“Cure for an obsession: Get another one.” ~Mason Cooley
I have a weirdness. It popped up in a conversation between Jason and I the other day. For a bit of a backstory, it began innocently enough, as it always does.
I was in the plant section, more specifically, the CLEARANCE (clear-ron-say, as I love to pronounce it) section of Lowe’s. Three sad and mostly dead African violets caught my eye. They were a whopping dollar each. And now let’s hit the backstory to my backstory: Ten years ago, I got an African violet. I don’t remember where I got it. It started innocently enough. A single plant, right? Then, as I started researched African violets, they have things called “suckers” which are little baby plants trying to come up from the base of the mother plant. This is not a good thing for your normal violet, because they will stop blooming. So, being the good plant stewardess that I was, I painstakingly removed each tiny embryonic baby from the mama with tweezers and a Xacto knife (sterilized, of course) and put them with gentle, loving care in a Jiffy greenhouse. You know, the giant ones with like 40 cells.
Then I discovered that there are things called “trailing” African violets, which, LONG AND VERY BORING STORY SHORT, suckers are NOT a bad thing and that’s just the ways trailers grow. Well, crud. So now I had approximately 41 trailing African violets. I will spare you the horror of the boring details, but I ended up doing hours and hours of research on how to BEST raise African violets, what they needed, what they hated, the Latin name, and heck, I may have joined the African Violet Society of America. I even gave a presentation (seriously) to our local garden club on African violet care.
Because you see, when I get fixated on something, I get FIXATED. I have to know all about it. I want you to ask me questions, because I am READY and PREPARED with an endless array of information and documentation and if I had been on Jeopardy and African violets were a subject, I would have stomped a mudhole in everyone else’s behind. Back to present-day Lowe’s:
I thought about my violet that I had ten years ago. I still miss “her”. (Yes, it was a ‘her’, and she had a name, though I can’t remember it) Here she was in her full glory. Be still my heart:
And the worst part was that I have no idea what happened to her. I am sure that, in the course of us moving and my subsequent obsessions, she suffered a terrible, neglectful death. But anyway, I got the violets at Lowe’s. I have babied them (one did die), pampered them, fertilized them, and given them the quarter-turn each and every day in their sunny, south-facing window. They have rewarded my patience and persistence by thriving and blooming:
But enter my weirdness. I don’t want just two African violets anymore. I want a hundred. I want a greenhouse full of African violets. I want so many that people can’t come into my house without falling over some Saintpaulia (if you don’t get it, don’t feel bad…it’s the nerd in me). I want so many that people will call me “that crazy violet lady”.
So naturally, a few weeks later I was in Lowe’s again and there was a FULL FLAT of sad, neglected AVs. Be still my heart. But they weren’t yet marked down and I’ll be danged if I pay more than a dollar each for a flowerless AV from Lowe’s when I know that’s what they mark them down to. Enter my DLS (dear long-suffering) husband. A week later, he has to go to Lowe’s. I beg him to go check on the flat. When he returns, it’s like Christmas. He scores fifteen violets…for a dollar a piece. I am giddy. It was better than getting a pony.
So later that night, he says, “Why is it that you can’t just have ONE of something?”
Me: I don’t know what you mean.
He (looking at me like I have lost it): You can’t just have one. Why do you have to get multiples of everything?
Me (puzzled look): I don’t know what you’re talking about.
He: We have six dogs, more chickens than anyone we know, like 10 parrots….(voice trails off)
Me: shrugs
Of COURSE I know what he means! It’s the same reason I couldn’t have a pair of zebra finches. I had to have 15. I couldn’t have one gerbil; I had to have every color so that I could, quite literally, be able to recreate ANY AND ALL possible color variations in the gerbil breeding world. I couldn’t have just one orchid; I had to save them all from Lowe’s and my kitchen window looked like a Brazilian rainforest minus the monkeys. I couldn’t just have “three or four” chickens, but instead I needed one (okay…more) of each breed known to mankind. One roll of washi tape? NO! I must have one representing each holiday, each possible vacation destination, and every color in the full Pantone color library.
But I have good news! I am older and I am tireder. Yes, tireder. And I am tired of having multiples of anything! Minimalism and my obsession to have a full set of 200 gel pens to go with my new coloring book do not mesh. So, I have been clearing out my past obsessions, and not putting anything else in their place.
Except African violets. Which I can justify because they do not poop nor do they shed. Those are some of my new requirements to come into my house.
Also, if you know where I could get a plant like my original AV, you are my new friend…I really do miss it and I will always make enough window space for one more!
It’s official. I am now at that age where I want to flag down strangers at the grocery store and tell them all about my medical conditions, holding them captive with my too-long tales of woe. Or, tell the world in a blog post. Whatever.
If you are the kind of person who hates to think about other people’s feet, go no further. If other people’s medical stories make you want to vomit, go elsewhere. You’d better stop right now. If not, read on.
I have had a several years’ long quest to find footwear that doesn’t cause me pain. I have to tell you that I have failed miserably. Finally, I went to a really expensive shoe store and had my feet measured (reminded me of going to Buster Brown as a kid…why they did away with that, I have no idea), and after I told him about how all shoes hurt my feet, he looks up at me and said, “Have you been wearing regular width shoes?” “Ummmmm….I’m a wide, aren’t I?” “Yes, you are.” “Oh.”
Okay, issue #1 addressed. So I did end up with wide width shoes and they did work much better for quite a while.
Then you get into winter and you really *should* wear something other than flip flops. Unfortunately, by then said athletic shoes I had bought looked more appropriate for my Mastiff’s chew toy than footwear. For the second (or maybe third?) year in a row, I found myself in November with no other shoes besides flip flops, a scary pair of wrecked New Balance, and house shoes. I admit, I wore the houseshoes. The upside to the houseshoes is that they do look more like moccasins, so you can pretty much pass them off as such. The BAD part was that I had forgotten how they nearly crippled me last year. I was reminded of this fact, quite painfully, about 2 weeks ago when my fourth toes screamed out in the Shoe Revolt of 2014. Initially, it wasn’t so bad. I switched shoes for a while and then stupidly went back into the houseshoes. Well, last week, the Toe Uprising occurred. Last Thursday, I woke up to a horribly distorted toe and of course, the temperature outside had to be like negative 30. (not really, but close enough) Now I had absolutely no shoes to wear outside of summery flip flops, because my little pea brain finally associated my mangled feet with the wear of my beloved houseshoes.
