Tessie Lou

 

She's VERY busy.

First morning, she had a lovely point...on the pink flamingos in the yard.  Today, she gave them a good talking to, when they wouldn't play with her.

Alice-the-Cat has reservations about puppies.

And with good reason!
The funny thing about Alice is that she doesn't use claws, just sound effects and a good strong right hookless hook.  Tessie didn't use her teeth, just licked her.
Today, they're pretty good pals.
Jack Sparrow-cat. now, makes a big honkin' scene and acts as though he's facing the Big Bad Wolf, which makes chasing him very fun.

Very busy, very important puppy coming through...

This is how she looks when I'm unloading the dishwasher or stirring something on the stove.  She's always about a foot away from me.  Even now, as I type, she's snoozing on the floor under my chair.  Maggie looked over and smiled and said, "Just like Molly..."
It's bittersweet.

Gotta be a bird around here, SOMEWHERE!

Maggie and Tessie are really good friends!  Mags has been so good about playing with her and walking her around the yard...and snuggling her on the couch.  That's a pretty tough job, but someone has to do it...

Twilla and Tessie.
It's not going smashingly, but it's not going awfully, either.
As long as Tessie doesn't try to get in her face or on her couch, Twilla is cool.  She growls, but has only snapped once.  Tessie can't understand; doesn't EVERYONE want to be her friend?!?

You see a theme going, here.
Maggie really thought it was important that Miss Tessie wore the team colors and had a team bowl.  It's appropriate and poignant since THIS is the year that THE RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!

It's so wonderful to have a Brittie-ful house, again...

Halloweeny Stuff

Here are my little hobgoblins!

Maggie THOUGHT she was a leopard, but after watching a big cat show on the Discovery Channel, she discovered that she was a jaguar. Either way, she was fast and elegant, even with her pink Bogg boots. The best part of the costume, she informed me, was the detachable tail.  

Angus, now, was some Star Wars guy called General Grievous.  That's about all I know about his costume. He and his buddy Ben are SERIOUSLY into Star Wars: The Clone Wars, so that's where he got the idea.  Everyone asked him what he was dressed up as.  He very patiently told them and explained it, but by the end of the evening, I think he was kind of wishing he'd gone as a pirate or something just as transparently identifiable....

And here are the pumpkins they painted at school!  Maggie did the cat pumpkin and Angus did the....
Okay, YOU get to guess what it is, because I got it completely wrong.

Angus's pumpkin is:
A. A cow
B. The moon
C. Dalmation dog
D. Ghost

We went trick-or-treating around Cohagen and it was so much fun!  There's only three families who trick-or-treat in Cohagen; the rest go to Miles City or Jordan, which makes total sense because the folks don't have to drive 60 miles to hit 10 houses.  But we really like seeing the neighbors and I dearly love Helen Green's popcorn balls.

The answer to the pumpkin quiz is (B), by the way.  I thought it was an adorable cow pumpkin and told him so, which rather insulted the little artist because it's OBVIOUSLY a moon...any fool can see that!

The Not-So-Great Pumpkin

My friend Susie K. hates mums.  Apparently, in New England, the minute the calendar says "First Day of Fall", buckets and pots of mums cover every porch, table and mailbox in Massachusetts.

It's not charming, it's monotonous.

I feel the same way about the crazy autumn pumpkin mania that sweeps the entire nation.

Starbucks has a pumpkin spice latte, IHOP has pumpkin pancakes, Italian restaurants have pumpkin gnocchi, risotto, spaghetti.  All the recipes on the internet and in magazines are for pumpkin-themed foods.  The seasonal candles are pumpkin spice.  

And there are so many other cozy fall flavors that could be celebrated!  

Maple.

Apple.

Rum.

Butterscotch.

Toffee.

It's not just the barrage of pumpkin products that drives me a little crazy, but also the insistence that I embrace it.  

Example:

(Coffee shop)

(NOT the one in Jordan)

"Hi! I'd like a short triple breve' with caramel flavoring, please."

"Sure.  We have Pumpkin-palooza, too..."

"REALLY? (little sarcastically said, maybe) I think I'll stick with the caramel, thanks."

