Caution! Potentially Inflammatory Post!

I might get beat up on the playground for this, but...

In a little community like the one where I live, our lives are intertwined, whether we want them to be or not.  I think of it like a piece of embroidery that looks all neat and nice on the right side, but when you flip it over and look at the other side, you see all those threads tangled up with each other.  It's still beautiful, but you realize there's more than first meets the eye.

Same thing in little communities...on the nice side, everybody helps their neighbors (for the most part), potlucks are a good time, men's open gym night turns into poker night and we can read the Christmas story from the book of Luke in the Bible at our school play without worry of a picket line forming.  On the messy side, we sometimes end up knowing too much about each other, start to compete in pie wars, stew about little things that anyone outside of the community would laugh at, and take everything personally.  (Last year, when Susie Milam's pie made more money at the silent auction, I took it personally. Don't laugh!  It's a big deal, here!)  :)

The odd thing about that is that you'd think people who live 20 miles apart and can't even see the big yard  lights of their neighbor's house would not have such issues.  If I wanted to keep up with the Jones', I'd have to get in my car, drive over 6 miles of gravel and mud, pull into their yard (it's not like you can circle the block surreptitiously), gawk at their Christmas lights, wave goodbye (vowing in my heart to out-light them) and drive back.  What's more is that no one would see the 800 EXTRA twinkling lights I added to MY display, unless they did the same thing....seriously!  (I do, however, get comments when my flamingos are failing at the mailbox. I don't take that personally.  Flamingos make the Two Furrow a nicer place to drive, so I just replace them.) 

It's trickier than that.

It's having a barbecue and not putting up a General Invitation to Everyone in the post office.  

It's trying to keep a vasectomy a private matter when everyone wants to know why in the world you're going to town in the middle of the week without a horse trailer.

It's going to a beauty shop, not because you necessarily like the way they cut your hair, but because it's your Mom's best friend's cousin's daughter and you don't want to upset everyone.  (Even though you may come away with red hair that is a little on the purple side...)

You see where I'm going with this?

It's like Facebook, concentrated down to 50 people.  

Can you imagine?

Even if you don't "post it on your wall", there'll be knowledge of it, true or not, and even if you don't get unfriended, there'll be a little "block status" going on for awhile.  And  you KNOW there'll be "comments".  

We don't all "like" the same things, but we're in the same group, nonetheless.  And it's not a private group, that's for darn sure!

It requires maturity, a sense of humor, strong self-confidence and the ability to let things roll off and roll away.  I guess that's called forgiveness.  I'm glad I grew up in a tiny community with a lot of people like that and I'm glad my kids are growing up in the same such place.  

(I'm also glad our school bus driver doesn't post anything about the outfits I have on when I bring the kids to the bus stop...but that's another topic, best saved for later.)

If you have something to say about what I've just written, please leave a comment on the fridge door, here...I hate it when people talk about my flamingos and Christmas lights behind my back...

I just found this picture while talking to my sister on the phone...I had forgotten I'd even taken it!

The black silhouette glowing in the sun has always mesmerized me.

*sigh*

I miss summer!

Field trip to Jordan...the guy, not the town

Yesterday, the Little School on the Prairie loaded all seven students, one crazy teacher and an even CRAZIER chaperon onto the Little Yellow Schooner and went to Miles City for a field trip.  Here in eastern Montana, there's really no such thing as a short bus ride.  Try 80 miles to the nearest art center. And we were the ones closest to town!  Ross School (one not-at-all-crazy teacher and two students who also happen to be sisters) drove 135 miles from Mosby to join us, for goodness sake!

There's a really great guy at the Custer County Art and Heritage Center (CCAHC) who does projects with our schools tying Indian education with art so they get culture and creativity all in one session.  Jordan (his name causes great confusion in conversation as you can well imagine) somehow manages to come up with projects that work for 6th graders as well as kindergarteners...AND he teaches with patience and kind humor.  We love Jordan.  The guy, not the town.  See?!? It's tricky!

This trip, the kids made rain sticks.
(You should know that Jordan SEEMS like a very nice man, but underneath that polite, thoughtful facade lurks an evil, evil person.  You see, this is the second noise making project they've had in two weeks; last week it was clay whistles.  NEXT time, they're doing drums! Shortly followed, I'm sure, by homemade electric guitars or some other instrument of torture to parents...)
I don't love Jordan for THAT.  The guy, not the town.

For those of you who don't know what rain sticks are:
They're hollow tubes with pins or thorns arranged circularly on the inside.  Into this tube is poured a cup of small, noisy things like rocks or pasta or beans, then it's sealed up and when the tube is tipped, all the little noisy things sound like rain trickling to the other end.  They were supposed to bring rains when the native people used them.  They bring insanity to parents and teachers.