Well, they went in the trash. Forget a bra burning party, I had a shoe burning party. I had to wear *something* to go out and feed the chickens. I chose my mud boots. Bad decision. By the time I was halfway to the chicken coop, I was hobbling like I had arthritis in every joint below my waist. The top of the boot was scouring the top of my toes like sandpaper. I was almost in tears. When I did make it back inside, I ripped off the boots and stuffed them in the trash can. With God as my witness, no shoe will ever cause me pain again.
I made a doctor’s appointment that day, and I’m the kind of person who will avoid going to the doctor unless I’m at Death’s door. Close enough.
When I arrived at the doctor’s, I hobbled in and took my turn to wait. I have to say, I never realized that a podiatrist would be so busy at 8:30 in the morning, but I guess that bad feet are a common thing. I don’t go to see a doctor any more than I really have to. I looked around. Apparently, this pair of doctors saw a ton of wonky feet. The office was brand new and very nice. Even the magazine selections were good. Not just Golf, People, or AARP. I looked down at my clothes. That’s a whole ‘nuther issue because I have no nice clothes, either. I had on my pair of black fleece North Face pants, which cost more than I have spent on pants in years. I was horrified to see that they were coated with a mix of dog and guinea pig hairs. OmG. Great. Country comes to town. Nervously, and without trying to draw attention to myself, I try to remove some of the fur, and then realize that the cleaning ladies would be wondering why there was a small pile of animal fur in the lobby. Note to self: Do NOT leave my house ever again (!!!) without a lint roller. Okay. Also, do not wear black fleece in public.
I was called back, and the nurse looked at me and said, “You’re limping.” He got points in my book for good observation. I sat in the chair and propped up my feet. He asked the normal questions about meds, height, weight, etc. Then we get to the issue at hand. I take off my shoes and he immediately palpates my feet. Without gloves. I look at him in awe. Wow. This guy handles feet all day, sometimes gloveless apparently, and does this by choice. I’m slightly amazed. He’s an everyday hero. He asks a few more questions and then says, “Okay, so you didn’t fall out of a truck or anything, did you?”
Oh, dear. My thoughts go back to my furry fleecy pants, my ugly shoes, my address (small town, poor county) and the fact I’m a self-pay (no insurance) client. Did I look like I was the kind of person who randomly jumps out of trucks? Do I look like a person that would even own a truck? Couldn’t I have tripped over a lump in my hand-knotted Persian rug and stubbed my toe on the stand that holds my Ming Dynasty vase (vahz…not vayce)? Couldn’t I have fallen out of my Land Rover? No, I suppose that people who come in wearing furry fleece pants don’t own any of those items anyway. I kinda wanted to say that I indeed did fall out of a tater truck earlier that week, but I didn’t want to make anything awkward between us. After all, this man was part of the bridge to my recovery. So I told him the real truth and that it was due to shoe friction.
He left the room and then popped his head back in to ask if it was okay to perform an x-ray. (I’m self-pay, remember) I said most definitely, YES. At this point, I could frankly care less what you do as long as I can walk normally. He said, “Okay good, because usually when people are in this kind of pain, the toe is broken, and your toes are a little weird, I mean…” Suddenly, I realize he is very embarrassed, “OH! I don’t mean they’re weird…I just mean…” He trails off. I think to myself, my God, in an office that sees thousands of feet a year, I am the person with the weird feet. Great. I tell him that it’s fine, I know my feet are, in fact, very weird, and that it’s okay and there is absolutely no offense, because a fact is a fact, right? I’ve known this ever since I compared my feet to other girls’ in school and realized that toes are not, as a general rule, bent at odd and hideous angles, but in most cases are actually straight. I even complimented a girl once in school about how pretty her feet were. Yes, I was jealous. I’m sure she thought I was a total weirdo. A weirdo with weird, wonky feet.
Anyway, we get the x-rays done and I sit back down. The doctor comes in, and I have to tell you that I don’t even know his name because he didn’t tell me. Oh well. It was one of two doctors, so I’m sure I’ll figure it out by my follow-up visit. So, he takes a look, and then shows me the x-ray. I am absolutely amazed to see that my bones are actually straight in my toes. Wow. Would have never guessed that. Then he tells me what I have. It was pretty much a list. Hammertoes, mallet toes, claw toes, claw hammer toes, pliertoes, wrenchtoes, bunions, Funyuns, bunionettes, marionettes…whatever kind of malady a foot can have, I probably have it. He tells me that I will, eventually, need surgery, both for hammertoe relief as well as for my tailor’s bunions (they actually shave the bone on that one….ugh). I say, “So, basically, you’re saying my feet are doomed, right?” He wasn’t expecting that, really, and says,”Oh no, no, I don’t mean it like that.” I say, “It’s okay, my feet are doomed.” After some more small procedures, I set up with some arthritis gel for pain, Medrol for the swelling, and some custom inserts for shoes that I don’t own. I ask him about shoes. He said to find some with a squared toe box type shoes. I was literally crying in the back of my mind because I have sought these Holy Grail of shoes for years unsuccessfully. I’m still holding out hope. He tells me that the steroids I will be taking are inexpensive. Okay, I say.
I go to pay, fully expecting to shell out at least a couple hundred bucks. The total came to $130. I blurt out how cheap that is. I know that even in our business, we usually don’t do much for under 200 dollars, and here is this nice and beautifully decorated, fully staffed, modern office and they do an appointment for less than $150. Nice.
I get back into the car and tell Jason that I think I may need to upgrade my appearance. “Why?” he said.
“Well, because I think I give off the impression that I’m extremely poor or something. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being poor, I’m certainly not saying that at all, but I think I look, well, maybe like I am the kind of person who jumps out of large trucks on a whim. Like the kind of person who may shoot coons off of her deck at night. Does that make sense?” He laughs. “Well, it got you some free medicine, a cheap prescription, and a cheap appointment, didn’t it?” “Well, I guess, but…” I absentmindedly pick a dog hair off of my pants. I make another mental note to do some wardrobe upgrades in the future as well as buy a case of lint rollers. “Anyway, I think it would have been funny if I had hobbled outside to climb into my brand new Lexus, right?” I giggle. “Yes,” he answers, “but you climbed into your Prius, and they probably thought, ‘That poor woman can’t even afford gas.’ ”
I laugh.