"Do you want to try Pumpkin-palooza WITH the caramel?"

"No...I really just want the caramel.  No pumpkin anything in my coffee."

(And here's where the tone turns frantically insistant...)

"But Pumpkin-palooza is only here for a LIMITED TIME!!"

Thanks be to God.

Shipping 2013

The neighbors show up bright and early with their trailers and wheelers.

We reward them with coffee, rolls and breakfast burritos or sandwiches; I think guys that have had a little something warm to eat and good conversation to start the day out are happier and friendlier to work with. 

First bunch is in and ready to sort.  We sort the calves off of the cows, then sort the heifers from the steers.  The steers are the only ones who get to go for a ride on the trucks.  The heifers are weaned in our corrals, then wintered here on the ranch.

So, SO cold and frosty the morning we shipped! This plow is gorgeous in the frost, though...I always stop and admire the curves and angles of this particular one.

We have a bunch of pairs that we sort at a different set of corrals, then haul to the main place to be weighed and loaded on the trucks.  It was bright and sunny, there...same morning!  I don't have time to take pictures of the actual sorting and loading process because I'm part of it, but afterward, I took a couple pictures of the mama cows looking quite concerned that their babies were no where to be found.  (This is Daisy's bunch.)

I love how the old barn and corrals look in pictures with the cows, but to actually use them is sort of a pain.  The guys have been replacing gates and pens gradually, so that has taken some of the sport out of the whole thing...in a GOOD way!

Confession: Maggie stayed home from school for the morning so she could be part of shipping.  She ate about three cinnamon rolls, drank as many cups of cocoa, chatted with the neighbors and truck drivers, helped sort cows down at Jacobson's, froze her toes, then went back to school for the afternoon.

Here are some of the steer calves, yelling for "M-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-h!".  Aren't they stunningly full and even?  653 pounds was the final pay weight.  Every year, they seem to shrink before my eyes the week before shipping until I wake up on shipping morning just hoping beyond hope that they'll break 600 pounds.  Every year, though, they somehow manage to fill back out just in time for shipping day!

Another group of mamas...you can just FEEL how cold it is by looking at the color of the sky, can't you?

The Boss...
I think he must have had a Valium cocktail for breakfast because he was pretty cool on shipping day! Either that or he was like me, up at 4 a.m., and was so tired he couldn't work up the energy to be frantic....

Neighbors who are telling great, gossipy stories...I just KNOW it...but the minute I get close, they get all proper and discuss the weather.  Some year, I'm going to do a "Mic'd Up on Shipping Day" with Dennis Green and that will be some serious entertainment, folks.

Trucks, on time for once, ready to be loaded with prime beef...

Zee Local Brand Inspector and Scale Guy, running a bunch to the portable scale to weigh.

Here's the scale that we rent for the morning.  A guy brings it out from Miles City, backs it up to the loading dock and we weigh the calves.  The benefit of having the scale right here on shipping day is that the calves won't "shrink" (lose water and manure weight due to stress) by being hauled 10 miles to the next nearest scale.  3-5 pounds of shrink can make a big difference some years!

See?  It's certified by the great State of Montana to be all legal and everything!

She doesn't trust paparazzi...

This picture is crazy and typical to me, all at once.  We live in a black and white world almost all winter, with little patches of accidental color to feed our eyes and souls.  Even this tiny piece of blue sky feels like a treat on such a grey day...

Frost on my mother-in-law's tree...

Frost on the barb wire....

After lunch, when everyone else went home, the Boss, the Farmer and I worked our tails off setting things up, tearing things down, fixing fence and fighting stubborn cows who insisted on breaking through gates and fences to get back to their calves.  

It's always such a good feeling, though, to have the steers on their way and be buttoning up the fall!

A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

*ahem*
(Patricia Hunter, look away...this may be too painful for you.)

THE RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES AT HOME IN FENWAY PARK LAST NIGHT!!!
Fenway is 101 years old this year, and the last time the Red Sox won a World Series there was in 1918.

And I wanted to party like it was 1918 last night, but we had shipped calves and fought cows all day, so it was all I could do to stay awake for the end of the game....
But I DID, and sat on my sad little couch and cried tears of joy and exhaustion when Uehara threw that final strike.

