Crush on a Coffee Table

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...

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

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?

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-seeded 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

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?