Jordan explaining how to stick hundreds of toothpicks in tubes.  (This is a skill that can be used at home, too! Bless his black heart...)

Tubes make dandy swords, voice whistles and telescopes.  The kids restrained themselves, but they TALKED about the options...

The crazy teacher helping with the weapon...I mean, rain stick...

Jordan had pre-punched holes in the tubes, so it made pushing toothpicks in a bit easier.  It took a LOT of toothpicks and the process allowed for lots of time to visit and come up with ideas for a toothpick filled tube.

When they were finished, the inside of the tubes looked like this:

The ends of the toothpicks were clipped off, disappointingly...

The next step was to fill the tubes with little noisy things that will make an incredible mess if the tube is ever accidentally broken open.
I'm growing less fond of Jordan the more I describe this project.
The guy, not the town.

Hot gluing the ends of the tubes and each little toothpick opening....

Making it rain!
Incidentally, while we were in Mexico Lindo eating lunch, it started raining/snowing!  Obviously, the rain sticks worked...

These are just images of things I saw around the studio while the kids were toothpick-ing...

All that glitters...

...is in our house at Christmas time, I think!
I was smiling, looking through photos this morning, thinking about how every year, the tree seems magical and special, more beautiful than ever...even though it looks basically the same as it has the last 8 years.  The kids are bigger in the pictures, but the tree doesn't really change a lot.  And it's not because we have a fake tree, either.  (Don't get me started on that...)  There's just something about the stars (white lights, of course) being captured in a tree in our HOUSE that just makes me feel delighted every time I look at it.  And between the stars, we hang memories of past Christmases, family and dear ones.  Every ornament has a story, really.  Even the candy canes remind me of how my Dad used to eat the candy canes off our tree when we were kids; not surprisingly, they were sparse by Christmas Eve!

I'm putting pictures up of our tree(s) because a good friend asked for them. I'm sure they look nearly EXACTLY the same as last year's pictures but perhaps that can be endearing and funny, instead of monotonous.
(Work with me, here...)


First, the outside tree:

I did not realize that Maggie's fondest desire at Christmas was to decorate one of our trees outside.  Grandma Celestia knew, though, and sent a box of funny ornaments for the kids to do this project! They hustled out the afternoon before we were to decorate the inside tree and got right to work. I was impressed with how high they were able to hang some of the baubles!

(When we were decorating the inside tree, Angus was inclined to hang his ornaments all in the same square foot.  It was efficient. He didn't waste time walking around the tree, looking for likely spots, you know?  But Maggie gave an exasperated sigh and looked at me conspiratorially,  "He did that outside, TOO!"  Apparently, she tried to school him on the "proper" way to trim a tree, he resented the instruction and stomped off, she rearranged the ornaments, all was set right.  Whew!)

It snowed the next day, making the ornaments even MORE charming!

This one looks almost fake, it's so perfect in its setting!

And now, the inside tree:

The kids chose blue and gold ornaments from our stash this year! It's tough to photograph, but in real life it's very pretty.

The kids keep going back, re-examining the ornaments and asking for the stories...

This is a hand painted ornament by Bette Johnson, a local artist.  My mother-in-law gave us a set of six and they're some of my favorites.

Here's a little ornament I painted to look like my dog, Molly Jo. 

A nutcracker, a reminder of the performance we went to in Bigfork last Thanksgiving.  Its little jaws actually work...Angus checks it repeatedly to make sure!

Our nativity...
the Wise Men are on their way.  During the Advent, they start out far away from the "barn", moving closer every day until the day of Epiphany, in the first week of January.  Ours move rather quickly, usually arriving on Christmas Eve or thereabouts.  Maggie also moved the animals around, placing the cow closest to the manger because cows are so curious and she couldn't imagine a sheep caring for what was in the hay.  She doesn't know what to do with the donkey, so he's hanging out at the end of the book case.

Tuckered out, after decorating TWO trees that day!

Saturday morning adventures on the ranch...

I talked the kids into going for a big walk with me yesterday morning.
Actually, I only talked ONE of the kids into going for a walk...the other had her backpack ready with treats, water, emergency supplies (Space Bear) and a map, and was almost out the door before I was.  Maggie immediately turned "a walk" into "an ADVENTURE!".   Angus was a bit more inclined to watch cartoons in his pajamas under his blanket on the couch, but he didn't want to be alone, so he came along.

The location of the adventure was a SECRET...we loaded in the car and I drove as mysteriously as I could, pausing in a couple likely places, then driving on. (Mysterious is difficult to pull off in a Chevy Trailblazer...) Fortunately, there was a good layer of fog that really added ambiance to the adventure.