I agree with my friend Emily (Patricia's daughter who sadly inherited the Yankee gene) that sports can be a distraction from the hard things in life, that we watch sports to be able to "get away" from the issues in our lives, in the world, that are too big for us.  I know I do.  This fall, my family has very graciously and generously gifted me the television for the World Series.  Apparently, they figured it was easier to join me than fight the passion.

And speaking of the passion for the Red Sox...
(Did I mention that they WON THE WORLD SERIES?!?!?)

There's a Dropkick Murphy's song about the Red Sox and Fenway, called "Tessie".  It's one of Angus's favorite songs, mostly because it sounds a lot like shouting and if you sing it in the car with the windows rolled down, you won't get in trouble for making lots of noise and being unruly.  That's the point of the song, really.

We are getting our own Tessie this Sunday.
It's really fortuitous, since THE RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES LAST NIGHT AT HOME IN FENWAY PARK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 95 YEARS!

Here she is:

She already has a Boston Red Sox collar and food dish and everything.  

That little white spot on her head looks sort of like a heart, but we suspect it may actually be a baseball diamond.  

Either way, we can't wait!

It's a good year to be a Red Sox fan.

Because, you know...

THEY'RE THE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!!

(Incidentally, I'm wearing my tiara for a week in celebration of this momentous occasion! Everyone thinks I'm nuts anyway, but what no one realizes is that it was gifted to me from a St. Louis Cardinals fan.  That's right.  The team that the Red Sox beat four times out of six to WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!)

(Not that it's a big deal or anything...)

And if you're interested in hearing the "Tessie" song, go HERE.

You've heard the saying, "Big fish in a small pond"?

Garfield County is a small, small...SMALL...pond.  

And the "fish" here aren't big, but they have no boundaries. 

They're pretty nice, for the most part, you know?  They're not malicious or devious.  They just don't see anything wrong with asking you what you're doing in town on a Sunday afternoon without children, why you're buying cumin for goodness sake, and who was that with you last week when you stopped in the store all dressed up on a Wednesday.  And they don't hint around.  They'll just come right out and ask!  Nothin' subtle about finding out your business, now...don't skirt the issue.  Inquiring minds want to know.  

Yesterday afternoon, I ran to Jordan to get some groceries.  Thought I might slide in under the radar, with church crowds gone and hunters not knowing who I am (or caring).  

Right.

At least four people asked me what I was doing in town, and three of them wanted to know where the kids were.  One person went so far as to ask why I didn't come in to the bar, ever, and tear it up on Saturday nights....AFTER getting the goods on my Sunday outing.  

And I listened to two or three other people stating their business after being asked directly.  (There's always that moment of panic and you can see it on the face of the person who has to "reveal all"...what if this isn't a valid reason for being in the grocery store at 2:30 p.m?!?)

I've got to tell you...

It really brings out the worst in me.  

I find myself wanting to make up something outrageous to tell them....something horrific, that would cause their jaws to drop, an involuntary step back in shock.  

You know.  

Something like:

"Oh, I'm just getting a few things for the ritual wiccan blood offering ceremony tonight at Cohagen.  Full moon and all..."

or

"Off to my first PETA meeting in Missoula!"

or

"I'd love to stay and chat, but my pole dancing class starts in a few minutes and I have to get changed into something more comfortable...."

Isn't that terrible?!

You'd think I'd be used to it, having grown up here, but it still sort of bothers me.  I don't have anything to hide and I'm NEVER doing anything spectacular or sinister (darn it!), but at the same time, it's just...nosy.

NOW, if I want to tell the world here on the Chronicles, that's quite another thing!

:)

Stayed tuned for the next post on how I REALLY feel about pumpkin everything in the fall...

October...

...is hunting season, and the Farmer's BFF has returned Buck Fever to our house.  Here's a picture of  A.C. with his first antelope, EVER, and the two brilliant guides he managed to "hire".  

We're teasing him a little about the hamburger load in his gun...

Maggie was thrilled to be included and is all about eating antelope heart.  Her camera now has pictures of gut piles which she shows to anyone who will look.  

We're so proud....

