wait a minute...

2010-07-23T15:36:00.001-07:00

I'm BUSY!

Waste Not, Want Not

2010-06-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

How cool is it that you can take rotting fruit and turn it into something so completely delectable?

I mean really, really delectable...

Thank you, brown bananas. Feel free to visit again anytime.