So, the next day, I start my Medrol pack. I am one of those kind of people who actually reads about the side effects. Sweating, acne, insomnia, changes in appetite…pretty much all the normal stuff. Then I get down to “could possibly cause frank psychotic episodes”. I try to let that sink in for a minute. Frank psychotic episodes.
Great.
I have a cooking class at a grocery store that I take the kids to, and today is that day. Of course it is. Well, I’ll be the wild-eyed nude woman in the store trying to free the lobsters while I’m declaring to the shocked onlookers that I am either Jesus or the reincarnation of Cleopatra. This is lovely.
I do have to report that I did make it through the class without removing any garment of clothing, nor telling anyone that I was the materialization of the Lord and Savior or the Queen of the Nile. I stayed as far away as I possibly could from the lobster tank.
By the next morning, I realized that the ‘insomnia’ part of the side effects certainly held true. I may not have actually had a psychotic episode, but as I looked in the mirror that morning, I looked like I was psychotic. After a whole night of tossing, turning, and waking up in a dead panic about 10 times, my hair had a Bride of Frankenstein quality, my traces of mascara were down to my cheeks, and my eyes had the look of “If you touch me today, I will likely scare you as well as myself.” Luckily, after a shower, most of those qualities were erased.
I picked up my new shoe inserts. I flipped them over. On the back was a big letter “D”. D for Doomed. I sighed heavily and limped to the Keurig.
So, here’s to shoes that fit, feet that don’t hurt, and the medicine of podiatry. Wonky and janky feet owners of the world unite! I may not be Queen of the Nile, but I declare myself Princess of the Wonky Feet.
This is a post about butchering chickens. Yes, it seems to be a totally irrelevant title, but I assure you, it IS about putting up your own birds. First, let’s get down to business about processing your very own meat birds.
Let me begin by saying meat chickens, more specifically, Cornish crosses or “Cornish X”, are nasty and just vile. Sorry, there’s no way around it. When humans developed an animal that does nothing (and I do mean nothing) but eat and poop, it just has to be pretty gross. They are the smelliest, messiest, and nippiest chickens out there. They will eat non-stop and poop non-stop. They will gulp water until their crops are huge and pendulous. If they do run out of food and you don’t have any, expect your hands to be pecked to a pulp. It ain’t pretty. People who have grown up working in broiler houses often do not have chickens, and I can clearly see why. If you’ve had no experience with chickens outside of broilers, you’d never know that they are really NOT nasty critters.
With that out of the way, they are definitely the most efficient way to get a bird from an egg to your freezer in the shortest amount of time possible. I call them “meat with a beak”, because that is ALL they are ‘good’ for. They don’t roam, they don’t lay eggs, they just sit and wait to be served their dinner. Because of this and their genetic makeup, they put on massive amounts of muscle quickly. So, if you want a table bird as fast as you can get it, a Cornish cross is the way to go.
We have always used Cornish cross and it has always made a fine carcass for processing. When we process, the birds are typically 4-5 pounds after butchering. So, it’s a pretty big bird. We usually do not get a table-ready bird in 6-8 weeks because we do not feed them non-stop. This time around, the birds were about 3.5 months old, which is ancient for a broiler. The problem was that we just really weren’t ready with our new processing equipment, and the birds weren’t getting enough food to top out quickly. In other words, it was our fault.
Anyhoo, we got about 1/3 of the flock done yesterday. We worked on butchering equipment for about 3 days, and I am showing it off via the photo gallery I have posted below. The boards were all ‘upcycled’ from decking boards and an old rabbit hutch that we had. The stainless steel ‘sink’ at the “Evisceration Station” is actually our ridiculously expensive chimney cap that blew off early last year, approximately 3 weeks after installation. Don’t get me started on that damned cap. I paid way too much, had it supposedly installed by ‘professionals’, and I will be damned if it didn’t blow off in a March gale, taking along with it some bricks which dented my BRAND NEW METAL ROOF and subsequently bashed in my vintage patio table, that now cannot hold a drink on it, lest it end up in your lap. SO DON’T GET ME STARTED ON CHIMNEY CAPS. But I had decided that since I had shelled out so much money on the stupid thing that there had to be a great use for it, and sure enough, with a hole drilled into the center, it makes an awesome chicken cleaning table. You know what they say: When life hands you lemons, throw some chicken guts on it, and it will be okay.
Each station has its own handheld sprayer with its own sprayer dock so that you are not stumbling over hoses or trying to balance your sprayer where you’re not going to get soaked with it. Trust me, been there, done that, and been soaked down WAY too many times to NOT have a reliable sprayer and a sturdy sprayer dock. All it is, is a little ‘c’ clamp so the sprayer handle hooks into it. On the Evisceration Station, the PVC bar across the top is drilled at the bottom with small holes. The red handle operates this flow, so you can turn it on independently of your sprayer. It helps to keep blood, feathers, etc. flowing towards the center drain, which empties into a 5 gallon bucket. Since the bucket fills up too quickly, we are going to put a screen at the bottom, add a PVC ‘drain tube’ out of the bottom side of the bucket. So, it will keep the funky stuff in and allow the water to escape.
On the cone/plucking station, on one side we used 16″ tall flashing to create cones with the bottom openings just large enough for a chicken’s neck to fit into. Next time, we are going to also include some ‘c’ clamps at the top to hold the chickens’ feet in place as they can even still manage to squirm their legs enough to get down into the cones (they are probably a bit too wide). On the other side, there are 2 sets of chicken leg sized slots that were cut into the top beam. The legs fit in the slots perfectly (we used a live chicken and measured its legs), and the feet prevent the bird from slipping out. On one set of slots, we attached a showerhead above it so that we can turn it on to help rinse feathers downward when needed, into the tarp. The hand sprayer and showerhead are, again, plumbed independently so you can operate them separately.
Notice place to hang sprayer…
The Evisceration Station
Plucking station sprayer and showerhead
“Killing Cones’ side
Showerhead and hand sprayer at Pluck Station
Plucking Station
My eviscerating knife and hand sprayer
Evisceration Station #2
“Killing cones” and edge of “Evisceration Station”
The whole process went very well compared to our previous butchering day experiences, with one exception. We currently do not own a plucker. We have rented a Whizbang plucker in the past and there is just no other way to pluck once you have used one. We just didn’t have time to build one, though we have all of the parts needed except for the rubber fingers. However, by next g0-’round, you can be darn sure that we’ll have one because hand plucking sucks! Even though this time we got the water temperature perfect and the feathers literally slid out, it still takes too long.