And actually, this is REALLY a good buck.

(Even before it was photoshopped...)

We've been watching the Red Sox make their run to the World Series, and due to the lucky shirts and crossed fingers, they're IN!!!  YES!  A-a-a-a-n-d there goes a week of evenings, starting tomorrow, while they play the St. Louis Cardinals.  First couple games at Fenway, folks...tune in to see greatness and the Green Monster!

When our kids go on field trips, it's literal.  We haul them out to a field, throw them together with all the other country schools and let them dig in the dirt for dinosaurs. 

(Maggie and Angus are on the far left.)

Other parts of the country have trees for fall color...we just have great sunsets and bored cows.  I don't know this one, personally, but she's grown fond of grazing near our yard in the evenings.  When I went out to try to take a picture of the golden hills, she assumed the "gorgeous cow" pose and worked it.

There you go...
A condensed version of a small life in a big pasture.

(It's the best I could do, Steve Brock!)

Tuck in to this...

"Tucking" is one of my favorite words.  

It's cozy, isn't it? 

 

This morning I was having coffee and digging through Psalms, looking for a word in the Word, when I found a note from a friend that I had tucked between the pages of my red Emmaus Bible.  It wasn't anything profound or sentimental, really; just a little jot on a piece of spiral bound paper that said she was glad we got to see each other that day and that I'm loved.  I have a habit of sticking letters and lists in books, then finding them much later. It's a sweet surprise when I find them...like getting the letter again!  

Tucking is good. 

It's delightful to me to read a recipe that tells the cook to tuck an ingredient into another part of the food. You just KNOW it's going to be a happy outcome when a Reeses peanut butter cup is folded into a cookie.  Or meat and potatoes are encased in pastie dough.

Tucking is good. 

And THEN, you get to tuck into the meal!

With a napkin tucked under your chin...

Tucking is very good. 

When you're sewing, you take a little tuck to make things fit better.  It's amazing how a garment can go from being baggish to fine with just a few stitches. (I think this is where the phrase "nip and tuck" came from, but I don't know for sure.)

Tucking is good.

Moms are all about tucking.

There's "Tuck in your shirt; you look like a hobo, for goodness sake!" 

And "Did you tuck the sheets in, when you made the bed, or just throw the blanket up?"

Or "I'll be in, in a minute, to tuck you in and you'd better have brushed your teeth, child..."

Which brings us to the very best tuck...

There is absolutely nothing better in this old world than being tucked into bed.  

Stop for a minute and think of how that feels...

I'm sure there are some of my readers who haven't been tucked into bed since they were itty-bitty, and for that I'm sad because I come from a long line of great tucker-inners, Even now, even as old and grown up as I am, with kids of my own, I get tucked in once in a while. 

To have someone sit on the edge of the bed and pull the covers up under your chin, brush your hair back from your forehead so they can kiss you in blessing, tell you good night and sweet dreams....

I think God tucks His children in, in Heaven.

Tucking is so, so good...

September Shots

Bokah!  That funny light that's so hard to capture...

Clothespins in the rain at Jaspers.

On my way home from Bigfork last week, there was an amazing fog rolling off Swan Lake.  I forgot I had the camera set to black and white, but as it turns out, it would have looked much the same in color.  It looks like the lake is sighing...

I forgot I planted these funny sunflowers! Gardener's amnesia often results in delightful surprises...

Rose hips on my Jodi-rose bush...
The blooms are shockingly bright pink, but the hips are this gentle autumn color that makes me swoon.

Yellow grape tomatoes...see the little blossom fingers curling back from the fruit?  They're about to let go, so I need to hustle up and harvest!

Tomatoes are just as pretty to look at as they are delicious to eat...this is an un-edited photo; you can't make that red color up.

Eastern Montana in September...

Even the thistles are sort of attractive in their own way, aren't they?