No, we aren't in New Zealand....we're actually in the north end of (and I'm not making this up) Thelma's Summer Pasture, which we use in the winter.  

I know.

(We have two Fishin' Hole pastures, too, and I always guess wrong, as you can imagine...)

These girls are waiting for someone to come along and feed them.  Disappointingly, it wasn't us, but they surrounded the car when we got there and made absolutely certain that we weren't hiding any cake in the back.  (These are the cows that I went for a run with on Wednesday and who humiliated me with their superior fitness.)  

The kids and I stopped on our way back and admired their hair-dos, exclaiming over 585's curls and 837's carefree windblown look.  

We love cows.

Angus is still not convinced that an adventure is a great idea.

He's cold.

Really cold.

Maggie is hoping to see coyotes and maybe a sasquatch!

We tried to placate him with fruit snacks...

Space Bear is from Alabama and not used to such weather and remoteness, but he's a good sport...

I get all distracted by interesting forms....

this thistle almost looks like some of the anemones that Ivan was showing me from his dives!

Sometimes, I forget how big the country is because we're so used to the openness.

(No coyotes this morning...drat...)

I looked in every culvert on the way back, hoping for a skunk, but all I found was an interesting photo.

Angus, pleased that the cows were following our car, stuck his head out the window to holler encouraging things like, "C'mon, cows!  We'll lead you to the cake!"  even though we were doing no such thing. 

Cows are not as gullible as he thinks.

They really just wanted to visit because a cow's life is even MORE boring than ours, if you can imagine...

I like the silhouette of this picture, for some reason...

(Don't worry...the windmill is shut off, so no heads or fingers would be lost in the making of the photo.)

Windmills are eternally fascinating to me, in form and action...

Trying in vain to get a decent Christmas card picture...

I'm telling you, I think this is THE ugliest bull in our herd.

He also lacks a sense of humor, it would appear.

We didn't end up having the type of adventure Maggie was hoping for, but what a fun morning on the prairie!

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"to talk of many things.  Of shoes...and ships...and sealing wax; of cabbages....and kings."
                                                                                              - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland


Let's talk cabbage, first.
In the last few years, I've been putting my ESSENTIAL recipes on the Chronicles because I finally figured out (and this was after some serious cogitating) that I can access them pretty much anywhere and any time; I don't need to haul around 3 Bon Appetit issues and my Best of Pillsbury Baking cookbook (which is falling apart, it's so loved).  I can just log on to the Chronicles, find "Recipes" and voila! the "secret sugar cookie recipe for Marisa"!

All that to share this:

Thai Cabbage Salad

It's a recipe from the Goodness Gracious cookbook that my unreasonably talented friend Shelly illustrated.  Most of the time, when I look at Shelly and Roxie's cookbooks, I just look at the pictures...they're stunning and they're dear to me because Shelly is dear to me.  Occasionally, though, I accidentally end up trying one of the recipes and they're almost ALWAYS wonderful.  (Reference: Shelly's Brownies in my Recipe label...and swoon.)

I made this Thai Cabbage Salad for a Dutton occasion last summer, I think, and we nearly licked the bowl when it was gone!  And today when I finished throwing it together, I had a big bowl of it for Second Breakfast.  I'd eat it here, I'd eat it there, I would eat it anywhere!  (Gotta love Dr. Suess, hm?)

With that build up, I give you.....

*drum roll*

Thai Cabbage Salad!

*cymbal crash, here*

(Slight modification from the original recipe to simplify the recipe.)

1 small head green cabbage, chopped

1 carrot, peeled and shredded

(OR you can just buy a bag of that ready-chopped cabbage and carrots and shave about 15 minutes off the time it takes to prep this...)

1 cup dry roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

5 green onions, chopped (The actual recipe called for only two, but I like onions!)

2 jalapeno peppers (or Anaheim...whatever you can get) chopped

Toss in a salad bowl, then top with a dressing made of

1/3 c. vegetable oil

1/3 c. white vinegar

3 T. sugar

1/2 cup chopped cilantro (You MUST have the cilantro for the recipe to turn out...I promise you!)

2 T. salsa

3 cloves minced garlic

1/2 small sweet red bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped

Combine all the dressing ingredients and whisk until well mixed.

Pour over the cabbage mixture, toss to spread the love throughout the salad, grab a bowl and dive in.

I tried to get a picture of Shelly's illustration, but I didn't do a very good job of it.

Here's the best I could do:

Surprise!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we had a surprise 70th birthday party for Mom at the Airport Inn.  She nearly wrecked the whole thing by getting a horrendous cold.  When the kids and I got to her house around 11:30 a.m., she met us at the door in her bathrobe, sounding like death, and croaked, "I'm not getting dressed today...I'm so sick..."