For those of you unfamiliar with the process, here’s a rundown of how we do things.
1. Start heating your scalding water. We use a very large, lidded stockpot and an outdoor propane ‘turkey fryer’ burner. Water temp will need to be 145-150 degrees. I let it get a bit over 150, because when you remove the lid, the temp goes down, and it also gets cooler when you plunge a bird into it. Add about a teaspoon of Dawn to the water, to break the surface tension of the chicken feathers. Getting water to temp will take a long time. Always do this first!
2. Sanitize cutting instruments/tables/coolers with weak bleach solution. You can look up bleach to water ratios online…I can’t remember them exactly, but this time I believe we did a 1:12 solution. It must stay on for 15-20 minutes to disinfect surfaces, then you rinse it off with water.
3. When water temp is ready, your equipment has been disinfected, and you have a layer of ice in your cooler, you’re ready to begin. We ‘do’ 2 chickens at a time. Chicken is put into cone upside down and head is removed with a knife. Once bloodflow stops, it’s off to the scalding water.
4. Dunk the chicken several times to fully saturate the feathers, then hold it under with exception to the feet. Feet are nasty and I don’t like to think about getting chicken foot funk in my water. After about 8-10 seconds, I pull the bird up and try to pull out a flight feather. Once these slide out easily, it’s time to pluck.
5. Head over to the plucking area and remove all feathers. It isn’t difficult, but it is the most time consuming part of the job. I try to get all the pinfeathers (if any) as well. However, pinfeathers and the little ‘hair’ feathers come out very easily after the bird has been aged in the fridge, so if I miss some, it’s no big deal. I then rinse off the bird with a strong stream of water.
6. Now it’s time to eviscerate (remove the guts and ‘butt’). I remove the feet first, then the ‘wicking’ feather and oil gland above the tail. I also remove the very last joint on the wing. No one eats that anyway. Then I make a cut above the crop by the neck, and loosen the tendons around the crop and trachea. Personally, I remove the crop at this point below any food that may be present. The bird is on its back. Spin it around, and I make a cut just below the breast plate but well above the anus (yeah, you don’t want to go there). Then you reach in, scoop out ALL the organs and now the only thing still attached is the intestine to that yucky ol’ anus. CAREFULLY, you cut around that, throw it all in the ‘gut bucket’ and now all that’s left is the lungs. They are fixed to the ribs of the bird, so you have to reach back in and scoop them with your fingers. Now rinse the cavity well, and then the outside, and place the carcass in the cooler and stuff ice into the cavity to chill it quickly. Cover with ice, and move to the next bird.
7. After a chill in the ice for an hour or two, I take them out, and either put them in a giant baggie or stack them in a huge pan, cover with plastic wrap, and I leave them in our extra refrigerator for 2 days to ‘age’ the meat. This time in the fridge will make the meat super tender…at least in the case of young birds. If we’re talking about an old rooster or hen, you’d want to definitely boil it anyway, but if you have birds that are weeks or a few months old, after the stay in the refrigerator, you should have some very tender meat. I don’t ever skip this step.
8. After the 2 day aging period, it is then that I take them out, rinse them off again and cut them up into parts. It is very easy to slice them up at that point. Then it’s either time to have some chicken dinner or freeze them. I don’t like to leave fresh chicken in the fridge for more than 72 hours. You can put the parts in freezer bags, or double butcher paper. Some people also like vacuum bags.
So that’s chicken processing in a nutshell. If you want specifics on evisceration, you can watch the Joel Salatin (of Polyface Farms) video on YouTube. It’s very fast, so watch carefully. I don’t think I need to include photos of the actual butchering day because it’s all been done before, and done well.
So, just a few notes of DON’T’s for you:
DON’T forget to remove food and water the evening before you butcher your birds, unless you want to deal with poop and full crops. Gross.
DON’T forget to sharpen all your knives and have sharp kitchen scissors at the ready. Plainly speaking, dull knives make butchering absolute hell. Trust me. SHARP KNIVES, PEOPLE. SHARP KNIVES.
DON’T forget the ice! It takes a lot more than what you think!
And now on to the vegetarian part of this post….
After it was all said and done and we were hosing down all the grossness that goes along with butchering, I looked at Jason and said, “You know what’s great about vegetables? Vegetables don’t bleed.”
Of course, vegetables also don’t poop, they don’t have feathers or fur, and you don’t have to make sure that they have food and water every single day of the year. Over the past few years, both Jason and I have gotten to where we can hardly tolerate eating meat. Beef was the first to go. Sure, we still ate burgers and BBQ now and then, but we ‘paid for it’ every time with uber-exciting intestinal ‘troubles’. Then, it was pork. As much as I love a crispy piece of bacon, I’d ultimately end up with more, you guessed it, tummy ‘troubles’. It got so bad a few times that I vowed to eat nothing but hay, twigs, and sticks to move things along, if you know what I mean.
Over the past several weeks, we have really been doing very well on our veggie-heavy meals. Usually, there is no meat involved at all, and if there is, the kids will eat it. Well, last night I make chicken cacciatore with our fresh chicken. I made it chock full of organic bell peppers, onions, tomatoes and mushrooms…and chicken, of course. Well, we both found ourselves shoving the chicken to the side and munching down the veggies. I ate a bite of chicken and I wished I had spit it out. It just doesn’t even taste good to me anymore! It has nothing to do with the fact that I butchered it…this is about our 4th ‘batch’ of meat birds and I’ve never had an issue before. If I’m going to eat meat, I want to be the one to put it on my own plate. I just don’t want meat. I’m not going to vilify meat eaters even though I truly do believe that as a whole, our society eats WAY too much of it. Meat simply holds no appeal to me anymore. When I see meat, I can now see a dead piece of critter sitting on my plate. What’s more, it doesn’t taste good to me. What’s the point in that?