Monday Sundries

The bad news:

• Maggie's only little cow, Poppy, that she raised as a bum and poured her heart into tested UNbred today and will be shipped...*gulp* and lots of tears.
• My crockpot beef stroganoff is rahther....juicy.  Paula Deen swears on her dear old southern-fried heart that it will thicken, but I don't have two days and I'm out of cream-of-whatchacallits to add to it.
• No less than 30 flies have been killed since we got home; I'm starting to think that for every fly I manage to kill, three pop up out of the carcass. (Do dead flies have carcasses?  If not, then what?)
• I'm out of wine. 
• I don't get the word study homework the kids are bringing home!  FIRST GRADE word study has me flummoxed. Whatever happened to good old spelling books, that's what I want to know???  
• My fantasy football teams are pathetic because....get this....
• San Francisco all of a sudden forgot they were the best team in the NFL and are playing like Montana Class D kids. (The worst part of that is that there IS no Class D in Montana.)
• I'm out of wine.

The good news:

• My heifer, Rosie, (Daisy's second calf) IS bred so the OC herd grew exponentially today. (Which is easy, when there are only two or three cows in the herd.)
• I remembered to put food in the crockpot and I'm pretty sure I can flesh out the beef stroganoff with fat noodles.  Or not.  But, hey...it's cooked and smells like beef!
• DID YOU SEE THAT I KILLED 30 FLIES?!?!  Maggie told me that they must be some seriously stupid flies, because I'm not known for my eye-hand coordination.  Whatever.  They're dead and I did it!!!
• Found a beer-garita in the bottom of the fridge.  It was that or Marsala cooking wine.  SCORE!
• Homework is finished.  And so is the laundry, because...
• When I can't stand to watch my team(s) lose, I do other things rather angrily. It was a busy afternoon yesterday.
• TTU Red Raiders are 4-0 and the polls grudgingly put them up in the top 25...with two walk on freshman quarterbacks, mind you.  Guns up!
• I get the first shower! 

And so goes our Monday...

His name was Dave...

although I didn't find that out until deep into the conversation.  

His wife died nine years ago, but before that, they had bought regional cookbooks for his mother who lived in California.  Cookbooks from the Montana Centennial Cattle Drive, from the Red Lodge ladies societies, from the Miles City civics clubs...any sort of those community project compilations in which the main dishes were sure to include many, MANY ground beef recipes; preferably with sour cream and noodles.  

I was in a hurry to get all my groceries, get out of Reynolds and drive like the wind blows to Cohagen to get my kids from school.  Typical day in Miles City, you know?  I'd noticed in passing this little older gentleman with his brother (or so I thought)....they were wandering around near the lunch meats and bacon section where I needed to go.  Their cart was empty and I suspected it was more of a "get out of the house" mission than anything.  

When I came rushing out of the chips 'n' junk aisle (yes, I'm that kind of mother), this well groomed, neat, 70-something gentleman said, "You go ahead; you're faster than me, anyway." and smiled.  

God places speed bumps fortuitously, I believe, and I couldn't stand the thought that I might have been rude, so I replied, "I'm not sure where I'm headed, to be honest, so it doesn't matter if I get there fast or not!" 

It wasn't entirely true, but how could I run over such a good spirited fellow?

WELL...

This was an obvious opening to a conversation that I was quite unprepared for!  

He noticed the cookbook I had in hand and wondered if I was working on a recipe, to which I showed him the California Hangover slush plan for my reading group.  

And that's when he started telling me about the cookbooks and his mother and his wife and his daughter who died at age 20 but appeared to his mother when she read the cookbooks he sent to California.  

Did I think it was crazy that his mom caught moments with his daughter, even though the girl died years before?

No...I told him that I thought we lived with sweet spirits all around us and some people were more in tune and less afraid of that.  

So, then he told me about growing up in Florida and how there were mansions with "spirits" hanging around them; he and his wife (bless her soul) had met a few of them.  

And here I was, standing in the middle of the cold cuts in a straightforward little old market in Miles City, Montana, talking about ghosts with a codger named Dave.  

His brother, it turned out, was a dear friend who just seemed like a brother; when I said I thought they WERE related as I observed them, they both shook my hand heartily and thanked me.  And told me I had beautiful eyes that were friendly, that it was no coincidence that we'd "met" and that good things would be mine.  

With good tidings to each other, we parted, and I finally had access to the beef cotto salami and went clipping on my way.  Last I saw of them, they were further into the meat aisle, discussing chicken with the butcher who had no way of knowing there would be ghost stories forthcoming....the cart was still empty.