Oh, dear.
That would present a problem, since the party was at 2 and we'd had a lot of RSVPs that said they were coming; some from quite a ways!  I found my sister doing her hair in the bathroom and we whispered frantically, trying to come up with SOMETHING...anything.  We couldn't bring the party to her.  We couldn't take her to the Airport Inn in her bathrobe, for heaven's sake!  We couldn't tell her to shape up and shower up.  Finally we strolled out to the living room and Jen said she'd heard from our sister-in-law, Jolene, and that she wanted us to meet her for a late lunch at the Inn.  *holding breath*

Mom decided she could make the effort to go to lunch, since all her kids were going to be in one place at the same time.  (THAT should have given the whole gig up, right there.) So while Jen and I went to "look for yarn at Walmart" (pick up the cake, get balloons, set up the back room at the Inn), she took a shower and got presentable.

Jen was scared to go back to the house to get Mom too early or she might insist that we just head up to the restaurant (with not all the guests there) and I was getting sweaty palms because we were still driving around town burning time.  You'd have thought we were planning the Inaugural Ball or something!  The timing was crucial and we were on two different clocks....sort of.

The kids were all in on the secret but no one spilled the beans.  She didn't see all the familiar cars in the parking lot because she had grand kids swirling all around her, opening the door, chattering, leading her.  When we turned the corner to go to the backroom, I could see she was trying to figure out if we were crashing a party or if she'd forgotten someone's birthday.  Through the door she went and all the guests, grandkids, and kids shouted "SURPRISE!"  It took her a minute to realize it was HER birthday party, since her real birthday is December 5th, but then her mouth dropped open and the fun began.

Here are some pictures of friends and family that came:

My brother Barry visiting with Uncle Marvin, Uncle Dick, Aunt Arlene and Aunt Betty. (The sweetie pie in the foreground is my niece, Javon. She looks a lot like Maggie in some of these pictures!)

Mom, her brother Marvin and sister Arlene

Two of Mom's (and our whole family's) best friends!

Aunt Teddly is the red head and Aunt Nancy is the blonde...neither are "real" aunts, but I find that's a just a genealogy thing.  They're Aunts-in-heart.   

Mom's friend Kathleen...I'd just taken a HORRIBLE picture of them and they were laughing about it!

Mom and all her kids and grandkids!

This was toward the end of the party and a lot of pop...Javon was frazzled and had just tripped and fallen.

Grandbabies!

The oldest grandbaby is getting married in February, the youngest is three, they're ALL gorgeous.

 Turns out, baby J. had a plastic fork in her mouth when she fell!  We didn't see any blood, but it was scary.

My beautiful baby sis!

This is momentous....

We siblings are all standing together, smiling and getting along.

Think I'll get it framed, actually.

My great aunt Daisy and Grandma Dutton with Mom.

I've never known life without these dear women; they've loved us a long, long time!

Thanksgiving: the drama

I just know Sara Hagedorn Calvert is waiting for me to tell about the drama...
She's like that.  And that's why we're friends.

Nothing burned down and no one broke a bone (or a window)!
The big plan was that we'd go to Billings and stay in a motel with a pool so that Grandma Celestia could take the kids swimming.  It was a good plan!  And we DID get a motel with a pool.
The pool happened to be an outdoor pool, however, which was NOT mentioned on their website, and the doors to the rooms were nearly impossible to make the keys work because of new weather stripping.  And they had an issue with Jasper's dog, Liza.  So Celestia and Jasper stayed in Ivan's guest room, but we stayed in the motel.

What to do about the swimming?!?!

Fortunately, Frank and Sam had a room at a motel with an indoor pool and they very graciously requested a late check-out so we could sneak over and swim.  Huzzah! Disaster averted!
While we were getting towels from housekeeping (don't tell), the young man who was pushing the cart gave us Andes mints (don't tell)  and a while later, brought us a whole HANDFUL of Andes mints (seriously...don't tell).  That was such a funny little bright spot in the day!

What else...?
Oh!  We had a wine label contest to see who could bring the bottle with the funniest or most amazing label!  It was all about the art; we didn't give a sniggle for what TYPE of wine was in the bottle.  We weren't looking for specific wine makers or anything, no special grapes or regions.

Here is the trophy (Which was won, incidentally, by Sam who brought SIX bottles of wine!!! The odds were definitely in her favor...):

There was even a recipe on the bottom!

The trophy is to travel, from winner's house to winner's house every year.

Competition is sure to be fierce NEXT year.

That's it.

That's as dramatic as it got!

All's well that ends with pie...