So, I guess I’m saying that my chicken butchering days are drawing to a close even after we have invested all this time and money in getting all of this done. Fortunately, the kids still enjoy chicken (for now), so we’ll do the rest of the birds, part them up, and use them in our meals. After that, the lovely equipment I just showed you may be shoved under a tarp and eventually sold.
Somewhere out in the chicken pen, I think I hear feather-muffled claps of joy.
So far, I’ve been doing all four, which is pretty amazing for me. Of course, we’re only 9 days into the year.
To help me along, I bought some cookbooks for inspiration, because most of my cookbooks are the typical, everyday Southern American diet which consists of 5 major food groups:
1. Bacon
2. Cheese
3. Cream cheese
4. Butter
5. Cream-of-whatever soup
Last week, my new cookbooks arrived. First up is, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. I haven’t made very many recipes out of it yet, but it is like a ‘Joy of Cooking’ for vegetarians. I did made some aioli (garlic mayonnaise) and served it with an avocado club sandwich and it was PHENOMENAL. I could have downed about 4 of them. I actually got to use my mortar and pestle that has been slowly developing a nice dust layer on my shelf. I had to look up a video on how to use the thing as I was completely clueless. Luckily, all the garlic DID remain in the little bowl without flying out everywhere.
Next up is Weelicious by Catherine McCord. This cookbook is geared toward families with young children. We have been using this cookbook several times a day already. While I think some of the recipes do need slight tweaking, so far, the majority of them have been hits with the kids. Last night I made the Graham Crackers, and we totally scarfed ’em. Fortunately, they made a huge batch when you roll them out to 1/8″ (and NOT the 1/4″ recommended), so there are plenty left. I like Weelicious because it is mostly low sugar recipes or uses alternative sweeteners like agave nectar and honey. You can get many of the recipes for free right on her website, too. I made the Beet and White Bean hummus a few days back. I have never eaten a beet in my life and I have to say I was very surprised. I figured it would taste like dirt (that’s my own weird thought on beets), but fresh beets are very sweet and have a consistency of a carrot. Not to mention that they are my absolute favorite color: fuschia. Be forewarned, though, because they will turn everything fuschia that they touch. Anyway, it makes this radical hot pink hummus. When Jason came home, I whipped out this neon dip with some baby carrots, celery sticks, and bell pepper sticks, and he looked at it like it had a dead rat in the center of the bowl. Especially after I told him it contained beets.
Poor Jason. His Granny made him eat canned beets as he grew up and she was a Clean Plate enforcer. So, Jason HATED beets. Or so he thought until he tried my dip! Actually, it just tastes like a good bean dip and nothing more.
In addition to adding more veggies to our diet, I also bought some different grains and rice varieties. I made a wild rice soup that was just out of this world. When I served it at dinner, my youngest daughter ran upstairs, grabbed her diary, and made an entry, as you can see above. She then brought it back down to be sure that I saw it. In addition to “I hate soop, Mom” you can clearly see the arrow breaking her little heart and ripping it in two. Because that’s exactly what I was trying to do by making a good, healthy meal, you see. As I was slaving in the kitchen for a few hours to prepare this soup, I was thinking to myself, “Now what could I prepare to make my child absolutely want to vomit?” Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, neither child would come within 10 feet of the soup so Jason and I got to eat it all. Oh well. We can’t win ’em all.
Anyway, I can’t say that I miss Facebook. I have broken up with Facebook and moved on to Pinterest, which I find much more inspirational and I also do not check it constantly like I did with FB. Although some pins are just nauseating (gold staples, anyone?), you can at least search what you like and the comments aren’t irritating.
As far as the garden goes, we planted our onions about 4 days ago. I’m glad we did, because this week has brought flooding rains that will be great for getting them established, providing that a river doesn’t decided to run through the front yard and carry my baby onions to the bottom of the hill. I tried a few new varieties this year, including Texas Legend, Super Star, and Red Candy Apple. We also planted our old favorite, 1015s. Plus THIS YEAR I planted the things in good, deep compost which I did not do last year, and ended up with the saddest, sorriest lot of onions I ever planted. Now is the time to start some cole crops, and I’m also getting my taters ready to plant by letting them develop some nice eyes before planting them. I am also going to try some new things in the garden including bok choy, turnips, and winter squashes.
I’ve been really trying to be a good little minimalist lately (more on that later), and pare down all the crap in my life. You know, literally and metaphorically speaking (anyone need some chickens?).
In doing so, I am weeding out the junk and hanging on to the “good stuff”. I love, love, love to try out new and different things with the hope that I’ll discover something that so awesome, I won’t be able to understand how I ever went without it.
Anyhoo, I thought It’d share some of my newest favorites with you, in an absolutely random fashion.
1. Biokleen products. I have been on a many months’ long quest to find a good, eco friendly laundry detergent/soap. Now, I do make my own, but there are times when I need something with a bit more cleaning power for greasy clothes, and I also like to occasionally wash my clothes in a detergent to get out “the funk”. Enter Biokleen laundry detergent. Fabulous. I use only about a tablespoon or less for my HE washer on a large load. Clothes are wonderfully clean, and smell fresh, plus no harmful ingredients. As far as I can tell, no weird chemicals or animal testing for their products. So far,
I have used about half of a 64 oz. jug and it has been at least a solid month since bought it. Heck, maybe two! I’ll have to check. I also bought their dishwashing soap, and I love it. Smells like citrus, and literally leaves dishes squeaky clean. I was having issues with other soaps not cutting through grease well, bit it’s no longer an issue. I am also using Biokleen glass cleaner. Works great, though I sure love using vodka for that. You know, for cleaning, NOT drinking while cleaning, although I’m sure that has its perks.
2. French press for coffee. Who would have thought that for 13 bucks, you could have some totally great coffee time and time again? I got mine at IKEA, and I love it. The coffee turns out rich and somehow creamy, even. The only drawback? It takes a pretty good amount of coffee, and coffee ain’t cheap. Still…
3. Biscoff spread. It’s a cookie made into a silly peanut butter texture spread. If you love the taste of Graham crackers, you will love thus stuff. Truly “crack in a jar”. Yeah, probably not that great for you, either.