The funniest thing about the whole deal was that I had started the day praying that God would make me open...not that I would have an open heart, because that's when mine gets wounded and I end up crying about things I have no ability to "fix" (like the Syrian business and junk on the news)....no, just OPEN.  Help me not be so very self absorbed and self important. (When one lives in a small world, the focus gets skewed...) Help me to be aware and kind!

Had I not prayed for openness...

I might have missed Dave!  

I might not have had the grace to spend 20 minutes listening to a kind man with an empty cart who needed to tell stories about people he loved and his life experiences (albeit supernatural in the south).  

I might have rushed past the lunch meat and not have had a courtly gentleman admire my cookbook and wish me good fortune in my life.

Sometimes, being impulsive and interested is such a blessing!

(Now I have to bake the teacher some bread or something, because I was 20 minutes late picking the kids up from school and all I had for an excuse was "there was this old guy in the grocery store telling me ghost stories...")

 

First Day of School 2013

Actually, it was last Wednesday.
And it was HOT.
Nonetheless, we participated, even though I really wasn't ready to send the barnacles back.
(I personally think the first day of school should just be a half day.  By the the time I got to the school that afternoon with my pan of brownies, the teacher and kids looked like they should have gone home at noon. Even brownies can't help...and that's saying something.)

 He's got a whole closet of serious first grade button down shirts and khaki pants. We aren't messing around when it comes to school clothes....

.

Maggie worriedly asked if I was going to follow the bus to school to take pictures there.  She then STRENUOUSLY informed me that it was horribly embarrassing to a fourth grader, that she had been okay with it when she was a first grader, but if I loved her, I would not come that morning. At all. Or call.
This is the last I saw of them, then, until 3 p.m....

Batching it...

Extreme luxury, for me, is when the Farmer and kids are gone (once in a blue moon) for lunch and I can prepare whatever my heart desires.  I've never understood women who look around, find themselves alone and pour a bowl of Yucky Charms cereal.  "I don't have to cook!", they say defensively.  No, you don't HAVE to cook, but you MAY cook...whatever in the world you've been longing for.

You see, as a wife and mom, I plan meals trying to suit the tastes of my family (within reason), our activities (lots of physical work means sturdier fare), even the weather.  I attempt to get the food groups in, make sure the meals are decently healthy, and that there are no onions that can be seen with the naked seven year old eye.  It's a big job, three times a day, 350 days a year at least.

When I'm alone, I don't HAVE to cook, either.
But it's on those days that I joyfully take stock of what my palate has been longing for that no one else would enjoy or be satisfied with and prepare myself the good stuff.

Today, it was a big ugly salad.
(Don't stop reading here! When I say, "salad", I'm talking about a bowl of food that has lettuce as a garnish, really.  Stick with me!)

I'm alone, so I don't have to hurry to get it on the table in time.  I don't have to get it to the table at all, truth be told.

I begin by setting the mood...
Pour a small glass of Chardonnay. (Horrors! It's only 11:00 a.m.!)
Find a Sophia Loren movie about treasure hunting in the Greek islands...yep, that will do.  It was almost a French subtitled movie, but I like Sophia's voice.  The whole point of it is to have something on that no one else in the family would tolerate any other time.  It's my meal!  It's my soundtrack!

Already it's fun, isn't it?

I take out a huge bowl for the salad.  I won't make the salad to fit the bowl, but I want room to toss and swirl and shake up the whole mess.  Salads that j-u-s-t barely fit in the bowl are very annoying to me and I don't need that sort of stress when I'm making this soul meal.

I make a little pillow of lettuce and cabbage in the bottom of the bowl to welcome the rest of the ingredients. Cabbage has a more satisfying crunch and stronger flavor which makes the salad seem a little more substantial.
Also, it will hold up under all the other good stuff, where lettuce alone sort of gives up and wilts a bit.

Cold things to add on top of the greens?  Today I had green onions, orange bell pepper, poblano pepper, and pinapple.  I've been eating carrots and tomatoes out of the garden, so they're sort of...ordinary.  The orange bell pepper looks pretty against the other green-y things and makes me smile.