4. (I’m so hesitant and this one….sigh) My Motorola RAZR MAXX. I’m embarrassed. I finally gave in and got a smartphone. Yeah, me….the one that made fun of smartphone carrying people ever since they came out. Ugh. I wear the Cone of Shame. But, I use this little guy for so much. It is the best alarm I’ve ever owned (that is, one I didn’t want to beat the crap out of with a baseball bat when
it went off). It has replaced my silly paper trail and kept me up to date by using the free app called Cozi. (Cozi is a GREAT app! ) I can check prices, reviews, and weather wherever I go. In fact, I’m writing this blog on my “phone” right now. I use it in the kitchen for recipes, and in the stores as a calculator. Yep, I could live without it, but it certainly has made things easier for me! I am also not online as much, either. All around, I love it.
Well, I have “Swyped” my fingers numb, so until next time…
Yesterday was my birthday trip to the world’s largest and greatest flea market EVER: Canton, Texas. As they say: If you can’t find it in Canton, you just can’t find it. And it’s true! Yesterday I saw everything from a disassembled full-sized windmill to a 1960’s Lady Clairol bejeweled electric razor.
I brought along two helpers, my dear Jason and one of my dearest bestest friends, JJ (who is also a man, yes we made an odd trio). Anyhoo, so as always we hit the ‘Unreserved’ section, which has the highest percentage of the Junk-Which-Is-Most-Likely-To-Come-Home-With-Me. First things being first, after over an hour in the car, and being as I’m getting older, we had to locate the “facilities”. Granted, I wasn’t to the “I’m-Gonna-Wet-Myself” phase, but still…
After locating Bathroom #1, I just had to laugh. There was a line of no less than ten women standing on the outside of the bathroom door. Yeah, right. So, after another 5 minute walk, we came to Bathroom #2. I was initially on the Exit side, and thought, “Oh thank YOU, Lord…no line.” Well, got around to the Entrance side and there were NO LESS THAN 30 WOMEN in line. I marched back over to my helpers and wondered aloud the following:
“What are they DOING in there? Why do women take so long? I mean, I can really only think of TWO THINGS that you’d normally do in a bathroom stall, and I’m willing to bet that most are in there for the FIRST reason! Are they having a social mixer in there? This is ludicrous!” Please allow me to further elaborate that these are NOT the kind of facilities that you’d want to spend any more time than absolutely necessary. Allow me to explain, please. First off, if you’re expecting a stall with a door, you’re kidding yourself. Virtually all of the bathrooms are door-less, but they were nice enough to give you a shower curtain. Okay, I can handle that. But, where they really went wrong is that the stall depth, when seated upon your potty, is only adequate for toddlers and possibly (is this P.C.???) little people. I hate to use the word “midget” or “dwarf”, but this is what I mean by little people. Therefore, at my perfectly normal and average height of five foot four, my knees extend from the stall by a good couple of inches. And they have the dreaded ‘Grade School Height Toilets”. You know, the ones that you have to do almost a full squat to reach and your legs fall asleep? Yep, that, too. Also, forget the possibility of any hooks for your bags. So here you are in a row of about 50 stalls, squatted down eight inches off the ground, trying to balance your cumbersome upcycled, bulky shopping bags/purse, with your knees hitting a creepy shower curtain and sticking out further than your stall, just praying that you won’t topple over into the waiting throng of women and rip down the shower curtain, exposing your bum and spilling every content of your purse/bag on the concrete floor. It’s a fun game, let me tell you. I probably have quads of steel after all that exercise, not to mention the balance ability of an Olympic gymnast.
Finally, after we had reached Bathroom #3 (a little known facility next to a tool salesman and a pan flute CD vendor), I noticed there was no line. YES! I found an empty stall, and after taking the absolute minimum time, I turned to flush. No flush. I won’t go into details, but normally the rule in our house is: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” This didn’t really meet the “Mellow” category, either. What to do? I got out, snapped the shower curtain shut and informed the line of about 5 perfectly good strangers that this toilet indeed did NOT flush and whomever chose to go in would get a ‘nice surprise’. That’s just how it went down. Or not. Anyway. On to shopping!!!
Fairly quickly, I found my own version of Heaven: three huge long rows of all items for a dollar. I quickly snapped up a pair of Japanese tomato salt and pepper shakers, a Japanese ceramic potbellied stove, which was a pincushion and a measuring tape, several old farm journals, a baking pan, some calligraphy pens, and more. Apparently, dollar tables were a big hit yesterday, because I found every last one of them. Poor, long-suffering Jason and JJ shook their heads as I oohed and ahhhed over every vintage dollar-priced piece. “Oh, but doesn’t everyone need a ceramic owl/thermometer? What about this embroidered Kleenex box cover? I mean, someone out there put a lot of work into this…” Jason drifted off to tool vendors, JJ, just being along for the ride and the sights, was stuck with me while I pondered every piece of nostalgia known to mankind. “Oh, look at this hand-powered sharpening stone! And this hand-powered drill! Isn’t that awesome?” I don’t really know why I was wasting my breath; JJ and I are virtually incapable of changing out wiper blades on a car and can injure ourselves with a screwdriver. It’s not like we are mechanically-gifted people. Still, you get caught up in the nostalgia, no matter what the thing is.
After eight hours of meandering through miles of junk-filled tables, we were ready to call it a day. We typically end our day with the reward of a funnel cake, so that’s what we did. What I didn’t realize was that the vendor made his funnel cakes the size of a small table. As he handed us our cake, I wasn’t really sure how we were ever going to even BEGIN to finish this thing, even with three people attacking it. So, we all were laden with bags, and I balanced the funnel cake waitress-like with one hand and my bags on my other shoulder, and off we went. I took my first bite and literally inhaled a breath-full of powdered sugar. Note to self: Never breathe in whilst taking a bite of sugar-laden funnel cake. As the guys were laughing, JJ took his bite and also inhaled sugar. With both of us intermittently gasping for breath/laughing our heads off, I’m sure we looked a pair. Then, a woman walking beside us sidled up to us and said,”Didja breathe in some of that sugar?” Well, thank God weren’t the only morons who had had that happen before.
Following my pioneering dear, sweet husband back to the truck, I began to realize that we were getting to the edge of the vendors, but I couldn’t see any way to actually reach the truck. “No, you have to cross the creek. See? It’s right down here.” After nearly falling over a vendor’s trailer hitch and losing the funnel cake and all my pride, I looked down, down, down, and there was Jason, literally crossing a creek. Not at an official crossing, mind you…no, we had to slide down a bank, walk through the (mostly dry) creek, and climb to the other side. Now how in the hell was I supposed to balance a giant funnel cake bigger than my head and 5 inches tall, and two bags and make it across? I couldn’t help but think I’d surely be on YouTube within five minutes of this incident that was about to happen. Jason crossed first, then JJ. I somehow managed to slide down the bank with no incident. As I was attempting to walk up the (steep) bank to reach for Jason’s outstretched hand, I couldn’t help but notice him gyrating wildly, like he had an imaginary hula hoop contest with himself.
Me: “What are you doing?”
J: “I have to go to the bathroom!!! HURRY!”
Without embarrassing my dear husband, let me just say that when this man has to go, he has to GO immediately, Do Not Pass Go, Do NOT Collect $200, and stay out of this man’s way unless you want to be injured. Well, between the powdered sugar, my exhaustion, and the situation unfolding in front of my eyes with a wildly gyrating man with eyes about to pop out of his skull and me balancing my precious funnel cake in a creek, I got to laughing so hard that tears ran down both cheeks. There was no way possible I could reach up and grab his hand. JJ was absolutely no help, either. Holding his sides, he, too, was crying on the banks of the creek. When I looked up next, Jason was gone and here were two idiots on the banks of some obscure creek in the middle of nowhere, balancing a plate full of funnel cake and 50 dollars worth of dollar-priced items. Needless to say, with the help off JJ, I did make it up that creek and back to the truck. Sadly, by the time we got there, the cake was already cold and greasy and none of us even wanted the stupid thing anyway. But it made for a good story, didn’t it?
Can’t wait to go back and do it all again. Maybe next month?
So about 2 years ago, our Directv box bit the dust. Just plain up and died, as they say. We made a decision at that time to not request a replacement, get to the end of our contract and see how we felt about it. Obviously, we didn’t miss it too much. We still have the tv, a DVD player, and we do subscribe to Netflix. We also watch YouTube or Hulu occasionally. So, we’re not completely without a television. Does that make us a bit more “normal”?
If you ever want to be considered a total weirdo, cut off your tv service and tell people about it. You might as well tell them that you had your dead dog freeze dried so it could ‘live forever’, or that your collectible dolls speak to you. Trust me.
The truth of the matter is that by ditching tv programs, it gives you gobs of time. It’s very easy to flip on the boob tube and zone out for an hour or two or more. You would be shocked at how long the day becomes when you aren’t watching Dancing with D-List Celebrities or Kim Kardashian’s 80th Wedding and Subsequent Divorce. Now how you fill up that time is just as important. I get easily sucked into staring at my laptop, which I feel is even worse than tv. After all, the internet is also interactive…you seek and so you shall find. And I can look up stuff all day. So, I’ve been limiting that mostly for when I wake up and right before I go to bed.
Another bonus for parents who scrap the tv is the lack of kid commercials. No commercials mean no begging for junky toys that will end up at Goodwill or in a yard sale anyway. I’ll never forget the year that my then-3 year old could sing the Peek-A-Boo Barbie jingle. It was cute, but also a little scary and a LOT annoying when she would beg for every single toy that came across the screen.
So about a month ago, I asked the kids what they wanted for Christmas, and I told them to pick three things. Now, normally you know that most kids can fill up pages and pages of toys that they want (we’ve all seen the lists printed in the newspaper, right?), but my kids just sat there. They thought and thought. After about 15 minutes, they came up with: pajamas, a gold locket, and a fleece horse blanket. Nothing name brand, and NO TOYS. That’s worth losing the boob tube right there!
Last of all is the cost of having service. We were paying, taxes included, about fifty eight dollars a month for the bare bones minimum service. That was with 2 receivers. The fees for service seem to go up astronomically every year. At one time we could get the same thing for a little under forty dollars, tax included. So, I am saving almost $700 a year right there, which is going straight into paying off debts.
My husband calls tv the ‘living room billboard’, which, if you stop to think about it, that’s exactly what it is. You are paying to have endless commercials pumped straight into your home. And who really likes commercials? Isn’t that why they came up with the whole TiVo/DVR thing to skip past them? It becomes very apparent when you have been tv-less for a while and go to a person’s house who has one on. I swear I nearly threw up while my friends had ‘The Doctors’ on the other day. I just wanted to stick my finger down my throat. I’d much rather be out in my garden pulling weeds or sitting in the chicken pen, throwing scratch to the hens. I suppose that my biggest issue with the entire thing is that it makes you stay indoors, and we are almost never indoors unless it’s very hot or very cold. I just do not believe that anyone or anything was meant to stay inside for an extended period of time.
So now that you’re squinching up your face, wondering if I talk to glass-eyed dolls all day, I’ll leave you with this:
In eighth grade, we had this fad going where we collected keychains with tacky and/or witty sayings. My favorite was always “I’m not weird, I’m gifted.” I still have it and I’m gonna go with that!
As of October 18th of this year, we have been living on our farm for three years, and entering our fourth. So what have I learned since last year? Well, probably not much, I’d say! This summer pretty much melted any last remnant of a brain cell I had left, but I’ll try….
1. If I have said this already, I apologize, but here goes: Don’t plant what you won’t eat. Sounds ridiculously simple, doesn’t it? But what another farm woman once said to me always rings in my ears every time I’m wading through 47 tons of banana peppers. I can grow a banana pepper like you won’t believe, but I don’t eat them. How dumb is that? Sure we chop one up now and then and add it in our eggs, and I tried my hand at canning them, but they just ain’t my thang. So why do I currently have about 10 plants out in my garden fully loaded? Beats me. But I’m telling YOU not to do that. So when I get tempted by those little banana pepper plants in the spring, I’ll toss them to the side this time! Seriously though, why waste your time and water to take care of something that you will end up composting? Just don’t!
2. Good fences make sane farmers. Okay, just go ahead and forget those idyllic, pastoral scenes of a farm that we grew up with in story books. If you are to have any sanity whatsoever, you have to put up good fences to keep your livestock contained and separated, and to keep predators out. Just go ahead and forget that image you have of Mr. Pig, a flock of chickens (many with chicks), Mr. Horse, and various other critters all happily intermingling in perfect harmony whilst standing in your garden.