Here's where it gets sort of wild.
Here's where my heart does a happy little flitter...these next steps are what make this salad "ugly", but in a magnificent way.

I get out a big non-stick frying pan and plop a good dollop of real butter in the bottom.  While that's melting, I add some chopped garlic (from a jar in the fridge) and a liberal amount of powdered chipotle chili pepper.  And shake a little salt, for good measure. From the freezer, I pull out the hoarded shrimp that's already been deveined and cooked...and I toss about 6 or 7 in with the spicy butter.  They'll saute and soak up the flavor while I have a couple sips of wine and move on to the next step.

(Sophia is working two different treasure hunters against each other to her advantage and I do believe she's making nearly as much progress as I am with my salad...)

I take out another, smaller non-stick frying pan and in this one goes the bacon bits (I had to use the Kirkland ones, but usually have a little pre-cooked bacon in the fridge) and the French's french fried onions.  I turn the burner up and toast the little morsels of goodness until both are nice and crispy and smell heavenly.  These I dump on the greens, then use the same pan to toast up the sliced almonds.

While the almonds are toasting, I take the sweet little shrimps out of their butter bath and add them to the ever-growing "salad".  (If you make this, you'll want to save the spicy shrimp butter to dip your sourdough toast in. It's amazing...)

I scatter the almonds over the whole thing, then get my vinaigrette out of the fridge to finish this project.  First thing in the week, I made a simple dressing of olive oil, vinegar and sweet red chili sauce (the kind you find in the Chinese cooking aisle at the grocery store). Shake it up, pour it over all, then take my fork and stir the salad up until it's all messy and pretty.

Then, I pour a leetle more Chardonnay in my wine glass, take my meal to the living room, sit cross legged on the couch, watch Sofia dive for a dolphin statue and eat my salad.  (She obviously eats salads with more lettuce and less bacon...poor thing.)

The whole thing takes about an hour...a really wonderful hour, when I think about it.  I'm too full for the spicy butter and toast, so I save that for later.  It will be a happy reminder of the meal I made for myself.

*Note, here, on salads.  When I make a salad for myself, I usually end up with a funny balance of sweet, spicy, crunchy, salty, both clean and complex flavors.  I realize though, that sometimes one of the most comforting things is simplicity.  If your life has felt out of control and you're tired of complex things, one of the nicest salads would be a wedge of iceburg lettuce and a favorite creamy dressing poured over the top.  That would be happy soul-food, too.

*I DIDN'T take a picture because if you want to make this sort of salad for yourself, you shouldn't be trying to make it look like mine.  Perhaps you'd put the crunchy fried onions and bacon on the bottom.  Maybe you'd grill chicken instead of using shrimp.  You might drink milk instead of white wine.  Whatever rattles your can...

Now that Sophia has landed the treasure, her man and my wine glass is empty, I need to go clean up the kitchen so it looks like I didn't eat anything but a p.b. and j. for lunch when the family gets back....

A word!

Remember yesterday when I said that there would be more joy here at the Chronicles?

Well.

Right after that...

(And I'm talking within about 10 minutes)

God smacked me upside the head with a word. 

Actually it's more than one, but when a verse jumps out of the Bible at me, that's what I call God giving me a word....I really don't know why I think that or where it came from, but that's what I call it.  

Get THIS:

"You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; 

the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands."

Isaiah 55:12

That's so stinking joyful that I laughed out loud!

I also thought that the psalmist showed remarkable restraint in not adding an exclamation point at the end of that particular verse.

Have you ever walked through trees and heard them clap?

I've always thought it was rustling, but now I'll hear the tiny, joyful claps of their hands.  

Oh, and shouldn't we clap with them for a moment?

And perhaps that's why I love running in the mountains...they're singing to me!  

The trees are cheering on the side for the melody of the mountains and hills...

That's good stuff, God. 

Off Balance

So, here's the thing...

For the last few months, I've been trying to change some things about myself.  

I felt I needed to be more focused, serious, realistic, pragmatic, self-controlled, living within strict boundaries.  I've been working on it with all my might, making checklists and goals and following all the rules that I think all the left-brained people follow and are succeeding with.  