Let me tell you what really happens. Chickens allowed in your garden can totally destroy a tomato crop in minutes, not to mention eat up all of the winter rye you just set out (ask me how I know this). They also make the biggest most God-awful mess you’ve ever seen out of your garden paths. Oh, and they also loooooove to make their sand bath pits right by your baby blueberry bushes, which leads to their demise. Not to mention the fact that they enjoy flying over their (too low) fence into the neighbor’s yard, which contains two chicken-eating dogs.
Goats eat just about everything. That also includes your newly transplanted grapevines and your new herb garden.
Pigs will eat a chicken. Don’t ask.
Geese leave Chihuahua sized grass poo pretty much wherever you even thought about stepping.
Turkeys love watermelon leaves. Not the vines so much, just the leaves. And figs. Lots of figs. Hope you didn’t want any melons or figs this year!
The point is, I have seen many people posting about their critters in total desperation. Either the critters ate up their garden/messed up their yard or porch or whatever/got eaten by a predator. You can’t just get animals and then have no proper place to put them. For your sake and theirs, get up some strong, good fences and a secure place to pen them up at night to avoid those unwanted surprises. Like fresh goose poo between your toes or your melon patch completely devoid of leaves.
3. Don’t forget the most important animal enclosure of all….your home! I don’t know how we managed to stay sane over the past 2.5 winters. Seriously, last Christmas I was hoping Santa would bring me a blowtorch and a can of gas to rid myself of our freezing abode. It’s one thing to be a bit chilly in your house; quite another to be wearing 2 pair of socks, 3 pair of pants, 3 shirts, a robe, a hat, and a quilt and still be cold. I’m pretty sure that the chicken coop was warmer. If it is at all possible to use some extra funds to upgrade your living situation, I say go for it. I’m not talking about a 60″ TV, either. We’re talking about insulation, new electric wiring, new (non-leaky) plumbing fixtures, new roof, etc. This year was a major year for us in the Home Improvement department. In February, we insulated the attic big time, and by August, we had invested in a new roof and all new cedar and cypress siding. Not to mention all of the little stuff we’ve done in-between, like fix leaky pipes and stuff like that. No reason for the chickens to be living in more comfortable quarters than you are!
Year Three sure was over in a flash. I still haven’t canned much this year (SHAME!), but I do have a freezer overflowing with tomatoes and fruit. Guess you can see what’s in my future! It also came complete with OVER 80 DAYS OF 100+ DEGREE HEAT. May I long be gone (after having lived to an old age, of course) before that ever happens again! Well, here’s to Number Four…
I can’t help it. I’m a thrift nut. One of my favorite cooking pans came out of the bottom of a trash can. ‘Nuff said? Anyway, I was reading on a Good Housekeeping forum today about cotton bath towels. A reader had complained about her stinky towels and was asking how to prevent the problem. Another reader, codenamed “Newlywed” had replied that she “gets new towels from my parents every year to combat this problem (!?!)” She also went on to say that they buy her only Egyptian, spa-type towels.
I thought about my own towel cabinet. First of all, let me begin by stating that I still have the majority, if not all of, my towels given to me for my first marriage fourteen years ago. They are a perfectly eggplant shade of purple, which has amazingly held onto its color and fluff factor for over a decade. (Obviously, this color was chosen in my non-neutral color scheme days). Yes, the edges may be frayed, but a quick run through my sewing machine should take care of that. My other favorite towels include a 30 year old towel with my almost 40 year old cousin’s name embroidered on it, and a ‘mystery’ towel which appeared magically one day on my towel shelf. These 2 towels are as thin as toilet paper, with the Mystery Towel having a foot long hole right in the center of it, just in the right spot to accent your derriere when you wrap it around you. My newest favorite (about 5 years old) is my ‘freebie’ Texas Lotto towel that I won playing a promo game at a festival. It is a lovely shade of orange…somewhere between a traffic cone and a jack o’ lantern, emblazoned with PLAY TEXAS LOTTO across the entire shebang. It’s not likely that you’ll find 100% Egyptian cotton towels in my closet. Unless my 14 year old towels happen to be Egyptian cotton, I guess.
I have found that the thin, cheap towels are much more to my liking. Why? Well, consider the fact that cotton absorbs water fairly well, but also tends to hold onto the moisture longer than some other fabrics like linen. Thus, you can easily end up with the funky mildew smell on your bath towels especially if the bathroom isn’t well-ventilated. So, the ‘thin cheapies’ dry quicker whether in the dryer, the clothesline, or on a bathroom hanger. I hate when you dry off with a seemingly clean towel which has turned musty. Gag.
Rather than go out and get Mom and Dad to spring for some new towels for you and yours yearly, I’d recommend using thinner towels (I also love our thin beach towels). Also, when washing towels, don’t let them sit in the washer for any length of time after the cycle’s done, especially on warmer days. Unless you like musty towels, of course. I partially dry my towels in the sun to help combat mildew, but finish/fluff them in the dryer since I don’t like trying to dry myself off with something that feels like 40 grit sandpaper. Every now and then, if they have gotten musty, I will add a very small amount of bleach (maybe 1/2 cup) to the towel load to kill any mildew that may be lurking around. Yes, I even to this to colored towels, but let’s be honest. If my unicorn beach towel ends up a little faded, I really don’t care. So far, I haven’t noticed untimely fading using a bit of bleach.
Bear in mind that using a dryer, sitting in the sun, and bleach are all pretty rough on cotton fibers. So, eventually one day, you too may end up with your rear end shining out of your towels, but at least your towels won’t be musty, right?
On a final note, if your clothes/towels keep coming out of your washer with that mildewy smell, it’s probably time to wash out your washer. Different washers have different methods, but usually you will run the longest, hottest cycle with bleach and soap only to try and bleach out any mildew present. On some front loading machines, there is also some lint traps internally which may be causing you grief. You’ll have to research to see where these traps are and how to clean them out. Finally, I’d HIGHLY recommend that after washing, leave your washer door open so that the tub can dry out. I know that on my front loader if I don’t do this, things get really ugly really fast. And, be SURE that if you do this CHECK YOUR WASHER before using, as pets can climb in without your knowledge. Yep, it’s really happened before.
One last word…I also love cheap wash rags. I get new ones in the kitchen section rather than the bath section. I think it’s about 12 rags for four dollars. I hate uber-fluffy giant rags. It’s like trying to scrub yourself with a handtowel.
Well, off to the shower for me. Texas Lotto, here I come.
My Little Country 