I really thought that it would make me a better person, help me to be more content here in the land of practical, straight lined people.  Maybe I would fit in better, you know?  I married into a very intelligent, industrious family that I admire, in a strong, no-nonsense community (which I also admire) and it feels like I'm on a different channel than they are; I think I'm on AM, while they're on FM.  

I was trying to tune in, so to speak. 

Yesterday, though, I realized that my attempts at change are changing me for the worse.  

I find myself tense, self-degrading, defeated and focused, yes, but on the wrong things.  

I'm becoming bitter and self-destructive.

The majority of the clothes hanging in my closet are brown, grey and black, for goodness sake!  That wasn't intentional, but it's sure an indicator of my spirits.  

I've been trying SO hard to change, but it's changed me for the worse.  

That's the true confession part.

Here's the apology part.

I'm sorry if I made you feel as though you were no longer important to me, that I'd shed your friendship and comradery.  I'm sorry that I've been so strange, and that I've been like a stranger...like you're just getting a hologram of me.  I'm sorry that when I try really hard to do what I think is the right thing that I end up doing the wrongest thing of all, and you don't know what's going on.  

*BIG HUGE CLEANSING SIGH*

Getting rid of some soul-clutter, here.

Last week, I sat under the stars with my cousin Jeff Newton, talking about things that really matter and quite a few things that don't but are fun to chew on, anyway, especially if you have a bottle of Pinot Grigio and the folks have gone to bed.  He unknowingly validated that it's completely fine to be an AM station in an FM world...it's just where I landed on the dial, you know?  Jeff is a rare, dear person who exemplifies authenticity to me, the strengths and flaws equally, and makes no apologies for anything except the hashbrowns that didn't turn out the way he'd planned.  

In conclusion...

(Those are the most welcome words at the end of an emotional rabbit-trail post like this, aren't they?)

Tune in to the Chronicles for my AM life...

It's mostly random, likely to be passionate, (ONCE AGAIN) there will be more joy, friends, small thoughts on a big world and...definitely football.  

Closed for repairs

Hey readership, both locally and around the world, 

The Chronicles are going to be shut down for about a month.  I realize I have about a week left on the blog challenge and will finish those beginning in September.  

Come back around September 3rd and I'll have something for you then!

Thanks, 

The Farmer's Wife

Day 27: Post Your Favorite Recipe

It's impossible to say what my favorite recipe is, but I'll post one that I love, one of my comfort foods.

It comes from my friend Anne, whose family made Vermont Maple Cookies for Christmas when she was growing up.  I invited her to come make cookies with me in preparation for one of our Dutton Cookie Days and she brought this recipe with her.  We had Vermont Maple Cookies EVERYWHERE, because we decided to double the batch and hadn't really looked at how many the original made...4-5 dozen, depending on how big you make them.  Cookies on every surface.  And in the background, Veggie Tales with the classic (and never to be forgotten to Anne) "If It Doesn't Have A Tail, It's Not A Monkey" song.  I think we had to make something like 3 batches of frosting and by the time we were finished, we were hot, sticky and giggly from the effort...or maybe from the sugar high.

They were a BIG hit at Cookie Day!  Imagine, if you will, cookies that taste like itty-bitty maple bars.  Bite sized maple bars. Except better, because they're all maple-y and not deep fried.  

I'll give you a moment, here, to wipe the drool off your computer keyboard...

Rather than just type the recipe, I scanned the copy I have, complete with stains and splotches and notes.  

Day 26: An Old Picture Of You

Updates

I drove to Lewistown to get my hair done *ahem...FISH* and had some time to re-think some of the blog challenge posts from this month.

Day 4: I'm also afraid of small, tight places, especially around my head.

Day 5: Dearly love the song "Brave" by Sara Barreilles, too.

Day 7:  If I was honest, kinked up garden hoses and wet socks drive me nuts!

Day 16:  I'd be thrilled to drive a reasonably priced car around the track at Top Gear to embarrass the Stig.
Day 19:  I didn't intend to, but my friends are helping me collect flamingos, too.

Ivan and Jenny brought me this wine bottle stopper from Bonaire where they went diving this spring!